Since I am on a newsmedia fast (due to lack of time and lack of trustworthiness in what is being reported), some friends brought to my attention yesterday a recently-published cartoon with tremendous controversy. I was not aware of the particular stereotype existing and so I took the cartoon at face value. After the stereotype was brought to my attention, I can understand why there is such controversy and offense-taking. Then, I made a comment to which my friends’ reactions got me thinking last night. Without getting into the whole long conversation (sorry that you don’t have the context of the following statement), I said, “People are too quick to take offense.”
Before I get into my monologue, let me give you a little background. I spent the first 5 years of my life in a country where I am a second-class citizen. Actually, make that 3rd-class because I neither speak nor understand the national language. Then I grew up in a country where if I didn’t dress to the nines or wear designer clothes when going out, I wouldn’t be given the time of day, even by sales clerks who made less than what I was spending. Then I went to college where I was the only Southeast Asian on campus (the only other Asian I was aware of was Japanese and she was there for one semester). There, my first friends were from
So that being said, why…
- is it alright for (some) blacks to call each other the “N” word but not for another non-black good friend to use it?
- is it alright for whites to call each other “cracker” but not for another non-white friend to use it?
- is it offensive for some of my non-Asian friends to hear me retell a story about another Asian friend calling me a banana when we were growing up?
- do reporters and camerapeople shove their cameras and microphones into the faces of grieving black families when bad crimes happen in the city, but not do likewise with white families?
- do the news companies give high publicity to missing white kids (particularly girls) but not to other kids?
- does everything have to be about race?
- can’t people in
My comment to my friends last night comes from this: if we all lived and gave each other a measure of grace, we would be less sensitive and less quick to take offense. This is how people can get along with others who are different, and the world will become a better place. Granted this sounds simple. Yet when was the last time you put this into practice? Living harmoniously in a multi-cultural society is not impossible. It just takes a little effort and grace from everyone.
In the entire time I was in college, there was no one else from within a 1,500-mile radius of where I came from. I was not made to conform, and I did not lose myself. People were kind enough to extend me grace whenever I did or said something that could have been offensive, and I learned to do likewise. The result: I have many good friends today, from many cultures, living all over the world.
It is the small-minded, low self-image folk who cannot bear any sort of offense, real or imagined, intended or unintended, who give themselves a not-so-positive image as they lash out at others with a double-standard. They have nothing else but “The Identity” they cling onto so dearly.
The good news is: we all can change. We can broaden our minds to accept differences, to extend a little grace to others and take offense less quickly. Isn’t harmony worth a little effort on your part?
Addendum: I guess I should have been a little more careful to point out that what I really meant is for people to to not automatically assume the other person is meaning offense in anything they say or do. Point proven?
