Monthly Archives: July 2019

At first I thought that what I was hearing was the sounds of drums in the distance.

“Great,” I thought to myself. “Here comes the drum circle.” I looked down the road, waiting to see the obligatory group of blond men with dreadlocks strolling along barefoot, drums in hand.

But all I saw was more people who were closer in appearance to me—a middle-aged lady in sensible shoes—then the cliched image we often (myself included) picture at these kind of events. You know who I’m talking about: the ones who look like they came directly from Woodstock via an Occupy protest. The left Left.

But I didn’t see anyone like that. I did see clergy, and lay people, and grandmothers (one who had brought her teenage grandson), and elected Arizona representatives. But no drums. So where was the drumming coming from?

And that’s when I realized it wasn’t drumming I was hearing off in the distance. It was pounding. It was the desperate, continuous beating of bare hands against plexiglass windows, and it was coming from the detention center we all stood outside, the one where they only held women and children, the one we weren’t allowed to be closer to than a football field away, because this was “private property,” which meant that while this prison belonged to someone it didn’t belong to the people who were paying for it, the Americans who were standing outside in the dark holding our tiny candles aloft, listening to the same sounds that are heard coming from the rubble of a collapsed building, from behind the wall of rocks in a mining disaster. The sounds that say, universally, “I am here. Save me.”

We stood there for two hours.

The pounding never stopped.

Or maybe it did, after we left. After the lights of our candles had gone out and we had all solemnly walked away, back to our homes and our comfortable beds, and, most importantly of all, back to our families.

Of the many speakers we heard from at the Eloy vigil, the one I can’t seem to get out of my head was the woman named Suzanne who told the story of her grandmother, an American citizen of Japanese descent who, while confined in an American internment camp on American soil during World War II gave birth to premature twins. “We only have one incubator,” the doctors told her. “Pick.” And she did. Which is why Suzanne grew up with one uncle, instead of two.

“That is terrible,” I thought to myself.

“This is terrible,” my Self replied.

Whatever your thoughts on immigration are, both legal and otherwise, I find it difficult to believe that you can support the mass internment of immigrants in over-crowded, abusive conditions. And before you reply with the assertion that the conditions are, in fact, “completely adequate,” think back to that pounding. People held in “adequate” conditions Do. Not. Do. That. And people who still have some compassion left do not imply that they would.

As I walked away that night I found myself actually wishing that there had been a drum circle after all—and not just because it would have been better to hear that than the chaotic pounding. But because even though I may mock the drum circle, I get that it can represent community in a deeply primal way that nothing else can. It is, at its best, the sound of all of our hearts beating together as one. It is the sound of the humanity in me joining in with the humanity in you.

And that is a sound I think we could all stand to hear a little bit more of right about now.

If there is one unifying lesson that we can all take away from the last two and a half years, it would have to be this: words matter.

In so many ways.

Whether it’s the difference between a detention center and a concentration camp, or the irony of how the people who say, “I like him because he says what he means” often turn out later to be the same ones who say, “That wasn’t what he really meant,” or even how fitting it is when the same people who used the power of their words to get accepted into Harvard (or other elite schools) become dismayed (and litigious) when their acceptance from Harvard is rescinded after they are caught out using the n-word, this is truly the year(s) of the word(s). And, as such, I feel that it only right that we start any discussion of the power of words with the first word many of us ever really learn: our own names. Which means I’m going to talk about addressing people as they wish to be addressed.

That’s it. Just…call people by their names. This includes using their chosen name, title, and, yes, pronoun, even when—especially when—you yourself don’t “see what all of the fuss is about.” Trust me, if the situation were reversed you would absolutely see what all of the fuss was about.

This, truly, is one of those “things I learned in kindergarten” situations; remember, when your teacher wrote their name on the board and then sounded it out so you would know how to pronounce it? Remember how you argued with them about what you thought their name or title should be, and how you churlishly refused to call them by their name or title all year long? No? You don’t? I guess that’s because you had more sense in kindergarten than you do now.

In America (and I’m assuming a lot of other places as well), the history of refusing to call people by their names is long and dark. I’m sure that there is many a grandfather alive today who can still feel the humiliation of being called “boy,” just as there are surely plenty of grandmothers who have painful memories of “girl.” (Or the even more wretched “girlie.”)

Look, everyone can make a mistake when it comes to addressing someone. Whether it is accidentally calling the long-haired gentleman in line in front of you “Ma’am,” or calling someone you just met “Steven” instead of “Steve,” mistakes happen. What matters is how you react after you have learned of your mistake.

Again, just like we learned in kindergarten, the correct thing to do is apologize and move on. The absolutely incorrect thing to do is argue about it.

Can you imagine meeting someone named Kristen and then telling them that, actually, their name is Kirsten? If you can’t, (and I hope that you can’t), then how could you imagine telling someone that, actually, they are a she?

The ironic thing is that I started this column because I was annoyed at being called “young lady” by a man half my age even after I specifically asked him to stop. It was only on reflection that I realized that what was a twice weekly occurrence for me was a daily affliction for some.

There is power in a name. Figuring out who we are, and how that enters into our relationships with other people is a huge milestone in the development of a human brain. To take that away from someone is psychologically devastating—the first thing the torturer takes from their victim is their name.

The bottom line is that it is not just “politically correct” to refer to people in the manner in which they ask to be addressed. To call them by their names. It is just normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill human decency. And, if this many years past kindergarten, someone has trouble accepting that concept, then maybe we should take away their name as well.

Because I’m sure that we can all think of a few other names we can call them in the meantime.