A few weeks ago when I spoke with my friend Vania, he was in the dark. His face floated, seemingly untethered in the middle of the otherwise black zoom screen. When I asked how he was, he said he was fine, and then elaborated: “Happy, but not very happy.” 

Vania is in Lutsk, a small western Ukrainian city, about 50 miles from the Polish border, and I am in Chestertown, Maryland. We meet twice a week to chat via zoom. He’s improving his English skills, so our conversations move slowly, with occasional pauses to use Google translate—but these are less often now than when we first met. We repeat and rephrase frequently, echoing each other to reflect back what we’ve understood and ensure that the message received matches what we’ve tried to convey. We met through a program called ENGin (www.ENGinprogram.org), which matches Ukrainian English learners with conversation buddies who are fluent English speakers for one-on-one language practice and cross-cultural exchange.

That day, Vania explained that he was happy because he’d picked up his pay from a new, better-paid coding job he’d recently transitioned into. His unhappiness was because he was in the dark. Early in the winter, the Ukrainian government instituted scheduled power cuts to manage the damage being inflicted on the national power grid by Russian attacks. The purpose of the attacks was to freeze and isolate the civilian population during the short days of the cold winter. Rolling daily blackouts, four hours on/four hours off, reduced the demand for energy while allowing a modicum of predictability so people could plan their energy usage and organize their days. 

I’m familiar with Wi-Fi frustrations caused by our occasional weather-related blackouts, so I was confused about how Vania’s internet connection remained strong and stable during a widespread power outage. Internet providers would have backup power sources, but home routers and modems need electricity too. When there is no electricity in the home, there is no internet. How was this meeting happening? Vania’s eyes lit up a little at the question, and he showed me a small white box that he had built: a power bank for his internet router. With this device and a charged-up laptop, he was able to meet with an American almost 5,000 miles away to practice English and compare notes on the World Cup, the darkness of war notwithstanding. 

Based on what I’ve observed in twice-weekly zoom conversations, the reporting from western news sources about Ukrainians’ stalwart response to the blackouts is accurate. They’ve been ingenious and determined. There is no question of giving in to the darkness that’s trying to envelope their country from the east, not only destroying their cities and their power grid, but trying to crush their economy, their democracy, and indeed, their very identity. When an air raid alarm interrupted us a few weeks ago, Vania glanced at his phone to check that he was safe, then continued talking. Ukrainians are coping with daily crises while focusing on creating a future, with conviction and purpose, acknowledging moments of appreciation: such as for a paycheck and scheduled—as opposed to unscheduled—blackouts. Happy, but not very happy. 

Slowly, aiming for extreme clarity, Vania and I can discuss complicated subjects and ideas, from covid vaccines to nuclear weapons, his PhD dissertation topic (I confess that I did not fully understand this conversation—not the fault of the language barrier but of my lack of knowledge of anything to do with advanced engineering and powder metallurgy), and whether Ukrainian children should learn Russian. Through forty-minute glimpses into each other’s lives, we’ve compare thoughts, exchanged ideas, and forged a connection. We’ve become friends. 

A few weeks ago, I met another student who shows me a different way that Ukrainians are experiencing this war. For six months, Vladislava has been living in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, far from her family and her home city of Dnipro. She is a graphic designer and a stunningly accomplished artist with an impressive resume and a former member of the Ukrainian national rowing team. Since leaving Ukraine and her job at a print house in Dnipro, she’s been freelancing from Tenerife while looking for full-time work in Europe or perhaps the US. Vladislava and I don’t yet know each other well, but I already see her determination, her resourcefulness, and her bravery. She has allowed me to share the illustration above, which she posted on Instagram last April with this caption (translated automatically from Ukrainian by Instagram): 

“I don’t want to write about pain. She is too much and getting bigger by the minute. In the second week of the war, while sitting in a asylum, I began to draw. I was slowly recovering from the shock. And this is my first job during the war. I have faith that the day will come when we all breathe and take a step. tip into a new bright and happy future. In which we will be even stronger, even kinder, even more united. And our soul will be filled with love and faith in the best. We will become a nation that only can be proud of! Together we are strong! Together we are Ukraine!”  

A year ago, Ukraine was a vague, Russia-adjacent blur in the minds of many Americans. Today, even as we are collectively aghast at the wanton fury of Russian aggression carried out in full brazen view, public conversation in the US and elsewhere is riddled with questions about when the war will end and what compromise or settlement will wrap it up. Interviewers, pundits, and politicians plead for an exit strategy to make the barbarity end, and to quiet the fears that Putin stokes about nuclear weapons and further expansion of his aggression. They ask what Putin wants, as though the war itself is a negotiation strategy. 

