Do You Care?

 

How do you feel afterward? More powerful? Smarter? Virtuous? More
handsome? Vindicated? Why did you do it? You violated his privacy in
cyberspace. Others of your ilk beat, physically torture and even kill their
victims. Does it matter? Is cyberspace preferable to physical abuse? To
the victim, I imagine that your means is unimportant. To him, whatever way
you do it is equally crushing. All he wants is to live his own life: work, eat,
love, laugh, have friends, enjoy freedom, be left alone.

Despite what you believe, he did not choose his life as a homosexual any
more than you chose your brown eyes. Do his actions bother you? Does
his life bother you? Are you such a superior being that you can condemn
the actions of others?

I could never serve on your jury. Whether you drove another to suicide,
beat him or physically tortured him, I could not judge you in court. I’ve
already judged you and found you to be beneath contempt. No one would
let someone who feels as I do be on your jury. Would the lawyers be able
to find anyone to serve? There are those who agree with you, who think
“those weirdos” choose their feelings and their lifestyles. There are those
who agree with me, who think that people should be left alone.

Is there anyone in the middle? Open minded, non-judgmental? Our
country appears to be so polarized that each side claims its superiority The
great middle, the common denominator, seems to have been permanently
silenced. I’m as much at fault as anyone.

Even our little ones seem to feel the need to assert themselves by bullying
other children: for being “different” or “just because.”

By your example, you’re teaching the young ones well, indeed. Perhaps as
they get older, they can go on to hound, beat, torture their contemporaries
to death. Congratulations!

 

 

 

Hallie Block lives and writes in Buffalo, New York.