Category: philosophy

bookmark_borderThere’s nothing “bold” about mindless conformity

Posted on by Marissa

The above is a social media post made by an organization called the Red Hawk Native American Council, urging people to contact New York City Mayor Eric Adams to ask to him to inflict harm and pain on autistic people by abolishing Columbus Day.

Let’s rebut the points made in this post one by one:

Columbus Day does not perpetuate a narrative that erases anything. Abolishing it and replacing it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, on the other hand, erases the existence of people like me – an autistic person whose special interest is historical figures. Abolishing Columbus Day sends the message that my interests are shameful and that my thoughts, feelings, experiences, and perspectives do not matter. This erases my existence.

Additionally, contrary to what is stated in the post, Columbus Day honors the existence of people who are different, are non-conformist, and think for themselves, a category that includes autistic people like me. But yes, the existence of autistic people is totally the same thing as “colonization, exploitation, and violence”…. NOT.

To officially recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day is to obliterate a day honoring people who are different, non-conformist, and think for themselves. This is by its very nature the exact opposite of taking a “bold stance” and the exact opposite of demonstrating “commitment to inclusivity.”

To take a stance against the honoring of people who are different, non-conformist, and think for themselves, is to take a stance in favor of sameness and mindless conformity. And such a stance is the antithesis of a bold one.

Additionally, to determine that people who are different, non-conformist, and think for themselves no longer deserve to be honored in a society is the antithesis of a commitment to inclusivity. It is actually a commitment to discrimination and exclusion.

Given that Columbus is being attacked, destroyed, and obliterated across the entire country and much of the world, joining these attacks is the exact opposite of being bold and the exact opposite of being inclusive. Joining in with a politically favored, bullying majority against an unpopular minority is not bold, but cowardly. It is not inclusive, but intolerant and discriminatory. It is the epitome of mindless conformity. 

Other than that, their argument makes perfect sense.

Replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day sets an example for future generations all right… a bad example. It sets an example of trampling on the rights of autistic and otherwise “different” people, hurting us merely for being different, and telling us that our thoughts, feelings, and perspectives do not matter and that we shouldn’t be allowed to exist. In other words, it sets an example of cowardice, mindless conformity, discrimination, bullying, exclusion, intolerance, cruelty, meanness, and actively inflicting harm and pain on innocent people who have done nothing wrong.

I’m not sure why anyone would consider this a good thing.

bookmark_borderThe United States is a totalitarian dictatorship

Posted on by Marissa

I haven’t yet posted about the horrendous state of affairs involving Donald Trump being arrested and charged with crimes for expressing unpopular views and challenging the results of an election.

Please do not mistake my lack of posts on this topic as apathy about the topic, or worse, tacit approval of the events that have happened.

Rather, I have been so upset, angered, and physically sick to my stomach about what has happened that I have been unable to put my thoughts into coherent words and sentences.

In this blog post, I will attempt to do just that, because it is important to make it clear that I am not even remotely okay with what has happened, and continues to happen, in this country.

To put it bluntly, but in my opinion 100% correctly, the United States is a totalitarian dictatorship.

Over the past three and a half years, I have witnessed:

  • The election of a president of the United States who believes that he has the right to require people to undergo medical procedures
  • A nationwide campaign of obliteration of all public art that represents minority cultural and ideological groups and that allows members of such groups to feel accepted and included
  • Mass arrests of dozens of people for the “crime” of holding a protest that advocated for an unpopular cause
  • The arrest of a former president for the “crimes” of expressing unpopular views and challenging the results of an election

I state unequivocally that the things that are happening in the United States today, and that have been happening in the United States over the past three and a half years, are completely unacceptable, and I condemn them fully and completely.

What is happening in the United States is nothing less than a war on dissent. A war on unpopular minorities. A war on human diversity. A war on individualism, on individual rights, on liberty, on freedom. A war on the entire concept of being different, of being a rebel, of resisting authority, of thinking for oneself.

And the worst thing about this war is that the people who are most fiercely waging it are portraying themselves as fighting for diversity and inclusion, and their opponents as intolerant, discriminatory, and racist. Those who have most ardently advocated against respect for fundamental rights are portraying themselves as fighting for liberty, freedom, and bodily autonomy, and their opponents as authoritarians, Nazis, and fascists.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The people who advocate for the removal of Confederate statues and the replacement of Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day are the people who are truly intolerant, who are truly genocidal, who are truly discriminatory, who are truly racist.

The people who demand the violation of the fundamental right to decline medical intervention, who demand that all people’s bodies be forcibly penetrated against their will – and make no mistake, that is exactly what proponents of vaccine mandates have been demanding – are the people who are truly authoritarians, who are truly fascists.

