ARCHIVE: Thoughts on Fear
Originally published on Facebook, December 8th 2015.
First and foremost, I hope you are all taking care of yourselves because finals and life coupled with social media can be especially exhausting right now. I know I'm not the only one but I am exhausted, getting worn down from fighting an uphill battle but recently I've been thinking a lot about fear. The different forms it takes, how it shapes the way we see others, and maybe how we can use knowledge to arm ourselves against it. I wish I had answers, but for now, I wanted to share some thoughts:
1) When black students receive death threats and walk around their campus to see white supremacist groups chanting at Mizzou, classes continued like usual. Their fears are not valid.
2) When black people are killed by the police for minor infractions like loitering or traffic stops or peddling cigarettes, when children are attacked at pool parties and in the classroom by police officers who are supposed to keep us all safe, they are largely ignored for voicing their fears.
3) When women encounter an unfamiliar man in an empty hallway, an empty elevator, or anywhere after the sunset, we stiffen as if a straighter back and grimace will protect us from a potential assault. Not that all men are aggressors because most of them are very very nice, but we know that if anything happens to us, we’ll be automatically blamed for walking alone, walking around at night, wearing a skirt that was just two inches too short.
4) Women walk with keys between their fingers, mace and pepper spray in their purses because we know no one will stop to help us if we’re attacked. We’re on our own, and we put on a brave face because false bravado is more comforting than addressing real fear.
5) Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans individuals face disproportionate rates of street harassment. Trans women of color, one sliver of the demographic, are murdered at alarming rates in public by strangers and in private by people they thought were loved ones.
6) Individuals who do not completely conform to a traditional gender cannot even walk into a restroom without the fear of being assaulted or attacked. They can’t pee in peace in public because of a very real fear.
7) Immigrants who don’t speak English very well still have to navigate our same streets. Imagine being in a frightening, unfriendly new country where few people speak your language and people already hate you because of something someone else may have maybe done a really long time ago. You need help finding something or getting somewhere, but you’re afraid to ask.
8) There are actually very few groups of people who can walk in public spaces without any sort of fear at all. If you’ve never feared for your safety in a bus, in a classroom, or on a sidewalk, be grateful because a lot of us have.
9) When families who have stared into the eyes of terror for far too long are desperate to leave their homes and everything they have ever known to protect their loved ones –people who have lived in war zones and see more horrors than you me or Donald Trump could even imagine-, our first instincts are to bar them because we’re afraid.
10) We’re afraid of people that don’t look like us, of people that worship a different God through different rituals and practices.
11) Maybe it would make more sense to fear these refugees if they were actually violent terrorists. But considering how many terrorist attacks come from actual citizens, perhaps we need to reevaluate our fears.
12) From a young age, we’re taught to fear certain groups of people.
13) We cross the street to avoid black men on the sidewalk.
14) We alert air hostesses to the presence of Muslim-looking people in planes.
15) We fear that same-sex couples are all pedophiles with unspeakable fetishes and that leaving millions of children in foster care is a much better alternative than allowing them to adopt.
16) We’re trying to protect ourselves -fair enough- but perhaps we need to be more critical about whose expense we’re doing it at.
17) Because terrible people take advantage of those fears. There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. But trying to target an entire group of people to assuage your fear instead of questioning the social constructs that have made you afraid can be dangerous, especially when individuals who are running for political office capitalize on your fears and help you turn them into hatreds.
18) We’re never taught to fear white men. White men are the epitome of sophistication, success, and integrity. They are the default. Even if they kill people in movie theaters, in elementary schools, in churches, and at health centers, we have to give these individuals the benefit of the doubt because they aren’t representative of all white men. They may be flawed, but deep down they are all decent human beings who are in need of love.
19) How twisted is it that our fear of everyone else prevents us from offering them this same humanity? Why couldn’t Freddie Gray be more than the son of an illiterate heroin addict? Why didn’t we care about his childhood, his hopes and dreams, his insecurities, his potential? Why is he reduced to a lazy, unfair stereotype?
20) Questioning these concepts has been liberating for me. I don’t want to live my life in fear of people who are far better, have larger hearts, and do so much more good than they are given credit for. This holiday season -as we celebrate love and belonging and family- I urge you all to do the same. Open yourself to what you are afraid of and realize that there are others who experience those fears, and there are others who live with even greater ones. The same humanity you grant yourself and your family and those who look like you, offer it to those who don’t.
21) We are America the BRAVE. Not America the cowards. We can do better than to allow our fears to rule us. I believe in a better America, and I hope you do too. God bless.
