Difference
In maths, the difference is the result achieved when something is taken away. In life’s more practical terms, difference is an absolute value. People may try to frame it as someone being more than, or less than. But the truth is just that there is difference.
Similarity, too, of course. But similarities are often unspoken, and they form the basis of assumed group identity, the common ground upon which relationships are built.
Difference should be a cause for celebration. The joy of a world that allows us our own unique assemblage of broken and perfect parts. In the official realms of our culture, there is legislation and there are campaigns to promote “diversity" and to encourage “inclusion.”
This is not the experience of difference, however. Instead, difference is where hate begins, so powerful that the empathy bred by similarity is erased, or diminished to the point that it’s worth saying or doing something harmful for the lulz.
People complain more aggressively and actively about “political correctness gone mad" or “snowflakes" than do any of the people who stand up and ask for them to consider the impact of their actions. They, on national radio, TV, in the papers, the school playgrounds, and literally anyfuckingwhereelse bemoan the state of the world which dares to ask them to try — for just a moment — being less of an asshole. That asks them not to try to turn difference into a weapon.
If your compassion ends at the borders of your identity, then you have none. You have only self-interest. Your casual ableist, sexist, racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic, Islamophobic, and other remarks are not funny. They say more about you than the people you’re singling out. The most pathetic of all are those who think causing people to be upset and angry is some kind of personal accomplishment.
I have a child who is different. She is amazing. Yet she is targeted by other children at her school and treated poorly because she is different. The children in her class are growing up surrounded by this toxic culture, and many probably mock and mistreat because their parents do, or because they have seen that it is a cheap and effective way to gain laughs and in-group approval.
She came home crying yesterday and didn’t want to go to school today because a group thought it would be funny to be cruel. So forgive me if my patience wears thin and you are met with the same chilly response her teacher received this morning when she told me that she had no choice but to believe the group of children when they said they hadn’t done as our child said.
Being part of the big group doesn’t take any kind of courage. Difference is an absolute value. Stop trying to cut others down so you feel taller.
