Maybe Love is Too Much to Ask
When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with the 1960s. I was disgusted by what I saw as the apathetic nature of the 90s and was convinced I was born in the wrong decade. Surely I was meant to be protesting the war and burning my bra and preaching free love and tripping to The Dead. I was very much Make Love, Not War, and wore the word pacifist as a teenager does anything, which is to say: naively.
I want to be kind to teenage me. My heart was in the right place. I wanted to change the world and I latched onto what I saw as radical and powerful and important. And the world WAS radically changed in the 60s. A lot of people moved mountains and we made many strides in civil rights and women's rights. But, I didn't quite understand HOW that happened. I didn't understand the inherent violence of the time, the danger involved with the protest. I didn't understand that it wasn't just love and daisies and sex and pot.
It's not 1969 now, though; it's 2017. And the world hasn't changed like we thought it would and this generation? We're fucking angry. We're resentful at the earth we've been left and an economy all fucked up and civil rights should have progressed more and, now, we're suddenly fighting the same shit we did 50 years ago. And maybe we're not as free love as our parents were.
The common refrain from religion and activists alike is: love your neighbor, fight hate with love, love the one you're with (Okay maybe that last one is a song lyric, but whatever).
But maybe that's the problem! Maybe love for everyone is just too much to ask.
This thought occurred to me as I was watching the white supremacists march in my own city this last weekend and I cheered as I read about an Antifa guy punching a neo-Nazi, but then groaned with the comments section full of: fight hate with love! LOVE CONQUERS ALL!
But does love really conquer all? Sometimes, it seems to me, love gets plowed over by the hateful and they don't even pause to laugh about it. And, it seems to me that love is an impossible ask.
I don't love everyone. Fuck, I barely like most people. The group of people I actually LOVE is quite small and I don't even love every one of them every single day. I 100% love every day like 7 people, myself included.
Ask yourself how many people you even like? And then you're supposed to love the awful people who make up this planet? PLEASE. That sounds impossible. Maybe we should be asking people to just respectfully tolerate others, and maybe that's not even a 100% all the time rule. Becayse I'm not fucking tolerating these Neo-Nazis Confederates marching in the streets, looking like angry retail workers selling tiki torches (I can say that because I worked retail for like 10 years, so there).
I'm not implying that those of us working to fight institutional and internalized injustices and racism and bigotry and misogyny, etc etc etc should become the same hateful fucks we're fighting; I'm saying that life isn't a dichotomy of love and hate and fighting something as insidious as racism is going to take something more than hugs.
But maybe we have to get angry and fuck some shit up. I'm not saying we hurt innocent people, like the neos do, but I'm not going to cry when a racist bully gets beaten up. I'm just not. And, honestly, while I personally don't want my property destroyed (because who does? it sucks), I can absolutely understand the fury and anger that comes from people whose literal lives are valued by our society less than money and property are.
Think about that again: certain lives are valued less by society than money and property.
Wouldn't that make you want to smash some windows? Smashing windows sucks, sure, but you know what sucks more? HUMANS BEING MURDERED SYSTEMATICALLY WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES!
I'll also say that telling marginalized people to love their oppressors is gaslighting and is abusive. It tells them their anger is invalid. It's psychological tactic to keep them oppressed.
A few weeks ago (or was it a year ago? I've lost all track of time in this dystopian landscape), I read this great Facebook post that had been making the rounds and, despite some ableist language, I'm gonna share a link to it fully here. It's long, but I think it's important. I also don't know the author, so, you know, not my words.
The important point is this: these white supremacist, Confederate, Neo-Nazi types? They don't blink about committing violence. They relish violence and will inflict it without warning. If we let them have an inch of tolerance, they will move in.
And you know what? I don't think we're going to change the minds of fucking Neo-Nazis. Do I think more reasonable people can unlearn generations of patriarchal white supremacy? Yep. We were all raised in this system and all carry its mores, whether it's white people upholding white power (whether we know it or not) or PoC or women or the disabled (or any of the other people who aren't white, cis-male, hetero) fighting internalized prejudices. That, my friends, is where love is valuable: learning to love yourself can be a radical act.
I think that through dialogue and learning and a desire to change, people can change. I have and hopefully will continue to do so. I was raised with "racism is bad," but had no clue about how my friends of color experienced the world or how deep and complicated white supremacy runs. No clue. Now that I have an inkling, it's up to me to work on it.
But you have to WANT to change. Some Neo doesn't want to change. So why are we showing tolerance? Why are we trying to show them love? Why waste our precious and waning energy on love for people who hate!
This is where my comments section fills up with blah blah blah Jesus. But, first of all (and this will piss you off): I don't think Jesus was a real person. I think he's fictional. And I could trot out any number of fictional characters whose philosophies sound awfully nice, but that's not reality. Secondly, even Jesus in the Bible got pissed off and destroyed property. SO THERE.
I really think the way to deal with such abject and open hatred is absolute intolerance of it. We can't fight the Patriarchy when we're fighting Nazis in the streets. We have to make the most vocal racists afraid to be vocal. We have to show them that they're not welcome in our society. We have to be 100% intolerant of intolerance.
And, look, I'm a fat, out of shape, wuss of a person. I haven't gotten in a fight since like 7th grade (which was a LOOOOOOONG time ago!). I don't know what I'll do when faced with someone violent. I may tuck my fat tail in and run. Or I might get pissed the fuck off and have my Ralphie moment (there is precedent for this reaction in me, but that's a story for another time) and just fucking snap.
I am not here to say I am better than anyone or tougher than anyone. I'm not tough. I AM ALL MOUTH. I know this.
