So, Valentine's Day is on the way again. Time for an excess of all things red and pink. Of course, I'm not generally all that big on the whole secular, commercialized holiday thing. But this, pitiful as it is to admit, is going to be my first Valentine's Day that I'll actually be dating someone - barring any unforeseen mishaps between now and Thursday. So you'll have to forgive me if I wax a bit cheesy.
The someone I'm dating is, in some ways, of a very different background than I am. He was in the Army for eight years. And no, he's not a Veteran for Peace. Our ideologies, though not quite entirely at odds, are not quite entirely in agreement either.
So I've had some thinking to do.
Of course, I'm not really the ideological totalitarian some people might assume I am.
I've had my share of exposure to difference.
Every family gathering I can remember came complete with its heated political debate. The economy, military, sexual harassment, civil rights, abortion, Lorena Bobbitt - you name it, we could argue about it.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
But these gatherings also came complete with transcendent affection. Even my most homophobic relative holds no reservations in expressing tenderness toward me, nor I toward him.
Growing up with this mixture of love and disagreement couldn't leave my ideology unaffected. Whatever my vision for social change is, it has to include a place for every kind of person.
When I wrote last week about the need to find humanity between activists and police officers, it wasn't just some thought off the top of my head. It's a lifelong struggle.
Growing up with the memory of the Holocaust. Learning about such ongoing atrocities as the School of the Americas and the massive over-incarceration of African Americans. Having epithets hurled at me by people who can't handle my gender ambiguity. It's hard to know all this, and more, and yet keep believing that everybody's got good in them.
It would be so much easier to look at people who disagree with me and just call them the enemy. To reduce them to a two-dimensional caricature. Look at them, they don't see things the way I do. They must be evil.
Want some devil horns to go with that stereotype?
And, of course, it works both ways. I was utterly amused when some reader accused me of using activism to get attention. With the exception of my writing, I'm one of the least obtrusive people I've ever met. But, hey, if you disagree with somebody, it's easier to reduce their viewpoint to Freudian neediness, right?
Easier maybe, but not especially productive. I get so much more out of engaging people in constructive dialogue. Maybe nobody ends up changing her or his opinion, but I almost always manage to learn something in the process. If I can't agree with what someone believes, I might at least come to understand and maybe even respect her reasons for believing it.
But back to that business of having thinking to do.
Here I am, radical extraordinaire, dating a guy who spent eight years of his in a job in which the central mission was to "kill people and break things," as he would say. As you might guess, we sometimes disagree on things. We even manage to disagree about how much we disagree - a particularly odd argument, since it generally involves each of us arguing that we aren't as different as we appear to be.
I think my mom put it best. When I told her about his time in the Army, she said, "So he took time off from school, too. Sounds exactly like you!"
The fact of the matter is, I'm just really happy. So I'm going to go breathe some fresh air, walk on a few clouds and worry about writing something political next week.
by Sari Krosinksy
Daily Lobo Columnist
Write a letter to the editor about something nice for a change. Or complain to Sari Krosinsky about her digressions at michal_kro@hotmail.com.
