Editorial: Turning to hatred makes all our challenges harder

America is reeling under an attack by a pestilence that is easily spread and often lethal.

Not just the coronavirus, which ultimately will be tamed. The contagion that no human society ever has contained, and which seems to be getting worse, is a toxic hybrid of ignorance, fear and hatred.

In the past few months the one contagion has fed the other, as the stresses of mass quarantine and economic shutdown bring out the worst in some of us.

Make no mistake – the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the best in many people. In central Ohio, we’ve seen neighbors making masks for each other and playing impromptu musical concerts on front porches. Businesses have donated products and services and postponed payment deadlines for people in need.

But the pandemic-related dislocations seem to feed ugliness, too.

The issues of mask-wearing and business closures are fair fodder for debates about civil liberties vs. protecting public health, but they have devolved into farce and threats of force.

Rep. Jon Cross of Kenton, a freshman Republican, doesn’t think Gov. Mike DeWine should enforce public health orders requiring social distancing. He framed his public policy this way: by tweeting that he “has a pair” and adding, “I’m 6’4-290pds & won’t be pushed around!”

And that’s just among Republicans who disagree.

The House of Representatives’ top Democrat, Minority Leader Emilia Sykes, received a telephone call threatening violence to her and to her father, state Sen. Vernon Sykes, recently. Rep. Sykes has been vocal in criticizing Republican House Speaker Larry Householder for not requiring members to wear masks and not wearing one himself.

Across the Ohio River in Kentucky, it got even worse. There, right-wing Republicans on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend hanged Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in effigy, stringing a stuffed dummy over a tree on the grounds of the governor’s mansion.

Such behavior, and the angry denunciations that follow, rub nerves raw and make the idea of “coming together” on anything seem impossible.

For people of good will, that sense of moral helplessness magnifies the horror of true oppression when it emerges, as it did on May 25 in Minneapolis. That’s when George Floyd, an unarmed black man being pursued by police on suspicion of trying use a counterfeit document, was pinned to the ground with a police officer’s knee on his neck for 8 minutes. He pleaded that he couldn’t breathe, and he died.

After so many other deaths of unarmed black men in the custody of police, the rage of the black community in Minneapolis and elsewhere is genuine and justified.

Unfortunately, the peaceful protests that arose from that anger, including in Columbus, degenerated into violence and looting – the sort of conflict that can harden the barriers of ignorance, fear and hatred.

Charles Chandler, the chief of police in Westerville, attempted to reach across that barrier with a statement on Thursday, expressing his disgust at Floyd’s treatment and his regret that it will harm trust between police and their communities for a long time.

Chandler’s gesture was an admirable attempt to acknowledge hurt and fear and to turn aside bitterness. It displays the humility that is necessary if people are to rise above their hate.

We can only hope that, in truly difficult times, more people will find that humility.