Imagine you’re being beaten with a stick. Your parents were beaten with that stick. Your grandparents were beaten with that stick. They were beaten a lot more than you. These days, the beatings don’t come nearly as often, but they still happen and are still awful.

One day, you snatch the stick. You decide you’re going to use it to scratch your back. The person who’s been beating you (and their family members and friends, who weren’t beating you but did nothing to stop the beatings) asks for the stick back. You say no. They get angry. Why should you get to use the stick when they can’t?

Because we’re fucking sick of being hit with the stick. We like it better being used to scratch our backs. And you can promise up and down all day that you’ll only use the stick to scratch our backs, but don’t be surprised when we don’t believe you. Especially because you’re probably not the first person to ask us for their stick back, and many of us made the mistake of handing it back the first time.