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Perhaps you missed the headline: “Racist Taunts by a Russian ‘Nazi' Inspire a Lynch Mob and a Murder in Cancun.” Reading it challenged what I believe, and how the situation made me feel.
We tell our children to stand up to bullies, and produce movies and characters that back up that directive. From the Abominable Snowmen (featured in in two Christmas Classics) to Ursula in The Little Mermaid, bullies get their comeuppance, usually at the hand of the benevolent hero(ine).
These sanitized triumphs leave some young people wondering why they can’t effect such neat victories. And we don’t sit them down and say, “Well, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty correct the injustices done them with the help of magic, and Matilda does it with bloodless telekinetic abilities. Gordie (Stand By Me) threatens with a gun, and scores of movies (from the Karate Kid to Pitch Perfect) have a handy plot device—the level playing field of ‘the Competition.’” Regina George is—well, Regina George. Still in a prom dress for the final act. (Admittedly, Carrie went a bit overboard—but she paid for it.)
In all these films we cheered when the victimized underdog triumphed, and overcame her/his tormentors.
More importantly, the movie studios gave us permission to cheer by omitting the gray areas, giving us black and white story lines with bloodless coups (even scripting bullies who turn over a new leaf).
Which is why it is so difficult to know what to feel—and how to guide our children—when stories like the one involving Aleksei Viktorovich Makeev break. In ‘real life,’ bullying showdowns are rarely bloodless, nor are the scripts black and white.
Except sometimes they are. And even then, it is unclear what we are supposed to feel.
Consider: On May 20th, in Cancun, Aleksei Viktorovich Makeev was set upon by a mob who threw rocks and beat him with sticks as they chased him to a nearby rooftop with chants of “Kill him!” By the time the police arrived he was bloodied and unconscious. A day later he remained in a drug-induced coma, with early reports of paralysis. If you haven’t heard this story you may be bracing yourself—as I did—waiting to hear tell of some graphic injustice, some racist, homophobic tragedy.
But that story didn’t unfold.
Instead, I learned that Makeev was a Class A hate-monger. Dubbed #LordNaziRuso on social media (don’t bother to look—Youtube has already taken down all his sites), he is said to have repeatedly posted crude, disparaging remarks about Mexicans, women, and children (on Friday, it was a crude drawing that read “lick my dick Mexican piece of shit”).
The Daily Beast reports that some of the bizarre videos Makeev became known for involved him sitting “at the local McDonald's in Cancun, invasively filming humble Mexican diners—zooming in on the faces of what he called their ‘bastard’ children, and referring to the people as ‘monkeys’ and ‘pieces of shit.’" WOW.
Okay, this is where I began to cue the speech about documenting cruelties and injustices, and turning that evidence over to authorities. The advice about letting the due process of law deal with his brand of bigotry and hatred.
But again, I was pulled up short. The Daily Beast reports that locals had reported his cruelties and threatening behaviors to immigration authorities.
“One local radio disc jockey, 55-year-old Fabricio Rechy, provided The Daily Beast with screenshots of a conversation he had with immigration authorities this past February, in which he sends authorities the worrisome videos he had come across, requesting that the Russian be removed for posing a danger to the local people. ‘I stumbled on the videos, and saw the way he was threatening people, calling them shit, saying he was going to kill Mexicans, cut off their heads, and I thought he was a dangerous person, so I felt the need to report it. It’s my duty as a citizen,’ he said. ‘There are videos that show him giving babies the middle finger, throwing coins at an old woman in a grocery store, hitting another elderly lady inside a bank, and stepping on children’s lunch on the beach.’”
And then there are the livestream videos of the small lynch mob gathered outside his apartment in Cancun, hitting and pounding his window until it breaks. Makeev seemed unperturbed, but then something happens, and the next thing that is clear is Makeev is scrambling up to the roof, and rocks are being thrown….and eventually the police come, but the 19 year old who broke into Makeev’s apartment is dead, and Makeev himself is seriously injured.
LONG exhale.
Silence.
So this is our new “reality television....”
And though I am stunned, there is a part of me that wants to be allowed cheer as if this were a Hollywood movie. Or blame my lack of remorse on some ‘deadening’ caused by violent video-games—except I never play.
And this response scares me.
I certainly don’t want young people to read about Makeev and consider it a call to arms, and to turn up in small knots in their schools, ready to take on the local bully.
But I also know how difficult it is to resist taking matters into your own hands when the toxicity hits a breaking point, and authority figures seem helpless, hapless, or just look the other way
Perhaps this is the conversation we need to be having. How to manage our mounting emotions when we have reached out, yet help is not on the way.
When the outrage we’re feeling is entirely legitimate, and no-one questions why we feel it. “Take a deep breath and walk away” is advice that often translates as “continue to take it.” This is because (non)action often allows negative feelings to continue to stockpile in our bodies, and sooner or later they will explode…
Rather, we need to learn how to uncouple anger from the expectation that the injustice will be "righted," "addressed," and resolved to our satisfaction in a “timely” manner (and resentment that becomes a thought-pattern when it isn't).
These expectations (for a somewhat speedy resolution) are no small part of the violence that often follows—whether it be harm we do ourselves by stuffing down legitimate outrage, or the harm we do ourselves by becoming like the object of our outrange (which translates as: the harm we do others—even those who trigger our fury.) Either course of action only addresses the situation in the moment, and will prove unsatisfying in the long run.
So, how to productively manage outrage?
This, of course, is almost impossible in a group that feeds on each other’s anger.
But if we know the anger is mounting—as it was in Makeev’s situation—we can take three proactive steps: 1) admit and feel the rage; 2) acknowledge it may well have a legitimate trigger; and 3) cultivate compassion for our own heated responses.
(Compassion toward our responses should not be confused with feeling sorry for our situation.)
Compassion for our outrage is about much more than quick steps to manage anger (though these can be helpful in the short-term).
It is about managing expectations, and giving ourselves ‘a break’ for having them. It is about viewing our own reactions from a once-removed perspective, one that inserts kindness and understanding between the emotional heat of the situation and the type of person we aspire to be--effective and respected. If we step back and simply watch our behaviors/responses (as opposed to fantasizing about our triumphs), and envelop our outrage with compassion, we go far toward managing the stockpile in our bodies.
When we can feel compassion toward ourselves for our responses we begin to productively defuse the cheering section for our rage, and return it to a Hollywood studio which will resolve it bloodlessly.
