La Voz de Galicia – February 15, 2019 →
She said something along these lines: «One of the ways that we survive is by practicing forgetting…I actually have a bad memory because I’ve spent most of my life trying to not remember.» The woman on the radio was Tarana Burke, activist and founder of the Me Too movement around 2006 (Yes, Me Too existed before Twitter made it popular). And though she spoke in the context of sexual abuse since she is a survivor, the truth is that she made me think a lot about the ways we have of forgetting—both as individuals and as a society—in order to go on. Discrimination and abuse are not questions of gender alone.
Without a doubt, we still have ways to go to reach equality, and there is much to learn and much to listen to. Laura Bates, a British feminist and founder of the portal Everyday Sexism, calls our attention to the daily discrimination in all environments in which we live. Discrimination exists in several ways, not only from men to women: there is discrimination due to skin color, sexual orientation, age, ability, cultural identity…It seems that the world recognizes only one way of being human, and all others must conform to this profile and learn to forget petty daily injustices in order to survive.
But it shouldn’t be like that, right? We should be able to change at least the conversation, perhaps with small acts of kindness (that are nonetheless small acts of rebellion too). We should teach (and learn) to Listen so that those who exert power and privilege are aware of the forgotten injustices of 99% of society.
