For a good many months I’ve kept almost entirely away from reading any political articles as well as posting them or, for that matter, having any political discussions on Facebook. This was certainly related to all that transpired for some time beforehand, namely my naive attempt to stimulate deep discussions about various issues on the Book of Faces — to bring people together for a calm discussion about the subjects that seemed to be dividing everyone. Despite my intentions, however, these discussions either descended into heated debates or were largely ignored, leaving a cold silence in which I felt particular individuals were angry at me given my views, or even my act of subjecting what I suspected were views that they held to question.

Some issues certainly came from my end as well. A few times I wrote posts in anger and in almost immediate retrospect realized that I clearly could have articulated myself better or kept my trap shut altogether. Even in the cases in which I think I conducted myself wisely, though, I had the distinct feeling that I wasn’t helping to bridge the divide at all, but was instead serving to exacerbate the fracturing. The news also kept fueling my frustration and anxiety, which I have a sufficient amount of anyway, and it came to my attention that driving myself crazy and making my life a living hell over things I can’t control and could hardly hope to make so much as a dent in was pointless and futile.

So I just stopped.

Ever since, I’ll comment on Facebook about amusing events during the day or thoughts I think others might find amusing, if nothing else, but I mostly focus on posting memes that make me laugh and consequently drag me out of depression or boredom throughout the day in the hopes that it might serve a similar purpose for others on my friend’s list.

Things to connect us, not divide us.

I was doing quite well at this, too, methinks, until one day last week, where I feel I might have fucked up and fallen back on old — or perhaps it would be better to say “recently retired” — tendencies. What prompted this was reading another abortion meme that a girl I’ve known for a long time had posted. And to get it out of the way: I’m passionately pro-choice, and I see this as but a small aspect of my overall value in individual freedom and personal responsibility. Specifically, this is about what’s called bodily integrity. I like how comedian Doug Stanhope framed it; namely, as an extension of the right to property — or, perhaps more accurately, where the right to property more or less begins, with the body, with all other physical property functioning as its extension.

The meme in question said that the abortion bans aren’t about abortion, however, but rather about white men holding down women. Rather than going the rational route and arguing against women being imprisoned for having abortions, the poster argued that the men who planted the seed should also be imprisoned, as it takes two to make a baby.

Though one could argue it potentially only takes one to have an abortion — which was one of many things, in my opinion, overlooked by the poster.

Reading that shit, I suddenly felt the rush of anger I felt when the abortion bans began. When the storm of man-hating memes inundated Facebook. When the discussions of these issues similarly flooded YouTube and the news. I felt the burning need to speak up, to respond as soon as I saw the meme, but held off. After all, what good would it do? It would serve as catharsis, perhaps, but previous experience had strongly suggested that provoking these kinds of discussions rarely ends well, and I certainly didn’t want to make this shit worse. So I chewed on it off and on for hours, maybe as much as a day, and then made the perhaps ill-conceived choice to post something in response to the meme. Something I had more or less said before, during the abortion ban chaos, though my hopes were that I had more effectively articulated myself this time.

I pointed out the rather obvious fact that given that there are women who are anti-abortion and men — even white men, such as myself — who are rather passionately pro-choice, it may not be about abortion, as the poster claimed, but nor was it about “white men holding down and trying to control women,” either. Instead, I offered the possibility that this may instead just be another symptom of a sick culture that has no respect for personal liberty, in this particular case bodily integrity specifically. I also added, as I have in the past, how hypocritical and counterproductive these sexist and racist generalizations of “white men” are for those who are justifiably fighting for the recognition of abortion rights. That they should focus on targeting the real enemy rather than alienating and demonizing their brethren by speaking in precisely the same kind of sexist generalities they’re supposedly fighting against.

One woman responded. And it was days later. And she responded in that patronizing, holier-than-thou kind of fashion I used to only see as a characteristic of religious zealots and contradicted herself (also a characteristic I once predominantly associated with hyper-religious individuals) at least once in the midst of offering her admittedly well-written response.

She called anti-abortionist women “misguided.” She also implied that some men were allies yet those like me were similarly “misguided.” She said it in much the same way one Christian might call other Christians that disagree with them on fundamental issues “misguided” or simply proclaim they do not constitute “true Christians.” Yet white men in her eye, she then made clear, are nonetheless “absolutely” the enemy. This was the contradiction: her insistence that white men are “absolutely” the enemy despite the fact that some are allies, despite the fact that some of those allies are “misguided.” Why? Evidently they — I? we? — are sexists. And she said this, that white men are sexists, at the same time apparently entirely blind to the fact that seeing all white men as sexist is itself sexism — and that it is a rather blatant example of racism as well.

Package deal of prejudice supplied by the passionately self-blind.

If I had responded to her, I fear it may have spawned a side argument, as I refuse to accept those who try and redefine prejudice and discrimination in such a way that only those groups which they perceive as privileged can be prejudiced, never the disenfranchised groups, or the groups they see as such.

Sexism is sexism, regardless of your sex. To believe otherwise is, in fact, sexist. Racism is racism, regardless of your race. To believe otherwise is, in fact, racist.

And even if the women-hating “white man” generalization was true, which it is clearly not, we would be left with the flaws and hypocrisies inherent in her approach.

Fighting fire with fire only feeds the fire. Becoming the perceived enemy in order to defeat the perceived enemy ensures the perceived enemy’s triumph.

And ends do not justify the means. They are shaped by them.