Activism – Tipsy Typer

Burned Plants and Buckled Asphalt (When Climate Change Comes Calling)

I’ve spent my entire life in the pacific northwest, and I’ve always felt pretty damn lucky to call this beautiful place home. Snow covered peaks, lush forests, beautiful coastline, and a few volcanoes to keep things spicy. It’s a beautiful place to live, assuming you can handle cloudy days and 7 feet of annual rainfall.

But it seems that every year things are getting a little bit stranger. The term ‘unprecedented’ has been uttered by my local weatherman more times than I care to count. In February we had a surprise snowstorm that brought feet of the fluffy white stuff down to the valley floor. I can probably found on one hand the number of times that has happened in my 32 years here. My dad, who lives up in the mountains wound up with drifts against the side of his house that were taller than him. Workplaces closed early, Judges cancelled their own hearings when the county refused to shut the courthouse down because they were worried about their staff making it home that night. Anyone in the midwest might be rolling their eyes (as many transplants who live here do when the flurries start coming). But the key takeaway here is that this type of weather isn’t common for us. We don’t drive well in the snow because we don’t have to. Our road crews can’t keep up with the maintenance because it’s not something they generally need to practice on a large scale. Which means when one of these storms hit, things get complicated.

Fast forward four months and we are sitting in the middle of a heat wave that smashed records held for 80 years. Last week we slammed through the record high temperatures all across this swath of land. Broke it on Saturday, then again on Sunday, and once more on Monday for good measure. The previous record for my little home was previously at 106°F, and on Monday we climbed up to about 116°F- which still wasn’t even the hottest in the area. Some areas were spiking a good 5-10 degrees above that.

Now, the thing to remember: different areas are built for different climates. Not every road is created the same because what Texas needs to withstand the heat isn’t the same thing that the Midwest needs to survive the cold, or what the pacific northwest needs to muddle through the rain. The composition of the roads themselves are created with different variables in mind. The infrastructure of the pacific northwest was not built for what it endured last week.

The sidings on homes and apartments began to warp. Asphalt buckled. Most homes in this area don’t come equipped with AC units because they’re usually not needed, so cooling centers were opened. Those who were lucky enough to have a new home with AC had to deal with them bogging down and failing, unaccustomed to the amount of strain. Some areas lost power, though luckily it was only a small percentage. Plants were scorched, shriveled and died. Some areas were put on water alerts and asked to only use it when deemed absolutely necessary until the supply could be replenished. The Department of Transportation issued alerts for people to remain home if possible because the roads were suddenly unsafe. Days later Oregon announced that 76 people in their state had heat-related deaths attributed to the heat wave. Rolling into the Fourth of July weekend, fireworks have been banned due to unsafe fire conditions.

The fact that these events are happening is really just par for the course when dealing with mother nature. The true issue here is the frequency with which they are happening. This by itself is alarming. And it doesn’t matter how many times people say ‘global warming is just a theory’- that’s all well and good, but if you want to get technical, gravity is also ‘just a theory.’ There is a lot of research and peer review that goes into the making of new theories, and it’s probably about time we start listening to the experts. Otherwise, these one-off events will become the norm. This beautiful place I call home will become a scorched little crisp of land.

According to Climate.gov, in 2019 alone the the US experienced 14 separate weather disasters that cost roughly a billion dollars each. Every winter we set new global records for ‘the hottest winter on record.’ The summer of 2020 brought droughts to the west coast that led to mass fires and hazardous air quality that hurt the lungs and made driving conditions treacherous because of poor visibility. Sadly, this is becoming the norm in my part of the world. In 2017 a wildfire jumped the gorge and threatened my childhood home. I had to drive out to my dad’s house to help him pack up the things we wanted to save, and beg him to evacuate along with his neighbors. Ash rained down from the sky. You went into a store and came out with a layer on your car. We aren’t alone in this either.

In February 2021 winter storm resulted in blackouts for over 9.9 million people in the US and Mexico, to include the Texas power crisis. The storm spurred several tornadoes. The death toll rose to at least 176. That same storm set records for snowfall in many other areas, to include larger cities like Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, and Boise, ID. Blizzard warnings were issues in Albuquerque, NM. At the end of March torrential spring rains caused flash flooding in Nashville. A study that month also concluded that the intensity of tropical cyclones were increasing, likely caused by climate change. In May Louisiana was hit with flash floods after a foot of rainfall fell within 24 hours; this is while the area was still recovering from two hurricanes that hit last summer. These are just a few US highlights from the past 6 months.

