Crimes, not Victims

I’ve said this elsewhere, but – damn.

It’s one more example of the political Right’s nastiest bit of spin-doctoring – the “liberal media.” How long have we been talking about women’s rights, black and Hispanic rights, gay rights, children’s rights? All these groups.  The national conversations about whether it’s acceptable to discriminate against them or not are really starting to piss me off.

The focus on the specific marginalized group is what gives it the lie. Don’t know if we all noticed the difference, but when we were talking about the Catholic Church, did we question whether children were on the no-molest list? No, we blamed the priests and their bosses. When we see the ISIS atrocities, do we discuss whether the victims are Christians or Muslims and which if any of those victims are on the no-decapitation list? No we’re talking about the perpetrators of these crimes, of course.

So why is discrimination different?

Why, when the crime is discrimination, is the focus on the victims? I believe the wording of the discrimination laws offer a clue: “race, creed, religion, sex, age . . .” – so anyone who wasn’t on the radar when they drafted those statutes is still fighting to get into the text, to get on the no-discriminate list, I guess. But why?

Why is obvious, of course. It’s about who is dominant in the culture, and they’re not in the habit of prosecuting themselves. So, there’s a for-real why, making my rhetorical one kind of stupid, but still: why, when this is what might be rational? That discrimination is a crime, and I don’t much care who your victim is! There is one important group to mention in this conversation, and that is white people (here in Canada and the USA), most importantly rich white people. Discrimination is a crime engaged in by the dominant ones, by definition, so that’s the group we’re talking about. Discrimination by minorities is a lesser problem, also by definition.

Why can’t discrimination just be bad? It always is, isn’t it? Why can’t we just let it go, why are we hanging on to the pure essence of something that we have already outlawed for many major minorities? Is it that we feel we have to discriminate against somebody?

This is a quickie, so here’s the upshot: if you’re watching your TV and some talking heads are going on about gays, or women and their rights, switch them off. If they’re talking about victims, that’s our clue: that talk is the perpetrators’ game. The liberal considers all people to be citizens and worthy of rights and protections, and so the conversation is not about who the victims are, they are the victims, that’s all we need to know.

This is about crime, which means we should be talking about criminals. We should be talking about crime. Only the criminals sit around discussing whether their victims have rights.