A few years ago, I wrote a post about women not really listening to each other. I re-explored the topic a few years later. And another example here.
Last week I experienced this in a political liberal vs. conservative context. My long-time liberal acquaintance/friend Cecily Kellogg wrote publically on Facebook that seeing signs supporting Trump in the presidential race disturbed her daughter. The exact post is unavailable now on Facebook.
Cecily and I have been talking online for 16 years or so. Overall we have a fair relationship. That means usually I read her opinions, I may prod a bit, but don’t poke too hard, and then we go our separate ways. She used to blog and now she has a website. We interact mostly on Facebook. It never becomes contentious. For my part, I prefer just to say what I have to say and let it go.
This time, I wanted to commiserate with Cecily because I felt bad that her daughter was so fearful about what she was seeing around her. So I commented with this:
I understand. I don’t put any Republican campaign signs in my yard or on my car because I fear vandalism to my property. A few years ago, my 20-something-year-old son was eating at Chipotle. He had a Don’t Tread On Me pin on his backpack. It was a small pin, probably not even one inch in diameter. Some other guy kicked his backpack and called my son a MFer while giving him the finger. My son invited him to sit down for a discussion but this guy kept harassing my son until he had enough. When my 6 foot 250-pound kid stood up, the other guy ran away. So I understand your fears for your child. I fear for mine every day too.
(My son Calvin is now a paramedic and wears a uniform. he is frequently called into stressful situations.)
But that’s where the misunderstanding took place. Cecily asked if I was comparing her daughter to a political button.
I wrote:
I compared your experience as a liberal mother to mine as a conservative one.
This misunderstanding may be on my part. I don’t understand how she thought I was comparing her child to a political pin. Clearly it was my son that was confronted, not the pin on his backpack.
Unfortunately, I was writing all of this on my Android phone because we were out of town. For me at least, it’s hard to write eloquently when I’m writing with one finger on the phone. screen. What I was trying to convey is that mothers in general, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, fear for their children because of extremists on all sides.
Cecily replied:
The state will never ban your son’s right to free speech, Elena. He does, however, have to take the consequences of his beliefs. 2. My gay child’s very life and love have been banned by the stat. Her ability to marry has only become legal IN HER LIFETIME. 3. People are killed all the time in this country for being gay, trans, or even bisexual. 4. I haven’t heard of a single death of a kid wearing a conservative political button. 5. THESE TWO ITEMS ARE NOT IN ANY WAY EQUAL. Sigh. I don’t know why I’m arguing with you. I’ve never changed your mind, not in the 16 years I’ve known you online.
I’ll admit, I was a bit taken back. It’s not often you get six strawmen fallacies thrown into one rebuttal. The premise of the argument was that her daughter felt unsafe amongst too many patriotic symbols in what she perceived to be conservative territory. Everything added after that was part of a strawman argument. Cecily was changing her premises.
I replied:
Is the state taking away Tori’s free speech? Don’t we all have to take the consequences of our beliefs? Isn’t this the best time ever to be gay in America? We have parades and an entire month celebrating everyone’s sexual orientation now don’t we? I wasn’t arguing with you. I was commiserating. It seems though that even though your kid had a vague fear and mine actually experienced a degree of persecution, your situation was worse?
I was still not understanding why this was escalating, and I don’t understand why she thought her situation was so much worse.
She went on:
Elena LaVictoire speech is NOT analogous to being gay. But I am sorry your son experienced harassment. But I worry someone will murder my child because of how she looks — and even that is NOTHING compared to how black parents suffer this fear, because my kid is slightly protected by her white privilege.
By my count, three more strawman arguments and another shift in her premise. In Logic, the argument should have gone like this:
A. My liberal kid did not feel safe and that made me sad.
B. My conservative kid did not feel safe and that made me sad.
Conclusion: Mothers on both side of the political spectrum feel sad when their kids do not feel safe.
I did share this with her.
In my neighborhood, each one of my four sons have been jumped and punched or threatened for being white. I’m sorry you don’t want to hear that Cecily, but it’s true. The youngest attack was a sucker punch to the face of my 12 year old who then refused to leave the house other than to get to the car. I confronted the assailant. He called me an old white bitch. So yeah, family has experienced attacks for our race. They also broke my windshield while i was driving just down the road from my home with my youngest daughter in the car she was 11 or 12. We don’t go that way anymore. And yet, my youngest son is friends with Samir and Ahmad, two black Muslim kids from down the road. The girl from two doors down is now our goddaughter. We could’ve moved, taught them to fear those of a different race, Creed, and political ideology, but instead we made friends and taught them to judge people on their character and look for the good in everyone. Don’t make assumptions about people automatically. I think you’re making a mistake to teach her to be in perpetual fear and victim status.
Final reply for Cecily:
First of all, I do not teach Tori what to think. She’s a smart girl who has opinions wildly different from some of mine. Also: I am so sorry your family has experienced that. But at least you can rest easy that they’ll be allowed to vote, they can marry who they want, no one follows them around stores assuming they’ll steal, aren’t redlined out of getting home loans, aren’t going to not receive promotions, or have the police violently harass them because of their race. You don’t want to hear it either, but your family is 100% living in white privilege. I also don’t know why I’m arguing with you, you live in a weird reality. If you want to believe, somehow, your white Christian family is prosecuted for being white Christians, you go on ahead. I’ll stay over here in the real world where black people live and spend their lives in a constant and unrelenting attack on their character for the color of their skin. I will also recognize MY white privilege, as well as Tori’s, while I work nonstop to help people with stupidly limited perspectives, like you, accept this reality. Even when it’s hopeless, like in your case. You live in a fantasy. I can’t help you.
So for Cecily, the argument looked something like this:
A. My kid did not feel safe and that made me sad.
B. Your kids may have been attacked for being white and conservtive, but they are not liberal so anything you experienced doesn’t matter.
C. No matter what you say, you’re stupid and I can’t change your mind, so I win.
In all of our years debating, I have never, ever thrown an ad hominem attack at Cecily. She threw at least three in that last comment.
Cecily Kellogg 😄 up until until five years ago we were the only white people on our street. We’ve been here 33 years. Clearly in 16 years I’ve been reading you, more than you’ve been reading me!
Her GIF response was, that had nothing to do anything.
And I think that pissed me off more than anything else. My attempts to come alongside, show humor, and commiserate with her were unwanted and rebuffed. But when she accused me of not living in the real world, not only did that prove that she doesn’t really give a hoot about a long time reader, but that she has never taken the time to even take a cursory look at my blog or my posts on Facebook. She was making assumptions about me just as her teenage daughter was making assumptions about anyone wearing red, white, and blue instead of rainbow colors.
Maybe when it comes to politics, the lines in the sand are so deep, and the divide is so big, that even a shared experience of motherhood can’t bridge that gap.
Below are just some past posts of me, living in a real world.
Honestly politics is getting more and more heated each year. I feel like everything has to be politically correct instead of just common sense. Idk, I feel like people be on the social media to much and judge people based on what there belief and what they say rather then there character.
I think you’re right Ahmad!
The very first thing I said to her is, “I understand.”
But you’re right, it’s not the same. My kids actually were physically attacked, and hers had some vague fear.
Not the same thing at all – Oh, and also my $200 replacement for my van window – again, not the same.