“This human predicament we’re all in doesn’t submit to solutions, and when anybody oversimplifies the scene and comes up with a solution, you can be sure you’re going to feel it like oppression.” — Leonard Cohen, “As a New Generation Discovers Leonard Cohen’s Dark Humour Kris Kirk Ruffles the Great Man’s Back Pages,” Poetry Commotion (1988-06-18)
Thankfully I can say no.
The have-you-evers put you in Panti Bliss‘ shoes.
“Have any of you ever come home in the evening and turned on the television and there is a panel of people – nice people, respectable people, smart people, the kind of people who make good neighbourly neighbours and write for newspapers. And they are having a reasoned debate about you. About what kind of a person you are, about whether you are capable of being a good parent, about whether you want to destroy marriage, about whether you are safe around children, about whether God herself thinks you are an abomination, about whether in fact you are ‘intrinsically disordered’. And even the nice TV presenter lady who you feel like you know thinks it’s perfectly ok that they are all having this reasonable debate about who you are and what rights you ‘deserve’.”
And parts of the speech could apply to any oppressed group:
“Have you ever turned on the computer and seen videos of people just like you in far away countries, and countries not far away at all, being beaten and imprisoned and tortured and murdered because they are just like you?”
If you haven’t, maybe, like me, you now have a better understanding of those who have.
Transcript: Last Noble Call
Yahooey's Blog 