||| ORCASIONAL MUSINGS by STEVE HENIGSON |||
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Kristen Wilson was dismayed by my reference to “the Chinese Disease.” She worried that by openly attributing COVID-19 to the Chinese, it would somehow adversely affect her adopted daughter, Paris, who was born in China and is now in college in Maine.
I want to reassure Kristen that nothing that I write or say could possibly affect Paris. First of all, that’s because I doubt that anyone in Maine reads my weekly column, published for an Orcasian audience. But also, in a much wider sense, nothing that I write or say could have any effect upon the workings of a bigoted mind. If someone is angered merely by the color of Paris’s skin or the shape of her eyes, then nothing that anyone writes or says, positive or negative, could have any effect on that bigoted person’s opinion.
Bigotry is not a rational state, and thoughtful arguments cannot affect a bigot’s mental operations, attitude, or behavior. While prejudice, usually based upon a rational decision, can succumb to thoughtful argument, or to experiment and experience, the bigot’s beliefs are so deeply based upon purely emotional perceptions and so deeply protected by defensive fears that they are unavailable to dissenting thought. As the modern adage has it, “Haters are going to hate.” It’s what they do.
I have to admit that I write this from direct experience. I am a Jew who spent most of his childhood in a Catholic-majority neighborhood in New York City, and I have the scars and bruises to prove it. At that time, it was no longer the Irish who were the dangerous bigots, but rather it was the Puerto Rican newcomers. The Irish had moved up in the world economically by then, and had made themselves comfortable within New York’s ethnic diversity by joining the middle class. But the Puerto Ricans were so new to the city and the culture, and so low on the economic totem pole, that they were deeply insecure, and that insecurity translated into militant and vicious bigotry, particularly against Jews. The funny thing about it was that I was saved from serious beatings by Puerto Rican kids, several times, by my best friend, a slightly older and much more robust Irish Catholic.
And that brings up the important question: How shall Paris, or, indeed, any victim of bigotry, handle the bigot’s hate or defeat the bigot’s attack? I think that the answer I prefer to offer is contained within a few comments on a friend’s life. My close friend, Sat Guru Singh, was a short, tubby little man who dressed in very strange clothing. Everything he wore was sparkly-clean white, and always included an intricately wrapped turban. He had a long beard which he neither cut nor shaved, and, had you removed his turban, you would have seen that he never cut his hair, either. “Funny looking” wasn’t the half of it, and he also looked “foreign.” Foolish people who saw themselves as “real Americans” would occasionally get on Sat Guru’s case, and give him a hard time about his clothing and, specifically, about his turban. The more foolish among them sometimes referred to him as “the Q-Tip,” and many others were convinced that he was some sort of “A-Rab.” He wasn’t. He had been born in Chicago, of born-in-America parents, and he was a Sikh, an adherent of a religion based in the northwest of the Indian sub-continent.
Sat Guru may have been short and fat and funny looking, but he had a very tough job which he did very well. He was a teacher, and, because of his special skills, he ran the “opportunity room” of a big-city public high school. (The term “opportunity room” was school-administration-speak of the time for the place where they isolate the really bad kids, just to keep them away from the other students.) Sat Guru not only supervised this isolation room, but he also had good success in converting some of those bad kids into model students. That was the result of his special skill. You see, Sat Guru Singh was a true Sikh, through and through, which meant that he was a real warrior, unafraid of anybody. The bad kids just couldn’t intimidate him, so they ended up admiring him, and then, finally, they ended up imitating him as well.
Sat Guru was short and fat, but he had a commanding presence and what he used to call a “command voice.” When he drew himself up and used that voice, people took notice, people listened, and people obeyed. When he had had enough of being harassed by some “real Americans,” and had heard “Q-Tip” one time too many, he would stiffen, seem to grow an inch or two, and then he would use that “command voice,” and those annoying bigots would get very quiet and slink away.
Bigots are, for the most part, cowards. They back off as soon as their intended victim shows strength and resolve. I therefore suggest to Kristen, and to Paris, that there is very little to fear from an unreasoning bigot. The best defense is neither appeasement nor rational argument, but rather strong body language and the “command voice.” I also suggest that the same tactic works equally well against today’s “cancel culture.” If someone tries to “shut you down,” I suggest that you display resolve, get into that “command voice,” and just keep on talking. It worked for Sat Guru Singh, and it will work for you.
Steve, you may believe that “nothing that I write or say could have any effect upon the workings of a bigoted mind,” but you are wrong. While you may not be able to change the mind of another, your writings serve to confirm and even validate that person’s bigotry and hatred. Confirmation bias is a real problem in getting to the truth. As a leading author of postings for the local newspaper, your words are given additional credibility. Please be careful.
Those that don’t stand against bigots and bullies enable them. By using the same terms as them, you are also enabling them. For the past four years we have had a president who has enabled the bigots and bullies at a national level. The result has been strife at a level this country has not seen since the 60’s. Never, ever, underestimate the power of words, even when spoken to a small audience.
