"Pull your pants up!" I heard from my spot in line behind the teen who received this poorly decided advisement from the man taking tickets to the reptile show. The man's voice was loud and his tone was nasty. Immediately the teen complied--until he was through the door, at which point his pants dropped right back down to where they were. Then it was my turn. "Fucking prick!" the man yelled, "he pulled his pants back down again as soon as he was in the door!"
"And that's the way to handle that?" I asked the man. I was not yet through the door and the man to whom I'd handed my ticket was allowed to close it.
But I'd paid for a ticket and nothing about my encounter with this unhappy man was going to prevent me from getting through the door, if I could just keep my temper in check.
"Well he's being disrespectful!"
"I understand that that's how you feel, and I am asking you whether telling and swearing at a child in front of other paying patrons is the way to handle that."
He did not answer. He had shouted at a teenager to make the teenager feel guilty and embarrassed, and his shouting didn't work. But what it did do was embarrass him when somebody called him out on it.
The last thing I want is for people to dread talking to me. It is never my intention to embarrass, even to teach somebody what it feels like. I had to do it once to help a young teen understand what his behaviour looked like and how it affected his mother. I screamed like any number of people used to scream at me when I was getting a beating as a child. As I was growing up other adults would watch or go on about their days as though my cries (and subsequent blows for having cried) were radio static and nobody was to touch the radio dial. I never begged them to step in because I knew nobody would. Later I learned that the silence of not seeking help or comfort has to do with attachment to a caregiver who is supposed to protect you and does not.
The day I had become the one yelling at a young teen I had spent the rest of that evening debriefing with other children in the house, one by one, to make sure they understood why I had done it, reminding them that I love them all, and that instead of ever talking to someone that way they should go to an adult they trust to discuss what happened and what they might like to do about it--even when they become adults themselves. What had he done? He had been irritable and lashing out for most of the day, but then swore at his mother, which I would not tolerate.
During the reptile show I stayed out of the ticket man's way by changing direction if I saw him in my path. He was much older and I had wholly embarrassed him on several levels. I think it hurt his dignity that some female with a cane took him down a peg, and in such a way that any further raging would clearly be more of him embarrassing himself. After challenging somebody you don't further harangue them with your presence while they lick their wounds. If anything, you go back and render aid. I had deeply wanted to follow up, but I was there to have fun and I had made my point.
I did not further engage the man because I had challenged a belief about how to behave when feeling disrespected and he instantly recoiled. I did not unpack different reasons he might feel disrespected, or bring up public or political events that are linked to disrespect as a buzz word. I did not attack him personally, make assumptions about his values, call a supervisor, leave the event, raise my voice, or ignore an indignity that could have been prevented. And boy, was it hard.
My two primary goals of Goju Ryu are to end an altercation as quickly as possible and to be a better person than you I was yesterday.
If I had had more time to deconstruct the situation in the moment I would have followed the young teen to talk about it and to discuss how he made his decision to appease the ticket man, but only until out of sight.
Was the teen's behaviour indeed disrespectful? Maybe. He had been yelled at and embarrassed in front of a crowd. A young male, he was compliant with the request. But no one else's waistlines were checked. No skirts are checked by the antiquated practice of ensuring that skirts were no shorter than 3" below where the middle finger falls when hands are at the side.
Regardless of how much I did and how I did it, what I did do was my best at the time. As a participant who invited themselves into the exchange I'm here in my blog, reviewing my own behaviour, to decide what I might have done differently, if anything. I will not be a safe person to be inhumane around. But I am also still honing my skills at leading and teaching. Teaching is messy work and so is learning.
To be a good teacher you have to be clear about your objective. My objective was to intervene and remedy without causing further harm to what I saw as an injustice. My motivation is to never stand by and allow a person to suffer the way I did.
Activism, to the activist, is hugely trauma and compassion work. It's about not tolerating what we see in front of us when what we see is harmful to others. Some of us don't want people to suffer like we did. Some of us didn't suffer and understand the benefits of limiting the suffering of another being.
Note: In this article I did not mention the race of either participant. If you have ideas about what their races might have been, this is a great moment, right now, to think about what background ideas behind your assumptions may be inaccurate or even misleading. You might wish to discuss them with someone you trust. Right now. Put words on it.
Gassho.
