Due to recent events and a sense of obligation to my conscience, I write this open letter to all people. You all inhabit the community that I love.
I recently discovered that a relative of mine began a movement in Nazi Germany that started simply as “An Open Letter to Goebbels”. Goebbels stood as Hitler's propaganda point man. The letter laid out her grievances with bigoted antisemitic and anti-Catholic rhetoric, propaganda and policy. It came from the heart of a woman heavily burdened by what she saw in her own community. Before the internet, and at a time of great personal peril, she copied this letter with the help of a sympathetic secretary and a priest at her church. When she traveled into town, she smuggled a stack of these letters and left them in public places like universities or city squares. She left them stacked anywhere people gathered in the hopes of reaching someone. Anyone.
At first she felt compelled, much like I do now, to sound a bell of reason in a chaotic time. She found her red line and once she found it, she spoke out. She didn't expect much to come of her little letter. It was just as much an exercise for her conscience as it was to affect any measurable change. Her little letter was her own small protest. Then something surprising happened. People found her letter and brought it back to their own towns, copying her letter and leaving it for others just as she had done. Her letter spread like wild fire from one end of Germany to the other propelled by strangers. The letter became viral.
It seemed, perhaps, an insignificant way to speak out against injustice, but in recognizing her red line, she lent her voice to strangers. She didn't protest. She didn't brawl. She didn't speak out in public. As far as I know she didn't hide any Jews. All these things would have been just as appropriate, but she penned her voice to paper instead. A single sheet of paper, double-sided, covered in words from an ordinary woman to those in power promoting hate and injustice. There is power in that. For her efforts, the Gestapo and SS detained her several times and raided her apartment for evidence of authorship repeatedly. Every time a stack of her little letter showed up somewhere in Germany, they raided. Her friends were detained by the SS and, though they all knew who wrote it, no one said a word. Their commitment against injustice and hate stood stronger than the entire Nazi Empire with all of its vast resources.
With all of the terror, intimidation and might of the Nazi machine, why were they so frightened of one little letter written by one ordinary woman?
Words have power. Words spark ideas and inspire. When we speak Truth to Power, words touch us in ways that can pull back the blinds of lies, see beyond rhetoric, hate and bigotry and reveal what is best, most honorable and true in each of us. Words expose ourselves to ourselves and they show us not just what is, but what might become. Words can move us beyond the mountains of hate and through the pit of despair. A small alphabet army can conquer tyranny. This is true now and it has always been true.
One little letter by one ordinary woman frightened an army so great that it took multiple superpower nations to bring it to heel. It speaks to the power and light of the human spirit burning strong even in the darkness. It speaks to what most threatens those who would stoke fear, insecurity and paint a bullseye of rage on any number of scapegoats based on real or perceived differences. Words, and the ideas and ideals they inspire, exist as an unstoppable force for change.
The Germany Hitler conquered is not like America in 2017. Germany, reeling from the Treaty of Versailles, stood as a hamstrung country. There existed mass poverty, hunger, unemployment, inflation and much unfocused frustration. Germany, for all intents and purposes, was severely broken. America in the 21st century is not. America, despite our fractures, possesses an uncanny ability to adapt and heal. The Founding Fathers carefully crafted our ideals and purposefully began with “We The People”. Never forget we all have a stake in our governance. We all share equal responsibility, whether by our actions or by our silence.
Hitler harnessed the frustration of people by stoking hatred toward perceived enemies who were different. Much like our Confederacy, there lived an undercurrent of antisemitism and racism, but Hitler weaponized it. He campaigned on racism, the extra-ordinariness of the German people, jobs-jobs-jobs and infrastructure. At first he delivered by subsidizing manufacturing to supply materials needed to rebuild a crumbling country. The result was Volkswagen, “The People's Car”, and the iconic highway system, the Autobahn. He began fulfilling those campaign promises and so no one questioned when the rights of some sovereign people slowly eroded. Hitler successfully turned them into villains standing in obstruction. They didn't question when he set himself up as a fascist authoritarian, taking control of every aspect of government, military and homeland. Hitler succeeded in winning the election because he promised a radical alternative to the status quo, who he claimed, were the true enemy of the people and progress. He set himself up as the only person who could save the nation.
One of his earliest tactics relied upon casting doubt on the legitimacy of the free press. Repeatedly. No matter what the report, he countered it whether or not it was true. The press was trying to stand in the way of saving the country, he claimed. People were hopeful and hope in times of desperation sometimes makes for strange bedfellows. Once in power, he began to exert control over the press and film industry. Some stories were ridiculous, of course, but he cared more about stoking that angry passion than reality. Recognizable symbols became weaponized propaganda.
If any of this sounds eerily familiar, it should.
