Not the kind of box you’d want to gift wrap….

A trait which disturbs me almost more than other bad traits I have is putting persons in boxes. You might ask, what exactly do you mean by that. Let me explain.

I read an article this morning in USA Today. The story focused on Sue Wallis, a Wyoming state lawmaker who is a proponent of slaughtering horses for meat. Now, to me, this idea is just appalling. I would no more support an idea such as this than I would support using dogs and cats which were going to be euthanized for the same purposes. It simply sickens me.

Having read the article, I looked at the photo of Ms. Wallis and immediately put her in a box. She appears to be a heavy set woman with short cropped hair wearing fairly masculine clothes. I’ll leave it to you to figure out the box I put her in. And, this is what disturbs me about me.

Why is it I felt the need to put her in a box at all. Why couldn’t my brain just say, “Here’s a human supporting something I find totally abhorrent,” and leave it at that? Why was I compelled to label her with something else? And, I do this for lots of other persons. They might be African American, Jewish, overweight, Christian, it doesn’t really seem to matter. If someone does something disagreeable to me, I put them in a box.

I don’t think I grew up in a particularly racist or sexist family, yet I am aware there were references, often in Yiddish, to persons in less than polite ways. Perhaps they were referred to as schvartze or goy or faygelah. OK, so perhaps I was brought up in a fairly racist, deprecating home. Maybe it didn’t seem so because the derogatory terms being used were all in a language that wasn’t English.

I find myself doing this quite frequently. And, I don’t like it! Not a bit. Yet, for all my discomfort with it, it seems to keep happening over and over again. I know one thing. I have a very clear memory of a time I was put in a box. I was in my late 2os. Living in Cedar Rapids, IA. I was in the Czech part of the town and there was a man sitting on a bench. He had a great, weathered kind of face. I was, at the time, a photographer for the local newspaper and I wanted to get what is called a feature picture. Just something of interest. This fellow on the bench looked like he might fill the bill. I went over to talk to him and ask his permission to photograph him. He was OK with that. I made some pictures of him and sat down to chat with him. Everything seemed to be going well until my Star of David came out of my shirt. I had learned in our conversation this man was originally from Norway. When he saw the Star of David, he asked, “Are you a Jew?” I answered I was. His whole demeanor changed. He began telling me how he had helped the Nazis kill Jews in the war. He said he wished he had killed more himself. I was shocked. And, these were the days I really didn’t suffer fools lightly. My first thought was to beat the guy senseless. But, something else inside me actually felt sorry for this man. I told him I thought he was a sick, pathetic human being and left him there, sitting on the bench. I remember calling my friend Rick and telling him the story. He was shocked, too, but I don’t remember if Rick had any advise on the subject.

Here’s the rub: I was put into a box by this man, and really, I just felt sorry for the guy. He likely went to his grave as an ignorant, prejudiced human being. I realize writing about the incident now, that’s not what I want. I’m tired of being prejudiced. I’m tired of being ignorant. I’ve called myself a recovering racist for several years now. And yet, my brain continues to want to place others in a box when I get angry about something they’ve done.  And, really, it’s not just anger. It’s sad. It’s afraid. It’s all these base emotions rapped up in the guise of a box because I don’t want to know in that moment how to better deal with the situation or the person.

I believe in this moment, as I write, the answer is pretty clear. Several years ago, I learned when I get angry, to stop and ask myself a question. “What is it I’m afraid or sad about but not willing to see the fear or the sadness?” When I look at an incident from this perspective, I almost always can let go of the anger in order to deal with the baser emotion – the fear or the sadness. And, from that, I learn. The same question can be asked as I move toward putting the next person in a box. What is it, really, I’m afraid of from this person, or what is it about what’s happening causing me to be sad? In taking a moment, that’s all that’s really necessary, a moment, I can get a much better perspective of how I’m feeling and why. Taking enough of these moments, the lessons will come. I hope, the boxes will disappear. I’ll simply see others as persons who are helping me to uncover another part of myself I’ve been hiding from.

What was it then about the article in USA Today which caused me to put Ms. Wallis in a box, to label her something other than,  in my opinion, a misguided person? She advocates the slaughter of animals I consider noble. It makes me sad, mad and afraid all at the same time. I’m sad someone wants to slaughter horses. I’m angry about that, too. And, I’m terrified there will be enough other Ms. Wallis’ that something really horrible could happen to the horses in the part of the country she’s from. Here’s my turn-around for me: Ms. Wallis, I don’t like what you advocate and I truly hope and pray it doesn’t come to pass. But, if it does, I’ll still see you as just someone, another human, I don’t particularly care for.

How Am I Changing? By remaining awake, not sleeping, in my life, I get to see the myriad shades of humanity around me. By seeing humanity as just that, other humans interacting with and around me, I get to be the person I really want to be.