Shattered Rainbows -- July 12, 2018

                                                                     

                        Photo from: https://bramante-it.com/myrtle-beach-seashells

Some of my most salient memories from my childhood are of time spent with close family friends. In this family, there are four daughters; the two eldest are close in age with me, and the two youngest are close in age with my sister, so throughout our lives, the six of us have always greatly enjoyed each other's company. In fact, in adulthood, these four women can be counted among some of my dearest personal friends as each one is an exceptional woman in her own right. 

As I canvas through my childhood memories in my mind's eye, I see a collage of manifold instants in time that the six of us spent in each other's company, most of them joyous, some of them poignant, and all of them memorable and significant. Of all of these snapshots in time, many of them come from vacations that our families took together. The setting of this particular memory takes place during our family trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, when I was about seven-years-old. From this trip, one memory stands out more than any other.

One afternoon, when our parents brought us to the ocean, I noticed how the tide that day had yielded a very auspicious harvest of seashells, which were strewn about the shore as far as the eye could see. I remember thinking how the shore that day looked as though a kaleidoscope had burst, scattering all of its colored pieces along the shore, or as though, perhaps, a rainbow had exploded, leaving about tiny vestiges everywhere in sight. Given my special penchant for exploring nature, while all of my other little companions were splashing and giggling on the shallow bank of the ocean, I grabbed my plastic pail and began to collect these multi-colored seashells. I immediately went to work in scooping up as many shells and stones as I could get my greedy hands on. 

Initially, I was careful to remain on that same small section of the shore where my friends were wading in the shallow water under the eight watchful eyes of our parents, but within a few minutes, I became mesmerized and completely engrossed by these glistening shells that looked to me like tiny fragments of a shattered rainbow. Each time I would grab a shell, I would take a step, gently pick up the shell, hold it gingerly in the palm of my hand, admire the way it glistened in the sunlight, and delicately place it in the pail. At one point, I remember finding a shell that, to me, resembled a robin's egg with its pale blue color and speckles.  As I picked it up and admired it, I turned to one of my little companions to show it to her only to realize that she was nowhere to be found.

As I looked around, I became cognizant of the fact that this had been the first time I had looked up in probably around a quarter of an hour as I had gotten so engrossed in this bountiful array of tiny, rainbow-colored vestiges. A cursory look at my surroundings caused me to see that I was surrounded by a sea of unfamiliar faces. I no longer recognized the part of the shore where I stood, and I had apparently wandered off rather far without even noticing.

Now, I would like to point out here that this was not the only time in my childhood that I would find myself in this position. It wasn't that I was an unruly child; I usually minded my parents and did as I was told, but I always had this dreamy, pensive nature that caused me to become distracted and completely lost in my own thoughts. In fact, my aunt in Italy still tells the story of how I one day wandered off while collecting snails and flowers on my grandmother's farm in Italy, leaving everyone terrified that I had fallen into the well on the property. This proclivity to become lost in my own reverie is a quality that even in adulthood, I have never quite managed to grow out of.

This incident on the beach, however, was particularly terrifying because I was in a place that was completely unfamiliar and surrounded by strangers, and in that moment, my tiny body went numb. I dropped my pail that contained the colorful fruits of that afternoon's search, and I began to tremble. I remember that I went to speak, but my mouth had gone as dry as the sand beneath my feet. As I looked around me, the smiling, familiar faces that I had seen just minutes ago had been replaced by the indifferent and seemingly menacing glances of strangers, and the once tranquil whisper of the ocean was now replaced by the threatening shout of the high waves beating belligerently against the shore. In that brief moment, I stood there feeling helpless and paralyzed by fear.

Thankfully, after what was probably no longer than two minutes, I heard the familiar voices of my parents, who had been worried sick. On seeing me, they both came sprinting toward me, their complexions both as wan as the ivory-colored shell I had just placed in my pail. "Mammi," my mother said, her voice shaking, "we were worried!" In all honesty, hearing my mother use that small endearment further put me at ease, for it cued me into the fact that my parents' frustration with me for having wandered off causing them to worry was fortunately, in this moment, eclipsed by the overwhelming relief that they felt on finding me. In fact, I remember that my mother held on tightly to me as we walked back.

The three decades that have passed since this incident on the beach have not served to diminish the guilt that I still feel as a result of this memory, for I don't believe that I'll ever truly forgive myself for doing this to my parents. Of course, I can only accurately recount the incident from my perspective, and I can tell you it was frightening. Often children, especially when they are afraid, tend to have a very distorted concept of time, and those couple minutes that I stood there waiting for my parents to find me felt as though I were waiting for all of the sand on that beach to gradually slip through the narrow center of an hour glass. When we panic, our minds often go to the darkest places, and in that moment of childish fear, I actually imagined that I would never see my parents again.

As frightening as these few moments were for me, however, it genuinely pains me to try to imagine what must have passed through my parents' minds in the few minutes that they were searching for me. Given that I didn't yet know how to swim at the time, they must have been plagued by the horrifying possibility that I could have drowned. They must have inevitably been torturing themselves in their own minds without saying the words aloud to each other, mercilessly berating themselves for allowing me to wander off without them noticing, even though this honestly would have been very easy to do. With us six scrawny little girls, with our brightly-colored swimsuits and bouncy, brown pony-tails, we must have been unidentifiable as we played on the shore.

These past few months, upon hearing the stories that have been circulating of migrant children who were detained and separated at the border from their parents, most of whom were seeking asylum in the US, it seems as though I've been replaying this short incident from my childhood in my mind on a continuous loop, often in excruciating detail. Through it all, the most painful thought that just will not go from my mind is this: that day on the beach, only a couple of minutes passed that I realized that I had been separated from my parents, and for my parents, it was most likely fewer than ten minutes that they were searching for me, but in those few minutes, time stood still for all three of us as the fear brought about by uncertainty was crippling. Now, if I give my morbid curiosity free reign to even begin to imagine the immeasurable terror and anguish felt by both parents and children separated in a foreign land, without even the promise of being reunited, suddenly, I can’t breathe. Even when the policy that separated migrant families was reversed on June 20, it is estimated that over 2,000 children still have yet to be reunited with their parents.

