Rediscovering Respect

My computer sat, perched on top of my counter, alone, for an entire week. I looked at her occasionally, wondering if pressing her buttons would resolve the ache in my gut. I decided to let her hover alone.

I didn't feel like writing. I didn't feel like letting go of my short story rejection letter, or our two failed condo contract prospects, or the house we lost and can't seem to replace.

And I certainly didn't feel like tackling Rush Limbaugh's effort to label Sandra Fluke a slut simply because she advocated for women's health coverage, or Glenn Grothman's mission to label single parenthood as child abuse, or Rick Santorum's assertion that "we are seeing the fabric of our country falling apart because of single moms."

I have opinions--strong ones--but I was stunned, speechless, disoriented by my realization that the decade currently cradling me in its weak, feeble arms, is one that doesn't actually boast much progress beyond the misogynistic views women have fought so hard to dispel for the last one-hundred years.

Of course I take solace in the fact that not everyone feels this way. My husband doesn't. My family doesn't. Most of the people around me don't. But the people who do are not a small population of dissenters, like I once believed. After all, when those who have been in office, are in office now, or are currently running for office all make public statements that seem to be generally offensive, it leads me to believe they are not alone. They represent a lot of people.

This scares me--quite a bit.

I know the economy is important, but right now, I care more about the issues politicians are trying to toss aside. All of these issues are entangled, and even if they are not important to the men speaking about them, they are important to me. I cannot look beyond the acidic rhetoric and the damaging subtext. I cannot look beyond the progress women have fought to foster for so many years. I cannot wrap my arms around how any of this can be okay.

I know we are desperate and looking for people to blame, but this is absurd. The last time I checked, women do not choose to have intense menstrual cramps, they are not wholly responsible for conception, and they are not flawed, monstrous beings because they are the responsible individuals who stay to raise the children fathers leave behind.

We have problems, yes. We have trends, yes. We have strong beliefs, yes. But it is not okay to wage unsubstantiated attacks on women and tuck those attacks under the safe haven of "preserving religious freedom," or say that statistics support the notion that single moms are to blame for the "ruination" of our country.

Let's stop pointing fingers. Let's stop looking for someone to blame, and let's look for some way to fix what's wrong. Let's get serious about welfare reform. Let's change it; let's make people accountable. Let's find jobs. Let's clean up the streets. Let's stop making it more lucrative to collect welfare checks than it is to earn minimum wage. Let's stop ignoring the fact that poverty (which also includes hunger and issues of safety)--more than tests, more than teachers, more than anything--impacts a child's ability to learn and to succeed in school. Let's figure out how to make a "real" paycheck more attractive than drug trafficking. Let's reincarnate the notion of "the village" and remove the litigation that prevents that village from doing its part to "raise its kids." Let's re-instill manners, and responsibility, and self-discipline, and ethics. Let's empower people to empower themselves.

But more than anything, let's stop finding scapegoats. Let's stop pointing fingers. Let's stop puncturing one another with sharp, vicious swords. Instead, let's work together to stand on top of these rocks, gaze out into this rough, beautiful ocean of life, and find a way to rediscover respect.

It Isn't Their Fault They're Ugly

My students took a test over Beowulf on Friday and today, as I glanced through their essays, I couldn't help but recall our final discussion. After reading the story from the Danes' perspective, I asked my students to read an excerpt from John Gardner's Grendel. Once we looked at the story through different eyes, we engaged in a lengthy, and somewhat heated, discussion. Spanning from the acceptance of varying perspectives to war, to what deems an attack as justifiable, to the ultimate effects of bullying, our discussion ran the gamut, sending heads spinning with ideas and curiosities and lots and lots of gray area.

As soon as one person asserted that people have no right to attack unless they've been attacked, someone else said that the US fights ethically driven--not self-defense driven wars all of the time. When someone said that bullying leads the victim to a destructive personality, someone else argued that it could very well inspire them to be a bigger person. When one student said that we all need to accept the fact that everyone has different perspectives and they are all valuable, someone else asked about the boundaries of destructive and malicious perspectives that could destroy a group of people.

By the end of the discussion, we came up with zero answers. No one seemed clearer on their stance; in fact, most of them seemed far more confused. They slowly came to realize what once seemed so simple--so black and white--was really far more complicated than they imagined. Suddenly, Grendel didn't seem as horrible or as blatantly wrong as they originally believed him to be.

I sat up front, hardly saying a word. The discussion took a life of its own and I sat back watching it. Just moments away from the bell, B raised her hand. Usually one for off-beat comments, I could only imagine where she was planning to take the discussion.

"Yes, B," I called out to her.

"When I try to kill spiders, my mom yells at me," she began. I could see a few smirks begin to bubble on the faces around her. "She gets mad at me because she tells me the spider didn't do anything to me--it isn't the spider's fault he's ugly."

Then, right on cue, she trumped her loud declaration with a thunderous cackle, sending the rest of the room into giggles. I doubled over in laughter, accepting the fact that I had no hope at all to pull the class together for the last three minutes of the period. Instead, I watched a thousand tiny debates regarding whether or not spiders deserved to die.

I know very well that part of B's declaration surfaced as an attempt to generate attention, but I also think the reason she thought of her story is rooted in the foundation of what our discussion entailed: the effect of killing without reason, of dismissing without understanding, of being cruel without any attempt at respect.

I kill spiders whenever I see them--as well as ants, flies and mosquitoes. I use sprays and swatters and my bare hands in an effort to rid the world of their creepy presence. Her comment made me stop and think. After all, much of why I kill them has little to do with anything they can control. I kill them because they get in my way, they inconvenience me, or they annoy me. Maybe the rest of life isn't all that different if you stop and think about it. I'd like to believe I handle bigger issues in a better way, but B certainly found my weak spot. Maybe I need to open up my heart a bit wider to embrace the insect community. I suppose her mother's right, it isn't their fault they're so ugly....but it is certainly my fault that my swatting is.