TERFS, Target and Theoretical Book-Burning

If you aren't trans, you probably don't know that it's Transgender Awareness Week.

(The irony of that sentence is not lost on me.)

You also probably don't know that it's been a rough week for the trans community. Granted, a lot of weeks are rough weeks for the trans community--but this week, it has a little to do with the book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier, and a lot to do with the myriad of different masks people like to use to dress up pervasive transphobia.

What do you say about a gal like Abigail Shrier? She's an author, a freelance contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and a TERF fanner of flames within the Gender Critical movement. Let's break that down a bit before we press on: What is a TERF, and what exactly is the Gender Critical movement?

On its face, TERF is an easy acronym to understand: "Transgender-Exclusionary Radical Feminist". In practice it's a little harder to pin down, as many who associate themselves with the TERF label and its ideology are neither radical nor feminist. Just so we’re clear, here:

Transgender: Denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth.

Exclusionary: The tendency to deny (someone) access to or bar (someone) from a place, group, or privilege.

Radical: Advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party. 

Feminist: One who supports the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

When you think "radical feminist", you might picture a lot of things. Maybe a young lesbian with an undercut, protesting outside the Westborough Baptist Church as Pussy Riot blares in the background. You're unlikely to picture a modestly-dressed Christian woman in her late 60's sporting a lapel pin that reads "RONALD REGAN FOR CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP". Surprisingly, you're just as likely to see either of these women at a TERF rally, shouting in to a megaphone about the sinister perversion of Hormone Replacement Therapy, lamenting the proliferation of binders and gender-neutral restrooms, and prophesizing the degradation or flat-out destruction of biological females. Indeed, the TERF movement has been lately making bed-fellows with conservative Christian think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council--organizations that promote "traditional family values", espousing woman's natural subordination to man and lambasting the depravity of gay marriage. Not exactly what comes to mind when you think "radical feminist", eh? 

So let's call a spade a spade and say that "TERF" is code for "Cisgender Woman Who Doesn't Believe That Trans People Are Real".

("Cisgender", by the way, means "a person whose sense of identity and gender correspond to their sex assigned at birth". I don't want to assume the terminology with which people may or may not be familiar, so I'll continue to clarify terms wherever necessary throughout this piece.)

And what of the Gender Critical movement? That phrase is a little harder to parse. All examination and exploration of gender is, to a degree, critical. Whether you're a proponent of equality and egalitarianism, or an advocate for "traditional", prescriptive gender roles rooted in theological texts, or anything in-between, forming any opinion or relationship to gender requires a degree of "critical" thinking or behavior. In the context of social discourse around transgender rights, "Gender Critical" tends to mean "acknowledging gender only on the basis of XX/XY sex chromosomes and corresponding reproductive organs; i.e. cisgender women and transgender men are all women, and cisgender men and transgender women are all men." When held up to the light, some glaring holes are immediately visible in this definition: the approximate 275,000,000 global population of intersex people (that is, people born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies") being the most obvious, followed by people who have genital or reproductive surgery related to medical conditions, people with endocrine disorders, and people who experience forced genital mutilation. Oh yeah, and all the trans people of the world. According to the GC definition of what definitively constitutes a man or a woman, all of these people have no assignation, no place in the biological system of government.

So how does Abigail Shrier fit into all this, again?

This past June, Shrier published Irreversible Damage, a book that links the increasing emergence and visibility of transgender people, specifically FTM (Female-to-Male) teens, in Western society to the development of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria. It ultimately concludes that FTM gender transition is the result of social pressure and internalized cultural misogyny, that MTF (Male-to-Female) gender transition is a male attempt conquer and dominate cisgender women, and suggests that the "transgender craze" will have disastrously deleterious effects on generations of women to come. 

Before we go any further, I want to address the cornerstone of Shrier’s book: Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria. This will necessitate some quoting of scholarly articles, and I ask that you bear with me and read the following excerpts. It’s important, I promise.

"Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria" is described as "a type of adolescent-onset or late-onset gender dysphoria where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood". A website titled "We Are the Parents of ROGD Kids" provides the following context for the preceding definition: "Our children are young, naïve and impressionable, many of them are experiencing emotional or social difficulties. They are strongly influenced by their peers and by the media, who are promoting the transgender lifestyle as popular, desirable and the solution to all of their problems. And they are being misled by authority figures, such as teachers, doctors and counselors, who rush to "affirm" their chosen gender without ever questioning why."

The Australian Professional Association for Trans Health released a statement last year that really sums up the medical consensus about ROGD: “The term ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria’ is not, and has never been, a diagnosis or health condition. [It] has been used in a single report describing parental perception of their adolescent’s gender identity without exploration of the gender identity and experiences of the adolescents themselves… The term ‘rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)’ is not a diagnosis or health condition recognized by any major professional association, nor is it listed as a subtype or classification in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or International Classification of Diseases (ICD).”

The term “Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria” was coined by Lisa Littman, an Assistant Professor at the Brown University School of Public Health. It was first used in an article published in 2018 entitled Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria in Adolescents and Young Adults: A Study of Parental Reports. This article, and the term itself, were immediately adopted and held up as a victory trophy by anti-trans activists the world over. “FINALLY! SOME SCIENCE WE CAN GET BEHIND! GET MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S BATHROOMS AND GET OUR DAUGHTERS TO STOP SAYING THEY'RE TRANS!”  Within the scientific and scholarly community, however, the article has been widely criticized for its data collection methods and the limited scope used to draw conclusions about gender dysphoria among young adults. Several articles have been published in direct response to Littman’s 2018 report; one such article, authored by academic editor Daniel Romer, offered the following criticism of Littman’s methodology:

One possibility to address the purpose that the study originally proposes is to follow a group of gender variant young people evaluated by mental health professionals in a longitudinal way, to assess if those who persist demanding gender affirmation differ (in terms of contact and social influence, or other factors) from those who do not persist. Another (much simpler) approach could involve a cross-sectional design, in which transgender youth answered questions concerning their networks and peer influence. In contrast to those possible approaches, Dr. Littman’s research provides only indirect evidence of the role of the influence of social and media contagion on young people’s gender identity. Littman's article recruited parents online. Some of the websites that posted recruitment information about the study might attract parents who are more likely to question their child's gender self-identification and the current best healthcare approaches. No youth were enrolled… Evidence also points to a low correlation between parents' and children’ self-evaluation in several domains of mental health. For example, regarding quality of life, a systematic review verified that parent and children do not agree in the evaluation for children non-observable states (such as emotions)… Furthermore, parents’ biases may be enhanced in the presence of stress and psychological symptoms. Studies have shown that this could be the case for a good proportion of parents of gender-variant children and adolescents, who tend to present negative attitudes toward their offspring's gender variation. 

I wanted to include this dry, clinical language as a foundation to what I’m about to say, and to make it perfectly, sparklingly clear:

The premises espoused in Shrier’s book are based on a condition that is not medically recognized, and that was in fact created by a singular author for a singular study performed two years ago.

