Journal Entry - 10/19/2020
What power do individuals have to challenge systems of injustice? Is this the right question to ask? What about, why do groups of human beings tend toward systems of injustice? Why do people become corrupt? Why do they seek to harm others? Why is it the powerless who must take on the powerful?
I’m not sure which grade it was, but one of my history teachers once said something like “America has the longest-lasting democracy in history.” I remember, as a young teenager or maybe a pre-teen, thinking, uh oh, that’s not good. I didn’t buy that we were unique or exceptional or special. I thought we were winding down, nearing the end of our honeymoon period. I felt like I had been born near the end of American democracy’s temporal range, so to speak. How unfair, I remember thinking at the time. I learned about dictators in Central and South America in my Spanish classes. Seems like it’s happened everywhere but here. Seems like we’re due.
As I’ve gotten older, and learned more about the history of my own country and the world, I understand that the line between democracy and dictatorship is much blurrier than it first appears, and that a democracy for one person can simultaneously be a dictatorship for another. “When does a country cease to be a democracy?” does not have a straightforward answer. The question that weighs heavy on me is, “Why?” Why is it so hard for human beings to create governments that represent the interests of the people? Why do human beings tend toward corruption and despotism? I don’t know the answers to these questions. For my own sanity, it’s better for me to focus on the fact that there have always been, and still are, people who put up a fight. In the midst of an apocalyptic plague, a news article about Chinese journalists attempting to expose the truth in the early days of the pandemic gave me hope. Why? It’s not like they prevented the virus from spreading across the world. It’s not like it prevented my friends’ parents and grandparents from dying. I don’t know why it made me feel better, and made me feel like maybe a better world is possible, despite all the suffering. Maybe that’s not the right question to ask.
I’m not sure which grade it was, but one of my history teachers once said something like “America has the longest-lasting democracy in history.” I remember, as a young teenager or maybe a pre-teen, thinking, uh oh, that’s not good. I didn’t buy that we were unique or exceptional or special. I thought we were winding down, nearing the end of our honeymoon period. I felt like I had been born near the end of American democracy’s temporal range, so to speak. How unfair, I remember thinking at the time. I learned about dictators in Central and South America in my Spanish classes. Seems like it’s happened everywhere but here. Seems like we’re due.
As I’ve gotten older, and learned more about the history of my own country and the world, I understand that the line between democracy and dictatorship is much blurrier than it first appears, and that a democracy for one person can simultaneously be a dictatorship for another. “When does a country cease to be a democracy?” does not have a straightforward answer. The question that weighs heavy on me is, “Why?” Why is it so hard for human beings to create governments that represent the interests of the people? Why do human beings tend toward corruption and despotism? I don’t know the answers to these questions. For my own sanity, it’s better for me to focus on the fact that there have always been, and still are, people who put up a fight. In the midst of an apocalyptic plague, a news article about Chinese journalists attempting to expose the truth in the early days of the pandemic gave me hope. Why? It’s not like they prevented the virus from spreading across the world. It’s not like it prevented my friends’ parents and grandparents from dying. I don’t know why it made me feel better, and made me feel like maybe a better world is possible, despite all the suffering. Maybe that’s not the right question to ask.
About this Piece
I wasn’t sure how to approach this piece. The Hate U Give is a pretty straightforward book. There isn’t a lot of nuance in the “alternative perspective” in the book, which would most likely be Starr’s ex-friend’s racism. More interesting, to me, was the alternative to my question. What would the alternative be to: What power do individuals have to challenge systems of injustice? I think it would really be the larger question, “Why do human beings tend toward systems of injustice to begin with?” I took the idea of a journal entry and ran with it, essentially just exploring that larger question from a personal perspective.
References
Thomas, A. (2017). The Hate U Give. Harper Collins.
Yuan, S. (2020). Inside the early days of China’s Coronavirus coverup: The dawn of a pandemic—as seen through the news and social media posts that vanished from China’s internet. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-coverup/
Thomas, A. (2017). The Hate U Give. Harper Collins.
Yuan, S. (2020). Inside the early days of China’s Coronavirus coverup: The dawn of a pandemic—as seen through the news and social media posts that vanished from China’s internet. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-coverup/