When "They" Become the Enemy, America Always Loses.

“You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” --John Steinbeck

They. They should just go back to where they came from.

They. As in “the other”. They: as in the stranger. They: because when I look at them, I see that they are different than me. They have a different skin color or come from a different country or speak a different language or worship God in a different way or in no way, or love differently than I do or claim a different heritage.

Thus, when I consider them, encounter them: because I am unable or unwilling to see “me” in them or they in me: well, why should I care about them or respect them or listen to them or honor them or accept them?

After all, they are just a “they”, right?

When “they” is used in this way, as our Tweeter in chief recently did, in criticizing four Congresswomen and people of color, one of whom is an immigrant: he was using that most ancient and time tested of methods necessary to hate or hurt or dismiss or dehumanize another, especially one deemed as the enemy.

Just call them “they”.

Because then the person is no longer a real flesh and blood human being or a fellow American or a neighbor or even child of God. No: instead “they” are now just an “it”, an object, not a subject; a stereotype not an individual, a mere thing, and when you think of someone else as a thing, it becomes very easy to attack them or even to chant as a crowd: “Send her back! Send her back!”

By an odd coincidence, I’ve been staying in the Twin Cities for the past month, and have attended numerous Little League baseball games in the city of Saint Louis Park, Minnesota, the home district of the representative who’s been attacked the most for her political views and her ethnicity, and especially for the fact that she came to the United States from somewhere else.

So, as I’ve sat in my folding chair, in the hot July sun, munched on a hot dog, and cheered for my Goddaughter BJ, as her all-star team tried to advance in the state tournament, I’ve also been looking around at my fellow fans and parents and neighbors.  At the older folks who live in a senior housing complex high rise building that sits next to Skippy Field, as the diamond is called, named after a peanut butter factory that once stood here.

I’ve been looking for the “theys”.

Because if “they” are anywhere, they must be here, right? They must all live in this seemingly radical, perhaps even un-American part of our country. I mean why else would they pick such a person to represent them in Congress?  This outsider? This agitator? This “other”.

But I must report I failed in my civic detective work. I found no “theys” here. Instead I’ve met just real people, like me, like you. Fellow Americans. Folks who have just as much of a right to be here as I do, as any of us as Americans do. People who love their country and love it so much, that they sometimes criticize it, in the hope of making it a better place for all.

The transplanted Dad from Boston who cheers on his son as that kid plays second base and we both lament about the sad sack Red Sox. The women in the bleachers who works in a nearby factory, is in between shifts and rushed over to see the game. The police officer who leans against the fence, takes a break from her rounds to watch the oldest of games. The senior citizen who leans on his walker and cheers at the top of his lungs for her grandson. The nurse, who works at a nearby clinic and never misses her daughter’s games.  The coach at third base, who sports a Twins T-shirt and an earring and waves the runner home.

Not a “they” in sight. Just us. Just “we”.  Just me and thee and thee and thee. 

Baseball fans.  Hardworking parents and umpires that sometimes get the call wrong and babies in strollers and tweens riding around on bicycles and families in the playground next to the field. Not an angry chant or a hateful tweet in sight.

As I look over the field on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I see a flagpole keeping watch over us all, the red and white stripes, a field of blue, and fifty stars, flapping in the gentle breeze. And then I say a quiet prayer of thanks to God: that this flag flies, not for just me or for you: it flies for all of us.

And “they”? That’s me. That's you. 

That's a good thing to remember in these strange and perilous times.