by Mauve Maude
July 28, 2019
We are an intriguing mix of colors. We come from a fascinating mix of places. We’ve spoken an intoxicating number of languages. But of course, our brains never let us stop there. We’re always moving outside of that mixture to break things down, split things up, sort them into boxes so we can tell what’s what. The color purple can’t just be purple. We need primary colors of red and blue. We can’t just call ourselves by our names. We must designate a nation, or two, or a set of percentages broken down to the tenth degree, of where our saliva says we came from, before we ever were. There are plenty of things we all can say, but we let our different tongues convince us we can’t understand one another. It’s hilariously ironic that the very act of categorizing things, separating ourselves as items, dividing ourselves into sections, is the one thing we all have in common. And it would be ridiculously tragic, were we to let one or some take advantage of that irony.
Teaching our children in binaries serves a very special purpose. It keeps everything neatly arranged in stacks we like.
To teach our children, ourselves, that life in this world runs on binaries, opposites, has a very special consequence. When we insist that everything is black or white, gay or straight, man or woman, Christian or atheist, Republican or Democrat, rich or poor, introvert or extrovert, pro-life or pro-choice, pro-Black or pro-police, gun laws or mental health, cisgender or transgender–we are teaching them that there are only two answers to any question. We learn that if those answers don’t work, we’re hopeless. That if we can’t live on the North Pole or the South Pole we may as well just drown. We either/or ourselves literally to death sometimes.
But we just keep doing it, because teaching our children in binaries serves a very special purpose too. It keeps everything neatly arranged in stacks we like. There’s this one, and there’s that one, and we only have to take a quick glance to know what they are. Red cans on the right, blue cans on the left, white bag up here, black bag down there, and if we can just make ourselves trust the label, we’ll know what’s inside when we’re ready to use it. Just a little bit of hopelessness for the purpose of ease and comfort.
We want to make it easy, so we ignore the fact that there’s usually at least a third answer. And that usually if we can come up with a third, we can come up with a fourth too. Usually if we don’t stop at two, life gives us a look at what our options truly are, a pathway, if we will, to our true potential, that we never would have seen if we’d just given up after the first two answers we were thrown. Once we know that, why on Earth would we choose to stop? Who would advise an individual to just give up? And yet, we as a People choose willingly to raise our children in a system that keeps them from becoming their truest selves.
Why would we want to do that? And more importantly, why would somebody else want us to do that? Just how much hopelessness are we willing to shell out for somebody else’s ease and comfort?
Perhaps we should start entertaining the idea that binaries aren’t life. Perhaps they’re not useful tools for teaching us who we are, or learning who anybody else is, and when tools are no longer useful, they should be repaired or discarded. Granted, we are not the easiest people, or the most comfortable. Nor are we hopeless. And this won’t be. Not for you. So if you want to stop at two, stop only yourself, and best of luck. If you want to look beyond, look inside. There’s an intriguing mix of color right there.