Think Global; Act Local

When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the vote was fueled by fears of radical Islamic terrorism. And the election results ratified those fears as justified, and encouraged hitherto silent bigotry to focus on apparent Muslims, and gave permission for the bigots to act openly on all their fears and hatreds.

The Brexit bigotry came to my attention as candidate Trump started winning Republican primaries, because his rally speeches stoked peoples' fears and encouraged them to translate those fears into hatred of everyone who wasn't, like them, a white Christian man. He berated women, Muslims, immigrants, and reporters, and hinted that anyone who was "other" was suspect.

I wrote about the similarity of the two campaigns back in July, because using fear and hatred to win votes is a very dangerous tactic. The hatred does not just go away after the election. In fact, after the American election we saw spikes in hate crimes, and the perpetrators often expressly claimed the election as their justification. "It's Trump's America now; go back where you came from!"

As a Jew, I'm particularly concerned about anti-Semitic hate crimes. Anti-Semitism has been a less explicit part of Trump's platform, but is deeply held by him and some of his closest advisors - the Judaism of his daughter and son-in-law notwithstanding. The spike in hate crimes includes burning mosques to the ground, spraying swastikas on and phoning bomb threats to Jewish buildings, and desecrating Jewish cemeteries. Trump's occasional mild words of rebuke have no effect in stopping these atrocities, since anyone can tell that he doesn't really mean them.

I have joined a campaign that was started in the post-Brexit U.K, wearing a safety pin on my jacket to show that I am a safe person to be around for people who belong to some targeted group. This campaign includes a training video made by a British woman of color, showing how to get between a harasser and his victim, to talk to the victim and find out her plans, and to escort her to a safe place while ignoring the harasser.

I really hope that i am never called upon to intervene in that way. Not just because I expect to make every possible mistake while learning this new skill. Also because I'm very uncomfortable around raised voices. I curl up around myself and wish to be elsewhere. But maybe, just maybe, having a specific duty to perform in this uncomfortable situation may help me focus beyond my own discomfort and actually help someone else. I sure hope so.