Don't Let Shame Stop You From Speaking Out
A note to self as I wrestle with my privilege and the rise of Fascism.
I've felt awkward about having these feelings.
"It's so bad out there that even I'm suffering".
It feels like both a performative acknowledgement of my privileges, being born white, cis-male, into a family fighting its way into the middle class.
But it's also true. I, and many other men who have lived with these privileges all our lives, are finally experiencing first hand what it's like to be marginalized.
This isn't to compare levels of marginalization. This isn't 'woe is me, I have it so hard'. This is "I finally understand what you've been telling me all my life because I had tasted that experience first-hand. This is no longer just an intellectual understanding for me. This directly affects me more than ever before."
And I'm sorry it took these experiences for me to fully understand what women, people of colour, and those living in poverty have told me throughout my life.
I want to promise you that I won't let my shame get in the way of speaking up, and speaking out.
Because it has. For so long.
I started writing because I believe you.
I started writing because I want to be the champion my children deserve.1
Now I'm also writing for myself.
When I was ten years old I remember first reading the Pastor Martin Niemöller quote:
"First they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out- because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out- because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out- because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me- and there was no one left to speak for me."
I didn't know what a socialist was. I didn't understand what being a trade unionist meant. But I did understand that by picking off marginalized groups one by one, Fascism rose to power by using fear and the promise "you're safe, we're only going after 'bad' people"
Until they decide you're one of the bad people too.
I grew up on stories of the war. Three of my grandparents served in the militaries that fought Fascism, and won. I am proud of the good they did, even as I learn to accept the wrongs that were committed along the way.2
As a teen I didn't understand how anyone could just let the Nazis rise to power like that. How did the German people (and so many others) not see what was happening around them?
It has become a lifelong obsession for me.
I studied history, and learned about the rise of Hitler in the aftermath of country further ruined by the Treaty of Versailles.
I studied sociology, and learned about the comfort people find in their sense of community, even when that community preaches hate towards ‘others’.
I studied psychology, and learned about cognitive biases, and how we can lie to ourselves until we're oblivious to the truth right in front of us.
And I studied philosophy, where I learned that when people value progress and advancement for some over the loss to others, real people suffer.
So now I write. And I read. And I talk to the people around me.
I listen to their stories. I believe in their experiences. I have the hard conversations we need to be having with one another.
I need my children to know.
I've always wondered if I would recognize it if was happening in my lifetime.
Turn out, I do.
Do you?
If so, what will you do about?
I am not their ‘Defender’ because they are weak. I am their Champion, because I choose to stand with them because I believe in their strength.
Winning the war does not make the atrocities less atrocious. The acknowledgment of War Crimes, that they are such a serious level of harm that we as people no longer consider them to be acceptable even in the midst of Total War, is important to preserve our humanity.