LOVE WHO?

Forget your enemy, and neighbor, why do we love our oppressors.

We have all met that person---the female coworker that makes the statement--with great pride "I don't get along that well with other women, I think more like a man", the wife that gives religious reasons for husbands beating their wives that don't act right, even the kidnap-victim that joins the gang that kidnapped her (Shades of Stockholm Syndrome).

When I read Alice Walkers "Possessing the secret of Joy" regarding the elderly women that both performed the female circumcisions and encouraged the practice, I knew I had also met this person, the person that gains personal power at the expense of his or her own peer group. Trustees in prisons do this, people held in bondage do this, the "teacher's pet" and the middle-management kiss-up, all do this.   The tough guys in old mafia movies do this, as does the crime boss's "kept woman".

What is the pay-off for such behavior.  We know the price of fighting the wrongs in the system, and the possible pay-off if we all stand strong.  But what is the payoff of assisting those that do wrong to their own  "tribe".

Is it an increase in self esteem?  I find it hard to believe that such hypocritical esteem boosting can exist, but think that may well play a part.  If you hear that your group; women, minorities, unclean, unmoneyed, uneducated, undeserving, unbelonging. other--whatever other might mean--is inferior and to be despised, enough times, you learn to believe it.  For people that are used to not thinking for themselves or that have always followed an authoritarian leader, believing that means they are doing the right thing, becoming closer to those that are better (whether that is male or white or holy or upper caste or the super-rich or powerful in whatever way affects their own world view).

Is it pride? Is it a sign of a competitive person that has found a way to WIN.  Winning by association?

Is it for favors?  For Tips?  For Gifts?   For the opportunity to live a little better than their peers in exchange for loyalty?  Is it for a Gilded Cage?  Or is it more like the original wild dogs that became domesticated as they edged closer and closer to the fires of men to eat the scraps and share a bit of warmth.

Tell me it is NOT just about the ruling class and the rest of us have just become domesticated.

Is it for an opportunity to be seen and heard by our Betters, for a little credit, for a little opportunity.  We all know that people that are oppressed frequently never develop their full potential; if they think deep thoughts and see great creations in their heads and yearn to invent and study and compile, they rarely get the opportunity to make any of that happen outside their own brain.  And being oppressed, unvalued, mistreated, told exactly what you can do and what you are worth and how you will end is pretty depressing.  Depressed people can give up.   Its very hard on cognitive skills.

I know that there have been those seen as exceptional (think about the root of that word, just think about it) that despite their poor, oppressed status they developed a place in society.  These exceptions are shown off like race horses or fur coats by those that feel they "created" them.  Did these individuals become exceptional just because they needed to use their minds.  How many of their peers were ignored or misused or beaten down for that same kind of exceptionalism that was never recognized or worse, was punished by those in power.

Everyday, I read or hear someone comment about how "I know a lot of rich people" or "my father is rich" or "my family runs a corporation" and then they proceed to prove that there is no inequality of opportunity.  Every time, Every. Time.  I hear this and the speaker is talking about people that are doing a little better than they are.  Their rich friends have a nice $200,000 dollar mortgage, both work, no kids, they went on a cruise, they bought a low-end Lexus.  Their dad always has money to loan them, and they live in a nice middle-class neighborhood and don't need to make payday loans. (they even paid college without loans), Everytime, the corporation is a single local eatery and Mom and kids just stopped providing the labor 2 years ago or they have a Mcdonalds franchise and on of them is there for a shift as manager every day. My sister's son knew one rich family--from a sport group that cost her a crapload of money, but was no big deal to them.  They were rich--top two percent of wealth--but not born there.  They were born at the top end of middle-class and went into one those two careers that everyone knows can move you up.  Lawyer, Doctor.  And there are plenty of both that never make it above the upper middle.  They neither one have to live blue-collar, though.  That family never thought twice about seeing a show in Vegas, fly out, see it, eat, spend the night, fly home.  (my friends...that is a lifetime trip, usually starting with a 18 hour drive with the car piled full.)

This just proves how important perspective is.  When you are lying at the bottom of the hole, the people standing over you in the bottom of the hole look immensely well-off.  The people at the top of the hole look like gods.  But at the bottom of the hole, there are no mountains, mountains are not even imaginable.  Who dreams of mountains when all you can see is a blip of sky behind the heads of those still standing over you.

I'm sure that lying their, helpless and hopeless must make you love the head that might be looking down at you.  You might matter a little. 

Maybe loving our oppressors are our enemies and loving them is not that rare.  Maybe we all need to learn to love those that we see as our inferiors, beneath us.  Maybe.  Or maybe it is a strange but common belief--fantasy--daydream, that we are better than the rest of the people in our situation, and "almost a real person." Do many of us dream of being loved by a rich/powerful person and being transformed like the Velveteen Rabbit.