Complicity is my word of the year for 2018!
I spent December waiting. How is it possible that no one with more gravitas as a thinker/writer than me thought to submit the most obvious word of the year?
I am not talking about the strict legal definition of aiding and abetting in criminal activity, but the more colloquial meaning as any acts or lack of action which help other actors to behave inappropriately or illegally.
In 2017, the complicities discussed by the #MeToo movement, for example, were both individual (Cosby’s wife, Weinstein’s assistants) and systemic (Larry Nasser, Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics.) To me, 2018 was the year wide-scale complicity was evident in all the biggest news stories.
Many have written since 2016 about the overall complicity of 60 million American voters, the Republican establishment, the Democrats’ dysfunction, certain media outlets and administration officials in aiding, abetting and upholding the liar-in-chief’s ascendance to what Bryan Walsh called “a walking, talking, tweeting risk factor for the world.” I certainly agree with Walsh that “risk” was one of the strong words of the year, just as I agree with every word of Jessica Valenti’s sad and true column on “trust.” But to me, this was the year complicity has been the underlying tone of every big story.
The complicity which led to this presidency has resulted this year in rolled back protections for voters’ rights, women, the transgendered, our allies, the environment, our armed services, and on and on.
The Time’s Up movement spent the year illuminating complicity throughout many industries in protecting sexually predatory behavior, discrimination and inequitable wages.
The White House and the FBI are specifically complicit for the lack of sufficient investigation of Brett Kavanaugh’s accusers, while congress is most complicit in his elevation for life to our highest court.
Their members and those they fund persist in defending the NRA against complicity in all mass shootings, but the rest of us can not fail to recognize the connection.
Regarding the premeditated murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, much has been written about the complicity of the Saudi prince but I want to call out my former favorite newspaper. Am I the only one who noticed that, in some of their coverage, The New York Times referred to him only as “dissident”? In a world where legitimate journalism is being mocked daily, “the paper of record” is complicit in erasing Khashoggi’s profession!
This year we saw an increase in media attention to complicity in the opioid crisis from the FDA, big pharma, the Sackler family to small town doctors.
The purveyors and beneficiaries of our consumptive capitalism remain complicit in climate change as they deny science.
American interventions, past and present, are often a big contributing factor to global woes. Clearly, the Reagan administration’s policies in Central America are complicit in the explosion of gang violence terrorizing people in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, and driving the human caravans seeking safety to our southern border.
Perhaps the most egregious, perennial, deep-seated complicities are the inconsistencies in our justice system where racism and misogyny are upheld by differences in sentencing and incarceration rates. At least this year the spotlight has increased on imbalances in arrest and sentencing rates between black and white men for the same crimes and women’s incarcerations for self-defense being often more likely and lengthy than men’s for domestic violence.
I would argue that despite the odds against being adequately heard, each and every one of us are complicit when we choose not to speak out about the injustices we witness constantly in our workplaces, public institutions, families and world at large. I’m starting 2019 bearing witness where I have been silent before! Please join me.
