When Texas was hit with the ice storm a few weeks ago, millions of Texans were left without power in weather that their architecture and electrical grid were not prepared for. Over three dozen people died, according to NBC News, and those that didn’t suffered damage to their homes. Amidst all of this panic, what did the people of Twitter have to say about it?
“They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” one user said. “If Texas receives money to help, your state will turn into a welfare state. We can’t help out states that aren’t run well enough to pay for their own troubles,” another said. The mockery was bitter and vitriolic toward the people of Texas.
Jokes teasing southern states for being ill-equipped for winter weather show up nearly every year normally, but these were during times where the temperatures dropped to levels that Texas was able to properly cope with. This situation was obviously a different animal. When you see people dying from the temperatures, this is no longer a joking matter.
This mockery wasn’t even because of their suffering. It was directly because people were enjoying seeing “justice” against the people of Texas for going red in the past election. This sort of spiteful hatred toward a population is bigotry, something that these people claim to deny.
This very issue comes up anytime one side or the other sees its opponents suffering. Conservatives mock liberals in blue states for any lapses in judgement and leadership, and the same happens when red states have bad leadership. Mockery of the judgement of leaders is not the same as mockery of the people they are responsible for. In spite of this, we frequently see people coming after those who are suffering rather than those who are responsible for their well-being.
People did make fun of Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for his planned vacation while his state was suffering; however, this is a valid jab, because he is directly responsible for the people he represents and he should be there to help them through this tumultuous time. Cruz even made fun of Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez at this past week’s CPAC, even though she went out of her way to raise millions to help the people he couldn’t be bothered to even stay with during this tumultuous time.
But, in spite of and in full view of his flaws, we must keep in mind that Cruz is not Texas. Texas is full of people, right and left, who all needed help in this time that they weren’t getting. It doesn’t matter if they ”brought it on themselves,” they need the help no matter what they may have done to deserve it. Anger is one of the leading factors in the loss of empathy. In order to recover a sense of common human decency toward each other, we need to understand that these people range in motives and biases just as the people we know personally.
Our fellow citizens deserve the best, just as we ourselves do, but people allow differences in opinion to blind themselves to the humanity of people on the other side of the aisle. I am not saying that I agree with the politics of the general population of Texas; that does not mean that I hate the people of Texas. They are people, therefore we should care about them. Our political views should not get in the way of our empathy.
