Chapter 14
Thomas
After the room is almost full, someone whom I’ve never seen before takes the stage and gives a short presentation on logistics, telling us where we’ll be spending the night, where, when, and what we’ll be eating, et cetera. Next, there’s a short presentation on the successes and failures of recent reveal parties and what has been learned, along with some changes that are going to be made moving forward to make them safer and less likely to be discovered by the Identity Police. It’s already late in the evening by the time we’re dismissed, and a group of guides leads us to the rooms where we’ll be spending the night.
The group that Veritas and I are with ends up in a room that appears to have been a conference room at one time. The chairs and conference tables are all pushed neatly up against the far wall. We’re given sleeping bags with a thin foam mat. When put on top of the industrial carpet of the conference room floor, it doesn’t provide much in the way of comfort. We all eventually settle down, however, and after talking to Veritas for a few minutes I drift off to sleep.
Breakfast the next morning is a Spartan affair, with bottled water, an assortment of fruit, and a few different kinds of granola and breakfast bars in boxes on a table in the main conference room. They don’t waste any time getting started once we’re all inside. I’m still devouring my granola bar when Pam gets up on stage.
“I hope you all had a reasonably good night’s sleep.”
Some chuckles come from around the room, and someone says, “Yeah, right.”
“We appreciate your sacrifice for the cause of freedom,” she continues, unflappable. “We have a special treat for you this morning. One of the leaders of the freedom movement and a member of the council is here to host a little Q&A and share some information about what we’re fighting for. Everyone, please welcome Jeremiah.”
A round of applause begins as a man who was seated on the front row stands up and begins walking up the stairs to the stage. His beard is mostly grey and white, with some black mixed in. The hair on his head is beginning to grey with just a touch of white here or there. The white is a stark contrast to the dark chocolate color of his skin. He’s close to six feet tall, with a medium build—older, but with a warm smile and standing straight as he walks up to Pam and takes the microphone.
“Thank you, everyone,” he says as the applause dies down. His voice has a slight Jamaican accent to it. “Thank you for coming and for standing up for the cause of freedom. We celebrate our freedom to live in the open together, free from fear, and free to be who we are.”
At this, the whole room repeats the phrase back in unison. Some fists are raised into the air as we chant. It’s intoxicating to hear us all say it together. We sound bold and strong. It’s exciting. Some hoots and general murmuring die down as Jeremiah begins speaking again.
“But that’s more than just a slogan. It is a challenge. It doesn’t only mean that you get to be who you are and express your ideas and opinions. It means that I can be who I am and express my ideas and opinions, too. And our ideas and opinions may be different, and that’s okay.
“This movement is not about exchanging one form of tyranny for another,” he says as he wags a finger slowly back and forth in the air in front of him. “It’s about pursuing freedom while protecting everyone from the worst abuses of that freedom. So we are pursuing an end to the current system of identity apartheid that prevents us from knowing and learning from one another as we really are—an end to a system that promotes a kind of sterile half-truth and forces us to keep who we really are hidden in the shadows.
“So, I thought it would be good if I answered some questions you may have about what we’re doing. If you have a question, please raise your hand, and Pam will point to you, then you can ask it.”
A hand goes up in the middle of the room. Pam points in their direction and a girl with brown hair and a serious-looking countenance stands up and asks a question.
“So, what happens when we succeed? They tell us that there were all these riots and killings and chaos back before the equality suits. I mean, I believe in what we’re doing, but how do we prevent going back to the bad stuff that was happening before?”
“As you might be able to tell from looking at me, I’m old,” Jeremiah begins. At this, a deep chuckle wells up from inside of him. “I was born in 1995. That makes me seventy-one years old. I lived back then. I saw what went on before. And I’ve seen what has happened since. And I’ve studied a lot of history where some pretty bad things happened—far worse things than what was going on with equality issues in the early 2000s. And I’ve learned a few things.
“I’ve learned that throughout history, when humankind seeks to right a wrong, or create a better society, many times we end up making matters worse. The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, for example, happened at a time when Russia had been mismanaged by its leaders. People were hungry; the economy was in a bad way; they were looking for answers, and they needed leadership. And that gave rise to leaders like Lenin and Stalin and ultimately led to the deaths of tens of millions of people under their rule—something far worse than what was happening before their allegedly righteous revolution that was supposed to lead the people of Russia to a better life. The truth is that it didn’t lead to a better life.
“Then there are a few notable successes. Take our American Revolution, for example. The colonists didn’t have the right to influence how they were ruled. They rebelled so they could have that right and guarantee certain freedoms for themselves. And that revolution led to the birth of a great force for good that has helped promote freedom here at home and around the world.”
A voice from the audience pipes up.
“But many of the founders of this country owned slaves. Some of your own ancestors might have been slaves of the founding fathers. How can you say that was good?”
“Guys,” Pam interjects, “we want to answer your questions, but I need to ask you to raise your hand and wait to be recognized first, okay?”
“Pam is right,” Jeremiah said, “but if it’s okay with you, Pam, I’ll go ahead and answer the question.”
