I had suuuuuch a frustrating exchange today.
The back story is that a couple of days ago a woman from here in Melbourne made a horrible comment on the video I shared talking about the little three year old girl in Gaza that watched her mother be burnt to death. And she was found just sitting in shock in amongst the flames.
You can watch it here - it's not graphic.
The comment she left on my very public Facebook page was this:
Which of course attracted a lot of attention. And I was waiting for her to delete it, but she didn’t, and kept responding with even more hate when others chimed in as expected.
So I decided to take a screenshot of her comment and share it as a post.
Now…the back back story is that this exact same thing happened back in May.
And she got soooooo upset when she started receiving threats etc. I know this because she messaged me saying how horrible everyone was being.
So she knew that this would happen AGAIN.
Like it literally blows my mind that if it was so terrible the first time…she would go ahead for a second round six months later.
Anyways…
Today as I was trying to just take it easy and recover from whatever I got hit with this weekend…
I get a text from her.
Groan.
I had been anticipating it. But still.
Groan.
She tells me that “my friends” are sharing her private details online.
I remind her that it was her who made the hateful comment PUBLICALLY.
Long story short:
She sends me this looooong formal sounding message about reporting me to the police for doxxing her and how she will also report me to Meta etc etc.
I don’t have time for this shit.
And remember…this was all self inflicted.
But somehow I’m the problem.
I tell her that I will delete the post but could she please help me understand why oh why she would have made the hateful comment. Especially since she knew what happened last time.
This was her response:
And it just makes my head implode.
So much so that I’m sharing it with you since I just have to tell SOMEONE and I don’t want to dump this on my kids.
But whaaaaaaat???
How are these people living amongst us?
I should also add that sooooo many people told me to ignore her comment because it must be a bot. Which I find really annoying. It’s so dismissive and not helpful to just assume that every hateful comment is a bot. No often these are REAL people.
Anyways, I feel better having this out of my system.
Her response reminded me of this:
How she thinks she’s the victim in this is just beyond me.
So yeah…this is what we are dealing with.
In other news.
If you haven’t already, I’d love some help sharing this. We have ten days till my birthday.
I really hope we can get a big chunk of money to help those who really need it:
Thanks for letting me dump, Veronica
Sadly and regrettably, Veronica, it is not unusual.
Some years ago I was teaching a group of adult students in a course for intended library para-professionals. Libraries are, of course, highly client orientated institutions and so all staff have to be approachable, non-judgmental and have excellent communication skills. Personal prejudice, bias and such is better not held but if it must be, ought to remain personal and not exhibited or allowed to prejudice their treatment of clients.
The particular lesson, therefore, was on precisely that topic - communication with clients, social-justice and awareness of difference, as well as how to deal with it.
The event in question happened as I was discussing First Australians and their disadvantage, particularly those living 'in country'. Their was some civil discussion among the class until one student angrily raised her voice and shouted at me that, "It isn't fair, they get all sorts of benefits, extras and special treatment that we don't" and over the next while much in the same vein.
After listening and asking others what they thought, only to find that none of them had anything to say, I asked the student if she really felt that Indigenous Australians were more privileged than herself. [The students were all comfortable 'middle class' Australians, most with their own homes. Certainly none of them could have been described as poor, or even struggling.] The student's answer was to carry on abusing indigenous people and shouting about how unfair it was and how her taxes paid for it all.
I stopped things by suggesting that she and the rest of the class read about what it meant to "Blame the victim" and also pointed out that the British had, effectively, stolen the continent from the First Australians and that they had been mistreated and put down ever since. Of course that was shouted down by not just the angry student but now some of the others.
So, before closing that particular discussion and moving on, I asked the instigator and the others who were now supporting her: "O.k., I hear you. Given what you've said, I have just one question I will ask you to think about:
Would you willingly take their place?
Needless to say, there was no response.
So, I ended that discussion by referring the students to a poem by Mary T. Lathrap. "Judge Softly". It is a possible origin of the "Walk a mile in my shoes' idiom which, originally had the word 'moccasins' rather than 'shoes'. It would be useful and educational for all those who are quick to judge and see only from their own perspective, for them to read and think about Mary's words.
If you are interested you can find it here:
https://cloudfront-s3.solutiontree.com/pdfs/Reproducibles_CAOC/judgesoftly.pdf
Mary Lathrap wrote some fine though relatively unknown poems. She was, I think, something of a feminist long before there was a modern movement and adoption of the term.
Hmm, whatsherface might be getting what she deserves, or at least at the FO stage of FA.