I spoke with a friend over the weekend who was distressed by stuff someone he knew had sent him on WhatsApp. He kept on saying, “But he’s a good person!”
The cause of his upset was that he’d been sent some cartoons that were classic antisemitic tropes. He wanted to tell the person it wasn’t OK but felt at a loss as to how to do that.
Understandable, but if we don’t call our friends out, who will? And if we say nothing, aren’t we complicit in normalising unacceptable behaviour?
My friend was flabbergasted. “How can a good person think these are acceptable ‘jokes’?” The two ideas in one sentence just didn’t compute in his head.
Indeed, what causes a good person to behave unacceptably?
Partly because we like to think goodness is a permanent feature of who we are. “I’m a good person, therefore what I’m doing can’t be that bad.”
It’s a real trap, but then we all have blind spots.
We’re influenced by people we trust, so if they’re doing something, it must be OK, mustn’t it?
We’re also drawn to things that confirm what we already believe, even when we don’t recognise how deep that goes.
And that’s because the reality is, we’re all capable of scapegoating “the other,” blaming them for society’s ills and/or for why we don’t have all the goodies we want, or see other people having.
Now, you might have baulked at that one because you’re a “good person.” See what I did there? But even we good people carry the seeds of the opposite within us.
Indeed, knowing those seeds are there that lets us choose whether to act on them. Awareness is key!
Lastly, we’re also all susceptible to wanting to fit in. When everyone’s laughing, it takes something to be the person who says, “Hang on…”
And calling something a joke can give us a convenient escape from considering its cruelty. “Don’t be so sensitive. I didn’t mean anything by it!”
But when challenged, we can become more concerned with defending our goodness than examining our behaviour. Shame threatens our self-image, and we shut down.
That’s why I’d start with the behaviour in addressing something like this… “I care about you, and these cartoons repeat hateful stereotypes about Jewish people. What made you think they were funny?”
An invitation to reflect, alongside a clear boundary.
For Goddess’s sake, surely being a good person includes being willing to discover when our halo’s slipped… and doing something about it? Our goodness needs to withstand uncomfortable self-examination if it’s to have any value… doesn’t it???
Love and wild warm wishes…
For midlife women feeling out of sorts, disconnected and
who’ve reached, “There has to be more to life than this!”
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