It is indeed true that research surrounding trans physical and mental health is scattershot and incomplete. Shrier quotes Fox news articles as primary sources and cherry-picks statistics to support the claim that being trans is like being in a cult, that being trans is a cultural phenomenon that is mostly the result of media influence and peer pressure, and that many who pursue medical transition later regret their choices and detransition. And if you stand back, tilt your head, close one eye and squint, it seems like it maybe it could be a sound argument. Then you open both eyes and look closer, and as with the basis of the Gender Critical movement in general, you start seeing holes all over the place. There are numerous studies--some long-term, some short-term, some with large sample sizes and other with groups of less than 20 people--that confirm the benefits of medical transition and gender affirmation for transgender people. A quick search of "gender transition" on Google Scholar will yield scores of articles to that effect. Two particularly persuasive articles are worth mentioning:

According to an examination conducted by Cornell University of more than 50 studies related to gender transition, the effects of transition are overwhelmingly positive. An introduction to the study explains, "We conducted a systematic literature review of all peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1991 and June 2017 that assess the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being. We identified 55 studies that consist of primary research on this topic, of which 51 (93%) found that gender transition improves the overall well-being of transgender people, while 4 (7%) report mixed or null findings. We found no studies concluding that gender transition causes overall harm." (Cornell University Public Policy Research Portal)

In a journal article titled A Survey Study of Surgeons’ Experience with Regret and/or Reversal of Gender-Confirmation Surgeries, a total of 46 surgeons responded that out of the collective 22,725 patients on whom they had performed some type of gender-confirmation surgery, the total number of patients that expressed post-surgical regret was 62. That’s 0.0027% of patients. The survey concludes that, “regret after gender-affirming surgery is an exceedingly rare event. Reasons for regret or detransition are diverse, ranging from change in gender identity to societal and relationship pressures to post-surgical pain.” (Oregon Health & Science University)

Shrier doesn’t have the facts on her side, but that hardly seems to matter to those who laud her book as important, ground-breaking, revolutionary… Statistics and facts are almost beside the point, even if they're in the favor of trans people and trans allies. As we've seen time and again, you can have all the science and all the facts on your side but still fail to persuade someone whose mind is squarely made up. The effects of climate change, the efficacy of vaccinations, the highly contagious nature of COVID, the history of white supremacy in America, the fact that race is not a biological attribute... Anyone who denies the reality of these phenomena can be shown all the facts, all the scientific data, all the proof in the world, and studies have shown that it has little to no impact on changing a "denier's" opinion. On the contrary, it’s often had the opposite effect! Those who would claim that vaccines cause Autism, when shown large bodies of empirical data that disprove that myth, have responded that they are even less likely to vaccinate their children after being confronted with evidence of vaccine safety and efficacy. Transphobic rhetoric and behavior cling to terms like “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” in much the same way, despite the glaringly obvious flaws in the research.

So, how did the LGBTQ+ community react to Irreversible Damage? They were far from gobsmacked. Shrier has long been a prominent voice in the Gender Critical movement, and her transphobia-masquerading-as-feminism is old news. Nevertheless, there was certainly push-back and renunciation and expression of outrage: trans people and allies alike were quick to point out Shrier's selective and pseudo-scientific approach, the large body of evidence that is contrary to Shrier's claims, and the potential harm that such a book poses to trans people in an already-hostile society. The outpouring of criticism from the LGBTQ+ community was heard, and large retailers like Amazon and Target made some changes in response: Amazon eliminated paid ads for the book, and Target pulled the book from their shelves altogether. 

Her proponents immediately cried foul. "CENSORSHIP! FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS ARE BEING TRAMPLED! THE BIG TRANS AGENDA IS GAGGING THIS VISIONARY AND SUPPRESSING THE VIOCES OF DETRANSITIONERS!"

Would it surprise you to learn that Irreversible Damage is still the #1 best-seller in LGBT Studies books on Amazon, despite the "no paid ads" controversy? Because it is. And Target, in a milquetoast about-face, has returned Irreversible Damage to its shelves.

In the midst of all this, in strolls Grace Lavery. Lavery is an author, a professor of English at UC Berkeley, and a trans activist. A transwoman herself, Lavery frequently engages—both professionally and personally—with a seemingly boundless stream of opinions, ideas, ranting and ramblings about trans issues online. This week, she tossed out a string of tweets about the Irreversible Damage debacle. Within 24 hours, all hell broke loose.

The infamous tweets can be seen below:

So, it’s obvious (at least, to me it’s obvious) that Lavery is being hyperbolic and that her tweet was not in fact a directive to steal and burn books, but a dry criticism of how valueless and harmful the book Irreversible Damage is to the trans community. You remember hyperbole, right?

“I’m literally dead.”

“I’m starving.”

“I’ll kill you if you say that again.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

None of these phrases are to be taken literally, and people employ them all the time. Why, then, is it so unlikely and difficult to comprehend that a transwoman might have some disdain for Irreversible Damage, and express that disdain through hyperbole?

Lavery went on to clarify that her tweet was not meant to be taken literally, which was met with skepticism at best and outright violent threats at worst:

And here’s where it starts to get interesting: Lavery, while affirming that her initial tweets were meant in jest, started to take the cries for “freedom of speech” and the assertion that “all book-burning is fascism” and flip them around, creating a lovely paradox that sailed cleanly over the heads of her critics and decriers:

As I read through the tweet-thread about theoretical book-burning and the difference between destroying a physical commodity and an intangible idea, I was by turns angry, aghast, proud and in awe of Lavery’s (typical) equilibrium between razor-sharp wit and her ability to remain graceful under pressure. She demonstrated, yet again, her adept ability to craft and sustain a surprising and unlikely argument, like a fire slowly and carefully kindled in the midst of a roaring bluster.

I agree with Lavery’s assessment whole-heartedly. Burning books has long been associated with facism and oppression. However, burning an individual book, in protest, is not an act of censorship or a suppression of anyone’s freedom of speech. Neither is a private entity, like Target or Amazon, refusing to advertise or stock a book a violation of an individual’s first-amendment rights. People seem to think “freedom of speech” means “I can say whatever I want, and no one can disagree with me, and no one can take direct action to combat what I say.”

What does the first amendment actually protect? Let’s look at the text.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

It protects individuals from the State censoring the free expression of ideas. The State is supposed to be neutral (laughable and unrealistic as that might sound). The State is imbued with institutional power that no individual can possess. But what of individuals? Other organizations and entities? Why, they’re free to ignore, denounce, attack, oppose and discourage whatever ANYONE might say. That’s the thing about free speech—it’s a two-way street. Just as everyone has the freedom to speak, everyone also has the freedom to reject what’s being said; to walk away and refuse to listen any longer; to persuade others that what’s being said is nonsense; or even to organize collective action to combat that speech. All those actions are demonstrations of free expression. Anyone can speak their mind, but that right doesn’t come with the entitlement to a platform, a podium, a microphone or an audience.

