I’m not ready to make nice

Because I am so averse to confrontation I have been silent on too many things. I have such severe panic attacks that I can’t speak up a lot of the time. People around me have taken my silence as an endorsement for their bullshit.

I am starting to correct that, and the HEAT I am getting for it.

I already knew who among the people I know and work with have opinions I find abhorrent. I already knew who gets ALL of their news from far-right echo chambers, and who is part of the orange cult of personality.

I am working on how to exit these people from my life because I just need to not deal with them anymore. There is no point in trying to have rational discussions with people who would prefer me silent.

What I am finding amusing is the number of my former students who are “turning” on their other family and friends to defend me and who are changing their views. Their views do not match mine but are similar because they have grown into young adults who believe that all people deserve human rights, and rather than accept what they are told they question and research and question their sources until they are certain that the information is factual. It’s amazing to see these young adults use skills that I worked really hard trying to get them to internalize, and what I am watching online is they are using these skills to try to have rational discourse online… I tried to warn them about having battles of wits with unarmed opponents for their own sanity, but it seems they are still working on those skills.

When a child is raised in those echo chambers, breaking out is not only hard, it often means never going back and cutting ties forever. I am watching all of that unfold online. I am watching some of my former students cut ties with members of their families.

I think my favorite comment was on a social media post that a student shared on their page from mine, the one that cost me a friend a few days ago about human rights. One of their family members did the whole “agree to disagree” and how sad it was that the “child” (my former student in this situation is 28 years old) could not respect their elders. BOY HOWDY has that been interesting to watch go down. Their response was one word “No.” The family member in question asked “No what?” – Their response was along the lines of “No there is no agree to disagree on human rights. No discussion. No. You either believe all people deserve the same rights, or you’re an asshole.” There were a lot of typos, and I think another line. I can’t find the post and am myself exiting from social media for a while. – And the conversation pretty much has ended there from what I can tell, as this former student has since exited a number of people from their life it seems.

I wonder how long it’s going to take some of these people to realize what I have known for a long time. That if they don’t change, if they remain stagnant and make no effort to understand the world outside of that time community, their kids are going to leave and never go back.

And through it all, I keep playing the song “I’m Not Ready to Make Nice” by The Chicks in my head… So very fitting.