As I was scrolling through social media a couple of weeks ago, a meme popped up that really caught my attention, and I have been thinking about it ever since. The meme shows Devarjaye “D.J.” Daniel, a 13-year-old from Texas who received a brain cancer diagnosis in 2018. Doctors gave him five months to live, and he has lived for seven years since that diagnosis. D.J. attended Trump’s Joint Address to Congress as the president’s guest, and Trump acknowledged D.J. during his speech, pointing out that D.J. always wanted to enter law enforcement and instructing Secret Service director Sean Curran to make D.J. an agent of the United States Secret Service. Curran then gives D.J. his Secret Service Agent credentials.
The meme shows D.J., at the address, holding out the credential to the crowd. The text, framing his image, reads, “When you can’t stand and cheer for a courageous boy who’s fought cancer for 6 years, you have lost your soul.” What stood out to me about this meme was the last phrase claiming if someone did not stand and clap at this moment then that person had lost whatever sense of decency they may have had and ultimately lost their soul, damning them for all eternity. I try to refrain, for the most part, from posting to things like this because I know how quickly the discussion devolves into vitriol, but I did respond to this one. I responded with the following:
While I did not see that moment (flipped over to Daredevil), I would push back on this assertion because, as with any speech, it is optics. The issue is not that DJ has survived cancer and that he wants to be a law enforcement officer. The issue comes down to having DJ there while simultaneously slashing cancer research funding from NIH and other places. A judge has, yesterday, blocked these cuts, but if you look there are other countries, like France, offering posts for research such as this that has been cut or attempted to be cut.
It is great that he survived. It is great that he is alive. No one, on either side, argues that because it is inhumane to do so. But, the assertion that individuals have “lost their soul” because they did not stand at one moment is disingenuous. They did not stand for anything, out of protest as others heckled them throughout.
The other issue here is that DJ is a Black teenager. I haven’t seen many people talking about that, but it is an issue and again goes to optics, as we know. When we have individuals using rhetoric that demeans and dehumanizes people based on race and slashes anything that resembles bringing attention to continued racist policies and practices as well as stopping civil rights investigations, the use of a young Black boy is merely a way to gloss over all of this.
I’m all for engaged conversation on any of this, but again, posts that claim someone has “lost their soul” for this is dangerous because you’re telling me, as someone who firmly disagrees with most of what has happened and continues to happen, that I have lost my soul because I see the reason DJ was there. You are making me an enemy, which you know I’m not.
Again, I am happy DJ is here. I pray he lives a long and healthy life and the cancer never returns, but in a setting like Tuesday night, amidst everything, an act of protest does not necessitate cheering when we know that DJ is there to illicit just this type of reaction. I could say the same about any guests, at any State of the Union, but I’m not going to let someone tell me I have lost my way or that I don’t believe anymore or that I’m not Christian because I call out hypocrisy (on any side at any time).
Immediately after posting my response, I messaged the person, telling them I had posted a comment to the image because “I’m really frustated at stuff like this, and it got to me.” I also let the person know, as I do with anyone, that I am always open for conversation and discussion on any of this. After my message, we started talking about various things, and it proved to be an extremely fruitful conversation that crystallizes, in many ways, a lot of the things I have been thinking about over the past few years.
During our conversation, three distinct things stood out to me in the person’s responses. First and foremost, the person informed me that they don’t get into politics and try to remain neutral, but they also admitted that they need to be more informed. All of this reminded me of Nora Krug’s grandfather Willi during World War II when, after the Nazis came to power in 1933, voted for Nazi officials when he used to vote for Social Democrats. He had a family to support, bills to pay, and more. He had to survive, and he had never been one to get into politics. However, no one can be apolitical.
In “The Right Way is Not a Moderate Way,” a speech Lillian Smith wrote for the Institute of Non-Violence and Social Change event marking the one year anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, she details how we must choose sides. We must, as she puts it, be extremist. She says people can be extremist in hate or love, thievery or honesty, lies or truth. Extremist, in this context, can become either negative or positive, depending on what side one falls. Smith reminds the audience that while “moderation” was the slogan during 1957, “moderation never made a man or nation great.” Moderation stifles because it tells us to keep our head down, to pray, with all our might, that we will wake up one day and it will all be over.