Abigail Shrier had every right to author Irreversible Damage, and whomever wants to read it has every right to do so—but that doesn’t translate to a “right” to have specific outlets carry the book, or shield the book or its author from criticism, or even protect physical copies of the book from being burned in protest by individuals. Fun fact! There are several noted incidents of radical feminists participating in symbolic book-burnings, from the misogynistic medical textbook Obstetrics and Gynecology (Willson,1971) to a spiritual guide to sexual orientation conversion therapy called Pastoral Psycho-Therapy (Rodríguez & Ramírez, 2019). Freedom of that sort doesn’t seem to be of interest to TERFs and the Gender Critical movement at present—it doesn’t suit their cause or help proliferate their ideology à la mode—so they selectively remember the book-burnings of State regimes and forget the acts of individual protest within their own “radical feminist” ranks. The GC movement also continues to unabashedly endorse a slurry of other forms of oppression—from bills limiting healthcare availability to trans people, to strongly rejecting the acknowledgement of trans people throughout history in school curricula. Might they object to these efforts if the subjects of these oppressive and prejudicial acts were “women” instead of “trans people”?

The backlash following Lavery’s original (and subsequent) tweets has been swift and scathing. There have been demands for her termination from the UC Berkeley, calls for her prosecution for inciting unlawful behavior, and a constant bombardment by transphobic slurs and threats of violence.

News organizations, both small-town and nationally syndicated, have picked up the story, with most headlines reading as some variation of “UC Berkeley Professor Calls for Book Burning!” Lavery has confirmed that most of these news outlets have not reached out to her for comment.

Throughout the onslaught, Lavery has remained mostly positive and continued to update her followers on social media as to how things are progressing. But the ordeal and the aftermath is a collective experience of suffering for trans people that has no expiration date. Because:

A hateful woman still wrote a hateful book.

That book is still being purchased and read.

It’s author is gaining money and power.

It’s ideology is proliferating.

Another woman criticized this book and it’s author, and was publicly flailed for it.

She was flailed in the name of free expression.

She was flailed for her free expression anger about a book that seeks to undermine, delegitimize and harm her and women like her.

In the name of free expression, she is receiving threats to her employment, to her social standing, to her own physical safety.

And all of it—ALL OF IT—boils down to transphobia.

Dressing up transphobia with different masks—“DEFENDING FREE SPEECH”, “PROTECTING WOMEN”, "SAVE THE CHILDREN", “MORAL DECENCY”, “RELIGIOUS FREEDOM”, “BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM”—makes it all the more pervasive and dangerous and effective. This is nothing new, but familiarity with or frequency of exposure to the grandiose displays and clever contortions of hateful bigotry doesn’t dull the pain it causes. It compounds, it piles up, it makes the hurting heavier.

Transgender Awareness Week... It’s been a long week. It’s been a tiring week. And still, we live: we cry, we scream, we fight, we work, we love, we fuck, we eat and sleep and write and dream. We persist for ourselves, and for each other, and for a world that might someday come to be, if only we persist.

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Sources:

https://whatweknow.inequality.cornell.edu/topics/lgbt-equality/what-does-the-scholarly-research-say-about-the-well-being-of-transgender-people/

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/conservative-group-hosts-anti-transgender-panel-feminists-left-n964246

https://www.thedailybeast.com/radical-feminists-and-conservative-christians-team-up-against-transgender-people

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/trump-government-heritage-foundation-think-tank.html

https://www.lexico.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/22/science/do-races-differ-not-really-genes-show.html

http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/

https://www.parentsofrogdkids.com/

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/10/03/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-trans-healthcare-debunked/

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/03/31/why-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-is-bad-science/

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/03/vaccine-denial-psychology-backfire-effect/

https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/feminists-burn-book-about-changing-sexual-orientation/

https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2017/08/24/book-burning/

https://rachelemoss.com/2020/11/17/book-burning-womb-burning/

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038026120934693?journalCode=sora

https://quillette.com/2019/03/19/an-interview-with-lisa-littman-who-coined-the-term-rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria/ a 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6424477/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6212091/

https://everyone.plos.org/2019/03/19/correcting-the-scientific-record-and-an-apology/

https://english.berkeley.edu/profiles/386

https://twitter.com/graceelavery?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

The Daniels

Daniels have been important in my life. That’s not to say that only Daniels have been important, but that I’ve had a higher-than-average number of Daniels present in my life, and some of them have been incredibly important to me. For starters, my brother’s name is Daniel. When our mom was pregnant with him, before they knew the sex, they asked what I wanted to name the baby—I said Kimberly. Then they had a boy and named him Daniel. (A few years later they had a girl, who they did in fact name Kimberly. Pretty surprised they took the suggestion of their three-year-old, but I stand by it, and I hope you like your name, Kim.) My brother has been the longest-standing Daniel in my life, and he is the Daniel to whom I compare all others. My brother seems to grasp things best when he can physically grasp them, he learns through physical contact and action. Perhaps for this reason, my brother is very gifted musically, and he can play an assortment of instruments. When I picture my brother completely at ease and completely himself, I picture him playing the guitar and looking off into the distance at nothing in particular, not thinking, just playing. He can be explosively emotional, in both the good and the bad. He is a bit of a hypochondriac, which I can understand, because my anxiety has often led me down the WebMD, self-diagnoses rabbit-hole, much to my chagrin. My brother will talk to you about literally anything, and he won’t walk away when the conversation gets hard. He will often forget his keys, phone, wallet or anything else important that one shouldn’t forget. I’ve had many people tell me that he’s the funniest person they’ve ever met in real life, and it doesn't surprise me a bit. This first Daniel in my life set the bar for all the other Daniels I would later meet, of which there have been many. Sitting down to write this, I tried to count them all and I came up with 17 different Daniels that I could identify. I’m sure that means that there have been more and I’ve only just forgotten some of them, but capping it at 17 is still an eyebrow-raising number of Daniels, don’t you think?

My husband’s name is Daniel Smith. We met at a coffee shop in 2010; I was singing and playing the piano, and he was behind the counter making people laugh and serving lattes. As I was leaving, he stopped me in the parking lot and said, “Hey, do you have a boyfriend?” My long-distance boyfriend and I had just broken up earlier that week, so I arched an eyebrow and simply said, “No.” He then inquired, “Can I have your phone number and take you out on a date sometime?” To which I replied, flattered and amused and a little bit flustered, “Uh, okay.” A few weeks later he texted me asking if I wanted to go get a fancy Italian dinner and then go swimming in his parents’ pool. Years later confessed to me that this was all part of his fool-proof system to get laid. Take ‘em out for some spicy Italian sausage, get ‘em to laugh a lot while you’re in the hot tub, and let nature take its course. Apparently eating sausages someone else paid for and sitting in hot chlorinated water makes your date want to bang like crazy. Naturally, I threw a monkey-wrench into his carefully laid plans and I said no, I would not like to go out for a fancy Italian dinner, and I was actually a vegetarian and thought sausage was gross; nor would I like to go to his parent’s house, because I didn’t know him and that just seemed weirdly over-familiar. (I was never good at “dates”—does it show?) I made him a counteroffer: “How about meeting me over at my friend Russell’s house to drink some beers?” Seemingly stunned at being shot down and then asked out on a not-date to drink at the house of some other guy (I’m sure he was thinking, “is Russell’s House a bar? Or am I actually just meeting you to drink beer in some dude’s backyard?”), he agreed to meet me there. We hung out in the backyard with my friends—most of whom were other guys, guys I’d dated, guys I’d known since Middle School—and told crude jokes and smoked gag-inducing quantities of hand-rolled cigarettes. Eventually everyone else passed out on various pieces of furniture or shuffled themselves home, and as he was about to leave I caught his hand and pulled him back and kissed him. He looked stupefied and walked out the front door. He came back in a minute later and kissed me again, as if wanting to prove he would not be out-done, then left again. We’ve been together a decade this past July, and we continue to surprise and delight and attempt to out-fox each other.