For some of these children, various factors have rendered reunification with their parents almost impossible. Firstly, there is the fact that efficient records were not kept to identify which children belong to which parents, and many of the children are too young to know their parents’ full names, so now DNA tests are having to be issued to identify to which families these children belong. To add insult to injury, it is now being reported that the parents themselves are responsible for paying for these tests. Secondly, it has been confirmed that many parents have also been deported while having to leave their children behind in the United States, making it exceedingly more difficult to reunite them. Also, in recent weeks, many migrant children have been transferred to various different foster homes and detention centers around the United States, ensuring that the children are now many miles away from their parents and much more difficult to locate. One of the most heart-rending stories that was reported this past week, to add further trauma and anguish for both children and parents alike, claims that in some cases, very young children that are finally reunited with their parents after several months are met with the horrifying reality that they no longer remember their parents.

So often when stories like this are made public, they are met with callous remarks, such as, “If they only stayed where they were with their problems, none of this would have happened,” or “What horrible parents they are for putting their children at risk!” The reality that the people who generally reiterate these inane talking points fail to understand is that from where most of us stand on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, few of us will ever truly conceive of the level of desperation that caused these parents to take such risks. We will never fully comprehend the tyranny of poverty, hunger, and violence and the power that these elements have to annihilate our inhibitions, rendering us willing to take immeasurable risks to ensure the survival of our families. We have to imagine that many of these individuals are aware of the xenophobia that pervades our current socio-political climate but are willing to put their children and themselves through these risks anyway because their love for their children has led them to this inconceivable level of desperation. Many have reached a point where none of the perils that they fear may await them in this country seem more frightening than the risks that they know await them at home.

Besides the overwhelming pity that I feel for these separated families, another disillusioning byproduct of this infinitely difficult situation is the fact that for the first time, I have been forced to acknowledge the jarring reality that not every individual possesses empathy. Up until this point, all my life I had believed that the element of compassion is an inherent characteristic that is a homogeneous aspect of the human experience for every individual. I don’t believe that anything has ever made me so acutely aware of how naïve I had always been. What is more is that, even though it hurts me to admit this, even to myself, I wasn’t prepared for the great distance that this disparity in empathy was going to create between myself and people whom I have always loved and respected. It seems as though, as of late, I just don’t recognize people I once used to feel that I knew so well, and this never fails to leave me feeling alone and full of despair.

A few weeks ago, for instance, I noticed that some of my friends were circulating a post on social media that suggested that we are wrong in wasting empathy on these migrant children when there are children of fallen American soldiers and police officers who have also been separated from their parents because their parents have died protecting our safety and freedom. In short, I was dumbfounded; I’m not even sure how this type of logic works, to be quite honest. I just cannot fathom that even in adulthood, I have to explain to others that compassion is not a pie; that is, if I give a portion of my compassion to one cause, this does not mean that I will not have a sufficient amount left to give to others. In college, for example, I had a friend whose father was killed in active duty. My heart still breaks for her to this day. Not a day goes by that I don't pray for her, and I would give anything if I could have the power to bring her father back. This doesn’t, in any way, diminish the pity I feel for these migrant children. Empathy is an unlimited resource, or at least, it is to me.

This flippant attempt to try to justify these senseless acts, however, is just one of the many with which I’ve been inundated these past few months. Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, for instance, implied a few weeks ago that the act of separating families was not as horrific as the media was making it seem, for in detainment, the children have access to television. Fox News host, Laura Ingraham, claimed, on a segment of her show, that the detention centers for migrant children were “essentially summer camps.” Moreover, another Fox News pundit, Brian Kilmeade, tried to assure us that we should not be overly concerned about how these children are treated, for after all, “like it or not, these aren't our kids.” He then added, it isn’t as if this was being done “to the people of Idaho or Texas. These are people from another country." I believe that of all of the asinine statements that I’ve heard used to justify this situation, this last one, the comment made by Kilmeade, is by far the most dangerous. History has taught us what horrific consequences dehumanizing a group of people by scapegoating them while labeling them as “the other” and fostering an “us versus them” mentality can have. We need only to look at Nazi Germany to see the tragic consequences of this ideology as so often the indescribably inhumane treatment of the Jews was justified by reassuring the public that such atrocities would only be allowed to happen to the Jews, this group of people who were different from them in every way. In any case, hearing these vapid excuses for the maltreatment of these children simply reminds me that this is how ignorant we sound when we struggle to justify something that is completely unjustifiable.  

In recent days, it’s been such an ongoing struggle for me to accept the fact that I am never going to succeed in making another individual feel empathy, for empathy is a thing that we are either innately born with, or we’re not. It would most likely be easier for me to explain colors to someone who was born blind than to explain the concept of compassion to someone that is incapable of feeling it. Although it’s difficult, I have to forgive myself for losing respect for certain people whom I once greatly respected. I have to learn to have patience with individuals who actually try to use politics to justify this heartless behavior and try to simply explain to them that feeling compassion for these children, unlike tax cuts or trickle-down economics, is not a partisan issue. If you find that leaving a child petrified and alone to punish the child’s parents for ANY reason is a valid and acceptable strategy to solve immigration issues, we don’t have different political opinions; we have different values.

Then, for those friends that constantly tell me that they want to refrain from taking sides in this debate, I need the courage to explain to them that with their silence, they have already taken a side. As Holocaust survivor and renowned writer Elie Wiesel once said, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” Sometimes silence in itself wields the power to cause more harm than any word in the English lexicon.

Weeks ago, audio clips were released that captured the voices of both children and parents as they were separated at the border. For some reason, perhaps partly because I’m a bit of a masochist in my way, I forced myself to listen to them. A few seconds into the first one, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I muted it. The few seconds that I listened to were a heart-wrenching cacophony of doleful sobs. Amid the terrified cries of the children, the voice of an ICE agent can clearly be heard saying in a perniciously mocking tone, “Well, we have an orchestra here.” The faint cry of a small child can be heard plaintively pleading, “Mamita,” and somehow, all at once, my eyes well up, and I feel my body go numb. I am no longer a grown woman; I am once again that seven-year-old girl alone on the beach, feeling lost and afraid. Suddenly, all I hear is the oppressive sound of the waves aggressively crashing against the shore. Around me, all I see is a sea of unfamiliar faces and shattered rainbows scattered on the ground.

