I don’t remember when I discovered the God page on Facebook. I remember liking it when we lived in Texas, which was about seven years ago. I probably liked it in North Carolina, too… which was about ten years ago. It used to be a genuinely hilarious source of laughs on a daily basis. But now, it seems to be full of self-righteous virtue signalers who want to live in an echo chamber. And since this past year has been unlike any other in my lifetime, I find that I have less time for people who try my patience. It’s not so much God that tries my patience. It’s his “followers”, many of whom are, frankly, very obnoxious, narrow-minded, and hypocritical.

I may decide to follow God again at some point, but I’ve found that many times, once I get sour on something, I don’t want to return to it. I used to follow George Takei’s page, but I had to quit following him a couple of years ago… again because of the other people who follow him. Same with Janis Ian, although I did recently re-follow her. And Wil Wheaton… had to stop following him, too. I just can’t hack it.

So what brought on the unfollowing? It was a post God had shared about a woman who went maskless into a grocery store in New York. The woman– who is now dubbed “Bagel Betsy” (again with the hijacking of people’s names and turning them into insults)– was asked to put on a face mask. She adamantly refused. Security asked her to leave the store, and she dropped the n-bomb at the cashier. Later, when people gave her hell on social media, the woman posted a picture of a report from 23andme, claiming to be biracial, and wrote that all of her children have a Black father. She also defended her right to call the cashier a “bitchass n-bomb” because she claims that she, herself, has Black ancestry.

As you might have guessed, the post was quite inflammatory and there were over a thousand outraged comments. A few brave and intrepid souls tried to inject some reason into the flood of hatred. One woman bravely posted that words only have the power that we give them. She got a huge ration of shit for that. Another asked why it’s only okay for certain people use certain words. Again… tons of insults lobbed at her for asking a serious and honest question. Below is just one example of the exchanges on that thread.

Here’s a comment from Pam:

“She does have a point. I’ve often heard black people say that word. If it’s ok for them to say it, but not white people, isn’t that racist too?“

Oh boy… that opened the flood gates of hypocrisy. One guy, name of John, wrote this:

“my friends and I call each other all sorts of names but god help anyone else who tries it on with us! You have missed the point by a stratospheric amount.“

So Pam asked:

“Again, its an honest question. I’ve never understood why its bad”

And John responded:

“really, please tell me you are being sarcastic. As a Scot I don’t mind being called a “Jock” by other Scots. But don’t you dare call me a Jock if you aren’t Scottish. It is about the use of the language. Using the N word if you aren’t black is normally a way of suggesting that people of colour are inferior to whites.”

At this point, I have to ask… how would we even know where exactly someone is from? How would we even know what their racial makeup is? At what point is someone “Black enough” or “Scottish enough” or whatever, for someone to use a widely accepted insult and not face repercussions? I have mentioned before that when in was in college, I studied African-American literature and Women’s literature. Both classes included slave narratives that we read and discussed. I distinctly remember learning about concepts such as the tragic mulatto and the one-drop rule in both of those courses. The one-drop rule held that anyone who had even just a drop of “Negro” (in historical terms) blood was considered Black.

By that definition, my husband Bill, who looks very much like someone who is European to the core, would be considered Black. He has ancestors from Nigeria and Ghana. Of course, no one would know that to look at him. He would never dream of dropping the n-bomb in an insulting way. But 120 years ago, he technically could have been classified as a Black person, based on the one-drop rule– which, thank Heavens, was never codified into a federal law, but was codified as a state law in some states. Direct from Wikipedia:

The one-drop rule is a social and legal principle of racial classification that was historically prominent in the United States in the 20th century. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry (“one drop” of black blood)^[1][2] is considered black (Negro or colored in historical terms). 

This concept became codified into the law of some states in the early 20th century. It was associated with the principle of “invisible blackness” that developed after the long history of racial interaction in the South, which had included the hardening of slavery as a racial caste and later segregation. It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.^[3]

The one-drop rule is defunct in law in the United States and was never codified into federal law.

In no way do I think that the racist outburst by the maskless woman at the grocery store was a good thing. It was absolutely disgusting behavior, and I do not condone it under any circumstances. But I also think the barrage of negativity that comes toward anyone who questions the logic of people losing their shit over racist epithets, but thinking nothing of insulting total strangers with hateful and dehumanizing words like “bitch”, “cunt”, “white trash”, “slut”, and “asshole” simply because they have a different perspective, is mind bogglingly non-sensical and hypocritical.

I’ve just gotten to the point at which reading that stuff makes my head (and heart) hurt, even if I also fully admit to being hypocritical. I like using a couple of those words myself. 😉 I just think that if equality is what we all seek, we have to realize that using degrading language toward any person, regardless of their racial makeup, is offensive and wrong. I’m working on myself, too, and reading that stuff makes it harder to break the habit, even if it does sometimes provide blog topics.

