Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 491

 

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business," by Roxane Gay.

The climate into which I write my opinions is incredibly fraught but I write, nonetheless. I write to express outrage or bear witness or express admiration. I write knowing many people will disagree with me for one reason or another, sometimes reflexively. When I publish a new essay that’s provocative in some way, my father will reach out, in a concerned but also teasing manner, about how I’m making too many enemies. He worries that by virtue of expressing opinions, I am burning bridges. He’s probably right, though that is never my intention. And, frankly, any bridge my work might burn is not a bridge I have any interest in traversing.

I am often accused of being angry because I write about infuriating problems. I bristle at this accusation, because it is one. There is always the implication that anger is wrong, unbecoming, inappropriate. Being called angry is not a compliment; it is a warning that I’m overstepping, that I don’t know my place—even though I absolutely know that my place is wherever I choose to be. Sometimes I try to defend myself, because anger is not the primary engine of my work. And other times I get angry, because anger is an entirely appropriate response to bigotry, systemic bias, and injustice.

As a writer, I believe the First Amendment is sacred. The freedom of speech, however, does not guarantee freedom from consequence. You can speak your mind, but you can also be shunned. You can be criticized. You can be ignored or ridiculed. You can lose your job. The freedom of speech does not exist in a vacuum.

What white people are really asking for when they demand forgiveness from a traumatized community is absolution. They want absolution from the racism that infects us all even though forgiveness cannot reconcile America’s racist sins. They want absolution from their silence in the face of all manner of racism, great and small. They want to believe it is possible to heal from such profound and malingering trauma because to face the openness of the wounds racism has created in our society is too much. I, for one, am done forgiving.

If you had asked me, before George Floyd’s killing, if I believed in police abolition I would have said that reform is desperately needed but that abolition was a bridge too far. I lacked imagination. I could not envision a world where we did not need law enforcement as it is presently configured. I am ashamed. Now I know we don’t need reform. We need something far more radical. The current system does not work. Even during protests against the current system, law enforcement officers largely behaved as they always do, with blunt force and apparent indifference to the safety of protesters. They believe they are righteous. Burn it all down and build something new in the ashes.