It has been a tough few years for most of us emotionally. Tensions run high like a rampant fever and many of us respond with knee-jerk fragility. We have forgotten how to breathe, how to take a moment, how to craft a response that doesn’t flatten the other. We are, after all, animals and at our core are compelled by adrenaline, flight or fight. Every day someone I know declares independence from social media and the news media out of a need to unplug, i.e. flee or else he/she gets caught up in a fruitless war of words with a friend of a friend over opposing views on a hot topic. Adrenaline–our mind fever–drives our reactions, not common sense or civility.
I am, like many writers, driven to write by strong emotions of the moment. These are the emotions that persuade us to “say” something because those feelings are too strong to keep inside. Our minds race, our stomachs churn, our whole bodies tense and our blood truly feels like it could boil out of our arteries like soup overflowing the pot. The opportunities to stir strong emotions these days are abundant for sure but what finally made my pot boil was–I know this is a shock!–a good friend’s post about a meme making the rounds on Facebook. It wasn’t so much that I disagreed with her opinion it was the feelings that she stirred up in her approach. And looking back I’m not even sure that her particular approach was so terribly wrong its just that, for me, it struck a tender nerve and first I winced and then I got mad.
Perhaps my response is deeply rooted in my childhood. Often when my older sister got mad at me she would accuse me of thinking I was God’s gift to mankind and imply that I thought I was better than anyone else. The accusation pierced me through like a knife because nothing could have been farther from the truth and yet I didn’t feel like I had any defense against it. In a word, I HATE being accused of being haughty or holier-than-thou. Let’s face it, like most people, I hate being falsely accused of ANYTHING.
So when my friend wrote her “sermon” denouncing this meme, one which I had considered re-posting–even though I could see that the points she was making made good, honest sense–I felt attacked by the implications of her words. And the more I stewed on the words the more I felt like she was creating two groups: those who “got it” and those who didn’t and clearly those who didn’t were all bad. There were no gray areas, no room for those of us who are trying to learn and grow and take things to heart.
The meme in question is posted here. I really waffled on using it as the picture identified with my post but it is important to see it in the context of this writing. My friend’s argument seems reasonable on the surface. She made the case that using this method was in fact co-opting an established method of protest that belongs to those who started using it in the first place, the black community, in an effort to bring attention to the travesties of justice directed toward black people in general. She argued eloquently that co-opting this form of protest was in fact a form of “colonialism” in and of itself–the idea that whatever little the maligned, marginalized black community has can be taken away by the white community and used for its own purposes. And then she went on to question the motives of anyone who would even consider doing this and to chastise those who don’t get out in the street and protest on behalf of the maligned and marginalized. I began to feel like I was in the sentencing phase of the trial without the prosecution even having to prove my guilt. And as a physically handicapped person I felt marginalized myself. I don’t have the capacity or ability to get out into the streets in protest.
But I don’t have any right to feel marginalized, do I? I am a white, cis gender woman, born into middle class family and married into a upper class one. Even though I am a woman I have the white thing going for me. And even though I come from a family of recent immigrants (just coming from Scandinavia in the early part of the 20th century) I am daily reaping the benefits of those white colonial, slave-owning settlers who came before me. I am living the high life on what was once very clearly home to indigenous peoples who were unfairly robbed of their land and their livelihood. I know this. I see this. I feel this. I grieve this. Even though as a woman I have suffered sexual assault, molestation, harassment, and prejudice I’m still better off than all people of color, indigenous people, LGBTQ people, and poor people. There is this somewhat invisible hierarchy and I’m still nearer the top than most. I get it. I own it. I try to carry my weight, the weight that my “race” has inflicted on others.
But here’s the thing: within this pool of people “like me” there are shades. In my early days of being a project manager I learned that when it comes to change and managing change within an organization the rule of thumb on how people will react/respond is this: about 4% will NEVER accept the change no matter how eloquent your argument or well-crafted your persuasion. They just will NOT “enter the race” and that’s the way it is, so best not to beat your head against that wall. Another 4% will have dashed off down the track before you get a chance to finish telling them there’s a race. They GET it and they are off and running to MAKE it happen. That leaves the rest of the 96% of people who are somewhere in the middle. And those are the folks you focus your message on. Those of the ones you have a chance of convincing but they don’t even know there is a race yet. So you have to make them aware and then educate them.
We see this metaphor played out in multiple settings. In my field of passion, environmental concerns, I have seen this same breakdown in responses. Some people will NEVER believe that climate change is real. They are the conspiracy theorists who believe that environmentalists are pure evil and trying to pull something over on the rest. And there are those who bought Prius’–and would have bought electric cars if they had been available–before it was fashionable to do so. And then there are the rest. And what I have learned about that other 96% is that carrots work better than sticks. And guilt isn’t a great motivator. In fact, guilt more often flips the shut-down switch and then you’ve lost your chance to reach them. It’s true that some near the upper limits of the 96% might just need a quick, brutal, wake-up call but most need coaxing rather than prodding. The last thing you want to do is come out fighting, accusing all 96% of being as un-green as can be and discounting any potential changes any of them might have attempted.
And this is what I see happening with the fight for freedom among the marginalized. Sometimes, yes, you have to get mad and call people out, especially people in positions of real power who have the real ability to make changes. But for most of us who are in the middle we are in some stage of growth and bashing us over the head for not being better–or perfect–has the effect of at best causing us to retreat and give up and at worst causing us to move closer to that hated 4% who will never change and most likely make up the bulk of the neo-nazi groups.
My friend is a Christian, active in her faith which is to say that she “walks the talk.” She is truly a faithful, dedicated servant leader. But there are plenty of agnostics, atheists, polytheists, Jews and Muslims who could accuse her of being a part of the history of Christians who co-opted Easter and Christmas from the pagans to use for their own purposes–often maligning the pagans in doing so. In other words, couldn’t we all be accused of things like this? And what about all of the horrible actions and events that have been perpetrated over the millennia–and even still today– in the name of Christianity? Many now would place all Christians–unfairly–into this same box, ignoring all of the good that has been done by people of faith in the name of their faith. And the same could be argued about Muslims. Is this be fair to my loving, self-less friend who claims to be Christian or to loving, selfless people who practice Islam?
My point in all of this rambling is that we need to do a better job of breathing, listening, attempting to understand, and then crafting a response that does not immediately put the other on the defensive. That is if we hope to have any civil communication and effect any meaningful change in the world. My other point is that I–like many others–are at least trying to come to the center, trying to understand, listen, absorb, make corrections in how I behave towards and treat others. As the Method company puts it, “Progress, not perfection.” Could we at least get some credit for that? Do we not at least deserve some benefit of the doubt, the chance to be innocent before being deemed guilty? I think this is truly our only hope as human beings. To try to understand the other.
