So, this is it — this is where I bid you all a fond farewell. I’ve decided not to reapply for my position as The Peak’s copy editor and this, my inspirational, insightful editor’s voice, is me saying goodbye.
I’ve been pondering what I want to write about, what I want to leave with you all: something personal and anecdotal, something cliché and ‘wise,’ something funny and light — luckily for me, however, I was inspired by two gentlemen who came into The Peak offices last Wednesday.
They were concerned, offended even, by an article that we had published the week before, and sought us out, in the bowels of the MBC, looking for answers.
Let me pause to say that confrontation is hard. Your voice starts to tremble, you feel that flush crawling up your neck, you second guess what you’ve said as soon as the words tumble out of your mouth — it’s a fucking miserable experience. But it’s a necessary part of life as an adult; things offend you, they hurt you, they piss you off, and you can either let those things fester and maybe dissipate, or you can seek out resolution.
Okay, back to the office. These guys were clearly upset, they explained their multiple issues with the piece, and our Editor-in-Chief and myself were left to respond, to defend the article or to capitulate where necessary. They weren’t aggressive, they weren’t mean or hysterical, they made valid points, and as I listened to them speak, all I could think was . . . ‘Damn, these guys really, really care.’
We’ve all seen enough comments sections to know that responses to unpopular opinions are often personal.
Passion like that amazes me. And it leads me to my first piece of advice: care. I know you’ve heard this one a million times. But this time really hear it. We are young people, we are informed people, we are the people who must make waves, who must get riled up, who must seek out answers, who must demand answers because it matters and it makes a difference.
The concerns of those two gentlemen were heard and taken into account and will affect future decisions at The Peak, because they cared enough to ask, “Why?”
Are you fired up? I sure hope so. But before you grab that torch and storm that gate, I’ve got a second piece of advice: be kind.
You care about something, you know your shit and this thing is extremely important to you, and then you read or hear an opinion that flies in the face of everything you believe, everything you know to be true. You feel it in your gut, as if someone’s punched you in the stomach. You are afraid because this wrong, misinformed, unclear (insert your adjective of choice) opinion is out in the ether, possibly swaying people in the wrong direction.
Before you rip into the person spouting off all of that figurative black smoke, take a breath and remember that that person is, in fact, a person. It seems simple enough, and yet our tendency to overlook the whole humanity thing continues to shock and awe me.
We’ve all seen enough comments sections to know that the flak received by purveyors of unpopular opinions is often personal and sometimes brutal. But it’s understandable. That feeling I described earlier — that punch in the gut feeling — is personal and can feel like an attack. We lose ourselves in our fear, and we lash out. We gather our arsenal of verbal sticks and stones and we let loose, forgetting (or ignoring) that there is a person somewhere in the midst of it all.
No amount of passion or outrage exempts you from being decent; take steps in your own life to make the change that you want to see rather than abusing others for their ‘misinformed’ opinions. Start dialogues, ask the hard questions, but be kind.
Very well put. I think the key (for me at least) is that even when someone says something controversial, you should argue with what they say. Not with whom they are, or devolve into calling them names. Good debate is possible…of people think over what they want to say about a topic and actually discuss that topic.