Ukrainians, from President Zelenskyy to my English student friends, echoed by historians, journalists, and diplomats with expertise in eastern Europe, tell us with unvarnished conviction and near unanimity that it’s not about a strategic agenda or a magic compromise. It is about the survival of a nation, a language, a culture, and an identity, and even more. It’s also about defining the worldwide political order in the 21st century, how we value human rights, and the strength of democratic principles. 

The tragedy and pain of this war is too big for the mind to comprehend or the heart to hold, and yet human-scaled responses like conversations across oceans and borders and languages make a difference, to both sides. A filament of communication strung between individuals increases the measure of hope in the world, and diminishes fear. Acknowledgement, respect, and curiosity about Ukraine and its people are non-destructive armaments that anyone can wield in the battle against the erasure of a nation. That’s what I’m doing with Vania and Vladislava, and that’s why I’m writing about them. 

You can see more of Vladislava’s art on her Instagram, at www.instagram.com/vladislava_pl/. When I asked Vania if there was anything he would like me to include in this article, he had an immediate response: “We Ukrainians respect your support from the USA and follow your democratic values, and our democracy will live on.”

After our conversation before the anniversary of the invasion, he texted me “See you on Friday then. I hope there will be no rockets)).”  Let’s all hope for no more rockets, not just on Friday, but far into the future. Those of us who are safe outside Ukraine should understand, though, that as long as Russia harbors the ambition to wipe Ukraine out in the present, nullify its history, and deny it a future, the threat of rockets will hang over Ukrainian skies. 

ENGin is actively seeking volunteers. Last month, they received a surge of thousands of new applications from Ukrainians seeking conversation partners. Volunteers need only be 14 or older, fluent English speakers, and able to commit one hour per week for a minimum 10-12 weeks, scheduled at the mutual convenience of the student and volunteer. I can’t recommend the organization and the experience highly enough. Information about the program and how it works is at https://www.enginprogram.org/.

Maria Wood traveled throughout the country as production and tour manager for award-winning musician David Grover, with whom she co-founded a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing education and fostering positive social change through music and music-making.  She returned to school mid-career, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College. More recently, she has written and taught on the meaning and impact of the musical Hamilton, served as Deputy Campaign Manager for congressional candidate Jesse Colvin and was Executive Director of Chestertown RiverArts. She lives in a multigenerational human/feline household in Chestertown. 

 

Now that Congress is back in session, it is imperative that Members find within themselves the moral clarity to act on the release of the Mueller report and begin in earnest impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Not to do so is insulting to voters, destructive to our democratic institutions, and political self-sabotage of the most breathtaking kind. Most importantly, it is a gross abdication of responsibility and a moral failure.

Every day that the Congress does not begin such proceedings, Members fail to uphold their oaths of office and neglect their obligations to do the job they were sent to Washington to do. The Congressional Oath of Office, taken by all Members of the House of Representatives, includes the words “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and “I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Members of Congress are elected by their districts to do the business of the government, to act in good faith and according to the law in the best interests of their constituents, and to adhere to the democratic institutions and norms of our democracy. The President of the United States has violated United States laws, institutional norms, democratic principles, and basic values of human decency since the moment he took office, and his misbehavior and mobster-style criminality is increasing by the day.

Let’s break down the reasons impeachment proceedings must begin immediately. First, anything less is an insult to voters. The American voting public deserve to make up their minds based on a full picture of the facts, with as much truth available as possible against the wall of lies erected by the Trump administration. To simply put the matter of blatant violations of American democratic values and norms on hold in order to wait for the next election is both supremely cynical and supremely disrespectful to the American people. It is also insulting and crass for Members of Congress to refuse to fulfill their duty in this matter and then ask to be re-elected.

Which leads us to the damage to democracy. Two elements of this damage are even now corroding the electorate’s faith in democratic processes. The more straightforward is the proven interference in the 2016 and 2018 elections by hostile foreign powers—interference that the Mueller report shows was welcomed and encouraged by the Trump campaign. For a candidate or his campaign to accept and participate in the undermining of American elections is patently anti-democratic and anti-American, and should be immediately disqualifying for holding elected office. Once these actions are revealed, the Congress has a duty to impeach to protect the integrity of future elections and assure the voting public that American elections are free of interference—otherwise, the logical conclusion is that voting is useless and futile.

The second element has to do with the trust and faith of the public in their Congressional representatives. Please recall the line in the oath of office: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Duly elected representatives who abstain from this process abdicate a solemn promise made to their constituents. The least of the negative consequences of breaking this promise is the risk to individual Members’ re-election prospects. Far worse is the loss of faith in the institution itself and in democratic processes writ large. If elected officials are not going to do the job they’ve been chosen to do—why vote?

