I have a tendency to have a differing opinion than people. This is pretty much the norm for me. Part of the time, I think it may have to do with an inner desire to not be like everyone else. Other times, I think it is because I literally think differently than others. My brain has a way of interpreting things that is probably different than others, whether it is from mental illness, from abuse and bullying, from the way I was raised, or from something differently.
When it comes to the criminal justice system, I tend to get asked about what I would do if it was a family member or friend of mine that got killed or had any sort of violence committed against them? How would I feel? Maybe I would say someone was guilty, regardless of evidence. Maybe I would want someone to be executed, regardless of crime. I get that some people see the world as being a place where if it happens to you, then you will want some sort of vengeance. Maybe I would, but I don’t think so.
When I was 14, I had a friend who was almost killed by her oldest brother. He also injured 2 of her 3 siblings and killed their mother and father. He almost attacked another one of my friends that day. I had been at the house the day before. I had seen her mother. I had heard her voice. For me, that was very difficult to deal with.
When I was 15, a guy from my grade and his sister who was a year younger than me went missing. I think that the father was either missing or his body was found in his home. I do know that the kids were found a while later in the woods nearby. They had been killed by their father. Though these deaths were tragic, I never really felt sorry for either child. I know that sounds awful, but they were always so mean and hateful, that empathy was something I couldn’t imagine having towards them.
Long before I was born, my mom’s mom’s mom’s sister was killed by her ex-husband. This death led to most of her kids going to one relative. One of her older kids was not sent to that relative because they didn’t like her. No one really thought they could handle her, except Mama and Papa, my great-grandparents. They raised her, and though she wasn’t legally their child, I think of her as a great-aunt and Nana always calls her her sister. But the grief over the murder of a relative that I have never known is something that has always been a part of my family’s interaction. My mom tries to keep it light-hearted by telling me that my great-grandmother wanted to light the murderer’s grave on fire. I know that the way that the members who were alive back when it happened, during my mother’s childhood, carry the angst with them. In a family that never forgets and rarely forgives, this kind of thing can’t help but cloud your life.
In April 0f 2008, I had a friend that got killed in an accidental shooting. He was headed home late at night and lived in an apartment complex. The apartments all looked the same and he was apparently a little out of it. He didn’t understand why his key wasn’t working on the front door, so he headed through the sliding glass door. It was the wrong apartment, though. The person who lived there shot him. The shot was fatal. He went from being a law student to being a statistic. Many of my high school friends still have pictures of him as their profile picture on Facebook, even with it being something that happened over 3 years ago.
The next April, a guy who was in my stake’s YSA died in a horrible car accident. It was a supposedly a DUI. The car that hit his car was driven by an illegal immigrant. The death of this guy that I knew and his girlfriend has been used by people who didn’t know them as a rallying cry to get rid of illegal immigrants. It was even cited at one point by Mo Brooks, who was recently in the news for saying he’d do anything short of shooting immigrants to get rid of them, as a reason why we should get rid of immigrants. He ended up being elected to Congress and part of his election was based on his rhetoric about this death.
Though I hadn’t been to the school in almost a year, I was technically still listed as a student when the UAH shooting by Amy Bishop took place in February of 2010. I would have just had to reapplied (as a technicality) and signed up for classes to be considered a current student. Even though I wasn’t going that semester, I had friends that were still students there. I had friends who were in that general area earlier in the day on the day of the shooting.
Because of these deaths and others, I can fairly easily answer the questions of if I would feel differently if someone was killed in a certain way. If I’m asked how I would feel about the death penalty if it were someone that I knew, then I can easily say how I would feel because I’ve been thinking about this kind of thing for a long time. If I were asked how I would feel if someone I knew was harmed by an immigrant, I can say with a clear conscious how I would feel. If I am told that people are never accidentally shot by someone in legal possession of a gun, I can tell them that that is bullshit. If I’m asked about how I’d feel if someone I knew were harmed in a shooting at school or work, then I can think back to the fear and sadness of the shooting at UAH.
Between growing up in a liberal/politically-oriented family, losing these people, and studying social policy in and for school, I haven’t come to my opinions about things just by chance. I’ve had to live some of it. Other parts I’ve had to look up. I can tell people that I never express an opinion that I haven’t tried to learn as much as I can about. My parents always encouraged me to learn. They always encouraged me to feel. They also taught me that I had to think for myself. I didn’t have to agree with anyone as long as I held an opinion that I understood completely. I know that people think I am uninformed. I know some think that I’m un-American or a bigot. Hell, yesterday I got the following response to something I had said on immigration:
Mexico just DEPORTED over 2,000 ILLEGALS from their country, in the past month. Why is it, you do not want to give Americans the same Equal right? I will tell you why. You are an Anti-American bigot, wanting to deny the American people, the same EQUAL RIGHTS as the rest of the world. The right to a sovereign nation.
Just as I think of people who disagree with me as being unaware of all facts on issues, I get the same comments thrown at me by people with differing opinions. And I have been called a bigot and a racist many times before, which is odd to me. I’m not a racist. If anything, I’m more on the egalitarian way of thinking. (I’ve apparently been anti-bigotry/anti-racism and pro-equality since my mom and I passed a cross being burnt somewhere nearby when I was a toddler. She said I asked what it was and she told me that it was some very bad people doing something very wrong. Later in my childhood, when it happened and made the news, I found out what it meant.) I know that it is easy to call someone a bigot or anti-whatever, though. It’s easy to assume that no one knows what they’re talking about, and maybe I don’t know the same things that others know. That doesn’t mean that my knowledge/experience is anything less important, though.
Anyway, I don’t know if this post makes any sense at all. And now I’m annoyed ’cause I read about the David Duke potential campaign for President in 2012, which I think is one of the worst pieces of news I’ve heard in a while.