Galvanic Ink

It should come as no surprise that I am about as far removed from conservative as a reasonable person should be. I’m pro choice, pro lgbtq+, pro legalization, anti religion, etc., and yet I find myself standing up for a despicable group of people. How is that? How dare the people who claim to be on my side of the aisle put me in a position where I have to stand on the side of the fucking racists?!

Audrey Godlewski, a horrifying example of what ignorance can do to people has now had her name, face and personal information blasted all over the internet, the country and the world because she is racist or at the very least, she said some very racist things on video. Said video went viral and sparked protests and petitions decrying that she be expelled from her college. The college has stated that while they vehemently disagree with her words, taking action against her would be in violation of the first amendment. And they’re right.

It is one thing to take personal action against someone by giving them the cold shoulder and ostracizing them from social functions. But to demand that a person, who is just like you in possibly every other way save this one thought, should be stripped of her education, stripped of her hope for a better future, and stripped of her privacy is absurd. Fascism can exist on both sides of the aisle. Dictating what a person can think and say is one of the many examples of a fascist society. And I don’t say that lightly.

The mentality of ‘if you’re different, we don’t want you here’ has never been one held by the progressive society. If I can replace the word ‘racist’ with the word ‘transgendered’ and invoke the same core concept that the left is fighting against, then there is a problem with the stance altogether. If a video was released exposing Audrey as being trans or pro trans and this sparked protests and petitions demanding she be removed from school, the left would be outraged.

So, why is it different now? Are we more tolerant of the ruined life of a racist defender than of a trans defender? I agree that what she said was truly despicable, but she certainly has the right to say it. The first amendment doesn’t only work when it suits the cause of progress. Are we so lazy that we would rather extricate anyone who thinks differently than us than to strengthen the mental constitution of our most vulnerable so that they don’t fall victim to those who would influence them to think this way?

And what of Audrey? Imagine someone being wrong, doing and saying wrong, realizing the error of their mentality and then making a true, honest and genuine change? And now their hope for a normal life, a hope-filled or happy life is gone because an entire populous will forever associate her with this one mistake that she made as a college student.

Audrey doesn’t play poker with Satan in her off time. She’s not evil incarnate. She’s misguided and ignorant. Instead of ruining a person’s life, how about educating them to be a better person? We have now taken someone who could have changed their mind and been better for it, and we have told them that they are forever going to be looked at as a horrifyingly evil person.

Of course, she might not change. While no wrong mentality is so deeply engrained that it cannot hope to be corrected, it’s possible she may forever subscribe to the belief that black people are inferior and not worth the air they breathe. Is it so hard to imagine a world in which we simply tolerate her? A person’s thoughts, provided they never influence their decisions, should never put a person on trial. She could hate black people from the pit of her rotting blackened heart, but as long as she knows to never allows herself to violate a person’s civil rights or to harm or put in harms way a person of color, who cares?

Her crime, as of now, is not of lynching people. It is of having video of a private conversation be posted online.

What should have happened:

The people in the video, especially the one holding the camera, should have scorned Audrey for her words and explained that being upset is no reason to behave in such a vile way. Her peers should have walked away from her until she apologized and proved that she was working on her behaviors. If the video still was posted online, people should have been upset and offended by her words but then spoke with her about it. Explained that her words aren’t just some strung-together thoughts that don’t mean anything.

She may well have thought her words harmless at the time of saying them, but they are indicative of a time when people of color couldn’t walk down the street without the fear of being lynched. They should have told her that while ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’ is true, there are some words which can truly lead to violence.

If you’re thinking that Audrey is too old to be taught such an elementary lesson, then I should refer you to the fact that she very clearly doesn’t already know that. Or that she is so far removed from who this would affect, that she can’t possibly see the true harm in her words. Instead of demonizing her, show her the truth. Let her learn from her mistakes or, at least, give her every opportunity to learn. And if she doesn’t, then have nothing to do with her on a social level.

Racism is a dying mentality. With all of the stories you find on the internet, it may seem that it is growing, but it’s not. The fewer cases that exist are simply becoming more prominent. Of course, I’m not suggesting that we ignore racism altogether, but if we simply continue to teach the negatives associated with it while boasting the positives of inclusivity, we will only help our cause.