There is so much pain. I mean that in the most general sense but also personally.
I had, what is called, a “rooting” dream, once. And in it, I was at a party with every single human in the world. Shuffling through bodies and smells, I was overwhelmed, annoyed, angry, grateful, full of both love and hate at the same time… and then everyone began to crack. This is not a metaphor. Every person in the room began to unzip their person, their bodies and self split wide open, exposing something more profound on the inside.
What emerged was their individual heartache, their trauma, their struggle. Their complicatedness.
I try to remember this dream when I am faced with aggression—mine and others; I try to remember it when I am compelled to think critically of all human opinions, mine included.
My opinions, as “fringe” as they are, have always come from the Kantian perspective that there are indeed things that we can know to be moral, that conceptions of morality can be universal. Alternatively, as a sociologist, I must of course acknowledge that there are always cultural differences in the ways we, as humans, understand right and wrong. I do think, however, that there are always things we know to be, cross-culturally, wrong. Genocide is, of course, one of said things. I truly believe that most people trying to be moral agree that it is never OK to advocate for the eradication of an enitre people.
I am a fragile person who often fears my own opinions. On some level, I believe this to be a virtue—I am never entirely certain that my perspective or opinions are correct or moral. I want to be moral, mind you. But I am skeptical of myself just as I am skeptical of others’ claims to morality. I read Kant. Comte. Weber. I read Wittgenstein. I read hooks. I read Zizek and Chomsky and Nin and Tufekci and even Albright. I, of course, read Angela Davis. I read Halberstam. Califia. Paxton, Falasca-Zamponi, Traverso, Arendt, Ginzburg. But I also read poetry. Baudelaire, Oliver. Sometimes these lessons are contradictory. But I am nevertheless in search goodness.
Despite the contradiction inherent in many of my favotire authors, there is one lesson that stands out— morality is not about being assured in one’s rightness but rather about being curious.
Taking this lesson to heart, I am trying to be a thoughtful and open person. Now, as I am called an anti-Semite. Now, as I am being reprimanded by my university for having the audacity to publicly proclaim that genocide is wrong.
I understand the complication of all this. For those who believe Palestine is the aggressor, it must feel like an attack to say that Palestinians are being genocided. Alternatively, I think some might believe I’m giving pro-Israel folks too much credit here, but I do want to give Zionists and other Israel supporters the benefit of the doubt here. I want to be kind enough to see their collective soul break wide open with complexity and acknowledge that they are a harmed people with trauma.
The sorrow. The sorrow…
In 2020, I went into hiding with my daughter because I testified against my own family. My cousin, who had often espoused anti-Semitic rhetoric, murdered James Scurlock, a Black man protesting at one of Omaha’s BLM protests. As the result of my public proclamations, my family threatened to kill me. One of the many threats I received assured me that my daughter would be spared after my death and “raised in a nice white way.” Another called me a “cunt.”
My daughter and I spent our days off grid with a witchy woman who harvested herbs and vegetables. She cooked for us and comforted us and held us. She also collected her arsenal of shotguns in the shed just in case. When the cyotes howled, she howled alongside them, feeling deeply their sorrowful song of loneliness. In the nights that were black and full of stars, while our children slept, she and I smoked cigarettes and talked about hemlock. I will forever love her.
Now, the claims of antisemitism against me are heatbreakingly similar to my own critiques against the very person I risked my life (and that of my daughter’s) to speak out against. Now, in the minds of Zionists, I am no different from the man I testified against.
I know it is rather gauche and superficial to call all of this Orwellian. But I can think of no other word for it. Suddenly, I am no different from the man who believed whites are superior. Suddenly, I am no different from the family that wished to kill me for being a “race traitor.” Suddenly, the Zionists are sympathetic to Trump, a man who has often encouraged white supremacist/Nazi bullshit. Suddenly, the torch-wielding khaki brigade has aligned with Zionists who call all pro-Palestine activists “terrorists.” Suddenly, both groups feel justified in committing violence against those of us who decry fascism. Suddenly, Jewish Voice for Peace are, somehow, terrorists.
I understand that the goal of fascism is to sow chaos. And I know that the goal of any fascist regime is to confuse the populace so completely that we don’t know who our allies are. I know all this theoretically and academically, but to live it is something different. To live it is to be remarkably saddened.
In my dream, people rip wide open, exposing their most vulnerable parts.
I am guilty of not always seeing people this way, that is, as broken, hurt animals with internal lives that are unknowable. I am guilty of wishing harm in the name of self-defense, even though I know it is immoral.
Nevertheless, I am trying to be my best. And when I am at my best, sitting on my porch as the prairie winds make gorgeous sounds of the land, I know that the real task in this short life of ours is to be curious. I know that if I am to be a good, moral person, I must remember that we all have beautiful, glimmering insides that sometime break wide open in gorgeous attempt at connection.