 -- Daniella Rossi

Less is Moore -- December 29, 2017

https://www.dividedstatesofwomen.com/2017/12/28/16826194/end-sexual-harassment-workplace

As I entered my parents’ home one evening, I was immediately greeted by the hearty tones of my father’s booming voice critiquing the contestants on one of his favorite game shows. “Stupido! Madonna, what a dumb!” I hear him belting out from downstairs. The language he employs is a variable amalgam of Italian, his mother tongue, and English. This is how I often describe my father’s parlance, for I always wince at the common phrase “broken English, ” and I try to avoid it for three reasons: firstly, it implies that his language has been shattered or damaged in some way. Secondly, it grossly belies and causes one to greatly underestimate how intelligent he is. Thirdly, “broken English” has a pejorative connotation that undermines the endearing effect that the language has on the speaker’s loved ones as well as the ability to make them smile.

Following his boisterous voice down the stairs into the family room, I encountered an always quaint and familiar scene. My father, after a long and cold day, was nestled in his favorite chair beneath his sauna of blankets enjoying the popular game show Family Feud. I quietly took a seat in the family room and heard the ever charismatic host, Steve Harvey, asking the following question: “Name something that a woman would lie about on a first date.” Immediately after, one contestant beamed as she excitedly buzzed in with the number one answer, which was, of course, “her age.”

On hearing her response, my father slowly turned around in his chair to face me, which surprised me a bit as I didn’t realize that he had heard me come in. He looked at me pensively for a moment and said, “You have to explain me why the women in this country they can’t tell you how old they are.” His question caused me to smile to myself as I recalled my mother telling me of the various awkward encounters that resulted from my father innocently and unabashedly asking women their age many years ago when he had just transferred here from Italy. Indeed, my father meant no harm, for he didn’t understand (as he still doesn’t now) why anyone should be embarrassed to reveal how many years one has been alive.

I chuckled gently and shrugged my shoulders at what I believed to be a purely rhetorical question, but then, I noticed that he was still looking at me rather intently. Also, I saw that he had put the DVR on Pause, so obviously, he was waiting for an answer. I hesitated for a moment, for truthfully, I couldn’t come up with a logical response. After a pause, I cleared my throat and heard myself reply, “Well … here in America … sometimes women are made to feel … like we lose value as we get older.” I started at the sound of these words coming from my own mouth.

My father was quiet for a moment, and as I looked at his face, I could see his eyes narrowing slightly as if he were mulling over what I had said. He then took in a breath and made this cynical vocalization that I have been hearing him make for years: “Ppfffffftt.” The only way that I can describe this monosyllabic utterance would be by comparing it to the noise of gas being let out of a tire, “Ppfffffftt.” I have come to understand this to be his own blunt way of saying, “That’s so ridiculous!” He instantly turned around, took the DVR off of Pause, and continued to quietly watch his show.

As the show progressed, I heard the other contestants proceed to fire off their guesses, many of which were correct; a woman would lie about her weight, how many romantic relationships she’s had, how much money she makes, etc. Quite frankly, none of these responses were particularly shocking as many people would assume that a woman would lie about each of these things, always to make these numbers appear to be smaller than those of her male counterparts. As I listened to these contestants’ responses in this moment, though, I just couldn’t stop thinking about my father’s question, and I began to really reflect on the absurdity of this concept. Think about it: we live in a society that would indirectly tell a woman that she should be ashamed of the number of years that she has existed, the amount of space that her body mass is taking up on this Earth, the number of meaningful experiences or accomplishments that she has had in this lifetime, and the list goes on and on. Women are often instructed to keep their voices down, to avoid confrontation, and to avoid throwing their weight around, and in all of this, the message is very clear: women should strive to be as inconspicuous and unobtrusive as humanly possible. This is a hazardous message.

The acclaimed writer and speaker, Jean Kilbourne, who has spent much of her distinguished career examining the effects of the media, particularly advertising, on gender identity, has explored the ways in which the media perpetuates these harmful gender stereotypes. In her 2012 book, Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, Kilbourne discusses how, encoded in the rhetoric used by advertising and the media, there is a mode of speaking that, quite literally, belittles women: "‘We cut Judy down to size,’ says an ad for a health club. ‘Soon, you'll both be taking up less space,’ says an ad for a collapsible treadmill, referring both to the product and to the young woman exercising on it.’” According to Kilbourne, in utilizing this kind of verbiage that encourages women to be as unobtrusive and invisible as possible, it becomes much easier to strip them of their power.

Somehow, the notion that women should remain inconspicuous, and thusly, powerless, has always called to mind a line from Robert Browning’s poem "Andrea del Sarto" that I remember reading in college. The line reads simply, "Less is more.” The phrase frustrated me to no end when I first read it, for I just could not wrap my mind around what Browning was saying. Having never been a fan of the understated myself, to me, more has always been … well … more. Today, as I contemplate this platitude, I can’t help but notice how similar this concept is to our modern society’s ideology regarding women. In essence, women are being told that the less obtrusive and visible they make themselves, the more desirable they will be.

This issue has been on my mind quite a bit in recent days in light of the barrage of women that have come forth lately to speak out about the sexual harassment and assault that they have experienced at the hands of powerful men. In fact, the movement has gained so much momentum that Time magazine’s coveted title of “Person of the Year” for 2017 was awarded to the “Silence Breakers,” a group of famous, accomplished women who had all been victims of sexual harassment/assault and who encouraged all other victims to speak out by employing the simple hashtag “#MeToo” on social media.  Although I was certainly elated and greatly encouraged by the women of this movement receiving this honor, I couldn’t help but be disheartened by the level of vitriol and hatred for which these women immediately became a target.

