Extreme, Extreme Vetting

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears.  It wasn’t the call to keep our country safe from immigrants. That’s old news. Or the presumption that we can judge entire populations by the actions of a few. Call them terror countries. That’s old news. Not the assumption that real Americans worship at altars adorned with flags and guns and crosses. That’s old news, too.

What I heard this week was even more unbelievable. It came from the creature who rests on piles of gold in his lair like the great dragon Smaug, but flies out into the world to destroy everything in his path. The creature who revels in setting our country aflame.

We must close our country’s gates to those “who support bigotry and hatred.”

Unbelievable.

He meant, of course, brown people from warm places where Jesus isn’t everybody’s friend. Places where muezzins call from minarets. Where God’s name has two syllables. Where prayer and fasting are required of everyone, not just monks and nuns. It doesn’t even matter if they were born here, like the Orlando shooter. If their parents were immigrants from those places, that’s enough. The problem is immigration, and it needs to be stopped. Then we will be safe.

I am a Norwegian Lutheran from Minnesota. Nothing could be more bland. Yet if my grandfather were immigrating today, he would undergo extreme vetting. In Norway in 2011, bombs went off. Young people on an island were gunned down. All of it politically motivated. All of that in a pale country were God goes by the right name. A terror country.

But if we lock the doors of our country, we also lock people in. People like Timothy McVeigh, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, James Holmes, and Dylann Storm. We lock in all the violence and terror festering under the flag.

Are bigotry and hatred foreign imports? This summer, the Gay Men’s Chorus of D.C. got on a bus and rode to Raleigh, NC to join with the local chorus. In a public square, they sang:

                        Teach every child to raise his voice

                        And then, my brothers, then

                        Will justice be demanded

                        By ten million righteous men.

                        Make them hear you.

There is video of the men standing in the dappled shade of a large tree. The director gracefully waves her arms, extracting exquisite singing from the united choirs.

But the singing isn’t all that is heard. From off screen, someone shouts Leviticus 20:13. When he isn’t loud enough to drown out the singing, someone else joins him. “Abomination!” Then louder, “They shall surely be put to death!” Over and over again it crashes through the music. “Death!”

Surely we don’t need to be worried about importing bigotry and hatred. We have plenty right here.

Magnificent Mile

Cardboard. Corners. Those are the rules. You must make a sign from part of a cardboard box, and you must stand at a corner. In Minneapolis and Chicago it's the same. The homeless stand still. Others move past them.

Who writes these rules? Who disseminates them? Who enforces them? Because after all, the homeless we see are a very orderly bunch. They never step out of their place and, for instance, follow you down the street shouting. In fact, they never say anything at all. It's all there on the cardboard. They are mute. Unless you give them some money. Then they're allowed to talk to you. But only to shower you with God's blessings.

It's all so scripted, it makes me wonder how it can be real. Is it a scam? Or is it that homeless people have to do what is expected of them to generate optimal donations?

And the rest of us. Did we write the script so that we can use them to measure our generosity? Some days, we give. We feel good about helping someone in need. Otherwise, forget it. They're just faking it. Or they're just going to spend it on drugs.

Would we ever throw away the script? Would we tolerate an actual humanizing conversation with them? I'd have so many practical questions. Where do you sleep at night? How do you decide where to beg? How many hours do you stay here? What's your average daily take? Where do you go to the bathroom?

But then I would listen for the story. There's always a story. Nobody was born and raised on a corner. Nobody went to Cardboard Sign University to get a degree in asking for money. Nobody was sentenced to life on the corner as punishment for their sins. These are lives that must have included tragedy and loss, the stuff of fascinating stories.

And what if they were allowed to move from the corner? What if they could walk into the stores and mingle with the shoppers? Would that break the unspoken code that glues them, mute, to their places? It suits us, I think, to keep them still. In their place. Noticing them is optional.

I was recently in Chicago, staying near the part of Michigan Ave known as the Magnificent Mile, home of the American Girl Doll Store. It was the height of tourist season, and families thronged the sidewalks and stores. Teens slouched behind their parents with pained expressions. Toddlers slept, smiled, or screamed in their strollers. But it was the little girls who reigned supreme. Every girl old enough to walk on her own was carrying an American Girl doll, retailing for $115-$120. Of course, you get a paperback book with that, so it's totally worth it. The outfits and other doll necessities range from $20- $395.

Children of all ages, whether carrying an embarrassingly expensive doll or not, have already absorbed the rules of the street. Walking by a homeless beggar is the norm. Acting like you don't notice the person crumpled on the hot pavement in front of you is the norm. Hurrying toward the next air-conditioned, upscale shopping experience is the norm.

I am ashamed to say that I followed the script. But my husband didn't. Back at the hotel, he went into the executive lounge of our hotel and grabbed a cold Coke. Back on the street, he was ready.

"Would you like something cold to drink?" he asked a man on the pavement.

Hair

I have a hair appointment next week. I will pay far too much for a skilled stylist to color my hair. Then later I will pay again for another person to keep it short. She will make sure that it looks natural. As if it were always short, always framed my face and always lifted slightly off my forehead. But there is nothing natural about my hair.

I am conflicted about this process.  The women who do my hair with such skill have been doing it for years. I listen to their lives and they listen to mine. I've been with them through marriages and divorces, cancer deaths, addiction recovery, knee replacements and a child with downs syndrome.  They have listened to me raise four children to adulthood, with all the joys and sorrows that has brought. We are tied together in a unique bond, stylist and stylee.

But so much money, so much time and energy going into hair? My rational brain tells me this is ridiculous. Hair has no significance unless we give it. And yet I give it freely. I don't wear makeup, do my nails or pluck my eyebrows. But I still invest in my hair. Because when I look in the mirror, I have no rational brain. It's pure emotion. Hair that's behaving gives me confidence. Hair that lies too flat or sticks out in the wrong places or shows too much grey, destroys it.

Sometimes I wonder if a hijab wouldn't be better. There's never a bad hair day, and it makes a nice, hands-free cell phone holder. I've seen many women talking on phones held in place by hijabs. Plus, revealing less, you would have to find your confidence from within.

This is what people miss about muslim women. The confidence. It's the covering that throws them off because we assume that no one would cover themselves voluntarily. They must be forced by men. But it's not that simple. A muslim woman doesn't put on a headscarf or hijab for a man. She does it for her God. And for herself. It identifies her as part of her culture, a group that gives her life meaning and keeps her safe. In other words, it gives her confidence.

This is what Donald Trump missed when he saw Ghazala Khan stand beside her husband on the DNC stage. He got distracted by the headscarf and missed the confidence. It's been interesting to see the consequences of his attack on her. The hashtag fury of accomplished women, demanding to be heard. If Donald had asked, I could have told him he was stepping into a hornet's nest. Never mess with muslim women. They are some of the toughest people on the planet.

Once, I taught my adult ESL class wearing a headscarf. I'd been to the dermatologist and planned to go back to class after, but I didn't plan on the hideous bandage on my head. I grabbed a scarf from my car and voila!

"Teacher! You look so nice!" said my students. They were so excited. All those trips to the hairdresser, and it was covering my hair that made me beautiful to them. Maybe I looked more confident, too.