At the age of four, when we were still living on a small farm in Minnesota, I made the first “best friend” I can remember having. I don’t remember most of this friendship, it was 27 years ago, but what I can remember is: sitting in a dark closet, surrounded by adult coats and scarves and galoshes, and pretending it was a clubhouse; playing Sonic the Hedgehog on his Sega Genesis; trying to walk in very deep snow and his boots coming off, and rushing back to the house in thrilled panic at the prospect of frostbite; drinking hot chocolate in the little landing between the upstairs and the downstairs of my house; talking while I took a bath and he sat on the floor of the bathroom playing with action figures and feeling like it was a perfectly normal thing that all friends did together. His name, like my husband’s, was also Daniel Smith. Two different people in two different states at two very different times of my life, one my incidental and proximate “best friend” and the other my legally-bound and intentionally-chosen “best friend”, both named Daniel Smith. Not that “Daniel Smith” is an uncommon name—obviously quite the contrary—but still! That’s pretty crazy, right? Pretty unlikely? And what does it mean? Oh, nothing at all, really, but it is a canny and extraordinary coincidence that makes me smile when I think of it.

There were a lot of other Daniels, too. The first boy I ever kissed was named Daniel—we’d been friends since the 4^th grade, we dated briefly a time or two, and we’re still great friends today. I sang with a few Daniels in choir in high school, and I ran cross country with a Daniel, too. I had flings with a couple of different Daniels while I was at NYU, and I dated a Danielle—I like to think she counts as a Daniel. A high school girlfriend’s older brother was a Daniel, and he actually worked with my husband Daniel at that coffee shop where we met. Me and that Daniel had an intense board-game rivalry at one point, and while he seemed exceedingly smart and effortlessly talented to little 21-year-old me, he was also a terribly sore loser. I don’t know if that made him less fun or more fun to play board-games with, because he was insufferable when he lost, but that made it all the more deeply gratifying to beat his pompous ass at Settlers of Catan.

One of my best friends growing up had a twin brother named Daniel, and he was one of the strangest guys I ever met. We were all the same age, but socially he was years behind--at 17 you'd easily have mistaken his mannerisms and maturity for that of a 12 year old. I remember sitting on the swings at a park near our house and watching with uncomfortable fascination and embarrassed awe as my foster-sister explained the female anatomy and the mechanics of reproduction to this Daniel, and wondering what he was thinking and feeling in that moment. As I got older, I worked with a couple of Daniels: one was a barista with me at a Peet’s Coffee, the other was a coffee roaster and trainer for an independent coffee shop called Farley’s that I used to manage. There were Daniels in a few different bands I occasionally went out to see. There was an ex-military, alcoholic skater Daniel that frequented my local bar, and he was by turns intriguing and unsettling and predictable. There was a Daniel who had a recording studio in his garage, and he would put on shows in his backyard, and he always wore a silly hat. There was a strange Daniel whose house I wound up at a few times, presumably an acquaintance of a mutual friend, and there we would smoke weed and get drunk and argue about nothing. I think I spent New Year's Eve of 2014 with that Daniel and two other Daniels. Daniels, Daniels, Daniels. I didn’t think there would be so many. Some of these Daniels weren’t particularly important to me, but I remember them nonetheless, and hold each one with a special distinction in my heart.

If you don't have any Daniels in your life, I'd highly recommend them.

Expectation and the Unconscious

Sometimes I wake up with a pain in my chest. It isn't always the same pain--sometimes it's a sharp stab, sometimes it's a tight grip around my chest, sometimes it seems to throb with my heartbeat, sometimes it's a vague, dull ache. For long stretches of time it doesn't happen at all; when it does, it's the very first thing I'm consciously aware of as I wake from sleeping. Before I've even opened my eyes, I'm aware of the pain in my chest, followed by a moment of confusion and a little swell of distress. Then I open my eyes, and I take a deep breath and try to "find" the pain, try to figure out exactly where it is and how it hurts. Then I give up. I grab my phone and take a sip of water and try to forget about it.

Has this ever happened to you? Do you know what it feels like to have your first conscious moment be not just the perception of pain, but the immediate feeling that something is wrong? It's a distressing, disorienting way to wake up, let me tell you. And when it happens for multiple days in a row, something sardonically funny happens: you wake up expecting the pain. And because you expect the pain it is less jarring... but it is also distinctly depressing. If you don't feel jarred by the pain anymore, that means it's become familiar; no longer "just passing through", it seems bound to stay. At the same time, it seems kind of impossible, to be expectant while unconscious--it sounds like a contradiction of terms. It is a contradiction of terms.

Expect: regard as likely to happen; anticipate the occurrence or the coming of.

Unconscious: not knowing or perceiving; not aware.

How do you expect when you're unconscious? The only answer I can think up is that unconsciousness... isn't real? It feels ridiculous to even write that. But I can't reconcile the feelings of familiarity and expectation when arising from a state of unconsciousness without supposing that on some level we are conscious of everything. The mind may be unaware of something while the body may be fully aware of it. We like to think that the mind is the epicenter of the body, the dictatorial overlord that calls all the shots, that keeps track of where everything is and what's going on and when to act and just how to act when the time has come to do so. But like many dictatorial overlords, the mind is sometimes subject to the will of the masses, and the body--greater apparently than the sum of its parts--stages a coup. It will go haywire, it will hurt, it will shake, it will vomit, it will faint, it will act despite the protest of the mind, it will heed no warning and submit to no control. The mind, once pompous and self-assured in its tower atop the body, watches helplessly as its kingdom crumbles and its subjects run amok with scorn and disregard.

There are a lot of metaphors for anxiety. 

That's what all of this comes down to, including the pain. The pain I've woken up with for the last 5 days, the pain that's familiar and unsurprising and expected, is just another metaphor. It's really happening, don't get me wrong--I really do feel stabbing or tightness or aching--but it's a representation of something else, and that something is anxiety. My body is taking something my mind can't comprehend and attempting to make it comprehensible in the simplest way possible: Pain. And my relationship to that pain changes depending on the frequency, the intensity, the location, the conditions in which it is experienced, and whether it feels new and surprising or familiar and expected. 