Each day it seems as though I’ve been deeply disconcerted by the animus that has been directed at the alleged victims of sexual harassment/assault simply because they dared to use their voices to speak up about this issue. These women were met by vicious rancor at all angles. Just recently, Republican Representative from Illinois, Rodney Davis, even made a statement that he believes that, with all of the women coming forward as of late, some businesses “… may just take a shortcut and not hire women as a way to avoid these issues.” On first hearing his statement, I must admit that I instantly thought that this was simply an unpopular, fringe opinion by a far-right government official; however, just a brief glance over the comments sections of a few online articles on this topic quickly refuted this theory. These sections were full of comments proclaiming what an excellent idea it would be to stop hiring women as a solution to the problem. One comment went as far as to suggest that the problem would cease if employers were to just stop hiring “entitled bitches,” as if a woman not wanting to encounter sexual harassment/assault in her place of work automatically marked her as a self-entitled elitist.

In all of the pernicious attacks meant to malign these alleged victims, the underlying intimation was very clear: the women themselves are directly to blame for what has befallen them because they failed to remain inconspicuous, invisible, and powerless, in accordance with society’s expectations. This past week, an experiment was conducted by Divided States of Women (Twitter: @DSoWomen ‏), a media organization that explores a myriad of controversial issues that women are currently facing.  (The link to the video is at the top of the article.) In this social experiment, Liz Plank, the Executive Producer of Divided States of Women, walks a crowded city street claiming that she had discovered a product that will end all sexual harassment. She then presents a number of strangers with a large tarp, claiming that if women would only cover themselves with the tarp while in the workplace, thus rendering themselves invisible, the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace would be solved. Of course, the strangers she encountered on the street found this solution to be ludicrous, and rightfully so, as the experiment was obviously meant to be a satirical demonstration of the senselessness of punishing women for men’s transgressions. However, after viewing the video, I couldn’t help but ask myself whether or not covering women with a tarp to avoid sexual harassment is any more asinine than not hiring them at all for the same motive.

Although in these last few months, many such instances of blatant misogyny have been pervading our society, I believe that the most prominent example of this heinous disregard for women would be the sequence of events that have surrounded the special election for the Senate seat in Alabama, on December 12, 2017. This past November, I listened as at least nine women came forward to accuse Republican candidate, Roy Moore, of various counts of sexual misconduct, most of which took place in the late 1970s when Moore was in his thirties, and most of the women were in their teens, the youngest being only fourteen-years-old. I listened as many members of the GOP tried to defend Moore’s alleged targeting of young girls, even going as far as to cite the age difference between Mary and Joseph, the parents of Jesus Christ, in an attempt to justify this behavior. I listened as right-wing media outlets, as well as Moore himself, used every opportunity to silence these women by trying to discredit their allegations through attacking their appearance, their integrity, their intelligence, and their mental stability in the pettiest, most malicious of ways. I listened as several polls suggested that a very substantial percentage of conservatives were even more likely to vote for Moore after the accusations, for they doubted the stories of the women. I listened as excerpts of a textbook that was co-written by Moore in 2011, which blatantly stated that women should not be permitted to vote or run for office, were made public, and this still didn’t sway his most fervid supporters, men and women alike. In short, I was horrified. On December 12, when Moore lost the election by a small margin to the Democrat Doug Jones, I felt a plethora of mixed emotions. On one hand, I was, of course, relieved and happily surprised, as I did not expect these results at all. At the same time, however, I was heart-sick and utterly crestfallen that even after the level of palpable misogyny displayed by this man, at least 650,436 individuals would have still rather seen him in this position of power than a respectable Democrat.

As I ruminate on all of these recent events, I must admit that it’s difficult not to feel disillusionment. While the problem is abundantly simple to define, the solution is a bit harder to exact. In my living memory, there has never been a time where resisting society’s expectations of women to be unobtrusive, inconspicuous, frail, invisible, and powerless has been so crucial. In my opinion, the most efficient method of accomplishing this is by using our voices, for language is the most powerful tool that we have at our disposal. Melinda Gates once said, "A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman." I agree, and in recent days, I’ve learned that in order to be strong, it is of paramount importance that we speak out in the face of injustice, and regardless of what the old adage says, when we are trying to make ourselves heard, less isn’t always more.

-- Daniella Rossi

In Interesting Times -- November 18, 2017

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/flyers-encouraging-lgbtq-suicides-cause-uproar-college-campus-n811911

There is an old Chinese curse that states, “May you live in interesting times.” I’ll always remember this because it was a student from China who first told me about this maxim years ago when I began teaching at the college. When she first told me about this curse, which I had noticed that she had alluded to in one of her essays, I’ll admit that I was quite amused. The benign aphorism seemed like more of a pleasantry than a curse. I reflected in my mind how, certainly, the Chinese culture must live up to its reputation of being the quintessence of civility and politeness if this is the most malicious curse of which the Chinese could conceive. In fact, the student who told me about this curse was the epitome of deference and politesse. I chuckled as I told her that this was the most cordial curse I had ever heard. I remember that on her face grew her usual, very reserved and demur smile, but this time, the very ends of her mouth curled up in a way that revealed an uncharacteristic slyness. “You would be surprised, Professor,” she replied, and this left me shrugging and shaking my head.

It seems as though, until just recently, I was never truly cognizant of the meaning or the power that this simple phrase wields. Lately, I find myself reflecting on these words quite frequently, and what I’ve come to realize is that my student was very wise. This epigram, which initially appears to be innocuous, is actually deceptively sinister. In recent days, with the constant bombardment of worrisome, infuriating, and downright depressing information that is a sign of the “interesting times” in which we’re living, I’m not ashamed to say that I often find myself longing for the days that weren’t quite so “interesting.” Indeed, there is a myriad of incidents that have happened recently that call to mind this ancient curse. One that comes to mind occurred last month at a university in my hometown.