The United States today is run, dominated, controlled by people with no moral compass and no logical consistency, people who practice a form of hypocrisy so blatant, so appalling, and so profound that it is shocking to witness.

The very same people who demanded that everyone’s bodily autonomy be taken away, and condemned those who dared to stand up to them as morons, idiots, racists, white supremacists, and fascists, did an about face to immediately commence pontificating about the importance of bodily autonomy, and accusing their opponents of taking away liberties and freedoms, when the Supreme Court made a decision that jeopardized unfettered access to abortion.

The very same people who praised and fetishized “resistance” when it came in the form of destroying public art that represented minority cultural and ideological groups (making these acts of destruction the exact opposite of resistance), viciously insulted as “insurrectionists” and “rioters” those who engaged in actual resistance to authority.

And when it comes to historical figures who engaged in actual resistance to authority centuries ago, the very same people described above condemn those historical figures as “insurrectionists” and “traitors,” and therefore unworthy of honoring or celebrating.

The hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty are appalling. The people who run, dominate, and control the United States are using words to mean the exact opposite of what the words actually mean, and acting as if this is perfectly normal and the people who dare to question them are the problem.

People are ridiculed for using the word “tyranny” to characterize the things that have been happening in the United States… but it is 100% correct to characterize these events as tyranny.

I would argue that it is ridiculous for someone to claim that the things happening in the United States do not constitute tyranny.

The condition of the United States since 2020 has been one of authoritarianism, of tyranny, of totalitarianism, of complete intolerance for both human freedom and human diversity.

In the United States today, we live in a society that values conformity and compliance above all else, a society that is not only indifferent towards, but actively hostile towards, liberty and individual rights. Society demands that everyone be the same, that everyone follow the same norms, that everyone undergo the same medical procedures, that everyone live in the same way and think in the same way. It is treated as self-evident that everyone must undergo the procedures recommended by the medical establishment, everyone must follow the advice given by experts, and everyone must live under the policies that scientists decide will make people safest. What matters is that people follow norms, trust experts, and obey authority. What matters is that people silence their own feelings and perspectives and instead grovel at the feet of those deemed less “privileged” than themselves. No one is allowed to dissent, to rebel, to defy, to resist, to question authority, to think for oneself, to live in a way that deviates from the norm, or to be different from the majority in any way. These actions and attributes, which in my opinion are synonymous with being honorable and good, are instead equated with moral badness by a society that values nothing but conformity and compliance.

That is what I see happening in the United States today.

It is not acceptable. It is not even remotely close to being acceptable, and never will be. And I don’t want anyone to interpret a lack of writing on this topic, or the presence of writings on other topics, as acceptance. Because acceptance is the antithesis of how I feel about what is happening in the United States today.

bookmark_borderA**hole of the day: littleauntsherry

Posted on by Marissa

For reasons that I cannot comprehend, someone decided to leave the following extraordinarily idiotic comment on an Instagram post by Breyer model horses about a Secretariat-themed coloring contest:

First of all, thoroughbreds do not end up being slaughtered. That statement is factually incorrect.

Second, perhaps Breyer supports horse racing because it has to do with horses, and Breyer is a model horse company? Just a thought. 

Third, um, yes, Breyer follows the official Kentucky Derby Instagram account. Why would that be surprising to anyone? To repeat, Breyer is a model horse company. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that they would follow and support other brands, companies, and organizations that also have to do with horses. If anything, it would be strange if Breyer didn’t follow the Kentucky Derby on Instagram.

Fourth, I don’t understand Littleauntsherry’s demand that Breyer “join the rest of us in the 21st century.” Littleauntsherry appears to believe that horse racing was more popular in the 20th century than it is in the 21st century. More problematically, she appears to be presuming that if this is true, then it follows that horse racing is bad. This presumption is the apparent motivation behind her demand that Breyer join people in the 21st century by giving up its support for horse racing. But this conclusion does not follow from this premise; therefore there is no justification for Littleauntsherry’s demand. The century in which something is popular has nothing to do with its goodness or badness. Joining other people in the 21st century is not in any way superior to remaining in the 20th century, and by presuming that it is, Littleauntsherry demonstrates both complete intolerance for people who are different than her, as well as a complete lack of logic.

As you can see above, things get even worse when a logical and reasonable person has the audacity to call out Littleauntsherry on her BS. She responds in a way that is even more nonsensical and idiotic than her original comment.

