Skip to main content

Sometimes, the most heartwrenching form of oppression is “common sense.”



Sometimes, the most heartwrenching form of oppression is “common sense.”

So-called “common sense.” Where there’s this unquestioned certainty that of course any right thinking person believes this …

For me, I can take raging vitriol. It reveals a discomfort the rager has. It tips their hand, shows their vulnerabilities. I can even feel sympathy for them.


But that unquestioned acceptance, that assumption that all “normal” people think this one thing, and anyone who thinks differently is a freak – it just hits me down in the gut, you know?

I attended an evangelical seminary, and had some really great moments there. And then there were other moments. One that remains a scar happened one evening in my Ethics class. The professor, whom I really admired, was talking about homosexuality. He was being “tolerant,” I’m sure he thought. “Of course homosexuality is a sin,” he said, “But what about all the other sins? Why don’t we give them as much attention?”

He wasn’t being mean. I’m sure he thought he was being moderate, generous, even. He didn’t even question it. He thought we all agreed.

Facebook, oh Facebook. The medium for the message about what is normal.

You crush me. I see posts from people I used to know, casually ridiculing the notion that every person has worth, deserves to be treated with dignity. Memes or propaganda posing as journalism is shared with a blithe indifference to the idea that this isn’t just a topic in the news, that real live people with crushable feelings and vulnerable bodies are in the crosshairs of the rhetoric.

C’mon, they say. It’s just common sense.

It is neither.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Me and My Collar

You may run into me on a Friday, in my neighborhood, so it's time I let you know what you might see. When I was doing my required unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), my supervisor suggested that any of us who came from traditions where a clerical collar was an option, take one "collar week," to see how we were treated, as opposed to wearing regular professional clothes. After a couple of days, I joked to the Catholic priest, "How do you manage the power?" In regular clothes, I would walk into a patient's room, and it would take about 5 or so minutes of introductions and pleasantries before we could really get down to talking about their feelings, their fears, the deep stuff. With most people, as soon as that clerical collar walked in the room, with me attached, they began pouring out all the heavy stuff they were carrying. I was riding the bus back and forth every day, and though not quite so dramatic, the collar effect was alive there, to...

Beloved Community: The Now and Not Yet

Rev. Christine Robinson has a great little post up about the phrase "beloved community" and why it's problematic to use that to describe a church. Like her mom, I can get cranky about the whole thing, but my crankiness lies in the misuse of what is, to me, such a breathtaking and profound concept. Martin Luther King, Jr., someone whose words I study in great detail, is the one we often think of as originating the term, but he learned about it through the writings of Josiah Royce. Josiah Royce (right) with close friend William James.  Royce was a philosopher, studying Kant, Hegel. I imagine he would have enjoyed Koestler's theory of the holon , because he saw humanity as being both individuals and part of a greater "organism" that was community. As King's belief about Beloved Community would be rooted in agape , Royce's philosophy stemmed from what he called loyalty, and by that he meant, "the practically devoted love of an individual f...

To Love the Hell Out of the World

To love the hell out of the world means to love it extravagantly, wastefully, with an overpouring abandon and fervor that sometimes surprises even yourself. That love flows out of you, sometimes slow and steady, sometimes in a torrent, sometimes filled with joy, sometimes with fierceness, or anger, or a heartbreaking pain that makes you say, "No, no, I can't take this anymore. I can't do anymore. It's too much ... too much." But it's too late. You've opened up your own heart, your own mind, body, and strength, and yes, it is too much. But there's also so much love that comes crashing down on you, gifts from the Heavens in the form of the smiles and cares from others, a giggle burbling up from a toddler's fat little belly, the soft, sweet smell of star jasmine catching you unaware, not knowing where it came from ... but it's here. And you're here. And just to live, just to exist, swells your heart with enough gratitude and love that you mu...