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| My daughter created this piece in her art journal for her Uni art class the day of the shootings |
I realise that this topic has been discussed to death in the
past week but I feel like I really needed to weigh in, too. So many thoughts on the issue/event has
prickled me – like an itch in my brain.
I need to puzzle it out.
Censorship is deadly.
It’s insidious. It’s regressive.
And it happens in our own country on a daily basis.
It happened to me.
In fact, the people who censor me probably read my facebook
page and my blog on a regular basis to make sure I am routinely in compliance
with the rules they forced me (with grips in satin gloves rather than iron
manacles) to…or rather encouraged me to…follow.
That’s right, nearly a year ago I had a very civilised
conversation with a very civilised person who suggested that it would be in my
best interest – would protect my livelihood – if I agreed to take down several
blog posts I created as a basis for a play I was writing about several life
changing experiences I had had with several of my former students:
-students from whom I had
received permission to share these stories
-students who had graduated a
minimum of 1 year prior to the writing of the story
-students who are adults
-students who agreed that their
stories would benefit others, inspire others, help others see that they are not
alone in their journeys through young adulthood
I explained all of this to the civilised
individual…individuals…I had to have the conversation twice…but to no
avail. The prevailing thought from both
people was that I was protecting myself from possible public backlash from what
I was publicly sharing. I was saving
myself from serious investigation by the board of shadowy figures which is in
charge of teachers and their behaviour.
The threat was very real and very terrifying.
And I backed down.
In spite of the good game I talk on a continual basis about
being a rebel, fuck the man and so on, these two very civilised people called
me out.
Slapped my hand.
Censored me.
All I was writing about was the struggle of many of the kids
I have worked with – WITH THEIR
PERMISSION – and how they survived…how I survived…and that was a serious
threat to my profession in some way.
I backed down.
I backed down and I stopped writing for a long time.
I was sufficiently terrified – having already been in
trouble on other occasions for my choice of words in other situations – that I
backed down.
My self righteous indignation was not enough to douse the
fires of fear in these very civilised people that someone would take my words
and cut and paste them out of context, creating an ethics storm of some
imagined magnitude that would be a serious problem for us.
…problem for me? I HAD PERMISSION
…problem for the others?
The civilised people who suggested that it might be in my best
professional interest if I take my posts down?
I am not sure.
What I am sure of is how beaten down I felt after the
incident. How for all of my life, every
time I spoke publicly as a way of trying to make things better for myself or
for others I was silenced.
When I was raped I was told to shut up.
When I went forward to the police to try and stop the man
who abused me from abusing others , I was told to shut up.
When I wanted to make my life healthier and called out the
shadows in my family that made me sick, I was told to shut up.
All I have ever wanted to do in my life was to expose the
darkness that poisons others, preventing them from reaching the heights they
were born to. To call out injustices in the systems that are supposed
to be protecting the most vulnerable members of our society until they can call
out the injustice themselves. To say
loudly and clearly that the Emperor is FUCKING NAKED!!!!!!!!
I guess there are too many people who point that out and it
causes discomfort.
Why else would people kill other people out of feelings of
“offense” if they, themselves, did not really feel agreement in some way – feel
threatened in some way – by the words which “offend?”
When I was a born again Christian – near the end of my time
in that belief system – I asked my pastor why we were not allowed to debate
others about the foundational tenets of our faith. He told me because those people were serving
the Devil in trying to change our minds and shake our faith. What I was thinking, but did not say, was
that if we really had faith, how could we be shaken by someone’s point of
view? The faith couldn’t be that strong
if a little argument could shake it.
Ironically, that very conversation was the “straw” that broke the
fundamentalist rack I had been in.
I guess where I am going with this is that censorship is
designed to inoculate a society from what Dan Carlin likes to call ideological
contagions. There have been hundreds,
maybe thousands, of them through out history.
The major religions started as ideological contagions and during the
spread of these ideas, there were many people doing many things – sometimes
killing people – to try to stop the spread; to contain the disease.
That is what happened last week in Paris…to no avail. Like 15 year old boys with ODD, or 47 year
old wanna be writer who loves to stir shit and make people thing, cartoonists
all over the planet published cartoons of Mohammad.
They were not going to let a handful of murderers control
their right to creative expression.
I stand and applaud them because, alas, I do not have the
courage or temerity to follow their example.
I love my career. I need my
career.
However…I am only around 15 years from retirement…
Then, let me tell you:
ALL
BETS
ARE
OFF.
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