Why We Need to Learn How to Let Others Speak Freely

Yesterday I commented on a post. A lot of people were drawing a conclusion from this post and I merely pointed out a fact that contradicted the conclusion. Someone, who ironically was on the same side as me, jumped to the conclusion that I was implying something I wasn't and was pretty rude about it. Normally I would apologise and clarify, but his rude response got the better of me and I invited him to enlighten me, knowing that this would further incite him. He had jumped to a conclusion, grabbed it and run with it so I dug a hole and stood back for him to run right it.

Naturally it escalated on his part and for every accusation he made I set him right and pulled him up for being insulting. I was actually trying to get him thinking critically, then others jumped to my defence and I felt a bit bad. You see I wasn't actually that offended by him, he could have done with learning not to jump to conclusions and to approach conversations in a more respectful manner, but I kind of played him to try and make him realise that he wasn't approaching this in the best way, because others wouldn't have taken so kindly to it.

For me the whole discussion illustrated the importance of free speech. The reason being is that I'd rather know when someone has an issue with me than have them hiding it and leaving me wondering why they seem to be harbouring so much hostility. If I know where I stand with others I can work from there, but not knowing where I stand leaves me uneasy and trying to figure out how to move forward.

I'm a redhead and I have, on occasion, encountered hostility, but had no idea why, because they were probably too worried about people's responses to say what their issue was. I ended up learning from others that their issue with me was simply that they didn't like redheads. Once I knew that this was why they were behaving like that towards me, I was fine, because it wasn't something I had done or could do anything about it, so I just left them be unless I needed to communicate with them. They weren't going out of their way to bully me and only they can choose to change their stance, so anyone saying they aren't allowed to discriminate isn't going to make them change their opinion, only bury it.

We have a situation in this world where full disclose is often not given and untrue things are said to manipulate people into certain actions. Recently it was revealed that Queensland's chief health officer actually lied about the need to close schools across the state. She admitted that she believed the information on schools not being high risk was accurate and justified closing them with this message:

”If you go out into the community and say, ‘this is so bad, we can't even have schools, all schools have got to be closed’… you are really getting to people. So sometimes it's more than just the science and the health, it's about the messaging.”

There are those who might see it as a necessary evil, in order to stop the spread of what they fear could be a deadly disease and there are those who feel manipulated and that misleading people only shows you have something to hide or are up to no good. Right or wrong, what was done was deceptive and when discovered it serves to undermine people's trust. If you really want people to listen and respond to you, then keeping their trust is paramount and allowing people to speak openly and honestly, is the only way this will happen.

Yes, things will be said that upset us and we certainly need to start thinking about whether what we're about to say really needs to be said. After all, I'm sure that overweight woman is aware of her weight and doesn't need to be told by some sharply observant someone that's she's fat. The old wisdom of saying nothing if you have nothing nice to say applies in many situations. However, we could also learn how not to take things personally when someone expresses discomfort over certain situations and people. I know someone who has a deep distrust of male teachers around her children, because she was sexually abused as a child and sexually harassed by men in other situations too. She knows that not all men are sexual predators, so doesn't want to come across as discriminatory, but what if she were to open up and say, ‘look, this is nothing personal, but I'm uncomfortable with my children being around this teacher due to past experiences’?

There are so many misconceptions out there because we don't openly discuss things. I recently came across a discussion on whether the self serve checkouts do or do not put people out of work. On the one hand, a woman was sick of the assumption that not using them puts her out of a job, because with the advent of online ordering, many of them are multitasking anyway and just get moved to other tasks within the delivery section. Yet someone else was saying that her friends were let go with the excuse that the automated checkouts have made them excess to needs. It seems that they were older and not able to be easily retrained for other tasks. So the conclusion? Do the self serve checkouts put people out of work? Well, yes, but not all of them, evidently. So whichever way you want to look at this, someone is going to feel they're being wrongly pigeonholed.

Are immigrants taking all our jobs or are they doing the jobs that we don't want to do? I guess that depends on how you're looking at it. If you are someone who is being overlooked in favour of foreign workers (because, let's face it, employers might know they can get away with underpaying them, but don't know if they can trust a citizen to not dob them in), then you're going to agree that they're taking all the work and may also be offended at the claim that locals are too lazy and don't want to do low level jobs. Yet it is also true that immigrants don't set out to try and take all the jobs, they're just trying to get by themselves in a strange land. These topics are getting discussed less and less, because people are calling “racism!” and the discussion gets censored or isn't started in the first place for fear of being labelled a racist.

Now I don't like discrimination of any kind, but how can we evolve beyond it if we can't allow people to express why they've reached what we might feel is a discriminatory conclusion?

So I say, throw your insults if you feel you need to, but know that you might actually be coming across as having a tantrum. I even get why you'd be having a tantrum, because when you feel that nobody is understanding you, it's hard not to express your frustration. To those on the receiving end of the tantrum, it can feel like an onslaught, but if you give them chance to try and get their point across then you might find they are more open than you expected to a calm discussion and you may both even have your eyes opened.

Don't let our differences divide us, instead allow them to let us understand each other better.

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