Finally, there is an important political argument for impeachment. Many discussions about whether to impeach or not impeach in recent weeks have centered on the political argument against the process. Looked at from another angle, though, the political calculus can be figured differently. The “blue wave” of the 2018 elections demonstrated the hunger among voters for elected officials willing to stand up and call out corruption and lies in government. Voters are more engaged than ever—although the danger that they will abandon the political process if they perceive that it is irrevocably broken is all too real. People of all political persuasions are calling for an end to the lies, bullying, self-dealing, nepotism, and performative provocation that characterize this White House and the party leadership that supports it. House leadership should consider that these voters will welcome and reward good-faith efforts to restore the rule of law and accountability to the highest office in the land. Should the Republican-led Senate refuse to uphold its duty by responding to the charges, House members should trust that the electorate will recognize where the process broke down, and who is to blame for the continued undermining of American democracy.

Call it moral clarity, call it leadership. But be assured, if there is a shred of our constitution still functioning when this tumultuous time in American history is over, we will owe our thanks to those who had the wisdom to recognize the existential threat of rampant corruption and manipulation at the highest levels of our government, and the courage and patriotism to take bold, decisive action on behalf of the best ideals of the American experiment.

Maria Wood returned to academic life in 2014, after a two-decade career in the music business, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College in 2018. Most recently, she served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Jesse Colvin for Congress.

Country music star Jason Isbell has a song on his most recent album titled “White Man’s World.” The song begins with the lyric “I’m a white man living in a white man’s world,” an acknowledgement of the systemic marginalization of those who are not male and are not white.

Rejecting the idea that this systemic oppression even exists is one of the tools of white nationalism, an ideology that holds that whiteness is an identity, not a construct, and that it should be the basis for our national identity. The gradual normalization of this ideology, clothed in the reassuring garments of patriotism and American exceptionalism, is one of the more insidious tools for the perpetuation of the power dynamics that have dismissed the traumatic legacy of brutality, oppression, and marginalization for centuries. It allows racist ideology to hide in the depths of an “us” versus “them” mindset, leaving the specifics of who is “us” and who is “them” unspoken but well understood.

A cruder and more predictable technique is the kind of “hate incident” experienced here on the Eastern Shore this week, in which residents of St. Michaels woke to find outlandishly racist literature, spouting hateful nonsense and exhorting people to join the KKK, waiting on their driveways and front porches. It is perhaps indicative of systemic racism at play that this vile and destructive act did not make the top of the front page of the Star Democrat on Tuesday. Other, smaller, acts are part of the local landscape. They go unnoticed except by those who endure them in a grinding and infuriating routine of logistical obstacles and low-level harassment: being subtly (or overtly) discouraged from patronizing a local business, or being explicitly, if indirectly banned by a property owner.

Is white nationalism on the rise? President Trump says no. But in February the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that the number of white nationalist groups in the US grew by almost 50% in 2018. Data released by the Global Terrorism Database in 2018 showed that more than half the terrorist attacks in the US in 2017 were spurred by racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, or xenophobic ideologies. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, has said “modern white supremacy is an international threat that knows no borders, being exported and globalized like never before.” This opinion is reflected in statistics reported by the ADL showing a 182% increase in incidents of the distribution of white supremacist propaganda—incidents like we saw in St. Michaels this week.

There is no question that white nationalism is on the rise. Intellectual honesty and lived experience require us to accept this. Ethics, patriotism, and—for many people—religious practice demand that we resist it, as we must resist all injustice and inhumanity. In Christian parlance, we must remove the beam in our own eye before we concern ourselves with the mote in someone else’s. We have beams in our eyes in the United States, in the form of systemic and institutional racism, increasing hate crimes, the continued dehumanization of fellow citizens and fellow humans who have black and brown bodies, or who speak accented English, or who practice certain religions.

In patriotic terms, national principles of liberty and equality—not to mention the rule of law—tell us that ideologies of white pride and white nationalism have no place in a country founded on the principles of liberty and equality for all. Common sense tells us that we are a richer, better, more stable nation when we do not discriminate, when we resist instead of embrace hatred, violence, and division. Yet we continue to debate and equivocate on the topic of racism and bigotry while allowing ever more extremist ideologies into the mainstream of our public discourse.

In 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said “for the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country even today is freedom and equality while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists.” In 2019, we must continue to refute the idea that racism is an occasional departure from the norm. The KKK lit drop in St. Michaels was doubtless the work of a few bigoted extremists; it was also a tool to recruit more extremists, and it was another signal that we need to continue the work of eliminating the scourge of racism on the Eastern Shore.

Many people and groups on the Eastern Shore are working tirelessly and valiantly to improve things. The Coalition for Justice for Anton Black is actively pursuing justice for the death of 19 year old Kent County native Anton Black while in police custody, and going further, to seek legal recourse to prevent similar future tragedies. The Social Action Committee for Racial Justice in Kent County is working towards an anti-racist future in schools, with law enforcement, in businesses, and in communities at large. The Unitarian Universalists of the Chester River are hosting a series of book discussions and an art exhibition focused on anti-racism.

