I’ve heard people say that Obama did more to increase racism issues in eight years than any of his predecessors. The only thing he did was get elected to office twice. The simmering undercurrent of race issues in the US has been here all along. Over the last couple of weeks, the rock has been lifted and all of the creatures underneath have crawled to light.

My blog post from the 19th of January, the night before the inauguration, seems almost prescient now in the wake of the fury over Confederate monuments. “I’ll teach my grandchildren to hate; and my grandchildren’s grandchildren…” The wounds from the Civil War have never healed.

Where will this stop? How do we make it stop? Good people cannot sit by and do nothing.

I’m not a Southerner; but this article was written by several Southern folks at The Bitter Southerner website in response to Charlottesville. It’s striking to me that the last author, Chuck, made reference to Silence = Death. This same site posted an article from one of their photographer / journalists who happened to be about 10 feet from the car when it hit the crowd.

This article, “The Test of Nazism that Trump Failed” came from the New York Times; and I think this analysis is spot on. One of the quotes from this article that struck me early on: “Rescuers almost never boast.” People who are good, decent folks, who try, who do “what anyone else would do” – these folks aren’t the ones who boast about it. The Good Samaritans of the world are often anonymous and blend back into humanity. The last line of the article, however, is the real kicker: “We are being tested, and so we will come to know ourselves.”

I know this tweet has been making the rounds, but it should give everyone a moment of pause.

It certainly makes me pause, because I’m pretty sure I’d be among the targeted third. It certainly feels that way after the petulant president had his temper tantrum about trans folks in the military on twitter, the common release for his frustrations and tantrums, as pointed out in this Politico article. Twitter is an interesting way to share sound bytes, articles, thoughts; I don’t agree that it’s a platform for leadership or a way to run any kind of organization, let alone a country.  Texas was hit by a hurricane, and 45 made sure the directive memo went out on the trans policy and pardoned a sheriff found guilty of abusing his power instead of letting the legal process complete. Even Senator John McCain had something to say about that.

We are being tested. It is not a time for good people to remain quiet or complacent, lest they fall into the third that ends up having to watch.