Announcement of the Annual Victim Awards
Hello again. It is my grave displeasure to welcome all of you to our umpteenth award
ceremony for our ubiquitous and enduring victims. This year we have added a new category, and we can only hope that this year will be the last time we mention it: covid victims. We will be giving special recognition, but not an award to this group. As I mention each year, there will be those who disagree with the award decisions, but let us not forget that the perpetrators want us to fight among ourselves to keep the limelight off of them. Don’t buy into their tactics!
In eighth place, as is always the case, are the elderly. For suffering with age discrimination, social invisibility (even those in the Medicare commercials look middle-aged), physical and mental abuse in nursing homes, fraud and scam operations, verbal abuse (“dirty old men,” “old hags,” etc.) and that proverbial command, “Act Your Age.”
In seventh place are Asians and Pacific Islanders. A rather new category, even though they have been victimized for centuries. We have much to thank them for, specifically, dying while building our nation’s railroads, for instance. For suffering discrimination, verbal abuse, and more recently, physical violence based on the “China flu,” a xenophobic phrase created by one of our most infamous perpetrators.
In sixth place are the physically and mentally challenged, formerly called disabled. We all know that changing a name doesn’t lessen the severity of victimhood, but I digress. For suffering with discrimination, abuse (physical, verbal, mental and sexual) and stigma.
In fifth place are Native Americans. For suffering with genocide, land destruction, poverty, slaughter, discrimination, stereotyping in the media and sacred ground defilement.
In fourth place are those in the LGBTQ community. It might be worth saying that in this category new members are being added all the time. We are much more aware of transgender, non-binary and others based on genetic, hormonal or philosophical bents. It never ceases to amaze us that victimization always follows new developments. For suffering with discrimination, all kinds of abuse including murder, stigma, medical malpractice/ignorance and religious intolerance.
In third place are children. For suffering with trauma and abuse, neglect, predation, kidnapping, child marriage, sex trafficking, and abandonment. There is special recognition for sexual abuse by Catholic priests in this category.
In second place are females. It must be said that females are in all of the awards listed above, so we are singling them out specifically for their gender in this category. We also acknowledge that last year they won first place, and there are those wondering how they slipped to second place this year. That will be explained shortly. For suffering with discrimination, abuse (physical, sexual, mental, verbal), sexual harassment (e.g. by employers, members of the military, teachers and landlords), sex trafficking, misogyny, genital mutilation, predation by serial killers and sexual objectification.
In first place are African-Americans. It is our great sorrow that females and Blacks vie for such recognition. For suffering by slavery, discrimination, police brutality, voter suppression, poverty, racism, murder as well as increased threats from white supremacy groups which are a result, again, as a result of our most prestigious perpetrator.
We are honoring a very special victim this year, Hilda M. She is a 90-year-old, Native-American, lesbian, paraplegic.
We hope we have not slighted anyone this year, but we always welcome suggestions for new victim categories. We will be adding victims of climate change next year, since we are confident that human beings are responsible for this potentially catastrophic planetary event.
As we do every year, we honor past first place winners such as Jews, Tibetans and other people around the world who have been, and continue to be, victims of ethnic cleansing.
We don’t look forward to meeting with all of you next year. Good night.
Constance Woodring