First and foremost, I hope you are all taking care of yourselves because finals and life coupled with social media can be especially exhausting right now. I know I'm not the only one but I am exhausted, getting worn down from fighting an uphill battle but recently I've been thinking a lot about fear. The different forms it takes, how it shapes the way we see others, and maybe how we can use knowledge to arm ourselves against it. I wish I had answers, but for now, I wanted to share some thoughts:
1) When black students receive death threats and walk around their campus to see white supremacist groups chanting at Mizzou, classes continued like usual. Their fears are not valid.
2) When black people are killed by the police for minor infractions like loitering or traffic stops or peddling cigarettes, when children are attacked at pool parties and in the classroom by police officers who are supposed to keep us all safe, they are largely ignored for voicing their fears.
3) When women encounter an unfamiliar man in an empty hallway, an empty elevator, or anywhere after the sunset, we stiffen as if a straighter back and grimace will protect us from a potential assault. Not that all men are aggressors because most of them are very very nice, but we know that if anything happens to us, we’ll be automatically blamed for walking alone, walking around at night, wearing a skirt that was just two inches too short.
4) Women walk with keys between their fingers, mace and pepper spray in their purses because we know no one will stop to help us if we’re attacked. We’re on our own, and we put on a brave face because false bravado is more comforting than addressing real fear.
5) Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans individuals face disproportionate rates of street harassment. Trans women of color, one sliver of the demographic, are murdered at alarming rates in public by strangers and in private by people they thought were loved ones.
6) Individuals who do not completely conform to a traditional gender cannot even walk into a restroom without the fear of being assaulted or attacked. They can’t pee in peace in public because of a very real fear.
7) Immigrants who don’t speak English very well still have to navigate our same streets. Imagine being in a frightening, unfriendly new country where few people speak your language and people already hate you because of something someone else may have maybe done a really long time ago. You need help finding something or getting somewhere, but you’re afraid to ask.
8) There are actually very few groups of people who can walk in public spaces without any sort of fear at all. If you’ve never feared for your safety in a bus, in a classroom, or on a sidewalk, be grateful because a lot of us have.
9) When families who have stared into the eyes of terror for far too long are desperate to leave their homes and everything they have ever known to protect their loved ones –people who have lived in war zones and see more horrors than you me or Donald Trump could even imagine-, our first instincts are to bar them because we’re afraid.
10) We’re afraid of people that don’t look like us, of people that worship a different God through different rituals and practices.
11) Maybe it would make more sense to fear these refugees if they were actually violent terrorists. But considering how many terrorist attacks come from actual citizens, perhaps we need to reevaluate our fears.
12) From a young age, we’re taught to fear certain groups of people.
13) We cross the street to avoid black men on the sidewalk.
14) We alert air hostesses to the presence of Muslim-looking people in planes.
15) We fear that same-sex couples are all pedophiles with unspeakable fetishes and that leaving millions of children in foster care is a much better alternative than allowing them to adopt.
16) We’re trying to protect ourselves -fair enough- but perhaps we need to be more critical about whose expense we’re doing it at.
17) Because terrible people take advantage of those fears. There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. But trying to target an entire group of people to assuage your fear instead of questioning the social constructs that have made you afraid can be dangerous, especially when individuals who are running for political office capitalize on your fears and help you turn them into hatreds.
18) We’re never taught to fear white men. White men are the epitome of sophistication, success, and integrity. They are the default. Even if they kill people in movie theaters, in elementary schools, in churches, and at health centers, we have to give these individuals the benefit of the doubt because they aren’t representative of all white men. They may be flawed, but deep down they are all decent human beings who are in need of love.
19) How twisted is it that our fear of everyone else prevents us from offering them this same humanity? Why couldn’t Freddie Gray be more than the son of an illiterate heroin addict? Why didn’t we care about his childhood, his hopes and dreams, his insecurities, his potential? Why is he reduced to a lazy, unfair stereotype?
20) Questioning these concepts has been liberating for me. I don’t want to live my life in fear of people who are far better, have larger hearts, and do so much more good than they are given credit for. This holiday season -as we celebrate love and belonging and family- I urge you all to do the same. Open yourself to what you are afraid of and realize that there are others who experience those fears, and there are others who live with even greater ones. The same humanity you grant yourself and your family and those who look like you, offer it to those who don’t.
21) We are America the BRAVE. Not America the cowards. We can do better than to allow our fears to rule us. I believe in a better America, and I hope you do too. God bless.
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