How one nasty comment hurts us all

Even when we’re not breathing the same air, we’re connected to each other. (Image credit)

This week, author Emily Giffin (who just happens to have a book coming out) told the AP that her comments last month about Meghan Markle were “mean” and that she “need[s] to be more careful about the impact of [her] words.”

Back in May, Giffin called Markle phony and unmaternal, picking apart (apparently with friends) a short video of Markle and her son reading together. She even criticized the choice to allow the baby to appear on video in a onesie. However, she was quick to assert that her comments weren’t racist.

I’m not particularly relieved. As an educator attempting to create a welcoming, safe space for adolescents just a few miles away from where Giffin makes her home in Atlanta, I find comments like Giffin’s frustrating and demoralizing. If you’re willing to be that cruel and dismissive toward a fellow human being in public, you’re contributing to a culture of disrespect and even dehumanization. Racism is just one symptom of such a culture.

Kids in the lunchroom will try out all kinds of words and phrases to ridicule a classmate, whether directly or behind the classmate’s back. These words include racist slurs that have been used to oppress groups over centuries. The line between plain old cruelty and racism is a slim one; for so many of us, cutting others down is a way to belong (as demonstrated by Giffin).

Giffin ascribes her insensitive comments to the fact that she is “unfiltered,” framing that as a positive thing. Meanwhile, we teach our students that they are responsible for what they say and do. We teach them that they must have a filter. They must realize that airing their private thoughts could hurt someone else, even though they might earn positive attention for sharing them.

This process of filtering gets easier as we practice not just appearing to be kind, but how to actually be kind. Here, too, we have an upward climb. Teaching students to be gentle with each other and overlook each other’s mistakes, faults, and flaws is challenging in a culture that tells them they will get positive attention for being gratuitously mean. Many students have learned to cope with noxious social dynamics by fighting back, numbing out, or joining in. Pulling off the armor and beginning to trust others again can be a long and painful process.

Learning requires vulnerability. It’s only safe to try things and risk messing up in front of others if you trust them. When someone makes cutting comments like Emily Giffin did, hoping for approval from the group, it sets everyone back. Such actions show that it’s safer to sit there with your mouth shut, and even more rewarding to make fun of anyone who is bold enough to take a turn. Growth becomes impossible under such circumstances.

In a diseased culture, people will hurt others for the benefit it brings them. Racism is one profound manifestation of this tendency, emboldened by cliques, gossip, bullying, and other icky stuff that shows up everywhere from Twitter to school playgrounds.

We owe it to children to lead by example in our effort to make change happen. We must demonstrate that it is possible to address a person’s ideas, work, and behavior without cutting them down personally. We must respond as vigorously to words that are meant to harm as we do to physical violence. And we must hold ourselves to the same standard that we require of our children.

We’ve all been affected by the ugliness around us — ugliness that has been with us for millennia. There has always been one person or group that has attempted to assert themselves as superior to another, and the pattern has repeated itself over and over. It will take time to heal, individually and as a culture. We won’t get it right every time, but we’ve got to keep trying. It’s urgent, and our lives depend on it.

On the other hand, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor has the rest of his life to wear pants — let’s not rush things.