***Note – I wrote this after Kavanaugh was elected to the Supreme Court. I wasn’t sure where best to release it (at the time I did not have this blog.) Nevertheless here it is now.
I should start this by saying that I find great pleasure in bringing people together. I don’t believe that just because one does not agree with another, on a political matter, that they cannot have a civil discussion. However, it seems that this is becoming more and more a thing of the past. Each day I get on facebook or twitter and see people losing their shit on one another. It seems we have completely forgotten how to have decorum and civility. We no longer know how to have a debate or how to respectfully disagree. I believe this partially comes from our conversations taking place online instead of face-to-face. Often times, when I see people post statements that are factually untrue or misleading, I think about trying to leave a video comment instead of text. Hoping that maybe when the viewer can see my facial expressions and hear my voice they can see that I am not coming off in a threating way but instead as a concerned fellow citizen. Often times I just want to get the truth out, so we can then begin to have a conversation. If we cannot accept the facts, we cannot establish a baseline to have a constructive conversation. To make our situation more challenging we live in a time where our president often does not accept certain facts, which I believe is causing a divide that will take many years to close.
We find ourselves only getting more and more angry at the perceived other side and with no way to have a constructive conversation there tends to be no way out, so we resort to throwing insults at one another. This accomplishes nothing and only makes us grow further apart and even angrier. This seems to be where we are at today. We see our fellow citizens as others and seem to have forgotten that we are ALL Americans no matter what your political beliefs are. When we see our fellow citizens as others we lose our compassion for them. We don’t think about how they may perceive the things we post or say. We don’t think about their feelings and what they may be going through and by doing so we delegitimize their American experience.
Recently in the wake of the Kavanaugh hearings and the revelations that have arisen we have found ourselves diametrically opposed. Each American that has been paying attention has been left to take a side or choose to remain neutral. In a society that respects the rights, viewpoints, and beliefs of others this wouldn’t be such a setback, but for the American society, that is already fractured, this is not the case. We tend to take to our social media platforms to let our beliefs be heard. Some of us do so very eloquently while others not so much. Some of the posts I have seen lately have shown how some of us have lost our compassion or ability to think outside of ourselves.
According to a survey completed by the U.S. government 1 out of every 6 women experience rape or attempted rape and 1 out of 33 men. With numbers, this high each of us have friends or family members on our various social media forums who have experienced something like this. No matter what your beliefs are about Kavanaugh we should not be shaming victims or making them feel like they should keep their stories secret. Some of the memes that have been posted have not done this and I am sure has left many feeling heartbroken and scared.
In the fury to post something to our timelines all too often, we forget about the consequences of that post. We forget that everything we post is public (no matter if your account is public or not) and forget about everyone that will see it, we tend to only think about the ones who share our same beliefs. The truth is we all live in a country where not everyone shares our same beliefs and ultimately this is the beauty of our country. However, in this current political climate, it is becoming our Achilles heel.
In a time that we should be coming together and trying to heal the deep wounds our Republic has suffered we are only pouring salt in them and doing nothing to begin the healing process. Many are angry, some are angry for legitimate reasons and some are angry because they’ve been told to be angry. Some are angry because they feel like their voices have not been heard. Some are angry because they have forgotten how to think critically and have allowed politicians to sell them bullshit instead of facts. Some are angry because they find themselves still living in a time where the color of their skin can be enough to get them killed; or when your sexual orientation or gender can be enough reason for some to consider you subhuman. Some are angry at the level of hypocrisy that this country has risen too. Some believe that their rights are on the verge of being taken away. The list goes on and on. As of now, there is no simple way out of this. I’m sure we will continue to only get angrier. This anger is only going to hurt our country and the people that reside in it. When we are divided we are weak, and our Republic gains more wounds and becomes more vulnerable to other bad actors on the world stage.
I call all people who love their country more than a political party or set of beliefs. I call all people who truly believe in treating your neighbor as you want to be treated. I call all peace-loving Americans to come together for the sake of our future. We have so many crises facing us right now that we will never be able to tackle unless we come together and address this anger. We must listen to one another. Let us not forget that having a debate is not a bad thing we just need to remember how to be respectful.
Chaz Christopher 