Strange season of tribulations is testing our national character

Fort Bend County Judge KP George was in a reflective mood Friday morning, as he stood in the parking lot of the Cinco

Ranch Library in Katy.

He said he’d been rereading “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl as well as reading a lot of political articles, and watching the Republican National Convention, which had concluded the previous night.

The first-term Democrat was troubled by the fact that many at the convention spoke about COVID-19 as if it were a thing of the past, a problem that had been solved. More generally, he worried about the politicization of the coronavirus pandemic.

An Indian American, George recently revealed that he’s been on the receiving end of racist and nativist invective from some constituents displeased with his handling of the crisis. He penned a column for the Houston Chronicle lamenting how “misguided hostility and irrational prejudice has inserted itself further into matters of life-and-death.”

“It is actually testing our character, in my opinion,” George said Friday. “I’ve seen people behaving badly, and I’ve seen people going out of the way, even if they’re struggling — ‘Oh, let me help somebody else.’ … You’re seeing all kind of human behavior.”

A long line of cars snaked out of the library parking lot into the surrounding streets, waiting for free kits — soap, hand sanitizer, face masks and antibacterial wipes — which were being distributed as part of the county’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, but also to help residents in the event of a major hurricane reaching the region. Although the Houston area was spared a direct hit from Hurricane Laura, the season is not yet over, and already, meteorologists were keeping a close eye on a couple of tropical disturbances in the Atlantic. Across the street, school meals were being distributed at Cinco Ranch Junior High School.

It was the end of a long week for people living along the Gulf Coast and across the rest of the

country. In addition to the hurricane and pandemic, the nation has been grappling with the anguish of racial injustice and police brutality. On Monday, 29-year-old Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisc. as his kids watched from their car, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. The protests that erupted in the city quickly devolved into riots, despite pleas from Blake’s mother to eschew violence and destruction. On Tuesday, three protesters were shot, two of them fatally. The suspected shooter is a white 17-year-old and a fan of President

Donald Trump, according to his social media.

Trump showed little interest in uniting the country on Thursday, when he formally accepted his renomination as the GOP presidential nominee.

“The fact is, we’re here and they’re not,” the president said in his speech on the South Lawn of the White House, bringing a roar of applause from the supporters in attendance, most of whom were not wearing masks.

Houstonians, of course, spent the week on edge, watching Hurricane Laura spiraling through the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall in Cameron, La. The damage was severe, but it could have been far worse had the storm tacked just a bit to the west. In the end, Houston was

lucky. Very lucky. Instead of being hit by a devastating Category 4 storm, the city experienced a lovely evening on Wednesday, with temperatures dropping into the 70s as the clouds of Laura’s outer bands moved hesitantly, then purposefully, across the very face of the waxing moon.

Still, Laura was a sobering reminder of the massive issues facing the city and state, even before the pandemic and our current overheated political season.

“It shouldn’t take a near miss of a catastrophic hurricane to force our national leaders to recognize the urgency of investing in flood infrastructure, including a coastal barrier for Galveston Bay,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said, referring

to the $32 billion proposal that remains a long ways off 12 years after Hurricane Ike devastated the coast.

“This week, many of us watched the meteorological projections with anguish,” she continued. “But the reality of it is, we don’t have to cross our fingers and hope that major storms miss us. We have the power to protect our region. This isn’t new, it just requires will.”

It would probably also require cooperation among Americans who disagree on other issues, and these days, trust and mutual respect seems to be in short supply.

The good news is that if you look past the headlines, and cable news sparring matches, you see a slightly rosier picture, like the one unfolding in the Cinco Ranch Library parking lot Friday morning, where masked and gloved volunteers helped provide their neighbors with the supplies that might keep them safe until COVID-19 is finally contained.

As George said, this strange season is testing our character. And many are rising to the challenges of the times.

“I’ve been telling people, this is all bad stuff, a lot of bad stuff happening, but you know what?,” George said. “This is a time to maybe stop and smell the roses, reflect on yourself and your life and your family, because 185,000 people don’t have that opportunity.”