So the real question we must start asking ourselves isn’t “What will happen next,” because rest assured, it will be more of the same. More summers set ablaze, more roads cracking from the heat, more winters blanketed in ice and rolling blackouts. None of this will get better on it’s own. The real question is “What do we do next?” When it seems that the powers-that-be get hopelessly bogged down in the politics of it, what do we do? What can we change when the problem feels far too large for us? It starts right here, will small choices and little steps. It gains momentum, it forces itself into the light. Because if this world burns, we burn with it.

Toppled Statues: US and Germany, side by side (why true history matters)

I came across a post the other day that said, “Over 1.1 million people were murdered in Auschwitz and it still stands 72 years later. Why? Because Jews who survived wanted it preserved, as it is a reminder to never let the evil that was Nazism ever happen again. Never tear down memorials!” This seems to be a common refrain and comparison in the debate on Confederate statues that have taken up residence in the US. Those who wish to keep these monuments in place state that tearing down these statues is a revisionist attempt to erase an entire period of our history. Now, I have a few issues with this argument, and I think it’s important to dissect these sentiments if we are ever going to get to the heart of the issue. For starters: there is a distinct line between keeping historical sites that intend to educate people about our history, and keeping a memorial statue that glorifies a group that shouldn’t be glorified.

Comparisons to Germany

I’m going to start here with comparisons to Germany because- well, it’s pretty quick. What the author of the quote above fails to mention is that Germany did not maintain Nazi memorials after the war. Granted, there are many sites and museums dedicated to the Holocaust and the atrocities that took place on their lands, and Auschwitz does still stand as a vocal reminder of what humans are capable of. But the intent of these sites is the key difference: they disavow Nazism and are brutally honest about the horrendous things this regime did. A Confederate statue in a community park does not bear witness to the pain and atrocities of slavery or the systems that they created to marginalize an entire group of people for generations to come.

Whenever a regime is toppled, they generally don’t get to decide if the memorials they erected get to stand- often they don’t. This is a common refrain throughout history. In Germany libraries were immediately stripped of all Nazi books, newspapers that touted Nazi propaganda were shuttered. Statues and monuments were systematically destroyed by the government. You will not find a statue of Hitler existing in Germany today because any form of Nazi memorial that venerated or glorified the war or Nazi ideals was banned and criminalized. Some structures (admittedly, not all) were razed to the ground; and in a few instances, museums were erected in their place. In 1949 the display of the swastika was criminalized and the symbol was scraped, and occasionally blown off of buildings with explosives.

The German people themselves were not immune to the dismantling of the Nazi party and the way it’s ideals were ripped out at the roots. Participants in Nazi activities were prosecuted, and executed in some instances. Many of those who were executed were buried in mass unmarked graves to ensure that their final resting places would not become Nazi shrines. It was crucial to Germany as a whole that the ideals of the Nazi party were disavowed to ensure that the horrors of the holocaust would not happen again. This idea even went a step farther and major Nazi strongholds that held the risk of being used as glorified monuments were intentionally tainted with anti-war activities. For example, Nuremberg was considered to be at the heart of Nazism, it was the location where anti-Jewish laws were enacted and the major rallies took place. The famous photos of Hitler talking to large swaths of Nazi soldiers were taken here- it was an iconic location deeply tied to the Nazi movement. To ensure that this location didn’t become a beacon for any simmering Nazi ideals, it was specifically chosen by the Allies to hold the post-war trials of the Nazi leaders.

Now, this didn’t mean that the ideas planted by the Nazi party didn’t survive into future generations. It took decades for the German population to fully recognize their role in the war and come to terms with the atrocities inflicted upon others. It was a long process before this portion of their history was ever even taught in school. But eventually, that happened. And if you look at Germany today, you will see a nonmilitary state that has attempted to atone for their crimes and be a warning to others. Now, this piece right here is going to come into play later. But first, I think it’s important for us to dive into the actual history of the confederate monuments in order to make a full circle.

The History of Confederate Memorials

What most people don’t seem to fully realize is that most of the Confederate Statues existing in the United States today were not created until after the confederacy fell. That’s right, they didn’t even belong to the time period that many are ‘trying to protect.’ To be fair: there were a few ‘original’ monuments that were erected during, or immediately after, the war. However, those were almost exclusively memorials commemorating lost soldiers and were placed in the graveyards where they were buried.

