Dear Human Beings,
There is a scream lodged in the back of my throat. You know that place where tears build up into a ball that blocks your airway until you can no longer breathe without sobbing? That's what's going on with me right now. It's either a scream, or it's tears. Either way, it is born of frustration, emotion, and utter disappointment.
Over the last four days we've watched the events of Charlottesville, VA play out. First with a group of men my age on the campus of University of Virginia, marching with tiki torches alight yelling things like "you will not replace us." On Saturday morning this was followed by a gathering of white supremacists, neo-Nazi's and members of the KKK sporting Nazi and confederate flags. Also in the vicinity were counter-protesters, many of them of the clergy who were trained in non-violent means of protesting. militia's were on the ground in addition to the actual, sanctioned police forces. By the end of the day on Saturday one woman was dead as a result of a hate crime. Two police officers were also dead because their helicopter crashed.
The President of the United States spoke on Saturday evening saying that the fault for the violence was on "many sides." It wasn't.
On Monday he tried to rectify his statement by condemning movements like the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacy. but less than 24 hours later, on Tuesday afternoon, he had all but retracted that statement and once again thrown his support behind the white supremacists.
Read all the reporting here, here and here.
And this is why I can hardly breathe for wanting to scream or cry or throw all the emotions out on the table. It is so hard to hold all of this in. In fact, at first I ignored what was going on. Now before you throw me under the bus you have to understand that I exhaust myself all week reading the news and feeling empathy and sympathy for all the terrible things going on in the world. On the weekends it is sometimes nice to forget that there is a world outside of my parent's lawn mowing business. That's a luxury I know a lot of people cannot afford, and obviously I can no longer afford this luxury either.
The one thing that I think has been made abundantly clear through the surprising election and emotionally exhausting presidency of Donald Trump is that White America thought it was a post-racist society, and in that supposition we were as racist as we could possibly be.
It is hard as a white woman to tread the waters of racial accuracy. I say this not to be all "woe is me" but to express that I do not know how to help change something that I see as fundamentally wrong. I hate the fact that there is racial discrimination. There is no place or time in which it should be acceptable for someone of another race or gender, or gender orientation to be discriminated against in any way. But as I find myself among the race that is often doing the discriminating I don't know what to do. This weekend it has become quite clear that people like me cannot sit back and assume that someone else is going to do something about discrimination and intolerance.
I must stand up and reach out. So must everyone else around me who has been given the genes or the proclivities that are deemed "normal." White supremacy is fundamentally wrong. Any race thinking that it is above another is fundamentally wrong. How can we argue that we deserve more than anyone else? We don't. You deserve what you work for. People don't work to be subservient, they work to escape it. People don't work to be denied admission to college or a job, they work to achieve admission or hiring. To be denied something on the basis of race, gender, religion, or gender orientation is just wrong.
We've been here before. We have been here so many times. Someone decides that Christianity is wrong, so they are forced to fight lions and gladiators. Someone else decided that Judaism was wrong, so they were herded into gas chambers and killed by the thousands in one of the largest genocides in recent memory. People have decided that same sex attraction is wrong and so those who feel that way were tortured or killed. Someone decided that Islam is wrong and so we fight a war against a peaceful religion.
We've been here before. We've been here where someone decides one group is superior to another and it always ends badly. Remember the genocide in Rwanda? The Hutu's turned on the Tutsi's and slaughtered many. The international community didn't step in because they figured it wasn't their place. We're faced with a similar situation.
As white or Caucasian people it is our duty in this moment to decide to step in. The groups facing us right now look like us, they talk like us, they pretend to espouse the same beliefs as us, but they don't. And we must stand with the people who may not look, or act like us. But if we are doing things the right way then they will believe in the same things as us.
They will believe that every person deserves an equal chance despite the color of their skin, the orientation of their attraction, their gender or their religious beliefs. They will believe that hatred is wrong and intolerance of other people should not be tolerated. They will believe that it is our duty to stand up and reach out and they will help those of us who do no yet know the best way to do so.
You may have to stand up to friends and family members who are saying things that are wrong. You may have to reach out to people you wouldn't normally associate with. You may have to do things you've never done before.
But we have to. We must. It is our duty.
As Dumbledore said: "It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends."
White people must stand up. We must be firm in our convictions and we must speak up against those who will not listen to anyone else.
Hatred and bigotry should not belong in this world. Yet here they are and we must fight them with love and acceptance.
So this years' letter to humanity has the same message as last years'. Please, for the love of everything that is good in the world, accept that sometimes you are wrong, work to make things right. love those who are different from you and seek to change those ideas that are fundamentally wrong.
I write this letter with tears blinding my vision. There are probably spelling errors I will try to catch before I publish. But I ask from the deepest part of my heart if you will stand up with me. Will you reach out to those who are different from you and profess that you do not espouse the same beliefs of those who are acting so abominably in Charlottesville? If you also feel sick at heart, join me in reaching out to those around us, condemning hate speech and standing up for those who are not just like us. And perhaps, you and I, together, can create change.
Brigitte
Updated LDS press release:
Original Letter to all Human Beings
The Late Night Hosts who all said it so much better than I:
