Typically, I don't do this because... well... you really never know who's on the other end of the conversation. You don't know what point is going to be over the line. You don't know whether they're going to really really really piss you off in a way that you have no recourse.
What was it that got me going? Well, the person we have in common was asking for advice on what to do because he knows someone who has been using the veil of anonymity to voice - what he called - hateful comments. He didn't say what, exactly, her forum was or what she was talking about, but simply said that he knew who she was, and he felt someone needed to speak out.
With the recent focus on bullying and cyber-bullying and hate crimes in the country, I suggested that he might anonymously contact her, stating that he knows she is the one spreading the hate speech and that - if she doesn't stop doing it (or at least didn't start taking responsibility for it), then he will let others know. I said that, in my opinion, if you know someone is spreading hate, and you don't speak up, you become - in essence - an accomplice.
One of the other commenters had suggested - prior to my comment - that our friend stay quiet, and let karma sort it out. She said she felt he should stay out of it and the person would, eventually, get what was coming to her.
My reference to becoming an accomplice apparently didn't go over well with her. She said that "accomplice" would apply if you knew someone was robbing casinos, but not in a situation like this - reiterating that karma should be enough. Which made me ask why bigotry and hate speech, which often lead to hate crimes, were less criminal in her mind than robbery. And I found myself reaffirming that - while karma is great in theory, sometimes in the real world you have to speak up to stop things from happening. Well, she didn't like that. Insisting that I was taking her comments out of context, and that she still believes that karma should be enough.
Which, honestly, has had me thinking for the past couple days. I fully admit that I sometimes open my mouth when I shouldn't. And that sometimes when I close it there's a foot in it. But I also think that I'd rather have to give an apology later than to let something that offends me go by un-contested.
Don't get me wrong. I'd love it if karma came along and solved all of our problems, but if that was the case then there wouldn't need to be anyone in jails, because the courts could simply let karma take care of it. And people who spew rhetoric and bigotry when running for offices would never win.
But, sadly, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon. So, for now, I'm opting for all of us to give karma a helping hand when we can. And if that includes pointing out blatant bigotry or threatening to make public the person using anonymity to spread hatred, maybe that's a good place to start.
Who knows? Doing that kind of good deed might even boost our own karma along the way.
1 comment:
bravo!
Post a Comment