Here's another metaphor: It's like seeing a cockroach in your house. You wake up one morning and there's a cockroach on the wall. You feel panic and disgust and a reflexive need to act immediately, to get rid of it. Part of your reaction stems simply from the fact that it's so out of the ordinary that it must be dealt with immediately. If you flush it down the toilet or smash it with a boot and then go about the rest of your day, and go to bed and wake up again tomorrow, and there's no cockroach, you hardly even notice that there's no cockroach--why would there be? It was a one-off, an abnormality, an unpleasant but ultimately insignificant experience to be forgotten. Maybe it happens again, five years later, but by that point enough time has passed that it feels like an entirely new experience; you might not even remember that it happened before. But what if you wake up the very next day and there's another cockroach? And what if there's a cockroach, or multiple cockroaches, in your house (maybe even in different rooms, at different times throughout the day) every day for a week. Two weeks. A month. At some point, you don't feel surprised anymore, and even your reaction of disgust has dulled. It's not that you don't care, but rather that you've gotten so used to caring and noticing and being disgusted and feeling panicked that you're just... always kind of in that state. Your body can't sustain the high pitch of panic you felt that fist time, but with the frequency of the recurrence, your body never relaxes like it relaxed before; you never really let your guard down. There is a word for this feeling: Dread. Your body lives in a state of dread.

This is what living with chronic anxiety is like. 

I used to think that there was something seriously wrong with my heart. I was constantly afraid that going to have a heart attack, or maybe that I had some kind of cancer that was affecting my circulatory system. After numerous trips to the doctor, one emergency room visit, a lot of self-medicating and self-destructive outlets, countless conversations with my partner and my closest friends and family, and a year of therapy, I'm now mostly convinced that it's a physical manifestation of my anxiety. It took years before I would believe that I actually have an anxiety disorder, and longer still before I would accept that anxiety isn't as simple as "feeling stressed or worried", but can in fact make my body go haywire. That might sound like a long time, and maybe it is; why would it take years to believe something that was already happening to me all the time?

It's a pretty common response, as it turns out. It takes a lot of convincing to believe there's nothing physically wrong with you when your body is telling you otherwise on a near-daily basis. Partly because there is just so much that could be physically wrong with a person; the possibilities seem nearly endless! Everything inside you has the potential for failure or defect, and every documented medical ailment known to man has, by virtue of our awareness of it, happened to someone. Which means that anything could happen to you. Also, it's natural to assume that the basis of a physical symptom will be a physical cause--that's usually the case. If you're tired and coughing and have a fever, it usually means you have a cold; If you're stomach hurts and you throw up and feel better, it usually means you have food poisoning. If you're waking up with pain in your chest and a racing heartrate in the middle of the night, or you're having heart palpitations throughout the day, feeling dizzy and short of breath and shaky... It's natural to assume there's something physically wrong with you, probably something wrong with your heart.

And even when an emergency room doctor is looking you in the eye and telling you matter-of-factly that you've had a panic attack, that the EKG has recorded your heartbeat and your sinus rhythm is normal, and that this really does happen to people on a regular basis, you don't believe it. It sounds completely ridiculous. How can you go from being asleep to feeling like you're having a heart attack? If you were asleep, where was the opportunity for panic or anxiety to occur? Panic about what? I was asleep! Nope, no way, absolutely not. The only panic that's happening is the panic that the doctor doesn't believe you and thinks you're crazy. There's got to be something physically wrong.

And then a few years pass, and it keeps happening, and you eventually tire of scouring WebMD, demanding blood tests, taking your pulse every hour, eliminating everything from your diet and reintroducing things one by one to try to find some correlation with what's happening to you... And somewhere along the way, eventually, with a defeated acquiescence that's still tinged with skepticism, you accept that you've got an anxiety disorder. It's hard to let go of the hope that there's something physically wrong--and that might sound backward and fucked up. The hope that there's something physically wrong? Excuse me? But it's true. There's a perverse sort of hope tied to physical illness--if there's a physical cause, it usually means that there's a physical solution, and once treated the whole mess will be resolved for the rest of your life. Not so much with mental illness. Not when it takes years to even accept that a physical symptom can have a non-physical basis. Not when you're on a cross-town bus back home from your therapist's office and you start to have a panic attack for seemingly no reason at all, and no matter how fervently you repeat to yourself, "I'm fine, I'm not dying, I'm going to be okay," you still can't stop it. Not when it's nearly a decade after that trip to the emergency room and you still wake up with a pain in your chest and a feeling of dread, and you know the best you can do is accept that it's happening and believe that it will eventually pass, and attempt to go about your day like normal in spite of the fear.

So I sit down to write about it. Because looking at it from multiple angles, recalling it in the past and comparing it to the present, creating metaphors to describe it, giving up on "solving" it in favor of examining it, is maybe the best I can do to deal with it in the moment when happening.  And three hours, two glasses of water and a lot of thinking and writing later, I feel a little better. The pain is gone, for now.

I'm going to go start my day.

About a Baby

this is about a Baby.

what will we do about

a Baby, and when will we do it?

I'm of two minds,

or maybe three (or four or five),

but I think about it a lot.

sometimes I think

ONE: it would be nice to have a Baby

someday but not now

and other days I think 

it would be nice to have a Baby

now and not someday.

I think I would like to have a Baby

and turn it into a whole Person.

I would take care of it with you, 

and we could teach it things

and take it places,

see if it likes the same foods as us

and find out what it's good at,

laugh with it and cry about it and

probably get into some fights, but

I think it would be good to have

a Baby.

I think we would make good parents,

even though I worry about some things;

that's nothing new,

that's normal.

but then I think

TWO: what about School? 

it's taken me years to get to

this point, to figure out what I

want to do, what I could be good at.

I'm so close to being done, but

maybe I won't finish at all if we have a Baby now,

or maybe I'll finish first and then we'll have a Baby--

but then what was point of School?

what about the actual

THREE: Job? how do these things fit together?

I'm not even done with school yet and I already wonder

things like "what's the point of finishing or

even trying to get a Job when

we want to get pregnant soon? 

when will I even have time to get a Job?

what if I'm already pregnant when I start looking?

how long could I work?

what if I have to leave and I don't go back?

will I resent you, will I resent the Baby,

if I don't get to do the Job?

will I want to work if I'm staying home, or

will I want to be home if I go to work?

will my Baby make me miss my Job

or will my Job make me miss my Baby?"

And sometimes I worry I will resent you

for not having to make this choice,

because I already do resent it a little.

Not a lot, not anymore, but a little.

And what about

FOUR: the fucking Pandemic?

I can't really know but it feels like years

we have left of this. years. 

and that makes me feel like we can't wait,

we have to just do it now.

but another part of me thinks,

"this is so fucked up.

how can I be pregnant in this Pandemic

when I can't even go to the store,

not-pregnant, without feeling on-edge?

I can't meet new people. I can hardly meet

not-new people--getting close to anyone is a risk.

only moreso with a Baby. how can I 

have a Baby when I often feel so

isolated

and I can't just live my normal life?"

what WAS my "normal life"?

will there even BE a "normal life" to go back to?

sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

especially because of the biggest looming fear,

the realest, darkest fear,

that nests, that puts down roots,

both within me and without.

the shitshow that is

FIVE: This Fucking World.

