This morning I awoke to one of the best emails I’ve ever received: “Wayne, you have really changed my life regarding how I approach the topic of race. I keep learning new things from you about it all the time. For example, one of the things that you have helped me with is to simply talk about it at all. I found it very soothing to admit that there is a problem with racism, like naming the elephant in the room, and now you point out that you say “America’s thing with race” instead. It does the same thing, signal to the nervous system that the issue is being addressed, without polarizing “us and them.” And that is just one example of how you have helped me.
I think most importantly, you have made me move from feeling like the problems with racial inequality in this country and worldwide are something remote and out of my control to being something tangible that I can get excited about doing something about. That is why I’m exploring getting involved with the activist stuff re the DRC, which is directly connected to western consumer lifestyle. Still seeing if I can make a difference in some way with that, and I’m happy that I’m open to trying at least.”
And a few months ago I received another somewhat similar note: “I want to highlight just how helpful I’ve found your work to date in informing my conversations with friends and relatives about race. If I remember correctly, you got started down this road in part because of conversations you’ve had with people like my dad, my sister and myself and the fundamental misunderstanding of the history of race in our county you faced in those conversations. I feel your work has done a wonderful job, at least for me, in educating your readers about our ugly history with race and the deep scars it has left. Recognition of this history forces us comfortable, public school educated white folks to wrestle with the national narrative that racism is a thing of the past and if we could all just get over the fact that we’re uncomfortable around each other everything would be fine.
Your material has helped me push back against this narrative in my own interactions with friends and relatives. As I’ve shared with you earlier, your essays regarding the history of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the origins and purpose of confederate war memorials came in very handy when dinner party conversation turned to Nicky Haley’s cause-of-the-Civil-War misstep. Someone at the table – an individual that is intellectually respected in the group – was very quick to establish the position that, well, the Civil War really was about a lot more than slavery. It was very handy to have all the facts I’d absorbed from you’re material on the subject to debate the point with facts rather than just shout him down.”
Most of the conversations on race that all of us have heard or been involved in have likely fallen into three categories: 1) Conversations based entirely on passion; “Can’t you see how wrrrrong racism is? What’s the matter with you, you conservative idiot?” 2) Based on our national meritocracy narrative; “I’ve never owned slaves. Nobody in my line ever owned slaves. Nobody ever gave me a thing and my life was rough. Harder than anybody who has ever lived. We had nothing to eat except dandelion greens and now look at me. If I can make it, anybody can make it. Black people just need to work harder and stop looking for the free handouts that you want to give them with my taxes, you liberal nut job!” And 3) Based on denial; “Racism isn’t actually a thing. It’s really about class.”
The two comments, above, thrilled me because the Civil Conversations Project is about just one thing and one belief. We believe that if you want to change the way people think and act, you have to change the way you talk with them. And what we are about is giving people the information they need and the education they never got so that they can have informed conversations. Changing minds by the way you talk. So yeah, I was thrilled to receive those notes.
I may not have influenced many people in the four years and 131 essays I’ve written. But I’ve influenced two at least. That’s better than zero. That got me thinking and playing with my calculator. We had 13,335 readers in the last 30 days. Supposedly we all know 611 people by name and will, on average, interact with maybe 10,000 people in our lifetimes. I’ve influenced two people. If within the next 6 months, our Civil Conversations family of 13,335 each influences 2 people and then those 26, 670 people influence 2 people within 6 more months and so on, in 36 months we will have influenced and changed almost a million people – 853,440 – and in just 6 months after that we will have influenced and given tools of change to almost 2 million people – 1,706,880 to be exact.
Margaret Mead, the famous anthropologist, said some quotable things. One of them, widely known and quoted was, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
I’ve probably heard a thousand times, “Well Wayne, this takes time you know!” Bull crap! If we use the factor of two thing, a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens could change the country in right around 7 years. In just 7 years we could influence all 256, 662, 010 (2020 numbers) voting age Americans. We can do this! I’m asked all the time, “What can I do?” You can ask your community to subscribe. And you can have civil conversations.
Ok…moving on, let’s talk about all those cats being eaten in Springfield Ohio, home of Homer and Marge Simpson. Homer and Marge are a joke. The Haitian rumor is not. “After bomb threats today, officials had to evacuate two elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio, and move the students to a different location. They had to close a middle school altogether. This is the second day bomb threats have closed schools and public buildings after MAGA Republicans have spread the lie that Haitian immigrants there have been eating white people's pets. Haitian immigrants, who were welcomed to Springfield by officials eager to revitalize the city and who are there legally, say they are afraid.
Hunter Walker and Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo today explained where the lie had come from and how it had spread. More than two months ago, they wrote, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, who is Trump’s vice presidential running mate, began to speak about Springfield at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, trying to tie rising housing prices to immigrants. The next day, at the National Conservatism conference, Vance accused “illegals” of overwhelming the city.
On August 10, about a dozen neo-Nazis of the “Blood Tribe” organization showed up in Springfield, where one of their leaders said the city had been taken over by “degenerate third worlders” and blamed the Jews for the influx of migrants. The neo-Nazis stayed and, on August 27, showed up at a meeting of the city council, where their leader threatened council members. On September 1, another white supremacist group, Patriot Front, held its own “protest to the mass influx of unassimilable Haitian migrants” in the city. Right-wing social media posters pushed the story, usually with “witnesses” to events in the city coming from elsewhere.
In late August, posting in a private Facebook group, a resident said they had heard that Haitian immigrants had butchered a neighbor’s cat for food. Vance reposted that rumor to attack Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, on whom he is trying to hang undocumented immigration although it was Trump who convinced Republicans to kill a strong bipartisan border bill this spring. Springfield police and the city manager told news outlets there was no truth to the rumors.
Nonetheless, on September 10, Vance told his people to “keep the cat memes flowing,” even though—or perhaps because—the rumors were putting people in his own state in danger.
Trump repeated the lie at the presidential debate that night, claiming, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” Today, President Joe Biden demanded Trump stop his attacks on Haitian-Americans, but Trump doubled down, promising to deport the Haitian immigrants in Springfield if he is elected, although they are here legally.”
Heather Cox Richardson yesterday
Prattling on about how all of this is about race and endangers people’s lives would be an insult to your intelligence. So I’ll ask just one thing. Picture an America without our Thing With Race. Nice vision, isn’t it? That’s the country that you actually want to live in.
Wayne-- from an Ohioan, thanks so much for bringing light of truth to this disgusting, tragic and hateful story. Hoping beyond hope that Ohioans will reject all this and re elect Sherrod Brown and that our country will also reject those creating the chaos so we can move to an America free of our thing with race.
I’d like to make a comment on the Springfield situation and the flood of memes it has spawned. Some of them are downright disgusting and some are very clever and humorous.
However, laughing at the memes really bothers me, because the humor comes at the expense of a group of people who fled a failed country. These refugees are trying to make a living for their families, and contributing to the health and vitality and renewal of a town that welcomed them.
Why don’t we read more about the plights and dreams of these people? Why do we scroll by incessant memes and hear only one side of the story - how the town has been devastated by the publicity - put forth only for political reasons?