On Politeness in the Face of Injustice
A debate around civility has taken the nation by storm, because White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders was recently denied service at a restaurant in Virginia, which prompted the question: was that right or wrong of the restaurant owner? And now the controversy has touched our own sleepy community of Bloomington-Normal, Illinois.
Since we live in a social media age, anyone posting anything online must be careful — especially candidates for political office. This point was driven home by The Pantagraph, when they published a story about a Facebook post made by Jenn Carrillo, candidate for City Council in Bloomington’s 6th ward. Hamilton Nolan of Splinternews.com wrote an article entitled “This Is Just the Beginning”, a caustic and irreverent piece aimed at national media outlets and their pundits who bray about the dangers of incivility. This article was shared by Ms. Carrillo, who quoted from it: “when you aggressively [mess] with people’s lives, you should not be surprised when they decide to [mess] with yours” to which she added the comment, “it is our duty to make it intolerably uncomfortable to do evil. Do not let folks who value politeness over justice convince you otherwise.”
Yet that was not the end of The Pantagraph’s story, for they asked local public officials for comment, such as McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage, who said this is “a post that in my opinion is intended to promote violence”; Bloomington Police Chief Clay Wheeler expressed disappointment because “we don’t have to go to such extremes of threats and violence”; the State’s Attorney, Jason Chambers, voiced similar sentiments by saying “Freedom of speech protects a great number of things, but that doesn’t mean that clear hints of violence against local and state officials is acceptable or good for our community.” Given that American government is government of, by, and for the people, Ms. Carrillo’s quote and statement should not be controversial. However, those who value politeness over justice were apparently shocked by the coarse language.
As a person with two eyes and the ability to read, what elides my senses is how Jenn’s statement is tantamount to violence, or even threatening to local and state officials. Nor do I understand why public officials would understand a rather benign sentiment as violent or threatening. Maybe it’s because of political expediency, or maybe it’s because of poor reading comprehension. It’s hard to say. But wanting “to make it intolerably uncomfortable to do evil” is a fine statement for an engaged citizen to make, especially when that citizen is running for public office, because it demonstrates what kind of politician their constituents can expect once elected to public office.
Furthermore, let us not lose the thread and forget what touched off this national controversy, creating this local one: the Trump administration’s “evil” policy of taking children from parents and stuffing babies into literal cages and internment camps. Tearing kids away from parents, without the promise of reuniting them, is objectively terrible. We cannot lose sight of this affront. If we do, then the offenders get off light, and this offense is particularly heinous. Jenn Carrillo meant only to encourage her fellow citizens to wake up and take political action — core features of any democratic system in which elected officials must respond to the citizenry. That there were people who condemned her statement says more about them than it does her.
Civility is a virtue. It is a good to be sought after, behavior to be encouraged. Civility is a skill which requires practice to perfect, because there are a set of rules, or norms, associated with it. What is deemed civil in one context may not in another; holding the door open for the person behind you, for example, would be considered civil and polite — however, if that person were a robber running out of the bank with cash in hand, it’d be pretty weird if you held the door open for them. Sometimes, being uncivil is the correct course of action. Therefore, now is not the time to be polite, for civility requires a basic set of rules, or norms, to practice correctly, and what this administration is doing should not be considered normal, and should instead be treated as the evil it self-evidently is.
(First published on dallasrknapp.com)
