Casual Cruelty

Today I read one of those bumper-sticker quotes on FaceBook (this one attributed to Maya Angelou), which goes something like this: when someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Yesterday I read a blog post (sorry I didn’t save the link) recounting a young man watching a young woman at the gym skulk around until she was positioned to take a picture with her phone of another woman, overweight, working out – he presumed, it turned out rightfully, to post as humor.  This young man got creative and positioned himself behind the young woman to take her picture to post with her identity if she did this anonymously cruel thing.

What I loved about the story was the creative way the young man engaged the young woman in an exercise of social accountability.

What I hated about it was that this young woman felt no compunction about making fun of a stranger for no other reason than that she could.

Are such acts of casual cruelty more prevalent in our time?  Or have they always been rampant?  I don’t know.

I myself have participated in a practical joke gone horribly wrong.  So it is that I reject Ms. Angelou’s advice and choose not to judge the young woman as someone who is innately gratuitously cruel.  I see her more as an emotional child inasmuch as she was stopped not by an understanding of what she was doing, but by being caught out.

Perhaps it is the anonymity of today’s technologies that make a difference, which is one of the reasons why I put my own name to what I write.  If I’m not prepared to own it, I shouldn’t say it.  It keeps me honest and probably kinder than I might otherwise be.

We spend so much of our collective time horrified by the ‘big’ cruelties.  And they do matter.  But it’s the little cruelties that have the most impact, I suspect, if for no other reason than their commonality.

So well done to a young man who found himself with a choice one day at the gym.  I’m not sure I would have used his approach, but rather than simply observing what was happening to someone else as if it had nothing to do with him, he acted and in his acting, he changed things.  Who knows, maybe the young woman will abandon her secret life of gratuitous cruelty.  I sure hope so.

In my own case, I am simply older and wiser now.  It is a great shame that my own education came at someone else’s expense.  I will always regret that.  

10 Quick Things White Folk Can Say to Each Other to Make a Difference

So the observance of the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's I have a dream speech is already yesterday's news.  But before we leave the memory too far behind, I have a suggestion to the speaking-impaired among us.  I refer not to some physical malady, but to the emotional, spiritual or psychological impairment many of we humans suffer when confronted with the inappropriate behavior of another.

What follow are 10 short sentences of what can be said when you hear someone say something racially inappropriate.  Commit them to memory.  Practice them in a mirror.  And when you hear them (and you know you will), speak up!  The world can no longer afford the luxury of your silence.  It never could.

So stand up and be counted.  It may be scary.  It will definitely be uncomfortable.  But it's well past time when it's socially acceptable to simply sit in silence when another is misbehaving.  Social accountability is one of the most effective ways of bringing about change.  So practice these simple sentences and start holding the misbehaving among us socially accountable:

1.     Stop it.  Or, if you prefer the more polite version, Please stop it.

2.     I do not want to listen to this.  (accompanied by your actual walking away if the behavior does not stop).

3.     I do not appreciate that. 

4.     That's not funny.

5.     That's not okay.

6.     That's rude.

7.     I don't feel that way.

8.     That's disrespectful.

9.     You did not just say that!

10.     We don't use that language in this house. . . at this table. . . in my presence. . . 

If you really can't seem to come up with your own, use these.  They're short and to the point.  They seldom invite a big discussion, which is probably what you're wanting to avoid if this makes you uncomfortable.  But it does make it clear that (1) you are not in agreement; (2) you will not be co-opted into giving silent permission for the bad behavior; and (3) where you stand is made clear without much of a fuss.

And from those small steps, great things can happen.  Who knows, maybe when Cousin Sam gets it that Aunt Celia is losing respect for him because of his language and attitudes, he might actually begin to think about changing those words and attitudes.

It's a place to start.