Why is Littleauntsherry telling Southdakodo to google horse racing? This simply makes no sense. Southdakodo is the one who is telling Littleauntsherry that she is talking about things she knows nothing of… not the other way around. Yet Littleauntsherry is acting as if Southdakodo is the one lacking knowledge. She is even stating that Southdakodo is on a “quest for knowledge,” which Southdakodo has done nothing to indicate is the case. Littleauntsherry may very well believe that Southdakodo lacks knowledge. But if this is what she is claiming, then she needs to actually state it, as opposed to presuming it, because as is, her response makes no sense.

Making matters even worse, Littleauntsherry chooses to ridicule Southdakodo’s username for no apparent reason other than to be mean-spirited and cruel.

In conclusion, Littleauntsherry’s comments on this Breyer post exemplify the stuck-up, self-righteous, and mean-spirited attitudes of so many in our society. She claims to be advocating for the well-being of horses, when in reality she is needlessly introducing meanness and nastiness into an innocent, happy, and fun post, insulting and attacking a company that did nothing wrong, demonstrating a complete lack of logic, and ridiculing a fellow Instagram user who did nothing wrong. As is so frequently the case in our society, it is the people who most vociferously claim to value decency, humane treatment, and kindness, who are in reality the most cruel, mean-spirited, and nasty. If a person actually cared about being kind, their very first order of business would be abstaining from actively and gratuitously inflicting pain on others.

Yet actively and gratuitously inflicting pain on others is exactly what Littleauntsherry is doing here.

The real question that I have for Littleauntsherry is: why would you leave such a mean-spirited, idiotic, and illogical series of comments? All you’ve accomplished by doing so is to show off your self-righteousness, cruelty, nastiness, meanness, and intolerance.

bookmark_border“The USA is a white settler colonialist state”

Posted on by Marissa

“The USA is a white settler colonialist state…”

What the heck does that even mean? What is a “settler colonialist state”?

We need to eliminate the term “settler colonialism” from our lexicon. Phrases like this are meaningless mush, with no use or purpose other than to insult and shame people based on their skin color.

How exactly are immigration laws racist?

How exactly is your statement “truth,” Bree Newsome?

And how exactly are people wanting to outlaw it? Who exactly are the “they” of whom you speak, and what steps have they taken to outlaw statements like yours? More importantly, how can you claim that statements like this one are in danger of being outlawed when every major politician of the ruling party, every major corporation, and every member of the mainstream media, is parroting it?

 

Similarly to the question with which I began this blog post… what the hell is a “white colonial power structure?” This seems to be just more meaningless mush whose only goal and only effect is to paint an autistic person like me, who has been told that I have no choice other than to sacrifice my wishes, preferences, needs, and happiness for the expectations of others for my entire life, as somehow “privileged” and therefore bad and having no right to complain or be upset about anything. Thereby doubling down on the exact things I’ve been told ad nauseam by neurotypical society my entire life. Awesome.

Also, how can someone “maintain white rulership in the USA” when such a thing has never existed?

Also, what racist violence, exactly, is Newsome referring to?

And what anti-democratic violence, exactly, is Newsome referring to?

And why is it a bad thing for something to be anti-democratic, anyway? To speak of anti-democratic violence as if it is a bad thing presumes that to be pro-democratic is good, and I strenuously dispute this presumption. Democracy is a form of government in which the policies implemented are the ones that are favored by the largest number of people. Given that the goodness or badness of a policy has nothing to do with the number of people that favor it, democracy is not a good form of government. To be anti-democratic is not something bad, because a democracy is not something good.

In conclusion, this Instagram post and the account that posted it are just another example of our society’s practice of privileging and elevating the voices of those who have not experienced discrimination or significant hardship, while stomping on those who have. If the people who run this Instagram account actually wanted to feature the voices of the oppressed, they would feature tweets and blog posts by people like me, who have been shamed as sick and bad our entire lives… and for our entire lives had our feelings and perspectives dismissed as “privileged” because we were born with the wrong skin color.

bookmark_border“Is it ever morally acceptable to visit a Confederate historical site?”

Posted on by Marissa

“Is it ever morally acceptable to visit a Confederate historical site?”

Such is the question that was asked in a recent New York Times ethics column.

It sickens and disgusts me that someone would even ask this question.

The Confederacy is my special interest.

It is everything that makes my life worth living.

It is beauty, it is joy, it is happiness, it is freedom.

The fact that I would even need to defend the moral acceptability of the thing that makes my life worth living is appalling and abhorrent, and makes me feel sick to my stomach.

But this very attitude – that the Confederacy is somehow immoral – is not new.

This is the first time that I have seen the question explicitly asked, the first time that I have seen the words “morally acceptable” printed in the same sentence as the words “Confederate historical site.” But the attitude that the Confederacy is somehow immoral is precisely the reason for the pain and trauma that I have experienced over the past three years. This attitude is exactly what motivates the countless atrocities that have been carried out against Confederate statues, monuments, and historical makers of all sorts all over the country and even the world. The atrocities that have been carried out against me.

