(no subject)

[dolari]

When I was a kid in the late 70s, I remember seeing a special about a missing child. A biker club found the child after her mother went into the club and asked to put up a missing poster. When asked how she found the courage to go in there and ask to put up the poster, she responded "Everyone has a mama."

That and my dad's teaching to help anyone in need really stuck with me. If someone looks like they're in trouble, I'll stop and offer help. No matter who.

It's only bit me once. I drove some folks a town I was heading into, who eventually told me they only wanted to be dropped off at a liquor store and suggested mid-drive "I'll drive you there, you don't know where it is." I dropped them off, they didn't get to drive my car, and I drove away from it wondering if I needed to be more discerning about who needed help.

I also usually thought the opposite would be true. A lot of my cross country trips were done with the mindset of "if I get into a jam, people will do the right thing no matter who or what they are."

And that worked out when this brown trans woman's car broke down in Very Red Rural Trump Signs Everywhere Oregon. The locals all pointed me to the local car dealership (the only place with a garage) and just before closing time, the owner helped me get my insurance in order, got me a tow to the nearest foreign service garage and the tow truck driver even helped with my baggage at the hotel.

That was 2018. After 2020, I don't have that faith anymore.
I've watched those people believe the lies that are turning them into (or allowing them to finally show that they're) scary white supremacists and insurrectionists. I've experienced very little of that, so I'm not sure how much of that is media induced (I like to think I'm a good judge of media, AND get what I can from multiple sources) - but I HAVE definitely experienced it here in my town.

Having to boycott a store for carrying an anti-Semitic newspaper (they stopped), being menaced at the covenenience store when two people tried to use their cars box me in. Trump trucks tailgating me trying to intimidate me. Watching a huge Trump bannered counter-protest to a celebration of the post office (not sure why they we're celebrating a post office, but it IS a very small town).

With covid lifting, I'm thinking of the Oregon Trail trip again. Just spent some time mapping the trip to Independence, MO, and it goes through very red areas. Areas I felt at least I would be safe in should something happen. Now...not so much.

I don't know if it's me, or if it's everyone else. But something has changed.

Comments

[xyzzysqrl]

I started three replies to this, each one along the lines of "you can have faith in people and not want to test that faith", but deleted all of them because they're wrong. That's the wrong angle.

You can have faith in people -but others will not share it-, I think is closer. If you're dehumanized, if you're a target, if you're "not them"... that's a death sentence now.

You can have faith in people but it's better not to.

I don't know. It's terrifying. I don't get out much nowadays.

...can you draw some very sharp and specifically avoidant turns on your map?

[dolari]

One of my friends put it very succinctly: "It's not you. What's changed is now we're a target. Not just a spectacle moving through. We're labeled a threat and deserving of violence by mere presence."

[xyzzysqrl]

That's a much better summary than my thing.

[mtbc]

It's so disappointing that you don't feel safe and that you have reason not to. It's such a shame and, of course, such regressions in society are quite a warning.