On Friday, before a friendly audience, Hillary Clinton made the following remark:
“To just be grossly generalist, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call ‘the basket of deplorables.’ Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.”
Clinton apologized the next day.
Before getting to the point of today’s post, allow me a few initial disclaimers, as this post is about far more than any current candidate…
First… please don’t use the above as an indictment against Clinton; we have all said inappropriate things. We are capable of saying more.
Next… please don’t use the above as support for Donald Trump; he, too (geesh), has said multiple inappropriate things. He is capable of saying more.
Lastly… please don’t perceive the above as an endorsement for any (note: there will be no forthcoming Intramuralist endorsements). Again, this is not about the candidates; this is about us and whether we truly desire unity more than division.
I’d like to take a stab at extending the call for unity, that so many seemed to embrace a mere two days ago. On the anniversary of 9/11, there was minimal focus on what divides us. Rather, there was the profound realization that even as evil attempted to destroy us fifteen years ago — and continues to attempt to pierce us today — the “united” is still in our states and the flag is still there.
So how do we keep it going? How do we make it last? How do we embrace unity more than feed division? As one thoughtful friend commented, “We can overcome the differences in our country if we only understood that we are stronger together”… if, we are united.
So let’s go out on a pretty big limb here and take that stab…
What if we all agreed to give up one thing?
Let me first provide a little logic… The aforementioned call-out of these extreme people out there, these “baskets of deplorables” — the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic people — is not solely one person’s assessment or belief; far more have chimed in on all sides of the equation. Let’s add the other oft-identified extremists… the Marxists and Communists… the feminists, meninists, and yes, even Leninists. Don’t forget the deniers of freedom or the growing Christianophobic. Forget not either the narcissistic; they can be pretty extreme, too.
The point is that while we all may agree that extreme groups exist, we may not all agree on who exactly is how extreme.
I thus have no intention of denying the existence of the above people groups. I also believe we should never quit interacting with and respectfully listening and learning from one another. I believe, though, there’s something bigger we could give up.
What if we each agreed that there is no such thing as a person who is deplorable?
What if we each gave up our so-called “basket”?
We each put different, perceived people groups into our self-crafted, extremist baskets. We allow ourselves to then justify that we are somehow better or wiser or far more righteous than entire groups of people… “they, of course, are the extreme ones.” We then write them off, effectively elevating self. We diss the legitimacy of those who think differently. They oppose and offend us — so we put them in our “basket.” We judge them by convincing ourselves that they are actually deplorable.
When people who do not think or act like we do, can we give up thinking the worst of them?
That’s not really the question; the question is whether we want more unity.
Respectfully…
AR