And the attitude underlying these actions is precisely why they have been so painful and traumatizing, and why I characterize them as atrocities. It is not simply the loss of the statues and monuments – collectively the thing that makes my life worth living – that has inflicted such trauma and pain. It is the fact that their removal is a moral condemnation of the statues themselves, the ideas that they stand for, and the people who like them.

The removal of Confederate statues is a moral condemnation of me.

If statues had been destroyed accidentally – say by an earthquake or a tornado – it would be sad, and I would grieve their loss. But the destruction of the statues is not accidental. It is intentional, systematic, and pervasive. What has made the past three years so bad is that in addition to my grief – layered on top of an already agonizing experience – are the shame, anger, and rage of being almost unanimously rejected, repudiated, and morally condemned by our society.

This intentional destruction is a way of saying: who I am is immoral. Who I am is morally unacceptable.

That is why the removal of Confederate statues hurts so much. Because it is a moral condemnation of me. For being autistic. For being different. For being a rebel. For supporting the losing side. For liking something that most people do not like.

In a society where things that used to be considered immoral – abortion, homosexuality, having a baby out of wedlock – have become almost unanimously accepted, it hurts that the very essence of who I am is morally condemned.

It hurts that someone would even ask the question of whether the very essence of who I am is ever morally acceptable, let alone that someone would answer in the negative, or even think about answering in the negative. (I did not read the column itself, because I know that doing so would be too painful for me to be able to tolerate, but my guess is that the ethicist at the Times did not provide a positive answer.)

It hurts that the question would even be framed in this way.

I am a good person. Many people would likely disagree, but I genuinely believe that. I haven’t done anything wrong by being autistic, by being different, by being a rebel, by supporting the losing side, by liking something that most people do not like. I haven’t done anything to deserve moral condemnation.

So I affirm: not only is visiting a Confederate historical site perfectly morally acceptable; it is morally good. Always. All the time. In fact, it is the most morally good thing imaginable. There is nothing more morally good than Confederate history, the sites, artifacts, and public art associated with it, and the decision to support it by visiting those sites.

The real question that should be asked: is a world without Confederate historical sites morally acceptable?

The answer is no. Obviously not. I feel more strongly about that answer than I do anything else in the world.

bookmark_borderBelated 4th of July reflections

Posted on by Marissa

I used to love the Fourth of July. I loved putting together a red, white, and blue outfit, decorating my house with flags and my front porch with patriotic buntings, listening to patriotic music, and watching the fireworks in Boston. One year, I even wore an Uncle Sam costume to the fireworks show.

Unfortunately, the Fourth of July is yet another thing that has, to some extent, been ruined by the statue genocide of 2020.

In general, it is conservatives who tend to be the most passionate about the Fourth of July and other patriotic things. It is conservatives who are more likely to fly the American flag, to chant “USA,” to wear red, white, and blue, and to post memes involving George Washington and other founding fathers gloating about our victory over the British (my social media news feeds were flooded with a plethora of these last week).

These sentiments are certainly preferable to the views, commonly associated with progressivism, that focus on the negatives of America. Those who subscribe to this ideology characterize America as a fundamentally racist nation, paint our history as one of oppression and shame, and criticize the founding fathers, sometimes even calling for their cancellation.

I definitely come closer to agreeing with the pro-USA views of conservatives than I do to agreeing with the anti-USA views of the left. But I can’t fully get behind the patriotic, “Murica” loving sentiments either. At least not the way I used to. 

That’s because the events that have so traumatized me over the past three years were perpetrated by, well, America. The horrific and sadistic destruction of one Christopher Columbus statue after another. The decisions of local governments to reward, rather than punish, the perpetrators by removing yet additional statues and by establishing a holiday in the perpetrators’ honor. The breathtakingly cruel and mean-spirited decision to eradicate all public art honoring the losing side of a war. And, although this is a slightly different topic, the election of a president who thought that he had the right to force all Americans to undergo a medical procedure against their will. 

All of these events took place in America. All were perpetrated by people who live in America. It was Americans who viciously tore down everything that makes my life worth living, whether by acting as part of vicious, frenzied, and intolerant mobs, or by acting through their more civilized but equally intolerant public officials. The current situation, in which everything that makes life worth living has been destroyed, was created, collectively, by America. Of course, not every American supports these destructive policies. Some Americans vigorously oppose them (including, obviously, myself). But the fact that these policies were, in fact, enacted across the country demonstrates that our country, as a whole, supports them. These policies were enacted by the American people, either directly or through the democratic systems that are in place for policy-making at the local, state, and federal levels. America elected public officials who believe in the mass murder of historical figures for no other reason than being different from people today. America elected public officials, including a president, who believe that they should be able to invade the bodies of, and control the medical decisions of, their citizens.

