This Week's Opening Thought: October 28, 2024

This week's opening thought: I will always find myself intrigued by the behavior and rhetoric people will defend and play devil’s advocate for as long as they can do so while vaguely covering up the beliefs and feelings they actually prescribe so they can avoid poking holes in the holier-than-thou masks they wear in mixed company.

Living in the United States, I have always been curious about what thoughts go through people’s heads as they justify supporting causes and people who harm communities and groups they constantly claim to care about. I often marvel at the mental gymnastics people engage in to get people to like them and view them as "good people” as they ride the fence between oppression and equity.

Trying to keep a mask on while doing cartwheels to distract the masses has to be so exhausting.

Living in Portland, I regularly find myself captivated by how many people swear they care about our homeless and housing-insecure neighbors while happily voting for every person running on a platform of “public safety” who thinks corralling human beings in need into encampments on the outskirts of town is a sound policy. I'm mystified by how hard those people work to get co-signs from communities in danger because they can't maintain their facades without endorsements from those they don't care about beyond the most surface of levels.

Their arms must be so tired, trying to juggle those chainsaws while ensuring their mask doesn't slip off.

The funny thing is how many people are bad at maintaining the act.

The sad thing is how many people still try it anyway.

The disheartening thing is how many people allow themselves to be OK with these false identities around them, lest they lose their own masks and be subject to owning who they are.

If your beliefs and behaviors are so abhorrent and harmful to one or many communities that you have to put on an act to bamboozle yourself and others into believing you're a “good person” not to own who you really are? You're not the acrobat or juggler you think you are.

You're a clown.

And I have yet to find anyone who has a mask that suitably hides clown makeup.