Red Hats, White Hoods, Swastikas, Yard Signs

Bigotry has always done its greatest damage in the shadows, below the surface, and beneath a disguise.

It actually helps you when it shows itself: when it brazenly parades uncovered through your streets, when it announces itself in unapologetic social media rants; when it crowns itself in crimson and joyfully spews forth venom, when it adorns its lawn with the names of tyrants.

Our nation's hatred used to hide behind white hoods, peering through tiny scissor-cut eye holes, obscuring its identity, and that made it difficult to identify and a challenge to confront. It stayed below the radar, cleverly concealing itself in decorum and civility and pretending, giving it access to people and places it should never have had.

You always knew it was in the neighborhood but you weren't sure of its actual address, you didn't know just how close to home it really was, you weren't aware it was sitting across the table from you.

That’s no longer the case here. It’s all out in the open.

Right now there is a rising disbelief for many of us, as we come to realize the proximity we all have to things we’d much rather get safe distance from. It's easy to grieve the days we find ourselves in: to see such visible evidence of how much hatred human hearts around us are still capable of manufacturing toward other human beings because of their pigmentation, orientation, religion, nation of origin. And yes, it is a near fatal blow to the working heart to discover that people we love and respected and considered among those who were essentially decent human beings—have steadfastly embraced something so repugnant.

But this clarity is actually a gift: we know what we're dealing with here.

Things are getting easier now that shame has become obsolete in America. There is no mistaking who we are and how deep this sickness runs in us; how close and how prevalent and how emboldened the bigots are; how committed to a movement of grievance and privilege so many remain. The bullies now have a savior and their religious fervor is stratospheric and undying as they attempt to usher in his second coming.

And this person didn’t create prejudice, he simply uncovered it, invited it out into the light and gave it permission to publicly celebrate itself. He's encouraged it to plaster its enmity on campaign posters, to wear its contempt for its neighbor on its sleeve in partisan talk show monologues, to trumpet itself in verbal assaults on strangers, to pound its fist on vicious bully pulpits, to glory in its violence in midday Confederate flag/Nazi processions; to stick it in the ground in front of their homes, defining the hill they will allow their decency to die on.

We have white supremacists in Congress and running for GOP office—not covered in sheets, but willingly showing their faces and brandishing vitriol unapologetically, all because they have a former president’s seal of approval. And they are hoping he will be president again, to legislate their prejudices for all of us.

And yes, it's all fully sickening to those of us who can't comprehend how such fear can take root in people—but it's helpful to us, too. We have no more illusions about our shared coexistence or about the progress we thought we'd made as a nation or about the need to actively resist what has now been revealed.

It has been a glorious site in recent weeks, watching the massive, disparate army of lovers and healers and believers stepping into the streets and arenas and to their social media profiles to reveal themselves, too. Once apolitical people have decided that staying silent in the shadows will no longer do. They too, have decided to be fully seen in opposition: wearing love for their neighbors on their chests and hope for the future on their front lawns and dignity for all people on their social media feeds.

They too, have made a clear and visible statement that we are not going backwards, that this country refuses to relinquish our future, that interdependence is the only path forward.

We need more of this, America and we need it now.

We need it in our politics and in our churches and in our neighborhoods and on our social media platforms. We need it at the polls.

We who believe in the inherent worth of all people need to stop apologizing for our convictions, stop cowering in fear of those who emulate their mobster messiah, and stop being shouted down by those who'd like to make the table much smaller.

In days when bigotry takes pride in itself, we who believe America's beauty is in its diversity need to find our outside voices, steady our feet, and stand together with equal though differently directed ferocity.

We need to be loud about something worth being loud about.

As sad as it is to see it all: the malice, the boldness, the blind hatred, seeing it all makes it easier to oppose it all.

The supremacists and the nationalists and the Nazis and the bigots have decided they aren't ashamed anymore.

This is the best news for the rest of us.

We can easily find them and we can remind them that we will not consent to the demolition of this place.

Be seen, good people. Be heard.

Be counted.