Every week, I scan through the news to post on this blog, whether for daily quick jabs or for this weekly gang-rape. And for the past several weeks, I’ve noticed a trend: everyone’s a victim. Really, this isn’t just a recent trend, but something ongoing since at least I first noticed it in 1999 after Columbine. Not only is everyone a victim, but they want you to know it, and if you fail to observe that, then they’re also offended.
Whether they know someone who goes to Virginia Tech, have watched the news since September 11, 2001 or observe Christmas as a religious holiday, they demand recognition and respect. Woe be to anyone who trivializes their anguish by telling a joke, going out drinking or refusing to wish them a “Merry Christmas.”
And the funniest part is that they’re proud of their victimhood. For some reason, it is considered vindication, probably from watching too many courtroom television shows and movies:
- ATTORNEY: Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let me assure you that the defendant is the real victim here. The plaintiff wants you to believe that he is the victim, but he is, in fact, not.
The problem is that most of the people pretending to be victims are not actually victims. In order to be a victim, by definition, you must be “acted upon” (Merriam-Webster).
It’s easy to see when someone is striving to be a victim: they tell the story of where they were when it happened. It’s the worst possible conversation starter, but they cling to it, often asking “Where were you when [such and such] happened?”
- I’ll never forget that morning. I was in elementary school, first period. My assistant principal, Mr. Feely, rushed into the classroom to turn on the news. He said, “We’ve been attacked.” The news from New York and DC was devastating, especially for me, a seven-year-old. (I was in Portland, Oregon). Years later, I met someone whose grandfather served in the Portland Chamber of Commerce. If he had been alive in 2001 (he died in 1984 from liver spots), he could have been on a business trip to New York, doing commerce things in the World Trade Center.
The above is an exaggeration, but based on actual 9/11 recountings I’ve unfortunately heard. In every case, the idea is that this person had a singular experience, and if I tell a joke (like, Dude, Where’re My Towers?), then I am personally offending them.
There’s always a convoluted connection to victims that would confuse Kevin Bacon. One of my favorites was on a Facebook group dedicated to “finding” the Penn State guy wearing bloody Tech clothes: “I’m only in high school, but one of my friends is in his first year at Virginia Tech.”
That’s right: this person’s reason for tracking down and abusing a Penn State student was because of a friend that wasn’t even at the school during the shooting. Other members’ reasons probably included remembering the 2004 National Football Championship; knowing someone who lives in Virginia, West Virginia or Tennessee; and choosing orange and maroon as their wedding colors.
This ties into, of course, empathetic anger.
It’s not sympathetic anger, because the sheer number of offended victims does not equal actual victims. In the case of Tech, 32 people were killed. It is not possible for over 6,000 people (in one group alone) to be legitimately sympathetic to their memory.
But, technically, their rage isn’t empathetic, either. Empathy implies that you understand what a person is going through. The odds of this actually happening with this many people is also highly improbable. Even if you tally the victims of this mass shooting with those in Columbine, that mall and the mega-church, I seriously doubt the majority of the group had close ties with any of those victims or any other homicide in the country.
Realistically, if this many people were personally impacted by these shootings, Washington would shut down the gun industry, and universities would give every student a personal hand gun (with costs added to room and board fees).
Empathetic anger is hilarious in its impotence. Self-perceived victims make impossible rules for everyone else like, “We can’t let this happen ever again,” or “nobody is allowed to joke about this.”
There will always be gun violence, whether it’s because you weren’t there to shoot everyone who looks crazy or because your gun went off when you forgot about the round in the chamber.
And why can’t we joke about it? The real victims are dead or recovering. Is it okay if they joke about it, or should they quietly suffer through survivor’s guilt? And if everyone’s a victim, as you self-righteously claim, then aren’t we also exempt?
The worst behavior exhibited by our nation of “victims” is the perceived slight. Examples include White Man’s Burden, “there’s ‘God’ in my pledge of allegiance” and the War on Christmas.
White Man’s Burden falls under the same sense of entitlement that led to Manifest Destiny: “if everyone else is offended by things that white people do, then we’re entitled to be angry, too.” White guys, we don’t have to feel bad. We just have to make sure we don’t screw up again by enslaving, or otherwise taking advantage of, other cultures. Is that so hard? It’s a token effort, like not double-parking or not having sex with your sister.
Atheists, how often do you pledge allegiance to the flag? I’ve done no such thing since I graduated high school. Why? Because people assume I’m going to shoot everyone if I’m talking earnestly to a flag on public ground. Also, because I don’t have to recite a litany drafted by socialists (look it up) to remain loyal to my country. If you don’t believe in a religion because you’re too f–ing smart to fall for imaginary stories, then why is the word offensive? Either you suck at unbelieving, or you’re playing a “victim” for sympathy.
As for the War on Christmas: do you know how many times in my life I’ve been wished a Happy Hanukkah or Kwanza? Never. I have no real idea how many of coworkers celebrate either holiday, and that’s because they don’t feel the need to bother me with it. I don’t care if you celebrate Christmas, even though I do. Why? Because it’s time I spend with my family and friends. If a cashier doesn’t wish me a Merry Christmas on December 12th, I don’t assume it’s because they hate my religion; I assume it’s because Christmas isn’t until December 25th and silently congratulate them for having more restraint than their sales and marketing departments.
The worst part is that, if everyone is a victim, then nobody is a victim. Think about it: if everyone lived with the same amount of anguish, whether they have pancreatic cancer or lost a wife in a carjacking, or they heard a dirty joke in a men’s room or watched the news, then that leveled anguish would just be the status quo. In other words, it’d be normal life. What would separate a victim of racism from a “victim” of having to hear “God” mentioned? Nothing.
So quit pretending you’re better than the rest of us because you “give a damn.” That’s not good enough. Really, you’re using someone else’s pain to push the rest of us around, and that’s pretty sick.