Sympathy for the Marginalized

If postmodernism has taught us anything, it is that anyone on the margins of of reified society's page has a deontological claim to pity. "Sympathy for the marginalized" has become a staple of whatever public discourse we still possess, and a demonstration that a person or group has been pushed to the edge of cultural life provokes an automatic response from those of us fortunate enough to have been conditioned in a postmodern way. This conditioned response combines empathy with anger to produce action on behalf of the oppressed person or group.

As an American, I have been conditioned to think in this manner, and I champion (oops, too martial a metaphor) the appropriateness of this response. However, it has come to my attention that in our focus on racial and gender oppression in this country and epidemics on other continents, we have not paid sufficient attention to a group whose very name has become the ultimate political pejorative: fascists.

The presidency of George W. Bush has brought this term back into public parlance. Back when Communism wasn't just for third-world fratricides and American college professors, the term "fascist" was bandied about with a real referent at hand. Though bona fide fascists are a little hard to find these days, they may still exist somewhere. And if they still do exist, how do you think they feel when they hear Democrats and Republicans alike use their convictions' designation as the political equivalent of "nigger"?

Let me remind all of you that the United States is a pluralistic democracy where each person has an equal right to her own opinion, no matter how outlandish. We can never again descend to the degradation of our forebears, who made oppressive statements such as "We hold these truths to be self-evident." We must celebrate all the colors of the rainbow, and more: we should celebrate brown, too.