Thursday, 11/17

Wow. I did not expect that.

When I wrote yesterday's entry about the hate crime that occurred in Marquette, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know how people would respond. But as it turns out, the whole story—not just what I wrote—hit a nerve in our community. Brian Cabell's original post went viral. Several TV stations did stories on the attack. And I had, as of this morning, over 6,000 people read what I wrote, which is almost 20 times the amount of people who usually read it.

Wow.

One of the things for which I'm extremely grateful is the respect and the civility shown in the comments, both on the blog itself and when I shared it on Facebook. I'm always loathe to look at comments sections on the Internet; they're usually filled with such hate and such venom. But in this case? Not so much. People from all across the political spectrum shared their thoughts and their ideas, and not once did I cringe or throw up a little in my mouth, as I might have while reading comments on another site.

So thank you to everyone for that.

One of the comments I received concerned exactly why I wrote yesterday's entry. When I was in the blur of writing it yesterday morning, I never really stopped to consider why. But now that I've had time to ponder the question, I think it has several answers.

I wrote it because I was appalled reading about what happened. I had so many conflicting emotions at once that I turned to the one thing that always seems to help me work through those feelings—writing about it. But I didn't just write it for myself. As I was thinking through it, deciding what I wanted to say, I realized that I had to write it for other people, too.

I wrote it for my niece, whose African-American boyfriend must have to deal with all kinds of crap that I can never even imagine.

I wrote it for my nephew, born four days ago into a world where this kind of hatred exists.

I wrote it for the woman who had to go through that horrid experience in the parking lot, if to only say, on behalf of the place where we both live, “sorry”. I still can't believe something like that happened here. Call me naive, but I can't.

I wrote it for the 500 cases of hate crime the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented in the past week, and for the thousands more that probably went unreported.

And I wrote it for everyone who's been scared, confused, upset, pissed off, or has had their head whirling for the past week and a half. Sometimes it's hard to comprehend what's going on in the world. I don't know if I helped in that regard. I just know it was something I felt I needed to do.

*****

Okay. To quote a great American, “That's all I have to say about that”. Tomorrow, we return to the inconsequential and the trivial. And I'm pretty sure it'll involve cows.  I think we all deserve that for a Friday.

(jim@wmqt.com)