Sleeping, Eating, or Chatting with the Enemy

Those who know of the recent drama in the community garden in Glover Park will recognize this situation. Others of you who don't know about the drama, the community garden, or where Glover Park is may not be inclined to care. However, I must warn you that the elements of this drama cannot be ignored. Nor can my rage about it, as evidenced by my cathartic outburst from last night. Sometimes you just have to tell people what you think, right in the moment that you think it.

The drama is surrounding some bigotry that we encountered with someone who we thought we knew - we had shared many a conversation, meal, wine, and day together. It was a complete shock to my reality when I heard about how this person spoke and acted with regard to finding out someone's religious affiliation. This person had made some uncomfortable comments in my presence in the past and I, admittedly, said or did nothing because I was giving this guy a break for his age...he is like 70 years old. However, things have reached a boiling point and he has gone too far, in my opinion. So I told him so.

My question for the day to all of you free-thinking folks is, what if anything have you ever said or done when in the presence of someone saying something racist, sexist, or prejudiced? As an individual, have you intervened or reacted even when the irrational statement or act was not directed at you? If you have been living in some sort of vacuum for years and never encountered such a thing, what do you think you would do? Perhaps I am also presuming that, in general, people do not hate others solely based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and the like. This presumption may be my downfall with this post. Maybe people really suck after all.

However, as Anne Frank wrote, "Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart." Therefore, I must think that if people hate one another, it wouldn't solely be based on one of the above criteria, but rather due to some bad experience. I am not naive; I understand that this exists in the world and that we have our share of Neo-Nazis and Fascists running around. It just never fails to disappoint me when I run into it. Or when it runs into me.

So I am asking you to help me make sense of this. I am for people having their own opinions and for not being restricted or encouraged to mingle or do business with people they may not want to interact with for whatever reason. I certainly do not see the need to have regulations on human behavior and thoughts. HOWEVER, it still makes me sick to my stomach!