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I wonder how many people are alive today because of people like Larry Kramer. I wonder how many are dead because of people like Amy Cooper.
I wonder about anger, power, victimization, and optics. I wonder about justice and progress. I wonder about how someone becomes the face of something.
Larry Kramer has died in the middle of a global pandemic. No, not that one.
Well, yes, that one too.
Well, yes, that one too.
We are failing in new ways, in addition to the same old ones. Many of the faces of the victims this time around are new. Many of those of the perpetrators are not. Or I might have that backwards, I'm unsure.
I keep hearing how so much has changed, and how much nothing has changed. For example, we have come so far, in how we have learned to be angry. We can now be angry in real time, across immeasurable distances, with millions of others.
And yet, currently we are also unable physically to be angry together, save for those who claim victimhood, and yet still have no trouble breathing. For the moment.
We have learned new ways to perform anger, to showcase it. To edit it, to perfect its timing. We have turned anger into its own genre of content. Some people are still allowed to be angry, or to choose to perform it, if they wish.
Others are allowed neither, and are punished accordingly. Especially those who can express their anger with grace, or with the silence of a bent knee. They are the most hated.
Or maybe I'm wrong- maybe those with a messier brand of anger are the most hated, as often, they also draw the ire of friends and allies to boot. I don't know.
I sometimes think I haven't lived long enough to get perspective, to see what's changed and what hasn't. Although Larry also showed us that the longer you live, the harder it can get to see the ways that some things around you have already changed.
I do know this:
Some people are victimized, and become angry as a result.
Others start out angry, and use that anger to turn toward victimhood.
Some people are victimized, and become angry as a result.
Others start out angry, and use that anger to turn toward victimhood.
I wonder if the anger of Larry Kramer has saved more people in the end than the “victimhood” of Amy Cooper has killed.
I wonder about how often one person or community's expression of pain is taken as a threat by another.
I wonder about how often one person or community's expression of pain is taken as a threat by another.
I'm rambling. I'm a little lost in all this.
I don't know if there's a right way to be angry. But I do know there is a right kind of anger, and where it comes from.
And I hope we can all learn to tell the difference more quickly.
I don't know if there's a right way to be angry. But I do know there is a right kind of anger, and where it comes from.
And I hope we can all learn to tell the difference more quickly.