While most of your writings have been enjoyable, several of them have been less so, including one that Orcas Issues pulled shortly after publication. Perhaps you should choose your words more carefully. And may I suggest you also have a discussion with yourself to determine where those thoughts are coming from.
Neil: Irony and sarcasm, and “calling a spade a spade,” do not confirmation make…except to the irrational mind. By definition, neither you nor I can control or dissuade the irrational mind. Therefore, I will continue to use the words that I personally prefer, but, if they make you uncomfortable, you don’t have to agree with them.
Jim: If one does not use the same terms as the bigots and bullies do, then their irrational minds won’t understand that it is they about whom one is commenting. Quoting in an adverse sense is not “enabling.” Instead, it is a form of criticism. And, uncultured boor though he may be, Trump was not the only bigot and bully in our most recent national government. It takes two separate, opposing parties to cause strife.
Further, if you do not see a suggestion in this week’s essay, about how to stand against bigots and bullies, then I suggest that you re-read it with much greater care.
Further still, the one essay of mine that Orcas Issues “pulled” was not truly pulled at all. It was published at the head of the week during which Lin changed ISPs, and, in the changeover, all of my previous work was lost, including that then-current essay.
All of Steve Henigson previous work was not lost. If you search for “orcasional” you will find pages full of Steve’s previous work., all the way back to when he was posting background stories on local historical events.
Jim, thanks for your rational, reasoned, and measured response. The author’s suggestion: “They back off as soon as their intended victim shows strength and resolve,” seems to be “code” for a call to violence. It has no place in our society. As a psychiatrist, I work with adolescents who are the victims of bullying and Mr. Henginson should show consider showing humane and empathic concern for these youth becoming suicidal rather than working so diligently to defend bullying as a freedom of speech right that he cherishes above real people and real lives. I started reading his pieces years ago and had been impressed; the historical musings were informative and appropriately colorful. Something has happened as he is aging and his posts are now frequently quite disturbing.
And Mr. Henginson, I too am a Jew, but I learned to deal with the racism I faced without resorting to the violent path you took. I only wish you had learned as a youth to resolve things without violence. We will simply agree to disagree that violence and force is t he best option for a person of any age.
I don’t know whether the local people mentioned in this opinion piece were consulted before being included by name, or with the physical descriptions used.
When I’ve seen the young adult mentioned, somehow I’ve never thought of her — or seen her — in the terms used in this piece.
To write, or speak, in this way is, I believe, hurtful to all of us.
Steve, I am dismayed that you dismiss so easily a parent’s concern about what might or might not harm a daughter. Do you somehow know better than she what that might be? How could that be possible?
I won’t attempt to argue any of your points here except to say that, in my opinion, listening and understanding are fine arts that cause little harm in times of strife, and might even send out tendrils of comfort and peace when there is disagreement. I, too, am concerned when Covid-19 is referred to as the ‘Chinese’ virus, even though it seems to be true that it was first identified in China. Blaming another country or culture for causing ‘us’ harm is unhelpful in so many ways and any time we label any group as ‘other,’ to set them apart from ‘us,’ whether it is done by powerful political leaders or our neighbors, the result is pain and harm.
While I have not read the new book Caste, what I have heard from friends who have read it, is that the basis of racism (particularly of Blacks) in our country is not unlike the caste systems in other countries and cultures. Having grown up the the South, a school child in the days of Brown v. Board of Education, I can attest that the racism (and rank violence) I witnessed first hand was far worse than anything, for example, in the book and film The Help, and, no doubt, what actually occurred was/is far worse than anything I personally witnessed.
I am saddened that we, as a culture, still think we know best how others should feel and react to the discrimination they experience as they go about their lives. Each of us, is, after all, an accident of birth (at least so far) in terms of race, appearance, gender, economic status (in the beginning, anyway) and likely in terms of intellect, talent and certainly the potential of musical ability. Not one of us chose who and what we would be born. I won’t go on about the genetic aspects of who we are born and who we might become, but I remain hopeful that empathy and its limits are not necessarily constrained by our genes.
Listening and hearing and reacting supportively are talents and gifts we can encourage in ourselves, and we might just learn something in the process. Right now I am listening to David Kobrin, when he says we do not know if the people being discussed in this exchange gave their permission to become the objects of this discussion. I apologize for my part for violating their privacy, which does not make it right, I know.
We are so lucky to be on Orcas Island, to live in the castle, surrounded by a moat of salt water and, yes, money, that protects us from the wilds of the rest of the wild world. The virus does not care. It is ever democratic. It is a pandemic. Perhaps it originated geographically elsewhere, but it is we who have protected and nourished it and shared it with those we disparage and those we love. Perhaps we should call it the ‘Our’ virus.