Annapolis Is Better Than This
I am an American-born Christian, a Lutheran, and — I hope — on some levels a gentleman. I tell you that not as a boast but as a standard, because it is the standard I am about to hold other people to, and a man who will not state his own standard has no business judging anyone else’s.
On Monday night I watched part of the Annapolis City Council meeting. I did not watch all three hours. I watched more than I felt comfortable watching, and I will be honest with you about what it did to me: it made me feel something close to hatred toward people I have never met. I do not hate people — I don’t really feel like I hate people — but watching that room made me feel a contempt I barely recognize in myself, and I am at a loss for words to describe it.
What I will not do is hate. Hatred is not a conclusion; it is a surrender. What I can do — what this article is — is describe what happened in that chamber, plainly, and say why what was done to my Jewish brothers and sisters in that meeting was despicable and ugly, and why it matters more because it happened here.
The fight was over a memorial citation for Philip Omaya Ateto, a 48-year-old Annapolis activist who died in July of multiple myeloma. Ateto fought for environmental causes and against racism and social injustice. The Black community of Annapolis loved him, and I do not begrudge them their grief or their desire to honor him. After his death, activists asked the city for a formal citation. Mayor Jared Littmann — who is Jewish — denied it. His reason, stated at the meeting: Ateto’s “language felt like an attack over religion, and he crossed the line from advocacy for his position over to antisemitism.” The mayor did not elaborate.
Nearly two hours of public comment followed, most of it aimed at the mayor like a weapon. On Tuesday afternoon Littmann reversed himself; the citation will be issued. The decision, in other words, is over. What happened in the room is not over, and that is what this is about.
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