Saturday, November 13, 2010

Be Careful with What You Say

I read in the paper this morning that the athletic director from Cedar Ridge High School was suspended pending the outcome of an investigation. He is accused of making a racial slur to a 15 year old student. As the story goes from the Durham Herald-Sun newspaper, the student was hanging from a bar to stretch out his shoulder and commenting how difficult is seemed, when the athletic director walked by and commented that it would be better to be "hanging from a bar than hanging from a tree." There is some dispute about the "tree" word, and maybe he might have said "noose."

Either way, there is an investigation. Now this teacher has been at the school for nine years. He is the basketball coach, and a physical education teacher. All his activities have been suspended during the investigation. He is accused of violating someone's sensitivities by using a "racial slur."

All of us clearly understand that lynching history in this country is a despicable episode that raises disgusting images and distressing feelings in all of us. That's a given.  But this incident again raises the issue of each of our unique sensitivities, and the grand social effort to protect all of them.

It seems that anyone who offends anyone's sensitivities is at risk of interventions that have the potential to interfere with the freedoms we all deserve. My guess is that this comment was an innocent remark that is now being magnified into a major episode. Granted, the reference was ill used, but did it hurt someone's sensitivities so much to cause all kinds of retaliation? I understand that the father of this young person said, "forget suspension, I want his job."  Now that would hurt someone's sensitivities.

A recent episode in California occurred when a grade school student rode his bicycle to school and placed an American flag on it to honor America. He was told he must take it off because it might cause conflict by hurting someone's sensitivities. (I wonder whose?)

Finally, James Jones in Orlando, entered a school bus and berated some students because they had assaulted his handicapped 10 year old daughter. As far as I can tell from the video on the bus, he did not touch the "offenders" but he was charged with disorderly conduct and required to give  hours of community service, $1000 fine, and to take anger management classes. My guess is that every parent sympathizes with his "attack" of these bullies, and his direct confrontation. I wonder if he hurt the sensitivities of the bullies? I think Mr. Jones managed his anger extremely well. He didn't injure anyone, and he made his point,"don't  fool with my daughter."

We are such a divided nation, and we all seem to have our unique "sensitivities" which no one is allowed to bruise. I believe there is some truth to all this regulation, but I sometimes think we are taking it too far and dividing our nation and inhibiting our freedoms of speech and actions.

What about the American flag incident? It's clear the school over stepped it's bounds. Mr. Jones was, no doubt, given  too much punishment.  Finally, the athletic director, time will tell, but I think they should let him go, and I hope the "investigation" reveals how contrite and kind of a person he really is.

There was an event I attended last night that made me feel very comfortable with this conflict of sensitivities to our racial, ethnic, or religious conflict, because if doesn't apply under these special circumstances. I went to a high school playoff football game.

During the game, the black quarterback gave the ball to the white halfback, without conflict. Then he might have passed it to the black end, or the other Asian end. Maybe the quarterback would hand it off to the Jewish halfback who would pass it to the gay end. The point was they were a team, and they had a common opponent. They were doing a job, and all these differences which are the source of our unique "sensitivities"  didn't matter.

Do we really have time to go after the athletic director for an innocent comment? Probably not, but we are divided now, and that incident magnifies our division. It would be best if we took a step back and reevaluated this one. He didn't mean to hurt anyone, and he feels sorry for it.

Finally, it makes me think about all the ***-American types we are these days. I might try saying I am a "Euro-American" sometime, but that kind of talk only continues to divide us further. We need unity, don't we? E pluribus unum forever!

I hope I didn't offend anyone.

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