“Not just live and let live, but live and HELP live.” This fortune inside my fortune cookie a couple nights ago got me thinking when I opened it, and in light of several recent Supreme Court rulings, has proven itself all too relevant.
As a cisgender straight white male, I feel woefully under qualified to comment on most any of this, and I am well aware that these rulings won’t have a huge impact on me personally. But I’m at least going to try, and please forgive me (and call me out) if I screw up.
Student loan debt: I am extremely, extremely fortunate not to have any student loan debt. Yes, I’m good at managing money, and yes, I passed on a lot of “luxuries” during my first few years teaching so I could pay down my loans. Having no loan debt does not in any way, shape, or form, make me a better person than anyone else. FURTHERMORE, if I hadn’t (a) gone to a state school, (b) had some very good family support, AND (c) had parents who repeatedly reminded me to pay down as much interest as possible, and do so during the grace period, I would still likely be making incessant payments, mostly toward interest, with no end in sight, like FAR too many people are doing now. While it may be easy to say “I suffered and paid my loans, and you should too,” the reality is that income has not kept up with expenses in our society, higher education is extremely overpriced, several people have been pushed into college when another path may have better served their interests, passions, and long-term goals, and there is not nearly enough counseling for students and families telling students HOW loans amortize (how interest accrues), before they sign on the dotted line. Quite frankly, it’s a trap. And knocking some debt off for some people would not only help them immensely, but would help our society. “Live and HELP live.”
LGBTQIA2S+ rights: The LGBTQIA2S+ community is under attack, simply for trying to survive and exist as their authentic selves. There’s no other way to put it. Pride isn’t simply about “love is love.” While on the surface, a ruling about a web designer being allowed not to serve gay couples might seem like an isolated thing, it’s not. Bigotry should NEVER be justified by organized (or unorganized) religion. It’s still bigotry. And shame on those who use religion, bend religious teachings, and/or WRITE religious teachings that teach or justify bigotry. I’m pretty confident that a truly benevolent, all-loving higher power (whether you name such a power as God, or something different), would not teach that part of our population does not deserve the same happiness as others, simply due to how they were created. And IF a higher power that exists DOES in fact believe that members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community are “less than” and/or don’t deserve the same happiness as their cisgender, straight peers, then call me an atheist. And by the way, if correct singular vs. plural semantics of grammar are more important to you than someone’s true self being honored through use of their chosen pronouns, you need to get over yourself. “Live and HELP live.”
Affirmative action: When I was in high school, I will embarrassedly admit that I was not in favor of affirmative action. I did not consider myself to be a racist, and I wondered why folks like me should be “punished” for things I didn’t actively do. Obviously, I’ve learned a lot since then. Representation matters. Diversity matters. And in order to truly make progress against all of the systemic racism embedded in our society, being non-racist isn’t enough. The path to college for some has been, and continues to be, significantly harder than for others, through no outright choice of the “some.” Systemically, some people have a better shot at success than others, and there needs to be an equalizer. Is affirmative action alone the golden ticket? Nope. But it’s part of the equation. And striking it down is a grave retroactive step. I still have a LOT to learn on this topic, both on the macro and micro scales, but turning the clock back isn’t the answer. “Live and HELP live.”
If this country is truly the land of the free, and the home of the brave, and if our goal as a country is always to strive for a more perfect union, we are stomping on the graves of the founding fathers as these legislators-disguised-as-jurists continue to turn our clock of progress backward. And while quite frankly I don’t give a rats’ ass about what some white men said over two hundred years ago, I do think it’s important that we continue to strive for the more perfect union to which they aspired at that time. “Liberty and justice for all” means ALL, and it NEEDS to TRULY mean ALL for this country to have ANY legitimacy whatsoever. And sometimes achieving equality, liberty, and justice for all means AMPLIFYING voices that have historically been, and still are, underrepresented and under-amplified. “Live and HELP live.”
If you are adversely affected by any of these rulings, I am so, so sorry, and I want to help you however I can. And whether or not you may be affected, if you want to put your heads together with me to come up with some meaningful ways to counteract this bullshit, drop me a line. I’m all ears. Let’s figure out how we got here in the first place, let’s figure out which of our structural institutions are responsible for conservative voices being unfairly amplified in this country (the Senate filibuster, the 2-senator-per-state rule, the lifetime appointments of SCOTUS justices, and some other relics of the late 1700s which just aren’t suitable for the current size and composition of our country, come to mind), and let’s figure out what we can do to make things better. This country has a lot of potential, and while we might not know exactly what that looks like yet because we’re so far from it, I know what this country is NOT — and it is NOT supposed to be a minority-rule theocratic oligarchy. And damn it if I’m not going to do everything in my power to counteract the retrogression of this country, and the damning effects such retrogression has on pretty much everyone that isn’t like me (straight, white, male, cisgender, reasonably well-off financially).
“Live and help live.” Why is this such a fucking hard concept to get behind?
