I've always been told to keep my head down

Thinking about it, I’ve had a weird education. My parents were both primary school teachers. They taught me to be human and kind, and to treat others well and fairly. But this upbringing had its limits. When he was young, my father was into politics. He still likes politics, but he does not actively participate anymore. He told me stories about the inner working of active politics (NB: in Switzerland) that made me afraid of it.

Despite having taught me the principles of fairness and justice, when I was growing up they also taught me to keep my head down, as the wrong words at the wrong moment could come back and haunt me, for example when I would be looking for a job. They taught me that being too political out loud, and getting on some people’s bad side would cause me nothing but trouble. In short, they taught me to stay neutral, like a true little Swiss. They taught me not to speak up, in order to avoid individual disadvantages and conflict.

But that was not enough for me. It started maybe six or seven years ago, when I abandoned my (soft) catholic upbringing for good. When I started to speak up as an atheist – my first form of activism – their advice was the same: “keep your head down, you never know who’s listening”. But that was not enough for me. I felt I had to speak up. So I just avoided speaking up with them in the room, but secretly went on having conversations on Facebook and other media about religion. A few years later, some fortuitous meetings brought me to understand how our society is deeply rooted in sexism. So I started to speak up about that. And that was the first time that something hit me in this way: I could not shut down my thoughts in front of my parents. They taught me who I was (and I think they did a great job at that), so maybe now it was my duty to make them see those things that they did not teach me.

I should specify that my parents are not sexist, nor they are racist. They are secularists and support the separation between church and state. We are a family with deeply liberal values (liberal in the real sense of the word, not in the american sense). But also, they are moderate. And so, while they taught me all those values, my parents also taught me to be a moderate. You all know what I am talking about: when someone professes not to be sexist, but is against the use of the word “feminist” because it’s not equality; when someone says not to be racist, but gets defensive when being forced to face white privilege.

When I started to consider myself a militant atheist, I realized soon that the hardest obstacle to secularism is not represented by fanatics of any religion. The real problem is the critical mass of moderate barely religious people who will always treat fanatics as “bad apples” or “not true believers”; does this kind of rhetoric reminds you of anything? In this mind frame, only a few crazy guys are the cause of all the crimes of religion – just ignore the systemic patterns of abuse perpetrated by the Church to this day; only crazy men kill their own wife – just ignore the systematic report of feminicide as “passion crimes” by the media; only bad cops kill black people – just ignore that entire police corps have been extremely violent against BLM protesters these past days.

I was lucky that in our multi-connected society I was exposed to these important movements through the eyes of who was experiencing it. I started by listening at atheist arguments, and then I started listening to women, and LGBTQ+ members. Now it is my turn to face white privilege, and how my easy life was also a result of the systemic oppression of minorities. I have nothing to say about the topics per se, because it is not my place to talk about it. But I will do my best to amplify their voices. I will do my best to help, support, and do the work when needed. And I will also annoy my parents with it: because if it is true that they taught me to keep my head down, they also taught me about fairness. And this is not fair. Nothing of this is. I am part of the problem. And I will fight to solve it too.

And if my parents’ worst fears will become true, if someone will not hire me because I dared to speak up… maybe at that point I will have a glimpse of what minorities have to deal with day after day.

Black Lives Matter.

• 2022 2
• 2020 4