Mad World
This last few days has been an exercise in patience, self-preservation, and tolerance.
I think the last six months have been challenging for most Americans. As a gay man, seeing a president come into power who does not support civil rights for anyone is enough to put me into flight-or-fight mode constantly.
And now there are white supremacists (I refuse to call them nationalists. Their vitriol does not deserve validity.) marching in Virginia. Giving terrorists an excuse to plow down the counter-protesters who are brave enough to stand up to them.
These things were weighing on my mind as I went into my weekend. I started off my Saturday with a trip to get our background checks and fingerprints renewed. The company that provides the service contracts with small Mom-and-Pop shipping and packaging shops.
As a rule I am glad to support local business. Yet this shop is overtly christian; with large signs proclaiming various bible verses, and lots of christian merchandise. As a gay atheist couple going in together to be fingerprinted for the purposes of adopting an infant, we felt like intruders.
Nonetheless, the young man in the shop was professional and the process went smoothly. He didn't ask any awkward questions and we were finished within ten minutes. Our background check results were ready to send on to the agency by that afternoon.
I also had to get my self out of a bit of a verbal tussle with a Facebook person due to an offhand comment I made to a person's post on Saturday. The woman posted a link to a story about how Washington State is planning a curriculum around sexual and gender diversity. The woman, who is very obviously conservative, was up in arms and was threatening to pull her children and homeschool them.
(This was a friend of an aquaintance)
I made an offhand angry comment that perhaps that would be best, because I don't really want my kids to share a classroom with her kids anyway. (Did I mention angry? Offhand? Didn't know this woman? Oops....)
Subsequently, I had an interesting dialogue on Facebook with her about the need for inclusive curriculum. Unfortunately she didnt buy my argument, and neither did I swallow her swill about christians being threatened as a group in this country.
I apologized to her for trolling her, and It was a harsh reminder to me that although Facebook can be a good way to keep us in touch, it doesn't really build bridges. Most of the time our posts are seen by people who agree with us on the issues we commonly care about. The experience gave one more reason to consider putting aside Facebook and social media in general.
It is so easy to convince myself that I engage in the world while I in fact don't really have a lot of interactions with people who are dissimilar from me in either beliefs or culture. The technology that claims to connect us in fact does an amazing job of isolating us from each other.
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