Students turn their back to Betsy DeVos during commencement speech

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18. The Perfect Response!

Calmly and firmly turning one's back is the best message that can be sent.

I have often thought that such a response would be powerful at a KKK parade, or, regarding more recent events, alt-right demonstrations.

Confronting such people with shouts and shaken fists (no matter how good it may feel) presents one particular drawback. Photos and video images will show faces contorted with anger--and without context, the side supporting tolerance, inclusiveness and brotherly love can be hard to identify.

Refusing such hate-groups the right to gather and march has its own drawbacks, as anyone who really respects the First Amendment will understand.

Then there is the problem of the one hot-head whose desire for peace, love and equality seems pretty insincere when he throws something, or thwacks something or MacGyvers a flame thrower. It is actions such as that which can produce a false equivalency statement about hatred "on many sides."

Imagine if white supremacists were marching along, and instead of crowds jeering from the sides of the streets, every person resolutely turned their backs, one by one, as the parade of hate moved along. Imagine if the spectators held hands, reaffirming their simple, human connection.

It would probably be scary, because people are vulnerable when their backs are turned. It would require almost superhuman self-control. However, Dr. King and others managed it 50 years ago and the world DID change. Not as much as we would have liked to believe, but their efforts did yield fruit.

We now have people in power who would like to return us to a time even further back than 50 years, but there is a factor working against them.

Jean Auel, in one of her Earth's Children[R] novels. used the analogy of a piece of leather, that-- once stretched--can never return to its original size and shape.

All "alternate facts" aside, the human race has been stretched beyond its former, tribalist perspectives. We've left our planet, and looked upon it with the eyes of God. There are landmasses to be seen from space, but no nations. Wind and rain and sun move across the curved surface of our world and touch us all.

DNA testing has confirmed what every myth and legend has taught us, we come from one source, and we are blood and bone of each other.

We aren't the same people we were 50 years ago. Some of the same problems are rearing their ugly heads again, but we have new knowledge and new resources to carry on the work.

However, sometimes it is simple common sense that is needed. When a toddler throws a tantrum because he wants things his way and no other way will do, he is best ignored. Giving into his anger is, of course, a disaster. Beating back at his anger with greater fury and physical intimidation will produce a different disaster for the child and his future relationships.

He will have to learn-- be reasonable, approach others with respect, and your needs will be acknowledged, even if you don't get everything you desire. But if you absolutely refuse to acknowledge the feelings of others, you don't deserve our attention.

That is the message to send. Being ignored would be the worst possible punishment for for Trump and Company. Think of it this way--money is just a pile of paper if no one will give you what you want in exchange for it. And Trump himself would stop breathing if people stopped noting his existance.