The concept of social justice has been a major force in my life since childhood. I have three principles that guide my life. Is it fair? Is it kind? Is it true?
We all know there's more to the Fourth of July than parades, barbecues, flags and fireworks. It's a day when we can reflect on and honor the courage of the people who took the first steps to right an unacceptable wrong. They fought and many of them died to leave as their legacy the independence that makes America so very different from any other country on Earth. These stirring words of our declaration tell everyone, without equivocation, that these are the foundation stones of our democracy.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
I've done a lot of thinking about those concepts lately. Even as I think about the early struggles for independence I can't escape the very real fact that the concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness still aren't a part of the reality of many Americans.
It seems to me that one effective way to combat the growing trend toward an acceptance of hatred and racism is to call them out when they show their ugly faces.
Do we, as a supposedly civilized society, have a responsibility to those among us who are, and have been, the object of racial and ethnic injustice?
Do we, as supposedly moral human beings, have a justification for laughing at racially insensitive comments or jokes?
Do we as people of honor have a right to look away when our brothers and sisters are made the objects of unrestrained discrimination?
We have to ask these questions of ourselves and those who would presume to lead our country.
Monday, September 21, 2015
MESSY BREAKUPS
Sometimes we make a mistake in judgment that creates a situation we never thought we'd have to confront. Things can degenerate from a difference of opinion to something quite ugly. Usually, we tell ourselves to just forget the whole thing and move on. I don't think we ever completely forget, though. It's always back there, in the shadows. Waiting. The thing to do is to turn around and shine a bright light on it. When that bright light hits the situation we see things we hadn't noticed in the first flush of a new friendship. Arrogance, spitefulness, bigotry and an insatiable need to be right about everything.
We have to decide if a messy break-up is better or worse than pretending everything is wonderful when it really isn't.
I've lost track of the number of friends who said versions of the following:
"He really was a creep..”
“I can't believe I thought I was in love with him/her."
"She/he always seemed so nice.”
“ I can't believe she'd do something like that."
"How could I not notice ....?" Fill in the blank with your own experience.
This also applies to friendships.
I recently ended a short-term friendship with a woman who insisted on referring to our relationship as a life-long friendship. We went to the same high school for one year. We weren't friends then; I don't think we even had a class together. We had one friend in common and didn't know any of the same people. This woman had created an entirely fictional life and passed it off as her own. As her "life-long friend" I was expected to maintain a fiction I didn't know anything about and that had nothing to do with me. The simple truth is that prior to accepting her request for a Facebook friendship, I hadn't seen the woman since my eldest child, now in her fifties, was about three or four months old. She showed up at my home with the one person we knew in common, I thought to see my new baby. After about twenty minutes of chit chat, the real reason for the visit came out. She was very dramatic, she was pregnant, She told me who the father was and said he wouldn't even talk about "doing the right thing…" She was desperate, she’d do anything, she couldn’t have this baby and on and on, then she asked me to help her find an abortionist.
I was insulted. Religious and political considerations aside, in the early 1960s, abortion was illegal. Why on earth would this woman I barely knew think I could or would help her find someone who would terminate her pregnancy? She asked if I thought the doctor who delivered my baby would help her. I doubted it and said so. Why should he risk his profession to do something illegal for anyone? I don't think he would, and knowing him for the forty plus years I did, until he retired, I know he wouldn't.
She and the mutual friend left soon after. It was, I thought, just one of those odd nasty things that happen. I decided to put it out of mind and never speak of it.
I didn't, until about two months ago.
I posted a comment on my Facebook page that was critical of a remark made by a politician. It was ugly and racist and sexist and I said so. This ersatz friend said she knew as a woman she should be offended, but she thought the comment was hysterical and that some people (meaning me, although she was "too much of a lady" to say so) should lighten up.
My response was that I didn't think racist, sexist jokes were funny. Things that were considered hysterically funny when said by the character Archie Bunker really weren’t funny then, and still weren't funny today. I had hoped that as a civilized society we had evolved enough to see those ethnic, racial, religious and gender slurs for the hateful things they really always were. I listed a few examples of words that were commonplace in the 1970s as a simple demonstration of how insensitive our society was forty years ago, and said it was sad that so many people hadn't moved past that point.
