Important notice: today is a national call about saying no to the wall and yes to end the shutdown day. We need phones to ring or our senators of every hue will think that the only people who care are the Fox News viewers who have been telling them to build the wall. Here is the 5calls script https://5calls.org/issue/end-the-government-shutdown-with-no-strings-attached- and here is the indivisible script and explainer https://indivisible.org/resource/trumps-latest-temper-tantrum-and-showdown-over-wall .
Now back to your regularly scheduled blogpost.
There’s been a lot of talk about whether it’s better to punch Nazis/shun Trump supporters, or whether it is better to listen and gently try to change them. It’s always presented as an either/or. The NY Times and other publications write article upon article about how the left needs to be more tolerant. (Narrator: It doesn’t.)
Here’s my no-research-done opinion. We need the majority of people out there shunning Nazis/Trumpists and a much smaller number of selfless souls willing to be the “good cop” to gently listen to their feefees and to explain to them how to make their way back into society as non-racists. We need people yelling at politicians in restaurants and throwing pies in Nazi faces and dis-inviting racist uncles from dinner and we need a lot more of them than we need that one empathetic person that picks up the pieces later.
At a recent faculty retreat, one of the professors made the point that our students don’t realize their writing is bad until they get bad grades on it. Only then do they start listening to how to improve it. Gently correcting comments are ignored if there’s an A on the front of the first page. In the same way, we need a strong front of letting people know what is unacceptable in society, and then a little bit of gentle direction on how to fix it. But not everybody has to be the teacher. In fact, it isn’t any good if there are no social consequences and everybody accommodates the missing stair.
So go out there and be intolerant of racists! Do it without guilt! If you see one that has reached the bottom and wants a hand up, go ahead and listen (#DeliciousNaziTears) if you want to, but don’t feel obligated. And certainly don’t feel the need to be nice to one who isn’t already questioning. It’s not your job to be the Nazi Whisperer. These people don’t deserve more time than the people that they are hurting.
Book recommendation: So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo. Give it to everyone you know. Then resume yelling at racists and telling them to get on up out of here with their wack opinions.
Grumpeteers, what do you think?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 