Pokémon Go and the Landscape of Hate

Our world, and my news feeds, seem schizophrenic lately. From giddy stories of capturing a rare Ninetails in New York City's Central Park

Look! How cute!

...to seemingly endless stories of hate-fueled terrorism.

The mass shooting of patrons in an Orlando Gay Nightclub.

The bombing of Ramadan celebrants in downtown Baghdad.

The driving a truck into the crowds gathered to watch fireworks in Nice.

It made me think of a different mobile phone app someone might create, one that would show photos of the dead when you're at the location where they were murdered. Almost like ghosts, viewing the real-life scene through your phone would reveal photos of the people who had been killed, and maybe a bit of their life story, to honor them.

But I wonder if it would all be too overwhelming. In the past seven years, 1,933 transgender people were murdered worldwide. And just showing up somewhere where a terror attack occurred, like the site of the World Trade Center memorial, would show you 2,753 souls floating around the former twin towers.

And somewhere like Auschwitz, where they are memorializing the murder of 1.1 million people in its gas chambers, would ground anyone to a halt. 1.1 million photos of people whose lives were ended by hate. At least, it would stop short those visitors who weren't playing Pokémon Go on its grounds... (Yes, Auschwitz had to ask people to stop playing the game there!)

Pokémon at Auschwitz. Not Cute.

So much death. So much hate.

It seems our way of coping is to push it out of our minds - to jump on the latest craze (like Pokémon Go), and to have yesterday's tragic news replaced in the news cycle by today's newer tragedy. Like how no one talks about any of these ten attacks from 2015 anymore, which also says something about the lives lost being people of color and how prejudiced our media really is.

How can we respond to so much hate?

Maybe by standing up. By raising our voices. By voting, and speaking, and working for a better world.

Perhaps the app we really need is an UPstander! app. One that when you get on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, you see images of Rosa Parks and Bayard Rustin, and other civil rights activists who were arrested on segregated buses, and learn about their role in the civil rights movement.

An app where, when you visit the now-landmark status Stonewall Inn, you see images of the drag queens and other patrons who fought back against police brutality and stood up, marking a turning point in the modern struggle for LGBTQ rights. And you learn about their stories.

An app where, when you visit every house and office in Denmark where non-Jews hid their Jewish countrymen from the Nazis, you see that act of bravery honored and remembered.

And maybe THAT kind of app would inspire people to get out, walk around, and see our world differently (like Pokémon Go does)... and also inspire people to stand up to the hate.

Standing up is our power.

And we need to use it.

Lee

Thanks to Elizabeth for the Pokemon in Central Park photo, and to @astroehlein on twitter for the screen shot (and very appropriate "What the hell is wrong with people?" comment) of the Pokemon at Auschwitz.

Anti-Gay Terrorist Attack against Teenagers in Israel... What It Means, and What Can We Do?

Saturday night.

A Big City's LGBT community center. Teenagers, counselors, people doing their best to live their lives, believing they're in a safe place. It's 11pm. There's a support group meeting happening in the basement.

A masked gunman walks in, opens fire, and flees.

2 young people are killed. 11 are injured.

Families get calls to go to the hospital, and that's how they find out their kids are gay.

This all happened Saturday night, in Tel Aviv.

In the aftermath of the shooting.

Tel Aviv Rally

Mourners in Jerusalem on Sunday

(Read the LA Times article on the attack here. More photos here at the afterelton site. And this article here includes what the Israeli Government and Gay leaders said in reaction.)

Israelis already live under the shadow of "threat" more so than anyone here in America can really process. Bags are checked everywhere, almost every restaurant has a guard that checks you and your stuff before you can enter, and everyone seems to know someone who has been killed or hurt in a terror attack... Or just had coffee in the cafe moments before it was blown up.

And with pretty much every Israeli going into the army right after high school, the entire country seems to "get" that you have to - always - watch out for your own safety and the safety of those you care about. It's a country where young kids (I'm talking REALLY young) get cell phones, so their parents can know they're okay in case of an attack.

And in the midst of this intense pressure, Israelis are living their lives, raising their kids, and thriving in the only democracy in that part of the world. Because if they crumbled, if they just locked themselves in their houses and gave over to fear... then they would let the terrorists win - and they would lose the joys of being alive!

Israel has a thriving Gay community. You see it in the Big City of Tel Aviv, but it's there in Jerusalem, and elsewhere, too.

But with this terrorist attack on the GLBT Center in Tel Aviv, there's all this talk about Gay Israelis going back into the closet.

As if somehow, being Gay would make them less resilient. Like being Gay would make them less able to stand up and say "NO! We will not be scared into hiding. We WILL live our lives!"

If, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks here in the U.S.A., if we'd all just stopped flying in planes all together - and from then on only taken trains, because we were scared, then the terrorists would have won.

We didn't do that. We get our shoes scanned. We endure more security. And we keep flying.

Similarly, Gay people in Israel won't go back into the closet. They should be careful - absolutely. But they won't let the terrorists win.

And neither should we. We need to reach out to help Gay and Questioning Teens. Here and abroad. Let them have safe spaces. Let them feel protected.

Let them know they're not alone. That they can be the heroes of their own stories! And help them find out about and get their hands on the teen books with GLBTQ characters and themes - like the ones in the left column, here! Because Books make a difference.

And Because damn it, Teens are our responsibility, as a society.

Let them read.

Let them love.

Let them live in peace, and thrive!


Stand with me. Stand with them.

Love is stronger than hate.

Namaste,

Lee