Last Night...

[dawson]

Hey All,

 

Last night I encountered an interesting situation.

 

I live in a co-living household (it's kind of like a hostel for professionals), and one of my housemates decided to post something on Instagram that was telling people who are black to ?grow past their victim mentality around their experiences with slavery.? ? and that's me trying to say it objectively. The tone of her post was definitely aggressive.

 

The thing is? we live in a household that's very diverse! So lots of people became very defensive, and then so did she. It wasn't a healthy conversation-- it was very heated.

 

Then, I came into the situation. I was updated by the very upset housemates-- hearing out where they were hurt and how they don't understand how she could write such a thing. She and I have had multiple bonding conversations, previously, so I decided to speak to her. For an hour and a half. At 10pm. Whew!

 

We talked a lot about why she wrote what she did? and why she doesn't feel bad for posting it. We talked about how we can actually reach people-- through compassion versus bullying and hate speech. She shared that she had tried, in the past, to help people grow out of their pain, but she's frustrated when people want to live in their pain. She has tried compassion, she says? and since that wasn't causing any change, she decided to try this tactic of unfiltered expression of her thoughts and feelings.

 

Her message and delivery kind of reminded me of the Westboro Baptist Church*. She wants people to be able to grow and move away from their past and insecurities-- she wants people to focus on sending love to one another. Her delivery, though, was not one of compassion and consideration-- she wanted to shock people into thinking about their reality. That's definitely not how you cause change on a large scale-- that's how you get many people angry at you, because they feel attacked and threatened.

 

I think there is room for healing... But she needs to be ready for it. She needs to feel remorse for her actions (generalizing and stereotyping behaviors of an huge group of people)-- and she needs to want to rebuild a bridge of respect and compassion.

 

At the moment, she is not worried about being isolated due to her actions. She says she is not bothered by the fact that the energy has changed in the household? But I don't believe that.

 

I do think she is still in defensive mode, at the moment, and processing everything.

 

I sure hope she decides to try to work toward being the best version of herself. Cuz this sure ain't it.

 

Anyone else encounter anything similar? What do you do when you encounter (and have to live where there's) ignorance?

 

 

 

 

*People in the Westboro Baptist Church believe certain actions will cause you to go to ?Hell', and want people to change their actions to decide not to go to ?Hell'. Their verbal/written attacks toward things like other people's religions, sexual orientation, and culture are the things that cause the most shock. They are a fear-based group? not one of acceptance and compassion.

 

[Willow]

Hi Dawson!

 

Wow- that sounds like an interesting night! Thanks for bringing it to Community!

 

How did everything go when you saw people, again?

 

It sounds like you really did your best at being objective. It is really important for everyone's feelings to be aired out.

 

Would love to know if you used any of these techniques':

 

https://www.ditchthelabel.org/speak-anyone-anything-conflict-resolution/

 

 

 

-willow