Most of the statues existing today are of a different nature. They were erected in direct response to an uptick in civil rights activity, and they primarily focused on glorifying Confederate leaders and the role of southern participants. They were not built strictly within the confines of the 11 states that attempted to secede from the union; in fact, they can be easily located in 31 different states, as well as the District of Columbia. Now, the point that I really want to drive home is the timing that these statues were erected, because I find that to be particularly telling when we get to the issue of intent and context. If you look at the list of monuments and the dates they were established, you will see two large spikes along the timeline, and both of them have a very similar thread running through them.

The first spike in statues and memorials came about around the turn of the 20th century when two things were happening simultaneously. First, there was a political push to rebrand southern states as noble patriots, and not as “rebels,” which was the preferred moniker during the war. The rebranding was an attempt to recreate the narrative (a revisionist narrative, you may ponder); to reclassify southern men as innocents who were simply intent on protecting their culture and livelihood against the overwhelming military might of the north. This was actually a pretty successful push, which is evident in the fact that somehow confederate flags are considered patriotic, even though they actively fought to separate themselves from the red, white and blue.

The second thing that happened during this time period, which is by far the overriding event: there was a noticeable upswing in civil rights activity related to the Jim Crow Laws established after the war. This was a period marked by resistance, with activists such as Ida B. Wells, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Isaiah Montgomery, to name a few. An increase in violence and murder of the black community led to a responsive increase in race riots, to include the ‘red summer’ of 1919. I don’t find it coincidental that this increase in racial strife coincided with an uptick in confederate monuments put on display in public areas, such as city centers and parks. To me personally, this seems to be a pretty overt way of sending a message, of displaying a moral and social ideal.

The second spike in confederate monuments happened during the mid 1950s and 1960s. That’s right: at the height of the civil rights movement itself. This was the time of Rosa Parks, the Little Rock Nine, Woolworth’s lunch counter, the freedom riders, MLK, Malcolm X, the march on Washington, Bloody Sunday; and the key legal battles of Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act and more. The increase in Confederate monuments appears to be in direct response to the civil rights movement itself, and a not-so-subtle push towards the idea of white supremacy at a time when that group felt as though they were losing political ground. The creation of these statues was not made with southern pride at it’s heart, it was a direct and racist response to a society that was attempting to push forward.

Why it Matters

The context and intent of these monuments matters. The point of view and ideals that they portray are extremely important. In Germany you will find monuments that have been dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust, not the perpetrators. In fact, the German government has been extremely careful to ensure that Nazi sites don’t “call to” the wrong people. There was major concern when the bunker Hitler committed suicide in was uncovered. The fear was that this site would be used as a shrine of sorts for those still following the Nazi ideology. There were attempts made to destroy the bunker, though it proved pretty sturdy. What remains of it was sealed, and an intentionally low-key informational board was placed nearby; although there was much debate on even giving it that much attention. The site is currently used as a parking lot. The German government and population made specific decision to ensure that those who inflicted pain on others would not be glorified in the eyes of future generations.

The fact that many of the Confederate monuments were raised years after the war, coinciding with key moments in the civil rights movement: that matters. In a country that has struggled with overt, insidious, and systemic racism for it’s entire existence, having these statues on our soil and displayed prominently in public areas: that matters. Taking down the monuments isn’t about revising history, it is about acknowledging the full depth and breadth of what happened here: just like Germany had to do. It is about proving what our true ideals and intentions are. Can you imagine the outcry if Germany had waited a few decades after the war and then raised Nazi statutes, claiming it was about honoring their history and showing German Pride? Can you imagine car races taking place where the Nazi flag with it’s notorious swastika were prominently displayed next to the country’s flag, and it was characterized as ‘pride?’ How exactly would the German Jewish population feel? Don’t you think their thoughts and feelings on the issue should be taken into account? How is this any different?

We tend to have a bad habit of ignoring the pieces of our own past that we do not want to accept. We ignore the stories of those we oppressed as a nation, we don’t educate or provide prominent monuments for the Native Americans that were displaced and killed, or the Japanese citizens who were placed in internment camps, or the countless souls who were brought here in chains by those in power. You cannot venerate the perpetrators of violence and still try to tell their victims that you still care about them and their role within our mutual society.

