The Week in Review: Topic Two—Let’s look at the relationship between the tragic events in Baltimore this week and the historic arguments presented before the Supreme Court for marriage equality… Yes, only my mind thinks like this!1
When you have been taught that you have a constitutional democracy for, by, and of the people2, and you believe that government is no longer working for you but against you, you know: harming and killing your neighbors for no good reason and getting away with it over and over again, the mess we have seen in Baltimore (and other cities) is bound to occur. Repressed people will, rightly so, demand the government serve at their will. Repressed people in this nation will be heard—one way or another. (And it’s all because of those godless, liberal, elitist, public school social studies teachers’ subversive agenda—teaching children to stand up for justice! The very idea! And the politicians think our teachers are not doing an excellent job? I beg to differ!)
The question American society should be asking is how do we effectively make the system work for everyone so people don’t have to resort to upturning society to get the justice to which they are entitle. People in this country are going to demand that the government work for them, not attempt to suppress them! I would suggest the simplest solution is to be far more mindful of justice to begin with, to treat all people with the dignity and respect they deserve. I’m not so sure peaceful protestors are heard in this nation. Money speaks in this country because businesses are now people.
And as for the video of the black mother smacking her son, who had allegedly been rioting in the streets, she was not doing that for the amusement and satisfaction of the white, privileged class in this country. My guess: she was terrified her son, a child who probably means the world to her, would get himself killed or imprisoned by a system that tends to do that to black kids on the streets of our cities.
I don’t condone what has gone on in our city streets, but I do understand why it happens. Until we address the cause, until we do a better job with “liberty and justice for all” we deserve the civil unrest. Civil unrest is the cost of oppression. Would the senseless killing of Freddie Gray have been deemed a murder had people not taken to the streets?
And before my fellow white, entitled, conservative friends3 who, completely unknown to themselves, are accustomed to living from a place of privilege get all holier than thou about Baltimore, lets talk about this week’s big marriage equality case before the SCOTUS.
What’s this I hear from the unravelling extremist religious fringe? Threats of civil disobedience because the extremists fear they’re not going to get their way? They say they just won’t abide by the law of the land? I’ve even heard threats of armed rebellion!
I’ve made my position on the marriage equality matter clear, but I have no idea how the court will decide this issue. Whatever the decision, we all have to live by it. Don’t we learn by the age of 10 that you don’t pack up your marbles and go home or kick everyone else’s marbles all over tarnation4 when your friends refuse to play by your rules?
Marriage equality does not repress anybody.5 It’s not as if marriage equality costs anyone literally anything or affects extremists in any way whatsoever!6 It will not kill anyone the way racism killed Freddie Gray and homophobia kills time and time again. It will not imprison extremists. Marriage equality will not physically harm anyone. It will not restrict anyone’s life in any way. Marriage equality will only reveal how narrow minded extremists are, how incapable of celebrating human love they are, if they choose to live with that minority perspective. Marriage equality is a matter of social justice, and, finally, a repressed class is being heard.
Before the extremists beginning claiming they are the people being persecuted7, I feel compelled to point out that the extremists’ dominant world view has subjugated gay people for millennia. The time has come, in my humble opinion, to redress this grievance.
So, to all of my fundamentalist, religious extremist, conservative friends who are coming unravelled by this process of letting a repressed class be heard, stop whining and just grow up, already!
UPDATE:
Someone seems to be annoyed that I would draw attention to the extreme conservative view that the riots in Boston are wrong but the extremists’ desire to wage anarchy in the US if the SCOTUS passes marriage equality is right. And to prove that point, the reader decided to wage anarchy in cyber space to bring down my blog by launching a distributed denial of service attack on my blog, as if that’s right, too. For more information, check out this post.
Remember that’s what my blog is all about: connecting the dots… ↩
in other words, that your government serves at the will of the people it governs ↩
and I don’t blame you for being white, entitled, or conservative—well, maybe the latter ↩
now that’s an old southern expression I haven’t heard in years ↩
However, marriage inequality does repress people, literally millions of people. ↩
However, marriage inequality does affect people, literally millions of people. ↩
goodness that gets so tiresome! ↩
Tim, Tim, Tim, Tim,
No matter how much I disagree with you on various issues I usually find myself appreciating your logical, precise presentation. Sorry, not this time. This was more like a saw-off shotgun approach. Pull the trigger and see how many things you can hit without aiming.
I think you would have had better luck connecting global warming to Jessie Owens’ raining on Hitler’s olympic parade. The name calling diatribe is beneath you as well.
Always your friend,
Arthur
Always nice to hear from you, Arthur, even when we disagree.
Name calling? I don’t know. Maybe… I think of it more as placing warning labels on products that might be hazardous to one’s health or labeling view points that have rapidly approaching expiration dates. Which ever it is, I freely admit to running out of patience with those preachers who put on their church signs that gay people should be killed (source) [Reminds me of Bob Jones, III], or try to pass state legislation to shoot gay people in the head on site [or kill them by any other means] (source), or stating that if marriage equality passes it’s just cause for war (source) … And the list goes on, and on, and on.
The black community has certainly grown tired of living in fear of the police rather than feeling protected by them. I grow angry over the senseless killing by an increasingly militarized police force that is no longer serving the will of the people.
When I wrote this post, I had just finished listening to the entire marriage equality case presented before the SCOTUS against the backdrop of the Baltimore riots in the news all week. While I thought both sides of the argument were given a fair “run for their money” by the justices, I grew exhausted with the elephant in the room until the protestor started screaming. He represented the real issue no one wants to talk about: religiously sponsored and promoted discrimination against classes of people (I recalled that the Southern Baptist denomination was born from racism and that convention didn’t apologize for its racist views until the 21st century!). In my mind our nation is still not dealing well with basic, fundamental civil rights for people of color and for sexual orientation. Rather than being at the forefront of the civil rights fight for social justice and equality, rather than propelling us forward to be our best selves, the church is still dragging us backward. I stagger, bewildered and appalled, at the church’s wasted opportunity to fight for social justice in a time when the majority of people in the nation want that justice. (The result is that generations or people are leaving or have left the church in record numbers because it represents repression to them, not emancipation. Why doesn’t the dwindling Christian church see this?!)
Demanding that repressed groups of people just suck it up and take it because prevailing power in society says so just isn’t working for me (and apparently a growing number of others) any more. I see subjugation as wrong, no matter how pretty (for your safety and the safety of our officers in one case and the protection of the children in the other) the packaging is crafted to appear. And then, when losing in the court of public opinion, the extremists (a characterization by which I feel I accurately stand) insist they are the ones being persecuted? Yes, I grow very weary of the shrill shill.
You’re right: I didn’t take the time to explicate the specific similarities. I probably should, because, in my mind at least, there are many. Repression, dehumanization, victimization, murder, indignity, isolation are only the broad strokes.
I just don’t think calling for everyone to honor human love and promote justice is unreasonable.