I can't think about

This Fucking World

without feeling

afraid

disbelieving

hopeless

trapped

enraged

disgusted

disappointed

arrested

because in some ways, everything feels the same;

everything feels like it's always been

a bunch of bullshit, a charade,

a lot of rich people laughing at our expense.

but lately it's been worse than that,

it's been looking sicker, more poisonous,

and the future feels like

a white flag in tatters,

and falling-down towers of

a corporatized, authoritarian,

washed-out, Mad Max wasteland of civilization.

sometimes it feels like

the end, the ruin,

isn't in the future but in the present:

the breaking and the dying,

the corrupting and the debasing,

the denial and the rupture;

the brain-dead, soul-sick stomping of

Proud Boy boots and the swinging of

simian-alien Q Anon flat-earth fists;

the death-chant of gleeful and

venomous dogma,

the rousing chorus of

one last victory song of the Patriot Front.

it feels like now is the hour

of ruining, of losing,

and the future...

the future is nothing.

the future is an endless stretch of

parched, scorched desert flats

full of biting whirlwinds and

invisible, shimmering fires.

the future is bodies sprawled out

naked in the dust,

fists grasping plastic bottles,

guns and gold and

old Property Deeds,

faces frozen and

mouths mangled in

silent screams of anguish,

anger, terror, pleading;

bodies that died wanting

for things they needed like

shade and water,

kinship and kindness.

what kind of world is this,

what kind of future can there be,

what kind of life

for a Baby?

a Baby feels like a chance, 

an act of hope;

but what hope is there to give

this Baby, who is not in fact

a chance or an act,

but a Baby

and, eventually, a Person?

my heart breaks at the thought of

walking a Baby out into this

hellish place and uncovering its

little eyes and saying,

"welcome."

my heart aches at the thought of 

looking this eventual Person in the face and

trying to explain why

this is what they got.

I want you, Baby, but will you want this?

I want you, Baby, but I didn't want this.

I feel like I will lose something

no matter what I choose and

like every choice comes with

a predestined apology.

I will be sad and sorry, Baby,

if you aren't born,

and I will be sad and sorry, still,

if you are.

 

 

An exchange with 2 member of my extended family about cops, BLM and violence

An extended family member posted some audio footage of the recent shooting of two cops in Compton, along with the following statement: "This female officer had been shot in the jaw and still managed to make this call and then tend to the injuries of her partner under the most extraordinary amount of duress imaginable. I’m bowled over by the sheer courage. To anyone who has even the slightest thought that this was somehow deserved or secretly cheers this heinous act, may I inform you that you’re a heartless subhuman. #ThinBlueLine "

This family member and I have very different personal and political ideologies/values/beliefs, and it's not the first time we've had disagreements about BLM/police. Another family member was also involved in the discussion (as well as a few brief comments here and there from others, but the main discourse was between the three of us). This exchange is not perfect by any means, but it's honest, it's thoughtful, and it demonstrates the fine line between expressing conviction and degenerating to personal attacks or insults. I feel like there's some value in documenting this exchange for later reference as it's an example of things that nearly everyone is encountering to some extent or another: reconciling a person that you love with values that you don't, reconciling your relationships with your values, engaging in oppositional discourse and dealing with feelings of being misunderstood, alone, frustrated and defensive.

The exchange was primarily between Myself (M), the Family Member (FM), and Another Family Member (AFM) as follows:

AFM: Maybe we shouldn’t be in the business of dehumanizing anyone. Everyone should be treated with humanity. Cops who dehumanize constituents should be axed. People who harm others should be reprimanded and given appropriate treatment or punishment to match the crime. I feel badly that this person was the target of violence, which shouldn’t have to be part of any job. Hope she is okay.

M: This is tragic and senseless, and it shouldn't have happened. But I feel like this is used as some "Blue Lives Matter" incentive, when--and I'm not sure how people still don't get this--there is literally no such thing as "blue life". Becoming a police officer is a choice, a decision, a uniform that you can put on and take off every day. It is in no way the same as an immutable trait of your personhood. And the shooting of these 2 cops can both be tragic and senseless and also in no way change the very real harm that many police inflict on many different people, nor does it have anything to do with the pervasive racism that exists in law enforcement and the criminal justice system. 2 black guys can shoot 2 cops, and everyone can agree it's violent and bad and sad, and that still doesn't invalidate police violence or racism.

FM: You can’t compare the unprovoked, inhumane, brutal act perpetrated here with the “harm caused by police” stemming from complications and chaos that go down when a criminal is being arrested or police are securing a crime scene. The stakes are insanely high (for all involved) when a perpetrator refuses to cooperate and gives every indication they have no intention of complying. There is such a thing as a blue life (obviously not referring to skin color); it’s a commitment to a career that very often puts them in harm’s way. Men and women, all races, who swear to protect and serve, plus their loved ones who pray they’ll always come home. They bear witness to the ugliest parts of society - mangled bodies in car wrecks, gruesome murders or suicides, all kinds of criminality, abused women, children, and animals, people strung out on narcotics or so inebriated they’ve vomited, urinated or defecated themselves, people’s utter inhumanity to each other. This is part of what they see on a regular basis. You can’t possibly think they can take these images and experiences out of their mind like they can take off their uniform. It’s imprinted on their brains. I can’t understand why you and [AFM] can’t seem to empathize with that. Cops don’t willfully go out looking to shoot someone, though it seems as though you would believe just that. They get summoned to a scene with multiple moving parts and must methodically bring order to chaos. That requires that everyone on the scene cooperate. Too often, they encounter rebelliousness or obliviousness. Things get ugly. Facing their own potential death, any human is going to take whatever steps necessary to preserve their own life. Of course it’s true that sometimes cops make costly mistakes or incorrect judgments. That is disturbing, and there is definitely room for improvement. Tell me, though, where in this scenario did the officers sitting in that car do anything to contribute to this happening? Nothing. This BLM movement is laser-focused on shutting cops down, and that’s really it. The name is actually farcical. With whatever funds they’ve amassed they’ve done nothing to help black lives, in any way, shape or form. I follow several black youtubers/bloggers, and they think this movement is bullshit. It’s a bunch of confused, angry, radical, vicious insurrectionists hell-bent on destruction. And cops are their primary target. Big points were scored with this “airing out”; alas, they would’ve been bigger had these officers perished. Wish it weren’t true, but there will probably be many more attempts to rack up those points. And I’m sick about it.