On October 12, at Cleveland State University, the same day that a center for LGBTQ students was to be opened on campus, a vicious flier was posted on a bulletin board on campus. The picture featured on the flier was the silhouette of a man hanging from a noose, and the flier contained various statistics of the high suicide rates among members of the LGBTQ community. Boldly written in large, rainbow-colored letters across the top of the flier was the phrase, “FOLLOW YOUR FELLOW FA!@#TS,” insinuating, quite directly, that members of the LGBTQ community on campus should follow the example of these statistics and commit suicide.

Of course, the fact that anyone would post such hateful propaganda on a university campus is horrifying in and of itself, but what I personally found to be even more alarming was the reaction of the university’s president, Ronald M. Berkman. Rather than denouncing or condemning the fliers, Berkman seemed to defend them. He claimed in a statement that the college “is committed to upholding the First Amendment, even with regard to controversial issues where opinion is divided. We will continue to protect free speech to ensure all voices may be heard…” Now, I would just like to say here that I am an ardent proponent of the First Amendment, especially at an institution of learning. In my classroom, I encourage the expression of diverse viewpoints; however, I am also a firm advocate of the words of African American writer James Baldwin: “We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.”  In my mind, one person’s rights should never give said person the license to encroach on the rights of another human being. In other words, freedom of speech should never justify someone denying another person’s right to exist.

I think that this is precisely what is so befuddling and appalling to me about the rhetoric that the university’s president employed in this statement. In my mind, the question of whether or not other human beings, whose lifestyles are different from our own, have a right to live on this Earth should not be a “controversial” issue wherein “opinion is divided.” My frustration and disappointment were exacerbated days later when I tried to share my feelings with a young woman who was once affiliated with the college. She quietly listened as I told her about how horrified I was, not only by the incident but by the way the incident was handled, and how my heart breaks for students that have to be subjected to such discrimination in an institution of learning.

When I finished, I noticed that she was looking at me rather disinterestedly. She paused, drew a long breath, and proceeded with the words, “You liberals…” At this point, I completely tuned out any other words that she spoke; any further words were completely lost to me. That short utterance, in that moment, illustrates a concept that has me completely puzzled in these “interesting times” in which we’re living.  In recent days, I often find myself asking, “When did empathy and human decency become partisan issues?” In my mind, these ideals are not political in any way. 

I could ignore this incident if this had been the only one of its kind that I had experienced, but unfortunately, the politicization of compassion has been ubiquitous within our current social climate. For instance, it seems that lately, whenever I hear a story of human suffering, it is often followed by statements, such as, “This is really going to trigger ___.” (Fill in the blank with “liberals,” Democrats,” “leftists,” etc.)  This is deeply concerning to me, for I had always believed that another human being’s pain should elicit sympathy in anyone with a heart, regardless of political affiliation. What so many seem to associate with radical leftist values (i.e. empathy, equality, inclusiveness, social justice, etc.) I’ve always simply believed to be the hallmarks of human decency. Incidents such as this one do not move me because I am “liberal” or even because I have friends who are members of the LGBTQ community. They move me because I’m a human being.

Perhaps the reason why this concept is so bizarre to me is because of the fact that up until recently, I had never identified myself as being liberal or conservative, for I’ve never been interested in politics; in fact, I’m still not.  I am embarrassingly apathetic about whether or not others believe trickle-down economics is effective or what the government’s role should be vis-à-vis business. I am, however, very profoundly concerned about human decency and the well-being of humanity. I suppose this was the source of my chagrin when I just could not get this woman to understand that affirming another human being’s right to exist is not a partisan/political issue. (As a side note, I should add here that just because fate so often likes to mess with me now-a-days, this woman is very active in her local Right to Life Club. Yes, I know; RIP irony. I think that we should bury it somewhere next to empathy, intelligence, and human decency.)

As I call to mind these recent occurrences, I can’t help but remember the student who first told me about the Chinese curse. At the end of the semester, she thanked me profusely for all of the time that I spent working individually with her on her English. If I could have the opportunity to see her again, however, I would actually love to thank her for the lesson she taught me. I would tell her that I understand now how living “in interesting times” can, indeed, leave one feeling frightened and uncertain, especially when the absolute tenets of human decency have been suddenly called into question. In my heart, I can only pray that we never veer so far from these tenets that we wake up one day to find that human compassion has become just another partisan issue.

 -- Daniella Rossi

To Silence a Mockingbird -- October 14, 2017

 http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/10/mississippi_school_district_pu.html
                                                           

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” These crucial words of advice were delivered by the character Atticus in Harper Lee’s immortal novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The character’s timeless message about the fundamental need of all human beings to have empathy for others is not only one of the central themes of the novel, but also a message that is as essential for our present society as it ever was. These words are very persistently echoing in my head today after reading the attached article that talks of a school district in Mississippi that has decided to completely ban this novel.

Published in 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird, a piece which some have heralded as one of the greatest masterpieces of American fiction, recounts a tale of insidious racial inequality within a small Alabama town. This novel, which was meant to expose the savage brutality that is often spawned by social inequality and to promote the importance of compassion and empathy for all of humanity, imparts lessons to its readers that are absolute in every generation. Why, then, would a school district ban this book? The only real explanation that we are provided in the article is from the school board vice president, Kenny Holloway. He states very simply that the book “makes people uncomfortable.”

Holloway’s words resonate profoundly with me because he reflects an attitude that I am seeing quite frequently in our society. For Holloway and many of his peers, keeping students from reading a novel about racism would spare them the discomfort of being reminded of the social inequality that has been pervasive throughout our country’s history, thusly causing them to ignore the vestiges of this injustice that still exist today. This mentality is so prevalent in our present society that it seems that I never go a day without hearing a statement, such as, “There was never a problem before we started talking about it,” or my personal favorite, “Inequality doesn’t exist any more.” At this point, I’ve become absolutely exhausted trying to explain to others that purposely turning a blind eye or ignoring an issue doesn’t cause it to disappear, in the same way that just because we are fortunate enough not to see or experience an injustice does not mean that it doesn’t exist.

