As Gen X hits its collective mid-life crisis, we wade through a country that’s undergoing a political crisis. More extreme views appear to the left and right of a seemingly silent (and often bewildered) center.
That polarization causes wild swings–accentuated by whatever will bring the media the most eyeballs or ears–causes more of a feeling of instability (regardless of actualstability) than most are comfortable with. That feeling of instability further causes more polarization as each side becomes more and more reactionary in order to counter the escalating maneuverings of the other.
And my generation (Gen X, for those who haven’t been paying attention) is kind of at the middle of it all. In general, we’ve long been disillusioned when it comes to politics. We know they’re not pretty, that they’re often petty, and seem to almost always ignore sensibility. Even though we went out and “rocked the vote” way back when, we didn’t really get the long term results we hoped for.
Just like everything else in our lives.
But that hasn’t stopped us from just moving forward.
We’re used to being disappointed. Or being disappointments. Either way, the effect is the same. We often keep to ourselves, bide our time while the water is rough (which is sometimes more hard work than is readily visible), and hope for that day when the skies clear up and we can actually accomplish the big things we’ve always wanted to do.
Thing is, the weather never seems to clear up.
And now… now we find that half of our own lives are gone.
We’ve worked harder than most seem to realize. Quietly, for the most part. But we’ve had a lot of that work destroyed before we could make use of it. So we have little to show for it.
And now… now just finding work is a long-term, full-time, unpaid job. Is it any wonder people are just giving up?
We were raised by the first TV generation and have been soaking in media hype and marketing messages for our entire lives. Celebrity leaves as bad a taste in our mouths as politics does… and half the time the two are closely intertwined, anyway.
Half of our lives are gone and, yeah, we’re likely kind of bitter about it.
But that doesn’t stop us from continuing to move onward.
That’s the only thing we’ve ever known: that the horizon is where we should be.
And it’s always just a wee bit farther out.
Sometimes it’s obscured by a haze (of politics, of entertainment, of hype)… but we’ve been trained to know the general direction, regardless.
We move, always. Slowly at times. And we’re getting old and want to rest.
I hadn’t heard about the Macklemore thing until I saw a post about it yesterday. (He’s since apologized.)
I was left wondering if a bit part of the problem was that we’re not willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt when they say “I really didn’t know.” (Especially if no other public action we’ve ever seen indicates otherwise.)
“Everybody ought to know this one,” people say. “After all, dehumanization of the Jews nearly led to their total extermination in Europe.”
But everyone doesn’t know it.
I know this for a fact because it was one of my big gripes about Star Wars The Phantom Menace (the critter that owned Anakin and his mother: filthy, big nosed, always looking for a deal and/or a way to screw you over, talking with an obvious Semitic accent… same with the obvious Oriental stereotype at work on the Trade Federation reps). Only about half the people I talked to–and they spanned ages from a decade or more younger than me to a few years older–recognized the stereotype.
And the only reason I recognized it was because I’m interested in how minority populations have been oppressed and demonized over the years. It’s not something I ever had explicitly shown to me (though I can recall some implicit statements, usually in old jokes, which I never really got at the time I heard them).
What should really be the case is: No one should know.
No one should immediately think that a character with a big nose is a jab at the Jews. The simple fact that so many of us still immediately see that means that dehumanization is still alive and well.
It’s definitely along the lines of the “Check your privilege” stuff… where we need to remind ourselves that we’re not always aware of everything that goes on inside our own heads, let alone what forces are at work around us.
I grew up in a surprising diverse area for being in the middle of nowhere. Yet, even with all the talk of racism and prejudice on the news in the 80s and early 90s, I’d never seen it play out until, I think it was my Junior Year of high school. When a buddy of mine, who happened to be black, had his locker vandalized with racial slurs.
We were all just dumbfounded… him especially.
The world got a little less bright and shiny that day. And I know that I became much more aware of a lot of the subtle undertones in a lot of my learned interactions… in a lot of the humor that was out there… in who did and who did not interact with one another.
It was more than a few years after that when I learned more about the hunk of hometown that I lived in. One of the local long-time families was cleaning out an old barn and came across one of the original signs that used to sit at the entrance to the area I lived. It said, if I recall correctly: “No Niggers, No Jews.”
And, yet, I’d gone at least 16 or so years before I saw any of that sentiment in action. So things must change somewhat… or, at least, it’s possible to grow up right in the middle of it and not know… until it hits you square in the face.
That’s not to say that, when it becomes clear there is harm/ridicule intended, decisive action shouldn’t be taken to reprimand the perpetrator… but the first step should always be “Dude, this is how I’m seeing this… is this what you mean?” And if the answer is “Really? No!” then a wee history lesson may be in order. In another generation or two, the stereotype may fade even more.
Now, people who actively live down to the stereotypes about their culture/race/whatever… I have little sympathy for them, as they’re part of the overall problem. Possibly worse than the people what use those stereotypes against the larger group. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Over the next week or so, there’s going to be a lot of news on TV shows that get canceled, renewed, and picked up from the list of potentials.
That always breeds a lot of laments and cheers from people… and more than a few quirked eyebrows in some cases.
It also breeds some great discussions about why we like what we like and why shows we don’t like get renewed. That’s what happened a lot today. I won’t rehash it (and if I were going to, I’d probably do it on my ToobTalk.com site… which has gathered quite a bit of dust).
There’s also a lot of highly charged political stuff on the horizon… net neutrality being the big one that concerns me. So, keep an eye out for that, too.
If you haven’t seen it yet, this video has been making the rounds a lot in the last couple of days.
