the manger, among the animals
Have you ever flown international through LAX, DFW or ORD? You know how they have super long hallways, with soft lighting on one side and rolls of razor sharp barbed wire on the other?
We drove through this corridor two nights ago, while traveling from the US to Mexico.
That barbed wire wasn’t there a few months ago. Behind it are more walls, motion sensors, infrared cameras and hundreds of armed guards.
With all that in place, you might think the barbed wire serves no purpose; that it’s an unnecessary flourish. But it does an important job. It says: “fuck you” in every language.
Greetings from the other side of the wall. We are with the bad people now. A few hours after arriving, we ran into the priest of our parish in our hotel lobby. How’s that for proof?
This past summer, I was shown a lure so sparkly, I couldn’t resist biting into it.
It was a thread on Twitter, and though it was posted by someone I don’t follow, the software knew it was barbed enough to catch more eyeballs. And, sure enough, it caught mine.
A writer, with a Latin phrase as their handle, noted that the Trump admin’s plan to prevent poor people from obtaining residency is what Switzerland already does.
The comparison was intended as a compliment: as in, some day America will catch up with the Swiss.
I replied that Switzerland is hardly as wealthy as NYC. The writer accused me of being a partisan hack. I suggested they were understandably proud of Switzerland as I am of New York. They replied that I was a fool, for they had lived in crime-ridden NYC before retiring to Switzerland. I pointed out bad policing and easy access to guns can lead to violent crime. They boasted they owned several guns.
The more pain I felt from the exchange, the harder I bit. In the end, a spectator in an iconic red baseball cap joined in to tell me I’d been whooped. And that was that.
For the next several hours I tried to pull out the hook from inside myself, twisting and turning it until I could finally slide it out.
I laughed ruefully when I saw the bait that I’d nearly swallowed.
The truth is that NYC is crime-ridden.
But it would be disingenuous to exclude Wall Street* from NYC just to paint a rosier picture.
It had not occurred to me to question the writer’s implicit claim that poor people are criminals, while rich people are good.
I’d bought their argument whole: hook, line and sinker
Later, I learned that my interlocutor has been a private equity banker; and, inspired by the #metoo moment, shared her own story of being sexually harassed at work.
She’d moved to Switzerland. And bought several guns.
Before we continue to walk a mile in her shoes, let’s look back at her destination.
She was happy to point out that an orderly society is one where only private means guarantee public rights. A living hell.
“Who is born poor and remains poor is a sinner”, is a religious belief that began in Switzerland in 1540 but it has found a welcome home in the contemporary United States.
We worship the wealthy, truly. And while we are not the first society to do so, ours is an especially tortured variation given the beliefs in our founding statement:
that all mean are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.
For some time now, prominent American intellectuals and entertainers have tried to warn their audiences that this hallowed patrimony is under attack. “The Mexicans are coming” and they will destroy American culture by clinging to their language, traditions and, especially, their Catholic faith.
It’s a reasonable fear.
The belief that a poor refugee, who used a whip to violently assault bankers, who was crucified between two thieves, is the paragon of virtue must seem grotesque to those who believe themselves the masters of the universe.
“That I am wealthy means that I am good. That I am successful means that I am smart.”
These superstitions are a luxury, everywhere, but they’re practically a necessity in the USA, where it was deemed Providence to steal land from other nations; to break families apart
so that children, women and men could be sold and bought in an open market.
The makers, not the takers are God’s chosen people .†
The truth is otherwise, of course. And it’s almost unbearable.
The truth is that luck is all we have.
None of us choose where we are born, nor into what body.
Some of us win the lottery and promptly conclude it was meant to be, when it means nothing at all. It was just dumb luck.
We may improve on our fortune. We may squander it. But if any of us is to be measured by what we achieve – an accounting to make Ozymandius proud – how would we rate compared to the millions born into far greater distress?
A rich man works hard and grows even richer. A poor man works hard and stays alive. Who deserves our greater admiration?
Our car came to a stop at an intersection, and we gave $2 to a man in leg braces, who can only walk with crutches.
He wished us luck.
Surely, he knows the meaning of that word better than we do.
What a gift, his wishes are.
Footnotes
*From today’s Financial Times: “Malaysia finance minister wants $7.5bn from Goldman.”
†Does a society that has atoned for chattel slavery entertain the discussion of a “longform birth certificate”? Does a nation that accepts its culpability in the violent and illegal conquest of native peoples treat migrants and refugees as animals?
I’ve written this letter on and off for the last two days on my phone computer. I don’t recommend writing anything that spans more than one idea on a phone.
When I copied the above quote from the “Declaration of Independence”, I was greeted with the message below.