At first, with the same hope in her heart for a better situation, a different relative liked Hitler. She hoped he could change things for the better and ignored some of the more outrageous rhetoric. When he built cars and the Autobahn, she hoped everything would get better. And this moral trade off is what caused her to continue to support him when Hitler's opponents began, one by one, to slowly disappear. They made trouble and stood in the way of all this winning. And when they came for the Jews, even her friends, she wished them well believing the lie that they were going to a resort to keep them safe from all the violent hate mongers Hitler fed. And when they came for the gypsies, she thought it was no big deal because everyone knew they were liars and thieves, wanting something for nothing while good Germans worked for what they had. And when they came for the professors teaching in University, she shrugged and made excuses. And when they came for the Catholics, she found her red line. By then it was too late. She said nothing when she saw injustices all around her. When she found her red line, she bore responsibility with her complacency and silence. She suffered moral paralysis.
We all have our red line. That line that sends a sucker punch of emotions flying through our bodies when we come upon it. It is the line that we know instinctively if we cross it that we will forever be changed having compromised our moral integrity.
Recently Judge Morin in Washington, DC set a frightening legal precedent in Trump's America. A company that hosted the website used by activists to organize vast numbers of peaceful protestors on Inauguration Day in DC must hand over extensive identifying information on anyone who visited the site between October 2016 and January 2017. This amounts to 1.3 million identities of people who are speaking their truth by joining their brothers and their sisters to walk with pussy hats and banners in peaceful protest of a president that seemed then, and is now, wholly unsuited to represent America in the world arena and here at home. These identities will be handed over to a hostile Department of Justice, headed by Jeff Sessions, who has a history of disdain for civil rights and continues that passion currently. These identities include many who showed up in DC, but also those who simply visited the site and never participated. Since then, the DOJ request has expanded to include the group Facebook page, any likes on the page and all the extended networks of those individuals.
The excuse for the massive request? Despite over 1 million people showing up to the rally in DC, and a mostly peaceful protest, a limousine caught on fire. Approximately $200,000 of property damage occurred. Currently 200 Inaugural protestors, who were corralled (known as kettling) for their proximity and originally included journalists and legal observers, are facing possible 60 year jail terms. Let me be clear. This does not, in any way shape or form, seem to be an equivalent to a car thundering into twenty people and killing Heather Heyer as she was walking away. This vile act was labeled as “domestic terrorism” by Jeff Sessions, but the DOJ has done nothing.
In September, the alt-right provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos planned a “Free Speech Week” at Berkley advertising polarizing alt-right figures whose message consists solely of stoking a divide in our differences. The event was canceled due to missed deadlines and many speakers stated they had never received invitations to attend. The following day, Attorney General Jeff Sessions released a statement about college campuses restricting right-leaning speakers and view points. This is clearly not what took place. This was constructed, with clear coordination of the Attorney General, to be a failed event in order to give an excuse to control a more alt-right messaging. This stands as a clear machination and sign of things to come. The roots can be seen in the many far alt-right hate groups selecting liberal cities and institutions with the intent to manufacture a story line of victimhood while promoting hate and the ideals of an ethnostate. This administration, by abuse of the Department of Justice, has set in motion the steps to criminalize the majority of US citizens who do not agree with hatred and bigotry. This is not a Trump/non-Trump thing. Most Trump voters did not vote for this, only a small radical element did. This is an American thing.
I have reached my red line.
Despite the Bannon-led alt-right media machine spinning the most fantastical of conspiracy theories, we shall not be diminished. The difference is today, in 2017 in America, we are strong. We stand strong. Most of us know there is no moral equivalence between those who stand up to injustice, bigotry and hate and those who project it violently into our communities under the guise of free speech and the right to bear arms. Renaming white supremacy and fascism to alt-right no more changes the core of this group than exchanging khakis and polo shirts for hoods.
One little letter frightened the Nazi war machine because words, and the ideas they spark, can change the world. You can minimize. You can try to make a moral equivalency. You can lie and tell people we are paid when we willing stand for truth. You can twist stories saying a man who stabbed three people, killing two, as they stood up for two beautiful young women on a bus was a progressive, but we all know he wasn't. Or that the man who shot an anti-fascist protestor in Seattle was liberal, we all know the truth that he was not. You can say that 40,000 protestors descending upon a city, or over 1 million on Inauguration Day, are hired and paid by an imaginary liberal boogeyman, attempting to diminish us, but we are not diminished. We are Woke. We rise stronger. We have found our red line and it is etched into our souls and sings in our voices and pounds in our hearts. We are American and our country stands strong. We stand up as the people in We The People because these words were not and are not random. These words are us. We live as the embodiment of these words.
This is my red line. I stand for freedom, democracy and that we are all created equal. I stand with my brothers and sisters of every race, religion, gender, sexuality, health status and nationality because that is what America is. I stand strong in diversity and against those who would make us weak. For every one of us who falls, five more will rise to speak more loudly for those who can no longer speak with us. That is who we are. We are not broken, unless we allow ourselves to be so.
Where is your red line?