Living in a culture of Denialism

You can’t ignore it and it’s there – creeping into your life as we speak. Things of change are approaching and it will take more than an election to keep it going, but it’s a hell of a start.
After writing about denialism, I discovered myself finding it more frequently. In day-to-day life, going to the grocery store, buying my coffee at Moxie and borrowing a book from the library. It was there – behind conversations, buried in pieces of notebook paper and scribbled in advertisements. It caught me off guard at first, stopped me in place and made me dissect the situation in front me. Where are we? 

I find it in the most frightening places. In the corners of minds, including some friends’, screaming with silence and shaking their heads “that’s not true,” muttering, “it can’t be true.” I’ve been told to silence myself for comfort.

Why? I’m not comfortable.

I’ve become frustrated by its presence. It’s more cruel and evil to turn your back and remain silent about something that’s wrong. It’s happening in front of your face, on television, in newspapers. You feel it’s not right, but you don’t say or do anything. That’s a silence I can’t accept.

People say, “we’re in the 21st century, oppression doesn’t exist.”

The ban on interracial marriages was only lifted from the Alabama constitution eight years ago.

And now there’s another fight for freedom in this country for same-sex marriage. A definition is curdling up into our government on the relics of religion, the same examples banning interracial marriages. Where is the separation our constitution has sworn us? Isn’t this oppression?

Time doesn’t prove anything other than how far behind we are and how much more we have to go.

People forget about our freedoms. They’re so used to them that they believe they’re safe inside the cocoon of the U.S.
Though it wasn’t easy to gain our freedoms, it won’t be hard to lose them. Lose one and you might want to think about what other civil liberties you want to give up.

It is only now that I feel a smidgen of hope. I never believed in my lifetime a non-white president would take office. America seemed too cliché for that – too small in mind. And you all may not understand, but for the first time in my life I can honestly tell my future children they can be whatever they want to be.  
Of course, I don’t expect a rapid change. People are still blind. Just a day or two ago in the Student Union I heard, “Have fun at your diversity workshop, don’t let them do any negative training.”

People with powerful voices tend to abuse them and ignore the backlash of their influence, but it’s been proven people listen and take action on the basis of those words.

When I began this series, I was angry, sad and done with Americans because of the ignorance radiating throughout our campus. I talked to complete strangers, asked campus leaders to fill out surveys and researched local and national studies.

Today, I am no longer angry beyond the point of explosion. I’m sad – not an uncommon feeling, but it’s the lingering one.

Some think this is a young woman’s attempt to piss people off. That’s only partially the purpose. Pissing people off grabs their attention. My hope is to create a dialogue and influence change.
It’s a small start, but it’s what I have and I’m going to use it until I graduate.

JESSICA HENDERSON
Arbiter Journalist

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