Paranoia Strikes Deep (and Wide)
We're in a self reinforcing cycle of overblown fear. It doesn't seem like a good thing.
“They’re always out to get me cause I’m paranoid” -Todd Snider
Organizing is cyclical, which means an organizer is constantly ramping up for an event (action, research meeting, leadership meeting, training) or debriefing and planning next steps from one he just had. I recently had a big important events in my rural organizing and next week I have another in an urban center. Even after a decade in the game, I get pretty anxious for stuff like this. There’s a lot that can go wrong, and a lot that can go right. And there’s a lot of gray area between what an organizer can and can’t control. The best preparation is to have good, well trained leaders, and prep them and then trust them to do their thing. Which is what I try to do, but easier said than done you know.
As anxious as I get, there are things that it has never crossed my mind to worry about, that leaders will bring to my attention. Most of the time this is very helpful. For example, last week, a lay leader asked whether and where we would allow elected officials to put out campaign literature (not in our church meeting room, we decided!). Others are more disconcerting. Leading up to last weeks event I had a couple of more liberal, middle class types ask me if I worried about someone bringing a gun “in this political climate”. My answer was no, I didn’t. I supposed there were probably people who had CPL’s that may come to our event carrying, and I hadn’t put much thought to it. Even if I wanted to prevent it, what could I do? I’m not gonna pat people down on their way into a church.
Then, two days before the event, I got a call from the lead pastor of my largest evangelical, conservative church. He told me he had promised some of his people that he would ask me “what we were doing about security” with all those politicians present. I asked him if his people were spooked by the Trump assassination attempts and he said “not really, I just have some security minded people in my congregation”. I asked if he meant gun nuts and he laughed and said yea, basically. Apparently some of them had offered to serve as a security force for our event. I gently said no.
I was struck by the similarity between this conversation and conversations I’ve had with black pastors in Flint and Detroit. I would bet that at least 75 percent of black churches I work with have flyers for CPL classes somewhere in their buildings, and they too have a lot of “security minded” people; one more thing that blue collar rural whites and blue collar urban POC’s have in common, whether they realize it or not. I’ve had plenty of offers of “security” for meetings in Flint and Detroit, and a handful with people either openly packing or carrying a “concealed” firearm. Like it or not, such is life in a neighborhood where it takes the cops hours to come if you call them, whether that neighborhood is urban or rural.
Everyone is scared. Some of them are scared about someone bringing a gun to church, and others are scared to not have their gun at church. In some ways it makes sense. It’s said so often that it’s cliche at this point, but we do live in a 24 hour news environment whose purveyors are paid millions of dollars to make us afraid of each other. And in some ways it’s human nature. When you see a news story about a shooting halfway across the country, of course it’s natural to worry about it happening to you. It’s natural, it’s human nature. But it should also be ok to take a step back and say “let’s think about this rationally for a second”.
My wife is involved in some “mom groups” on Facebook, whatever that means (I realize that this piece is getting pretty anecdote heavy. My apologies). I’ve often encouraged her to just not look at them, especially because every time she tells me about something someone posted on there it’s because she wants me to hear how ridiculous it is. But she finds some useful things in them too, apparently. Lately, as the school year got started, she tells me that they are full of posts about how these women are terrified to send their kids back to school because of school shootings. This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
Of course, your child being involved in a school shooting is the most horrific thing imaginable. And of course, when you see them on the news it’s disturbing and wrenching. The one in Texas with those little kids a few years ago, to me, was particularly distressing (in my eyes there’s no punishment too great for those cops who stood around doing nothing). In a functional society, this wouldn’t happen this often. In a fair and just world, this wouldn’t happen ever. It’s impossible to not think about your own kids and your own community when you see that stuff. It all makes sense.
But it’s also true that your kid is infinitely more likely to die in a car accident on the way to school than in a school shooting. Or of pediatric cancer. Or of drowning in a pool, or of any number of the other mundane existential horrors of daily life. Including, unfortunately, suicide. Being a parent means living with some low level of background terror. The thing that first drove me to therapy was the fact that I couldn’t stop worrying about my first kid running into the road and getting hit. At some level, a very understandable fear (especially with the way people drove in my old neighborhood downstate). But it’s one thing to say, hey, that fear is understandable. To have empathy for it. It’s another to enable it and encourage it beyond reasonable proportions. To allow the fear to grow to a level that is crippling. It’s unhelpful for all of us, counterproductive for kids and parents alike.
According to all of our science (and, if we allow ourselves to step back for a moment, common sense) school is clearly the safest place on earth for a child to be. The problem lies in the perception, not in the statistics. The news makes school seem scary, as it makes the world seem scary. We get scared and talk to each other about it. And most distressingly, our culture discourages us from pointing out how irrational this is. Discourages us from even attempting to pull the brake lever on the paranoia spiral. We get afraid and then invent the reasons to be afraid, rather than looking at the world and deciding how much fear is rational or helpful. It’s all backward. I asked my wife why she didn’t post something to that effect in her “mom group”, something about how school is actually the safest place for kids. She said no way, they might kick her out. Sometimes I wonder if this will all end with us just locked in our houses, ordering delivery, sneaking furtive glances between the blinds for the bad guys, hearing helicopters.
