I wanted my next post on the blog to be about something other than the Russian installed President. I don’t want the entirety of my life to be dominated by this spiteful hateful bigot. We can’t always get what we want, however, and so here I am.

It is inauguration day. Today, a man who should be in prison for fraud, for rape, and likely a whole host of additional crimes that have yet to be discovered, is being sworn in as the Commander-in-Chief of the world’s largest military and nuclear arsenal.

My father has been playing the news in the car as we ran out to run errands, and one of the most common phrases being repeated is that “we have no choice, we have to accept it”. It’s not the first time this phrase has been passed around in response to this election. It started during the transition period with many non-activists saying that nothing could be done. Many encouraged everyone to “give the new government a chance” and to “learn to cooperate”.

This attitude is one that never fails to enrage me, because actually we DO have a choice. We can choose to accept things as they are, wash our hands of the responsibility, or we can choose not to accept them. To dissent. To tell the world, “I am not okay with this and I do not accept this situation.” To protest. To rebel. You have the choice to end the tacit consent of grudging acceptance and apathy. Saying we have no choice in situations like this one is an act of surrender, an act of apathy, and an excuse for one’s lack of activism.

If everyone who gave up in the face of “no choice” and “one person can’t make a difference” chose instead to speak out and/or make clear their opposition, their voices would be heard round the globe. The United States was founded by people who refused to just accept things as they are and decided to do something about it. Resistances, revolutions, they are the voice of the people, and everyone one of them is made up of “one persons” who decided to try; even if the odds were against them. Groups are made up of individuals. Making the masses forget that fact is the tool of the status quo.

Change comes when people demand it, not when people wait around to see what happens. Each incremental step takes work, but it is too heavy a load for just those affected to push forward on their own. When people make the choice to accept things as they are, they’re not just choosing not to push forward for change, often they are adding to the load. Imagine change as a giant rock that blocks the road. Change means pushing that rock out of the way, often while there are others actively trying to keep the rock where it is. Saying there is no choice or that one person cannot make a difference is like sitting on the rock. You’re not actively pushing against the rock to keep it in place, but your added weight makes it that much more difficult to move.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it himself, when he called the moderate white person one of the biggest barriers to civil rights.

One of the ways we make change happen is by making sure that we call things what they are. Too often the press, the public, and the majority of society, prioritizes the feelings of those in power over the lives of those affected by oppression and persecution. A perfect example of that took place on CBC Radio. They had a correspondent in Washington for the Inauguration. The birther movement came up, with regards to President Obama’s feeling regarding this day, when one of the main proponents of this movement is being sworn in as his successor. The reporter, whose name I didn’t catch, was trying to describe the people who participated in this movement.

“People who weren’t comfortable with the…the… otherness of Barack Obama…with… him…um…being a black president.”

The strain of the rhetorical gymnastics in trying to avoid calling birthers racist was obvious, but was it necessary? What purpose did it serve?

By not calling racism, racism, we make it easier for people to make excuses for themselves and their harmful beliefs. If you have a problem with a black person being president, that’s racism. You are quite literally saying that to you, a person’s skin colour determines whether or not they are qualified to hold high public office. What else is a person whose skin cells produce more melanin than others disqualified from? Are black people allowed to be doctors? Lawyers? Teachers? At what point are we allowed to call you what you are? What does a person have to do make it socially acceptable to call them a racist?

When you go out of your way to avoid calling oppressors what they are, you are benefiting them. You are making it clear that their feelings are more important to you than the lives of those who they hurt. You are also making it clear to their victims that they cannot count on your support.

We’ve created a culture where calling a bigot out on their bigotry, or even just calling a bigot a bigot, is seen as being as bad as the bigotry itself. We see this on social media where a person defending themselves against being called a slur, say a racist one, is banned for harassment by calling the person using the slur a racist. Meanwhile the person using the slur is somehow able to avoid all punishment.

We see this when the media equates protests against the death of children with violent riots, while at the same time attempting to minimize the death as being something other than racially motivated murder. When we see them reluctant to call tagging synagogues and the homes of Jewish people with swastikas and death threats a hate crime, but spend time writing about the impropriety of calling the people who did this Nazis or even racists.

We, as a society, have let oppressors dictate and shape the conversation to the point where we hesitate to call people by their own ready identification.
Nazi: I’m a Nazi.

Protestor: They’re a Nazi.

Responder: Hey, that’s not fair to call them that. You’re being just a bad as they are. When they go low…

It’s time to stop beating around the Bush. It’s time to stop worrying about legal liability and worry about our liability to society itself. It’s time to name things what they are. To call the Russian installed president, and his government, exactly what they are: Fascists, Racists, Sexists, Ableists, Transphobes, Homophobes, and in many cases murderers too.