Why do I resist?
Good question. It’s not easy to articulate.
I was raised to believe in the equality and dignity of every human being. The more people I’ve met around the world, the more strongly I believed it. To hear people try to claim that their racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., are actually my problem because I’m too sensitive or too PC? I can’t be silent on that. MLK said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I believe that strongly. I can’t let injustices become acceptable, or go without challenge.
As an engineer, I believe in science, in verifiable facts. I value intellectual curiosity, the desire to get to the real story. Confirmation bias, the urge to believe anything that fits into our pre-existing worldview, is real. It’s easy. It’s also lazy, and spreading information without caring if it might be false seems dishonest. I want to help spread the truth, challenge the falsehoods, and expose the hypocrisy that drives them.
We are now so inundated with abhorrent behavior, indecency, and disregard for others, we become overwhelmed. The sheer volume and frequency wears us down. We’re in danger of it becoming normalized. It’s easier to let it fade into the background.
I’m too stubborn for that. And loud-mouthed.
I know that most of the people I reach are already on “my side”. That’s okay. People like to know that others feel the way they do. I want to support them, commiserate, encourage, keep their outrage fresh, spur on their activism, amplify their candidate, and applaud their humanity.
If I can get a laugh while doing that? It can’t hurt.
The others? The ones that think I’m a whiney liberal snowflake? I like to think that, once in a while, I write something that challenges their beliefs, maybe only briefly. Or something they don’t believe at first that they look into later on. Maybe. It’s not changing anybody suddenly or drastically, but if I keep it up long enough, and yell loud enough, maybe I’ll put some chinks in someone’s armor. It’s snark yielded as a tiny little chisel.
So that’s it. I didn’t even need to mention Donnie Dollhands.
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