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Title : The Time I Shamed a Dude Who Stood for Kirstjen Nielsen
link : The Time I Shamed a Dude Who Stood for Kirstjen Nielsen
The Time I Shamed a Dude Who Stood for Kirstjen Nielsen
So here’s a little something I almost tore a rotator cuff patting myself on the back for.Last summer, I found myself having lunch in a room of maybe three or four hundred people listening to Kirstjen Nielsen give a speech. The details of how I got there and what she was talking about aren't important, because her speech wasn’t about what she was actually doing at the time: Enforcing a monstrous policy separating children from their families at the Southern border. Families who were fleeing abhorrent drug gang warfare that exists in the first place--of course--because of U.S. policy in Latin America.
But that’s not the point of this story. The point of this story is how easy it can be to make people feel uncomfortable for a good reason. The whole room was visibly uneasy and I could tell right away there were going to be two camps of people here: those who had no problem standing up and applauding Secretary Nielsen, and those who would adamantly and visibly refuse to do so.
"Yes, yes," sighed her introducer in an exasperated tone, acknowledging the discomfort and the sound of protesters just outside the room. "You should clap, you should clap."
Should we? Really?
I sat there with my arms crossed tightly against my body and looked at my seven or eight table-mates. About half of them stood up and clapped for her, and the others sat looking at each other with stunned expressions on our faces.
Not one to shy away from controversy or allow an awkward moment to go unremarked upon, I turned to the guy next to me, who had stood up, and said, "I'm sorry. I have Holocaust survivors in my family. I'm not standing for her."
"Heh heh heh," the guy laughed uncomfortably. "She's a customer, so . . . " He trailed off. "And you think that means you need to stand up and clap for her in a room with this many people in it? Look how far away we are. It's not like she's looking right at you and going to revoke your government contract? I mean, are you okay with what she's doing? You have kids, right?" I knew he did. We'd just discussed them before the carrot cake.
It was a rhetorical question, but watching him squirm was critical, because he should have been squirming. He was standing up and CLAPPING for this person. It's not that hard NOT to clap for someone who puts kids in cages.
Or is it?
See that's the thing, I'm coming to realize. It IS hard, apparently. It's a lot harder than I ever realized for people to leverage their power and privilege to do what their consciences know is right despite the consequences, even when the consequences are next to nonexistent. It's a lot easier to go along to get along. It's a lot easier to stand by and follow all the rules to the point of satire and wring our hands trying to avoid amorphous reprimand and being good little Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and cower in fear and subservience.
But that is bullshit, and we do not have the luxury of doing that anymore. Those of us who can refuse to clap for stochastic terrorism and reprehensible or even just stupid, cruel policies should.
Every. Fucking. Time.
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