The Outrage

by William Hussey

My dad once told me that they came for the libraries first. “Not smashing and burning, not in the beginning,” he said, “but claiming no one used them and closing them down, one by one. You see, Gabe, when they take away the places that help people think, sometimes people stop thinking altogether.”

Eerie

“Representation was important,” I say, pulling the box towards me. “Is important. To see yourself reflected as a human being, with worth and dignity? I really think that has the power to change minds. Even save lives. The problem is, even back then, not everyone got to see themselves represented. Not well, anyway.”

“It doesn’t make any sense! I mean, in the film it’s clear that trans people were right there in the fight for our rights. They were actually the ones who first led us into battle, and then what? We just disowned them?”

“They hardly ever got to be the hero of their own story,” he says. Returning the disc to the box, June gives him a sad smile. “Oh honey,” she says. “Who does?”

Foreshadowing much?

But one day I’m going to make them care. That’s the power of movies: they can inspire compassion, outrage, empathy, the whole glorious rainbow.

“You know, when you live through a time of progress it seems that progress is the only possible way. The idea that everything we’d gained, all those hard-won rights, could be taken away from us, that open minds could be closed again?”

They wanted someone strong to take charge, to explain it all to them in a few easy words. It really is amazing how people will surrender their minds, just to feel secure.”

And then I remember something Albert said after the movie had finished. They hardly ever got to be the hero of their own stories. I realize now that she was seeing herself truly reflected,

The wonderful shift in pronouns <3

Evil is so unoriginal.

Evil isn’t only unoriginal, it’s epically stupid.

Complacency is our enemy and ignorance of our past means we might well be doomed to repeat it.