A lousy, little knot has been tightening in my belly since I got that email this morning.
The missive provided me a link to a site called “Watchdog” and promised that if I fed the site my address, it would regurgitate the data as a map of my home and neighborhood; a “house” icon surrounded by colorful dots. Click on the dots, the note urged, and pictures of people would pop up, along with their exact addresses and descriptions of their crimes.
Clearly, the email is designed to tie stomachs into knots. It’s supposed to make me think, omigod, I’ve been blithely walking the dog, strolling down to the cinema, picking up the mail at midday and taking out the garbage at night completely oblivious of the fact that dangerous criminals are lurking behind some of the doors I pass on my perambulations. In my ignorance and naïveté, I’ve said “hello” to the guy — no, the stranger — trimming his verge. I’ve smiled and nodded to folks I can’t name as they pull into their driveways, never stopping to wonder what they’ve got stashed in their trunks. I’ve struck up random conversations with other dog-walkers, though for all I know, they dwell in dotted houses.
Before the website’s creators start congratulating themselves for having elicited in me the desired reaction, I must protest. No kudos are in order. A sour pairing of rogue’s gallery pics with laundry lists of nasty business isn’t going to goad me into raising the household fear level to Orange. I’m not scared of my neighbors. I’m scared of sites like Watchdog, and the rampant social paranoia they represent and exacerbate.
I am absolutely, unequivocally certain the person who forwarded the email to me did so with love and friendship and in the belief that the site is a useful tool that can help keep us, our loved ones and especially our precious children safe. I really have to ask, though — safe from what?
Are there evil and crazy people in our society, living among us? Yes. Yes, there are. Do they all have mug shots on file and police records? Nope. Not even close. Can innocent people be wrongly convicted? You betcha.
Lumping the innocent in with the guilty doesn’t keep us safe. It puts us in greater danger by fomenting suspicion and distrust in our communities, our society and our world. It’s that kind of mentality that justifies obliterating an entire village because intelligence reports it may harbor an anti-American teenager who might one day grow up to be a terrorist — and we can’t take that chance. I’ll take it. I’ll take that chance. It’s the best chance we’ve got at surviving as a people, as a species and as a planet.
Teaching kids to snub the woman who lives down the lane just teaches kids to be rude. Encouraging kids to run away from the face on the computer screen encourages them to think danger has an identifiable face. Pretty soon, they start believing they can trust their eyes and governmental authorities to tell them who to fear, who to shun. Who to hurt.
The current elections are rife with this repugnant brand of profiling. Why do McCain/Palin supporters shout “Kill him!” and “Terrorist!” when the Democratic presidential candidate is mentioned? Because their candidates, the present political machine and the media they prefer have deliberately and successfully linked an entire culture and specific physical characteristics with “danger.” A middle name and a Kenyan father is all it took to associate an upstanding American senator with Evil and to tap the lynch-mob ugliness of a frightened constituency.
Here and now, is your neighbor a good neighbor? Then treat him like one. Making a pariah out of anybody in your neighborhood that’s ever made a mistake and got caught isn’t going to keep our kids safe. Their safety depends on learning rules they can apply across the board, sane stuff they can own and that empowers them recognize the people they can talk to, ride home with, take candy from, and hug back.
Spying on each other won’t make us safer. Hating each other won’t make things right. Fear thrives on the poison of prejudice. We’ve got to stop feeding the beast.