On Fighting AND Feeding Our Enemies

[gaudior]

I've seen this pattern lately in my (Unitarian Universalist) church, but I'm sure it's elsewhere, too:

2016

Straight White Liberals: Oh my God, we have to fight!

Marginalized Groups: Yes.

Straight White Liberals: (do some reading.)
SWL: Oh my God, this is not an isolated incident-- there's a whole history of systemic oppression that led us to here!

MG: ...yes.

SWL: We have to fight it!

MG: ...YES!

2020 Election: (happens)

SWL: YAY! WE WON!

MG: ... yes.*

SWL: Hurrah! Now is the time for healing!

MG: ...but... the systemic oppression?

SWL: HEALING.

MG: ...
MG: (sigh)




I keep being bothered by these conversations we have in church, where all the straight white people are like, "we can reach out to the T(ax f)r(a)u(d)mp voters! We're not so different after all, we can make peace! We can heal the divides in our country, and end this era of such negative and hateful conflict!" and all the queer people/disabled people/people of color are like, "Um. You can reach out to them. They're not trying to kill you."

As a Unitarian Universalist, and a person who used to have roughly the same philosophy before running into UUs, I have long had this dilemma: how do you respect the worth and dignity of every human being, including the human beings who are oppressing you? I do believe that everyone, even that asshole currently skulking in the White House, is a person, and deserves to be understood and taken care of, and that I will feel better when I have that attitude than when I'm stuck in anger and fear. But... he and the people enabling him have gotten thousands of people killed.

How do you respect the worth and dignity of people at the same time as you fight them?

I think the answer does end up coming down to two things:

1) Stopping someone from hurting you does not mean you don't respect their worth and dignity, or even their point of view. It might mean you disagree with their point of view, if their point of view involves you being hurt being a good thing, but that doesn't invalidate their experiences or beliefs that brought them to that conclusion. It just asserts: this is your experience, and it is different from mine, and we have different priorities. I can understand you without agreeing with you.

2) Respecting everyone's worth and dignity (hereinafter REWAD)(no, that's terrible. Let's see if I can get through without using that phrase again) can mean wanting them to be well and taken care of on my terms, not on their terms. That one is really tricky, because our definition of "wellbeing" is very different, and this has been used to justify a lot of evil in the past. But: I want everyone to be fed, housed, given medical care, educated as they wish to be, safe from physical harm, loved in meaningful relationships with people they care about, doing work they find meaningful and play they enjoy. I think it is 100% reasonable that this be brought about by everyone sharing the costs of it as they can afford. The people who disagree with me would say that them having to give up some of the wealth they've hoarded is hurting them terribly, and would be traumatic and awful. And... they might be right, that it's something that would upset them very very much. They might find it horribly damaging to their self-esteem to have to have the same amount of food and housing and medical care and education as everyone else, even if those things are all abundant. That is real pain, even if I don't feel like it's justified.

I guess... I need to accept that. That my definition of "loving my enemies," (which is not so much about how I feel as it is about taking care of them) does not mean doing everything they want. That I can try to find that inner peace you get by letting go of hatred, but without agreeing that things are okay now, and should go "back to normal," and continue to maximize the comfort of those in power at the expense of everyone else.

I don't know. This is the best answer I've got, but it's not entirely satisfying. But it is simply: I want everyone to be okay, and everyone includes me, and if someone's definition of "okay" means me being hurt, then I can be partial enough to myself to choose my definition of okay instead.

...rrrrgh?

--R

Comments

[lilysea]

So, as a Disabled bisexual woman there are a lot of people who, for political reasons, do not wish me well, despite having never even met me

I want everyone, including these people, to have
safe housing;
safe/adequate/good quality healthcare;
safe/adequate food etc

but that doesn't mean I have to
a) avoid saying anything that might hurt their feelings

b) avoid saying that their beliefs/actions mean that they and their actions are:
- bad people;
- selfish;
- uncompassionate;
- uncaring;
- bad for society;
- in some cases, downright sociopathic.

[snippy]

+1

I want them to have the basic support that all people deserve. What they choose to do after that is how I will judge their character. Until then, I don't know if they're mean because life is too hard or they have an untreated chronic illness or some pain or hunger or something else.

[minoanmiss]

FWIW, I'm glad you wrote this.

[gaudior]

Thank you, that's good to hear. :)

[oracne]

I think you should just start telling them good places where they can donate money, put 'em to work spending money on marginalized groups. Like indigenous people!

I unexpectedly had a loan paid back this week and spent the money via okini.net providing a sick elder with a fleece robe, a grandmother with blankets and frying pans, a mom with a bunch of shampoo and toothpaste and such...and there's a never-ending list of things people need, just at that one place. If the White Moderates are too self-congratulatory to listen to reason on the one front, get them to do something useful with their money and privilege on another.

