Sometime in the late ‘80s, I took my kids to a local science center. There was one exhibit that still sticks in my mind all these years later.
It was a simple setup. There was a corridor with a black and white checkered floor leading to a table display at the far end. At the entrance, a sign said an experiment was being conducted and to please step only on the white tiles. I admonished my kids to do what the sign said. They completely ignored me and ran wildly down the corridor while I carefully stepped only on the white squares, frantically trying to make my kids listen to me and do what the sign said. I was embarrassed by their unruly behavior and hoped no one was watching.
When we reached the end of the corridor, I had to laugh at myself when I read the details of the experiment, which simply asked whether or not you’d obeyed the sign’s instruction to walk only on the white tiles.
Are you a rule follower or a rebel?
Being raised in the Catholic Church, I had been indoctrinated early in life to obey the rules, to bow to authority, to assume I was sinful and wrong and that others – adults, clergy, government – obviously knew better than I what was right and what was wrong.
But do they really? Because my own inner sense of right and wrong is screaming that, right now, they don’t.
Generally speaking, I believe in the law. I believe in justice. I think we need laws to protect the good of all. But when the law itself becomes arbitrary or unjust, or when the way in which it is carried out is cruel, unfair and bigoted, we can no longer just blindly follow.
In the wake of the Minneapolis shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, I kept hearing, “FAFO. Just follow the law and do what ICE tells you and you won’t get shot.” But neither of them was breaking any laws. And, even if they had been, they deserved due process, not a death sentence meted out in the heat of the moment by masked ICE agents.
I hear the same when it comes to immigration, “Come here the right way and you won’t have a problem.” But what about the many who are doing things the right way only to be targeted for deportation as they leave their scheduled immigration hearings? Or the children, like five-year-old Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos, a U.S. citizen, being deported along with a parent – even when they have family here that could care for them? Or the people like Abdellatif Hafraoui, who did everything right for over 35 years but was recently detained, and even placed in solitary confinement, for a missed hearing over 10 years ago that his lawyer never told him about?
When good people who have followed all of the rules still get deported, when good people who try to record injustices being carried out by “the law” get shot, when human and civil rights are being violated by those in power, it’s time to stop carefully stepping on those white squares. As Timothy Snyder says in On Tyranny, “Do not obey in advance.” Because that’s an open invitation to tyranny. It’s time to stop bowing blindly to authority and start demanding justice.
Maybe that means joining a protest, donating to organizations fighting for justice, calling your representatives, or simply speaking up when you see injustice in your own town. Maybe it means voting – or running for office yourself.
Are you a rule follower or a rebel?
If you look in a thesaurus, some of the synonyms for rebel include agitator, subversive, radical, anarchist, traitor. But also, freedom fighter.
No more goose-stepping on white squares for me. I choose the fight for freedom.
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Digital Collage Image created by Claire Perkins
Source Images:
Checkered Floor Photo by Ana Terenti on Unsplash
White Corridor Photo by Romeio Paul on Unsplash
Do Not Obey In Advance Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash
Sign On a Chain Image by PixelLabs from Pixabay
Woman Pulling Man Forward Photo by Nicolas Cool on Unsplash
Portal in the Desert Photo by Azza Al Ghardaqa on Unsplash
Dove in Flight Photo by Sunguk Kim on Unsplash