Smith confronts the audience by stating, “The question in crisis or ordeal is not: Are you going to be an extremist? The question is: What kind of extremist are you going to be?” For Smith, one must choose because if one does not choose then they become frightened and scared, overwhelmed with a fear that paralyzes them. This is the second point that the person told me during our conversation. I told them, based on all of my reading, that I am scared right now. I am fearful of what we are experiencing, the fascism, the authoritarianism, the uncertainty. I wrote, “Historically, I’m scared right now that we’re losing our nation, and I know that sounds overblown, but I’ve read a lot over past few years on Nazi Germany, fascism, and their rise.” They responded by saying, “Honestly, I am scared too, and really don’t know what to think or to believe anymore.”
This fear grows and grows everyday, especially when I see articles that point out that a report on the global state of democracy argues that the United States may lose its democracy status next year if things keeping going the way they’re going, dropping the United States from an “electoral democracy” to an “electoral autocracy,” one step away from becoming a “closed autocracy.” Smith argues that some seek “moderation because the word, to them, means safety and security. They are too frightened to move or to think; too frightened to search for a new way to meet the challenge.” They exist is a constant state of paralysis, afraid to move one way or the other.
Smith recognizes that everyone has fears, but, she says, “our minds do not work well if we become too frightened.” However, our minds do “work best of all when we are a little frightened.” What does she mean buy this? When we “become too frightened,” we freeze. We lock up. We bury our heads in the sand and “rock along and postpone thinking about it.” This action doesn’t work. Comparing political moderation to her cancer diagnosis, Smith points out that when cancer, like the crises of the moment, does not go away if we do nothing and hope for the best. She says, “Because of the nature of both diseases — one physical, one social — because you cannot wall these problems in, you do not have time to lose with cancer; nor today, do we have time to lose in facing up to segregation, since the Supreme Court has spoken.”
We can be afraid, yes, but that fear cannot consume us because if it consumes us we do nothing. We get to where we are “trying very hard not to be extremists” and thus “trying hard to be neither good nor evil.” When faced with the fear that the risk is too high to even contemplate acting, Smith simply responds, “The time has now come when it is dangerous not to risk. We must take calculated risks in order to soave our integrity, our moral nature, our lives, and all that is rich and creative in our culture.” Our action saves ourselves, and by extension those we love, our communities, our nation, and our world. When we fail to act, we lose ourselves and cower, praying that what comes will not impact us in any way.
The last point that the person stated is something everyone can agree on. They said, “In my mind and heart, I just want everyone to live a happy life and able to afford things for themselves and their families and feel safe in our country.” That is what we all want; however, when we do not realize the attacks on those basic hopes and dreams, we deny those things to others and then ultimately to ourselves. To the demonstrators who participated in the bus boycott, Smith asked them, “Do you, here in Montgomery, realize that in helping yourselves to secure your freedom you are helping young white southerners secure theirs, too? This is a big thing. This is how the creative act works: it always helps somebody else besides you.”
Some individuals want to, so badly, demonize anyone who voted for Trump and/or the policies he and the GOP support. However, that instinct creates even further division and derision. It plays into the hands of authoritarians and fascists because it allows them to construct and “us versus them” paradigm and an “enemy within” narrative. Smith constantly argued for the building of bridges across the widening chasm, for connecting with one another not severing relationships. On Bluesky, Billie Hoard shared a thread recently where they called upon us to not “fall for the temptation to say that American fascists ‘aren’t real Americans’” because when we do this we give into the argument and add fuel to the fire “that some American citizens are ‘less American’ than others.” If we all want “to live a happy life,” then the continued construction of enemies harms all of us.
In no way am I saying that we do not disagree with fascist agendas or actions. I am saying, though, that we cannot fall into the trap of dehumanizing others. We can vehemently disagree and resist, and we must do these things, but when we say, “You’re not American” or other similar things, we construct an enemy, both externally and internally. As Bradley Onishi pointed out, what we see today “is an us problem,” thus truly American, and we all must decide where we stand.
As Smith stated back in 1957, “The critical moment is on us. Now is the time to deal with it.” Her words echo today, asking us what we will do in this moment. Will we remain moderate, hoping that things will pass over us as we go about our lives? Or, will we confront this moment, thus freeing ourselves and those around us both physically and spiritually? That is the question we must ask ourselves because our choice could cause us to lose our soul.
What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Bluesky @silaslapham.
Interminable Rambling 