An Ounce of Compassion
It started with a post from a woman who took her young daughter to deliver supplies to badly damaged neighborhoods in Cedar Rapids following Monday's devastating storm that hit Iowa. The woman posted on social media about how her car was attacked and people were grabbing supplies. She and her daughter were both frightened by the actions and aggressive behavior of the reisdents. The post comments quickly turned into a racist rant about the "animals" who attacked her car and frightened her daughter.
I wasn't there. I'm certain it was terrifying for the child. However, well-meaning people need to understand something when they step out of their protected, often privileged bubble. There are people hurting. Not just from the storm destruction, lack of electricity, and food. There could be years or generations of trauma that most of us will never understand.
I was reminded of the comments by people about immigrants coming across the border from Mexico and parts of South America. Comments that criticized parents for bringing young children thousands of miles on foot. The people commenting will never know what it is like to live day to day not knowing if you or your family will survive. Parents had to make the decision to stay where they knew the dangers, or make a dangerous trek that would hopefully get their children to a safer land with more opportunities.
Many of the families impacted in Cedar Rapids by the storm are refugees. They came to the US and to Iowa from war torn countries. They escaped violence, rape, genocide, starvation, and other atrocities that you or I could never imagine. They're traumatized. They have PTSD. They've had to fight for the little they have. They may not respond in the kind, gracious way you expect people to respond when you help them. They may grab and be aggressive because that is how they've had to be to get to where they are today and survive.
This doesn't just apply to refugees. Many Americans, including people in our very own communities live in extreme poverty. Generational poverty that is emotionally crippling. Violence from their own family or community that results in mental and emotional trauma. No opportunities to escape the poverty or violence. Those who say they're Americans and can pull themselves out of it, don't understand the mental trauma and the work that goes into overcoming the odds. They don't understand the institutional racism in America that allows this trauma to continue.
Although only 3.1 percent of Iowa's population is African-American, 25.8 percent of the state's prison inmates are Black, according to 2014 statistics in The Sentencing Project's study. This isn't because "Blacks are committing more crimes". Black people, particularly Black men, are targeted more by police. Black and Brown neighborhoods are more patrolled by police. Police calls to Black and Brown neighborhoods result more often in arrests than white neighborhoods.
I recall a conversation that I had with a Black male physician when I worked for a local hospital. He would drive back to Illinois every couple of weeks to check on his elderly parents. He drove a very nice sports car, as many physicians I know do. If he decided to take the state highway through Iowa instead of the interstate, he would get pulled over every time. He wasn't speeding. He didn't have a headlight or taillight out. He was mostly told by the officers they were doing random stops. It was clear to him they were stopping him because he was a Black man in an expensive car headed towards Chicago. He must be a drug dealer. I can't imagine what that does to a person's psyche after awhile. Pulled over for DWB...Driving while Black.
As a white woman, I can't understand what any of this is like. I have been poor. Even now, I wouldn't be considered upper-middle class and definitely not in the high class. I know what it's like when you don't have $5 to give your kid for a school activity. I do know the humility of being on food stamps and pulling the book out to pay for groceries with my young daughter standing beside me, while cashiers and shoppers behind me looked at me with judgement in their eyes. I know the embarrassment of paying at the store with my debit card, only to be told I have insufficient funds in my account. I worked my ass off to come out of that and get to where I am now. It doesn't mean everyone else can do the same.
A year or two after September 11th, I had a personal training client who was from Pakistan. He was an engineer at Rockwell-Collins. He had worked hard to meet his parent's expectations. They wanted him to be a doctor, but he came to the US and studied to be an engineer. We were talking about what happened on September 11th. His words have always stuck with me. I think he influenced my way of thinking more than he will ever know. He said, 'I know it was traumatic for the US and I'm not belittling the loss of lives. However, I come from a country and a part of the world that experiences bombings frequently. Many people have died. Sometimes we would think oh, another bombing in Pakistan. Your entire country shut down. We often just go to work and school."
I don't know what oppression is. I don't know what living in or fleeing a country or a city in fear of my life or the life of my child is like. I don't know what it's like to be racially profiled. I don't know what it's like to be told, "you're in America, speak English". I don't know what it's like to have parents who were told they can't drink out of a water fountain, or eat in a restaurant because of the color of their skin. My father didn't come back from fighting for his country in WWII to be told he couldn't live in certain neighborhoods. I don't know what it's like to come from 400 years of slavery.
However, I can have compassion. I can have empathy for the trauma people have gone through, or go through every day. I can stop and think about other's experiences which are different than mine, and in turn affects their reactions or behaviors. The lack of compassion in this country sometimes makes me cry. Since the storm hit Iowa a week ago today, I've witnessed amazing acts of compassion. From city leaders, to individuals, to my own neighborhood. We have stepped up and taken care of each other when state and national leaders continue to fail us. There are always going to be the ignorant, selfish people who don't want to understand. They generalize and stereotype people they don't know and won't bother trying to know. We are better than that. Iowa is better than that. This country is better than that.
Have an ounce of compassion.