[gaudior]

Oooh, thanks for the link! People at my church at least are very much continuing to donate a lot to such causes, so, like, they're not saying "no more fighting at all." It's just... that was a really abrupt change in the tone of the conversation.

[oracne]

I am a bit cranky at the moment with all the non-active things people are saying, when there is so much to be DONE. I know they're tired. I'm tired, too. Which makes me cranky, and on goes the carousel....

[asakiyume]

my definition of "loving my enemies," (which is not so much about how I feel as it is about taking care of them) does not mean doing everything they want. --yes. This is something that parents learn, and people with [justified] authority over others learn (or should learn) too.**

I've seen a lot of conversation about the SWLs now all turning to healing and no longer being interested in the systemic oppression, but there's definitely a nonzero subset of SWLs who are interested in combatting systemic oppression, despite that. If some other subset is focused on healing (however construed), that doesn't mean that the work of combatting systemic oppression can't advance or that SWLs won't be involved. It'll just be a smaller group. This strikes me as natural, really: you can get a whole lot of people mobilized for a very targeted goal, like an election. It's harder to keep all those people mobilized for a longer, more complex task.

**ETA: which I realize makes it look like parents consider their kids enemies, or that people in authority consider their subordinates enemies, which--hopefully not! The thoughts about parents and people in authority came from the notion that you're not fulfilling your role appropriately if you see it as merely doing whatever the children/subordinates want.

[gaudior]

That's very true, and it's worth remembering that it's easier to get a broad coalition moving towards a concrete goal than more dispersed ones. And that there are still plenty of SWLs doing the fighting work.

Things are rarely as simple as a snarky dialogue using acronyms makes them out to be. :)

[asakiyume]

And yet, sometimes snarky dialogue is what we need ^_^ --seriously: I wasn't meaning to scold with my comment, not at all--just wanting to point out a (somewhat more) hopeful perspective.

[gaudior]

Yeah, and it's a useful one. :) It was very clear that you weren't meaning to scold, and were offering encouragement, and that is much appreciated. :)

[oracne]

Good point!

[asakiyume]

This is a great post, and I'm liking the thoughts in the replies.

[violsva]

There's a quote attributed to the Prophet Mohammed:

The Prophet, peace and blessing upon him, said:
"Help your brother, whether he be an oppressor or one of the oppressed."
Some said "O Messenger of God, we help him if he is oppressed; but how can we help him if he is an oppressor?"
The Prophet said, "By stopping him."

How I see this is, rewarding unethical behaviour is not actually good, in a non-immediate sense of "good", for the people behaving unethically. It's bad for them. It's terrible for them. Even if you don't believe in a soul that is being damaged by it, letting or encouraging people to hurt other people is at minimum going to result in them having worse and worse relationships with others and more and more chances of harmful consequences.

[sonia]

Oh yes, thanks for this comment. That clarifies a lot of things for me suddenly.

And thanks gaudior for writing this.

[gaudior]

Very welcome, thanks for reading!

[gaudior]

Oh, that is an amazing quote, that is so useful, thank you! It is a really good point that letting people harm you does harm them also-- possibly not as much as it harms you, but it's still not good for them.

[oracne]

I like this a lot.

[mrissa]

It makes total sense to me that loving your enemies shouldn't mean doing everything they want, because loving your friends/allies doesn't mean doing everything they want either. Enemies are not a special case. That's simply not what loving people means.

[asakiyume]

YES

[gaudior]

Yeah! Boundaries ftw! Good point.

[oracne]

This.

[skygiants]

Both post & comments are helpful for clarifying some of my thoughts too in re: this topic, thank you for it <33

[silveradept]

Many a time, I think the word "healing" is misused in that context, and what's actually sought is "closure" instead, the idea that the narrative has ended, the good people have won, and therefore victory can be claimed and everyone can go back to feeling like they're good people and the people they opposed were simply misguided and without their leader, they won't be able to cause any more damage. (Which says they don't understand how deep everything goes and/or their own role in it, but that's a different discussion.)

In the context of -ist behaviors, I have seen a common refrain that separates "do" from "be" and that one of the skills to learn is how to separate the two such that you can hold the idea in your head that very few people want to believe they are a bad person, and yet they can do bad things. It comes with the extra benefit of being able to say that bad behaviors can be corrected and fought without it meaning that a person themselves is bad. So, as above with the quote that says the best way to help someone being an oppressor is to stop them, it is absolutely an act of love to stop someone from engaging in bad behavior.