I can understand the visceral “Hell, yeah!” reaction to this guy’s video. It’s the same rush of vicarious joy I get when watching Bruce Willis blow away the bad guys in Die Hard or Kiefer Sutherland squeeze the world-saving information out of the terrorists on 24. That’s a normal, human, reaction to someone actively and expressly dealing with a frustration or fear that we can all relate to in one way or another.
But just because it’s “normal” doesn’t mean it’s healthy or helpful.
Let’s reframe the situation a little to remove some of the unimportant details that people are getting caught up in (namely, who’s paid for what and the gun).
Imagine the daughter is out with some friends, perhaps going to a movie, and her cell phone pocket-dials dad. Thinking it’s his daughter calling, dad, of course, answers, but all he hears in the conversation that’s going on between his daughter and her friends.
“Damn, I wish my parents weren’t such slave-drivers. They make me do everything around the house. I hate them,” the daughter says (a close-enough paraphrase of what was said in the original posting). Standard teenager whining and complaining about parents. We’ve all done it. Especially when we think our parents can’t hear it.
Well, dad hears all of this, hops in his truck, and drives down to the movie theater. By the time he gets there, the film has already started. He goes into the theater, finds his daughter in the crowd and proceeds to drag her up in front of the big screen where he then announces to all present: “Look at this ungrateful little idiot. Don’t you think she needs to be taught a lesson?” And then takes her phone out of her pocket, throws it on the ground, and stomps on it. “Now I’m taking her home and she’ll be grounded for months.”
How would you feel if you saw this play out in front of you?
Chances are, it would be a bit different that you feel watching this video. I know I’d feel different. I’d be much more concerned than a lot of people seem to be.
But, really, this video isn’t any different.
More importantly, dad here did *almost exactly the same thing* that his daughter did: made a semi-private post that unexpectedly found a larger audience.
Neither of them fully thought through the ultimate consequences–or even the *potential* consequences–of their actions.
The daughter thought she was just complaining to friends. I’m relatively certain she wouldn’t have said any of those things directly to her parents (the “why” of that is another discussion all together).
The dad thought he was just posting a video to his daughter’s friends and family, calling her out for her ungratefulness. (The usefulness of public shame in this situation is another discussion all together.)
Both of them found a much wider audience than they expected. The dad much more so because of his utterly wild actions. Actions that, anyone with half a clue about how YouTube works would know will get you a few hundred thousand views at least. (If he’d just used Facebook’s video option, he would have had direct control over the audience. But he didn’t because he didn’t like the interface and found YouTube easier.)
Then there was more posted…
The good news is, everything seems to be fine with the family for now. Read it here.
But, again, let’s take a step back. What has happened here?
A daughter has been shown that her private opinions, even when voiced in what she thinks is a safe arena, can bring drastic reactions from others.
A father has acted out in a childish, emotional, and unthinking manner that, to many, seems violent and disrespectful… not unlike what he is trying to punish his daughter for.
My main worries in the situation are that the communication between parent and child, already difficult during those teen years, can be easily and permanently damaged by things like this and that this sort of over-reaction on the part of a parent sets a bad precedent for other reactions that may not be quite so public.
Teenagers are, generally, trouble.
Teen years are times when boundaries are pushed. Sometimes in private, sometimes in public. This was a boundary push that was started in private–the girl complaining to her friends. While dad wasn’t actively snooping, what he stumbled across was not meant for him. While obviously hurtful, objectively speaking, it wasn’t anything dangerous–not a suicide threat, not a plan to run away, not a call to violence, not evidence of drug use or any number of other overtly dangerous things.
Now, if the girl had said those things directly to dad in a public place, he would have been put on the spot and I would maybe give him some leeway on his reaction at the time (assuming it was not overtly dangerous to anyone). But that’s not what happened.
Through willfulness, dad made this private even a semi-public event. Through ignorance, he made it a *very* public event. That sort of escalation has its place, but I don’t think this is the caliber of event that calls for it.
Yes, this seems to be at least a second point in a possible pattern of behavior for the daughter. But, in the follow up that was posted, it seems the daughter doesn’t even remember the first set of punishment that dad uses to justify this escalation. That, in and of itself, is an issue.
There are other options.
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least a handful of better, more growth and respect encouraging, ways to deal with an issue like this.
My choice would have been to call the daughter out on it, but at home. To point out to her that conversations online, no matter how much you think they are private are not. Make it clear that the info wasn’t obtained through snooping, but rather by accident (this prevents trust from being breached and shows respect for the daughter’s privacy and private thoughts). Then, once she calms down (because you know a 15 year old is going to raise at least a little hell when confronted like that), sit down and work with her on an actual list of what she has to do compared to what she gets from the family.
Then post that list on the fridge or her bedroom door… somewhere where she has to look at it every damn day and be reminded exactly where the weight of “privilege” is in the household.
Take away the computer, make her temporarily shut down her Facebook account. But give her two things: a calendar and a diary. The first she should make off every day of her grounding, this will prevent her from forgetting about it if there’s ever a next time. The second will give her a place where she can privately put down her thoughts, no matter what they are, without fear of them being seen by others. That encourages a healthy inner dialog that can be looked back on to see how much she has grown over time (or not grown, as the case may be).
I think most of the discussion I’ve seen on this whole thing has been quite sad. Parents complaining about “kids today” and those kids lashing out at draconian parents. Every generation complains about the younger crowd, usually rightfully so (at least to some extent). But complaining about it and taking extreme action does nothing for either side except widen the gap of misunderstanding and mistrust.
That doesn’t do anyone any good.
We can all do better than that.
Many have–because I know plenty of parents with damn good kids. And I know many kids that are damn good despite their parents’ shortcomings… but that’s a much harder thing to achieve.
[Some good conversation was had over on Facebook regarding this. Join in here, or comment below.]
But, really, this video isn’t any different.
Teenagers are, generally, trouble.