This just in...or is that flushed?
One of my more conservative coworkers left the following printout on an adjoining table for any passerby to read:
"I never cared if you were 'gay' until you started shoving it down my throat.
I never cared what color you were, until you started blaming my race for your problems.
I never cared about your political affiliation until you started to condemn me for mine.
I never cared where you were born in the USA until you wanted to erase my history and blamed my ancestors for your problems.
I never cared if you were well-off or poor until you said you were discriminated against when I was promoted because I worked hard.
I never cared if your beliefs were different from mine, until you said my beliefs were wrong.
Now, I care. My patience and tolerance are almost gone. I am not alone in feeling this way. There are millions who do...
AND WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH."
Nota bene (please note)...
It's pretty obvious that the original author of this screed is: a Republican, probably of the substrain conservatis norquisti; either a white Southerner or at least a sympathizer; a very conservative Protestant Christian, perhaps Southern Baptist; and...clueless.
I say "clueless" because every single line of this post after the word "until" is a "straw man"--an extreme distortion of a position taken by another person. This distortion is then misrepresented as the normal argument. It's a mutation, in fact, and the straw men in the above document would be ridiculed if they were read by people who really know about the issues named.
But this is the Internet, remember? Anything and everything can be put out there like so much raw sewage; and chances are, it will gain not only serious attention, but unquestioning belief.
So here I stand, sword in hand, to take arms against these straw men and reduce them, line by line, to cattle fodder...
I never cared if you were 'gay' until you started shoving it down my throat.
I actually have several dogs in this fight, in the form of friends and a relative who are either homosexual or trans-gendered. Some might think that disqualifies me from even speaking to this issue, but I think it gives me a better perspective on what "non-cis" folks might actually want.
In a nutshell, they just want to be treated like any other member of society.
When the writer refers to gay people "shoving it down [his] throat", does he refer to their desire to be married? Or the desire to adopt children as couples? How about not having to hide their sexual orientation in order to get a job or a home, or to serve in the military? These have all been uphill battles for the LGBTQ community for a very long time now, and whatever your religion, the law of this land should not allow any law-abiding non-cis to be treated like a second-class citizen.
Maybe what upsets the writer is that the non-cis community is being represented more favorably in the entertainment industry, with more non-cis people and couples having larger roles and even being able to express their love on-screen. If this is so, well--look at how much hetero smooching, necking, and home-run sex are all over the airwaves and movie screens! If non-cis people are normal, and they live among us, why should they hide how much they love their wife, husband, or partner? And if a TV show or movie is trying to show "real life," it must also show that kind of "real life" as well. If not, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: we should just go back to the days of the Hayes Code, when even hetero marrieds were not allowed to lie in the same double bed and the word "pregnant" was never said out loud.
Of course, it might be that the writer had to detour around the route of his city's annual Gay Pride Parade, and he's just angry because it made him late for work. If that's the case, I have no rebuttal.
I never cared what color you were, until you started blaming my race for your problems.
News flash: White people are being blamed for the problems of African-Americans...because we caused those problems!
It wasn't Africans who brought other Africans over the ocean to be slaves to white people. That started with the Dutch, and the fad spread to the English and Spanish. As it says in the book of Hosea, "They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." In other words, the evil done at first will create far greater evil down the road.
One of the greater evils was the erroneous idea that dark skin was a sign of inferiority, or even of subhumanity, so it was okay to enslave them. Certain Protestant denominations even put a Divine imprimatur on the keeping of African slaves by misinterpreting the Bible story of Ham looking on his drunken father's nakedness, and his father's subsequent curse on him, to say that at that point Ham turned black! That made the real curse--that Ham would become a servant to his brothers--an easy justification for the enslaving of black people. And of course, there was a lot of the "slaves, obey your masters" Bible verses used to cow the slaves (though the slaves never got to hear what followed, which was an exhortation to masters to treat their slaves well and not threaten them, since the slaveowner has the same Master in Heaven as the slave does, and He (Christ) does not show favoritism).
The end of the Civil War, and the passage of Amendments 13 (freeing the black slaves), 14 (granting them citizenship), and 15 (granting them the right to vote), ought to have made things better for black people; however, a lot of sneaky white people engaged in some nasty double-dealing to prevent blacks from moving up in society. Black people might be free citizens, but they should remain segregated from white people (Plessy v. Ferguson - also known as the "separate but equal" decision as regarded schools). Sure, they can vote...but they have to pay a poll tax or pass a literacy test in order to do so. And then there was the Ku Klux Klan, which terrorized any "ornery" blacks and sympathetic whites living in their areas by burning crosses on lawns and beating or killing anyone who didn't "keep their place."
