I don\u2019t have a whole lot of emotional energy to spare right now, so if this seems blunt, well, that\u2019s because it is.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A civilian killing a cop is not an inherently worse crime than a cop killing a civilian.<\/p>\n
A white man killing a black man is not inherently worse than a black man killing a white man.<\/p>\n
And those are not worse than a black person killing another black person, or a white person killing another white person, or a straight person killing an LGBTQ person, or an LGBTQ person killing a straight person, or a man killing a woman, or a woman killing a man, or a teenager killing an adult, or an adult killing a teenager, or a Muslim killing a Christian, or a Christian killing a Muslim, or a religious person killing an atheist, or an atheist killing a religious person\u2026.<\/p>\n
And when I say one is not inherently worse than the other, I also mean that one is not inherently more forgivable than the other.<\/p>\n
Every single one of these is murder. Every single one.<\/p>\n
It is one person taking the life of another person.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s fucking awful.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what we need to see. We need to stop trying to make value judgements about whose lives are supposedly worth more. About how in some cases maybe it\u2019s not so awful. Because that\u2019s not the case. In every single case it is awful. Fucking awful.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The problem isn\u2019t that there are no good: cops, young black men, straight people, men, teenagers, whatever. It is that the good ones are not stepping up to stop the bad ones. In all communities.<\/p>\n
In all communities, our initial reaction is to rally around one of \u201cour own\u201d, because we see ourselves in them and them in ourselves, so we do not want to believe they are capable of doing something so fundamentally awful.<\/p>\n
We need to redefine our \u201cus\u201d.<\/p>\n
I am not saying that being a cop doesn\u2019t matter. I am not saying that being black doesn\u2019t matter. Those are hugely important communities; they absolutely help shape identities.<\/p>\n
But sometimes, we need to just be people first. We need to be people who are against harassment, profiling, irrational fear, and killing.<\/p>\n
How difficult is it to say, that before I am anything else, I am a person who does not support murder?<\/p>\n
How difficult is it to build a community where we can all say \u2013 killing is fucking awful. Let\u2019s not do it. Let\u2019s not support those who do it.<\/p>\n
I want my primary \u201cus\u201d to not be \u2013 white, female, parent, etc. I want my primary \u201cus\u201d to be people who don\u2019t believe in killing other people. And that\u2019s the group I want to rally around. That\u2019s the group I want to support and protect. I don\u2019t care if they are black or white, cop or civilian, LGBTQ or straight, or any other thing. I care only that they believe killing another person is fucking awful.<\/p>\n
Do you believe killing another person is fucking awful? Yes? Then you are one of mine. Let us build our community. Let us stick together. And let us speak out against the people who are not part of this community.<\/p>\n
Because if you believe that killing another person is not inherently, fucking awful, then I don\u2019t want to be around you. (And yes, I get that sometimes, RARELY, it might be necessary. It really might. That doesn\u2019t change the fact that it is fucking awful. Just changes whether or not it is a crime. I don\u2019t know if I could ever kill in defense of self and family or not, but I do know that if I did, it would be fucking awful, and I would be destroyed by having to have made that kind of decision.)<\/p>\n
So can we form the \u201cLet\u2019s not kill\u201d community? Will you stand with me against killing other people? Can we please just make this a basic tenet of our human community?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t have a whole lot of emotional energy to spare right now, so if this seems blunt, well, that\u2019s because it is. A civilian killing a cop is not an inherently worse crime than a cop killing a civilian. A white man killing a black man is not inherently worse than a black man killing a white man. And those are not worse than a black person killing another black person, or a white person killing another white person, or a straight person killing an LGBTQ person, or an LGBTQ person killing a straight person, or a man killing a woman, or a woman killing a man, or a teenager killing an adult, or an adult killing a teenager, or a Muslim killing a Christian, or a Christian killing a Muslim, or a religious person killing an atheist, or an atheist killing a religious person\u2026. And when I say one is not inherently worse than the other, I also mean that one is not inherently more forgivable than the other. Every single one of these is murder. Every single one. It is one person taking the life of another person. And it\u2019s fucking awful. And that\u2019s what we need to see. We need to stop trying to make value judgements about whose lives are supposedly worth more. About how in some cases maybe it\u2019s not so awful. Because that\u2019s not the case. In every single case it is awful. Fucking awful. The problem isn\u2019t that there are no good: cops, young black men, straight people, men, teenagers, whatever. It is that the good ones are not stepping up to stop the bad ones. In all communities. In all communities, our initial reaction is to rally around one of \u201cour own\u201d, because we see ourselves in them and them in ourselves, so we do not want to believe they are capable of doing something so fundamentally awful. We need to redefine our \u201cus\u201d. I am not saying that being a cop doesn\u2019t matter. I am not saying that being black doesn\u2019t matter. Those are hugely important communities; they absolutely help shape identities. But sometimes, we need to just be people first. We need to be people who are against harassment, profiling, irrational fear, and killing. How difficult is it to say, that before I am anything else, I am a person who does not support murder? How difficult is it to build a community where we can all say \u2013 killing is fucking awful. Let\u2019s not do it. Let\u2019s not support those who do it. I want my primary \u201cus\u201d to not be \u2013 white, female, parent, etc. I want my primary \u201cus\u201d to be people who don\u2019t believe in killing other people. And that\u2019s the group I want to rally around. That\u2019s the group I want to support and protect. I don\u2019t care if they are black or white, cop or civilian, LGBTQ or straight, or any other thing. I care only that they believe killing another person is fucking awful. Do you believe killing another person is fucking awful? Yes? Then you are one of mine. Let us build our community. Let us stick together. And let us speak out against the people who are not part of this community. Because if you believe that killing another person is not inherently, fucking awful, then I don\u2019t want to be around you. (And yes, I get that sometimes, RARELY, it might be necessary. It really might. That doesn\u2019t change the fact that it is fucking awful. Just changes whether or not it is a crime. I don\u2019t know if I could ever kill in defense of self and family or not, but I do know that if I did, it would be fucking awful, and I would be destroyed by having to have made that kind of decision.) So can we form the \u201cLet\u2019s not kill\u201d community? Will you stand with me against killing other people? Can we please just make this a basic tenet of our human community?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equal-rights","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p75MAh-9J","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erinshanendoah.com\/alienanthros\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}