The woman went ballistic and posted one of the most vituperative responses I've read in a long time. Of course, she unfriended me, no surprise, but she also sent copies of her "response" to everyone I know. Does it need saying that she twisted my examples of words that were offensive into an indictment of me and everything I stand for? Probably not.
Stunned by the violence of her attack, I said something about this to my husband; he has an uncanny instinct for spotting the false faces who walk the planet. I do not.
He didn't know we'd ever been friends.
I explained the situation and was surprised by his response.
“You know her secrets.“
She had to make me the kind of person no one would believe because I was the one person on earth who could put the lie to her entire fabricated life.
On such gossamer threads are some friendships hung.
We have to decide if a messy break-up is better or worse than pretending everything is wonderful when it really isn't.
I've lost track of the number of friends who said versions of the following:
"He really was a creep..”
“I can't believe I thought I was in love with him/her."
"She/he always seemed so nice.”
“ I can't believe she'd do something like that."
"How could I not notice ....?" Fill in the blank with your own experience.
This also applies to friendships.
I recently ended a short-term friendship with a woman who insisted on referring to our relationship as a life-long friendship. We went to the same high school for one year. We weren't friends then; I don't think we even had a class together. We had one friend in common and didn't know any of the same people. This woman had created an entirely fictional life and passed it off as her own. As her "life-long friend" I was expected to maintain a fiction I didn't know anything about and that had nothing to do with me. The simple truth is that prior to accepting her request for a Facebook friendship, I hadn't seen the woman since my eldest child, now in her fifties, was about three or four months old. She showed up at my home with the one person we knew in common, I thought to see my new baby. After about twenty minutes of chit chat, the real reason for the visit came out. She was very dramatic, she was pregnant, She told me who the father was and said he wouldn't even talk about "doing the right thing…" She was desperate, she’d do anything, she couldn’t have this baby and on and on, then she asked me to help her find an abortionist.
I was insulted. Religious and political considerations aside, in the early 1960s, abortion was illegal. Why on earth would this woman I barely knew think I could or would help her find someone who would terminate her pregnancy? She asked if I thought the doctor who delivered my baby would help her. I doubted it and said so. Why should he risk his profession to do something illegal for anyone? I don't think he would, and knowing him for the forty plus years I did, until he retired, I know he wouldn't.
She and the mutual friend left soon after. It was, I thought, just one of those odd nasty things that happen. I decided to put it out of mind and never speak of it.
I didn't, until about two months ago.
I posted a comment on my Facebook page that was critical of a remark made by a politician. It was ugly and racist and sexist and I said so. This ersatz friend said she knew as a woman she should be offended, but she thought the comment was hysterical and that some people (meaning me, although she was "too much of a lady" to say so) should lighten up.
My response was that I didn't think racist, sexist jokes were funny. Things that were considered hysterically funny when said by the character Archie Bunker really weren’t funny then, and still weren't funny today. I had hoped that as a civilized society we had evolved enough to see those ethnic, racial, religious and gender slurs for the hateful things they really always were. I listed a few examples of words that were commonplace in the 1970s as a simple demonstration of how insensitive our society was forty years ago, and said it was sad that so many people hadn't moved past that point.
The woman went ballistic and posted one of the most vituperative responses I've read in a long time. Of course, she unfriended me, no surprise, but she also sent copies of her "response" to everyone I know. Does it need saying that she twisted my examples of words that were offensive into an indictment of me and everything I stand for? Probably not.
Stunned by the violence of her attack, I said something about this to my husband; he has an uncanny instinct for spotting the false faces who walk the planet. I do not.
He didn't know we'd ever been friends.
I explained the situation and was surprised by his response.
“You know her secrets.“
She had to make me the kind of person no one would believe because I was the one person on earth who could put the lie to her entire fabricated life.
On such gossamer threads are some friendships hung.
***
About Friends and Friendship
A lot of people who make the most noise about love, respect and acceptance of the whole person seem to be incapable of practicing what they preach. I don't always agree with everything my friends say, but I love and respect all of you enough to respect and defend your right to say it. I also know that you don't always agree with everything I say, but a majority of you respect my right to say it. It's that minority of people I thought were friends who recently seem to be going out of their way to change my opinions with insults and ridicule. So, why are these people still on my friends list?
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