In short, the atrocities that destroyed my life were perpetrated, or at least allowed to happen, by America. 

When conservatives celebrate the Fourth of July, wear red, white, and blue, chant “USA! USA!,” and post patriotic memes, they believe themselves to be standing up to the anti-America rhetoric of the left. But I don’t think that is what they are truly doing.

All of the toxic actions, words, beliefs, and policies associated with the left – from the brutal destruction of statues to the implementation of totalitarianism in the name of fighting a virus – are, unfortunately, part of America. 

Needless to say, this reflects very poorly on America. 

It’s a comfort to know that, if the stereotypes are true, most of the people engaging in patriotic celebrations and displays oppose such totalitarian policies as statue destruction and mandatory medical procedures. But I don’t think that expressing love and pride for the country that did these things is the best way to express these sentiments. For me at least, “America” comes closer to being a synonym for the traumatizing things of the past three years than an antonym. 

Don’t get me wrong, the Fourth of July is not nearly as painful to me as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” or Juneteenth. I would much rather see the stars and stripes flapping in the breeze than the hideous, racist Pride flag. And I’d be much more likely to smile if I walked past someone on the street wearing a red, white, and blue t-shirt than, say, a shirt that said “Black Lives Matter” on it.

But for now, the Fourth of July is still tainted.

For now, it still rings hollow.

Perhaps it always will.

bookmark_borderBurlington pride month controversy demonstrates society’s hypocrisy and intolerance

Posted on by Marissa

Recently, a controversy erupted over a Pride month event, and a protest against it, at a school near where I live. The reaction to the protest encapsulates the intolerant attitudes of our society.

For the month of June, Burlington Middle School was decorated with Pride decorations, including the ubiquitous and racist Pride flag (see this post for an explanation of why it is racist) and a poster with the Tennessee Williams quote, “What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved line a road through mountains.” This quote, understandably, offended straight students. So a group of students protested, tearing down the racist Pride decorations and chanting, “My pronouns are USA.”

(Source: DC Draino Instagram post)

Appallingly but not surprisingly, public officials criticized the protesting students, as opposed to the intolerant displays against which they were protesting. 

Members of the Burlington Select Board called the protest “unacceptable” and characterized it as both “intolerant rhetoric” and “displays of intolerance and homophobia.” In reality, however, it was the Pride month celebration that was intolerant and unacceptable, because it involved the display of a racially discriminatory flag, as well as a poster which claimed that an entire group of people do not exist.

A statement by school superintendent Eric Conti was similarly lacking in both logic and moral decency.

Conti described the protest as “hateful,” which makes no sense because there is nothing hateful about standing up against racial discrimination or against the attempted erasure of an entire group of people based on their sexual orientation. (Arguably, it is the discrimination and attempted erasure that are hateful.)

Conti also said that the school system is “obligated to provide a safe environment for all students to feel safe, seen, and respected without retaliation.” This is true, but in the opposite way of what Conti meant: to display a flag that excludes white people and a poster that denies the existence of straight people is to ensure that not all students feel seen and respected. If Conti truly cared about the ability of students to feel seen and respected, the Pride celebration, and not the protests against it, would be the target of his criticism.

Making things even worse, Conti pompously declared that “it is not enough to publicly denounce these incidents as they happen” and called on people to “educate our community on the nature of these events.” Actually, “these events” should not be denounced at all; they should be publicly praised, and the racist and intolerant Pride celebrations should instead be denounced. The “nature of these events” is that people protested against a poster telling them that they do not exist. I fail to understand how that is a bad thing. The Tennessee Williams quote that erases the existence of straight people is what should be criticized here, not the students protesting against it.

Conti’s statement also said: “I recognize that discussions and celebrations of individual identity are complex and impacted by individual values, religions, and cultural norms, the result of which may include expressions of racism, anti-religious hate, ableism, and in this case homophobia. The Burlington Public Schools believe in the individual dignity and humanity of each and every person in our community. We embrace everyone for who they are and for what they bring to our schools and larger community. Let us all work on being kinder toward each other.”

But there is nothing homophobic about maintaining that straight people exist. And the problem is that displaying racially discriminatory flags and a poster erasing the existence of straight people is antithetical to believing in the individual dignity and humanity of each and every person in a community. For straight people and white people, these flags and poster deny our dignity and our humanity. So it is clearly false that the Burlington Public Schools believe in the individual dignity and humanity of each and every person in the community, because if they did, they would be criticizing the Pride celebration, and not the students protesting against it. Similarly, the Burlington Public Schools obviously do not embrace everyone for who they are, because if they did, they would be condemning the anti-white and anti-straight displays, as opposed to the students protesting against them.

