browngirl

A So, the reason my last post has comments disabled is this. A few years ago, someone I know questioned the need for the Transgender Day of Remembrance, saying "umpteen people die in car accidents but there's no day for remembering car accident victims." Because I have a terminal case of l'esprit de l'escalier and because I was trying not to start cursing, I didn't manage to say that [most] car accidents are not deliberate applications of violence aimed at those seen as trespassing against social norms. But, there's more going on than that.

As someone interested in a freer and more equitable society, and someone who's taken a few science classes, I keep seeing patterns around me, and one pattern I see over and over again is the myth of the isolated incident. Over and over a transgender person is attacked up to being killed and both the official investigation and many lay reactions take the assumption that the incident was a 'dispute' between parties of equal privilege and power. Over and over women are sexually harassed and assaulted and we get told both about the individual perpetrator that "he's not really like that, he made a mistake" and that there's no such thing as a culture of sexual violence, no such thing as societal patterns of excusing and exonerating those who inflict it and of citing false reports as reasons to dismiss and ignore true incidents, just a great many isolated incidents. I noticed that Mr. Zimmerman got arrested again for pointing a gun at someone again, and I can't help but think of all the people who analyzed his murder of Trayvon Martin as both an isolated 'mistake' on his part and an isolated incident on the part of US society, rather than a publicized example of the recurring nightmares of every parent of Black children. (I kind of want to go point this out to all of those people I can find. This essay is what I'm writing instead.)

The idea of the isolated incident is a way of excluding evidence and of abnegating responsibility. If there is no pattern of transphobic violence then transphobic comments and attitudes are "just opinions" rather than pebbles in the avalanche. If there is no pattern of rape culture then just hitting on that pretty girl or telling that rape joke or being sure that he didn't mean it all have absolutely nothing to do with the next perpetrator who judges that his entitlement outweighs the risks of punishment. If George Zimmerman's shooting of Trayvon Martin has nothing to do either with Zimmerman's general pattern of behavior or with the deaths of countless other unarmed Black people including Jonathan Ferrell and Renisha McBride, then it's just an isolated regrettable incident (at worst; many people think Zimmerman did society a favor) and no one has to question themselves the next time they suspect a kid of being up to no good primarily because he or she is Black.

However, if we let ourselves recognize these patterns, we can see how pulling a thread here affects the fabric over there. We can understand how responding "dude, not funny," to a transphobic joke or one about rape can help change the prevailing atmosphere to one where people don't feel as justified in attacking someone and so perhaps refrain from doing so. We can look twice and see beyond skin color to the person needing help. We can see how societal methods of change, such as education, have the possibility of doing some good.

Maybe, we can get something done, and perhaps improve things for everyone.

I don't know if I can do anything towards fighting the idea of the isolated incident by writing this little journal entry, but this is what I've seen in my life, I had to make a note of it.