The Repercussions of Hate

          We all know that feeling when some person of strong personal convictions shares an opinion or outlook that we disagree with, whether it be on a personal or realistic level, and we feel compelled to respond, to exercise our shared right to our opinions. What is often the breaking-point of such interactions is the precise moment when one of you decides that you’re not only entitled to your opinion, but that the rest of the world should be obliged to agree with you or never speak on the matter at all, because obviously it is not possible to have an opinion if you don’t voice it and subsequently belittle another person for not sharing said opinion. I do not often get involved in such situations, mainly because I am a “get so mad you cry or just can’t properly communicate” kind of person and know better than to bite off more than I can chew. But some things I find impossible to ignore.

          In scrolling through social media today, I came across an article detailing the upcoming Women’s March for Equality being promoted by the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL. Although I will not be attending for reasons that are totally my own business, I support the cause and I support the notion of freedom and equality in the modern day because, let’s face it, as much as it seems our current president is trying to prove otherwise, we are no longer living in medieval times. The problem that we’re combating is the institutionalized abuse, suppression, and unfair, unequal treatment of minorities. I say minorities because oppression has never been, by any means, exclusive to women. It has, however, been almost exclusively perpetuated by the same demographic in modern times in our nation, and one would think that it would be easy to draw a line in the sand: one group is entirely underrepresented and mistreated, while the other is entirely motivated by racism and sexism to oppress others. Unfortunately the reality is not quite so simple.

          I was motivated to write this after coming across a comment on the post about this Women’s March. Several (not many, mind you) women appeared to be disturbed by this event, even outraged. Some went on to ask the purpose of the march. Many women responded (condescendingly) that of course they were marching for voting rights. I, like some of the women in the comments, was a bit confused by this reasoning as the 19^th Amendment pretty much covered that in 1920. But I didn’t say anything, because perhaps there were just a few people who were, not inaccurate necessarily, but maybe a bit uninformed as to the purpose of the march. But scroll down a bit more, and there were women openly bashing this march, its purpose, its message, and anyone who supported it, which I found to be a pretty extreme reaction to something it was totally possible for them to ignore. And then I saw it…someone brought up the wage gap, which is a valid, verifiable difference in the treatment and pay of female and minority workers versus their male or white counterparts.

          One woman’s argument was that she “works in a men’s field” and makes “the same, if not more than,” her male counterparts, so to her, this whole wage gap thing just “doesn’t hold water.” Though I said nothing, I had several questions I would have liked pose to her. For instance, what “men’s field” are you referring to? What evidence are you basing this on? Have you actually seen your coworkers' checks or salaries? Does this mean that you don't believe in rape, or in cancer, because those things don't affect you and therefore can't exist? I was baffled. This is 2018, so because we are not ashamed of our transparency on the internet, I checked out her profile. It looked to me like this woman did not work at all, but was married to an active-duty military member. So strike one was that it was not apparent that what she was saying was ever remotely true, though I will admit this was not verifiable beyond doubt. Strike two, more importantly, was the fact that she basically perpetuated a “Not all men!” moment, and saw nothing wrong with it.

          This is a common outlook, the idea that an exception to the rule makes the rule invalid. This is the same reasoning that has allowed powerful poeple to disregard scientific facts and valid proof that things like climate change are real and happening right now in favor of the view that “A bloated carrot who happens to be our president just saw it snow, and has decided on everyone’s behalf that this officially disproves science. Weather over.” Why do people feel the need to be special? Because what other reason could this nobody have for stating her opinion which is not only not unique, but not insightful, based in reason, or in any way helpful to anyone at all, not even to herself? Why did this one person insist that her personal experience disproved statistics, facts based on research and actual data? Why does Karen think she’s the only person who comes in with expired coupons and doesn’t get to use them?

          It is common for whatever generation is currently trying to drag us back to the Stone Age to accuse “liberals” or “millennials” or “snowflakes” or whatever other derogatory terms of being overly sensitive, of wanting to be unique and special by having some sentimentality that allows them to be offended by any and everything. But it appears to me that the only “snowflakes” are the Karens of this world, those so determined to have their outdated and misguided opinions heard that they are willing to defend their oppressors and the oppression they perpetuate. They use their very rare, very exceptional experiences to demonize any other perspective but their own. And you know the biggest problem with this? They have been encouraged to be this way. And what happens when you feed into this kind of delusional thinking? Well, for one, you begin to lose sight of what makes us all people. If you have built up such a sense of entitlement that no one else should be able to express their opinion until you’ve expressed yours, and damn them to hell if their opinion is different, then you obviously have lost touch with reality. If your “rights” are not shared by everyone else without exception, they are not rights. That, my friends, is privilege.

          I have seen women defend men for a long time. I’ve seen women make excuses for men who physically and emotionally abuse them, make excuses for “boys being boys,” and it has truly hurt me. These actions and statements in defense of a world that has abused and oppressed so many people of so many diverse groups and walks of life are, ultimately, deeply selfish. I say this because there is almost no one who is in no way affected by this injustice and abuse of power by what amounts to the ruling class. If you are against equal rights for anyone at all, you are merely stating your belief that you are more important than anyone else. Ms. “Works in a Men’s Field” believes that because she is not affected by unfair wage gaps, the problem doesn’t exist and it is not worth anyone’s concern. She believes that because she is not personally privy to such treatment, she must be the golden standard for an entire industry, nay, an entire gender! This is typical of a mindset that allowed rifts between groups of people throughout history to grow in such extreme and unreasonable measure that sometimes genocides ensued.

