It's Okay To Let People Know What You're Against

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

"You should let people know what you're for, not what you're against."

I hear this sentiment from time to time, and perhaps you do, too.

The implication, is that declaring your opposition to people or laws or movements is somehow an unhelpful negative posture that comes across as combative and confrontational and inevitably makes people back away or shut down.

On its face, the idea sounds like it makes total sense: focus on positivity and a message of collaboration and you'll have better progress with people who disagree with you.

The problem is, it's simply not universally true.

It's not something I'm all that interested in either, at least when it comes to the arrival of fascism.

I want people to know what I'm against.

I want to specifically name the things I find unconscionable, the conduct that turns my stomach, the legislation I abhor, the cruelty I will not abide.
I want to state my disgust with such clarity that misunderstanding me is not possible.
I want there to be no ambiguity in my words or any confusion about my outrage, because I don't want to let the bigots and racists and phobic people off the hook.
I don't want them to pretend we're of like mind merely because we both use words like family or justice or love or liberty.

That specificity allows for no mysteries and forces people to declare where they stand, regarding immigration or LGBTQ rights or women’s healthcare. That clarity doesn’t let anyone hide behind semantics or vague language.

Whenever people say, "I want to know what you're for, not what you're against." they're usually not being intellectually honest anyway. They know damn well what I'm for—they just don't like what I'm for or how forcefully and unapologetically I’m delivering the message.

It isn't that they actually believe me to be an unreasonably negative person, they simply realize that attacking me for me my tone and my manner is a convenient conversation stopper that allows them to avoid accountability and not have to dig any deeper.

For example, I'm against many things:

I'm against LGBTQ people being told who they can marry and what bathrooms they can use and whether they can adopt children or why they can't serve in the Military.

I'm against sick and poor people being without affordable healthcare in a nation Conservative leaders won't stop saying is so damn great—when every other civilized country can seem to figure it out.

I'm against the violence regularly experienced by Muslims and Jewish people and immigrants and people of color and women in hijabs and men in turbans, at the hands of emboldened supremacists.

I'm against old white men with no medical experience making legislative decisions about what a woman does with her body or what choices she has regarding her autonomy over that body.

I'm against Conservative Evangelicals trying to legislatively impose their religious phobias and antiquated prejudices against people who don't believe or love or worship or look the way they do.

I'm against the proliferation of weapons of easy carnage, the near daily mass murders committed with them, and a political party so in bed with the gunmakers that they do nothing to stop the bleeding.

I'm against FoxNews for intentionally preying upon suggestible people by providing an endless stream of lies and incendiary rhetoric designed to manipulate them into being perpetually terrified of people of color, Muslims, and non-Republicans.

I'm against Republicans in Congress who have abandoned their responsibility to represent the people, who regularly disregard the Constitution, and who undermine our national sovereignty by capitulating to a predatory leader whose only impulse is to damage.

I'm against this historically malignant President and the incessant and unspeakable violations he commits against the most vulnerable and already burdened human beings—and the people I love and live alongside who've abandoned all morality and decency in order to support him.

Now, if someone claims they can't tell from these statements about what I'm against—that I'm conversely for equality, for diversity, for compassion, for humanity, I'm not going to argue with them.

I'm just going to believe that they don't really want to know what I'm for.

Because equality, diversity, compassion, and humanity, the things I'm clearly for—they’re clearly against.

And by speaking with absolute clarity and undeniable specificity, all that boils my blood and turns my stomach and grieves my heart, maybe I will give others the courage to declare it as well.

Perhaps what we need right now, is a fierce, disparate affinity community of people who will not tolerate the dehumanization that is having the run of the house right now—and who are OK saying so.

So, how do you feel about all of this? What are you against? Let me know in the comments.