I’m one of those angry white men. I’m sure you’ve seen us. We’re all over the place, always looking for someone to scream at or attack when things don’t go our way.
Just today, I got angry at a contractor who was scheduled to do work at our house. The project manager emailed the day before to tell us they would be here next week. This set me off and I called and emailed back saying that was not acceptable and they will be here when they said they would to do the work. At that moment that old phrase “the customer is always right” was simmering in my head. If you are of a certain age you’ve heard this phrase, but it only rings true if you are also of a certain race and gender.
Where had that tried-and-true 1950s mantra of customer service gone I thought as I hammered out my higher-than-thou “how dare you disrespect me” email to the project manager.
When I told my wife about this injustice, she mildly shrugged and said, “So they come next week. What’s the big deal?” I tried in vain to see it from her perspective but I could not. My mind was clouded with -self-righteous indignation and rage. There was so much feeling of “I’m entitled” attitude boiling up in my blood I couldn’t see straight. I mean how dare they disrespect me and assume I would change my schedule to accommodate them. What are they thinking fooling with my preciously valuable time. Don’t they know who I am!?
Who am I?
In my wife’s eyes a contractor rescheduling at the last minute was no big deal. It was normal. After all she’s a woman so she was used to this type of what I considered disrespectful or dismissive behavior. It was normal to her because she experiences daily as a female leader in a male dominated organization and as a woman in a man’s world. Where I was used to being seen as important and looked at as an authority figure, she, along with the rest of the women and minorities who live in this country, are seen as lesser-thans who could be summarily dismissed, disrespected, ignored and marginalized.
Over time these vastly different life experiences based purely on what was between our legs have come to mold who my wife and I are and how we react so differently to the same situation. I like to think of myself as woke, but I fatally misunderstood how deeply society has molded me into the person I am. I am a white man in America and because of this I have certain privileges that many have never experienced or enjoyed.
Loud and proud
This same struggle is playing out on a gigantic scale in our country today. Proud Boys and other white supremacy groups march through the streets and into our state houses and the nation’s Capitol with their chests and guns out, making sure we know they are still here, and they demand to be seen and heard. They are screaming to hold onto what is left of a slowly dying voice as they melt back into the masses they so despise. And they do more than scream: they chock, shoot and kneel on the necks of others purely because they look different. But it’s a rage born from fear as they fall out of the majority and into the masses while the melting pot continues to stir.
So where now?
How does it stop, because it must stop as ongoing rage never leads to positive or productive change. I know for certain that if I continued to talk down to the contractor we hired to do this work, they would not have put up with my indignant attitude for long. They would have refunded our deposit and my wife would have been pissed. And they would have had every right to do so.
Where respect is shown, respect is given. If we can start out here and be kind to someone, even when we feel deep down that we ourselves have been disrespected or done wrong, we can begin to not only heal some deep divides in our communities and country but we can begin to heal ourselves.
Be and let be
Taking on a servant-leader approach to life where we put the needs and concerns of others before our own is a great place to start. Once we stop looking at what we need and start looking at the needs of those around us we can begin to understand what is important for the group and what that transcends the I.
I am going to set this short writing as a shortcut on my desktop and read it every day to remind myself that I am one of more than 7.5 billion people here on earth today and while I count and am important I am no more or less important than anyone else.
Be and let be.
