violence & inevitability
I've been chewing on this idea for awhile: all the problems of the world are predicated on the fundamentally violent belief that some lives are worth more than others.
The Battered Women's Movement tells women, we can help you. You can live a life free of violence.
But that's not true. As long as kids in Nigeria are not worth as much as kids in New Jersey, it is impossible to lead a truly violence free life. And if we valued the Nigerian kid, we wouldn't stand for this injustice - we'd make sure that kid had clean water and food and medicine. Maybe not a Wii, maybe not even a real education, but something, damnit, there have got to be a few basics we can agree on. Until then, we will go on living as though the kid in Jersey is worth more because we at least *believe* that kid *deserves* those things, regardless of whether or not she gets them. But everyone agrees - it's a universal, known truth that American kids should have such things. Why not the rest of the world?
Some women are worth more. Some women are worth less. That's why some women (ones who look like me, and skinnier, and richer) matter more in emergency rooms and courtrooms and boardrooms and all sorts of other rooms where important decisions get made by others - often male others - about what to do with our lives and how to spend money on things that affect our lives. Some women (ones who don't look like me on whatever level - darker skin, more "masculine" features), in the grand scheme of things, matter less. And somewhere along the way we all just AGREED to this, and were like, yeah it's okay fuck over the poor people and the schools their kids go to and the hospitals they visit when they're sick and naw, fuck those people over the border too, cuz shit man, they had the temerity to be born over there and shit, that country's always been fucked up and they keep fucking it up more cuz they're just LIKE THAT. It's the same goddamn thing, over and over again, writ large and writ tiny. Africa fucked itself over like my friend went and got herself raped. Same concept - and Africans deserve it and stupid white girls deserve it because, well, they just ain't worth clean water and the right to live un-raped lives.
What if we all really, really agreed to the notion that every human being on this planet has a right to live un-raped, with clean water and enough food to keep them alive and the most basic medical care? Because we have the resources to make that happen and it fucken blows my mind every time I think about how we CAN do that, and haven't.
* * *
And don't you tell me no. I have two reasons why this is NOT impossible. One is lynching, the other is oil. Bear with me.
Whenever people tell me no, women are just gonna get raped and that's how it's gonna be and always has been, I like to bring up lynching. Half a century or so ago, less and more, it was not only acceptable to lynch people of a certain race/class mix, it was expected by all involved. There were social organizations devoted to finding excuses to and getting away with the practice of hanging people from trees. Townsfolk packed fucking picnics. Body parts were removed and taken home as souvenirs. This was just How It Was.
And you know what? It's not like that anymore. Sure, there is no way I'm saying we're equal and la-dee-dah this is exactly what MLK had in mind, of course not, no. These United States are still terribly unequal, and homicide is still the leading cause of death among young black men and some might argue that the U.S. just got more efficient by creating conditions in the black community for self-perpetuating genocide. However, my point is, we no longer hang men from trees for whistling or being on the wrong side of town when the white boys decided to go out and kill someone as entertainment. And at this point, I would settle for an equivalent when it comes to rape. Because 1 in 4 is too fucking high a number to contemplate. Do you know more than four women? Congratulations, you know a rape survivor. That is too fucking much. I know most of yall read my breast cancer vs rape post long ago, and it's still true and I still mostly feel that way. We can eliminate rape. A century ago, if you'd said we could eliminate lynching, people would've laughed, and then run your ass outta town. And now? The numbers are down, at least. Pathetic as it is, I would settle for that right about now. I don't want rape to be just How It Is anymore.
And secondly, I stopped in at a gas station the other day on my way to work and got to thinking. There are gas stations all over the earth. I have been in some tiny-ass towns in different countries and there are always gas stations. Dead towns, ghost towns, if a town has NOTHING else, it will have a gas station. If it doesn't have a gas station, we ask ourselves, how do the people survive? We rely on gas stations being abundant and they are.
And gas stations? Also less than a century old. We humans just decided to take this oozy crap called oil out of the ground, and by some alchemical process, turn it into this liquid that, by some other alchemical process, runs machines that crawl all over the planet. The choice of oil is, ultimately, an arbitrary one. There was nothing inevitable about oil, with its oozy randomness in terms of places it congregated under the earth, and we came along and sucked it up and shipped it all over the planet in vehicles that also needed it to run themselves. When you think about it, it makes a lot MORE sense that something like the sun would be an inevitable power source, if there is such a thing, because the sun is everywhere and you could build your sunstation and boom! - there's your power source, right there! The only thing you have to truck in is the snacks and beverages! So if humans can take this random gross oozy crap and run the fucking PLANET off of it, don't TELL me we can't do the same with power sources that make a lot more damn sense, and don't TELL me we can't give the Nigerian kids water and vaccines. I don't wanna hear it. Don't tell me no when I KNOW it's not true. Don't tell me it's inevitable we'll destroy our environment and the kids will starve. I think the sense of inevitability is what trips people up. These things are NOT inevitable, just like the choices that got us here were not inevitable. Very, very little is inevitable, and the list is getting shorter all the time. Human ingenuity can do ANYTHING, and I think it's about damn time we focused all that energy towards creating more good and equality and peace so this earth and the humans on it can survive a little longer.
