Can We Talk About Something Serious?

This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, hosted by Long and Short Reviews. Check out other bloggers at this week’s post, “Things I Wish More People Talked About Openly.”

Oh, my. Where do I start with this one?

Wait. Where do I start?

I had so much to say here when I first saw the topic. Then I couldn’t get started because I was so overwhelmed by the possibilities.

It seems there’s much in the world that we don’t talk about in polite company.

But maybe that rule has led us to be unable to talk about things politely.

Then again, maybe we don’t always need to talk politely about certain topics. But we definitely need to talk about them.

I think instead of politely, we need to relearn how to discuss topics civilly.

We need to relearn how to create logical arguments about a topic. Back in the 1980s, my high school had a class on logical thinking. I still wish I’d taken it. There was a debate team, too, that I wish I’d taken a closer look at. Then I’d have a better grip on logical fallacies and be better able to address them as they come up in conversation.

Judith Martin, AKA Miss Manners, has said in the past that the three topics that shouldn’t be discussed in casual conversation are politics, sex, and religion, so as to avoid offending people. More recently, she’s said,

The real problem is not subject matter, but people who no longer care whether they cause casual offense. They may relish doing so — not only to those whose affiliations and opinions they do not know, but also, perhaps especially, among those they do know. Such as their own relatives. Their justification is that they are challenging ignorance, prejudice and bigotry of whatever kind. Which would be noble, if only it worked.

I appreciate her point here. We absolutely as a society need to challenge ignorance, prejudice and bigotry when we see it. But we need to understand how the tone of our challenge affects our message. It’s not unlike a quote often attributed to Emerson:

What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.

To paraphrase, “I can’t understand what you’re saying because of the way you’re saying it.” Or we can refer back to the flies-honey-vinegar trope.

What I mean there is that it’s one thing to challenge someone’s bigotry. It’s entirely appropriate to do so because of the way bigotry affects people. Even apparently simple verbal slights can add up over time.

But when we do challenge things like that, we need to first consider what we’re trying to accomplish with our challenge. Do we want to correct, or merely chastise?

Do we want to shame the offender, or help them become a better person?

The cynical (and probably quite common response) is that you’re not going to be able to change a bigot’s mind, so why bother trying? Just shame them so everyone knows what they’re really like and move on with life.

And I get it. I’m a little cynical myself. I grew up in southeast Ohio and I live in Oklahoma. I’ve seen more than a little bigotry and prejudice after wandering the world for mumblety-eight years.

Daryl Davis has entered the chat.

Davis is a R&B and blues musician known for his boogie-woogie piano work. He’s played with Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, B. B. King, and Bruce Hornsby. He’s also Black.

And he’s deconverted dozens of KKK members.

In a 2018 TedX talk, Davis said,

What I have come to find to be the greatest and most effective and successful weapon that we can use, known to man, to combat such adversaries as ignorance, racism, hatred, violence, is also the least expensive weapon, and the one that is the least used by Americans. That weapon is called communication.

When he talks to Klansmen, Davis doesn’t berate them for their bigotry or their ignorance. He engages with them. He lets them see him for the human being he is, letting them learn he’s just like they are. He breathes, he bleeds, he loves and is loved. He’s direct when the conversation calls for it. He can be blunt. But he’s almost always civil.

Directness and bluntness may be beyond the realm of politeness. But they can still be used as tools in a civil conversation.

If you’re really trying to communicate.

The soundtrack for this post has been the Music Makes You Braver Mix – Two Steps From Hell playlist.

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