We protest school segregation

The President has said something racist, again. This comes as no surprise, as the President regularly uses racist rhetoric to rile up his base, who either share his bigoted views or simply aren’t troubled by them. To me, these two options are equally bad. If you rush to defend or choose to ignore racism, you are empowering it: either way, you are complicit.

Police brutality must stop now

The fact that our President is racist is not news; people who were paying attention in 2016 knew this, but plenty of folks still voted for him. But what is new is the way the past two and a half years have revealed people’s true values. I’m willing to give voters the benefit of the doubt if they voted for Trump with a vague hope that the solemnity of his office would tame or temper him. But as the President’s Twitter tantrums have continued, his policies have gotten increasingly cruel, and his cozying up to dictators and autocrats continues unabated, I haven’t learned anything new about Trump himself. This leopard hasn’t changed his spots, and what we’ve long seen is what we continue to get.

What has been revelatory about the past two and a half years is the behavior of Trump’s supporters and enablers. If you still turn a blind eye toward what Trump does–if you continue to say nothing or merely offer excuses–this tells me everything I, your neighbors, and your children need to know about your character. As much as you claim that you yourself are not racist, your failure to condemn abhorrent behavior says more about your priorities than any of your arguments.

I might be next

History has its eyes on us, and so do our companions and contemporaries. When I was a young and impressionable child, an impassioned priest showed my religion class footage from Nazi concentration camps, imploring us to learn from the past so we would never repeat it. As I watched the grim and grainy images, I wondered with childlike innocence how ordinary Germans could have stood by and watched while genocide happened in their midst. Now, decades later, I have my answer.

Genocide doesn’t start with death camps; it starts with divsion and objectification, with slogans and conformity, and with repeated exhortations to support your country right or wrong. Genocide starts with a moral muddying of waters and with the suggestion that some folks and families don’t matter as much as yours do. Genocide starts with good, otherwise decent folk deciding to stand by, shut up, and do nothing as norms and morals are violated, the act of minding one’s own business being weaponized as a tool of the state.

Black and white together

Plenty of folks who voted for Trump in 2016 insist they aren’t themselves racists; instead, they argue, they voted for economic reasons, or for the sake of Supreme Court picks, or because they disliked Hillary Clinton. But now that we see the kind of behavior the President is engaged in–the kind of behavior he talked about and that some voters chose to ignore, defend, or quietly agree with–we now know how low Trump’s supporters and enablers are willing to crawl. I haven’t learned anything new about the leopard, but I am continually heartbroken by the hyenas who continue to hang around him.

When I studied Spanish in high school, I learned a saying that seems particularly apt these days: “dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.” Tell me who you walk with, and I will tell you who you are. If you tell me you voted for Trump in 2016, I can be kind and assume you were duped. But if you tell me you still support him, I must assume you either support his abhorrent behavior or (worse yet) simply don’t care. Two and half years after Trump was elected, ignorance is no longer an excuse. If you continue to lie down with dogs, you must enjoy waking up with fleas.

Today’s photos show protest signs on the Green Street parking garage in Central Square, Cambridge: part of Representative Ayanna Pressley’s Congressional district.