Across America, people are cutting and pasting versions of a pledge to willful ignorance with damning regularity.
The online statement of personal superiority usually starts off with an admission that a rant is about to commence. It’s like they’re begging for a drumroll.
You’ve probably seen something like it on your Facebook feed.
It usually goes something like this: “I’m tired of being told that I have to “spread the wealth” to people who don’t have my work ethic.”
The posting goes on at length to list grievances that have more to do with not wanting to intelligently face the issues of the day around equity and their own thinking about such things, especially racism.
It’s akin to a child’s tantrum. And most always will include: “I’m tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talk like their opinions matter.”
Expect to see a lot of this in the coming days, as the nation rolls toward one of the most consequential presidential elections in our nation’s history.
Now is not the time to tune out, America.
And yet, repeatedly, this is what conservative people are being told to do. And they are complying.
A recent example: Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s attorney general, in announcing the grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case, the 26-year-old EMT who bled to death in her own home after police broke down her door during the night and shot her.
Cameron is a rarity; a Black elected Republican. He was tasked with presenting the evidence to the jury, which then decided that none of the three white officers who fired weapons and killed Taylor would face any consequence for doing so.
Cameron, in making his remarks, chided the “celebrities, influencers and activists” who might question the grand jury’s decisions, claiming that they “will try to tell us how to feel, suggesting they understand the facts of this case and that they know our community and the commonwealth better than we do.”
Taylor’s death came after a trail of failures. There are multitudes of unanswered questions. Cameron understands this, acknowledged it even in noting that Kentucky law limited the outcome of the investigation.
Yet Cameron stood before cameras and counseled citizens, particularly Republicans with whom he has more sway, to tune out questions under the premise that some who may be asking them might be out of their lane.
Powering down your ability to think and ask questions is never an intelligent response. How we’ve come to a place where it is being promoted ought to cause deep reflection from the people who are obeying this command so blindly.
I suspect this also is a cognitive reply, an effort to shield against facing what deep down, they know needs challenging in themselves and society.
A friend who has long lived in a conservative, Republican-leaning suburb in middle America noted that she observes a particular brand of dodging of issues like the Black Lives Matter protests, deaths like Taylor’s and the need to reform criminal justice systems.
She noted, “one-on-one statements tend to be about a situation being sad or difficult without diving into who it is more sad or difficult for.”
That’s distancing.
Long before the digital era, some of the greatest thinkers noted the damage this avoidance can cause.
Pretending that you and you alone “earned” your place in society and everyone else deserves the consequences that befall them, will not make those changes occur, for everyone’s benefit.
“One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.” The quote is from Martin Luther King Jr.
Readers can reach Mary Sanchez at msanchezcolumn@gmail.com and follow her on Twitter @msanchezcolumn.
