Disclaimer: I’m not a sociologist or historian. The following is not intended to be a scientific equivalence. It is, at most, an extended simile. It’s a poetic parallel to very real challenge facing the world today. No definitive conclusions should be inferred from this thought experiment.
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As a child, I was fascinated with creepy crawly things: insects, reptiles, amphibians…the works. I know I'm not alone in that. At the very least, my friends were into the same stuff. We would spend hours searching for these creatures. We looked for snakes near the creek, frogs at Lake Roosevelt, and bugs or spiders under every rock that showed promise. At one point, I remember we had collectively accumulated a collection of almost twenty garter snakes.
Snakes were easier to take care of than smaller creatures, such as spiders. We knew we could sustain snakes by feeding them worms and bugs. We didn't know how to feed most of those multi-legged creepy crawlies. Spiders stand out to me most for a regrettable reasons.
Whenever my friends and I would catch a spider, it would inevitably die within the next day or two (even though we punctured its Tupperware prison with air holes and gave it a “habitat” of sticks, grass, and rocks). No matter what we tried, the spiders we caught could not survive in captivity. Not under our supervision.
After a couple years of this arachnid imprisonment and death sentence, I began having nightmares. These nightmares always involved spiders. To date, I've only ever had two (at most) nightmares that didn't have to do with spiders in some fashion. These horrifying dreams gave rise to arachnophobia. I can't even see a picture of a spider without a surge of fear and a spike in adrenaline.
Because of this aversion to spiders, if I see one, it's dead. I've often said spiders and I can coexist…but only if I don't see them. Otherwise, only one of us is making it out alive.
How did I go from childhood fascination to adulthood enmity with spiders? The nightmares, fueled by the dead spiders' blood on my hands, led directly to an irrational fear. Sure, there are a few species of spiders that are dangerous to humans. And yes, I've even encountered some of them before. But the vast majority of spiders are completely harmless to humans and even benefit their respective ecological systems. Even knowing this, though, is not enough for us to be friends. It’s not even enough for us to be neutral acquaintances.
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Before America was born, when the slave trade was in full swing, human people were brought across the ocean and sold into captivity here in the colonies that would eventually become our nation. These human people had no rights, no voice, no power over their situation, no hope of freedom. They lived and died in slavery. Likewise, their children were born into slavery for generations.
This inhumane and inhuman treatment of our fellow man flourished far too long. It took moral and political movements and, ultimately, a war to end the institution of slavery. But even after emancipation, formerly enslaved people had an uphill battle to face against an oppressive system hellbent on keeping them down.
The years begrudgingly gave way to progress. The civil rights movement saw contentious, but marked improvement. And as time marched on, equality trudged along, hoping to catch up and finally have its day. Here in the northwest, I confess, I honestly thought racism was effectively over until the past few years when the internet revealed how wrong I was.
It’s clear that racism is as strong as it’s ever been, even if it’s purportedly less tolerable in the mainstream now. It’s still active in politics. It’s still informing important decisions. It’s still causing apparently irreparable rifts between people whose only real difference is as immaterial as the color of their respective skins.
What I see in the racists and bigots of the world is fear. There’s a persistent fear of “the other” at large in our society today. This fear does not have to be the natural state of race relations. It is learned. It is further reinforced by unnecessary tragedies. It seems to me that this fear grows as those in power make decisions with adverse consequences for the oppressed among us. This fear is the result of an Us v. Them state of mind.
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When America and I were young, we captured and mistreated the eventual sources of our prejudice and fears (spiders for me, those of differing skin colors for America). Many died at our hands. Though we discontinued our respective practices of captivity, the effects and ramifications of those practices live on in the form of arachnophobia and racism. The result? I have the urge kill every spider I see while America struggles to shake off a system that maintains the immoral status quo.
Every once in a while, I have a moment of clarity and realize spiders are not out to get me. I will occasionally pass by a spider in its web and consciously realize it means me no harm. But if I get a closer look at the spider, all rationality disappears. I see an enemy where there is none. I see a threat where none exists. Furthermore, I become a far greater threat to the innocent spider minding her own business than I ever even felt she presented to me. I overcompensate for the fear by becoming a lethal agent in my war against spiders.
Similarly, there are many in this country who see racism for what it is and actively make efforts to circumvent its political hold. Many are protesting injustice, marching in support of equality, voting for political and social change, and bridging gaps between people who have fewer differences than fear would have us believe. There are some who see what’s wrong and are doing something about it. But they’re up against centuries of systemic resistance.
So what is the solution for this fear and antagonism? Is it exposure? Is it education? Is it simply love? And even if we know what the remedy is, how do we apply it? How do we heal both the deep scars and fresh wounds afflicted upon one another in the name of something as arbitrary and cosmically unimportant as race? How do we overcome our superficial differences and create a society based upon the equality of all people? How do we break the cycle of fear-violence-hate-fear-violence-hate-ad infinitum?
I believe it can be done, though I don’t know how. Not everyone is an arachnophobe; not everyone is a racist. Does that mean all of us can shed such dispositions? I believe we can. And I hope we do.