An anonymous family has graciously shared some of their innermost communications with one another. Please take what you like and leave the rest.
Communication is an incredibly difficult thing. I hear at least about 70% of communication between humans is nonverbal. IDK about you but my in person interactions in the past year have been through the virtual mediums that I have never been so grateful for. That means those social skills that get exercise when getting together with others have been neglected quite a bit. Then there is this written word. Eww. It is so friggin hard for me to read tone! Please tell me I am not alone in this. Someone smarter than I said that asking the following question can be extremely helpful: What is the story I’m telling myself?
It’s my understanding that people can go learn how to write tone in order to elicit emotions in their audience. I do not yet have those skills and I don’t imagine that most people think a whole heck of a lot about how their words will be felt by the other person. I sometimes do have the ability to check that by asking myself how I would feel if those words were being said to me. With that in mind, I will unfold the following family dynamic with the limitation of the stories I would be telling myself. I intentionally did not ask the family any details other than the screenshots I was provided. I will only include quotes that seemed to elicit the most emotion inside myself. And I am a pretty sensitive person so here we go.
The following post was made public on facebook and shared by a school teacher, “Remember history class? Remember how Hitler burned books and tore down monuments in an attempt to erase history? Hmm…deja vu.”
With that information alone I am left to my own devices to read tone, intention, and tell myself some kind of story. The stories I tell myself include my assumptions, preconceived notions, biases, and unique sensitivities. This will loop around to a point if you stay with me. For clarity as well as confusion, the words in quotation marks are from the family that was so generous to share their vulnerabilities with us.
“Remember history class” Yes, I remember Mr. Burnham, he was the most jolly and comedic teacher that I recall from Edison. Another history class, that would be with Dr. Tuller at university. That one course led to two years in History Club and it was a lot of fun. Okay I have found memories of history class, now onto the next bit. “Remember how Hitler burned books and tore down monuments” If I’m being perfectly honest, no I did not recall that tidbit but it doesn’t surprise me based on the part I do remember about him having a superiority complex and committing mass genocide. Then the last part, “Hmm…deja vu.” Deja vu is one of those feeling words in my opinion. The English translation of the word is “already seen” according to the Oxford Languages that google search engine uses. My mind puts the translation of the word together with the perception I have of deja vu being a feeling and that comes together into familiarity. When I experience deja vu, it is like I feel what the future holds as if my prediction is happening now. I do hope that makes some sort of sense.
Putting all of my stories together, if the post was to pop up on feed I likely would not think this deeply into it and just keep scrolling. I would assume the teacher was expressing her fear of history repeating itself. But then I wouldn’t have known the context or the perspective I’m about to unfold.
The post received one comment, while the whole comment was quite lengthy, there are parts that are notable for the purposes of dissecting the family dynamics, here are those segments: “…The confederate flag represents hate and atrocities including but not exclusive to slavery…”…“What makes you think…”. These are the only two bits I find relevant for now because one provides information key to understanding from another perspective as well as demonstrates how sometimes all that gets through regardless of the rest of the content, is the feelings elicited by a few choice words. Now you have a bit more context and are likely already applying the stories you tell yourself to this family’s situation. I know if I was explained something that I find part of my professional expertise I would feel a bit offended. Come to think of it, I have had that happen, someone with a single psychology class often boasts in bar settings. I tend to sit quietly and just observe my discomfort instead of responding as others would naturally be defensive. The way I read it looking through the teacher’s eyes is that what was intended as a harmless facebook post and from my analysis, an expression of fear of past atrocities like socially accepted mass genocide being potential realities in modern day America was taken quite personally. So the teacher most likely felt attacked by a loved one she felt was unprovoked and acting irrationally, from that perspective at least. Let’s look a bit deeper into this family.
Fast forward to seven months later and the story through the grapevine has become a slightly new story. The person that left the comment shared, “I was hurt and offended by some of her comments related to race but I do not recall calling or a racist or saying anything insulting to her,” and referring to the teacher and another loved one, “…can reach out to me if they feel that I’ve hurt them…” Looking through this lens we must imagine a mother of humans that are American descendents of slaves.
From the mother’s perspective I must use my imagination a bit as I do not have children myself, I like to say my sister had enough for the both of us. I imagine as a mother of children who happen to have more melanin than others might, that one becomes acutely aware of the prejudices American society sometimes tries to ignore or forget. It is through this lens I’ll see my emotional response shift. Imagining a loved one supporting the confederate flag and slavery “in veneration,” which I recently learned means with great respect basically feels a bit like a punch in the gut. This person I respect and admire as an educator is appearing to support something I thought was absolutely atrocious, the mother even said “that’s disgusting” in her comment. From the mother’s perspective it seems she may have felt personally offended by the post as it is an issue that directly affects her nuclear family day in and day out. As a good mother and intelligent human, she attempted to communicate her discourse but alas, the tone interpreted was not a pleasant one.
