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Earlier this month, Cynthia
Rodriguez, long suffering wife of the Yankee
Infielder Alex Rodriguez, attended a Yankee game
wearing a white tank top with the words F___K
YOU printed in black on the back for all to see.
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In September of last year,
Danish newspapers would not stop printing a
series of cartoons depicting the prophet
Mohammed the Muslims found very offensive. Other
European newspapers followed suit in "support"
causing much outrage in Islamic countries and
debates about freedom of speech in the West.
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When I was attending Indiana
State University back in the 70's, I was living
in this over-100-year-old house. That was all I
could afford then. I lived upstairs. There was
an older couple who lived downstairs. They
looked pretty "rough". Their leathery faces bore
the hardship of a life that was not too kind to
them. Whenever I saw them I would try to say
hello, being neighborly. Every day, when I
walked the five blocks home from school to get
ready to go work - I worked full time then, I
would pass by them on my way up the stairs that
ran up the side of the house. They would be
sitting on the porch, she in her dirty faded
muumuu, him sweating in his worn out undershirt.
I would say hi. Every time they would mumble
something back, their eyes staring at me
angrily. One day, curious, I stopped and asked:"
Pardon, I couldn't hear what you said". He then
raised his raspy voice, but not too loud:" You
yellow n_____r, you came here and ate all our
tax money". I looked at them in disbelief, just
shrugged and walked away. I wasn't offended. I
wasn't even angry at them. I wasn't yellow. It
took me many weekends to have a good tan like
the one I was wearing. And I was definitely not
a n_____r.
Across the masses, across the world,
across the cultures, all these people have expressed
their freedom of speech.
I had to flee a country where you
can't say much about the corrupted government, even
to the relatives, where you are watched if you stood
out, where you can't read anything you want... So I
KNOW what freedom means. I cherish it everyday. Just
watch the world news and you'll see what others on
this earth have to deal with. I didn't need the 4th
of July to remind me of that. I also take great pain
to honor it by carefully honoring the right of
others not to be offended by my words. It's an
ongoing learning process but I stay on the course.
The spoken words have a lot of
impact on others, so choose them carefully. Consider
others' beliefs, others' culture, others'
background, others' faith. If for nothing else, if
for nobody else, do it for your own integrity. Try
to say the right thing every time. Saying the wrong
thing enough time and nobody would listen to you,
except may be people just as dysfunctional as you
are. Put some good intentions and values in what you
say. If there was no value in them or your
intentions were to insult or offend someone, why
bother. A negative impact is a negative value, why
even invest your energy in it? That doesn't mean you
can't criticize - do it constructively. How? Say it
the way you want people to say it to you. You
definitely don't want people to be "brutally honest"
to you. That doesn't mean you have to agree all the
time. You can say you disagree but respectfully. You
definitely don't want people to say that your idea
stinks!
As the world gets smaller by the
minutes, exercise your freedom of speech to bring
about understanding, compassion and peace. Any other
way and you will be contributing to the backward
flow of the evolution whether you believe in it or
not. |
