Even on Vashon

Approaching my car after one of my weekly trips to Granny’s here on Vashon, I noticed hanging on a noose from the bumper on the  truck next to my car a stuffed rabbit hanging from a noose on the bumper of the truck. Stunned as horrific images of racist attacks ran through my mind, all I could think about was cutting the rabbit free but didn’t know where I would get a knife.  Then I remembered that I had my spouse’s car and she keeps a knife in the center consul.  I unlocked the car rummaged in the center consul, found the knife.  As I started to get out of the car fear hit me that the driver of the truck would see me, I decided to leave the door open for a quick get-away.

I walked around to the back of the truck, started cutting the robe, constantly looking around for anyone coming my way.  At times like this it always seems to take longer than you expected.  As soon as the rabbit was cut free, I ran around to the driver’s side of my car and hopped in, closed the door and left.  This action seemed symbolic but I remind myself of the strong symbolism in anything hanging from a noose even some inanimate object, particularly hanging from the back of a truck.

The rabbit hanging from a noose to me symbolizes dragging deaths motivated by hate. Hate crimes that are plaguing society today not only in mass shootings but at the US boarder and beyond. One of the most powerful examples in history of a of a racially motivated dragging death was the murder of Byrd an African American who was murdered by three white young adults. A death motivated by racial hate in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. Today hate crime perpetrators just get semiautomatic guns.  In my community of Vashon hate obviously lingers just under the surface. I fear where and when this hate will come out.  

Vashon a community of mostly white affluent people, the visible culture appears progressive.  It is this population at least in today’s Vashon dominating the media both in the Vashon Beachcomber and on social media.  In the last ten years Social Media dominates the community dialog. Groups on facebook like; Vashon All, Old Vashon Pictures, Vashon Predators, Vashon Armature Gardeners along with several email groups.  Two of the email groups I moderate, Vashon Pride and Vashon Women.  All strictly moderated by what appears to be progressives. 

Vashon has hidden hate is obvious by some of the racist symbolism and graffiti I have come across in the last several years. Sometimes I think we brush this hate under the table and don’t acknowledge the isms that plague us all today.  Starting with classism, racism and sexism.  It’s time to take up the unending processing of the past when we acknowledged our shortcomings and our isms. We need to  talk about them today more than ever. As white people we need to continue processing our privilege to resist those that actively project images and dogma of hate and discrimination.

Hope, the name I have given to the stuffed rabbit I rescued hanging from the truck bumper on a noose now sits relaxing on my bookshelf above my desk as reminder of how all us can do little acts of resistance to overcome hate.  Rescuing the rabbit is a symbolic act of resisting hate, but this symbolic hate that the rabbit represents is a symbol of a much larger arsenal of hate hidden in the minds of people waiting for an opportunity to come out with it as we have see in this time of Trumpism.  Wake up Vashon there is hate in our community and we need to acknowledge it and talk about it.