Before I started actively blogging on this here website of mine, I found myself going absolutely nuts, constantly thinking about all the craziness going on in the world. In the past, I could come home, hunt down my boyfriend, and engage him in conversation about this or that new outrageous event. For the most part, he would (somewhat reluctantly) participate in conversation, but as our relationship started to dwindle, I tried keeping most of the mental chaos to myself. No longer having another human around to verbally vomit all over has been pretty tough, I’ll admit. We still talk frequently, and he does still participate in sociopolitical conversation with me, but for the most part I try to keep the conversation on things he actually cares about, gun rights and our favorite TV shows. I think he knows that I have a need to talk about these things, and I truly appreciate those moments when he opens the door for discussion.
The reality was/is that we don’t care about the same things, what’s important to me was not so important to him. I realized that this is true of most people in my circle, and that’s OK. Sure, people will hear about a cop kneeling on a man’s neck resulting in his death, and express their outrage, but then they mentally and emotionally move on. I can tell you, I haven’t moved on. There is a level of hurt that sits inside of me because, it happened, and this injustice is a daily reality of our world. I pay attention to much of what is happening here and abroad, to my own detriment I admit. Now with social media being what it is, the news is constantly in your face. I could do what many others do, just scroll on by, but that’s not me. The fact is, I want to know what is happening.
Plenty of people care about a great many things, some care about animal rights, some care about black lives, and some care about how their local government has been mishandling disaster relief funds. Whatever it is that you care about is important and is valid. Where I feel the problem arises is when people actively choose to be aware of a very narrow set of issues. How might people actively choose to have narrow views you ask me with aggravated skepticism? I’ll tell you! They swipe, they ignore, they keep on scrolling scrolling scrolling. The awareness of another police shooting or politicians actively working to take away rights may be vague and unclear, causing doubt and skepticism because people choose not to read past a headline. People are choosing not to know the details, not to know the facts. We are seeing it in real time, those of us who are paying attention anyway, and its not OK.
There is this whole society within our society of complacency. It’s like some people just get to live in their own world where none of these issues exist. And in a sense, they don’t. Depending on where in America you live, some of these issues are just not a thing, so they aren’t real. This is where it becomes an issue for all of us. We have entire societal pockets that vote based on their narrow views and beliefs. There is an entire group of people who chose to vote simply based on their party line and are now feeling vilified for it. Perhaps because they chose not to pay attention to the horrendous statements their candidate was making? Or maybe they chose to ignore it? Also worth noting is every person acting completely flabbergasted that Roe v Wade was overturned, like haven’t you been paying attention for the last decade!? Are you paying attention now?? Do you care to take a closer look at these politicians you keep voting for? Do you care to actually vote NOW?
Look, I get it, all this paying attention to the happenings of the world is A LOT to deal with. Mentally, emotionally, yeah, it kind of fucking sucks. But what sucks even harder is people losing their rights and millions of casual voters acting like they were blindsided.
What’s done is done. It’s going to take a lot of fight to combat the politicians who are actively trying to oppress millions. I’m just hoping that people turn up and turn this bitch right-side out come November 2022.
