I’m Going to Offend You

Yes, I do know my place. It’s in your face. Get over it.

This morning I woke up to a sniffy, supercilious comment from a gentleman who identifies himself in his Medium handle as an Orthodox Christian. Needless to say, I had offended him, and clearly, I didn’t know my place in the world.

HIS world.

All due respect to said gentleman and his unsolicited opinion, I don’t belong in his world any more than he belongs in my female, non-religious world. While he and his opinions have every right to exist, if he can’t add value in terms of what he has to say and in particular, how he chooses to say it, then kindly,

move the fuck on down the road, Mr. Orthodox Christian. Please find offense somewhere else. There’s plenty of it to be had if you are searching to pick a fight. Happens a lot when people walk around with a two-by-four instead of a chip on their shoulder. Like most bullies, you can pick a fight where there is no fight, just to prove...who knows. I sure don’t.

Delete, block. As with all comments, I read it, scoured it for value once I scrubbed it of the implied criticism. He didn’t approve simply because I don’t happen to validate his world view.

Honey, I’ve got a place where you can pound that Bible you like to thump, and it’s nowhere near my person.

I’m going to offend somebody, somewhere, every single day.

Good. That’s not my problem. That’s their problem.

Just as it isn’t their problem that some articles I read or people I meet offend me.

I read some very smart articles this week about Amy (yes, THAT Amy, the famous fired Amy), who was so deeply offended by a quiet Black man who simply asked her to do what was legally required of her to do in a shared area, but decided that the Black man in question didn’t know his place.

HER world. As if.

He did his job all right. And now, righteously racist Amy doesn’t have one (you will forgive my fist bump.)

“Oh, but I’m not a racist.” As if. The gift that man gave her was the truth of her racism. That she doesn’t see it that way is her problem. That problem is, of course, multiplied by millions of others who don’t see racism as their problem either. Until it is.

I had some tough conversations this week with people I care deeply about whose skin color and gender are offensive to others. One said in her article, “I can’t breathe.” For damned good reason.There are plenty in America who dispute her right to draw breath, much less draw a substantial salary for her considerable talents, for which she has had to work extra hard because of her gender and skin color. They would argue that because of diversity, she got a job that “should” have gone to a white male. Her existence, and her success, are in their faces. What that tells me is that she has the skills, they don’t, and by virtue of her work ethic, she earned what some felt should have been simply handed to them by virtue of gender and skin color.

Of course they’re angry and offended. Good. Because they absolutely, positively need to look at the shit that is inside them. It’s not about my friend. It’s about them. Just as the comment by Mr. Orthodox Christian isn’t about me, it’s about him. I seriously doubt any of them either understand that nor do they take responsibility for that. It’s so much easier to blame others for the shit they carry.

You see where I’m going. My point is in part about privilege, about which my buddy Gillian Sisley ( a white Western girl, as am I) wrote about this week:

Every writer who ever puts anything out there is going to by god piss somebody off. The nicest, kindest, most careful, thoughtful human being is going to pen something that will set off some snowflake who cannot possibly abide a differing opinion.

We offend people. The more outspoken, the more outlandish, the more piercing we are, the more folks we’re going to piss the fuck off.

Really?

Let me reword that.

For the so-easily offended trollers, with all due respect: You offend yourselves. YOU offend yourself if you take umbrage at someone else’s skin color, their truth, their preferences, their body types, way of life, their opinions. Their culture, way of being, their way of worshiping, whatever it is that you simply cannot stand because it doesn’t validate you, your beliefs, your way of life.

If that way of life is an affront to you, LOOK IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION.

You don’t like our body type, skin color, what we’re wearing, AVERT YOUR EYES.

If you don’t like our shit, DON’T READ OUR SHIT, to quote another Medium buddy Ann Litts.

If you don’t like our opinion, DON’T READ OUR OPINIONS. Kindly go wallow with those who “make” you feel safe.

Your problem isn’t with us.

Your problem is with yourself. Nobody else is in the room.

I find it fascinating that the folks who love to call certain people “snowflakes” are those who are the snowflakes, whose boundary lines are so vast that if someone happens to look in their general direction it’s a personal affront. Snowflake indeed.

Any parent who has ever raised two toddlers will recognize this: Mommy! Mommy! Kyle’s LOOKING AT ME AGAIN!

People I love remind me of basic truths. I got this yesterday from Ann Litts:

Everyone who speaks to us isn’t speaking to US. It’s always about them. The 4 Agreements tell us this. Whenever someone engages us — never take them seriously. It’s always about them. Not us. It’s a projection of their own suffering. It has ZERO to do with us. Take nothing personally. NOTHING. (author bolded)

This is true with one problem. Those who do take it personally- in this case, those who so fear different that they would kill it first and answer questions later (please see Minnesota cops)- are fucking dangerous.

Like THAT Amy. Good thing she wasn’t packing.

