Moon Memo: Half Mast-Why I'm a pacifist, and why I may be wrong
The day after Charlie Kirk was murdered, and it's always lovely to know that flags will be at half mast for people who are ok with me being stoned to death. This fucking fascist state, who wouldn't do that for others who have died, who wouldn't say things about wanting me to stop existing...
But also: I hate how everyone that I know is saying horray about the death of the enemy. Is saying "serves him right", "always happy to see a gaping hole", etc. How quickly it was that people started to share his picture online as some sort of decoration or celebration.
I hate that this little hate monger who called for me to get stoned to death, who did the work to get racist politicians in power, who did all this fucking evil, has been murdered. Because now I get to see the worst of my friends, and also feel revulsion at his death. Because now the eye for an eye team wins again. And I'm here standing alone, trying not to go blind.
I want to be clear that I found and still find the ideas espoused by Kirk are reprehensible. People saying words aren't violence is patently wrong. Words ARE violence. Because words are what get us here. They are a weapon. Mein Kampf is words. Words foment action. So don't come at me that this guy wasn't fomenting violence against people like me.
But also...goddamn, friends. I will not celebrate his spraying corpse. That's really horrible. That way lies monsters. And it makes me wonder how likely it is now that my trans activist friends are going to get shot in the neck.
What's the next step? Who is going to die next because of this fucking nonsense? Who has been emboldened because of this death? What is the end game to this?
And I know: these questions are privilege stuff. This is white girl shit. But goddamn, revenge culture, justice culture, punishment culture is how we've gotten so much suffering in the world. And I'm tired. I'm so very very tired.
Being a pacifist during times like this, as a privileged member of a marginalized community, is seen as weak, as the cowards way. I just had someone that I like a lot pretty much tell me I'm part of the problem, and I don't know if I am not? Is me choosing to stop hitting back, to choose not to arm up, living with the meager hope of reconciliation...is that just a fools errand and something I should give up on? Is my commitment to nonviolence foolish? I don't know.
My path to pacifism is always entangled with my childhood. When I was a little girl I grew up in a culture of intense physical and emotional violence. I was hit all the time. My grandparents hit me. My mom hit me. Bullies constantly hit me (I was assigned faggot at birth, after all). And I hit back. I broke a friends nose. I beat a boy so much he peed blood. I was seething with violence. And what changed me was a moment when I saw that hitting back didn't stop the violence, like I was told it would. It led to even more retaliation. It led me to a worst beating. And ultimately, it led to someone I know carrying a gun to school. One that went off when he was fucking around in his car, killing his best friend.
I also talk a lot about growing up surrounded by death. I was raised by old parents. I held old men and women when they died in nursing homes. I heard them scream awake from nightmares of war. I held their hands as they told me the regrets of their lives.
When I grew up I didn't want to become my grandparents. I didn't want to be my mom. I didn't want to be my cousins, who came back from war so much worst. I didn't want to do violence against children, against my spouse, against my friends. I didn't want to be that kind of person. I wanted to be soft. I wanted to be kind. I wanted to be nurturing. And I wanted to disarm. So I did. I committed to nonviolence when I was in my 20s. It has taken a LOT of work. But it's also a stop along the river that led me to be Misha. One less violent white person in the world.
Was I wrong? I think a lot of my friends and loved ones think I am. I know that they believe the CEO deaths and Charlie Kirk are symptoms of people like us being held down so much that they feel this is the only way to get free. “Hurt people hurt people” as they say. (Paraphrased from a dear friend)
The question always comes back to: if we want to change things, do we need to get rid of the wrong people? The question I always respond with is how do we do this? Horrify them enough that they won't do it again? Murder all the INSERT BLANK? How does that change anything? Who gets to decide who those people are?
I don't know. I don't know how that method (which seems like what a lot of people I know and love are calling for) doesn't transform you fundamentally into what you are trying to fight.
"Hurt people hurting others" is fundamental to the cycle of abuse, one that I saw in my family and in myself for all of my life. The stopping point for that is to stop it: doing the hard work of disarming. And I wonder sometimes if it's impossible to do at a societal level. I know that. So...what can we do? Can I be part of it by not playing the game? By taking one person out of the equation of violence? I don't think so. But maybe its the small thing I can do.
Fuck that guy. Fuck the way he turned me into The Other, who monstered me in the eyes of a radicalized youth. But also: I don't want to become him to fight him. So I won't. But does that make me part of the problem?
I don't know anymore.