“Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”
– Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
People as things…it all keeps coming back to that, doesn’t it?
I could continue to promote my book or run my mouth on what’s bothering me. If you know me or follow me at all, you already know it’ll be the latter. And let’s face it, people who don’t like my “politics” (which is what some call anything they wish to deny or dismiss) probably won’t like my writing, either.
As a creative or maybe just a person in general, it’s not censorship that’s the biggest roadblock but self-censorship. Lies of omission are still lies, and lying makes me uncomfortable (not to the point of vomiting like the woman in Knives Out, but stomach aches and headaches for sure). I’d like to think I’d strive for honesty regardless. If nothing else, maintaining the big lies (I’m not talking about tact and diplomacy or holiday whimsy) seems like too much trouble, and it can have devastating consequences on families, communities, and beyond. I hate omitting personal experiences and observations that relate to a larger national narrative out of some misplaced sense of…what?
Duty?
I can’t say it’s a fear of being disloyal because my anger stems from the disloyalty of others. As the saying goes, don’t shoot the messenger. Life taught me early and often not to place others on a pedestal, and to be skeptical of people in positions of power.
Here’s the kind of personal experience I choke on every time someone abuses authority: Once I attended a funeral in Arizona. A Maricopa County Constable, or Justice of the Peace, delivered a eulogy. This was during the reign of Sheriff Joe (who would later lose a civil suit for failing to investigate sex crimes, and get charged with criminal contempt for unlawfully profiling Latinos in case they were “illegal” before receiving a pardon from the 45th president). In between frothing at the mouth about lib’rals, psychologists, teachers, and minorities, the Constable took a moment to express the following sentiment regarding the departed’s courtship with his wife, also deceased:
“He liked to hunt, and this was big game.”
I’ve been haunted by those words ever since, especially since I knew the departed had once shamed a child for divorcing a wife-beating fellow cop, and remained hunting buddies with the abuser. The “eulogy” epitomized a toxic good old boys mentality I’ve railed against most my life.
Funerals.
They’re just like locker rooms, really.
Years later, an obvious conman with an even greater penchant for locker-room talk (like sexualizing his daughters on national radio, and bragging about sexually assaulting women on a hot mic) barely wins the presidency despite dozens of credible sexual assault accusations, including a minor.
“He liked to hunt, and this was big game.”
A white supremacist runs down and kills a woman protester.
“He liked to hunt, and this was big game.”
A school shooting gets blamed on a girl, one of the victims, for spurning the advances of the boy who had been harassing her.
“He liked to hunt, and this was big game.”
Cops shoot and kill black women in their own homes. Atatiana Jefferson’s killer was indicted. Breonna Taylor’s killer continues to evade justice. Opponents of reform ask women who will protect us from rape if we divest some funds from police departments to reinvest in schools and social services, even though some rapists are cops, and few see consequences.
“He liked to hunt, and this was big game.”
Within hours of Justice Ginsburg dying, and in the middle of an election the president is already threatening to challenge in court, the Senate Majority leader expresses his desire to fill her seat despite denying Garland a hearing, and as a part of his continued efforts to stack the courts with extremists. The president parades the next Supreme Court justice in a campaign ad, a literal handmaiden chosen to close every door Ginsburg helped open, and to advocate for him instead of the People.
“He liked to hunt, and this was big game.”
When vice presidential candidate Senator Harris campaigns in Texas, armed supporters of the president try to run a campaign vehicle off the road. The president cheers on Twitter.
“He liked to hunt, and this was big game.”
In the midst of all this, some people want to discuss whether a woman who ended California’s rape kit backlog as Attorney General and wants to do the same nationwide is “likeable”…because debates about women’s likeability while unlikeable men get away with all manner of wrongdoing never gets old. Personally I like someone who has accomplished some good navigating an unjust system, and who acknowledges flaws and wants to fix them. Harris also holds corrupt and predatorial men to account. I like that, too.
We don’t exist to be mounted and stuffed.
