The Target

A note on language

Photo by Tory Hoffman on Unsplash

Neighbors, that we have tolerated their use of the word “target” to describe our fellow human beings is an indictment against us.

We are not nearly as smart as bison, closing ranks around the vulnerable, as wolves prowl nearer. We are not nearly as smart as fish, swirling into ever tighter circles, confusing predators, preventing them from identifying a single individual.

As I’ve shared here before, my home burned to the ground in a massive wildfire when I was a child. Afterward, the once beautiful pine forest that we lived in was barren, and my parents tried very hard to plant trees on our property and help restore it. In one of the corners of our front yard, they planted a quaking aspen, which I unofficially adopted as “my tree.” In the hot, dry Montana summers, I was especially attentive about watering it. But it grew slowly and always seemed weak. Eventually, it died.

My tree died from lack of community care.

Quaking aspens are meant to grow in groves that appear above the soil to be many trees, but in reality, under the soil function as one unit, sharing water and nutrients. And they don’t share the water and nutrients haphazardly . . . they actively give water and nutrients to the most thirsty and hungry among them.

We are not nearly as smart as aspens.

Maybe we should learn from nature, which we are in no sense separate from anyway, and all start wearing t-shirts that say, “I am the target.” Close ranks, swim tighter, share water and nutrients.

Maybe we should scream in their faces, all of us, in one voice, that we have studied their language and we will not tolerate it. We will use it against them. We will confuse them.

I AM THE TARGET!!

I hope Joan Sebastian Guerrero rests peacefully in Other Side Camp today. I hope the sun is warm, the breeze is gentle, and the river is cool. I hope the meadowlarks sing so he can understand.

Nothing short of ABOLISH.

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Are you with me?

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