soul magma

Last night I did a silly, silly thing. I debated Republicans on a Republican status during the debate. It culminated in a stranger saying that I am a moron and evidence that women should not be allowed to vote. That he would “whip my gay sexist ass into a puddle of liberal fecal matter and feed me to his pigs” if he owned me and i back talked him. I was and am absolutely floored. Crushed. This was on the page of my oldest friend’s, one of my best friend’s husband. Her husband responded to the imagining of my brutal murder and disposal of my opinionated female body with, “that’s what facebook is for, amusement. opinions are like assholes. that last one was funny, Richard.” 

As a survivor of violence, I am not amused. I messaged my friend and told her that I love her, but her husband is no longer welcome in my home. I was informed that I am being ridiculous and that I am shunning her husband for his political beliefs and that if I take politics personally, I should not involve myself in debates online. I guess there is some merit to that. There’s merit to free speech. But just because the Klan is having a rally doesn’t mean I have to attend. Because Westboro Baptist Church pickets funerals of soldiers proselytizing hate, doesn’t mean I have to agree that aids is a punishment from God on homosexuals. 

As a survivor of violence, I do not have to associate myself with persons who find the conceptualization of my BRUTAL MURDER to be a source of amusement. I get to take it personally when a stranger calls me, directly by name, a piece of property to be owned, sold, and whipped into submission or death before I am made into pig fodder. Hate speech cannot be glossed over with a comedic coat. Demoralizing, dehumanizing someone for having opinions that differ from you is not par for the political spectrum course. 

I broke Facebook ties with my friend of 18 years and her husband. I don’t know right now if that was the right thing to do. But I’m not ok with being told that if I am to express myself, then I have to accept hateful violent speech directly addressed to me, by name, in the context of my murder. I would be damned before I let anybody talk to her like that, kidding or not. I have stood up to a man more than a foot taller than I am in the middle of beating a woman I love when a room full of men stood with their hands in their pockets. I have been thrown quite literally out of my home in front of my children and had my bones broken by a man who thinks women are inferior and have no place in their own lives.  

Whether or not you agree with someone’s opinion, NOT saying “This is Wrong,” is wrong. I do not know what else I can do right now but I’m super upset and have been up since four a.m. weighing this. I am not sorry I expressed myself. I am not sorry I left that conversation as soon as it became a congratulatory circle jerk after my public humiliation. I am not sorry that I am affected by this because it means more than I give an actual shit. It means I stand for something bigger than a political party.  I don’t want to lose my friend, but I don’t want to lose myself more.