View from the North 40: When the going gets tough, get wordy

This has been a tough week, so to get through it I thought long and hard about what the people I know and respect do to cope with adversity: They play to their strengths — meditation, prayer, binge eating. So I turned to the only thing I have going for me, writing.

Sometimes you need that knife’s-edge state of mind to cut out that which is troubling you.

Specifically, the so-called alt-right rally of white nationalists, white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan members in Charlottesville, Virginia, is troubling me.

So much angry hate, one woman, Heather Heyer, died and 19 people were injured when a neo-Nazi protester drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, and another man was beaten by six of the alt-righters.

Also, this did nothing toward unifying America. Just saying.

To be clear, I believe in the protesters’ absolute right to hold lawful torch-lit, assault-gear-wearing racist rallies to try to bring people to their cause. Nothing says we’re looking for sympathy and understanding quite like a group of angry men wielding deeply personal insults, weapons, their own protective detail, and symbols of oppression and the torture and death of millions of people.

I do fault the alt-right on one detail — their choice of Tiki torches.

Let’s just say, those cute little smokey flames are inconsistent with the image set forth by their forebears whose blazing torches had the look of “We got us so many clubs and beatin’ sticks, we just gonna set some afire so we can see our way to the circle of our sheet-headed brothers.”

On the plus side, that neighborhood will be ethnically cleansed of mosquitoes for a full month.

I believe in their right to speak their hate-filled message in public because history tells us that if we shut them up, then anybody can be shut up. Any race, creed, gender, age of people can be silenced according to the will of whoever is in power. That is why the Constitution in the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech.

Frankly, I think it’s the counter-protesters who need the help, a little guidance, some wisdom if you will.

White nationalist Christopher Cantwell, who helped organize the rally, said in an interview with Vice News that the protesters went into the rally with the plan to incite others to strike first, but not engage counter-protesters.

In their high-stakes game of “I’m not touching you,” they drew the mob of live-and-let-livers armed with love, compassion, outrage and a few cans of mace into taking the bait.

Things got ugly.

In the future, when faced with that display of aggression, my recommendation is to take a hint from the folks countering Westboro Baptist Church members’ protests at military funerals and that memorial for the people who died in the Orlando, Florida nightclub fire: Don’t engage, just physically block them without engaging them.

In Orlando a theater group made towering costumes of angel wings to block the view of the protesters. At the military funerals, mobs of people have lined the streets holding signs with messages of encouragement. One group of veterans came on motorcycles and made a wall of people and American flags while drowning out the church members’ voices with the sound of revving engines. It was awesome.

Take a hint from college students and buskers around the nation: When faced with someone spewing hate speech, get some folks together to sing louder. You don’t have to sing “Kumbaya.” Anything that plays on karaoke night will do just fine.

My personal favorite is the kid who drowned out a guy’s hate speech by playing his bagpipes — a formidable weapon even in the hands of one skinny little nerd.

But the passive fight doesn’t have to stop there.

Let the protesters keep their statues — there is a valid argument that the statues depict a part of history — but put up statues of Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Sitting Bull and any number of other “alt-heroes” right next to them.

While I’m on a roll here, to those folks who are arguing over the Ten Commandments at government buildings, I say fine don’t take them down, just let everyone put up their religious passages, including Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans and followers of Odin or any of the other approximately 3,000 religions in the world. Government is open to religion or it’s not.

It’s for everyone or no one. Take your choice.

Much the same can be said about our Constitution and the rights of our citizens.

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That’s all I have to say about that box of chocolates, for now anyway, at [email protected].