My shirt here says “Being silent simply will not change the world.” I rarely engage in “discussions” on social media that are likely to dissolve quickly to faceless arguments where no one listens and everyone condescends and accuses and throws insults. They hardly ever affect opinions, and no one comes to social media with an open mind and armed with respect...
However, I’m also a big believer that you cannot stay silent in the face of wrong. One of my favorite authors, Shirley Jackson, wrote much around the theme of everyday evil. Evil isn’t always some big scary obvious thing with arrows and a neon sign reading “EVIL” pointing to it. Everyday evil is subtle. It can be seen in how we disrespect, disregard, and diminish others. It can be a taunt, a laugh at someone in pain, a blind eye to a suffering, a mob mentality, a delight in the feeling of superiority over someone. Everyday evil does not require an evil person to create it; sometimes all it requires is thoughtlessness.
Last weekend, I wrote several lengthy comments in response to a young woman's Instagram post of her Halloween costume: She dressed as a very old woman holding a cardboard sign that says “kicked out of the nursing home. Plese [sic] help.” I don’t think she is a bad person, and my words were not accusatory or mean, but I was unable to stay silent. The costume finds humor in another’s suffering—a suffering that is very real for some elders who are treated as subhumans.
Responses to my comments and those of other likeminded individuals have said it’s a shame we’ve lost our sense of fun and silliness and called me and others “snowflakes.” There is nothing shameful about not finding fun and silliness in another soul’s suffering. No reasonable person could expect a senior who was kicked out of a nursing home and is now homeless to find humor in their situation, so I don’t either, and if the inability to laugh at someone’s suffering makes me a snowflake, then I should embroider that insult proudly on a shirt.
Stand up for what you believe in. Do it with respect. Do it in a way that attempts to create change rather than guilt, defensiveness, pain, or anger. But do it. Because staying silent will not change the world.
