Am I My Brother's Keeper?

 

Ingraham: Is it really our responsibility to welcome thousands of refugees from Afghanistan? pic.twitter.com/Sopvx4RJ0H

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2021

Well, Laura Ingraham's Fatherland figure, Donald Trump, certainly didn't think so, but there is a certain idea of reciprocity many civilized people would observe in regards to people who have risked their lives alongside of your people for a purpose--especially when the purpose (whatever kind of nation-building we were lying to ourselves and others about) never did come to fruition and these quite decent and extensively vetted people are in some deep shit.

I don't know what she thinks it would cost us. The dilution of our cultural purity, perhaps, for whatever value that's supposed to have. I have looked at the cultural value of Laura Ingraham, and found it disturbingly lacking. I would go so far as to say that Ingraham is lacking in the Judeo-Christian values she alleges to believe in, when the traditions that would have humanity's first murderer ask "Am I my brother's keeper?" are answered again and again with, "Love one another", "Treat the stranger among you like a citizen", "Love your enemies and bless them that curse you." 

All I know is, these people tangibly have done more to try and fix a deadly situation with their whole asses on the line, that Ingraham has done within her safe and well-paid sinecure--in fact, she's advocated for things that would worsen a slow-rolling pandemic negligent genocide. 

So what I'm saying is, for what it's worth, I would be less concerned about refugees from Afghanistan living in my neighborhood than a bigot who probably would consider my mixed urban neighborhood a slum in comparison to her experience. I know I place my faith in humankind as a humanist. I think her flavor of bigotry makes things worse, denies the common thread among people, hardens our hearts, makes it more difficult to connect and communicate. 

Of course you are your brother's keeper. And you are blessed to have him. Just as we're all cursed with one another on this heating rock, this triumph of the bacterial, this monument to entropy. You don't have to like doing someone else a fucking solid. But you'd want one yourself if things were on the other foot, right? So you do. You mask up, or greet a stranger with kindness, or just try for a whole minute not to be a hatemonger, which Ingraham has made her stock in trade. 

Is there a reason I should be this sister's keeper? All I have is my words, but she'd deny them. She could dine at my table, but never feel nourished. I could offer her water, but it would be salty to her. But it's only human to offer.  I can't be her keeper. I can only say she is wrong. And maybe some day she'd fix herself were she so inclined. 

But I doubt it.