Pam nods, and Jeremiah continues.
“I said the American Revolution was the birth of a great force of good. A newborn baby doesn’t do everything right. It has to have its diapers changed and learn to walk. It takes time. The founding of our country was far from perfect. But you should know from history that, as this nation grew, it left behind those evils and embraced equality of the races and of the sexes. You need look no further than the election of Barack Obama, the first black man elected as president in this nation, for proof that racism was no longer a significant force in daily life.
“Now, I haven’t forgotten that first young lady’s question, and I’ll get back to it, I promise, but there seem to be a few more questions from the audience here that I might need to address along the way.”
Jeremiah waits patiently as Pam picks from the upraised hands, this time settling on a stout-looking giant of a man with a boyish face.
“But what about the identity crisis and everything that was happening before the Equality Law of 2047? I mean, people were dying, there were mass riots, the economy was in shambles. How did all of that happen if America was such a great place?”
“That’s a very good question to ask. One of the things I’ve learned over time and by looking at the past, both my own life as well as other histories, is that you can’t force people to live by the rules you think they should live by without taking away some of their freedoms. The more rules you have, the more freedoms the people will lose when those rules are enforced. Yes, there were people back then, before the Equality Law of 2047, who were causing problems. There were groups of people who hated other groups of people for whatever reason, and they were clashing—sometimes violently. But instead of correcting the small number of people who actually did something physically violent to harm others, our society went far beyond that and attempted to stifle open debate by making it a crime to even speak about certain ideas. They chose to try and enforce their version of equality at every level in a way that has made us all prisoners, forcing us to hide who we really are and remain silent about what we really think or face the penalty of law.
“You cannot end intolerance and harmful discrimination by simply changing the order of whose right to believe something over-rules someone else’s right to believe the opposite thing. That just switches up the roles of the persecuted and the persecutors. The old bigots become the new persecuted class, and the old persecuted class becomes the new class of bigots. And what the history of that period before the Equality Law of 2047 shows us is that that approach doesn’t work. It only fuels the unrest and the violence and the animosity between all of these groups. Instead of eliminating the hatred and intolerance, it ended up promoting and fueling it.
“The only apparent alternative—or so it appeared to lawmakers at that time—was to pass the Equality Act of 2047 and force everyone to hide their true identities, both physically and intellectually, and force us all to live our lives as cookie-cutter carbon copies of one another, eliminating individual expression, the freedom to share different opinions, and robbing us of something very precious in the process.”
A round of spontaneous applause erupts around the room. Jeremiah waits until it dies down before he continues.
“The path forward for us is not a return to the old ways, I agree. Neither can the path forward be a continuation of the present. We must change if we are to re-gain the freedoms we have lost and still promote unity and true tolerance. And for that to happen, the black man and the white man must be confronted with each other’s uniqueness and be allowed to work it out between them in a way that, short of violence, will benefit them both. This process cannot be forced upon them but must be an act of free will. And that’s scary. The lesbian and the person who believes the homosexual lifestyle is morally wrong must be allowed to co-exist and communicate their beliefs in a way that preserves the rights of both to believe as they do and yet prevents either from doing violence to the other or coercing the other to adopt their own beliefs.”
A short burst of applause ripples through the crowd and fades away.
“What we must realize is that in order to achieve the greatest, most widespread tolerance for all these many different walks of life and belief systems and races, we must allow each other the freedom to exercise our beliefs in a controlled fashion. We must allow for freedom of thought and freedom of dissent.
“I am a Christian. I live next door to a lesbian couple. They are some of my dear friends. We have tea on the front porch with each other most mornings, and yet I happen to believe that some of the things they believe and practice regarding sexuality are harmful. Those are my beliefs, but I am not threatening them or cursing them, or refusing to be friends with them because we disagree on this point. I can appreciate and love them as people without hating them because they disagree with me. And they are not rejecting and persecuting me because I believe as I do. We have learned to tolerate our disagreement on this point while appreciating each other as valuable human beings. We find the common ground, and where we disagree, we agree to disagree peacefully.
“We cannot bludgeon people into being tolerant of whatever set of values we hold dear—no matter what they are. We must allow for the plurality of beliefs, or we will become the most intolerant society of all. I will not lie to you. The path we take is a precarious one. To guard against the most severe abuses of freedom that ultimately lead to physical violence of one group against another and yet, at the same time, to preserve the most freedoms for the most people is a difficult thing. It requires wisdom, patience, and true tolerance—not the kind of tolerance that is simply a changing up of the persecuted classes to create a new class of bigots and haters.
“So, to repeat that first young lady’s question, how do we get there? I am happy to share with you that in the final session of this conference, we will present to you the council’s plan to do just that. Thank you for listening, my friends.”
Applause fills the room as Jeremiah begins walking towards the podium stairs. Half of the crowd stands to their feet to continue their applause as the old man descends the steps and takes a seat on the front row. People are still clapping as one of the other organizers takes to the stage and announces the next speaker.