But I can say this: I will work on packing away my fears and stand up. And I will support those getting in harm's way and putting themselves on the line. And I'm not fucking wasting any of my love on Nazis and Confederates. That's ludicrous.
I want to be kind to teenage me. My heart was in the right place. I wanted to change the world and I latched onto what I saw as radical and powerful and important. And the world WAS radically changed in the 60s. A lot of people moved mountains and we made many strides in civil rights and women's rights. But, I didn't quite understand HOW that happened. I didn't understand the inherent violence of the time, the danger involved with the protest. I didn't understand that it wasn't just love and daisies and sex and pot.
It's not 1969 now, though; it's 2017. And the world hasn't changed like we thought it would and this generation? We're fucking angry. We're resentful at the earth we've been left and an economy all fucked up and civil rights should have progressed more and, now, we're suddenly fighting the same shit we did 50 years ago. And maybe we're not as free love as our parents were.
The common refrain from religion and activists alike is: love your neighbor, fight hate with love, love the one you're with (Okay maybe that last one is a song lyric, but whatever).
But maybe that's the problem! Maybe love for everyone is just too much to ask.
This thought occurred to me as I was watching the white supremacists march in my own city this last weekend and I cheered as I read about an Antifa guy punching a neo-Nazi, but then groaned with the comments section full of: fight hate with love! LOVE CONQUERS ALL!
But does love really conquer all? Sometimes, it seems to me, love gets plowed over by the hateful and they don't even pause to laugh about it. And, it seems to me that love is an impossible ask.
I don't love everyone. Fuck, I barely like most people. The group of people I actually LOVE is quite small and I don't even love every one of them every single day. I 100% love every day like 7 people, myself included.
Ask yourself how many people you even like? And then you're supposed to love the awful people who make up this planet? PLEASE. That sounds impossible. Maybe we should be asking people to just respectfully tolerate others, and maybe that's not even a 100% all the time rule. Becayse I'm not fucking tolerating these Neo-Nazis Confederates marching in the streets, looking like angry retail workers selling tiki torches (I can say that because I worked retail for like 10 years, so there).
 |
| Is he a racist or did he have to cover someone's shift? Hard to tell. |
I'm not implying that those of us working to fight institutional and internalized injustices and racism and bigotry and misogyny, etc etc etc should become the same hateful fucks we're fighting; I'm saying that life isn't a dichotomy of love and hate and fighting something as insidious as racism is going to take something more than hugs.
But maybe we have to get angry and fuck some shit up. I'm not saying we hurt innocent people, like the neos do, but I'm not going to cry when a racist bully gets beaten up. I'm just not. And, honestly, while I personally don't want my property destroyed (because who does? it sucks), I can absolutely understand the fury and anger that comes from people whose literal lives are valued by our society less than money and property are.
Think about that again: certain lives are valued less by society than money and property.
Wouldn't that make you want to smash some windows? Smashing windows sucks, sure, but you know what sucks more? HUMANS BEING MURDERED SYSTEMATICALLY WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES!
I'll also say that telling marginalized people to love their oppressors is gaslighting and is abusive. It tells them their anger is invalid. It's psychological tactic to keep them oppressed.
A few weeks ago (or was it a year ago? I've lost all track of time in this dystopian landscape), I read this great Facebook post that had been making the rounds and, despite some ableist language, I'm gonna share a link to it fully here. It's long, but I think it's important. I also don't know the author, so, you know, not my words.
The important point is this: these white supremacist, Confederate, Neo-Nazi types? They don't blink about committing violence. They relish violence and will inflict it without warning. If we let them have an inch of tolerance, they will move in.
And you know what? I don't think we're going to change the minds of fucking Neo-Nazis. Do I think more reasonable people can unlearn generations of patriarchal white supremacy? Yep. We were all raised in this system and all carry its mores, whether it's white people upholding white power (whether we know it or not) or PoC or women or the disabled (or any of the other people who aren't white, cis-male, hetero) fighting internalized prejudices. That, my friends, is where love is valuable: learning to love yourself can be a radical act.
I think that through dialogue and learning and a desire to change, people can change. I have and hopefully will continue to do so. I was raised with "racism is bad," but had no clue about how my friends of color experienced the world or how deep and complicated white supremacy runs. No clue. Now that I have an inkling, it's up to me to work on it.
But you have to WANT to change. Some Neo doesn't want to change. So why are we showing tolerance? Why are we trying to show them love? Why waste our precious and waning energy on love for people who hate!
This is where my comments section fills up with blah blah blah Jesus. But, first of all (and this will piss you off): I don't think Jesus was a real person. I think he's fictional. And I could trot out any number of fictional characters whose philosophies sound awfully nice, but that's not reality. Secondly, even Jesus in the Bible got pissed off and destroyed property. SO THERE.
I really think the way to deal with such abject and open hatred is absolute intolerance of it. We can't fight the Patriarchy when we're fighting Nazis in the streets. We have to make the most vocal racists afraid to be vocal. We have to show them that they're not welcome in our society. We have to be 100% intolerant of intolerance.
And, look, I'm a fat, out of shape, wuss of a person. I haven't gotten in a fight since like 7th grade (which was a LOOOOOOONG time ago!). I don't know what I'll do when faced with someone violent. I may tuck my fat tail in and run. Or I might get pissed the fuck off and have my Ralphie moment (there is precedent for this reaction in me, but that's a story for another time) and just fucking snap.
 |
| Picture me here |
But I can say this: I will work on packing away my fears and stand up. And I will support those getting in harm's way and putting themselves on the line. And I'm not fucking wasting any of my love on Nazis and Confederates. That's ludicrous.
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