Because they don’t understand that they are the problem. Not Christian Cooper. Not me. Not my buddies Gillian or Ann or Rosennab. We’re wise enough to understand that when offense rises inside us, it’s a bright red flag to the Self, not about someone else.

It’s never about anyone else.

This piece goes to the heart of it:

My favorite quote from this article:

At its core, the reporter’s question — and ultimately, his entire project — focused on asking Black people how they could make White people feel safer. Their references to wearing hoods and running at night were clear dog whistles of Black respectability politics in the face of White fragility. (author bolded)

You and I could stretch those last two words into male fragility, cultural fragility, religious fragility….and I would in every single way include myself in this. My own fragility. Where I feel fragile, easily threatened by Other. That is the whole fucking point. That’s feedback. Not about someone else, but to ME. My delicate ego, MY offended sensibilities.

When I am offended, the question isn’t about how I can attack the person who offended me, but what does that offense tell me about myself? What do I get to look at, consider, question? What inside me is wounded, that what they said was salt?

If I have the courage to ask those questions, chances are whatever angry feedback I might have written never sees the light of day. Because someone put a light on a wound in me, a wound which is mine to heal.

That is where someone pulled the curtain back- as Christian Cooper did for Fragile Amy- on the monsters in her basement. Her fears, her racism.

Precisely. Why is it all about what other people owe you in order to cause you to feel comfortable, rather than you find a way to be comfortable in your own (white, brown, black, red, yellow) skin? Why is it someone else’s job to reduce, apologize for, hide or otherwise chop and lop off large parts of who they are to accommodate the oh-so-delicate you?

People are who they are, they have every right to be (as long as they do no harm). If that offends you, that is YOUR problem. If the mere fact of their existence, say, as a Black person in your universe, causes you harm, well, Skeezix, sounds like a serious personal problem to me.

If some asshole is being loud and obnoxious, it offends me because there is a part of me that is on occasion loud and obnoxious. It’s not his problem that his behavior forces me to face what I don’t like inside me. That part of me which is just as much an asshole as that person strikes me. That’s the gift. The reminder that I am flawed, human, complex.

I’m going to offend you. Goddamned right. Because you find something in yourself offensive. Has nothing to do with me. But that’s my place: to put what offends you in your face. There is something inside you that suffers. I didn’t put it there. You did. You deal with it, Sparky.

Just like I owe a vote of deep thanks and regard to all those commenters and people who put me off, and put me in touch with shit I don’t like to look at. That’s what they are there to do: help me grow.

One of the jokes of my upbringing was that my mother, who believed herself to be oh-so-enlightened, was deeply offended by bigotry. While I most certainly understand that, I pointed out to her that being so angry and offended by rednecks and racism made her bigoted. Not only did she fail to see the humor, she failed to see the point. She saw her worst in those behaviors. By denying her own bigotry, she hamstrung her ability to embrace what she embodied.

As do we all.

What people put in our faces is difficult.

That’s a gift. The gift doesn’t care if I like it. It’s still a gift. The definition of my character is whether or not I have the courage to understand that when people take offense, it has nothing to do with me. Someone writes a nasty comment, I will comb it for whatever truth there may be. I will wash it free of their vitriol and see what value there may be there. Sometime there is, sometimes it’s just someone who had shite to fling that morning.

Who the hell do I think I am, they ask?

I’m the person who needs to be in their fucking face this morning. That’s who. If they got in mine, then by god perhaps that was something I needed to look at. We are mirrors for each other.

Just like Amy Cooper gets to deal with her white girl racist shit the rest of her life. Not Christian’s fault. But it was his job to put that in her face. Good luck to Amy getting another job, in the same way that I can’t hear the name Monica Lewinsky without thinking about, well, you know. The way we immortalize ourselves in today’s transparent world can be brutal.

So is racism, honey. So is socially-sanctioned hate, police brutality, body shaming, and a slew of other insults and viciousness.

I’m going to offend you. Guaranteed.

But here’s the deal: if you offend me, I’m going to thank you for it. Because,

I own my shit.

I’m happy to look at what rises, what is uncomfortable and disgusting or racist or ugly inside me. I cannot deal with what I deny. It will fester forever if I don’t pull it up, face off with it and handle it. In fact, the more angry a comment makes me, the more important it is that I look at what on earth it is that lurks inside me that that takes such offense. That’s your job, and I thank you for it.

If you can’t be civil about it, however, kindly keep on moving down the road.

I won’t wear, carry, or apologize for your personal sewage or your inability to deal with your suffering. I didn’t put it there. My words might poke it- but that is my fucking job.

I love those who love me enough to poke me in my shit. Who invite me to deal with the demons that live inside me, for we all have them.

But I will not wear the shit of those who cannot deal with their own.

I offend you? Good. You offended me? Good. That’s how we grow.

Of course it’s hard work. That’s where character is forged. On the high road. As my buddy Ann wrote me a while back, “I didn’t know there was any other road.”