People do, indeed, need to work on being kinder toward each other. It is people who display a racially discriminatory flag and a poster erasing straight people’s existence who need to work on being kinder to other people. Again, Conti should be criticizing the people engaging in these discriminatory actions, not the people protesting against them.

“I was shocked and horrified,” one parent reportedly whined. But what people should be shocked and horrified about is the fact that Burlington Middle School held a celebration that discriminated against students based on their race and sexual orientation. It is the discriminatory flags and poster that should cause shock and horror, not the students protesting against them.

This topic might seem unrelated, and I might sound like a broken record for bringing it up in yet another blog post, but I think it is important to mention the horrific things that were done to Confederate statues and Christopher Columbus statues over the past three years. These disgraceful actions were the most unacceptable, intolerant, and hateful actions ever to take place. These actions were more antithetical to individual dignity and humanity, more antithetical to seeing and respecting people, more antithetical to embracing everyone for who they are, and more antithetical to kindness, than any actions that have ever been taken. And when I say “ever,” I mean ever, in the history of the world.

If people truly cared about tolerance, truly cared about seeing and respecting others, truly cared about dignity and humanity, truly cared about embracing people for who they are, truly cared about kindness, then these are the actions that they would be criticizing, denouncing, publicly condemning, and taking a stand against. It demonstrates appalling hypocrisy and complete moral bankruptcy that society does absolutely nothing to speak out against truly intolerant and unkind actions, yet falls all over itself in its haste to condemn a protest involving middle school students who had the audacity to affirm that straight people exist.

bookmark_borderJune, the month of exclusion and discrimination

Posted on by Marissa

June used to be a month that I looked forward to. It marked the beginning of summer, with flowers blooming, school ending for the year, and rain generally absent. Now, I dread the month of June, and it has nothing to do with the cold, windy, and wet weather that has been occurring recently.

June marks Pride Month, as well as Juneteenth. Two observances that acknowledge, honor, recognize, and celebrate certain politically favored groups of people, while excluding everyone else. Two observances that are popularly perceived as being all about equality, diversity, and inclusion, while in reality being about the exact opposite. June has become the month of conformity, exclusion, and discrimination.

To begin with, take the Pride flag. I don’t have a problem with the original version of this flag, with six stripes in the colors of the rainbow. But I have a problem with the version that is currently favored, the version that has become pervasive everywhere you look, especially during the month of June. This is the flag that, in addition to the rainbow stripes, includes a triangle of white, light blue, and pink to symbolize trans people, as well as stripes of black and brown to symbolize the experiences of LGBTQ+ people of color. This, to put it bluntly, is racist. Those who created this flag and those who choose to display it have chosen to give special recognition to black and brown people, while giving no equivalent recognition to white people. (One might point out that the color white does appear on the flag, but its intention is to symbolize trans people along with blue and pink, not to represent white people.) There is no justifiable reason for doing this. The rainbow flag already symbolized LGBTQ+ people of all races equally. There is nothing about a rainbow-striped flag that could be construed to only represent white people. Whoever is responsible for adding the black and brown stripes must have either interpreted the rainbow flag as only representing white people, which is false, or acknowledged that the rainbow flag already represents all races but decided that black and brown people deserve additional recognition while white people do not, which is racist. Either way, the Pride flag, as it is most commonly displayed today, is racially discriminatory.

The racist Pride flag is fitting, the perfect symbol for the intolerant attitudes that are so prevalent in our society. According to our society’s dominant ideology, some people deserve to be acknowledged, honored, included, represented, and celebrated, while others do not. Some people’s feelings, viewpoints, perspectives, and experiences matter, while other people’s do not. 

The past three years have been nothing short of traumatizing and soul-crushing for me as an autistic person who loves statues and history. For three years, people have intentionally destroyed everything in the world that makes my life worth living. They have inflicted horrific and indescribable pain, on purpose. They have set out to deliberately remove each and every work of public art that makes me feel included. And they have done so with unimaginable cruelty, violence, and brutality. Whether in the form of angry mobs, self-righteous public officials, or faceless bureaucracies, society has decided to physically alter the public spaces of cities and towns to ensure that people like me feel unwelcome and excluded. To ensure that people like me will never again have any possibility of feeling happiness, joy, or belonging.

And then, as if all this weren’t bad enough, society decided to characterize the events that I’ve just described as “hope” and “healing.”