Once again, like Germany, there is a change of mentality that is required here. It took decades for some of the German population to disavow the ideals set fourth by the Nazi party. It took an entirely new generation coming of age to begin asking the difficult questions and coming to terms with their role in a part of history that they wish didn’t happen. Even after the statues and swastikas were removed, there was still a battle of ideals that had to take place. Just removing the Confederate monuments will not end racism. But what it does is prove that dedicated steps are being taken to reach that goal. It proves that we, as a society, want to do better. It proves that we recognize the harm inflicted over the course of our history.

Removing icons won’t fix the flaws in our society. But it will provide space for new stories that deserve to be told and other parts of our history that deserve time in the light. Being dishonest with ourselves about the intent and purpose of these monuments only compounds the harm that they can cause. It’s time for us to finally face our role within our own history and vow to do better.

The Voices of the Unheard

Eric Garner, Samuel Dubose, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Terrance Crutcher, George Floyd. We whisper their names like a rosary, like a mantra, like a prayer. We scream them like a war cry as we raise our fists to the sky. These are just a few: just drops in a rainstorm. So many have gone uncounted, unknown, unrecognized for what they endured. Repeat their names over and over again until society has no choice but to listen, until they stand up in solidarity and shout back into the void “No more names, no more death, I can’t breath.”

I have struggled with writing this post: not because I am afraid to speak out for what I believe in, but because I believe my role in all of this is to be a tool, a megaphone to amplify the voices that need to be heard far more than mine does. But on that note, silence can be dangerous and disingenuous. So I stand in solidarity and attempt to allow enough space for those who need to speak safely and freely.

Perhaps I’m being naive, but this moment feels different than the ones that preceded it. The spark is catching and those who once looked away can’t take their eyes off the flames. The focus is finally shifting from ‘thoughts and prayers’ to action and debate. It is solid and unmoving as the crowds hold out their phones and show us what this fight is all about.

I keep hearing people say, “What happened is awful, but that’s no reason to go around destroying things. They should be peaceful.” I’ve heard it so many times, in fact, that it feel vitally important to address right off the top.

You cannot condemn the riots without recognizing your role in their creation. Martin Luther King once said that the riot is the language of the unheard. Attempts were made at peaceful: they didn’t work. Colin Kaepernick took a knee for the cause. He and many like him were ridiculed, threatened, and their careers were destroyed. His message was hijacked and twisted to be about the military and patriotism. His platform was ripped out from under him, and his voice was silenced by the crowd that didn’t want to hear his truth. No one wanted to listen, it was simpler to divert away from the real issue and pretend it was about something else. It was easier to cling to outrage over a nonexistent problem instead of addressing the inherent racism in our collective system. If we had heard his words then, maybe things wouldn’t be like this now.

When a person is more outraged by the destruction of property than by the violent death of a human being: that is where the problem is. When you make statements that minimize murder and refocus the conversation on property damage- you have to take a hard look at why. Is it because the topic of racism is too difficult? Talk about it anyway. You have an obligation to. Are you saying these things because this chaos scares you? Because it creeps a little bit closer to your happy sphere in the world? Good- that’s the point. Now imagine the fear that led to these actions. Think about the cause- and remember that this has been happening for centuries and we refused to listen. Some issues are too important to accept silence on.

I’m not saying that all civil servants or people in positions of power are bad, because I genuinely don’t believe that. But it’s also fair to say that we don’t invest in the type of education needed when dealing with humanity at its best and worst. Would it be too far-fetched to require a police officer to take the same courses expected of a social worker? I don’t think so.

We have an obligation to recognize the racism that has been built into every system we have. It goes back generations and is so engrained in the way that we function as a society that those who aren’t victims of it might not even realize that anything is amiss. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let’s pick a pretty recent example that allows for some compare and contrast.

Last month we saw a lot of Stay-Home protests where predominantly white groups showed up to government buildings with rifles strapped to their chests. There are pictures online of them standing nose to nose with the police screaming in their faces while holding guns. Can you imagine a world in which a black man or woman could do that without being killed?

Stay Home Protest inside Michigan State Capitol building

I find it a bit terrifying when you have a group of people making a valid complaint about police brutality, and the best response that those in power can come up with is a further show of force. I have participated in protests before, I have been a part of a rally. I have marched while repeating the chant of my group as we stood up for a cause we believed in. But I have never faced an officer in riot gear. I have never feared that the baton they carried would aim for me. I have never dealt with pepper spray, tear gas, or rubber bullets. Because it seems to me that these tactics are far too often called upon when it’s black lives in the streets. When fear and oppression is the language of the powerful, how do you expect to find change? You demand a revolution.