One of the summer jobs I’ve had in the past was working fairgrounds. No, I wasn’t a carny, I was a vendor. I worked in one of those trucks that sold funnel cakes, freshly squeezed lemonades, elephant ears, etc. The people that I worked for were lovely, for the most part. I worked for them for several years and really enjoyed it most of the time. I was good at the job too, and easily earned a lot of tips. They loved having me work in the windows because the tip jars were always full each night.
I live in Wisconsin, but the people I worked for lived in Texas. They would travel up here each summer, traveling around this corner of the state working fairgrounds. They were decent people, good heads on their shoulders, kind, thoughtful… all the things that you would hope for in an employer. They were an older couple and spent a lot of time thinking about their retirement which they planned on taking soon. I often dreamt about maybe taking over their business.
The final year that I worked for them, they started a conversation that I thought was inappropriate and hoped would end, but it didn’t. It went on, and even if we got distracted and came back together, they would bring the conversation up again. It made me really uncomfortable because they were talking about a minority and using a derogatory term against them, saying “___ are a type of people that are bad. There are good ones out there, but ___ are bad.” Things like, “We have a friend who is this minority, but he’s a good person. He’s not a ___.”
It was nails on a chalkboard to me. I hated it. That word has always been horrific sounding to me. I hate it even when people use the “soft r” as though that makes any difference. I don’t think anybody should be using that word, so I most certainly do not. I really wanted to explain to them why that word was not appropriate in any context, but I was nervous because while we were super close, they were still my employers. I wanted to explain to them that the word was historically used to degrade people. It’s like calling someone less-than-human. I wanted to say to them that they might not see it that way, but they also are not affected by the word the same way others would be. They don’t have the context in their life stories to understand the toxicity that that word holds. Ignorant. They were ignorant. I wanted to tell them they were ignorant bigots with no class. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The way I handled it was to end the conversation, change topics, walk away… anything to stop from hearing that word. I decided after that summer not to call them the next spring. I wasn’t going to work for them anymore. The money was good, I had a great time with the customers, and the food was awesome… but that word rang through my memories and still does.
I regret not standing up to them. I probably could have handled it more respectfully than to call them ignorant, but that’s what they are. They do not know what they do and what significance it has for others. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have said those things. I wholly believe that people do the best they can with what they have. These two just didn’t have the experience or knowledge to understand the way they were faltering. I could have rectified that. I could have adjusted their worldview and opened their minds to how things like hate speech and discrimination really affect people. I’ve been a victim of it before. I mean, just the other day I went for a walk with a friend. Within a few blocks of walking down the street, someone yelled out their car window “FAG” as they were driving past. My friend said, “Did they really just say that?” “Yes, it happens,” I responded. “That’s lame, they can’t even say it to your face.”
When people make such dramatic blunders like using derogatory terms, I believe they think that it gives them power. That it makes them superior to the person they’re putting down. I think they believe that it hurts the other person and that it’s amusing. What I’ve come to realize is that the only person who is worse off is the one who’s throwing the slurs around. They’re making themselves look like bumbling fools. The really foolish part is that they don’t even realize that much.
Now, I’ve dealt with my fair share of hate speech. I’ve learned to let the shit roll off my back like sweat on a hot summer day. It’s easy for me to brush it off when it’s directed at me. However, not everyone has built up such calluses. Words are just words, but they’re also the conveyors of meaning and thought. They carry a weight with them. They have value in this world.
Eons and millennia ago, a friend of mine lent me this book called “The Hidden Messages in Water” by Masaru Emoto. If you haven’t read it yet, you should. It’s very enlightening. I’ll give you the condensed version, but Emoto studied water for a long time. If I remember correctly, what he would do is speak words to the water. Words that are positive like, “Friendship,” “Love,” “Peace,” etc. Then he would speak negative words to other water. Then he would freeze the two waters, allowing them to form crystals. The water that had positive words spoken to it would form symmetrical and beautiful patterns in the crystalline form, while the water that received the negative utterances would be distorted, deformed, and unappealing.
The idea behind all of this and why I’m explaining this book to you is that his premise is words matter. Think about it, what do people say about our bodies? 60% water. That’s a big component of what we’re made up of. We’re practically large meat sacks that carry water around. When you speak, or someone speaks to you… those words carry weight and meaning with them. They affect us on a molecular level.
If there was a time that I should have taken action but didn’t, I think that time would qualify. I should have stood up for myself and others and educated those folks on proper decency and decorum. I didn’t though. Instead, I carry the regret with me and hope that it encourages me to speak up going forward. I have to think of it as a learning lesson, otherwise the guilt is for naught.
What would you have done in my situation? Feel free to leave a comment and share whether or not you would tell your employer to shut up or talk nice. Let me know your thoughts on hate speech and standing up for others.
Its hard to go against the social grain of that sort of thing. You are included in the conversation because you’re “one of us, right?” and by inclusion, they are assuming you agree with the groupthink. So bucking that convention basically telling them, “no, I’m not one of you,” and that forever changes the dynamic. They’d still be ignorant, they just wouldn’t include you in their display of that.
Sometimes its best to with them well and thank them for the lesson they taught you, versus trying to change them.
Very good point. Thank you
Justin, was that friend me? Did I lend you that book? (Smiling) Do you know I contacted that author & explained vibration on a more fundamental level: we can allow words to change/affect our matter or we can decide, in advance, what our experiences will be. Some call this “prepaving” or “future casting.” Whatever you call it, you can consciously choose to experience your life the way you want to experience. It’s a practice, for certain, but it absolutely can be done.
I’ll give an example. Someone could tell me “I should kill myself. The world would be better off without me.” (This did happen)
And, from a place of ownership, I can know this is false. I have value. I matter.
Words matter only if we allow them to.
We can be unaffected by that which is outside of us.
I’m strongly empathic. I can withdraw my energy, safely encasing it in whatever feels best to me. In, the past, I’ve encapsulated myself behind glass walls, bubbles, etc. I’ve also envisioned a large vacuum & sucked all energy unlike me inside it, then drawn it down deep into the earth where it’s been burned away & made clean. I get creative. I ask, “What is it in this moment?”
We can be kind & gentle to ourselves.
We did the best we could in the moments preceding this one.
From a place of Retrocausality, we can decide we did tge thing we wish we would have done. Commit to that, wholeheartedly. If we can change the future with our thoughts, feelings, vibration-we can also change our past.
Fundamentally, time is an illusion anyway. There only ever is this now moment.