We’ve been polite, us liberals, us progressives. When people we know, especially family, spout off racist comments, jokes, when they denigrate the disabled, when they proclaim white superiority, we may walk out of the room, perhaps glare, indicate we disagree, and when we say something, it’s luke-warm compared to the vitriol pouring out of the others’ mouths. Thanksgiving, after all, or Christmas, isn’t the time to fight about such things. Family peace is more important. So we let it go with just a tiny push back.
I’ve been thinking of this because, while the ripping of children from parents has been going on, I went through aspirin desensitization treatment. To undergo this treatment, you begin with a tiny dose of aspirin; a quarter of a baby aspirin. If no reaction occurs, three hours later the dose is doubled. Again, if no reaction occurs, the dose is doubled after another three hours. If an allergic reaction does happen, steps are taken to alleviate the reaction. Stuffy nose and sneezing? Nose spray. If that doesn’t help, allergy pills. If a severe enough reaction happens, an epipen is utilized. The treatment takes place in ICU for this reason; if the unthinkable happens and a severe reaction causes a bronchial spasm or stops the heart, emergency equipment is readily available. The ultimate goal is to reach a dosage of 650 mg of aspirin twice a day, which is taken daily for the rest of your life. Miss 48 hours worth of dosages, and you have to undergo the desensitization all over again.
How does this relate to the current situation? Well, we accepted a tiny dose of racism from, say, grandma. A Fox News program covers another controversial killing of an unarmed black man and she just snorts at the details and says he probably deserved it. To keep peace at Christmas, you say nothing, though you do not approve. The next incident happens at a birthday party, and grandma is a little upset the children are so multicultural. Can’t your child have regular friends? Grandma keeps saying things at family get-togethers, and soon uncles, aunts, begin to voice hesitant agreement. There is no push back because, of course, who wants to fight about poverty during Thanksgiving? It builds, and builds, until children are ripped from their parents at the border and your family nods sagely and says if they weren’t felons, it wouldn’t happen. No sympathy, no nothing. Why should they bother to help brown people who break the law? They’re animals, after all.
And our society, on a slow death spiral, speeds up.
We are fighting. We are pouring money and resources into helping immigrants, we support Black Lives Matter, we listen to #MeToo, we participate in Pride events, we call advertisers to stop advertising on programs where the host spouts racist, sexist, derogatory comments. We are registering people to vote, sending out postcards, calling, supporting Democratic candidates through volunteer work or monetary donations. We know our country has slipped away into the mud and we need to fight to snatch it back and clean it off. Change, though, also needs to be personal. It needs to be us calling out grandma on her racism. It needs to be refusing to invite sexist uncle to Thanksgiving. It needs to be, when a relation decides to bow low and scream a tirade against Muslims at Christmas, we call them out and send them home (or leave, if you’re at someone else’s home). We’ve let the racism, sexism, bigotry, hatred, build for too long without meaningful push back against those we care for. Is that hard? YES. It’s incredibly difficult to confront someone you love—but it’s necessary. Their children are watching. Your children are watching. Aunts, uncles, grandmas and grandpas are watching. Grandma has never experienced anyone calling her out before. Will she cry? Yep. Will you feel bad? Yep. Might relations tut and even yell at you for your timing? Yep. But look where we are now. Our first lady is wearing a “I really don’t care. Do U?” jacket, expressing what too many Americans seem to think. Who cares, when bad things happen to others. Who cares if trans people get beat up? Who cares if poor people are denied heathcare and die? Who cares if children are never reunited with their parents after they are seized from them at the border? It’s not happening to me or anyone I know, so why bother?
We have to be the allergic reaction that stops the desensitization of our society to the brutality, the hatred, we see and hear.
You will reach more people by standing up than you think. You will give others an example they can follow in their own interactions. They will not feel as if they are alone, and therefore must stay silent. And we have to keep it up, calling out our family when it’s needed. If we don’t, we’ll just fall back into the same ol’ same ol’, and we’ll have to try even harder to stop the continued desensitization of our society the next time around.