“Democrats are evil.” These words are etched on a wooden plank—perched against the windowsill of a house in the sleepy beachside town of El Segundo, California—where I am raising my kids, my home for the last eight years.
I have struggled with how dehumanizing the language of both parties has become in these last few years—imperialists, colonialists, terrorists, illegals. Evil.
I was once asked if I believed in evil during a medical school interview in New York City, soon after the attacks on September 11.
Shortly before 9/11, my father and his friends were perceived as terrorists by a fellow passenger on a plane. A woman on the plane noted their lively speech in a language foreign to her. Feeling threatened, she notified the flight attendants and the pilots—and within minutes, two F16 jets escorted their plane to its landing.
My father, Chiru Vijayan, sponsored a few artists from India to put on a cultural show in the United States. This was a passion project of my dad, who is an engineer by training. He loved doing these shows for our community here.
My Americanness—my origin story—has been a question mark for those who see me and remain unknowing. But I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that I have engaged in my own othering, my own creation of unknowing.
My tendency to other is a part of my evolving identity. In the words of the gender scholar Judith Butler: “We’re both formed, and we form ourselves, and that’s a living paradox.”
Tara Vijayan/Mario Tama/Getty Images
I identified as a Democrat as early as age 12 when, on our way to a marching band event in New Jersey, I “debated” my best friend on abortion, with my nascent pro-choice perspective. Neither of my immigrant parents offered me their own party preference to shape my view, but they did instill in me a deep commitment to service and the ideal of a shared humanity.
Now in my mid-40s, I still hold certain values close—the right to choose when you have a family, the right to have healthcare, the right to have access to clean water, food, and shelter. I have become jaded by the talk from those in my own party who claim to hold those same values but remain committed to maintaining the wealth gap.
We live in the “blue” state of California where we did not pass a proposition to increase the minimum wage, where housing prices and rent remain unconscionably inflated, where those sleeping on the street are literally swept away so that those with privilege can remain blind to those without.
I remain wary of those who share many of the values I hold yet engage in name-calling and are selective about their cries against human rights violations. They—like some of my Republican counterparts—continue to create narratives of good versus evil, us versus them, oppressed versus oppressors.
Evil as a noun, evil as an adjective. When asked if I believed in it 23 years ago, I struggled with my response. Some may say it was a problem that I was asked such a question. Today, I understand its simplicity. It is easy to fall into the good-versus-evil plotline. It feels comfortable and familiar. It is an allegory in nearly every religious text.
It plays out every day in my work as a physician.
As I carefully press on my patient’s abdomen, looking for new signs of disease, he interrupts the moment—expressing joy at watching a news report of a battle perceived to be won in the Middle East. This same story is also playing out in his body as he engages in battle with his metastatic cancer and the difficult infection that I am treating.
In the battle narrative of illness, there are those who win and those who lose. It is an imperfect metaphor in cancer because it undermines the power of the life lost.
It is a false narrative in actual war because it erases the stories of the lives who, in its wake, continue to suffer starvation, disease, and death.
One of the great epics from my childhood—The Mahabharata—centers a battle between two groups of cousins, one ostensibly good, the other evil. As you read through the text, you see that evil is defined not as the person but by action, and inaction—and in fact, in times of despair, all are vulnerable to challenging the moral good.
I look into my patient’s kind eyes. I take in the crucifix on his chest, his faith in his doctors’ work. We are of different religions, different skin tones, different political perspectives. He is my neighbor, my patient—and on this clear blue day in Los Angeles, where the mountains rise crisply behind the skyscrapers—we are united in our craving for a good tandoori chicken meal and our singular mission to maintain a shared humanity.
We are citizens who seek refuge under the same multilayered fabric—this pluralistic city, state, and country we call home. I look at his wife, who looks at me with hope. I squeeze his hand. He squeezes back.
Tara Vijayan currently serves as the Medical Director of Adult Antimicrobial Stewardship, Medical Director of the CARE Clinic (serving patients with HIV) and an Associate Program Director for the UCLA Multicampus Infectious Disease Fellowship. She is also co-editor of the State-of-the-Art Reviews in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
All views expressed are the author’s own.
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