How an Entitled Response to Adversity Can Be an Example of Toxic Privilege
A disagreement during a basketball game allowed me to perceive a significant flaw in my personality
When I lived in Peru, I taught English in a small neighborhood that was about an hour bus ride outside of Lima. A lot of the other expats thought it was a “dangerous” place and that I was foolish for making the trip.
At the time, I had a contemptuous attitude of the American perspective. The expats I met were either military or in the mining industry. Some were so paranoid they’d show up at local sports bars wearing guns on their hips. I used to laugh at them. They thought I was ignorant, reckless and living on borrowed time.
Well, I’m still here.
It got so that I deliberately avoided other Americans. On the weekends, I’d jump back on the bus and head out to the distant district to play pickup basketball games. Here’s the view from the window:
A couple of the guys we played with were admittedly a little rough. There was one fellow who looked like he was chiseled out of granite. He had an enormous, ragged scar across his abdomen that looked like he’d survived being gutted by a broken beer bottle. Whenever I’d get too physical, he’d give me a pained look and whisper, “Tio, tranquilo.”
I loved these basketball games. We’d play from morning until dark and during that period I was probably in the best shape of my life. For the most part, the games went smoothly, but there was one incident that made me behave in a way I’m not proud to admit.
The court at the church
We often played at an enclosed court that was right next to a church. It was convenient because there was a ten foot high brick wall surrounding the area. This meant nobody ever had to run too far to chase down an errant ball.
The surface was slick, and there were cracks and holes throughout, but once you learned the obstacles it became a fun place to play.
The games were rough but clean. I only had to break up one fight, but that was between a pair of guys who didn’t like each other anyway.
Three times I got between them, and three times they kept going at it. After I got clipped by a swing I decided it would be better just to let them go. Most fights end in about ten seconds. Once these two had worked out their rage, I stepped in for a fourth and final time. The guy who lost stomped off muttering to himself. The rest of us continued our game.
The reputation of the neighborhood
The reason the expats shook their head in disbelief when I told them where I was spending my time is because they suspected criminals from that district would come in to Lima to rob the city at night. They said, “Did you ever wonder why they’re free to play basketball all day? They don’t have jobs!”
I’d say, “Who has energy to rob anyone after playing full-court basketball all day?”
Here I should pause and mention that my wife says my greatest flaw is that I see the best in people. It’s fair enough that I should describe myself as a country bumpkin. I’m a farm kid who went trotting off to the big city protected only by my innocence.
I wonder what that chiseled guy with the ragged scar truly thought of me? Can a child walk into the jungle and make friends with a tiger if he perceives only the tiger’s cuddly fur and is blind to his teeth and claws? Maybe even the tiger appreciates being in the presence of somebody who is fascinated by his softer side?
At the time, I was so filled with contempt for American ideology, that I completely dismissed the idea that among the students who participated in the games there might also have been some violent people. These days, I’m a bit more inclined to acknowledge that it might have been the case.
Fortune favors kindhearted fools. At least, I hope it does!
The planning committee
One day, I made the long bus trip on a pleasant Saturday and was ready to play. We broke up into groups and started our game. I’d just broken a sweat, when a middle-aged man emerged from the church to tell us that we couldn’t play there anymore.
“I’m part of a local planning committee,” he said. “We’re having an important discussion on how to encourage delinquents to pursue positive activities so they don’t succumb to a life of crime. Your game is disturbing us.”
This is where my entitled sense of privilege kicked in.
My Spanish was good at the time, but I knew I should hang back and not say anything. A couple of the more outspoken players stepped forward to try and negotiate the use of the court.
I watched it and felt my outrage steadily grow.
It didn’t escape my attention that this gathering of young men was engaged in exactly the type of activity the committee claimed they wished to promote. Sure, there were a couple ruffians among the group, but they were exhausting themselves playing basketball rather than getting into trouble.
The more I watched the players advocate for our right to use the court, the angrier I became. It didn’t seem to me that they should have to suffer the indignity of pleading for permission to play. It seemed obvious that our game deserved to be supported and encouraged.
My ember of anger quickly became a flame. That flame became a problem.
Outrage never helps
After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore. I stomped over to the supplicant players and the proud, unyielding committee member. He wasn’t hearing them. He stood there pointing and telling them to go.
I decided that since we were going to have to leave, I might as well tell him off.
Everybody turned to look at me as I came stomping up. It must have appeared comical. Here was this enraged country bumpkin who spoke bad Spanish elbowing in where he didn’t belong. I was trying to look angry, but I have an innocent face, and I’m more inclined to smile, so even when I scowl people tend to laugh.
“So, let me get this straight!” I declared. “This group of young people engaged in a friendly game is messing up your meeting on ways to promote positive activities in your neighborhood. You claim you want to encourage this kind of gathering even as you act to stop one. Do you know what that makes you? It makes you a bunch of hypocrites!”
The committee member gave me a shocked look. The player advocates jumped into motion. They went, “No, no, no,” and led me out of there.
I turned my attention to them, “Look, if these jerks aren’t going to let us play, let’s just go somewhere else. There’s no need to beg!”
But they didn’t listen and they pushed me aside to cool off. One of my friends was there. He was a slightly older guy from Australia. He looked at me and started to laugh.
The player advocates kept pleading their case. I watched it thinking it was futile. But lo and behold, after about fifteen minutes, they convinced the committee member to let us continue using the court.
I returned to the game embarrassed. My impulse had been to blow everything up, but the players proved that there had been an opportunity in negotiation. They’d been right, and ultimately, my behavior had hurt the situation with no discernible benefit.
Culture dupes us into thinking outrage is the answer
Without exception, the people I admire most in the world are those that are able to keep a level head and negotiate a peaceful resolution to a conflict. Our society doesn’t appreciate moments like that enough.
In our entertainment, we wait for the moment where the hero punches the villain in the face. The crowd gets up and cheers. We’re primed to not feel satisfied until that happens. I wonder if we could reverse that programming and train our culture to understand that an act of violence or an outburst of outrage represents failure.
I take pride in my intellect and my ability to rapidly assess a situation. I determined the committee member was being unreasonable, he was resolute, and the only way to get any kind of “win” was to scream an insult at him. The player advocates demonstrated that there was a pathway to getting the thing we wanted.
My instincts on this issue turned out to be completely wrong.
It’s not a “win” if you don’t achieve your objective
That experience taught me an important lesson. It illustrated that I couldn’t become so fixated on my sense of justice that I allowed myself to be carried away by anger.
It’s not satisfying, but the truth is that sometimes we all have to quietly accept a loss. As bad as that sounds, it’s preferable to being tricked into contributing your own strength to the forces aligned against you.
If I’d been allowed to continue berating the committee member, we might have been banned from the court for life. As it was, our game was only interrupted for a few minutes. Thankfully, clearer heads prevailed.
The belief that you can throw a temper tantrum and compel the universe to bow to your will is an example of privilege. If you choose that path, you doom yourself to failure. The path of humility and reason is the only one that offers any chance of success.
When you are reasonable and humble, people will occasionally walk all over you. When you indulge in outrage, you end up walking all over yourself.