Something about Maria

Not yet dead (by a thousand cuts). Not yet been jailed (despite multiple lawsuits).

And not back down (despite death threats and business shut-down threats).

A while ago, I was thinking about female journalists eg. Barbara Walters, etc… who blazed the trail. The ERA struggle back in the ’70s. How women wanted to have it all.

Now, in the person of Maria, I am more convinced of that possibility (for my girls).

My daughters saw a Dad who couldn’t type and couldn’t write (in Journalism 101, I handed in a blank sheet of paper). Only to turn down a broadcast ENG (electronic news gathering) job 4 years later (putting my life on hold for my Mom who had been an orphan since birth).

Back to Maria. Her pointing out technology, social media (harms), and the new politics of divisiveness (algorithm that recommends more “friends of friends”).

I was in the Philippines back in 1983. That year, in Manila, we learned there was an assassination going on at the airport.

I remembered thinking “can’t be” (earlier, it was a Congressman, on a fact-finding tour who got killed in Guyana, a Jim Jones incident). People outside of the Western World think they can just get away with the murder of political opposition (Abe in Japan, for instance). The same with the mass shooting here in the States (6 years old?).

Something about Maria. Princeton, CNN, and Rappler. She does make waves.

From “pajama party” to “Nobel Peace prize winner”. What a journey, despite all the FUD’s (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt).

When I grow up, I want to be like Maria. By that I mean, face the fear. Stand up to bullies. And speak up while growing stronger together.

Maria couldn’t have made it without the help of technology. Without the rise of CNN (imagine her at FOX?).

The fight is still on. Just like the Marcos are still here. Still shopping for shoes in Makati.

Something will never change: they smell your fear. Just remember, they are ONLY THE BULLY.

That’s their lot in life. We should feel sorry for those whose ill fate obviously limits their full potential. Like mine, in the alley, who once beat me up bloody (because I did not stay down), has died of a drug overdose. They get high by intimidating others. Then Noses up, they go in search of the next “fix” (victim). Endorphin factory.

When they run out of “fun”, the urge drives them to fentanyl (fantasies?) or the like.

How to stand up to a dictator? Either wait him/her out. Or keep standing up. If you don’t die by a thousand cuts, you are destined to survive. Even to receive the prize as in Maria’s case, envied by the very bully and dictator she was fighting against. Did the Nobel Prize committee take side? Absolutely. So should we. Unless we want to leave our fate and future in the hands of others’ algorithms or urges.

Something about Maria. About you and me. Deep down. We are entrusted and encoded to expect a world that is fair and nurturing.

Live on in the face of a thousand cuts.