Change to these practices came slowly; the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned Plessy by saying that "separate" schools were "unequal" by definition, met with so much opposition that some black children attempting to go to a white school had to be escorted there by members of the military, and Alabama governor George Wallace tried to block the doors to a university to keep black students from enrolling!
Unfortunately, the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960's have not improved things much in the long run. That's because if people really want to treat others badly, a law will not keep them from doing it. It takes vigilance from all people of good will to both prevent the evildoers from triumphing, and also to remedy the evils already done.
Which brings us to recent days, in particular the George Floyd case and the subsequent demonstrations.
The way Floyd died was horrible. Getting your neck knelt on, with your hands cuffed behind your back? For trying to pass a phony twenty?! I saw the video--the one with the narrator exhorting the kneeling officer to let Floyd have some air, that he was bleeding--and it made me sick. Here it was, right on camera: police brutality. How was anyone surprised that the video went viral all over the world, rousing allies from every corner of the globe?
And why was anyone surprised that both people of color and allies took to the streets with signs that commemorated not only George Floyd, but also many other black people who have suffered and died at the hands of white officers?
"Oh, but they're committing vandalism and looting, and anyway Floyd was a criminal." If you look at the vids of people protesting, you see more violence from the responding police units than you do from the protesters themselves. If there is vandalism and looting, why aren't the cops trying to stop the crime, rather than stop the entire protest? As for Floyd's criminal record...passing funny money is not a capital crime. (In fact, in my town it would hardly be a police matter, because we would use an authentication marker, know it for a bad twenty, tell the person it's counterfeit and they can't use it, and keep the bad bill to give to the cops. It's easy to end up with a counterfeit bill in your wallet and not know it, especially if you do any work where you get paid in cash--a phony can change hands several times among people before it ever ends up at a bank or store.)
The marchers are right: there must be changes in the way policing is done. Until that happens, may God give strength to the peaceful protesters.
Here is a link to a story that I originally read in the Kansas City Star. The particulars (which happened in 2007) still horrify me to this day; I never found out whether Sofia Salva won her lawsuit, but I hope she did:
I never cared about your political affiliation until you started to condemn me for mine.
This statement made me blink, because as the old Billy Joel song goes, "We didn't start the fire."
Once there was a man named Newt Gingrich, a Republican who was so famous for his meanness that his political action committee, GOPAC, produced a memo full of juicy "negative" words that you could use to describe your Democratic opponents, and lovely "positive" words to use to describe yourself. It wasn't the first time a Republican politician had ever been mean to his opponents, but it has to mark the beginning of the present group meanness of the GOP.
Molly Ivins, whom I truly miss, had a few words to say about Newt:
Democrats, by comparison, will at least put lipstick on their insults; we tell you how awful your policies are, but we generally don't insult your husband or kids in doing so...
Ooooh, I get it. This writer is a Trump supporter, and he's upset because we don't like Trump...who, by the way, is meaner, less informed, and more inept at governing than Newt will ever be! We see that with every tweet, every call to "Fox and Friends," and every live interview.
So, okay, fair enough: I am condemning your politics. But maybe you should step back and take a good look at who you're following before you get mad.
I never cared where you were born in the USA until you wanted to erase my history and blamed my ancestors for your problems.
It took me a few minutes to parse out exactly what was being referenced here, but I finally got it: "Those dratted Northern Aggressors are trying to say the Confederacy didn't fight courageously for their beliefs, and all the smart, brave generals who led them don't deserve to have their sainted memories honored with statues, and now we can't even use the Stars and Bars as part of our state flags!
"And who cares if they owned slaves? It's not like the present generation of blacks are affected by it!"
Okay, I'm being a bit harsh. But all the claptrap about "states' rights" and "most southerners didn't even own slaves" and "but it's history!" ignores two very important facts:
1) The secession documents all declare their reason for leaving as Northern opposition to slavery. It was also stated as such by the Confederate Vice President, and the right to own slaves was even written into the Confederate Constitution!
2) The South lost. Losers don't get to honor generals with statues, or use an old rebel battle flag as a quartering in a state flag. The fact that it has been done does not make it the right thing.
As to whether past slaveowners can be blamed for present problems in black communities, see above, under the complaint about white people getting blamed for black problems.