Just like society has decided that it is not enough not to be racist, but that one must be actively anti-racist, society has not merely decided that I do not deserve to be acknowledged, honored, included, represented, or celebrated. Society has decided, if such things are even possible, that I deserve to be actively anti-acknowledged, actively anti-honored, actively anti-included, actively anti-represented, and actively anti-celebrated. 

I am not black. I am not gay, or trans, or queer. I am different. I have been different my entire life. For as long as I can remember, I have talked differently, walked differently, learned differently, and thought differently. I wore dresses, pigtails, and Mary Janes, while everyone else wore tight jeans and sweatshirts. I excelled at reading, writing, math, and memorizing facts, but wasn’t able to hold a conversation, hit a baseball with a bat, ride a bike, or tie my shoes, all things that my peers did effortlessly. People didn’t understand why I did the things I did, and I didn’t understand why they did the things they did, either. People didn’t like me. I had few friends and was bullied. Historical figures were the only thing that made my life worth living. The fact that statues of them existed in public places was the only thing that made me feel included, made me feel seen, and made me feel that life was worth living.

And then society decided to take that away. Society decided to spend time, money, and effort to destroy what made my life worth living. To ensure that I would never again feel welcomed or included when I set foot in a public place. 

There was never really a word for what made me different. It was just me being eccentric, or deviant, or weird, or messed-up. It was just another Marissa thing. Me doing or saying something that didn’t make sense. Me being completely quiet while the other kids told inside jokes and swapped stories. Me being unable to understand something that to others was obvious. I know now that the word is autism. But I didn’t know it then. Queer people, trans people, black people, indigenous people, Jewish people… all these groups have a word for what makes them different from the majority. When there is a word for what makes you different, it means that there are other people who share the same difference as you. It means you are not alone. Perhaps you might feel alienated or excluded in the larger society, but there is always a group of like people that you can return to, a community that will provide acceptance, empathy, belonging, and support. Not so for me. Even among my immediate family, I was judged, stigmatized, shamed, and criticized. I was different from them, and they didn’t understand me. In short, I have always been alone. 

For this reason, I have felt different and alone in a way that queer people and black people have never experienced. I have felt different and alone in a more profound sense than people who can easily put a label on their differences. And this was before society decided to destroy everything that made my life worth living. 

If society truly cared about diversity and inclusion, it would be going out of its way to acknowledge, honor, recognize, and celebrate me, not actively making me feel excluded. If society truly cared about diversity and inclusion, it would be raising funds, hiring artists, and making plans for the creation of additional Confederate statues and Christopher Columbus statues, not doing the utterly sickening and horrific things that it did to these statues.

Because Confederate statues and Columbus statues symbolize people who are different. They symbolize people like me. By erecting them in public spaces, our society was stating that people like me do, indeed, have a right to exist. But the death of George Floyd caused society to change its mind about that. Using some sick, warped version of logic that I will never fully comprehend, society decided that for the actions of Derek Chauvin, I deserve the death penalty. 

It is beyond hurtful that after three years of inflicting horrific and indescribable pain on me because I am different, after three years of telling me in the most brutal, cruel, and violent possible way that I don’t have the right to exist, society would go out of its way to celebrate gay people and black people. To think that this constitutes inclusion, and diversity, and treating everyone equally, demonstrates a complete lack of empathy. I understand that the tone of this blog post might be perceived as angry and negative, but I truly believe that Pride and Juneteenth are neither uplifting nor positive. They are examples of how our society acknowledges, honors, includes, and celebrates some people while excluding, humiliating, and viciously attacking others. Whenever I see that hideous black and brown rainbow flag, see a sign in a store window expressing solidarity with the LGBTQ or black community, or hear of a Pride or Juneteenth celebration, I am being told that I am not a person and that my feelings do not matter. 

I don’t have anything against queer people or trans people or black people. What I have a problem with is society’s inconsistency, hypocrisy, and intolerance. I believe in treating everyone equally. I believe that everyone should be included. By celebrating Pride and Juneteenth, after three years of brutally, cruelly, and violently telling me that I don’t deserve to be represented or included, society accomplishes the opposite of that. If queer people and trans people and black people are going to be accepted and celebrated, then I deserve to be accepted and celebrated as well. If the pain of queer people and trans people and black people is going to be acknowledged, then I deserve to have my pain acknowledged, too. 

bookmark_border“You are standing on Native land”

Posted on by Marissa

This picture, seen on social media, angers me.

It angers me that some organization or company or government entity (I’m not sure exactly who is responsible) made the decision to create a sign like this.