In my college days, I had always found the work of the renowned child psychologist, Jean Piaget, to be absolutely fascinating. In Piaget’s theory regarding child development, he believed that infants, before the age of eight months, lack “object permanence.” What he meant by this is that small infants have no concept of that which is not in their direct sight. For instance, a small baby whose bottle has rolled underneath the couch and out of his or her sight will perceive that bottle as being lost forever, for, in the child's mind, it no longer exists. As bizarre as this may sound, I believe that this same mindset manifests itself in many people long after infancy. It seems as though many individuals feel that if they are able to ignore an unpleasant issue, that issue will disappear.

I believe that this is why so many people have such an antagonistic attitude toward people who try to speak up and protest against social injustice, whether they are combating racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, or inequality of any kind. It is that much harder for people to perpetuate the myth that bigotry doesn’t exist and to remain in this self-imposed ignorance if they are regularly seeing others protesting against it. I think that this is why there were comments on two right-wing websites haphazardly encouraging people to drive their cars through protests for social justice. (Somehow, mysteriously, these comments were promptly deleted from both websites following the death of Heather Heyer after being struck down by a car during a counter-protest in Charlottesville, Virginia in August.)

Furthermore, I believe that it is this same mindset that has caused such an explosive controversy surrounding the posture that athletes take during the National Anthem at sporting events. These past few weeks, I’ve been seeing people seething, practically foaming at the mouth, because of these athletes. Although I totally respect that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, I never got the impression that this small gesture was meant as an act of disrespect. It always seemed to me that these athletes, in their own way, are simply trying to use their platforms to call attention to the issue of racism on behalf of those who aren’t privileged enough to have a voice. Frequently I’ll hear comments, such as, “They’re disrespecting our flag and our country,” and yet, I often wonder if, in their heart of hearts, anyone really believes this narrative. I often wonder if, instead, the real frustration engendered by this issue is that it makes it ever more difficult to misplace “uncomfortable” notions, such as social inequality, if we have to be reminded of them when we turn on our televisions.

For some reason, this whole concept always calls to mind a comical anecdote that my mother often recounts from her childhood. When my mother was little, she was one day playing in her front yard, and she somehow managed to knock over and break one of my grandmother’s prized flowers from the base of the plant. My mother, in a fit of panic and not wanting to anger my grandmother, nervously came up with a plan. She took scotch tape and frantically attempted to tape the base of the plant back together while piling up more soil around the base to hide the tape. Needless to say, when the plant began to visibly shrivel up and wither, my mother had no choice but to confess to my grandmother what she had done. Trying to conceal the problem on the surface did not remedy the situation. The issue was much deeper, and the plant would have to be pulled out from its roots.

Sometimes, I swear, I see people exhibiting this same mentality that my mother did as a child in this story. So often I witness people attempting to trick themselves into believing that if they shield a dark and ugly truth from plain view, they can pretend as though it never existed. An old proverb states, "There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know.” I agree; what is more is that being willfully blind to something “uncomfortable” will not cause it to disappear any more than banning a book on racism will erase social inequality from existence. If we are to believe the character Atticus that the only way to truly empathize with another person is to “consider things from his point of view,” then we must not render having empathy for others impossible by silencing them.

--Daniella Rossi 

Fool's Gold -- August 25, 2017

“I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” The preceding words, which many believe to have been spoken by the iconic leader of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, have always given me pause. I could never really comprehend the tenor of this statement. Whenever I pondered the significance of this assertion, I found myself asking how it was possible to like Christ while simultaneously shunning the individuals who sought to emulate his teachings here on Earth. For me, this was a paradox of which I could not make any sense. It was a claim that left me, quite frankly, rolling my eyes.

In recent days, however, I believe that I’ve come to a deeper understanding of Gandhi’s sentiments. In saying these words, I don’t believe that this brilliant man was implying that he loathed all of the followers of Christianity; rather, I believe that he was trying to convey his frustration with the way in which Christianity is so often misrepresented. In fact, in the current social climate of our society, it is this very thing that both infuriates and saddens me to no end. Recently, it seems as though I am constantly being bombarded with stories of incidents in which people have used Christianity as a justification to do horrific things to other human beings.

To give you an example, back in November, days after this past election, when there seemed to have been a torrent of hate crimes released, I had the pleasure of meeting a young man who was unfortunately a victim of one of these vile incidents. The young man, who is a member of the LGBTQ community, was strolling down the street one day in his community sporting an item of clothing that had a rainbow clearly displayed on it. One pernicious individual, on spotting him at quite a distance away, began to holler obscenities, picked up a rock, and hurled it at him, striking him in the face.

To add salt to his metaphorical wound, when his story started to become viral and the photo of the young man with a crimson-colored, swollen lesion on his cheek began to circulate, he became the object of merciless harassment. Ironically, he later told me that some of the most malicious comments that he had received were from people who identified themselves as being devout “Christians.” Most of these comments from these “followers of Christ” insinuated that this young man fully merited what had befallen him because Jesus hates sexual deviance of any kind.

On hearing this, I was rendered speechless. Those of you who know me personally know that there are very few instances when words escape me, but in this moment, I was struck dumb by the hypocrisy of this situation. These self-righteous individuals, who claim to be such biblical fundamentalists, must have forgotten all about John 8:7, when Jesus encountered a woman caught in the act of adultery. When the scribes and Pharisees went to stone her, Jesus came to her rescue saying, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I will never understand how people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ could misappropriate His words to justify this vicious act when Christ’s words tell us, quite literally, that we should not throw stones at others.

It appears to me, however, that this kind of hypocrisy is running rampant throughout our society. Moreover, I never cease to be flabbergasted by the amount of atrocious acts that are committed in the name of a distorted perception of Christianity. Now, I want to clarify here that I fully acknowledge that there are both good and bad individuals within every religion and creed. I have friends who identify as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, et cetera, and they are all wonderful people. I think that the reason why I tend to fixate on the misrepresentation of Christianity, however, is because Christianity is something that has been such an infinite source of love and strength throughout my life that I simply cannot fathom anyone employing it to promote hatred. To me, it is something that completely confounds the mind.

