Shades of grey

I have remained a fly on the wall when it comes to the current protests and debates happening. Not because I don’t have strong feelings about racism, I certainly do but I have come to realise that expressing my views end up in arguments with people who are on the same side. I have been in many heated arguments that never really ended with a consensus, just frustration.

I am seeing people on the same side of the fence arguing about particulars when at the end of the day they actually agree with each other on the fundimentals. Fighting with your alleys can not possibly be conducive to achieving anything productive, surely.

It is a real shame that change needs to come about by people taking action that can be seen as borderline illegal. It’s a shame that we are a society that finds any reason to argue with each other even if we are on the same side.

There were so many shades of grey when it came to how best respond to the virus. So much hate came out of the outbreak of the pandemic. Backpackers were the devil, going outside came with the risk of being photographed and shamed online and even well meaning aquaitences would reach out to advise you they were concerned with your lack of seriousness about the situation.

Making a joke had to be carefully executed towards the right audience and attempting to make light of what was really just a crap situation required a scientific analysis of your wording as to not offend people.

Then Black Lives Matter came into play, we were already on edge and now a new global issue, some would argue a far more important one, took over our lives. You’d be forgiven for thinking the Corona virus just disapeared into thin air.

What should have been a time for unity became an even bigger excuse to bicker. People against racistism but still pro social distancing saw themselves in a civil war with their alleys who believed this cause was more important than needing to social distance. They believe in the same thing, why are they arguing?! We are fighting against racism, right? Not how to fight it.

Some people are simply annoyed that a protest can happen but you still can’t have a wedding. Most people who are annoyed by this don’t even have a wedding coming up so you could argue the beef is just with the inconstancy and lack of logic of the rules in place. Is that really something to be so royally peeved about? Is it honestly worth that amount of energy? In some few and far between cases, people are rightfully annoyed because they have not been allowed to see their dying loved ones due to rules in place and I can see why those select people would be very upset. But at the end of the day we need to simplfy the sides.

If we could just seperate the racists from the ones fighting racism, that would make for a lot less fighting. If we could, as a unit, decide what cause to focus on at the same time it would mean that the lines were clearer and anger could be directed to the right place all at the same time. Unfortunately humans aren’t that simple. There will always be shades of grey

I am finding it difficult to make my own views overt because the reality is I empathise with many angles of this debate. I am first and formost against any form of racism and completely condone racist views. I am glad change is happening. I’m sad voilence on both sides had to be part of that change but who am I to speak against all other historical changes in socity. Violence and volatility is always involved with change.

At the end of the day my desire to scream from a building about my views has lessened as I have gotten older. I don’t feel any less passionate about things like inequality and racism, I just feel the anger didn’t get me that far in my 20’s and I feel like there must be a better way to get my fundimental views across without cause for a fight.

Discrimination is never acceptable. It’s as simple as that. How people choose to express that should be their right but they should always be conscious to focus on fighting their enemy not others with the same views just with different ways of expressing it.

Let’s try and blend the shades of grey and come together and fight in the same direction.