Of course, I can’t blame anyone for not having the courage to stand up against this kind of paranoia. Sometimes the consequences can be significant, and it makes the risk reward calculation a little wonky. I recently found myself in just such a situation, and I didn’t exactly respond fearlessly either.
A couple weeks back the national network that my organization is a part of had a meeting of state directors at a hotel in Chicago. The purpose of this meeting, I was told, was “Scenario Planning” for post election. I expected to talk about various issue campaigns and how we could possibly coordinate them at a national level, or at least share best practices. I was way off.
What it was, instead, was a liberal paranoia festival. The first day was largely dedicated to discussion of how bad it’s going to be if Trump is elected. Being that I don’t think it’s my job to keep Trump out of office (I’m a community organizer, I don’t work for the Democrats or any other political party) I didn’t speak up much. The second day was where things really got off the rails. It was focused on what would happen if Trump was elected vs. if Harris won, and what our work would be like. When I was asked, I basically said there would be no difference, my work is at the local and state level, and the housing crisis, lack of health care, etc. are issues that aren’t going anywhere regardless of who wins. This wasn’t taken so well, I assume because I was one of the few white men in the room, and so I learned my lesson and kept my mouth shut. I’ve got bills to pay too.
The rest of the day was basically an Olympics of people one upping each other with catastrophizing. There were the inevitable Trump-Hitler comparisons of course. There was a lot of talk about violence, both if Trump won and if Kamala won and Trump supporters couldn’t accept it. There was a lot of talk about “protecting our people”. When the topic of building “bunkers for women of color” came up I kind of checked out, for better or worse.
These people clearly are afraid. And I feel a great deal of empathy for them, despite my frustrations. They watch too much news, and spend too much time online, but I still feel empathy for them. Going through life in constant fear is a horrible way to live. I know, I’ve done it too.
Last week I had a follow up meeting, via zoom, with some of these people. I asked, very gently, what they meant by “violence” because that word was thrown out so much both in Chicago and on zoom. The best response anyone could summon was from the guy facilitating the meeting who said he had heard a story of a white man walking up to a Latina woman and asking if she was an “illegal alien”. So there you have it. Clearly an shitty thing to do, but to call it violence is to stretch that word beyond meaning. One has to wonder what one of the thousands of poor brown people in various parts of the world who’s children’s lives were snuffed out by American made bombs and missiles in the last few years would think about our definition of violence.
I feel like I should do what I wish others would do, and that’s be specific about what I think is going to happen. After the election, I am sure that some dickhead in a MAGA hat somewhere will throw a brick through the window of a building where votes are being counted, or some such thing. I am sure that groups of assholes with various names and stupid outfits (“proud boys” or whatever) will “march” in some cities. I’m sure there will be scattered reports of voter intimidation. I do not believe people will be killed. (Of course people will be killed in violent ways all over America on election day, but it will be the everyday violence we are all to happy to live with in this country, visited on the poor in neighborhoods far from the cameras). I do not believe a civil war is going to break out. The idea that there are hordes of white supremacists massing at the edges of communities of color ready to start killing is sheer paranoid fantasy. If I’m wrong, I’ll gladly admit it. Of course, I hope and believe I’m not.
The inevitable response to this type of thing when I voice it, and the reason I’m so hesitant to do so, is “Well, it’s easy for YOU to not be afraid”. I’m a straight white man. And, you know, guilty as charged. I’m also 6’6”. I recognize that I have privilege, and I recognize there are a great many situations where I might not need to be as fearful or cautious as others.
But what I am compelled to ask is, what do we think we’re accomplishing, when we insist, against all evidence, that minorities are under constant threat of unspeakable violence from some huge segment of the white community? For that matter, what do we accomplish by agonizing over sending our kids to school, in the face of all evidence that schools are incredibly safe?
In the first instance, this fearmongering obviously makes my kind of organizing, the only kind of organizing that can make the world better for all of us, much, much, harder. You are teaching POC to be suspicious of white people, especially working class (or at least working class “coded”) white people. And you are teaching working class white people that they are feared and distrusted. How are we supposed to build winning cross racial coalitions in that environment? Perhaps more immediately, what are we doing to our brothers and sisters of color by teaching them to walk around in fear for their lives all day? Fear of something that is pretty low on the pecking order of things to be worried about? Is that helping them? Is screaming “BE AFRAID BE AFRAID BE AFRAID” at someone the act of an ally? I’m sorry, but I don’t see how facilitating the growth of this paranoia is helping the people you claim to care about.
As for school shootings, what do we think engaging in this unchecked anxiety is doing to our parenting? Is it helping us be good parents? Raise stable, happy, productive members of society? Is it affecting our kids positively? Are our children getting healthier, psychically and mentally? (No.)
Refusing to stand up, to push back on the fear train before it rolls downhill has actively harmful consequences. It’s not a neutral position.
