Dealing with the Hate

If you can bear it,  the photographs are here. They are from the Musarium program, "Without Sanctuary," and they are a documentation of lynchings. Of the "strange fruit" that hangs in trees. Of what happens when the worst in the human psyche is joined with the worst in others, and mobs arise.

One of the ways that we know about the mobs and the lynchings is that photographs were taken. Photographs were taken, and then they were turned into postcards, which were sent through the U.S. mail. Imagine. The Comstock laws made it illegal to mail erotic or lascivious or contraceptive information using the U.S. postal service, but it was perfectly okay to send trophy shots of what had been done to other human beings by mobs.

Oh how I struggle with hate.
This past weekend, I journeyed to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester NY. I went to see its new Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit, to stare at the surreal blues and faded bones, to take in the erotic energy that first drew me to O'Keeffe as a teenager.

Instead, I found myself spending most of my visit looking at the artwork in the other new installation, "My America," immigrant art, most of it produced in the early part of the 20th century. And that's when I found The Hundredth Psalm, the painting at the top of this diary.

One of the reasons that I react so strongly to images such as this is because, as an historian, I've seen this stuff before. I've seen it in the judensau, which was used as an image to dehumanize Jews in the Middle Ages and make it easier for their Christian neighbors to kill them. I've seen it in photographs from the genocides in Armenia, WWII Europe, Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda. I haven't seen it first-hand; I've had the barrier of time and space to buffer my reaction.

I've had the experience of listening to Christopher Browning, the author of Ordinary Men talking about how seemingly ordinary men, regular people, were convinced to go into Poland during WWII and butcher Jews--not from a distance, but up close and personal, to kill people with their own hands.

In an interview, he accounted for that mob mentality, how mundane it is, this ability for individuals to lose their sense of their own ethical code under the influence of others.

It's important to realize that there is a spectrum of response, and we cannot speak of a single response or motivation. At one end of the spectrum of response there was a cluster of what I would call true believers — people who

identified with the values of the Nazi regime, who were ideologically conscious or at least came to accept the ideological imperatives of the regime. Then there was a larger middle group that basically adopted what we would call “standard operating procedures” — they did what they were asked and did not confront authority. At the other end of the spectrum was a smaller group that evaded direct shooting. They usually did other activities like guard duty, cordon duty, and so on, but didn't pull triggers and blow people's brains out at point blank range.

I think there were true believers who indeed sought an opportunity to kill. I think that as people behave, they often adapt their belief to that behavior, and I think more people became that as the killing process went on. The killing

process gained momentum in part because people became what they did, and that therefore the cluster of what I would call the true believers, the eager killers, the enthusiastic killers, increased over time.

I think you also have a number of people who act out of their conception of what it means to be a tough soldier, a tough policeman, what their duty is as an occupier in a territory where they are exhorted to behave as the master race. They conceived of themselves as at war with a world of enemies

encircling them. Some, I think, shot basically because they were simply afraid to confront authority, afraid to be seen as cowards, afraid to look weak — all of these motives were there.

And all those years ago, when I saw him read from the then-about-to-be-released Ordinary Men I was struck by just how devastating his research was. What it really showed.

I also find it much more troubling in the end, because it means that regimes can harness a population to mass murder, in which the bulk of them are not fanatical eager killers, but the killing takes place anyway. This is a much more dangerous world, this is a much more pessimistic view of the human condition, I think, than to have the view that only certain cultures with a uniform eagerness to kill can carry out genocide.

If I had a prayer, it would be to not become an instrument of hatred or anger. A little anger is good. A little anger will motivate me to keep struggling against a regime that I ... hate. I do hate them. I hate them all. I hate what they've done to this country. I hate what they've done to the Iraqi people. I hate what they've done to whatever reputation we once had as a nation concerned with human rights. (Although, honestly, I lived through what we did in Central and South America--how can those people ever trust us again?) The face of Sidney Dyer on the cover of today's New York Times breaks my heart, and makes me hate them all over again.


I've even seen shades of that mob mentality on some of the blogs, where people have ganged up on single individuals in a frenzy of derisiveness and anger over some point of view that offended them. I've seen it in some circles in which the calls for revenge against the Republicans are growing loud and more insistent. We have suffered, they say, we demand blood. Perhaps it's metaphorical blood. But I know that there have been moments during the past six years when I have been angry enough to want to harm people, and that frightens me.

I make myself look at the photographs, the paintings, read the historical accounts, because I need to remind myself that I am a human being, and as a human being, there is something out there that may trip past my wires and cause me to kill. I used to believe, fervently, that I would be one who resisted, who would go to my death protesting the brutal treatment of others. I cling tightly to that belief, now, and hope beyond measure that it is the one true thing I know about myself.

But my anger has kept me awake at night. His voice on the radio or television floods me with so much bile that I feel ill. When I allow myself to see what's going on, I am filled with rage, quaking rage, that renders me speechless. I want to reach for the rock; I want to hurl it in blind fury.

The White House

Claude McKay

Your door is shut against my tightened face,

And I am sharp as steel with discontent;

But I possess the courage and the grace

To bear my anger proudly and unbent.

The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,

A chafing savage, down the decent street;

And passion rends my vitals as I pass,

Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.

Oh, I must search for wisdom every hour,

Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,

And find in it the superhuman power

To hold me to the letter of your law!

Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate

Against the potent poison of your hate.

Image: Philip Howard Francis Evergood

American, 1901 - 1973

The Hundredth Psalm, about 1938-1939

Oil on canvas

26 5/8 in. x 22 5/8 in. x 2 1/4 in. (67.63 cm x 57.47 cm x 5.72 cm)

Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester NY

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