Yet another instance of this senseless paradox could be found in the incidents that occurred on August 12, in Charlottesville, Virginia. During the “Unite the Right” rally that resulted in deadly violence, many of the angry marchers used Christianity to justify their rancor. Many displayed the iron cross insignia while chanting, “Jews will not replace us,” echoing the same fears that Hitler had once struck in the hearts of many. A multitude of them wielding torches, armed with weapons, and bellowing vitriol at the top of their lungs, these individuals were a tableau of hatred and ire – the very antithesis of the Christian faith.

However, somehow, even in the darkest hours, it never fails to astound me how, like clockwork, a beacon of light and hope will shine through as if to show us what it truly means to be, not only a Christian, but a compassionate human being. In this particular instance, that ray of hope took the form of the parents of the victim, 32-year-old Heather Heyer. Left grief-stricken and inconsolable after the tragic death of their daughter, who was struck down by a car while participating in a counter-protest at the rally, Heyer’s parents were able to summon up the courage to react to their daughter’s death with compassion and forgiveness. Heyer’s mother was able to express sympathy for the 20-year-old suspect’s mother saying, "I've not only lost a daughter; his mother has lost her son. She will never have her son back in the way that he was."

Just days after the tragedy, Heyer’s father was even able to forgive his daughter’s assailant, citing his faith as the source of his courage to forgive: "I just think about what the Lord said on the cross, ‘Forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.’” Having never experienced parenthood myself, I cannot even begin to fathom the kind of grace that would allow a parent to express forgiveness for the man who brutally killed his baby, even before she is cold in her grave. All I can think about is my own parents telling my sister and me that we will never understand the capacity that we have to love someone unless we have children of our own and that they could not comprehend how they would go on living their lives if something were to happen to either my sister or to me. Even as I type this, I find that I can no longer see the computer screen for my eyes welling up with tears. While I may not understand how one can summon up this level of grace to forgive, there is one thing of which I’m certain: this is what it means to be a true follower of Christ.

When I was little, I had this small piece of pyrite, commonly referred to as “fool’s gold.” Having always had an affinity for things that sparkle, I counted it as one of my most prized possessions, and I protected it in a manner that was almost miserly. I had it delicately folded in a piece of tissue paper in my dresser drawer, and quite often, I would ever so gently remove it to admire its luster. As time passed, though, I slowly began to discern the ways in which pyrite falls short in comparison to true gold, and I began to notice the pyrite’s artificiality. Pyrite, for instance, has edges that are far rougher and more jagged than gold and has a shape that is more angular, making it appear more garish and gaudy than gold. Also, in the natural light, pyrite only gleams at certain angles. Gold, on the other hand, shines luminously no matter which way you hold it.

               

Whenever I reflect on Gandhi’s words on Christianity in light of the events that are happening around us, the image of my childish fascination with fool’s gold always comes to mind. As a child, after a while, I finally began to realize that the fool’s gold was simply a cheaper imitation of something far more valuable, rare, and precious. Likewise, in adulthood, although it’s taken me some time, I’ve come to two similar conclusions. Firstly, I’ve learned that Christianity which is used to defend ignominious acts against humanity is every bit as phony and artificial as my lump of pyrite. Secondly, albeit ever so cliché, I’ve come to the realization, much like I did as a child, that “all that glitters is not gold."

-- Daniella Rossi

When Silence is Betrayal -- August 14, 2017

“Once you identify and say their names, it’s as if, slowly and steadily, all of their power begins to diminish, and in its place grows a sense of inner peace.” These were the words of an infinitely wise Catholic priest I encountered several years ago who was appointed as the exorcist at his parish. This brave clergyman, whom for the sake of this post, I will refer to as Father Joe, had been trained under the tutelage of the Vatican’s primary exorcist. Having always had a special penchant for the supernatural, for me, the novelty of Father Joe’s stories never quite seemed to wear off.

Time and time again, I would sit spellbound beneath his melodious voice as he regaled various tales of dealing with demons that took many forms and always meant to harm the spirits of those they took hold of. One of the reoccurring themes that was prevalent in many such tales was the idea that if the exorcist could accurately discern and name the demon that had usurped the body of the possessed individual, this was the first step in stripping the demon of its power.

Somehow, tonight the words of Father Joe will not go from my mind. The last couple of days, I had been meaning to write about what transpired on Saturday in Charlottesville, but every time, a siege of outrage, sadness, and bewilderment impeded me.  This is one of these moments in life where words fail us. Even now as I write, I can’t help but feel a sense of utter powerlessness as mere words are seemingly insufficient in conveying how I feel.  

As I’m reflecting on this, however, I think that, perhaps, this feeling of helplessness may be partly self-imposed. You see, so often when I write this blog, I tend to speak in generalities for fear of offending any of my friends who may disagree. For this reason, I’ll try to refrain from criticizing or even specifically identifying individuals with whom I disagree. After the heinous events that occurred in Charlottesville, however, I’m becoming cognizant of the fact that we no longer have the luxury of always being diplomatic. Perhaps, the words of Father Joe are just as apropos in this context as well, for if we don’t identify and speak out against the demons that plague us, they will forever have dominion over us. At this point, to be silent is to be complicit. On this note, then, I’d like to share my thoughts on these tragic events.

On Saturday, upon hearing about the deadly violence that was spurred by a white supremacist protest, “Unite the Right,” in Charlottesville, Virginia, I was so heavy-hearted. It is terrifying to me how, in recent days, such rancorous bigotry has become normalized on so many levels; moreover, the hate groups that promote this abhorrent ideology seem to be emboldened as of late. When President Trump later went on to address the events of that day, I was so hoping to hear him finally make a statement to denounce all of these hate groups that so ardently support him. I was greatly disheartened when this was not the case.

To hear him speak in such vague generalities and make the statement that these incidents were caused by “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” was, to say the least, disillusioning. Although there is, most definitely, hatred brewing on all sides, the carnage that resulted from this particular incident was the result of violence brought about by one side -- namely, the white supremacists. Furthermore, after President Trump spoke, when several reporters present tried to get him to denounce these groups of white supremacists and neo-Nazis, in his usual fashion, he very haughtily sauntered off, ignoring them.

