Stirring Things Up

I feel odd writing about this when I have grown up knowing a certain amount of privilege. I'm white, grew up middle class, went to a good school, had plenty of opportunities.

I did experience oppression, though I was too young to know that's what it was at the time. I went to a strict, conservative Christian academy in grades 5-9th where girls and women were taught to be seen, not heard. We were taught that feminism was ruining America and that AIDS was caused by sexual impurity (pre-marital sex and homosexuality). I remember thinking of the future back then, feeling guilty because I didn't want to become a subservient housewife or get an "appropriate" job for my gender. I wanted to be a rock star of an goth rock band, the very opposite of what good Christian girls should strive for.

Does that experience compare at all to walking war-torn streets, cleaning up bodies, and hiding in bomb shelters? No. It would be foolish to consider my cushy private school indoctrination anything like the human rights catastrophe unfolding between Ukraine and Russia. Would I have the bravery like the antiwar Russians to stand up and protest, even against the threat of police detainment? As much as I'd like to think I'd be courageous, I probably wouldn't.

I don't think any of us know what we would do if a similar conflict happened on American soil. Hypothetical scenarios have the luxury of existing outside reality. However, when the blood is actually pouring, the bullets are really flying, and the mortars are legitimately blasting, your reaction will be instinctual. Fight or flight response doesn't really apply here - a human's reaction to deadly situations is much more than binary actions. Sometimes, you stand there and watch in horror as things happen. You dissociate, trying your damndest to leave that moment, if only in spirit. Maybe you do run, just to feel like you're doing something.

This is guesswork, of course. I've never been in such a life or death situation. That, too, is a privilege. I don't speak for all Americans, of course, and to suggest that I do would be arrogant in the extreme. I have not faced oppression like Black citizens have in this nation. I did not experience the horror of racial violence except on a TV or a phone screen. I do not feel the same fear as Asian Americans do these days or or the struggles of transwomen just trying to exist without persecution.

America has its own tyrannical forces. No, I'm not talking about cabals of cannibalistic Satan worshippers like the Q-anon weirdos. We have scores of politicians bald-facedly pushing increasingly extremist policies disguised as measures to "protect children". I feel like we might be on the brink of a huge backlash, yet another attempt to reestablish status quo - heterosexual, cis gender, white. People they consider to be "respectable Americans."

Yes, I am saying bad things about America. Does this mean I hate America, like certain political groups will accuse? No. I live here. I was born here. I like living here, for the most part. It's home.

Does this mean that I'm going to keep quiet about the horribly unjust happenings going on just to maintain some façade of patriotism? Also, no.

I'm no warrior. I'm not skilled in combat or any type of offensive or defensive fighting. I fight with a keyboard and a mouse. I use words on the battlefield, shooting down logical fallacies and entertain those wishing to be distracted from their own personal wars. I believe that if I could offer you a chance to distract yourself, if only for a moment, from the horrors you face everyday, it would have been worth it.

Words can be incendiary. The Russian government knows this, censoring the truth from their citizens, offering only propaganda for news sources. Vladimir Putin is terrified of being mocked. You can tell what type a person an individual is by seeing how they act to criticism. The ones most sensitive to it are the narcissists. Nothing pisses off an egotist more than having his character tarnished. Donald Trump didn't try to ban TikTok for the Chinese data-collection debacle - he did it because a bunch of teenagers embarrassed him by reserving free tickets to his rally and didn't attend, meaning that the turnout numbers were extremely low. His meltdown over losing the election and the incitement of the January 6th riot showed us that he should have never been in that Oval Office in the first place.

I admire the hell out of Russian citizens who defy the anti-protesting laws. They are not afraid to call out their corrupt government over this insidious war and they refuse to turn against their Ukrainian neighbors, even under threat of imprisonment and death. Ukraine has shown the world what exactly unity can do, fighting the invasion with their own president at the frontlines! Putin hates that they are losing because Ukraine is embarrassing him. Ukraine is the kid that got picked on by Russia in school for being smaller, but Ukraine fought back hard! They are kicking their bully's ass!

I'm reminded of something my father once said. That might sound like this is a fond recollection of a good dad memory. Sadly, no. In response to protests after the unprovoked killing of yet another Black person by a gung-ho police officer, he said, "I think [Black people] just like stirring things up."

If oppressed groups didn't "stir things up", change would not happen. If Black citizens had not done the bus boycotts, sit-ins, marches, and Freedom Rides, things will not have changed. If women had agreed to remain subservient and silent, we would not have the right to vote today. If LGBTQIA people had stayed in the closet, we would not have Pride or representation today.

And if Ukraine stops "stirring things up"...Ukraine will no longer be Ukraine.

Freedom is not guaranteed. It should be, but it isn't. Freedom is fought for, tooth and nail, blood, sweat, and tears. Maybe one day, we won't have to fight to be able to exist in harmony. I think a utopia is largely unattainable, but freedom...freedom is a human right. Never forget that. Never let them forget that.

Never let them forget you.