When "They" Come

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

I've known that quote since I was a child -- in the Eighties, the good old days when we talked about totalitarians without perverse admiration -- and I think of it all the time now. Jews do very often still have targets on our backs, but the socialists, trade unionists, and Lutherans seem to be safe. For now.

The people that "they" are coming for now are the LGBTQIA+ among us, with particular emphasis on trans people, especially children. That should horrify anyone who contemplates it, except people with totalitarian streaks never factor in youth as something that should protect anyone. Just ask the Indigenous children of Canada and the United States who were stolen from their parents and killed in institutions. Just ask the poor Black, Brown, and White children who are imprisoned. 

"They" are coming for the children in the schools, and under the guise of protection (from facts, from history), they are limiting what can be both explicitly taught in an official curriculum and implicitly inferred through fiction. And when they come for those children, they come for teachers, who can lose their livelihoods and have reason to fear for their safety.

"They" come for the children, the teachers, the people browsing in a mall, the people shopping for food, when they continue to be unimpressed by the numbers of people killed with assault weapons never meant to see action by civilians. No laws are changed so that fewer guns will make it onto the streets; instead, the laws are being reworked such that it is now that much easier for people to purchase guns.

"They" come for women who aren't wealthy -- and the people who love them -- by making it increasingly impossible to safely terminate a pregnancy. By trying to make it illegal for such women to leave for states where they could have a safe medical procedure. By removing safe and proven drugs for abortions from the markets. By making it illegal for someone to help a woman who needs an abortion. By making women carry unsafe pregnancies to term. 

"They" have consistently been coming for Jews, and since 2001, for Muslims. And Asian Americans. They are killing Black men for being poor and desperate. They are kidnapping, raping, and murdering Indigenous women and children. They piloted all of this on the Indigenous and on enslaved Black people. 

Eventually, "they" will come for all of us. You don't think so? You are wrong. Your wealth does not protect you. Your religion does not protect you. Your ancestry does not protect you. Sooner or later, they come for us all.

You may think that when "they" come, you will be on the winning side. You're safe -- you're white, you're Christian, you don't ask for "handouts". You're just the kind of person "they" say they are doing all of this in the service of. You are wrong, because they are lying. You are just their excuse until they don't need one. 

Eventually, when "they" win, they rewrite reality. 

"They" are already telling your children what is safe to read. They are already taking books out of bookstores. They are already threatening people for living proudly, as they are. They have long been redrawing voting maps to entrench power. (They are even doing it in Boston, but then again, we started it.) They will eventually tell you what you can say. And then they will tell you what you can think.

And this is only the start. One piece of information I always remember from the book Revolution 1989 was the temperature in Romania. There was a law that stated that when the temperature dropped low enough, the state was required to turn the central heating in buildings on. Toward the end of the Soviet era, the Iron Bloc countries were looking to save money (when they weren't trying to siphon it off). Their solution? The temperature rarely reached the cutoff. The result? Hundreds of elderly Romanians froze to death in their homes. 

The Ceausescu government could control the temperature in the winter because they could control reality. And what was going to stop them? A thermometer? Another scientific instrument? Please.

Living like that is madness, and the price of survival is your sanity. And that is how they get us all.

Don't fool yourself that you can find a safe haven. Somehow, in the midst of all of this, you must have missed anti-Muslim activity (and massacres) in India. You must have missed the anti-LGBTQIA+ statements out of Turkey made by Erdogan before his dreaded victory. You must have missed Viktor Orban in Hungary. You must have missed the Arab League welcoming a butcher back into their fold. You must have missed China committing genocide. You must have missed the president of South Korea getting rid of the Gender Equality Ministry. (But surely you have not missed Russia.) When "they" finally arrive in full force, there is nowhere you can go where they can't eventually find you. There is no escape -- so let's change it now.

Go vote, but let's be real and acknowledge that the corruption of all three branches at the federal and local levels means that our votes are dulled -- which doesn't mean there's no point in voting, but that everyone needs to participate. 

Voting isn't everyday, but opportunities to speak out are. Protect those who are vulnerable (there is no "most" at this point). Protect LGBTQIA+ people. Protect the Indigenous. Protect Black and Brown people. Protect women. Protect the disabled. Protect Jews. Protect Muslims. Protect children. Protect the elderly. Protect the poor. (And understand how many of those identities frequently intersect.) Protect anyone who is endangered by speaking out. Be that annoying person who never "lets it go", because what you're not letting go is the reality that other people are in danger. It might not work even if you try, but it definitely won't if you don't. 

"They" are coming, but they can still be met.

Deb in the City