#CommonDecencyMatters

[jamr0ck83]

Kick Rocks With That Centrist Nonsense

This post in response to an NPR article discussing the dangers of a divided America during the coronavirus pandemic. Originally, the words below were just supposed to be a reply to a comment regarding said article, but...words tend to get away from me. And they all felt important enough that I should post them in their entirety.

I can agree that the media does seem to portray a larger divide than what might actually exist. Cuz really, 100 people on a sidewalk isn’t a sizable movement; it’s a few people shouting inane mantras and holding up ridiculous (and often insulting) signs who don’t need to be receiving a national platform to broadcast their nonsense. And it troubles me that the mainstream media is more willing to cover a relatively insignificant gathering of armed white people on some state’s capitol steps than report on the vast amounts of incidences of injustice and racist vitriol that people of color are dealing with right now. To me, I know which story seems more concerning. But we keep seeing these protesters on the news in between cuts of Trump babbling incoherently about shining light into the body to kill a virus. I know the media is super concerned about ratings, but what happened to their responsibility to the public to provide us with factual information that we absolutely need to know?

That being said, I respectfully disagree that the crux of our national divide is built upon extremism on both sides and that the proper approach is a more centrist view. Our nation has been divided since before its inception. I think Americans have this notion that we need to “get back” to unity and mutual respect, but it seems to me that this idealized era never happened to begin with if it took so very little for people’s incredibly harmful biases and prejudices to become center stage as they now have. We were never united, and we were never in harmony. Any period of time you might point to as one of evidence that we used to see eye-to-eye on things, I will show you at least one group of people who, at that same time, were facing severe injustices and oppression. America has never been good for everyone; that’s a myth that needs to die, because it prevents us from moving forward in any meaningful way if we’re constantly looking back to a romanticized past.

If you want to blame someone for our intense divide, blame this current presidential administration and the larger Republican Party who refuse to do anything but stand idly by as our democracy implodes. At no point, has Trump tried to unify the country. Why would he? He loves division; he thrives on it! Division is how he was able to get elected to an office he has no business holding. He will never be presidential, he will never be the voice of reason, and he will never consider the needs of the country ahead of his own. He genuinely doesn’t care about any of us, not even his supporters. If it made him more money or got him more power, he would sign off on the literal destruction of any one of us in a heartbeat.

That brings me to my third point, which is that this idea that it’s the extremists on both sides that have made life in America unbearable is patently false. I’m an independent, and I lean pretty left. And the reason I do that is because to not lean left is to align myself with people who are clinging to archaic and bigoted ideas about who deserves to be treated like people and who is unworthy. I say this as someone who used to consider themselves fairly conservative; there is nothing that the right is doing right now that speaks of respect or concern for anyone who doesn’t look or sound like them. When you have a side that has couched themselves in both covert and overt rhetoric that is sexist, racist, and homophobic, you don’t get to claim “to each his own”. When your political and social views demand or dictate that I be stripped of my rights and/or my life, I don’t have any need to consider your position as equally valid as mine. And I don’t owe you compassion or respect if you are actively fighting for my destruction. That’s not hyperbole; that’s exactly what is happening. Black people are being attacked and murdered by police and vigilante citizens at alarming regularity. Kids whose parents are just trying to relocate to a place with opportunity and a chance to survive are locked in cages. The LGBTQ+ community is constantly on the receiving end of violence, are being denied the same rights as other citizens, and are being told that they can’t live a peaceful life that would allow them to be themselves because that makes some people who don’t even know them feel uncomfortable. Women are degraded and minimized to a degree that is appalling, and despite everyone being fully aware that the wage gap exists, people are actually (still) debating whether that’s problematic. And then you have the other side that believes all of these aforementioned things are patently abhorrent and need to be fixed. What middle ground exists within that dynamic? Give black people the right to live but let’s hold back on letting LGBTQ+ people exist with any sense of being full citizens? Let’s keep migrant kids in open pens instead of cages, and don’t give women equal pay but maybe just a slight increase so that they’re now being paid 85¢ for every male dollar as opposed to 81¢? None of that is just nor a fair compromise, because you can’t compromise when you’re fighting for someone’s humanity to be acknowledged. Either it is or it isn’t.

I’ve heard harsh words originating from each side, and that does, indeed, reflect a lack of respect. But I’ve approached many a conservative with the mindset of having a thoughtful exchange of ideas in hopes that we might both understand each other more aptly. And as a result of that, I’ve been insulted, diminished, and literally told to shut up the minute I’ve made a point someone either can’t figure out how to reasonably address or I have indicated that I believe myself to be a knowledgeable human being not looking for their permission to exist. Frankly, I’m done being nice, and I’m done showing compassion in hopes that the other person might be swayed, because they never are. That has often left myself open for verbal abuse for absolutely no reason, and I can’t do that anymore; I shouldn’t be expected to. Sometimes, I HAVE said mean things, and I meant every word of it. I will not ever allow someone to degrade me in the futile hope that I can appeal to their humanity. Because the second you began to treat me as “less-than”, you forfeited your right to see my good nature, and I don’t owe you anything. Especially not when the argument you are making is in support of me not being able to enjoy the liberties and freedoms that are due me.

I often cringe when people make the argument for political centrality, because it honestly feels like a cop-out. A person is willing to forego taking a stance, because they can afford to, usually because their lives don’t depend on it. That’s not a privilege I have. Decisions are being made today that affect me deeply, and I cannot sit back “objectively” to find the middle ground. Either you believe in science or you don’t. Either you think it’s wrong that, in NYC, cops were beating black and brown people in the Bronx and putting them in jail for “failure to social distance” while they politely handed out masks to the white people in Central Park, or you don’t. And if you have to stop for an extensive period of time in order to figure out where you land, it’s already clear that you have not chosen the side that respects all humanity.

This country is an absolute mess, but it’s been a mess in the making for hundreds of years. Every citizen needs to decide what it is they stand for and what kind of country they want to live in. Now. And there can be nothing gradual about whatever shift we need to make. People are suffering. Now. They don’t deserve to be sacrificed just so others who don’t like change don’t feel too inconvenienced. “With all deliberate speed” was a bullshit strategy in the 1950s, and it’s a bullshit strategy now. Cuz we waited 60-plus years, and what has really been accomplished in all of that time? We got schools all over this country never even been integrated. But yet we pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves a post-racial society.

No, fam. Just no.

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