All my life, I’ve been told that I do everything wrong. That everything about me is wrong and bad. That I wear the wrong clothes, the wrong shoes, the wrong socks. That I read the wrong books, listen to the wrong music, watch the wrong shows. That I hold my pencil the wrong way, play with my toys the wrong way, wash my hair the wrong way, wash my face the wrong way, floss my teeth the wrong way. That I stand wrong, sit wrong, speak wrong, use words wrong.

And now I am being told that I have the wrong skin color and the wrong ancestry. After a lifetime of being told that everything about me is wrong and bad, I am now being told that I don’t deserve to exist in the city of Boston, due to the color of my skin and the fact that my ancestors came from Europe. Due to things about me that I have absolutely no control over.

All my life, I’ve suppressed my autistic self in order to fit in with neurotypical people. And now I am being told that because I happen to have European ancestry, I need to grovel at the feet of indigenous people in order to be allowed to exist. That because of where my ancestors came from, I don’t have a right to exist in the only city that I have ever called home.

All my life, I’ve been told that I need to apologize for everything about myself. And now I am being told that because of my skin color and my ancestry, I need to apologize for my very existence.

All my life, I’ve been made to feel wrong, worthless, bad, and messed-up. It is angering and demoralizing that someone would create a sign designed to make me feel even more this way.

I’m sick and tired of having to apologize for my existence. A native person is not superior to me. I have just as much of a right to exist in Boston as anyone else does.

bookmark_borderThe ridiculous reaction to an act of self-defense

Posted on by Marissa

“It’s insane that Walgreens has armed security; there’s nothing in that store worth a human life, and Walgreens is not taking care of our community. We demand an end to armed security.”

These are the words of an activist named Jessica Nowlan, from an organization called the Young Women’s Freedom Center (source: Yahoo News). These words came in response to the death of Banko Brown, who was killed by a security guard while attempting to shoplift from a Walgreens in San Francisco. Because Brown happened to be black and transgender, the worshippers of political correctness predictably erupted in outrage, calling Walgreens and its security guard racist and transphobic.

Nowlan’s reasoning does not make sense from a moral point of view, for reasons that I will explain below:

First, all people have a fundamental right to possess whichever type of weapons they want, whether they are a security guard or not, and whether they are on the job or on their own personal time. Therefore, to demand an end to armed security violates the right of security guards to bear arms.

Second, I don’t really understand the criticism of Walgreens for “not taking care of our community.” Walgreens is not obligated to take care of any community. Walgreens is a business, and its job is to sell products. As long as Walgreens is not violating anyone’s rights, it is not doing anything wrong.

And Walgreens did not violate anyone’s rights in this case. Obviously, in normal circumstances, people have a right not to be killed. But that all goes out the window if a person is doing something wrong. By stealing things, Brown was violating Walgreens’ rights. And when you violate someone else’s rights, you forfeit your own. Neither Walgreens nor its security guard did anything wrong by defending their own rights against someone who was trying to violate them.

This brings me to my most important point, which is to address Nowlan’s claim that it is “insane” for Walgreens to have armed security because “there’s nothing in that store worth a human life.” The problem with this line of reasoning is that you don’t determine right from wrong merely by weighing two things and determining which is more valuable. Obviously, if you weigh a person’s life against the stuff that is sold in a store, yes, a person’s life is the more valuable of the two things. All else being equal, of course it is better for Walgreens to lose some of their products than for a person to lose their life. But in this situation, all else is not equal. The person in this situation – Brown – did something wrong, while Walgreens did not. It is actually morally preferable for Brown to lose their life than for Walgreens to lose their products, because Brown created the situation that necessitated choosing between life and products in the first place. It is wrong to expect Walgreens to just absorb the theft of its products in order to protect the life of the person stealing them. This would punish Walgreens, an innocent party that did nothing wrong, while allowing Brown, who did something wrong, to avoid punishment. Any outcome that involves an innocent entity being punished is not a morally acceptable outcome, even if the entity is a huge corporation such as Walgreens.

One might, of course, argue that death is a disproportionate punishment for shoplifting, and I would agree with this argument. But the alternative to giving Brown a disproportionate punishment is for Walgreens to simply absorb the theft of its property, which is morally unacceptable for the reasons explained above. It is still morally preferable for someone who did something wrong to be punished excessively than for an innocent entity to be punished at all.

Nowlan’s reasoning is wrong because it completely ignores a fundamental, basic moral concept: the distinction between someone who has done something wrong and someone who hasn’t.

To reiterate sentiments that I’ve expressed numerous times, but which continue needing to be repeated, the fact that something bad happened to a black, transgender person does not mean that the bad thing happened because the person was black and transgender. Brown was killed not because they were black and transgender; Brown was killed because they were shoplifting from Walgreens.

Brown is the person who did something wrong in this case, not Walgreens and not the security guard.