AFM: I’m conservative in the sense that when it comes to my personal freedoms, I don’t want a lot of government intervention. The police are a heavily armed branch of local, state and federal governments. Heck mercenaries are even a thing, so if you are rich enough you can just buy your own police, but I digress. This country lives and breaths on weapons manufacture and sales. Our imperial branch has grown bloated and grotesque, the world is crawling with U.S army bases. If we didn’t meddle so much we wouldn’t have to be so scared and defensive, arming more and more. Civilian policing should not look like this, big shot heroes keeping order. We should train in conflict resolution and more extensively train those that do “need” to be armed. Order is not more important than human life, says this human. Racism is welcome in no sector of society, and unfortunately, many police forces are embedded with at least a few racists. It’s undeniable and acceded by any reasonable person, regardless of political ideology. Obviously not all cops are racist or bad people but the institution as a whole- like many INCLUDING education- was made for white people and disproportionately harms people of color. From sentencing to the private prison system and the loophole in the 13th amendment. I have gotten to know a few people that are cops who I sincerely like as people, but it’s undeniable that there is a problem with racism and pent up aggression in this profession. The whole points thing... I don’t feel joy when a cop or any human dies. The language of “subhuman” and the other myriad colorful adjectives attributed to opposing voices is the language of fascism. When we accept that it is excusable to destroy or disregard another human being for a state sponsored cause, we become a supporter of cultish groupthink and further violence- potentially genocide which is historically precedented many times over . I don’t automatically view cops as “the good guys,” and I think this is half of the disagreement. Same idea with the flag- some people feel it represents the troops and others feel it represents just the country while others still see something else in it. We all make so many assumptions about each other’s views and it does us no use. Unfortunately for me, too many people I love are spelling their views out and I’m afraid I was happier living in ignorance. Regardless, I hope this helps shed light on some of the nuance as to why these stories don’t tug at my heart strings in the same way. I’m bitter from all I’ve learned about state sponsored violence and the onion like layers of corruption. We’ve lived different lives and I always enjoy a good discourse. Be well.

FM: I’m liberal in the sense that I think everyone should have the same rights and that everyone should be free to pursue their own happiness.

Weirdly, you’ve jumped in with some premeditated diatribe here and paid little attention to the bulk of what I said. I was trying to impart a perspective about the reality of police officer’s lives and the complications that gets people killed (including horrible mistakes), that I guess you’re not interested in. Racism is your go-to explanation for everything bad that’s happened. Policing is much more nuanced. Based on how you’ve ignored what I’ve tried to explain, your mind is made up and what I’m saying is falling on deaf ears.

If you don’t get the whole points thing, you must’ve missed my earlier post where some psychopath black man was cheering this shooting in real time. As far as I’m concerned, that’s “subhuman” behavior. Wanna know another colorful adjective attributed to opposing voices - “bootlicker.” Familiar with it? I’ll be kind and refrain from calling you a fascist. It’s a shame you’ve come to some sort of negative judgment about me (which you dance around, but never actually come right out and say). I’ve always treated you with love and respect, even as you’ve taken passive-aggressive potshots here on Facebook, which hasn’t escaped my notice. Your bitterness and anger bleeds through, and I feel that you’re embracing hatred lately, which is distressing to see.

A few other points:

“Order is not more important than human life.” No, order is ESSENTIAL to human life. Even the lowliest of animals instill a sense of order in their worlds.

“Cultish groupthink” seems to me to be a hallmark of the BLM movement.

“Big shot heroes” may one day save your life or the life of someone you love. It may or may not involve employing their weapon.

I can’t really say I enjoy this; I stand alone defending my principles against many in my family. Ironically, those who oppose me would consider themselves tolerant people. Not feelin’ the tolerance, especially when it’s 3, 4 or more relentlessly against me, and no one ever concedes even the slightest, which is something I always try to do. I don’t think anyone disagreeing with me holds superior moral values. I am confident that my values are sound.

Hope you are able to understand and tolerate where I’m coming from.

And likewise, Be well.

AFM: Genuinely thought I was speaking from the heart and trying to understand your points. Thought I was being direct. I guess I failed and I feel totally low about it. Digs at Trump voters are directed at all, not specifically you. I’m an imp. Don’t recall ever calling you a fascist or a bootlicker, but if you are willing to vote for a fascist, then complicity comes to mind. We will never see it the same way, I know now. I’ll refrain from further commentary on here as it only seems to ever lead to negativity and bruised feelings from us all. I’d like to think our conversation in [LOCATION REDACTED], after which I felt even closer to you than I already do, is representative of our better selves. I always believe you to be an intelligent and caring person, even when I disagree vehemently. I’m sorry that wasn’t always clear and for hurting your feelings if I have. mine are certainly hurt badly and I’ll keep myself sparse for a good while as a result.

M: There's a lot going on here in various comments, addressed to different people, so bear with me if my response seems scatter-shot. Also, sorry this is so long:

1. You are right that I can't compare the act against the 2 police here to the harm caused by police--they are completely different types of crime. Attacking 2 people purely because of who they are is a hateful and vicious act--this goes for 2 civilians killing cops, or, sometimes, 2 cops killing civilians. Not all police killings have a basis in "the line of duty". If part of your message here is that "police are people", then surely that means that police carry around their own internal prejudices, biases, fears and motivations. While there are certainly situations that arise in policing that can lead to violence or death as an unintended consequence or unavoidable byproduct of "law enforcement", there are also certainly situations of violence or death that are based more in those human prejudices or fears rather than necessity in executing duty.

2. This is less a second topic and more an addendum to the above point, but another reason why it's hard to compare an individual act of violence to systemic, pervasive violence is that the former is easily identifiable, both in acts and those responsible for them. I believe that the latter it's harder to identify, harder to see because it's spread out and there isn't a video of every single instance of bad policing, prejudiced policing, unnecessarily cruel and violent policing, available to view in bulk and quick succession... I think that there are far more instances of harms caused by police than harms caused to police. I think there are far more videos that glorify and sanction police use of force than criticize it--i mean, COPS was a whole TV show of footage about just that! Shows like Law & Order, etc. are fiction, but they reinforce the message over and over that police and the justice system are inherently good, whomever they suspect committed a crime usually did, anyone on trial is probably guilty, the system works and justice is served, etc. This is messaging that people consume through the media everyday, for generations. There is less real world footage of the harmful actions of police, and because of the "heroic" nature of the job and our conditioning to accept it as such, The general populace is less likely to believe such real world footage when confronted with it, or even if it is believed an attempt is immediately made to justify an officer's actions and to find a way to blame the victim (not being compliant enough, not being polite, digging into background information about the person that had nothing to do with the incident and using that to disparage the person's character, etc.) This kind of leads onto my third point:

3. Why are police the only ones that get their job attached to their "life", as opposed to other professions? Why are there "blue lives", but not "red lives" for firefighters or EMS or Doctors or Nurses, why are teachers, social workers, mental health, homeless services... It's not just police that deal with incredibly stressful, incredibly dangerous situations and people. When someone calls emergency dispatch, it is sometimes firefighters or EMS personnel that show up prior to police. In the event of a school shooting, or even just school violence in general, or instances of familial or sexual abuse, substance abuse, mental health issues... It is frequently teachers, counselors and nurses that are the first people that have to deal with these situation. Doctors and nurses see unbelievable carnage, and have to work under intense pressure, around the clock. Social workers and homelessness services providers deal with people of all stripes, of all backgrounds, with varying levels of risk and trauma and needs. Many of these people are trained in de-escalation, conflict management and effective communication techniques, because they, too, having credibly stressful and dangerous jobs, but they do not have the benefit of being armed or have qualified immunity from prosecution if they use force while on the job. This leads to...

