Oftentimes in America, someone says or does something terribly ugly, something most of us agree has no place in a civilized society. Following the initial shock and condemnation, inevitably, it is suggested that the dreadful speech or action be seen as an "opportunity" to "have a real conversation."
About race. Or gender. Or class. Or sexual identity.You know, really roll up our sleeves, get down in the dirt, drag it all out in the open and let the cat sniff it.
It's a fine instinct, I suppose, this urge to turn unfortunate moments of honest bigotry into teachable moments. But it's based on an often-flawed assumption: that bigots are teachable.
I try, honest I do. I talk with friends. I bandy on Facebook. I swim in the cesspools called comments sections.
And I'm coming close to concluding that the exercise is futile. Conversations require conversationalists.
Someone very dear to me is descending into a very unlovely case of progressive vascular dementia. The damage has been acute in her frontal cortex and Broca's Area, making her judgment unreliable, often undermined by paranoia, and her speech limited, repetitive and mostly nonsensical. At times, usually with prompting, she'll come out with a clear declarative statement that is true and relates to what's been said to her. The phenomenon is even more startling because at such times her once prodigious vocabulary and impeccable grammar are in evidence. Asked if she's in any pain, she'll respond, "Not in the slightest, thank you."
Up springs hope. The clouds are lifting. Maybe it's going to get better.
Until the next moment, when she just repeats "slightest, slight, slightest," as though the successful use of a familiar phrase is taken for all the vocabulary needed.
Painful as these "conversations" are, I gladly have them. She is dear to me and just being together can be a comfort to both of us.
Not so with the eerily similar "conversations" I've been having with so many about politics and race and class and gender and identity. The repetition of words without context ("Benghazi," "college transcripts"), the illusion of sense decaying swiftly into disconnected babble, the unexpected bursts of paranoid, hateful vitriol. I'm starting to feel like I get enough of that in my personal life, you know?
At this point, it looks likely that Hillary Clinton will be the next president. I'm kind of looking forward to it, because she has a quality widely ascribed to the current one that he really doesn't possess: arrogance.
Oh, she's always polite and well-spoken, but you can often see in her expression and hear in her phrasing a distinct shade of "kiss my ass" that is, in my opinion, lacking in the otherwise admirable personality of Barack Obama.
I'd rather enjoy seeing her take that implicit arrogance and make it more explicit. How refreshing it would be to hear a reporter to ask her what she thought of prominent persons like Barbara Bush referring to her as a bitch and hear her retort, "Well, to my face, they have to call me Madam President, so who's the bitch now, bitches?"
Now that would be an opportunity to have a real conversation.