I enjoy playing American Mahjong every week at the local senior center. It is a mentally challenging game that I thoroughly enjoy. I play with wonderful ladies, and we usually have lighthearted conversations during the few hours we are playing. However, the last two weeks have been a bit different.
Two weeks ago, I found myself playing with three Jewish ladies who had varying thoughts about the fact that Ed Sheeran fired Macklemore at the demand of billionaire stadium owner Robert Kraft over Macklemore’s “Free Palestine” speech during his opening set. One lady was adamant that a concert or athletic event or restaurant was not the appropriate time and place for expressing political views. Her point was that people paid good money to simply enjoy themselves. So, she was against Macklemore. Others were not as disturbed by public protest but didn’t like Kraft’s strong-armed tactics. I eventually weighed in supporting every person’s right to use their platform to educate or express their opinions with audiences when the stakes are so high. I argued that audiences can decide how to respond to those expressed viewpoints. They could boo, applaud, or even leave. But demanding that artists and athletes (who are also human beings) keep silent in the face of injustice and inhumanity goes against my personal values. We agreed to end the conversation at that point.
Then this past week, I shared that the most outrageous thing I heard recently was the man who said California passed a law that babies could be aborted up to four weeks after they were born. They all agreed that that was in fact outrageous, but then one of the women said that there was a state where they passed a law making it legal to abort babies right after they were born. I said I didn’t believe it because that was clearly murder. I challenged her to produce the details for when and where such a law was passed. She couldn’t, but she was certain it was true. She challenged me to do the research and I did. No such law exists in any of the 50 states. At the time of the conversation, I shared my eyewitness account of an OBGYN of 15 years testifying before Congress that if a woman needs an abortion late in pregnancy, then something terribly wrong has happened that endangers the life of mother carrying a fetus that has either died or is no longer viable. The doctor testified that she has never had a late term pregnant woman demand an abortion. She said they work hard to save the lives of premature babies born under duress. She said that it is always a horrifying and tragic rush to save lives when a pregnancy is in distress. Doctors take an oath to do everything they can to save the lives of both mothers and newborns, not take them. With that, the woman at the table asked to change the subject and we all agreed.
I realized when I returned home and told my husband about the conversation, that most people are kind and genuinely care about others. Thankfully, none of the Jewish women were Zionist who disagreed with Macklemore’s message. The woman against late term (or after-birth) abortion wants to save innocent babies just like I do. The problem is that too many of us are either fooled into believing the worst things about each other or we think silence keeps the peace. In my thinking, silence allows the faulty underlying reasoning and thereby the cruelty, injustice, and terror of the helpless to continue.
I realize there are political operatives who are doing everything they can to fuel misinformation about others for political gain. Evil men like Donald Trump knowing spew lies that scapegoat minorities, disparage the reputations of their opposition, provoke unwarranted fears, and dehumanize whole groups of people. They want to stoke outrage in otherwise decent and caring people with outrageous claims like: the 2020 election was stolen, undocumented immigrants are crazed rapists and murders, Haitians are eating the cats and dogs, schools are performing transgender operations, immigrants are stealing jobs and draining our resources, Muslims are terrorists, Democrats are communists, doctors are aborting babies after they are born, women are demanding abortions at nine months pregnant, transgender women present a bathroom danger, Palestinians are animals, black people are unqualified, people who took the COVID-19 vaccine are no longer human, Sharia law is at our door, and the newest ridiculous claim, many pilots and flight attendants are members of the furry community. That last accusation came from Senator Tommy Tuberville on the Senate floor last week and has no purpose other than to stoke moral outrage.
All it generally takes to dispute these many ridiculous claims is common sense. Sadly, most of the claims are being perpetrated by savvy rich white Republicans against Democrats and minorities. They play into pre-existing prejudices and insecurities and the fact that most white people live sheltered lives and have no firsthand knowledge about how others actually live. This separation only makes the lies they hear from conservative media outlets every day seem reasonable. The Republicans hope to win elections by stoking culture wars based on exaggerations and outright lies (in addition to voter suppression) so that they can put forth an agenda that oppresses women and minorities while further empowering white Christian nationalists and enabling their oppressive anti-science agenda. They continue to rely on the gullibility of the uneducated and the silence of the informed. I told my husband that I wasn’t going to stay silent. Too many of us have been silent too long and therein lies the problem.
Let me be clear here. Silence in the face of such a willful misinformation campaign is effectively consent. And I do not consent. Our only hope for a sanity is if the majority of us won’t be silent either. We owe it to ourselves and our country and even to the ignorant among us to speak the truth with love and actual evidence.