ON THE COVER OF GENTLEMEN'S QUARTERLY.

Sometimes the last people who are willing to acknowledge the present are those who are so deeply entrenched in the past that they simply refuse see it.

Sadly, and in most of the cases I've witnessed in my life, the people who are most prone to ignore the blessings of the progress and growth which have occurred in America—over the past several decades—are those who have the most to gain from the pain of the past.

AOC, who has reached such celebrity status in American culture today that she is literally best known by her her initials, is a leading voice in the fight for those who live in a perpetual state of oppression; under the mighty hand of White Republican Men.

Now, from the platform granted to her by GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly), AOC takes her personal holy war directly to her adversaries. As a woman, on the cover of a magazine marketed to men—albeit likely not the kind of men who would see their masculinity as an honorable virtue—she proceeds to peddle the propaganda which helped elevate her to a position of prominence in the progressive party.

When speaking with GQ about an interaction she once had with a young and sanguine girl—who had hopes seeing AOC become President—AOC struggled to hold back her tears.

"I hold two contradictory things [in mind] at the same time. One is just the relentless belief that anything is possible," AOC said. "But at the same time, my experience here has given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women. And they hate women of color."

So much in this statement makes me legitimately angry. Not because I'm ignorant to the realities of hate and racism which certainly exist in the world (including America), but rather because I'm more keenly aware of the truth. An overwhelmingly large percentage of Americans have grown up in a feminist, egalitarian, and integrated America. The median age in America today, is 38 years old. This means that most Americans don't know a world before astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to perform a space walk.

And you might be tempted to ask, what does this have to do with what AOC said? If racism and misogyny exist (even on a small scale) shouldn't we address this reality? Of course we should. But problems should be addressed within a reasonable balance to the level at which they exist. 

If a father comes home from work—or better yet a mother, since we wouldn't want to offend anyone with this analogy—and finds that one of her young children has left their shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor, it would be wrong for her to go on a tirade, attacking all the children in her house or all the children in the neighborhood because of one child's lack of concern for a clean house. Did that child leave their shoes in the middle of the kitchen? The certainly did. But what this doesn't indicate is that there is a systemic problem of moral decay within the home. It's possible that one of her children has an issue with cleanliness and obedience, but it's more likely that she simply caught them on a bad day and vice versa.

All of this to suggest that the real issue I take with AOC's constant selling of a racist, tyrannical, and patriarchal America is that it simply doesn't exist; at least not as she claims it does. Let me help to make my point a little more clear. Circling back to the GQ article, here's how AOC finished her previous story:

"People ask me questions about the future. And realistically, I can’t even tell you if I’m going to be alive in September", said AOC. "And that weighs very heavily on me...This grip of patriarchy affects all of us...ideologically, there’s an extraordinary lack of self-awareness in so many places."

The Problem
The issue I have is not that AOC would dare to embellish a story. Hyperbole can be a very effective way to make a point, and people do it all the time (see what I just did there). No, the issue I have with AOC is that she a charlatan and she knows it.

She said she "realistically couldn't say whether or not she was gong to be alive in September". Now, as much as I'd like to believe this was an act of humility—acknowledging that our days are numbered by God and only he knows when our lives will be required of us (Luke 12:20)—a much more logical explanation of AOC's claim is that she wants people to believe she lives under a constant threat of assassination because she is a non-white woman of color. She basically implied as much in the statement she was making. Her fear wasn't tied to the reality that she doesn't control her own breaths, but rather that she lives in a world with racist misogynists who hate her.

A Lack of Self-Awareness
One statement which AOC made, that I can actually get behind, is that there is a lack of self-awareness that is directly tied to the ideologies which we hold. AOC believes that America is controlled by racist men who hate women of color. Well, it might be an exaggeration to suggest that she actually believes this, but it's fair to suggest that she wants other people to believe this.

And when this becomes a person's ideology and worldview, they naturally begin to see the work through that lens. When a man makes the charitable effort to hold a door for a woman, she can assume two things. Option-A: he's being a gentleman and was likely raised by a gentleman. Option-B: he's a sexist and he refuses to acknowledge that the woman doesn't need a patronizing man; she can hold her own damn door. 

This may be a pithy or extreme example, but I hope the point isn't lost. Without further attempts at man-splaining, I hope we can understand that the way in which we choose to view the world will begin to shape our worldview. And our worldview will begin to shape how we interact with the world.

When AOC continues to call out the worst of America, in order to sell snake oil (i.e. political solutions which rarely work) she actually is shaping the minds of future generations who would probably be better off looking at history, comparing it to the present, in order that they might have hope for the future. 

When people constantly allow the most negative or heinous—albeit most infrequent—examples of America to become the norm, it will begin to change their perception. And since people's perceptions become their reality, it will actually begin to shape their reality; even if their reality isn't in line with reality.

There is Hope
Not wanting to become guilty of the very thing I'm calling out in this blog post, I think it would be important for me to close with a positive—and hopefully beneficial—encouragement. 

There is hope. When we rightly look back at history, in order to learn from it and use it to help us interpret and discern the present, we should acknowledge that America has not only come a long way but also has a great deal of hope for the future.

Yes, there will be some disagreements with just how far we've come or whether the path we've taken has really even been a path of true progress. But the point I'm attempting to make here is that if we rightly look at history, at least when it comes to equality, we should be able to see the world in a different lens that the one AOC chooses. While she continues to see a world of oppression and imbalance of power, the rest of us don't have to.

Leaning into a quote by Queen Elizabeth, a day after her passing:

"I believe that, young or old, we have as much to look forward to with confidence and hope as we have to look back on with pride." — the Queen's Golden Jubilee message, June 2012