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Friday, August 25, 2017

The State of the Union

When I was 5 or 6 I had a white rabbit fur hat and matching capelet. The hat had been my grandmother’s and when she gave it to me, my mother found the matching capelet. They were my favorite things. I used to wear them all the time, alternating with the little red riding hood cape my aunt had knitted for me, and I would spend hours petting the soft fur, so much softer than anything I’d ever felt.

One day, a friend of mine let me hold her pet rabbit. He was sweet with big, inquisitive eyes and he would put him ears back and snuggle into your arm as you petted him. I had never felt anything so soft. A couple of days later I put on my favorite hat and capelet, and as I petted my hat, I realized they felt just like my friend’s little bunny. I started to cry and I ran to my mother. I asked her how they got the fur off the rabbits, hoping it was like the sheep, but she told me, no, they have to kill the rabbits for the fur. I stopped wearing my favorite hat and capelet. 

Now I am no saint. I still eat fish, and chicken, lamb and occasionally other meat. I still tell myself convenient lies so that I can function in the world. But sometimes, you simply can’t make the lie work.

For so many of us, we were brought up on a comforting lie, one which made us able to function in the world. I was the first one to raise my hand and say “states’ rights” as the true reason for the Civil War. Slavery was just a byproduct. A byproduct? We can’t make that lie work anymore. Even were this untruth factual, slavery was never a small part of anything. It was the literal life and death of millions of Americans, the defining of an entire race of people as human or subhuman. 

States’ Rights cannot preempt human rights. In a modern context, before 2015 a marriage between two men or two women could be recognized in one state but not in another, before 1967 an interracial marriage could be recognized in one state but not in another. Transgender military are suddenly finding their status as humans called into question. For those horrified by the new Texas “Rape Insurance” law, imagine if the war had gone the other way and people of color in free states now had to buy “Freedom Insurance” to cover the cost of purchasing their freedom should they cross or be tricked into a slave state and be taken back into slavery. 

So what’s my point? My point is, I get it. I know how hard this is to accept. Because to accept that the civil war was not simply about States’ Rights is to accept that we were all complicit in propagating the lie. It is a hard truth to accept. It has kept me up nights, wracked with far more guilt than that rabbit fur hat because I have always thought I was if not an advocate for equality at bare minimum an ally. Losing our innocence is hard and painful; it requires a mourning period, and many white Americans are stuck in anger and denial. It’s hard because our friends of color don’t understand the pain of this lost innocence, they aren’t there saying, “I understand how hard this must be for you to realize the role you played in my oppression and the oppression of my friends and family, my ancestors.” Because guiding us through this painful process isn’t their job. And if you truly are an ally, you will not try to make it their job. We were wrong. It sucks. We have lost our naivete and we have a right to mourn. But what we don’t have a right to do is ask them to keep waiting while we work through our own angst. Haven’t they waited long enough? 

I know it will be hard, as challenging as accepting that a barrier breaking sports icon might have been a murderer or a barrier breaking comedy icon, a rapist, or your favorite uncle is a child molester. Yes, these men did great things but sometimes that one bad decision defines you and attempting to break the union of our country to perpetuate torture, rape and genocide, no matter how well-intentioned, it looks pretty bad on paper. So just as we had to give up our beloved games of cowboys and Indians, it might be time to give up the fantasy of the noble southern rebels and accept that we have all been a little complicit in perpetuating a beautiful fairy tale. We still have cops and robbers. After all, robbers are always bad…aren’t they?