Recently, I was at an afternoon movie following a doctor’s appointment. I wanted to pleasantly kill some time before I put my chauffer’s cap back on. This was a rare treat and I was looking forward to shutting out the world for a couple of hours. Just as the movie began my cell phone rang. I thought I’d turned it off. (In my head I could hear my daughter scolding me, telling me that I really need to learn to use my phone properly.) I apologized to the man sitting two seats away, turned off the ringer and quickly glanced at the call. It was my daughter. It was during school hours. Something was wrong.
Before I could get out of my seat to leave and check my messages, the man next to me barked at me about the phone. I was shocked. I had just apologized. Later, I sat there as he and his wife began to talk. Then they talked some more. I made the enormous mistake of shushing them. Their reaction was to bark at me and continue to talk. I again asked them to stop talking and they yelled at me again.
I finally went to get the manager and explained that these people were disturbing me and scaring me. When confronted by management they both starting shouting about me, claiming that I was speaking loudly and making a lot of noise with my popcorn. I had no popcorn and am not yet at the stage of speaking to myself loudly in public.
I found this all discombobulating and was too tense to enjoy the rest of the film, even though a theater employee stood nearby from that point on and kept an eye on the couple. When I spoke to the manager after the movie, she told me that unless management catches someone misbehaving they cannot ask them to leave. If it comes to truly disruptive behavior the police are called.
I was shocked. The afternoon was ruined. I was embarrassed and truly dumbfounded that people who looked to be in their 60s would act with such unbearable entitlement. We have all heard people talking loudly in movies or scrolling through their phones, but it was their angry selfishness that most upset me.
This kind of outrage seems to be part of our culture these days. Not that kindness has disappeared. Folks are often quick to hold a door or stop for pedestrians in crosswalks. However, there is a low thrum of anger consistently trickling into our lives through the TV, the radio, and our cell phones. The president brags about grabbing women, mocks the disabled, and praises dictators. We see very little kindness coming from elected officials at the highest ranks of government and I do believe that explains the racism and general mean-spiritedness creeping into our interactions like a virus.
Not that Trump is responsible for the angry couple sitting to my left that afternoon, but our officials, especially Republican leaders, are often seen behaving badly. The lack of decorum and civility shown by a president who encourages violence at his rallies and thinks there are “good people” amongst Nazi demonstrators is trickling down. We have all seen the righteous bigots on Facebook screaming at Latina women in supermarkets or yelling at African Americans for merely existing in “their” neighborhoods. I can’t remember another time in my life in which people treated one another so poorly.
As much as I detest the current administration, I also disagree with liberals attacking high-ranking officials in restaurants. Maxine Waters lost points with me for encouraging such behavior, though I understand her frustration and anger.
Just because the president thought it was great that Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte body slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs doesn’t mean the rest of us should emulate such base and ugly behavior. But I do think it goes further than bad manners and angry outbursts. We have an enormous problem on our hands when an unstable white guy sends bombs to 14 people the president had attacked at his rallies or through his Twitter feed.
People look to elected officials not just to govern but also for guidance. I have quoted Michelle Obama to my daughter, reminding her that we should go high when others go low. Have I always done so? Of course not; I am human. However, after I heard Obama say that I have tried to adhere to her wisdom. It is not just a kinder way to walk through life, but it is also much classier. And safer.
If our president continues to mock people and encourage violence, we are going to see more and more death and civil unrest, because sane people and those who are unhinged bothlisten to him. And so we have the Proud Boys beating up protestors. We have a woman telling a Mexican man that Mexicans are “rapists” and “animals” because Trump has said that is the case. (To see a video of that confrontation, click HERE.) And we have people who have clearly forgotten that this country is for everyone, whether we agree politically or not.
