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[lookingtorise]

Special Rights (or how you balance a scale)

When I was a kid, I heard more than my fill of family members complaining about people demanding ‘special rights.’

“I don’t have a problem with the gays, I just don’t think they should be asking for special rights.”

“I don’t have a problem with the coloreds, I just think they need to stop asking for special rights.”

When I was a child, it took some time for me to understand what ‘special rights meant.’ It was code for “the same rights I have.” 

This fear of ‘special rights’ - of ‘having the same rights’ was more a fear of loss than it was a fear of the other. Somehow, in their minds, ‘rights’ was a zero sum game with only so much in the pot - so if more people had access to rights, there was this gut wrenching fear that somehow a monster was going to take away the rights my family already enjoyed.

It was completely unfathomable for many of my family members and their friends to grasp the concept that bringing someone up doesn’t mean you are losing.

Times have started to change - more people understand that equal rights for all is not only fair, but is (despite the hypocrisy of being written by men who owned slaves) what the founders of this country wanted for the United States.

The time has come to balance the scales.

It sounds easy, just make both sides weigh the same, and we have equality.

If it sounds too easy, it’s because it is much more complicated that that.

Here’s the mind blowing thought for this post - when a scale is unbalanced, you can’t make both sides weigh the same by treating both sides equally.

When a balancing scale that has 50 lbs on one side and 10 lbs on the other, you will never, never be able to make the two sides balance by treating both sides equally. If you put 40 lbs on the lighter side - then someone cries out, “but wait, you aren’t treating both sides equally - that’s not fair.” Then, someone puts 40 more pounds on the other side - you know, so that we are treating both sides the same - now we are left with a scale that has 90 lbs on one side and 50 lbs on the other.

For those of us on the heavier end of the scale - remember, it will never be balanced until we acknowledge equal treatment will just keep the scales out of balance. Yes, it can be scary to feel things shifting under your feet, but when the end result is a scale that is balanced - a society where we are in fact equal - take courage and just say no when someone tries to put more on your side of the scale in the name of treating both sides equally.

[lookingtorise]

Three Words (or my problem with imperatives)

There’s this three word imperative that makes my skin crawl. Get over it.

Let’s examine the sentence. It’s an imperative.

We use imperatives all the time - especially in dangerous situations - “Run!” “Look out!” “Stop the car.”

Those are useful - we don’t have time in those instances to create fully formed sentences. We want the instruction obeyed immediately without any debate for everyone’s safety.

In some professions, a person may spend the majority of the day speaking in imperatives. “Sign here.” “Walk through that door.” “Take a deep breath and hold it.”

That’s fine - it’s usually accompanied by either a ‘please,’ or a change in inflection to make it sound more like a request than an order.

When we start using imperatives while speaking to one another - outside of dangerous or professional settings - when the tone is one of frustration rather than request - that’s when I start having a problem with imperatives.

A sentence must have two parts, a subject and a verb. In an imperative, the subject is implied - it doesn’t appear in the sentence. The subject of an imperative sentence is always you. Yes, you. If you are looking around and thinking, “does that mean me?” the answer is yes it does.

“You” is always the subject of an imperative sentence.

Here’s the shower thought for you.

“You” are always the subject of an imperative sentence.

The implied subject takes a little bit of humanity of the request made in an imperative sentence. Let’s say Jamie is standing in a room and you walk up and have one of the two following interactions - which one sits better with you?

Jamie is standing in the lunch room. You walk up and say, “Jamie, get me a drink.”

or

Jamie is standing in the lunch room. You walk up, point to Jamie and say, “Get me a drink.”

Does one of those feel slightly more human than the other? It should. Both feel a bit uncomfortable (but maybe there’s a perfectly good reason you’d be telling Jamie to get a drink for you).

When we remove the subject - the person - we take a little bit of humanity, a little bit of dignity out of a request.

The next point about imperatives is that they aren’t requests at all. They are orders.The speaker is demanding something of the listener. No question is asked. No choice is given. No instruction for carrying out the task is provided beyond the bones of the demand.

Get over it.

So, unnamed ‘you’ that I’ve essentially just pointed at - you must get over it. You have no choice, no agency. I am telling you (person I am pointing at) my demand, and I fully expect you to comply.

Never mind that I can’t provide any constructive advice on exactly how one goes about the “get over it” process. Just do what I tell you because that’s what’s most convenient for me. Because, that’s what most of these conversational conflict imperatives boil down to - one person just trying to shut up the other person.

In case you have gotten this far and use phrases like, “get over it,” or “let it go” (another skin crawler) that’s what people hear when you use them. They hear dehumanizing orders with no guidance. They hear that you don’t care about them. They hear you thinking “my convenience/comfort is much more important than yours so just stop talking so I can go back to being comfortable again.”

Here’s an insider tip - if we knew HOW to “get over it” or “let it go” chances are good we already would have taken the appropriate steps, so just having yet another voice shouting an order we can’t follow is about as useful as me telling you to “just start floating.” It’s perfectly possible to float - you just have to be in the right environment with the right skills. If you aren’t there, no amount of my demands will make it happen.

Instead of telling someone to “get over it,” flip the script. Ask, “how can I help?”

[lookingtorise]

Today I knelt

Today I knelt during the national anthem. It wasn't a huge gesture, and maybe only one or two people saw me. What mattered to me is that I took that first step - by not standing - to stand up for something I believe in.