The efforts of these groups and many individuals all over the shore are how we achieve a better Eastern Shore, a better Maryland, and a better world. Progress is maddeningly slow, and sometimes seems to stop or reverse, but as Dr. King said, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Jason Isbell’s song concludes,

“I still have faith but I don’t know why
Maybe it’s the fire in my little girl’s eye”

That fire in any child’s eye is an unparalleled motivator for all of us to keep working and fighting for real justice and equality, and to defeat both the insidiousness of normalized discrimination and the dramatic violence of overt acts of hatred.

Maria Wood returned to academic life in 2014, after a two-decade career in the music business, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College in 2018. Most recently, she served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Jesse Colvin for Congress.

 

The shutdown is over—for the moment anyway—and the country is breathing a sigh of relief. However, the drama over the imaginary need for an ineffective, un-American “wall” (or steel slats, or intermittent fencing, or other symbolic barrier) continues.

We, the American public, are told that this “wall” is vital to our safety and security, that we are in grave, immediate danger from “caravans” composed of hordes of dangerous invaders. In reality, the wall is imaginary. Even the concept is fictitious. The language used to talk about “the wall” evokes the picture of an impenetrable concrete rampart along the length of the southern border, but this picture does not resemble any realistic possibility for a partition. “The wall” is a symbol which serves to stoke and capitalize on fear, insularity, and hatred born of racism and xenophobia. The rhetoric around it misleads the public, inflates and invents threats, and strips the humanity from the nameless Others against which it purports to defend.

In 1948, Woody Guthrie wrote a song, “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos),” about Mexican farm workers who died being deported from California. It begins,

The crops are all in and the peaches are rotting,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They’re flying ’em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y Maria;
You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be deportees

and goes on to describe the pain caused by dehumanizing, othering and outright vilifying immigrant workers:

Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract’s out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.

In 2019 as in 1948, public discourse and escalating cruel policies toward immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers shape the public’s mental picture of these human beings—people who we need to make our economy work—into the worst kind of criminals. President Trump’s language in calling for “the wall” is as lurid and extreme as he can contrive, far harsher than “outlaws, rustlers, and thieves.” He plants images in the public imagination of horrific human trafficking practices, enormous loads of illegal drugs coming through unmonitored sections of the border, and hordes of crazed and violent gang members storming into the United States and wreaking untold criminal mayhem. These images are fictions that stoke fear and hatred among the public. They also draw attention away from real problems like the way human trafficking and drug smuggling actually happen at the border, and the real sources and causes of crime within the US. The more Americans’ anger and fear of immigrants is inflamed, the easier it is to accept and justify cruelty like family separation, caging and withholding care and medical attention from children, tear-gassing refugees on foreign soil and other atrocities.

Data tells us that undocumented immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than US citizens. Our economy relies, as it always has, on the labor of immigrants, many of whom are unauthorized, to do the work that most Americans will not, at wages that most Americans will not accept. This labor force is as crucial on the Eastern Shore as it is in other parts of the country: crab picking, agriculture, construction, and many other industries cannot function without these workers. More importantly, basic human decency and American founding principles of equality, liberty, and an open society demand that we welcome those who come here seeking refuge or opportunity.

“The wall” does not need to be contiguous or unbreachable, or even built, to fulfill its true purpose. To people who wish to come to this country, “the wall” signals that while the rich and powerful American nation might be willing to allow desperate people who cross the treacherous desert with their children seeking refuge and safety to clean our toilets and pick our peaches at low wages, we will do so while communicating as brutally as possible that they are feared, hated, and unsafe on our shores. The message to the American public is that that we need extreme levels of protection, and that fear and hatred directed toward refugees and asylees is reasonable.

It is our American tradition and heritage, a primary defining component of our national identity, to enfold immigrants into our population. This tradition makes our national community stronger and healthier. It is also part of our history to exploit them, to abuse them, to bring our basest and most fearful instincts of insular hatred, racism, and distrust to bear on our treatment of newcomers. The first of these traditions moves us toward a more perfect union; the second holds us back and deepens a shameful stain on our history and our national character. Let us work to strengthen the former and extinguish the latter on the Eastern Shore and throughout the country.

Let us resist all encouragement to ignore or dismiss the humanity of those we perceive as foreign or different from ourselves. Let us remember that the people crossing the United States’ southern border have names and families and that America is strongest and healthiest when we treat everyone according to our best national ideals of equality, liberty, and opportunity

Maria Wood returned to academic life in 2014, after a two-decade career in the music business, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College in 2018. Most recently, she served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Jesse Colvin for Congress.