The Right Side of History
By Olivia Jaber
Not only have they infiltrated once-iconic magazines, Instagram, and your friends’ minds, but they have taken to the streets, garnering attention and retaining advocates with the strongest influence and the largest platforms to date. These champions of equality and empowerment continue to accept roles in movies and sit for hair and makeup— yet they condemn the society which provides such avenues of work for them. Believing that they are on the “right side of history,” they feel obligated and righteous in reminding the citizens of the United States that the current state of politics is blasphemous. Aside from using buzzwords and pathos to rally the audience they stand in front of, factual arguments seem to have missed the black-tie invite. In turn, these influencers, with powerful platforms, can shape young women’s minds on their ideas of empowerment, which are often missing the mark. Condemning right-thinking philosophies has become a center stage tactic that is misleading and isolating to those who disagree. In a place, such as the arts, where you indeed are supposed to let your “free flag fly,” it seems that there is only one flag flying, and it’s not as free as we’ve been told. When did everything get so political? When did not shaving your armpits become a popular mode of dismantling the patriarchy? And when exactly did running based off of immutable characteristics become the main reason for being qualified?
These days, education, the NFL, popular programs, social media, and fashion are all trying to be on the “right side of history.” Because it’s the popular thing to do, because being on the “wrong side” seems dangerous for business operation, and because the “wrong side” is advertised as such. With such strong prowess, people don’t feel the need to seek further than their favorite actor or football player to find the latest virtue. That is what our culture has seemingly adopted, hopping on the bandwagon, whether you understand what you’re fighting for or not— whether you know the implications of your support or not— the power of your words or not— or the influence and weight your words carry.
Everything has become a platform for politics— and people hide from real conversations by branding the entire Right as a ridiculous idea to entertain from the get-go. With a lack of conservative voices present, uniformity of certain ideals is overwhelming the conversation. There seems to be no place for opposition— no room for admitting to its legitimacy. When President Trump got elected in 2016, I was a freshman in college. I walked out of my dorm room to see peers crying, destroyed. Were they destroyed because they actually thought their country would come crumbling down? Or did they just not get their way? Or were my peers enraged because they had been told to feel that way— that any other way of feeling would be wrong?
People are scared to be on the wrong side of history— so frightened they don’t even know what they are fighting for— they just have ideas of what they need to be against— with little regard for what other side has to offer. Whatever is most favorable to their hegemonic tribe seems to win out consistently. Ironically, all of these people, fearing to be different desperately, end up running in the same race, surrounded by the same thoughts and ideas, and essentially creating a clamor of similar, uninteresting, sameness. Blunted by this sameness, can we think for ourselves? Are our ideas of empowerment actually empowering, or do we believe they are because the media says so?
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