I had a unique experience this past week. Someone dear to me shared with me something that we hear often about, but don’t always see. It was an online, private, targeted exchange between people that used words I thought had been long forgotten and put away. They were words that were hard to read: A heated back-and-forth of charged and hateful accusations, putting into question not only the ideas that someone was sharing, but their worth as a person.
Had I not been reading all of this on a mobile phone, I would have thought it was something from another century. Or certainly not something from 2020. But there it was, in front of me in cyber-clarity, frothing from the text feed of the person who shared it.
Like you, I read about these things a lot. And as a parent and communications person I consider myself mostly aware of the realities of cyber-bullying, the impacts of digital rhetoric to polarize us as a society, and even what misinformation can do to the way we interact or debate online. But it’s at moments like these when someone hands you their phone and says, “Why is this OK? Why!?” that you realize that friendships, parenting, professional relationships and everything around them are changing forever. You realize that every article you’ve read or piece of advice you’ve received probably is not enough to prepare you for what happens when someone hands you that phone and says, “Why is this OK?!”
Almost immediately after the question was posed, it was followed by a statement. “It’s not.” It’s clearly never OK to judge someone like this. And I thought the comment that followed was so astute that I felt prompted to share it. This person, in processing the incident out loud, had come to an important conclusion.
“I think this guy probably doesn’t know a lot of people outside his own circle of friends. Maybe that’s why he lashes out at people who he thinks are different.” [I am paraphrasing these last sentences for editorial reasons – but that was the gist of it].
For a moment, instead of feeling overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the task in front of us as we figure out this new era of relationships in the cyber age, I felt some hope. One of the causes for hate speech makes one of the antidotes so obvious: Get to know other people. Listen to people who don’t agree. And get outside your comfort zone…whether that is a physical place or a way of thinking.
Let’s figure out ways to push ourselves outside our circles of comfort. Perhaps we won’t change our mind about certain things. Perhaps we’ll just be better equipped to help others and be part of today’s reality. Either way, I am committing myself to thinking about what I can do to be ready for the next time someone hands me their phone and says, “Read this.”