I never cared if you were well-off or poor until you said you were discriminated against when I was promoted because I worked hard.
Jim Hightower had a funny quip about wealthy and/or privileged people who insisted they had worked hard for everything they had: "Born on third and thinks he hit a triple."
I'm not saying this guy didn't work hard for what he received; but saying that there is no discrimination in America's workplaces reveals real ignorance.
Women, for example, are paid about 83 cents for every dollar earned by men, in all trades. This is white women, mind you; women of color do even worse, while Asian women do slightly better. But the gap is still there.
There are all kinds of excuses for this. It's said that women don't work as many hours as men, or they choose jobs that pay less, or they do most of the care-giving at home, so of course they don't get as much!
Bullshit.
If you have a two-parent household, and both parents work, why shouldn't both parents be responsible for keeping the house, cooking, and child care? Indeed, many modern families do just that...but that pay gap will still exist, because the woman's workplace will assume that she's the main care-giver at home and will give her fewer hours, or pass her over for a promotion because they think she won't be able to put in the time, and what if she gets pregnant?
This prejudice is magnified if the woman is raising the children alone, because if a child gets sick and can't go to school or child care, she will have to miss work to be with him. Not only does she lose pay, but also credibility - she is considered undependable because she's choosing her child over her job. But she can't go on welfare for more than five years, so she has to work, so she just has to take what pay the job will give her and pray they don't fire her for being absent or late too often.
Then there are the so-called "pink collar" jobs - teaching, nursing, secretarial. These are all low-prestige, low-wage jobs, and it's just too bad that so many women choose to do that as a career, but sorry, they aren't worth that much...
And again, I call bullshit.
After many American factories upped stakes and headed for China and India and Bangladesh, many men were left without work. They began to enter fields like nursing and bartending, which had become female-dominated jobs. But when the men began doing the jobs, they became more prestigious, and therefore higher-paying. But women who do those jobs are still paid less, as a rule...and it's nothing but stereotyping.
Oh, and it gets worse when we talk about minorities on the job...
A number of studies have been done, the first in the early 00's, in which resumes were sent out in response to newspaper ads for job openings. The resumes were given either a "black" name like Jamal or LaKisha, or a "white" one like Greg or Emily. Regardless of the quality of the resume itself - which might include school honors and a degree, or only a high-school diploma and a recent return to the work force - the white names tended to get more callbacks. The original researchers admit that this is as far as they went; there were no face-to-face interviews, so there was no finding on whether a well-educated Jamal would get the job over an average Emily. But for snap judgments based on perceived race, it doesn't look good for black employability, especially since the same study has been repeated, with in-person applicants thrown in for good measure, and the results are pretty much the same!
So the author might have gotten his promotion because he worked hard...but being named David instead of De'Kwan probably didn't hurt, either.
I never cared if your beliefs were different from mine, until you said my beliefs were wrong.
This country isn't supposed to be a "Christian" country. It's not supposed to be partial to any religion. Yet there are still lots of Christians in the USA who think that if there are more Muslims or Hindus or even neo-pagans in the neighborhood, the country will fall to pieces. I believe that's because they've never actually talked to anyone who follows these religions.
Well, I have. And I can say with the authority of experience that the only religion I've ever encountered that habitually tells people of other faiths that their beliefs are wrong...is Christianity. None of the Muslims I know have ever tried to convert me to Islam, or even expected me to live the way they do; ditto for Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, or any others. But Christians do it all the time, most often to other Christians!
So, sir or ma'am, if someone's telling you your beliefs are wrong...ignore your critics. Faith is personal, and unprovable.
Just don't ignore facts in order to support your beliefs. That's just crazy.
Now, I care. My patience and tolerance are almost gone. I am not alone in feeling this way. There are millions who do...
AND WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH.
Okay, I get it. You're pissed off because of all the things you wrote above, which are apparently piling up and appearing every time you turn on the news or go outside.
But you might consider how it feels:
...to get made fun of when you're a gay or trans-gendered teen;
...to be the grieving black mother of a son killed by a trigger-happy cop;
...to be a Democrat who gets called "traitor" or "un-American" by the other party;
...to get yelled at for wanting the battle flag of a failed rebellion taken down;
...to be a woman or minority who can't even get a job at the same pay scale as you;
...or to be a Muslim in a country that thinks your faith makes you a terrorist.
If your patience and tolerance are near depletion, do you really think theirs is in any better shape?
