Say It

You’re a hypocrite. You profess conviction about things in public that your private decisions undermine, often unconsciously, sometimes with a wincing, shoulder-shrugging acknowledgement, and, on certain very rare occasions, with bald complicity.

Authenticity is important, and we should be moving every day in the direction of congruence between what we say and how we actually live. Phonies are intolerable.

Black Lives Matter. Say it. Put it on a sign and take it to the street. The moment you do so you expose your hypocrisy and open yourself up to interrogation by the Phonie Finders and the Whatabouts. They, threatened and uncomfortable, will point out your complicity in perpetuating white supremacy and your cozy coexistence with racism, and they will be right.

Say it anyway. Public failure is a useful inoculation against inaction. Plus, consider the source: how much do you care about the critique of those who aren’t even trying?

Say it anyway. Self-aware hypocrisy is more useful than the smug silence of the self-satisfied. The self-aware own the chasm between their words and their actions, and they work to shrink it. That’s productive; the chasm will never completely close and there will forever be more to do. The self-satisfied avoid the chasm by saying nothing, protecting themselves from accusation. Good for them, bad for everyone else.

Black Lives Matter. Say it. Speaking truth has a way of changing more than your mouth.

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