In my old neighborhood downstate we would walk past an elementary school once or twice a day. It bordered our neighborhood park. If we would have stayed there we very likely would have sent my older son there this year. It had a diverse student population and was considered a “good school”. I heard from a friend that they had a big scare there a couple weeks ago.
Apparently, right at pickup time, the principal came over the loudspeaker and announced that there was an active shooter on the premises, and that students should “hide and prepare to fight”. He then locked the doors remotely. Panic stricken parents were stuck outside and panic stricken students were stuck inside. It was chaos, until, eventually, the truth was revealed. A couple miles from the school there had been police called for a domestic disturbance. Through some strange game of telephone in the neighborhood this reached the administration as “active shooter” and the rest is history. History that ends with a whole lot of traumatized kids who probably aren’t too psyched to go back to school. And for what? For nothing, for no reason.
When we lean in to the growing culture of paranoia and suspicion we do active harm to our institutions, our society, and our own individual minds and souls. We must take a step back, take a deep breath. We must must must turn off the news. Walk outside. Life goes on.
I think the reason that we struggle to do so is that we all, subconsciously, want to both live in exciting times and to feel like righteous potential martyrs in the face of evil. This is human nature. But the cost is great, and the problem is that as we sort ourselves into ever smaller and more polarized camps, this type of thinking becomes encouraged, and pushing back against it becomes discouraged. People begin to rally believe it deeply. No one laughed at that meeting when the person brought up bunkers for women of color, despite how many people may have chuckled inside.
It is also human nature to trick ourselves into thinking that we can and must control everything, to think that we can eliminate all risk. That we must do something about the dangers in our lives. But this is a trick of the mind, of course. Sometimes there is nothing you can do. If someone really wants to shoot up one of my events, I don’t think a burly dude with a CPL is necessarily gonna stop him. I don’t even think a metal detector would.
We can’t eliminate all risk from our lives. Thinking we can is a trap, a fool’s errand. The possibility will always exist that something horrible could happen to you. Your kid could be killed in a school shooting. They could also get cancer, or be hit by a car. Tragedy is an inescapable part of life. There are common sense things we can do, of course, but living in a constant state of anxiety does nothing to eliminate risk, as tempting as it is.
As boring as it is to admit, the greatest dangers in our lives are the same old mundane evils we’ve been organizing against for decades. Corporations polluting our air and water and poisoning our food. Health care companies, big pharma, and lobbyists profiting off the uninsured and underinsured. Evil, pointless wars killing our young people and untold millions of poor people in other countries. Fast food. Sedentary lifestyles. Disease. Addiction, overdose and mental illness. Homelessness, poverty, inequality. Even the gun violence that is most likely to take us out is much more mundane and less sexy: suicide or gang violence perpetrated by our own neighbors in our own neighborhoods. How likely are you to be attacked and killed by a white supremacist, vs. attacked and killed by your own heart?
Fortunately the antidote to all this momentum toward paranoia is the same thing that will lead to better, healthier, safer lives for us all. Organizing, in the real world, with real people. Getting together with your neighbors, in your own local community, to do something about the issues. Or even to just get to know each other. And it’s exceedingly possible. Could hardly be simpler in fact.
So we had our big event on Sunday, the one that everyone, both liberal and conservative, was anxious about “security” and “safety” for. It went much better than we hoped. We packed the people into a church fellowship hall. We had to pull out a bunch of extra chairs. We had a lot of new faces, which was exciting. A handful of elected officials came, from both sides of the aisle. We put the screws to them about our local issues: housing and addiction services, and they left suitably cowed and intimidated.
The cool thing was that we had the room packed out and it was basically an exact even split of Kamala and Trump people, as far as I could tell. And guess what, they got along great. We had small group discussions and people found tons of common ground on the local issues. We brought a car load of African American leaders up from Flint in solidarity and they engaged in the conversation right alongside the rednecks and liberal retirees. Even the electeds played nice.
Then we closed up with a prayer and sang “Go Now in Peace”, and no one left. I stood on the edge of the room and watched neighbors becoming friends. I saw guys that I know are big Trumpers laughing with their arms around guys that I know are hardcore Dems. I saw rednecks shaking hands and slapping the backs of some of our black leaders from Flint. I saw an old farmer breaking bread with a young woman with an asymmetrical purple haircut. I saw a hippie-moon-maiden lady in deep conversation with a guy in a hat that read “1776”. Later I stood with the pastor of a big conservative evangelical church and a Democrat state rep and talked about what was to be done about the housing crisis, in concrete local terms. I had new people, old and young, liberal and conservative, and (yes) gay and straight, come up to me and ask how to get together to talk about organizing in their own neighborhood or church. I stood there thinking “well, this has to count for something”.
It’s boring, I know, but there was no violence.
This hasn’t come out as often as I hoped lately, I’ve just been busy. I’m not going to stop payments because I donate those directly to my organization, but if you want to stop it won’t hurt my feelings. I’ll be writing more often in coming weeks.
If you want to donate directly to my organizing, you can do so here.
Luke, you do such good work. Thank you for this essay.