Wednesday, December 13, 2017
I have been thinking a bunch this morning about the glibness of what
passes for the main branch of the Democrats anymore. What I'm thinking of
includes things like South Park and Team America, Colbert and The Daily Show, including the punchy
memes that proliferate on social media. Sometimes these things can be funny. The more time passes and the worse the discourse in our country gets, I find them less and less amusing. When I was in my professional education
course titled Class Management to Dr. Taylor, (I think it was that class), he
said something like “Never use sarcasm to teach. Students don't get it and then
if they do, it seems mean in hindsight." I thought about that a lot that
day. In the music department we were a sarcastic, witty, too loud lot much of
the time. I remembered how I felt the first few days as a freshman, on the
outside and not knowing what the inside jokes were. I remembered fake laughing until I caught on,
until the inside jokes were ours and we lorded them over everyone else.
That’s when I knew why two other students in the program had been
grating on me so badly. Since it was a small school we were not only together
for our music courses but often our general studies classes because there just
weren’t that many sections to choose from.
I was sick of hearing them repeating some catch phrase yet again at a
loud volume. If I’m not mistaken, the
professor’s comment that day was directed at one of those students who had done
the typical sarcasm routine in class and to him.
Generally, in education and life, being mean to someone is not the way
to motivate them. The military is not educating but programming: it’s different. My male college percussion
instructor, accustomed to male students, thought that yelling and being sarcastic to me would . . .
what? Make me angry and therefore practice more? Make me embarrassed and
practice more? Wrong answer. What it did make
me do was despise my lessons. I would practice marimba for hours on my own, but
I got a friend to tutor me on snare once in a while since this was my weakest
area. Additionally, it became my goal to out sight read him every single
time. I was already good at it but I
started pulling songs from my piano books and playing them on marimba to
prepare. It steamed him. I never actually got better as a drummer. Eventually,
I left that program. People do not want to volunteer to deal with those who would
treat them like crap.
This kind of damaging attitude extends to the non-verbal, as well. My
eldest son is a college-aged person. He is into politics and comedy, among
other things. It was no surprise that a family member bought him a parody MAGA
hat. It is red with white embroidered
letters, just like the originals; however, it says “Make America Great Britain
Again.” Immediately he put it on and wore it to the supermarket when we went
out. In theory, it’s just a funny hat. In reality, here’s what happens: other people don’t or maybe can’t read the
smallish print. This leaves the observer
with a few assumptions. 1. The person
wearing the hat supports Trump. Therefore, if you are a person of color, LGBTQ,
or simply not a fan of that person, you’re going to avoid my son because he
appears to be a supporter. 2. You think that my son is a supporter. You are too.
You come over to crow together about this and realize the hat is making fun
of you. You think he’s an ass for
tricking you. You might hurt him. 3.
None of this is funny.
I said, “Walking around all comical in that hat is something that
indicates your privilege. You are over six feet tall. You look white. You are a man. What do you think people who
see the hat think about you?”
If he were smaller, browner, queerer, wearing that hat where we live
would be dangerous. Yes, someone could still take a swing, or a shot, at him as
he is now, but those things are less likely.
Not everyone can wear that hat or similar paraphernalia randomly in the
supermarket without fear. I asked him if he saw the look a black woman gave him
and he said no. I reminded him that my eyesight isn’t so great and from a
distance, if I didn’t know him, I would avoid him because I would assume the
hat was an official one. I told him he
could keep the hat and wear it if he chose but not to wear it and hang around
with me anymore.
You can’t educate anyone with sarcasm.
That’s why this “We make fun of everything so you can’t be offended
because nothing matters” culture is rotten. Some things do matter. People’s
feelings matter. People don’t listen to you when you make fun of them or treat
them badly. We have to accept bigotry and hatred, but I don’t
either see the value of calling everyone who lives below the Mason-Dixon line
prejudiced and stupid. That isn’t
true. Also, everyone who lives above it
isn’t non-biased and smart. I think that we have a very long way to go in this
country to get back to a place where we can work together to solve major
problems. The first part is that we have
to respect each other as human. Both
sides have to respect each other as human.
Those on the Right need to stop demonizing people while calling it
religion, and people on the Left need to lay off the condescending weaponizing
of intelligence via humor that is actually bullying. I don’t think this fixes
everything, but I do think it is a place to start.
We have to start somewhere because we have far more serious
issues facing us both nationally and internationally that are going to require lots of cooperation if we as humans
are going to continue to live on this planet for any length of time.
