Columnists
Internal dialogue
Months ago, in The Times I mentioned I felt as if opinions were being stifled. No one ever came right out and told me to “shut up”, although once in my past someone told me to apologize for expressing my opinion or lose my job. In that particular instance I cleaned my desk out and half-heartedly thought about how I had expressed my opinion. Recently, like some of you, I have fretted about making a comment on any subject, at any time, to anyone. For those of you who know me, and for those of you who act like you do, you may think I lack internal dialogue. But, the truth of the matter is, I have a sh**-load of internal dialogue. If I said, aloud, half of what I was thinking, I probably wouldn’t be still be writing for this paper after all of these years. And it has been a lot of years. What I’ve learned is, perhaps, to fine tune the delivery of my notions.
I think you know where I’m going with this. Now, more than ever before, I try to be more careful about what I say, who I say it to and how I say it. It might be called “political correctness”. However, it has helped me cultivate an outward sensitivity and an awareness towards marginalized and oppressed persons. Political correctness has helped me find a way to express myself without making my expressions cost another person their dignity. Hopefully we’re all moving beyond using gender, ethnicity, religion and colour as descriptors in our everyday language. This is a very good thing, but it is complicated. Sometimes the old ways and manners need to be packed up and schlepped to the garbage heap. Like a lot of you, I was raised in an era of “insensitivity”. When I got older, and became more aware of the world around me, I’d wince when I thought of the words and phrases I’d accepted as everyday. Because it was the way I was raised doesn’t make any of that excusable. I knew what I was saying, and why I said the things I did. My language was peppered with racial, ethnic and religious insinuations and allegations. Most of my friends and family were the same—ignorant. Believe it or not, there were people in our circle of friends and family who were not insensitive. And one day I started to pay attention to the mess the world was in. I didn’t think I was going to change the whole world, but I could change my world. Believe it or not, I learned a lot by reading newspapers, listening to news broadcasts and by having conversations with people who had spent time travelling. Listening helped me deal with discriminatory, biased, inappropriate, offensive, partisan language and behaviour. I worked hard to overcome my oppressive/ aggressive speech patterns. As my language changed, my mind opened.
In spite of how hard I work to be a better person, I still have foibles. It seems my newest hiccough is the empathetic correctness. I seem to love to be offended. I’ve gone too far in the other direction and I am constantly looking and listening for the bad in every post, story, conversation and exchange. I hopped on the bandwagon of needing to warn, and to be warned, about violence, misogyny, suicide, rape, abuse, anti-Semitism, evangelicalism,Christianity, health, literature, science—you name it. I’ve got far more internal dialogue than any one person needs to have. I’m in need of warning labels on everything and anything.
Oh my. I think too many of us just love to be offended and spend far too much time looking for offence. Me? Well, as I said before, I thought I was going to loosen up and take a “chill pill”, but I didn’t want to offend. And, in case you haven’t noticed, this is the season to offend just by wishing someone a happy holiday, or worse.
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