I blame it all on a fucking cricket. It’s hiding under our dishwasher, behind the cabinets. It has been rubbing its legs, repeatedly, noisily, infuriatingly, making an infernal racket for over two nights now. All this to attract a mate. Geez, the things one does to get laid. Anyway, now, for these two plus days, I have felt like the walking dead and that is my reason for not writing. Isn’t that a better excuse than my dog ate my homework?
I know I must’ve slept a teensy bit since I opened my eyes and have remembered a tidbit of a dream I think I just had. I was in a law office which led to the backstage of a theater and the wings. I believe I was an actress whose lead role was the mother of a handsome (aren’t they all? No? Well this one was. Sigh.) philanderer. I entered at stage right, walked over deliberately and told my “son” how ashamed I was of his behavior, exited stage left, then got lost outside the building and the rest of the dream spiraled into some other story but all with me trying desperately to return to the stage to deliver my next line. There was always some distraction preventing my ability to find the wings. I guess I got fired. I vaguely remember somehow telling the director I was led the wrong way by a fellow actor, though for all I know I blamed it on the damn cricket…he’s a great scapegoat.
See, even I, a person with relatively excellent intentions, even in my dreams, can blame someone else for my own lack of attention or other foibles. Just imagine those with evil intent. What? You can’t think of at least one? Okay. Okay. I know I can… and I can bet they don’t have crickets messing with their head through the night that can innocently take the blame because they’ve got at least one human who can be their whipping boy/girl/s.
In my brief, though intense study of scapegoats, the type and level of same are relative to the nastiness of those who mete out their punishment. Just for the hell of it, I invite you to briefly follow me along the narrow and winding path through Man’s history of narrow mindedness in making others responsible for their misdeeds, lies and general meaniness!
I introduce you to the eons old ritual of sacrificing an actual goat to signify the casting out of evil and sin, employed by a whole slew of cultures as a means to keep their communities “good” and wealthy, devoid of the negative, avoiding responsibilities or whatever they deemed so. Yep, this silly custom was the go-to by those gosh darn ancient Greeks, Syrians, Christians, Sumerians and you guessed it Jews. Not your group of peeps? Hmmm. Think again. There were many more and varied peoples who, throughout the ages have employed similar practices, but we needn’t go back that far to look.
Have you actually thought we’ve evolved since then? Ha. Nope. Well, maybe we’ve devolved cause we’re no longer killing a poor innocent goat…to atone for our collective sins. From the simple school bully badgering an innocent classmate to murderous ICE thugs sexually accosting dehumanized innocent child refugees.
Are you uncomfortable yet? Now, I invite you to regard further into human history..shall we peek into the famously historical scapegoating of Jews, Armenians, Gypsies, homosexuals etc, in Europe, because most rational thinking, intelligent, humane people know about that and are further abhorred.
Modern scapegoats have included just about every immigrant and refugee group. Are we able to take off our rose colored latest style “Denial Ray-bans” to peer ever so closely at our most recent scapegoats…both individual and groups of people (those who in worst case are victims of severe persecution and genocide).? Come on. Let’s be brave.
I’m not going to go into depth, but I am imagining you’re getting a tad squirmy..so I’ll just close With this thought. As we recoil at the effects of the mutation of a virus, we ought not cast our blame on the Chinese. Are they so obviously to blame? Maybe instead of focusing across the world at the Chinese we could take a look at our factory farms since those places are hotbeds of uncleanliness, disease and overcrowding. A virus knows no culture except perhaps that in a Petri dish.
Our unesteemed “leader” has himself made a practice of pointing his tiny finger at everyone but himself for EVERY issue he chooses not to take responsibility. There have been so many events, he has just about run out of people to blame. Uh oh. I’ve made yet another scapegoat. I wonder if I could send him my cricket.
Tune in.
Janet Bernson 