I'm sure that I've touched on this before, but one of the things that comes up periodically in therapy is my general anger and anxiety about the social injustice in the world. You know, all of the "isms" and hate. Worse yet, it pains me to see that a lot of folks don't (or choose not to) understand that the world is not simply divided into two sides. For all of human history, there has always been the people fighting to be recognized as equal, valuable human beings, and the people who wish to oppress them.
I wonder if it's as bad in other countries, because it has never been good in this one. People have managed to pass laws that limit the ability of groups of people to be equal in society. At the country's founding, racism was codified into the Constitution, as was sexism. Before the ADA, there were laws to discriminate against the disabled. Laws prevented labor groups and the poor from having any power. Same-sex marriage was illegal only a few years ago. Most recently, it's a bizarre attack on the very humanity of transgender people, not to mention immigrants and refugees.
I don't know how to spell this out more clearly. One "side" just wants to fundamentally exist without being persecuted. There is nothing immoral about that, and it does not affect the other folks. The other side wants to make sure that "they" are not afforded that opportunity. The reasons are veiled at best, to "protect the children" or some other such nonsense. But the fundamental truth is that people of color and of the LGBTQ community are not interested in diminishing the existence of the other side. There is no moral equivalence here. We're not talking about some abstract fiscal or trade policy. It's not political, it's just hate. Wanting to exist is not hateful. Not wanting others to exist is hateful.
It's crazy to think that some people have to spend their entire lives exhausted, in some cases literally trying to survive. Do the people that expend all of that energy hating feel that exhaustion?
The optimist in me believes that this works out in the end. If I draw in my bubble enough, it already is working out. But we have to move through the world, and it's not all like that. I do think that the rate of change has been extraordinary in the last decade, relatively speaking. Unfortunately, the resistance to it has also been extreme. It's hard to maintain optimism in that context.
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