Where's the Joke?

[About a year and a half ago, a meme made its rounds on Facebook and a family member reposted it. I hesitated posting this response at the time, but given it was the anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death yesterday, I felt compelled to share.]

“SURVIVOR: WYOMING
Each contestant will drive a pink Volvo with California license plates and a HUGE bumper sticker that reads: I’m gay. I’m a vegetarian. Beer is harmful to your health. Republicans suck. Obama is God. Deer hunting is murder, and I’m here to confiscate your guns. The first one who makes it back to Cheyenne alive wins.” 

Let’s unpack this. 

The gist of it is that having differing characteristics, tastes, socioeconomic and geographic circumstances, opinions, or, in some cases facts, puts one’s humanity into question and, ultimately, the value of one’s life. Where’s the joke? 

I’m not going to tackle everything in that list but rather the one that causes the most visceral reaction for me (today). 

Matthew Shepard was beaten, dragged behind a pickup, strung up on a barbwire fence, and left to die outside Laramie because he was gay. The things you “can’t say anymore because of political correctness” are generally things that prey on the traumas of other people. You may think the meme is “just a joke,” but for some of us it’s our reality.

He was pistol whipped and beaten so severely “that his face was completely covered in blood, except where it had been partially cleansed by his tears.” He was on that fence for 18 hours until a cyclist, who’d initially mistaken him for a scarecrow, found him. He had fractures to the back of his skull and brainstem damage so severe that his body couldn’t regulate vital functions and, as a result, had to be kept on life support. He was in a coma for the last six days of his life. 

It seems many people take issue with the term “privilege,” but privilege doesn’t mean your life was any easier—rather, your life wasn’t made more difficult. You may have seen it on the news in 1998 and thought, “Oh, that’s terrible,” but what you had was the PRIVILEGE to be unaware of is how many of us thought, “This is how I’m going to die.”  I was 14. 

I refuse to participate in perpetuating a society in which hatred and bigotry are celebrated. Somehow, though, it’s always up to those of us with the most to gain to plead to those with the least to lose that we matter, that we are deserving, that we have every right to the considerations, privileges, benefits, allowances, and deference that you take for granted every day. It’s always incumbent on the people suffering to ask for a respite. FUCK THAT. Compassion should be the default.

One thing that’s really stuck with me in the last year, mostly because it’s so very applicable in a disturbingly large number of situations, came from Dr. Fauci regarding COVID-19, of all things—in my own words, I don’t know how to convince you to give a shit about other people. I have no idea how or why caring about people in whom you have no vested interest became taboo, a sign of weakness, or something to be ridiculed, but it’s perverse. It’s not a zero-sum game. I refuse to accept ignorance as an excuse anymore. Empathy shouldn’t require an explanation or a reason and caring shouldn’t be contingent. 

For me this isn’t just about Matthew Shepard. It’s about the lack of respect for our fellow humans no matter their sexual orientation, gender expression, ethnicity, capabilities, or any of the innumerable and indelible FEATURES that make us “different.” You may think these can serve as the butt of a joke but what they really are are our strengths as individuals and serve to enrich society as a whole. Black lives matter. Trans lives matter. People of color’s lives matter. LGBTQAI+ lives matter. All lives do matter, but all lives need to be treated as equally valid and something to be celebrated just as much as every other and that is something we are sorely lacking. Just because we’re not like you or you “don’t understand it” or it doesn’t affect you directly doesn’t mean we’re any less worthy of LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

So tell me, where’s the joke? Is it funny that someone should be able to decide that another person deserves to die because they possess some characteristic that the murderer deems objectionable for some bigotted reason? Because of the car they drive? Because of where they live? Because of who they love? The color of their skin? What they choose to eat and drink? Their party affiliation? 

Pain is cumulative, not all disabilities are visible, and trauma is insidious and generational. Matthew Shepard is one case in a country that has had millions since before its inception. Black, indigenous, and other peoples of color, LGBTQIA+, women, people with disabilities, and other minority or oppressed groups fight EVERY GODDAMN DAY just to make it to the next. Recognize that the human condition can be excruciating, a seemingly insurmountable gauntlet in the best of circumstances and can be utter hell in others. You don’t have to understand each and every person’s circumstance and journey to be kind.

If I've learned nothing in the last year it's that silence is violence. Making light of harm condones it and not speaking up against it makes you more than just an accessory, it makes you a co-conspirator, an active participant. Some days it feels like we, as a species, have been shitty to one another from the start, but we have the capacity to be good to one another. And not just nice, genuinely GOOD.

Do better. BE BETTER.

PS For those of you who would tell the others amongst us, “It was just a joke, you shouldn’t feel like that” or to say to us that we took something wrong or that we shouldn’t feel what we feel is manipulative and gaslighting. At some point you have to take responsibility for the things you say. It’s not up to the listener to divine what you mean when you say something—the onus is on you to effectively convey that which you truly mean.