If you ever went to camp, you were probably asked at some point to sit down with your tent or cabin group and make a list of rules: don't hit, don't steal, don't say mean things, do your job on the job wheel, be nice to everyone, etc. The underlying theme was to make camp fun for everyone and get along with each other. And your counselor was a pretty smart person, because he or she knew that since you all made up the rules together and agreed on each one, you would have a lot more respect for them.
We tried to be fair to everyone. Each of us had a daily task, and no one was exempted from doing her job or abiding by our rules. Nor was anyone excluded from our group activities. In theory, we agreed to set up our little community to be "nice."
But along with the rules we made up as a group came the unwritten norms: the clothes we ought to wear, the things we shouldn't say, the activities to do and to ignore. The stiff upper lip and haughtiness only a few could pull off.
After all, nobody likes a crybaby. We all learned in our very first years of grade school that caring about something enough to cry about it was lame. It confused our peers who didn't know why we were crying, and it alienated the children who did know why - who had, perhaps, picked on us, and who would soon be told on.
I remember those years on the playground very well. It's funny how crying a few times in first grade earmarks you for more abuse in the next four or five years, too. But unfairness really troubled me when I was a child, as did unkindness, either to me or to someone else. The worst of it was, I cried most often not because someone wasn't being kind, but because I didn't understand why they were being mean. Hadn't we all agreed that we wanted each other to be nice? And considerate of others?
The problem was, I had set up an expectation that everyone would, like we supposedly did at camp, play fair. So I was often let down, and I took unkindness personally. Mom's word for my condition was "pick-on-able," because my teariness only made me more fun to pick on.
It is the fate, I think, of those of us who care - who bother to empathize with those who are not treated fairly, or who realize we are not treated fairly ourselves - to feel let down. Camp may have helped me "toughen up" in some respects, but even if I don't cry, I am still disappointed and even sickened by inconsiderate, unjust behavior. Enter racism, homophobia, sexism. Review T-shirts. The list is long.
Those who speak out - who point out injustice and demand that it be rectified - are treated like crybabies. They are written off as irrational, hypersensitive, and unrealistic by people who don't even try to understand. They are shunned and criticized for their emotion, and labelled "biased" or "opinionated" for speaking with conviction. All they need, it is supposed, is a pacifier, so no one can hear them cry.
Those of us who share this desire to see everyone treated equally and respected for their attempts to make justice real seem to get the most abuse. It's the price you pay for having ideals, because you set yourself up to be disappointed. And you get looked at kinda funny for letting it get to you, for being unhappy with the status quo, which after all is nothing new. You can see people who fell for it hook, line, and sinker, who believe that they are inferior or less valuable than others, or that it doesn't matter anyway, and you cry for them, too. The infractions keep on adding up, and pretty soon you can't just keep quiet any longer, so you cry out.
Some of us cry with our voices. Some do it with our votes, some with our actions, some with our pens. We try to explain, and try, and try again. And we've learned something, us crybabies.
We learned that some of our peers are listening. We learned that some of them look up to us for having the guts to speak up, and many even agree. We found out that the people who mock us do so because they are ashamed, because they share in the blame. We learned that our voices, while they expose our jugulars to the bullies who never grew up, bring us together and make our plea for upholding these ideals a lot harder to ignore.
I'm not convinced the world will ever be fair to everyone - that lesson was learned long, long ago. But no one comes running if you don't fill those lungs with oxygen, tilt back your head and fill the air around you with one, loud, levelheaded scream.
Sometimes it works.
