None. An open letter to a system of silence. You nailed truth in a coffin for circumstantial peace, wrapped it in thin plastic grave clothes and let the stench of rot drift. It was a counterfeit funeral that keeps abuse alive, keeps victims quiet to the perishing comfortable and the system intact. It wasn't your place. God will deal with it. Confrontation is unkind, unwise, unchristian. But let's call some things out for what they really are.
A commitment to a bloodline of abusers, A choice to avoid the cost of truth. A calculated silence to preserve the familiar. A relationship with a manipulator is better than solidarity with the crushed. A seat at the table of evil inheritance and a drink from the cup of compliance at the fake curated performance driven table was safer than flipping the damn thing over like Jesus would have done. Diplomacy over honesty. I once excused it too. I told myself quiet support was
enough. That the private acknowledgments had substance enough to help me carry the load. But I've come to learn that a silent witness to the truth is no witness at all. Everyone knows first hand who this is. It predates me. It's the voice of a pathology more insidious than cancer that at least dies with the body. This is a curse upon which
generations cut their teeth. The sour grapes of coercion and passive nods to false humility, clapping for borrowed spirituality and the relentless pretending has become the noxious gas of telling the truth in secret while standing publicly with the lie. I thought the bond we had was deep enough to hold the truth. But it was only deep enough to hold silence, watching someone bleed while claiming, in a sense, for not wielding the knife, saying nothing while he
cleaned off the blade. You were complicit in the violence. Silence is choosing the side, a carefully curated piece that required my cooperation. Today, I know this truth is not safe. Love is not passive, and compassion is not enablement. And I am not pretending anymore. I won't be part of hush culture. I won't protect social circles or leadership optics. I won't smile through discomfort or sanitize my story to make anyone feel better about me. I am not bitter.
I'm not even angry. I'm living a very uncomfortable truth and the spell is broken. So if loyalty aligns with the lie, keep it. If peace demands my silence, I revoke it. If comfort demands my compliance, I refuse it. Because the culture that chose to stay quiet and pacified my pain with the wink of a knowing eye was never holy. Duplicity never is. And I am done pretending that it was.