4. This isn't to say that police don't encounter a unique and specific level of risk and potential violence in their jobs, but rather to point out that many, many other people in other professions experience similar risks, interact with the same subsets of the population, and can do so more effectively without the use of force. Police are not trained to de-escalate situations first and respond second, but the other way around. Yes, there are times when acting quickly and making fast decisions is the safer call, but far too often police approach people with an "us versus them" mentality, and you're a lot more likely to be seen as "us" to police if you're affluent and white and a lot more likely to be seen as a "them" if you are poor and black/brown, regardless of the actual possible "crime". This is why numerous white perpetrators of mass shootings/white supremacists are taken into police custody alive, and are not brutally beaten to do so. Some examples are Nicholas Arnold Schock, Kyle Rittenhouse, Peter Manfredonia, Gregory and Travis McMichael, Anthony Trifiletti, Dylan Roof, Timothy McVeigh, James Homes, Scott Michael Greene--these are all white criminals who either murdered people and were heavily armed or threatened extreme violence and were heavily armed, all of whom were taken into police custody without injury. Meanwhile, there are a myriad of black people who have been killed by police "in the line of duty" who had committed either no crime, or a misdemeanor (nonviolent) offense, who were UNARMED and in some cases already in restraints--some examples are George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Alton Sterling, Terence Crutcher, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, Keston Charles, Alfred Olango and Elijah McClain. Every one of these people, some of them as young as 12 years old, some having committed literally NO CRIME at all (let alone mass murder or openly firing on police, as some of the criminals I mentioned above actually did, who were taken safely into custody without injury) were killed by police. There is a great disparity in the application of the law and the use of force, and so much of it comes down to human prejudices that both the institution of policing has and individual police officers have. And to be sure, the institution reinforces and bolsters those prejudices. The reason why police officers can take an armed grown man who just killed a bunch of churchgoers safely into custody, alive and unharmed, is the same reason why they shoot a 12-year-old with a BB gun or a man already in handcuffs--They try to give the white guy the benefit of the doubt, they identify with him, even if he is literally and obviously dangerous they don't view him as suspiciously, skeptically, guardedly as they do a black guy. They see the black guy as a potential threat, even if there is no visible threat--they are guarded, ready to act and to protect themselves first and foremost--which sounds like it makes sense, but then... Why wasn't even one of those white criminals shot and instead taken into custody without injury? If Police would be justified in responding to violence with violence, and yet they didn't need to use violence to take numerous mass shooters into custody... it's almost like they don't need to use violence. It's almost like deescalation and negotiation and reaching a point of safe surrender are possible. But that takes work, restraint, judgment, empathy and consideration--and police don't seem to have a lot of that when it comes to policing minority groups.

5. I know I said that last one was my last one, but I wanted to add on a response to "I stand alone defending my principles against many of my family... Not feeling the tolerance, especially when it's three or four or more against me and no one ever concedes in the slightest" I can definitely empathize with that. I had a conversation with a group of people recently in which Dan disagreed with something a friend of mine said, and most of the other people in the conversation were on my friend's side (for the most part, myself included), but at several points in the conversation I did try to stop things and remind everyone / acknowledge that there's a certain amount of inherent and necessary defensiveness when you are the only person defending your point of view. I may have disagreed with some of what Dan was saying, and with some of what my friend was saying, but at least the friend had the benefit of other people affirming and sharing that opinion. Other than me occasionally jumping in, Dan didn't have that. All of that's to say, I know that it's difficult to feel like everybody is on one side and you're on a different side, and while I strongly disagree with some of the foundations upon which your principles are based, I don't necessarily disagree with your principles in and of themselves. I would like to live in a world where I feel like police are actually trustworthy, where I feel like they can be counted on to do the job equitably and fairly, where race and class don't play a huge part in their responsiveness to crime or the way they treat people, where training is thorough and comprehensive and takes years to complete before someone gives you a gun and the authority to use it, where the institution holds individuals accountable instead of protecting them when they falter or commit crime. Those are all things I wish to be true, but they are things that I do not see as the current truth. I think that some people have good experiences with police, and some people have bad experiences, and some people have both--and I think a lot of that has to do with a person's specific demographics, but it absolutely shouldn't. I think that in order to change that, the worst parts of the institution need to be viewed soberly and unflinchingly, I believe there needs to be serious restructuring, independent oversight, redistribution of both funds and responsibilities to more social services and health / mental health care, etc. All of these changes would benefit both the country at large AND the job of policing, because as things stand now, individual citizens have little recourse or redress when it comes to injustice suffered at the hands of law enforcement, and it is more difficult for police officers to hold one another accountable because the system says that they are supposed to support each other.

FM: [TO M] There’s so much here, it’s ridiculous. You could’ve left out the whole part about other professions having stress. I’m completely aware of that, but this discussion was about police, BLM, and how the two are at odds. You make all these claims about how people are treated when they’re taken into custody, and you are certain that the treatment is dictated by the skin color. I suppose it could seem that way if that’s where your bias lies. I see it as there are hundreds of variables involved in each scenario. You’re comparing apples and oranges, as each conflict consists of different perpetrators, different cops, different circumstances. You’re also professing to know the function of other people’s minds, and when it comes to police, you assign them a negative (read: racist) motive. Could law enforcement use more training? Yes. I responded to some other comment of yours not too long ago, not sure if you read it. In it, I talked about a work program for police where out of 5 days’ work, 4 were on the street, and the 5th day would be devoted to training (de-escalation techniques, social work skills, anger management, etc.). That way, proper behaviors are reinforced on a regular basis. A new idea I’ve had is everyone, perhaps of high school/college age, should be required to do a ride-along for a week in an inner city area (maybe even a virtual reality-type program would be best) just for people to have some idea of what police deal with and how people can learn to be more conscientious citizens. I watched someone do an actual ride-along on youtube, and he found it a very eye-opening experience. I just don’t get how all of you guys just think that cops should do this, or should do that, or “behave.” And I never really hear you say people should obey laws and respect authority. Don’t you think that’s an important part of the equation? How about instead of telling young black children to fear police, fostering a positive relationship with them and letting the children know that, ultimately, they’re there to help, while also instilling the importance of obedience. It’s very heartwarming to see a child go up to a police officer with admiration and respect, as that’s how it should be.

Thanks for commiserating with my feelings of isolation and persecution. I appreciate it and feel it’s the only time I haven’t felt dehumanized amongst this barrage of disagreement. I wish I had more influential skill in getting people to see my side. When I read it, I think I sound very reasonable. I remember reading something you wrote that you thought “agree to disagree” was a cop-out and you’d rather someone defend their position. I think I took that to heart, so I hope you can appreciate that, if nothing else. 

FM: [TO AFM] I feel bad that in my hyper-defensive mode I’ve made you feel bad. I feel cornered and lonely and some of the things I’ve seen you say have stung me. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me personally, but I take just about everything personally. I’m terrified I’m losing people I know and love because we are just not going to see eye to eye. Stupid me, when you left our place that night in [LOCATION REDACTED] after our serious rap session, I was certain that you thought we were a collection of fools. So to hear you say it made you feel closer to us, makes me hang my head for thinking wrongly. I love you, I mean it. Let’s cool off and start over somewhere down the road.