The Battered Women's Movement tells women, we can help you. You can live a life free of violence.
But that's not true. As long as kids in Nigeria are not worth as much as kids in New Jersey, it is impossible to lead a truly violence free life. And if we valued the Nigerian kid, we wouldn't stand for this injustice - we'd make sure that kid had clean water and food and medicine. Maybe not a Wii, maybe not even a real education, but something, damnit, there have got to be a few basics we can agree on. Until then, we will go on living as though the kid in Jersey is worth more because we at least *believe* that kid *deserves* those things, regardless of whether or not she gets them. But everyone agrees - it's a universal, known truth that American kids should have such things. Why not the rest of the world?
Some women are worth more. Some women are worth less. That's why some women (ones who look like me, and skinnier, and richer) matter more in emergency rooms and courtrooms and boardrooms and all sorts of other rooms where important decisions get made by others - often male others - about what to do with our lives and how to spend money on things that affect our lives. Some women (ones who don't look like me on whatever level - darker skin, more "masculine" features), in the grand scheme of things, matter less. And somewhere along the way we all just AGREED to this, and were like, yeah it's okay fuck over the poor people and the schools their kids go to and the hospitals they visit when they're sick and naw, fuck those people over the border too, cuz shit man, they had the temerity to be born over there and shit, that country's always been fucked up and they keep fucking it up more cuz they're just LIKE THAT. It's the same goddamn thing, over and over again, writ large and writ tiny. Africa fucked itself over like my friend went and got herself raped. Same concept - and Africans deserve it and stupid white girls deserve it because, well, they just ain't worth clean water and the right to live un-raped lives.
What if we all really, really agreed to the notion that every human being on this planet has a right to live un-raped, with clean water and enough food to keep them alive and the most basic medical care? Because we have the resources to make that happen and it fucken blows my mind every time I think about how we CAN do that, and haven't.
* * *
And don't you tell me no. I have two reasons why this is NOT impossible. One is lynching, the other is oil. Bear with me.
Whenever people tell me no, women are just gonna get raped and that's how it's gonna be and always has been, I like to bring up lynching. Half a century or so ago, less and more, it was not only acceptable to lynch people of a certain race/class mix, it was expected by all involved. There were social organizations devoted to finding excuses to and getting away with the practice of hanging people from trees. Townsfolk packed fucking picnics. Body parts were removed and taken home as souvenirs. This was just How It Was.
And you know what? It's not like that anymore. Sure, there is no way I'm saying we're equal and la-dee-dah this is exactly what MLK had in mind, of course not, no. These United States are still terribly unequal, and homicide is still the leading cause of death among young black men and some might argue that the U.S. just got more efficient by creating conditions in the black community for self-perpetuating genocide. However, my point is, we no longer hang men from trees for whistling or being on the wrong side of town when the white boys decided to go out and kill someone as entertainment. And at this point, I would settle for an equivalent when it comes to rape. Because 1 in 4 is too fucking high a number to contemplate. Do you know more than four women? Congratulations, you know a rape survivor. That is too fucking much. I know most of yall read my breast cancer vs rape post long ago, and it's still true and I still mostly feel that way. We can eliminate rape. A century ago, if you'd said we could eliminate lynching, people would've laughed, and then run your ass outta town. And now? The numbers are down, at least. Pathetic as it is, I would settle for that right about now. I don't want rape to be just How It Is anymore.
And secondly, I stopped in at a gas station the other day on my way to work and got to thinking. There are gas stations all over the earth. I have been in some tiny-ass towns in different countries and there are always gas stations. Dead towns, ghost towns, if a town has NOTHING else, it will have a gas station. If it doesn't have a gas station, we ask ourselves, how do the people survive? We rely on gas stations being abundant and they are.
And gas stations? Also less than a century old. We humans just decided to take this oozy crap called oil out of the ground, and by some alchemical process, turn it into this liquid that, by some other alchemical process, runs machines that crawl all over the planet. The choice of oil is, ultimately, an arbitrary one. There was nothing inevitable about oil, with its oozy randomness in terms of places it congregated under the earth, and we came along and sucked it up and shipped it all over the planet in vehicles that also needed it to run themselves. When you think about it, it makes a lot MORE sense that something like the sun would be an inevitable power source, if there is such a thing, because the sun is everywhere and you could build your sunstation and boom! - there's your power source, right there! The only thing you have to truck in is the snacks and beverages! So if humans can take this random gross oozy crap and run the fucking PLANET off of it, don't TELL me we can't do the same with power sources that make a lot more damn sense, and don't TELL me we can't give the Nigerian kids water and vaccines. I don't wanna hear it. Don't tell me no when I KNOW it's not true. Don't tell me it's inevitable we'll destroy our environment and the kids will starve. I think the sense of inevitability is what trips people up. These things are NOT inevitable, just like the choices that got us here were not inevitable. Very, very little is inevitable, and the list is getting shorter all the time. Human ingenuity can do ANYTHING, and I think it's about damn time we focused all that energy towards creating more good and equality and peace so this earth and the humans on it can survive a little longer.