I am often reminded, these days, of Martin Niemöller’s quote: “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” Niemöller himself learned acceptance and eventually learned to reject anti-Semitism, but only did so after spending the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. The very real problem with the attitude that anything not affecting you can’t possibly affect anyone else, is that it is entirely baseless and ludicrous. No human is unique, no struggle is singular. No oppression has definite limits. If you are unwilling to fight for your fellow man, for your fellow women and children, people of color and people of no color, for the gendered and the genderless, what right do you have to be fought for? Who are you to decide whose life is any more or less important than another?

 One truly bothersome aspect of this entire situation is that religion has done so much to amplify and to encourage this continuance of inequality and hate for each other. How much do you want to bet that Ms. “Men’s Field” considers herself a Christian? Many so-called Christians claim to live by the Golden Rule and by the teachings of a loving God, but will openly deny that Jesus was a middle-eastern man, and for what? Simply for the sake of maintaining a toxic view of people of different colors and creeds. There are so many groups of people dedicated to maintaining their close-mindedness, whether it be with regard to others’ races or political or religious values, that it can be difficult to determine who is spreading fact and who is spreading fiction. The fact that our social media platforms have had to begin policing the information for which they provide an outlet is a dead giveaway that we can’t necessarily trust everything we read. But this doesn’t mean we can’t believe anything we read. Most groups who operate and think this way are very much of the all-or-nothing mindset. And to them I say “NOT ALL MEDIA!”

 This kind of denial of fact, this blatant disregard for each other and for reality, are what make it hard for women and minorities to gain equality. One idiotic person who felt the need to express their aggressive rejection of a group’s attempt to gain equal footing has the power to influence so many other, more ignorant or easily influenced people. Add to this the fact that anyone who has no problem denying verifiable facts will obviously have no problem believing various other untruths, and you create an environment in which unfounded lies can be circulated with little to no recourse. Eventually the belief of the majority is so tainted by false information that we lose sight of the reasons we do things like study the effects of drugs, or study the workings of the world we live in with regard to climate change, environmental impact, and the social repercussions of virtually everything we can think of. As a species, we figured out long ago that the earth wasn’t flat, that we weren’t the center of the universe, that the way your skin reacts to sunlight makes you about as different as you would have been based on your hair color or shoe size. Yet suddenly, for some reason, we have begun to regress, to sink back into the cave, and are having to discover these things one by one all over again. Thanks, Karen.

In this age of the internet, there has been an increasing lack of accountability by many people who use these online platforms to tout their insistence that we don’t need change, or social justice, or equality. But can anyone tell me why? And I don’t mean “can anyone give me their excuse for not pioneering justice,” I mean what actual reason can you, as a fellow human, have for going out of your way to make a stranger’s life more difficult? For example, what reasonable argument could you possibly give me for defending, not men or the male gender, because we all know that NOT ALL MEN, but for defending the worst of men for the sake of reassuring emotionally needy and insecure men that they are unique, that they aren’t like the others? To me, it is similar in nature to “if you’re innocent you have nothing to hide.” If you are so determined to convince someone that their struggle is invalid or that their situation just isn’t real, it makes you come across as someone who is trying to relieve themselves of the guilt of being just as much a part of the problem. And that’s really it, isn’t it?

I understand that “not all men” are awful in the same way that I understand that no group can be generalized in this way, period. So forget “all men,” because that statement is not insightful. It’s a “no duh” statement, an obvious statement that is being used in conjunction with many other phrases and tactics to silence huge groups of people and to diminish the importance of their experiences as they affect humanity as a whole. We simply cannot turn a blind eye to the struggles of our fellow humans, people who still don't have the rights to equal pay, equal treatment. There was a time when each of us made the choice to live our lives the way we do, in spite of oppression and struggles and persecution, despite knowing that the way we live our lives may be in direct violation of various things that are irrelevant to us. But those things are just that: irrelevant. We each know that we don't have to believe anything we don't want to, or at least we know that no one can force us to change our minds or our beliefs. I suppose some people think they're so special that such is true only of themselves.

What I'm really trying to say is that all people, regardless of color, nationality, belief, age, gender, sexuality, or any other combination of ridiculously unimportant factors that have no bearing on our status as HUMANS, can benefit from kindness. All people can benefit from the happiness and joy of a life supported by its community, not tolerated and abused. All people deserve to be just as happy as you do, as I do, as Ms. “Men's Field” does. Nothing about you will ever make you different enough to deserve more, or less, than those basic human rights that are essential to the survival of our species. In the end, we all must understand without doubt that we are not special. We are not unique and throughout the course of history there have been millions of us and there will be millions more. Trying to deny each other equal happiness will only hurt us all, and if it take us another 500 years to understand that, we will probably regress many more times than we advance. But that doesn't mean we give up and accept regression.

So to all the Karen's out there, and to Ms. “Men's Field”: we understand that you're special. But so are we. So unless you're going contribute something helpful, maybe your opinions and beliefs would be better used in some other capacity besides belittling your fellow women for fighting a battle you happened to miss. And for everyone having to deal with Karens and Trumps and all other manner of insistently ignorant, dangerous people, I hope that you have the presence of mind to understand why fighting fire with fire is only going to make it take longer to put out. If you believe there is something worth marching for, worth pioneering, do it. But if your goal is to harm your fellow man, to deprive and take from whatever demographic because of whatever unacceptable reason, maybe its time to visit the sidelines and reflect on what you really are. Because we are all human, and we need each other. But we will go on without you, and mankind will progress. Get with it or get ready to be left behind.