The easiest way to deal with a problem is to find someone or something to blame. With an overwhelming amount of antisemitism plaguing WWII Germany, the easiest way to explain their economic distress was to blame those who somehow managed to succeed. Many of whom were Jews. The ease with which a country turned against its own people is appalling. It is the same ease with which we time and time again blame entire groups of people for the disasters that plague us what feels like daily. We too readily accept that all of a kind are to blame for the atrocities of a few.
After the American tragedy at the World Trade Center in 2001, another great tragedy followed. Raging Islamophobia across the board. We needed someone to blame, a way to correct our mistake of trusting too much. We labeled any Muslim man a terrorist and any woman in a hijab the submissive wife of one. Far more likely to be stopped and patted down through airport security. More likely to make you nervous as you sit on your plane and give them the side-eye, while they try and get comfortable in the same too small, too hard seats that you sit in. While they try and get their kids to stop crying after their ears have popped. We criminalize these people for the actions of those who misrepresent the principles of their kind.
Michael Brown’s unjust death incited a rage in the brutality of the police that lie dormant for a time. The people who we were taught are meant to protect us became the enemy. Black Lives Matter became a movement embraced by those of us who knew, that we needed the reminder. That all lives do matter, even the ones of the people we have been taught are inferior for centuries. Not just because of slavery, but years of segregation, and discrimination. Yet once again we over-corrected. In some there is a true hatred for those privileged enough to be born white, or they who call themselves law enforcement. The Dallas shooting of police officers is a gross act of people who distort what it means to know that Black Lives Matter. What it means to understand the importance of raising those who have been kept back for reasons out of their control.
I know that as a woman I am taught to not walk alone at night. To not dress a certain way. To care about how I look; but not to care too much. That all I think about is what boys think of me. Feminism is a place of understanding that the way I choose to present myself has nothing to do with how much I respect myself. I am cake-faced because makeup is art and yes I know that not all men think this way, but all women are taught to be afraid of them, and to take them into higher regard than we take one another. Feminists fight for equality between the genders, not the degradation of the status of men. Too often, misandrists mistake themselves for feminists, and they are the ones people think of when the group is named. People who hate men, and want to see them fall. People who give a false account of what it means to believe in equality.
I stand with Black Lives Matter. I stand with feminists. I stand with Islam. Because the actions of a few do not define the beliefs of the multitude. Misinterpretation of beliefs is not the same as representation of beliefs. If you start any statement with “Not all-,” then you may not have preconceived notions about any group of people. It is a safe bet that unless that’s true, you are about to defend a group of people who don’t need it. To undermine all that has been done to progress us a society for no reason other than the peace of mind that comes with thinking that it’s not your fault.
