The Year Of The Snake 

By TAD BARTIMUS

On the first day of this Chinese year 4699, there was to be no yelling, no cursing, no telling of lies. Houses were to be thoroughly swept to get rid of dirt and old ways. Most important of all, there was to be no handling of sharp knives.

That night I went to a dinner party where verbally cutting up other people turned out to be the main course.

One guest complained that an African-American narrator of the public television series "Jazz" talked "too black." Another spoke disparagingly of Jews. A third used a noun former first lady Barbara Bush once said "rhymes with witch" to describe Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Welcome to the Year of the Snake.

We humans can be a mean-spirited lot. Even in these politically correct times, when racist humor and ethnic slurs go underground for fear of workplace repercussions, prejudice is too often served up along with the after-hours wine and canapes.

What to do when we find ourselves listening to ordinarily nice people uttering pejorative comments that make us uncomfortable? Stare at our shoes? Say the conversation is offensive? Leave the scene of the ambush?

All my life I've heard ethnic, racial, cultural and religious slurs bandied about in social gatherings. I've laughed uncomfortably at Polish jokes, Irish jokes, Mafia jokes told by people who were not Polish, Irish or Italian. I've kept my mouth shut and my head down when chitchat turned ugly, when a racial group, a president, an acquaintance was denigrated. Should I let it go or make a scene?

I've done both. Each was a no-win ordeal.
My mother once accused me of being a holier-than-thou prig who put a damper on everybody else's good time when I leaped to the defense of a friend's race after somebody told an off-color joke.

The next time, I sat mute and felt like a traitor.
Reactions are personal, grounded in experience and education. Civilization is not advanced if the offended chastises the offender with four-letter words. Passivity isn't a virtue, either.

My own tolerance level has shrunk as I've become more aware of historic injustices and more sensitive to nuance. Is the criticism of a person or a philosophy? Is it inclusive or singular? 

Don't like a particular viewpoint? Fine. Don't agree with certain religious beliefs? OK. Don't want your kid emulating movie stars? Great. Just don't get in my face with obscene generalities grounded in ignorance. If somebody wants to use tabloid slander or talk-show sensationalism to embarrass themselves in a crowd, that's their business. After their first three words, I'm outta there!

If an insatiable media devours every tawdry tidbit about a celebrity, chews on it for awhile and then tries to regurgitate it to us, does that mean we have to sit like starving birds in a nest waiting for the worms to fall? I don't think so.

"Great minds," said Eleanor Roosevelt, "discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."

Sure, we gossip. Sure, we disagree. But if we keep our opinions and differences on a higher plane, that elevates the debate and stretches our minds. Grappling with alien philosophies and ideologies teaches us something. Mere cruel, uninformed slurs regarding appearance, accent, parentage, religion or ethnic origins simply drag intellectual discourse into the gutter.

The Year of the Snake offers us a chance to shed our old skins and start fresh, with no dirt in the corners. If beginning the year with no yelling, no cursing and no lies is such a great idea, why not carry those virtues through to the end?

"I believe that a negative statement is poison," said Maya Angelou in a recent interview. "... And if you allow it to perch in your house, in your mind, in your life, it can take over." 

What with rolling blackouts, fears of a recession, corporate layoffs, not enough rain in the West and too much cold in the East, we've got enough trouble without bringing more on ourselves. What we all need to do as we hunker down waiting for the return of the sun is to lighten up and laugh - just not at somebody else's expense.

© 2001 The Women Syndicate

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© 2001 The Women Syndicate. The content on these pages is the property of The Women Syndicate and may not be used without express written permission. Contact friends@tadbartimus.com