On Insensitive Comments and Being 16 and Stupid

Recently an Austin radio talk show was canned because one of the hosts used a derogatory term for Mexican-Americans about 30 times. This illustrates the axiom that my right to free speech ends at the point that it impacts my employer's profits. However, it makes me think back to some of the stupid things that I did or tolerated when I was a lot younger.

I was a smartass when I was in high school. If someone had been following me around with a video camera, my future would have been in doubt. In particular, I remember two moments during my high school years.

My male history teacher made a comment about how women achieved the vote and then voted in Warren G. Harding, one of the most corrupt and incompetent presidents in history. I repeated this statement to one of my female teachers and reached a look which could kill. To me, this fell within my absurdist view of life (which I have not completely abandoned according to a recent Facebook quiz). To me, it was a Nelson Muntz "Ha Ha" moment. However, to my feminist teacher, I was demeaning one of the most important achievements in women's rights. I never saw it coming.

Another time, a classmate mine told a joke involving Jews. I won't repeat it because it is too offensive. I didn't repeat the joke and I don't think I laughed at it. However, I didn't condemn it. This was partly because in high school, you expect the outrageous. However, it was also because Jews were not real to me. The only Jewish person that I knew was my scoutmaster, Captain Warshawsky. He was a figure of strength. Thus, Jews were just people who went to another church. It is as though someone had threatened to exterminate all Methodists. It wasn't something that registered with me at that time. Intellectually I knew about the holocaust. However, emotionally it could just as well have involved martians.

With the perspective of 30 years after high school, I see things a bit differently. I am the parent of two daughters. I want them to be treated the same as their male classmates. I want them to succeed. I work for a law firm in which all the partners are Jewish. I have been to Seder observances and have sat shivah. Being Jewish is real to me now. The horror of the holocaust is real to me now. By the same token, now that I have Ukrainian friends, the horror of the Holodymyr (the terror famine of 1932-33) is real to me now.

Everyone is entitled to be young and stupid at some point in their lives. However, the real question is whether you can stay 16 forever. Judgment comes from experience. As you grow older, you meet people who are not like you and you come to understand other people's stories. Once that happens, it is no longer acceptable to act as is if you were young and stupid. Once you have the capacity to understand someone different than yourself, you have to act as though the world is bigger than yourself. At that point, ignorance is no longer an excuse. Although I didn't actually listen to the disputed radio show, I can imagine the host as a naughty 16 year old saying a bad word over and over the shock value. However, you don't get to stay 16 and ignorant for ever.