Is it really a good thing to wish for people to be unemployed? Especially when they have children? It seems to me that we’d be better served to wish for “Bagel Betsy” to grow up and be civilized. We should want her to raise her own kids, rather than have them taken by government authorities and put in foster care. We should hope that she becomes a better person tomorrow, rather than trying to destroy her livelihood and break up her family. Many people in that thread were commenting that “Bagel Betsy” should lose her kids over this outburst. Have they even thought what that might mean for the children? Foster care is a crap shoot. It’s a blessing for some children; for others, it means going from one bad situation straight into another.

I don’t approve of what “Bagel Betsy” did, but I don’t wish her dead, injured, ill, unemployed, or for her to lose her family. It’s my experience that people who behave the way she did have reasons for behaving that way. Making things even worse for her, and for her family by association, will not teach her a lesson. It will probably just make her even more hateful, inconsiderate, and mean. Moreover, this is just a tiny sliver of her life. I’ll bet there are people in her life who love her. If there aren’t, perhaps that’s why she’s dropping n-bombs in public.

I find the single-mindedness of people’s negative comments disturbing. I’ve written about this before, but it really is creepy when a horde of people insist that we must all subscribe to a certain viewpoint, or we’re worthless and must be destroyed with insults. And, as much as I can’t stand the Trump mindset, I also dislike the super left-wing politically correct crowd who can’t see their own hypocrisy and hubris. Here’s another comment that indicates that you don’t have the right to use certain insulting words unless you’re in that group yourself…

There are words acceptable among your friends, your in-group, that you are a part of that are NOT acceptable in the general public or if you are not part of the group –this is true of some terms used for women, disabled persons, LGBTQ etc. Again you need to BELONG to the group to have the right to choose what you call yourself and your community.

Who gets to decide what “group” a person is in, that makes it okay to use denigrating language toward that group? Can a person decide for themselves, or does it take another person or more to make that decision? I don’t understand this rationale, and it’s exhausting to try to understand it. If you ask the question among these folks, they resort to insults and shaming. They never answer the question in a mindful, serious way.

Another example of why I unfollowed God was this below post, which appeared this morning as I was unsuccessfully trying to find a lone wise comment in that huge thread about “Bagel Betsy”.

The few brave folks who wrote that this is not a good idea were promptly drowned out by the self-righteous. Many people who have declared themselves fully onboard with the anti-covidiot crowd feel perfectly free to harass, judge, and insult those who have a different view. And even if you declare that you agree with wearing face masks, but disagree with the above obnoxious behavior, you will be aggressively called out by God followers who can’t have a civilized discussion.

The lady who posted the above comment got so much hate from the peanut gallery for simply suggesting that people pick their battles. Frankly, I think paying your kids to call people out over a lack of a face mask rather than doing it yourself (if you feel so inclined) is the height of cowardice. Having your kids do your dirty work is potentially dangerous and very stupid. At what point is it no longer going to be okay for them to call people out? When will people stop thinking it’s “cute” that a kid took an adult to task over absent or improper mask wearing?

There’s a good reason why the adults don’t want to call people out themselves. It’s because you never know who’s carrying a weapon and having a bad day. The adults figure people won’t harm a child, so it’s somehow “safer” for them to “innocently” chastise an adult for not following the rules. But children get harmed by the unhinged all the time. And, as easy as it is for you to whip out a camera and put someone’s bad behavior online, it can be just as easy for someone who is angry and unsettled to whip out something and do the same to a child, who is being encouraged by an adult to be obnoxious to strangers. If you’re lucky they’ll whip out a camera, rather than a firearm. Personally, I wouldn’t want to put my hypothetical child in that position, and I hate to see it being encouraged by “God”. Seriously speaking, I think it’s a very bad idea, even if it’s being suggested in jest.

Really, though, the main reason why I’m no longer following God is that the page just isn’t funny anymore. It used to be about jokes. Now, it’s mostly inflammatory articles about people behaving badly in public, and insufferable strangers reacting to the bad behavior in extremely hypocritical and self-righteous ways. Instead of promoting better behavior and civility, these folks are not a lot better themselves. Their comments often indicate that they’re just as immature and offensive as the perpetrators are, only they’re on the “right” or “left” side of public or political opinion. It’s exhausting and annoying to read that shit, and everyone knows I can’t resist the comments. So I have decided to bow out. Maybe, now that a year has passed since we lost Jonny the would be rescue hound to negligence, it’s time to follow the dog rescue pages again. That might help me keep my blood pressure down.