I don’t think that Father Joe’s words from years ago ever rang so true to me as they did in that moment as I watched that scene unfold. Why couldn’t he publicly identify and denounce these demons by name? It made no sense to me. Perhaps it was because he did not want to claim any culpability in helping to ignite this violence, as many of his critics claim, with the incendiary rhetoric that we’ve heard him employing for over two years now. Perhaps it was because he did not want to lose the support of these white nationalist hate groups, which are among some of his most fervid supporters.

In any case, the President’s unwillingness to denounce them seemed to invigorate the animosity of these groups even further. It isn’t surprising that white nationalists were cheering the President’s comments triumphantly. For instance, on one white supremacist website titled “The Daily Stormer,” one person wrote, “Trump [sic] comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate… on both sides! So he implied the antifa are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all. He said he loves us all.” As one may see, in many instances, refusing to call out evil only causes it to flourish.

Finally, this afternoon, over forty-eight hours after the incident had occurred, as an afterthought after spending several minutes boasting about the economy, and presumably only after being bombarded with criticism from every side, President Trump begrudgingly made the following statements: “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” For many of us, however, I think that these words, at this point, rang hollow.

Looking back at my fond memories of Father Joe’s captivating stories in light of the events that have consumed us, I can’t help but be grateful for his words of wisdom. So often when we fail to renounce evil and call it by its name, we are only allowing it to thrive. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” My friends, perhaps that time is now.

-- Daniella Rossi

Sticks and Stones -- June 30, 2017

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-nra-video-20170705-story.html

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” This adage would always frustrate me to no end when I was a child, and it was a phrase that was echoed ad nauseam by several of my primary school teachers in explaining how we should respond to verbal bullying. In fact, I remember being a great annoyance to my Kindergarten teacher when I just could not bring myself to accept these words. “But, Mrs. Casey,” I insisted, “that isn’t true! Words really can hurt us!” (I’ll always remember this because, during my entire academic career, this was one of the only instances when I caused a teacher to lose patience with me.)

I think that the reason why this platitude was such a source of vexation for me is because, even then, I realized that this sentiment was untrue. In fact, earlier the same day that my Kindergarten teacher was parroting that banal aphorism, I had witnessed two students on the playground exchanging words, which very quickly led to physical brawling. Even with my child-like perception of causality, I was convinced that those harsh words that the two children were hurling at each other were what caused the quarrel to quickly escalate and to become physical.

Looking back now, I can understand another reason as to why this commonplace phrase was so befuddling to me. Personally, I had always believed strongly in the Italian version of this epigram, which states the polar opposite: "La lingua non ha ossa ma rompe le ossa." In English this translates to, “Even though the tongue does not have bones, it can break bones.” This Italian proverb resonated with me more profoundly than its English counterpart. You see, even from this young age, I was an ardent believer in the immense power of words.

As I got older, and I furthered my passion for the written word, I remember in high school and college reading Geoffery Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. In fact, in college, I would spend much time reading both the Middle English and Modern English versions of this lengthy work and was even required to memorize and recite certain passages. (Ah, youth! ☺) Somehow, though, in all of the hours spent studying this entire masterpiece, one single line stood out to me more than any other. In the "Prologue" of Chaucer’s novel, the character referred to as “the Host” explains to the other characters that our words are “the cousin[s] to the deed.” I remember that I was in awe of the verbiage used in this passage in that this writer conveyed a concept that I had long believed—that there is an inherent, undeniable relationship, so to speak, between our words and our actions.

So often these days, this literary passage has really been brought to the forefront of my mind. It seems as though, especially within the last couple of years, I’ve been told repeatedly that I ascribe entirely too much power to words, that I am too sensitive to malicious language, that I am too politically correct, that I am too concerned about offending others with my words, et cetera, et cetera. These sentiments would often be accompanied by a multitude of odiously trite clichés, such as “Talk is cheap,” “Actions speak louder than words,” and, my own personal favorite, “They’re just words.”

Now, for someone like me whose life-long passion and livelihood are derived from language, you can only imagine the uneasiness and frustration that phrases like this evoke in me. I have seen firsthand the level of good or of harm words have the power to inflict. Language, if employed with ill intent, can be weaponized to cause unfathomable damage, and one needs only to look at incidents that have occurred in the U.S. in the last two months to see illustrations of this. For example, on May 20, an African American, Bowie State University student was murdered by a member of a white supremacist Facebook hate group days before his graduation. On May 26 in Oregon, two courageous men were killed by a member of an anti-Muslim extremist group for valiantly attempting to defend two Muslim women on a train. On June 14, an apparently mentally-disturbed gunman opened fire, targeting members of the GOP at a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game for Charity, hitting four people, seriously wounding House Majority Whip, Steve Scalise.

Of course, it would be both grossly unfair and inaccurate to claim that incendiary words themselves are solely responsible for these tragic events, but it is undeniable that each of these incidents shares one detail in common. In each of these cases, the physical violence was preceded by an all-consuming siege of animosity that was seemingly fueled by vicious hate speech. I have always believed that although, as the old adage states, words themselves do not have the capacity to cause physical harm, hostile and disparaging language creates a social climate that facilitates violence. Logically, dehumanizing others, even with our words, is the first step to justifying violence against them.

I think that this is why I was so disturbed when I woke up this morning to find that a friend had called my attention to this controversial ad, recently put out by the NRA (see link above). In the ad, the speaker is basically insinuating that, in light of recent events, we are on the brink of a second civil war, stopping just short of implying that we should choose a side and promote violence against others who do not share our ideology or convictions. The ad, quite transparently, is playing on the target audience’s feelings of fear and anger in the hope of increasing weapon sales.

When I first watched the ad, my heart fell into my stomach. After all of the calamity and even bloodshed that is still so fresh in our collective memory, when will we learn our lesson? When will we learn that words can have repercussions that are absolutely devastating? After seeing the level of brutality that can be precipitated by rancorous, vitriolic language, I would be lying if I said that this isn’t frightening to me. Perhaps Chaucer understood this concept when he wrote that a word is “the cousin to the deed,” for even if words are separate from actions, they are still closely enough related that they can both have deadly consequences.

-- Daniella Rossi