It was a cute little quip, perfect for sharing, and just snarky enough to make a point.
But behind that, there was actually a lot of frustration and pain.
See, Rhode Island didn't have a Chik-fil-A when the company made its first statement, so while I didn't see certain people speaking out against it, I assumed it was just because they didn't see the point in condemning a company that we wouldn't be able to patronize anyway, and I didn't think much more about it than that.
Then, they opened a franchise here, and I actually got to see a bunch of people who call themselves my friends gleefully posting about their first time eating there.
Oh sure, a couple of people in the comments pointed out their problematic stance towards the LGBTQ community (which had been doubled down on several times at that point) and they were met with that condescending explanation of how because it's a franchise, it doesn't represent what the main company thinks, even though the main company definitely makes money off franchises, and why would you want to open a franchise whose owners support anti-gay policies?
Some of the same people who are now saying they're furious with Allie's had absolutely nothing to say and haven't had anything to say about a whole host of issues that involve oppression and persecution of people they claim to love, and I have to imagine they think their silence goes unnoticed.
It doesn't.
When you confront people about this, they often come back at you with "It's my profile and I can post what I want" or they let you know that they privately agreed with you in the past, but they just didn't feel like saying anything at that particular moment.
Isn't it funny how people always seem eager to speak out when something backs up their perception of the world only to get quiet when they disagree with something that would also harm their personal worldview?
I feel the same way when I hear people quibble with using the word "defund" in the phrase "Defund the Police." It reminds me of the well-meaning people who used to say "I don't understand why the gays have to call it marriage. I mean, I'm for gay marriage, but don't you know you'd have an easier time getting what you want if you just gave up the word?"
Yes, we got that. We totally understood that. We just felt that we had a right to the word and other people didn't have a right to determine whether or not it could belong to us, because ultimately, the point was that it didn't belong to anybody.
That's the thing about semantics--people dismiss them for a reason. They're usually a way to allow narrow-minded people to get out of having to discuss complex issues, not because they don't understand them, but because they don't want to.
Truthfully, if you ever saw a gay person at the time offer to give up the idea of marriage so they could get all the other rights, you would have seen the person who claimed the word "marriage" was the issue fumbling to come up with another reason they couldn't approve.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I no longer pay attention when people try to explain to me that I need to negotiate my values and that I need to ask others to do the same. The people who break something and then benefit from it being broken shouldn't get a say in how to fix it.
After just a day or two of agreeing to simply, you know, shut the hell up and listen, suddenly everybody had an opinion that they felt they could voice quietly just to put their two cents in about everything from education reform to the health risks of protesting.
A donut shop stops offering a discount, and nobody asks why there wasn't ever a discount for doctors, nurses, teachers, EMT's, or nursing home workers.
Because see, it's not about the discount.
It's about personality cultivation.
The right loves to decry identity politics, when, like most things they complain about, they invented the concept. But it's not even about politics.
It's about making people you don't like mad.
Really, it's as simple as that.
We're all mad and we only know how to deal with that by making other people mad, and nothing makes people madder than hypocrisy, so we produce it whenever possible, and then claim ignorance when someone calls us out on it, which is easy, because nobody really wants to take the time to prove that their grandfather had nothing to say when Black people were being killed for decades, but that suddenly he's very vocal because they're making him wear a mask to church.
Nobody wants to do the work that call-out culture requires, because I think we all know that work like that doesn't lead anywhere, and yet, it's the work we enjoy the most.
Oh sure, it feels like our head is caving in when we engage in these arguments, but it's still better than doing what we've been asked to do--read, educate, and evolve.
I'm not sure how a post about donuts got so lofty, but let me try to bring it back around as best I can--
Being Irish, Italian, and gay means I have never forgotten anything bad anyone has ever done to me...ever. Like a brilliant line from an amazing play--"I have a great memory for pain."
So as the days and weeks and months go on, and some of you feel compelled to speak out in spite of all the times you've been silent, you might think you can do it anyway, because with billions of thoughts being posted a day, who'll notice your previous absence from conversations about injustice?
Please let me assure you--
It has not gone unnoticed.
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