Dear friends,
Last week, as I was driving on I-285, I heard a minor commotion above me and noticed a few women and one man (all in my age range), blowing whistles and holding Anti-Ice signs. I felt a strange mixture of skepticism and gratitude. Skepticism because I had a hard time connecting their actions to the legitimate fears of my dear refugee friends who are called wholesale, garbage, animals, or terrorists. Gratitude because it seems so much of my world is unaware of current affairs that don’t impact them.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to activism, especially the kind modeled by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Under his leadership, non-violent protests had four steps, taken in this order:
- Collection of facts
- Negotiation
- Self-Purification
- Direct Action
Lately, kneejerk reactions rule the day. I can’t tell you how many false “ICE sightings” our team has navigated (literally, by going to locations to see for ourselves), how much fear and frenzy those sightings have produced, how many times we’ve had to remind people that the Clarkston police officers are friends, human, flawed, but not out to get our refugee citizens.
And I’m not opposed to orange whistles specifically or whistleblowing generally. I know some whistleblowers who are my personal heroes, not because they drew everyone’s attention to a problem (although that can be effective), but because they found a few safe people who believed them and told the truth.
I guess that’s where I’m landing today. Find the safe people (hopefully we are some of them). Speak the truth.
But I am convinced this is nowhere near enough. Strip the words away, and just do the irreducible minimum: Love. Do I love the people who don’t think or strategize, but who whistle and shout anyway? Do I love the politicians who cast “the other side” as enemies? Do I love the people who work for ICE? Do I love the politicians who stir them to action? This is the self-purification Dr. King insisted upon as part of protest.
Do I love them enough to take them to the doctor for their PTSD, to pay their dental bill, to invite them to dinner, to help them in their job search, to deliver food to them? To notice?
Whatever words you decide to say (I hope you say some) or whatever actions you decide to take (I hope you take some) in these times, I hope it’s all in love. And that, my friends, can do so much more than any plastic orange whistle.
Whistling love songs with you,
Kitti
