Division and Unity Pt.3
Between when I wrote the previous part and now when I am writing this part, the George Floyd murder, following protests, and later ensuing riots happened. The first post I made when returning to writing was the one I wrote in response to a youtube video which in itself was a response to the President's actions against peaceful protesters outside the white house, in his need to get a photo op with an upside-down bible in front of a church. Up until this point the people who have been reading this as I write it have told me that maybe I am a bit too harsh in regard to Trump. Then he gave a speech claiming he will send military personnel to put down the protests and riots going on in the cities across America making no distinction between rioters and peaceful protesters.
When I wrote that piece I included an oft paraphrased quote from Lincoln. One often used incorrectly. The quote is often used to warn of threats within our own people, but in reality the quote is about the threat of ourselves. Of our ability to force division where none need be. I say often used incorrectly because the people who tend to paraphrase it use it to divide. To make you suspect of those you might otherwise trust. Which is ultimately exactly what the speech was meant to warn you from.
I also mentioned something about my friends who believed they needed to hold onto their guns against a tyrannical government and about how they can’t vote for a democrat because they would take their guns away. Thing is, I actually trust them to be able to hold onto said guns should a democrat get elected who claims they would try to take their guns away. I do not trust them to hold onto their guns when a candidate they are willing to vote for cries “Fake news,” or threatens protesters. That is a far subtler, insidious, and effective way to disarm a population. People divided will give up their freedoms in exchange for their safety. Sometimes far too many, too quickly for them to realize they have given away the ones they cared about most.
There is a call for unity being herald across the nation as I write this and it is going unanswered. There is a call for leadership out there, but it too goes unanswered. A country divided is a country wounded. A divided populace is weak and easy to control. The more you hunker down into your position and the more you fight against the idea that anyone has the right to disagree with you the more weak we all become. It doesn’t matter if you support Trump, it doesn’t matter if you support the protesters. What matters is that you support the protesters’ right to peaceful protest, in whatever fashion that takes.
It is also very important to keep the protesters, and the rioters and looters, separate in your head. It is important to understand what reasons may have caused people to believe that violence is the only way for them to get a response from their leadership. Remember, Martin Luther King more than once said, “Riots are the voice of the unheard.” It is important to understand that riots do not always happen because violent people want to be violent but because helpless people want to be heard. Violence answering violence will only lead to more violence. Only when we stop and listen can we heal the wound. Only when we decry violence in all its forms and call for peace and understanding can we move forward.
The first amendment of the American constitution guarantees the right to free speech, religion, press and protest. Those are the methods of which we can demand the government be answerable to us rather than the other way around. Anyone decrying any of those rights, from trying to shut down protests, to “Fake news,” to calling for someone to be banned from speaking publicly must be opposed on all fronts until they relinquish that stance.
That last one might be a bit of a stickler for some people but I’ll try to help you understand my reasoning. You see if you ban someone from speaking publicly for saying something, even if you find that thing reprehensible won’t stop them from saying that thing, it will only stop you from hearing it. That doesn’t solve the problem and can even make it worse since they likely can still reach the people that agree with them. They will now likely double down and start building resentment towards people who disagree with them. Stories of people with these viewpoints being banned will spread and their community will flourish somewhere else. Mislabels will get thrown around and someone will get banned for not sharing the reprehensible opinion but sounding too close to it by the wrong person, this leads to them being pushed into the community that is flourishing but now has been ignored by many as the believe banning it from public view solved the problem.
This doesn’t solve the problem as it just hides it from the public. This also presents a second problem, which is now the denial of the problem at all. There also is the third problem which is that speech evolves, and if you aren’t monitoring it it can change its form without you knowing. This can cause someone who is unaware, see problem two, to repeat words they don’t realize the meaning of to flag themselves to others as an ally to a community they may not agree with. Then they get banned double down and well we repeat the process.
This doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to be offended or a right to turn away or block that person from your life. You don’t have a responsibility to get that person to listen, but I would still ask you to be willing to talk if they asked you with sincerity and humility.
Recently on social media Kenny Deforest shared a story about Dave Chapelle and him dealing with a heckler, it was beautifully handled and you should go read it yourself. I'd rather not ruin it by paraphrasing it here. After dealing with the heckler on stage, backstage the girl(heckler) came to see him and told him how sorry she was, etc., and Chapelle responded, “you’re ok. That’s all we can ask. Know better, do better. I want to thank YOU for hearing me and listening. That’s your role. And now you know. Now you’re part of that critical mass we talked about and next time you hear a friend say some ignorant shit like you said, it’s your job to correct them and share with them what you learned tonight. THEN, you’re no longer part of the problem, you’re part of the solution.”
Behind the reprehensible speech is a person, one who doesn’t have any more of an idea what’s going on in this world than you do, and only by finding some common ground can you ever reach your hand to pull them out. Because maybe, just maybe they need a place to belong and one community offered them a helping hand and the other told them they were wrong. Even if that helping hand is only there as a tool to manipulate, control, and exploit it can feel like salvation to someone who doesn’t see any other choice. Or maybe they just don’t know any better and just need someone with compassion to educate them.
At a time in my life I might have turned that corner, I’m an Atheist and there was a time where I could have looked for any hand that would help me from where I stood. But luckily for me were the welcoming hands of Douglas Adams novels, Monty Python sketches, and Richard Dawkins lectures. Most importantly would probably be the collected miscellaneous works of Douglas Adams included in Salmon of Doubt. On some level, I thought I had processed Douglas Adams's death, well before I picked up that book, but when tears flowed down my face as I reached those final pages I came to the realization that I had not.
I would be remiss if I did not also mention the Youtube and gaming personality that was the late John “Totalbiscuit” Bain. He had a level of integrity and honesty that was so refreshing in the youtube and gaming media scene.
I realized at some point that that is what I want from anyone and will gravitate away from people who are not either, but toward people who are both. Even if it is only later on that they become so. That ultimately is probably my main point with all this and all its parts, I want people to have more integrity and be more honest. For people to be willing to be wrong so that we can all grow. No more, “well I want to but they won’t go for it.” That’s an excuse and we all know it. We need to be better, all of us or we risk destroying ourselves.
At the end of the day this is all just my opinion based on how I see things, and like everyone else any part of that can change at any moment. Let’s just hope and try to change for the better whenever possible. That’s the most we can ever ask for.