Is it the mother’s fault the teacher felt she was being called a racist? Is that even what the teacher thinks? The “insulting” was all grapevine communication. The teacher and mother have not spoken to my knowledge, not even through typing. I think a civil discourse (not typed) would clarify everyone’s intentions pretty quickly but I don’t know if the intensity of emotions or lack of a desire to preserve the relationship from both parties may prevent that from happening for some time. And that’s okay.
On to the next perspective, The well meaning son/father/spouse/in-law, but for clarity we will call him George. George is the teacher’s in-law and the father of that mother who was upset by the post. He walks a tightrope attempting to use the tools he knows to facilitate reconciliation. Unfortunately, things like credit, blame, pride and shame are not long term behavior modification techniques. George defended his daughter and himself to the family saying they do “not need to apologize for political views and should not be required to suffer people she loves hurting her feelings.” He goes on for a while with those techniques I mentioned above and ends with a dividing line of: “we all need to do a little introspection and choose the right side”. I don’t even know the full story and that hurts my gut to think of someone saying that to me, I would have an intense emotional reaction for sure. It is with that feeling we shift to George’s mother’s perspective, calling her grandma.
Grandma only knows what she’s been told, not necessarily the reality and certainly not with all the information of the stories each one of these family members may be telling themselves. Yet even with limited information she tried to smooth things over in the family, using credit, blame, pride and shame. Now you know where George gets it. This is also seven months after the post, the family is still not speaking so she steps in to help. To start, Grandma questions and then attacks the mother’s intentions stating “Are your political views so important to insult and hurt your aunt? You really think she’s a racist. Do you really want to break up the family? It makes us so sad.” I am confident the Grandma is not consciously manipulating the people she loves with unhelpful tactics, but I do believe she has good intentions, a lot of love, and is doing the best that she can with the information she had at the time. The very next sentence attacks George, “you hurt us over some political differences. If your politics is so important to hurt our family, It makes us so sad.” Grandma has some time under her belt laying down that guilt nice and thick most likely. Here comes some more blows, brace yourself: “I would like to hear you both apologize. None of your family are racists. We do not think we are better than anyone else. All of us have worked hard to take care of our families. We try to live the way Jesus has taught us. We love and care for both of you. Please fix this.” To clarify the Grandma is requesting the mother and George apologize for their mistreatment of the teacher and another family member who somehow got looped in, possibly by another facebook post, I’m not really sure and I could speculate but I want to stick to unpacking this story a bit more.
So George indicates there’s a right/wrong in this situation and Grandma passes the monkey to the mother’s back by saying “please fix this,” implying that it is the mother’s fault and the mother has the power to remedy the situation. The reality is the “fix” is compliance to keep your mouth shut. Or at least that is how it appears from my outsider perspective. It reminds me of an old Disney movie quote, “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”. Well, Thumper didn’t have a keyboard so what one writes and perceives as nice to one, to another may read as not nice in the slightest. The mother abstains from engaging in further written discourse and concludes her communication indicating the family “can reach out to me if they feel that I’ve hurt them, I chose to turn the other cheek. I love you and them.” Maybe not the words I’d use but definitely the most responsible response of the adults so far. Reaching out directly to someone, imagine that? That means one would have to be willing to listen though. As I am learning more and more, communication is so incredibly difficult and these screens are only making it more difficult. We can adapt to a place of understanding that vulnerability can be a significant strength in families. I don’t know if the teacher, mother, father, or others will be vulnerable first, but it is with that vulnerability that the family will heal. That or they’ll wait until the next in-person family reunion and pretend like nothing ever happened..that’s not recommended but it is how a lot of families roll. My recommendation is that when this family communicates again, they attempt to keep their points from the I perspective and use what’s called active listening to facilitate reconciliation.
Your own family may be going through similar disputes. I hear dualities of red/blue, republican/democrat, masked/unmasked, right/wrong, and racist/antiracist. The reality that I live in is one where two things can be true, there are more than two sides to every story, and humans stink at communicating, myself included.
Despite how strong this family’s love is, the barriers of credit, pride, shame, and blame may keep them apart for some time. Vulnerability and kindness will bring them back together one day. Or not, I don’t actually have a crystal ball, I just see the future I prefer and it usually works out that way. Be patient with your families this year as reunions may be rough for a while. I challenge you all to be the first one to be vulnerable.
