Tamir Rice is dead, Eric Garner is dead, Michael Brown is dead, John Crawford is dead, Weijian Liu is dead, Rafael Ramos is dead, Charles Kondek is dead. Now there are calls for "unity," and for "leadership to unite us."
But what does that mean? What would unite us? Can we actually be united? Do we all have the same ultimate goals? Do we all share common bonds?
A friend of mine who I grew up with, who used to post here but is barred from doing it because of his job, gave me permission to publish a note he posted on Facebook. He, like me, grew up in South Queens during the 1990s, a time when the neighborhoods were shedding its Archie Bunker past and turning into its diverse present. In a conversation with him earlier while looking at Christmas decorations in South Queens, we spoke about the term "unity." He doesn't believe its possible. He's skeptical. Here's his post;
Some of these comments on how "we're better than this," has anyone considered that maybe we're not? Maybe this is who we are. That maybe we are a violent, hate-filled society hell bent on destroying each other?
From my own persecutive, there certainly were not calls for unity growing up in my corner of the world.
I grew up in a neighborhood where the demographics changed drastically in 25 years. I grew up in a neighborhood where "gandhi," the surname of the one of the 20th century's most prominent advocates for justice, was used as a racial slur. I grew up in a community where there were always references to "them" and "they." I grew up in a neighborhood where people would come back from vacations and tell us how "there were none of 'them' there," or "It's all 'them.'" i grew up in a neighborhood where "roach motel" was codeword for a house where Hispanics live, and the Episcopalian church on the corner was referred to as "the mosque" because the congregation is mostly Indian-American and women go to services dressed in saris (which aren't even worn by Muslims!) I grew up in a neighborhood where a Sikh-American opening a business wasn't something looked at as a positive addition to the community, yet something to be scorned as just another example of "'them' taking over." There are conversations about moving out of the neighborhood, always asking "where can we run?"
And yet Ozone Park is, statistically, an infinitely better place now than it was 25-30 years ago. Crime is more than 80 percent lower. The commercial strips are bustling. Home value have risen. Incomes have risen. The academic performance of our schools are better. Everyone, from every demographic that calls this community home, white, black, Sikh, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, male, female, gay and straight, has shared in making that true.
Yet our own City Councilman can't go to a local mosque without a torrent of attacks about him "encouraging terrorists" and "being a traitor," and he should instead be "sending the dirtbags home." In the years I was a reporter covering this neighborhood, I heard endless gripes about how many "of them" were on community boards or civic groups. Liberty Avenue, which has only a small percentage of the crime it had 20 years ago when my family and neighbors walked it to shop, is "too dangerous" to walk now because "those people are crazy."
They will point to examples of the worst of a certain group as a sign we can't trust them. Muslims are terrorists, blacks get arrested at higher rates, Hispanics are in gangs, there was a fight that one time at "the Indian bar." Those who don't fit that profile, encourage it by listening to rap music, or wearing baggy pants or not shaving their beards or whatever. And yet these same people would idolize a convicted murderer, John Gotti, and call for him to be freed from prison because "he protected the neighborhood." (Not, you know, the NYPD apparently). They will say "we treat terrorists better than we treat him." We do? And yet they are (rightfully) offended if you ever stereotype them as mobsters or part of organized crime.
So many of the people who exposed me to this growing up are friends and relatives. They never wanted unity. They wanted superiority. It was always "us" versus "them." Maybe that's true elsewhere, I don't know, I can only speak for where I came from. Maybe we're not better than this. Maybe we ARE this.
I have found many here to be far more optimistic than me on the cause of uniting the nation and its people. Some believe a strong progressive voice like Elizabeth Warren can do it, but isn't Mayor de Blasio a strong progressive voice himself? Can Warren unite us in times like this, when the issue polarizes people, instead of economic issues where there is much agreement?
What if he's right, what if what some of us want is not unity, but superiority, and those people are enough to send this country into a death spiral? How are they defeated? Do we wait for them to die out and hope we survive the wait?
In order for reasonable people to debate, we must first have reasonable people.