I read a diary this morning and got mad. read some comments and got madder. went back and got something someone said yesterday and was ready to throw it in their face as a "Gotcha" moment.
then I started trying to put myself in the diarist's shoes. I read it again. and again. I took my personal feelings about the writer and the intensely personal feelings about the subject out of the equation and read it again.
it sparked this comment diary.
I was in a really bad (meaning my behavior and the behavior of the person I was arguing with was bad) convo the other day when someone I was actually not arguing with asked me honestly, basically:
how do I get across what I want to say without offending you?
it actually stopped me in my tracks because what the person was trying to get across... well there was no real way they could put it that wouldn't get to me. I thought hard. they gave me choices. I chose the one that least bothered me. my choice stunned them, as they'd have thought the one I chose was the most 'offensive' to a black person.
it really made me think. what I wound up saying to them was
look you get to say what you want. just don't be suprised if someone sees your words differently than you meant them, and says so.
I MEAN that. you get to say what you want. I don't have to like it. I get to say what I want. you don't have to like it.
what none of us should be doing is impugning the motives of others. I see it done on both sides. I don't speak up when I agree. I do speak up when I don't. that's hypocricy on my part and I'll try to curb that. but we're all hypocrites here (well most of us, with a few notable exceptions) we all treat things differently when someone we like/love/agree with/identify with does something than when someone we dislike/hate/are repulsed by does it. thats human nature. again... I do it. the commenters who angered me this morning do it. the commenters I agreed with wholeheartedly do it.
as a recent example: I didn't speak up the other day when I saw what I thought was some 'radio rwanda'ish language being thrown around by people on here I like/love/respect. that was dead wrong of me, and I regret not doing it. I actually smirked when I saw it, on some "yep damn right." that was pretty despicable of me. I don't mind using the word I've thrown at so many of you to describe it.
but again it's my opinion the vast majority of human beings do stuff like that. like I said I had a link all ready to throw in someone's face to that effect. I discarded it. it would have done NO good, all things considered.
I dunno what else to say about this. I dunno who's racist on here. I do have some ideas about who's mean and hypocritical though. and I hope I've gotten the point across that I think I'm those things too, to my detriment. I'll try to be better. I'll try harder to listen to those with whom I rabidly disagree.
I saw this quote somewhere while I was reading that which angered me, attributed to president lincoln:
"I don't like that fellow. I must get to know him better."
I'll try to get better at doing things like that. truly I will. I know I'll stumble at it. I know I'll 'backslide'. but I'll keep trying.
with your help. thanks for listening.
UPDATE:
folks. "who started it" types of arguments are completely opposite of the sentiment of this diary. as are "who does it more" types of arguments.
I was trying to make clear that I started this morning with my own gripes. if I'd wanted to go down that road, I would have, and this diary wouldn't exist.
I can't tell you what to comment, but I can ask that you try to understand my overall point: we can only truly police our own behavior.