Kumbayfreakingya

Some Saturday morning thoughts. I promise to get back to the comments on several posts soon. Also, I have decided to change "crazy gardening" to "OCD gardening." It's more accurate and has less of a punch in the gut connotation.

Several semesters ago I had a student in one of my classes who said something very racist or culturalist and very offensive. If anyone else had made this statement I would have been outraged and my first reaction would have been to yell at that person. Indeed, the collective reaction of the class was a general outcry that I immediately squashed by telling the class that we were not going to deal with that as it was not the topic of conversation. Here's the thing: I wasn't offended by his statement. I wasn't offended by it because I knew that this kid had some substantial mental issues that prevented him from having the perspective or knowledge of sensitivity to not say such things, even to believe them. But let's be honest: I also wasn't offended because he was one of my mine. As a human, I give the people who have a deep relationship with me (as students and teachers must have) a bit of a pass on the things they say. I don't endorse them, but I allow them to be human and flawed. I also give people a pass because I know more about them than I know about strangers. As I already stated, I knew that the kid who made the statement did not mean to be offensive and did not act on his statement because he was parroting what he had been taught and what he had learned through emotional experiences. So, my question to myself has to be, why don't I give others the same benefit of a bit more compassion when they say things that are offensive to me? Why don't any of us do that?

For some reason, I tend to get a lot of Iraq war veterans in my classes. Oddly enough, I tend to have mostly former and current Marines in my classes, as well. The thing that I have noticed about these young men (as they have all been men) is that when someone brings up anything relating to war or to Iraq, their demeanor changes. I've seen a student go from a happy-go-lucky expression to one of profound grief just on the mention of the word "Iraq." I know some of the experiences these men have been through and I know that the true horrors are far worse than they've shared. The thing I find interesting is that the visceral nature of war is something you can see clearly played out on their faces when they least expect it: in the middle of a conversation about something else. The progression is rapid and final and gut-wrenching for me to watch as a person who cares about them and wants all of their sadness, their bad memories to be taken away. They have been forced to request a benefit of doubt from the rest of us by the very nature of what they've seen and done in our names and it is this benefit of doubt that I hope we can expand to a broader acquaintance in our lives.

The two examples of students I listed above are obvious; we know that we should give war veterans more room for grief or the process of living in peaceful society just as much as we know that we should give people with mental deficits more room to fit into a world of soft edges while being all elbows themselves. But what about the rest of us? What about the person who says hateful things about others because they have never known another way? What about the subtle forms of prejudice that invade our lives without a thought because we simply cannot be ever mindful of others? Shouldn't we attempt to understand it before we start screaming about it?

This is a hard task. I find it hard not to scream at the television when I hear someone seek to devalue people based on their ideology or culture or race; I constantly have to remind myself that I am doing the same thing they are doing if I call them an idiot. What have I learned from that name-calling? Nothing. What could I learn if I listened to what they have to say? Perhaps, something. I find it hard to imagine a time when I would agree with someone like Rush Limbaugh, a racist and hate-monger, but I find it important to listen to him and attempt to hear the meaning behind the rhetoric. Why would he want our President to fail? What is it that makes him classify liberals as bad, no matter what, and call for one-sided thought in all things? I hope I am not like Limbaugh. I don't want to be someone who refuses to admit that every situation is nuanced beyond the cold, hard non-colored world of either/or. But I cannot be that person if I hate someone like him or anyone else. I don't think we should go around hugging these people or telling them it is O.K. to say the things they say, but I do think our intellectual duty extends past mere dismissal. I don't want to listen, but I must listen if I don't want to get stuck in the muck of complacency and agreement.

I think this idea goes beyond attempting to "walk in someone else's shoes." I think this idea must have two parts to be effective: We must acknowledge that there are things behind the hate that must be understood before we can deal with the hate, and we must be willing to admit that people are fallible and often wrong, including ourselves. I also think we should realize that if a person has turned us off so thoroughly by this offensive speech we can't expect to get through to them if we respond in kind.

There are some easy traps to fall into if we accept the above model for dealing with others: It would be easy to fall into a trap condescension if we do not decide to first listen, then question, then understand, then speak. It's not that I would have people be indulgent of others and their eccentricities or offenses; I would have people accept that the other person is preferring a viewpoint that is more than the words they are using to present it. In other words, the other person is more than the one thing they are saying at that moment and that history of experience must be considered. Pity is another emotion or thought that I think has no place in these situations as it, too, muddies the purpose of conversation. I fall into that trap all too frequently and find myself dismissing others with pity rather than anger. But, that dismissal is just as egregious as the angered dismissal; it is, after all, still a dismissal. Finally, it would be all too easy to use a lumping mechanism with this model. In other words, people with this disability need more room to fit into a conversation, or people with this ideology will always be this kind of person. No, a one-size-fits-all approach is just as bad as refusing to listen to others, in the end.

So... what do YOU think?

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