My husband and I walk our dog on a daily basis, two times a day. And during those walks, we let Chewie choose the route. Once we get to a specific path, we can cross the river and head up toward the lawn of a large LDS church, or we can go left and walk along the river.
On one particular day a few weeks ago, Chewie chose to cross the river on the large bridge and make our way to the church. (He often chooses this way if he thinks we’ll take him on a longer walk through the streets of downtown. He is often disappointed).
As we walked by an apartment building along the path, I saw a woman standing in the doorway of someone’s apartment, holding what appeared to be a dish of some kind.
“Aw, how nice,” I thought to myself. “Bringing someone food. Maybe they’re neighbors or something.”
And we went on our way.
As we circled around the church and made our way back with a disappointed Chewie, the same woman I saw in the doorway at the apartments was now standing on the path, holding a lemon.
My stomach turned, and I immediately felt a sense that we should avoid her at all costs. Trent, however, is friendly and does not assume the worst of a person like I tend to do (though I actively try not to let my assumptions dictate my behavior).
As we approached the woman, she said something about keeping an eye out for birds. She said there are birds that seemed to really enjoy the little creek and trees.
Then she began talking about the young boys who always seem to play in that area, breaking off branches and generally being destructive. She commented that the parents should give them a swat on the butt for that kind of behavior.
I internally rolled my eyes at this statement, thinking it was just old-fashioned thinking.
Then she began talking about her son. Then she moved on to an extensive and inaccurate retelling of how ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ was written.
By this time, we’d been being talked at for about 15 minutes, and I just wanted to go home. I sent a brain signal to Trent that he received and reciprocated, but we both agreed that he would be the one to break off the conversation.
Then she started speaking about the medical tubes like they have in Starbucks. By this point, even Chewie had gotten tired of waiting around and Trent had picked him up.
“Starbucks?” I asked. “You mean, Star Trek?”
She clapped herself on the forehead and continued on to explain how Japan and other Asian countries had been using beds like that for over 20 years now, and how the U.S. was just now catching up to them.
Then she said something that made my blood run cold.
“You know they killed Hillary. Executed her. Military tribunal style for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
I looked at Trent. That couldn’t be true. We’d have heard about it on the news. Then, it clicked.
She was one of them.
I hate using that term. The idea of labeling someone as ‘other’ simply because of their beliefs. But we do it all the time. Liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Athiest - we come up with short descriptors so we can easily identify what kind of beliefs someone has.
But this one scared me. She was a supporter of the previous president. The kind that believed in conspiracy theories, who believed the election had been stolen, and who now apparently believed that Hillary Clinton had been murdered.
She didn’t stop there. “Joe Biden and Hunter Biden were also executed. End of December. What you’re seeing now is all pre-recorded. You’re seeing the Matrix. Clones. None of it’s real.”
I could feel the anger bubbling in my chest. I wanted to disagree. I wanted to tell her she was wrong. I wanted to roll my eyes and just say, “Whatever. You go ahead and try to spread your lies, but I don’t have to stand here and listen to it.”
But I didn’t know what she was capable of or what she would do.
What if she had seen us before? What if she had watched us walk Chewie multiple times? What if she knew where we lived? What if she had a gun? Would she hurt us now, or hurt us later? Would she try to poison our dog by setting out some kind of food that was bad for him, or just shoot him and us?
Trent finally was able to interrupt her for a fourth time to tell her we had to get our dog home to feed him, and we began to walk as fast as we could without it looking like we were running.
When we got home, we called my family to tell them about the encounter with the clearly unstable woman. And my family helped Trent and me decide that the best course of action was to call the non-emergency number for the police department and ask them to do a welfare check on the woman, because she was clearly unwell.
Unwell is definitely the word I’m going to start using. Not crazy. Not stupid. Not delusional Fox-News ingesting, brain rotted gullible Nazi.
See, I used to think all those things. Because it was so much easier to hate them. Hate the people who watch Fox News and believe Democrats really want to get rid of burgers. They don’t. I promise. It was easier to hate the people who said racist, homophobic, or other prejudiced things.
I have decided to feel sorry for them instead. I feel sorry for the people who support the previous one-term president. I feel sorry for the people who don’t seem to understand what a fact is, and who don’t know enough critical thinking skills to determine what is legitimate news and what is not.
I feel sorry for the people who plug into Fox News all day while scrolling through QAnon websites and become radicalized.
But that is where my sorrow for them ends.
At some point, they had to make a choice. And there have been people who have made the choice to snap out of it, to open their eyes and see what they were doing. I can’t remember his name, but there’s a guy I’ve read about and seen interviews with who spends his time helping young men out of hate groups, having been in one himself.
You can become clear. It takes work, and reconditioning of your brain, and as much love and support as we can muster. We can start to see the veil lifting from some people already. People who were 45 supporters are now seeming to come out of a haze and realize just how horrible that man and his rhetoric are. Republican lawmakers (some) are coming around, realizing just how absolutely bonkers it is to call for the recall of a completely legit election.
It takes time, and patience. But most of all, it takes love. I may be terrified of people like the woman I encountered. I may be absolutely terrified. But loving her is absolutely the best thing I can do. It’s not easy, and I fail at loving people like her often. But without that love, all they’re going to experience is hate that confirms their beliefs. And I absolutely do not want to be the reason someone becomes so entrenched in a racist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic mindset that they decide to harm someone in one of those groups.
And that starts with me loving them. As my favorite spiritual leader likes to say, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.”
Bullying bullies does not rid the world of bullying. And being hateful to hateful people does not rid the world of hate. The opposite of hate is empathy. And I want to work my hardest to be empathic toward others. Will you do the same? Will you make the choice to try and rid the world of the ugliness we’re surrounded with on a daily basis?