He’s just a little spider. Smaller than the nail on my pinky finger. But up close, he looks really scary. Photo by Susie Taylor
Knowledge Stamps Out Fear
Everybody has that one fear — you know the one where your face scrunches up and you shudder just at the thought of it.
Spiders … public speaking … thunder storms. You get it. Stuff you’d really rather not deal with.
But then there are some fears we don’t even know we have. We’ve held onto them for so long, we think they ‘re normal. They may even be fears that our parents or grandparents had, so they become so ingrained, they are a part of your life and belief system.
Police … black men … Jews.
I recently watched a TED Talk given by Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church. She talked about how, even as a young child, she went with her parents to picket lines and protests holding signs that she couldn’t even read. Signs like “You’re going to hell” or “Death to fags” or “Your Rabbi is a whore”.
She talked about how she believed those things as she grew up and became an adult. Then the Twitter-verse introduced her to the very people she was protesting. That’s where she held real, honest conversations with people. She asked them questions and they questioned her right back. They pointed out the inconsistencies of her church’s beliefs and doctrine.
“Each one of us contributes to the communities and the cultures and the societies that we make up.”
Megan Phelps-Roper
That’s where she learned to not be afraid of things and people she didn’t know. That’s where she was introduced to individual humans who didn’t react the same way she was told they would. That was where she began to see these other people as fellow human beings.
“We started to see each other as human beings and it changed the way we spoke to one another,” she said.
Isn’t that really all it takes? We look at each other and put each other into categories — she’s white, he’s rich, she’s an atheist, he’s gay. As long as we look at people as the label we’ve assigned to them, they can’t be real individuals.
When was the last time you automatically put a label on someone before even talking to him or her or learning about his or her history? It happens a lot to people with disabilities.
I’ve written about my 27-year-old son, Evan, before. He typically sits in his wheelchair, listening to whatever is going on around him. He rocks back and forth and alternates between calling for mommy or daddy, and chewing on his shirt. Don’t ask me why — he just does. I have a young niece who is afraid of him. He’s different and he makes funny noises and she doesn’t know anyone else like that. Her lack of information about him has led her to fear him.
During her TED Talk, Phelps-Roper said: “It was a relief … to let go of the harsh judgments that instinctively ran through my mind about nearly every person I saw.”
She continued: “I needed to learn. I needed to listen … The path we’ve chosen looks so much like the one I walked away from … . I remember this path and it will not take us the where we want to go.”
“The end of this spiral of rage and blame begins with one person who refuses to indulge these destructive, seductive impulses. We just have to decide that it’s going to start with us.”
Megan Phelps-Roper
Phelps-Roper listed four steps we all can take to make real, helpful conversation possible:
- Don’t assume bad intent. Don’t assume the person you are talking to wants to prove you wrong.
- Ask questions. And be ready to answer as many questions as you ask.
- Stay calm. Nothing is ever accomplished by escalating to name calling or violence.
- Make the argument. Don’t assume people understand your point of view. That might be the very reason they disagree with you.
I think you could add “Actively Listen” to that list. It’s one thing to ask someone a question, but if you’ve already decided what you think the answer will be and you don’t actually listen, you learn nothing.
Fear is a powerful emotion. It can save your life or it can keep you stuck in a place you just don’t want to be anymore. I have spent most of my life allowing fear to be the boss of me, to point me to the least scary path. I’m done. Fear is just too heavy, too hard, to carry all the time.
So Ask, Listen and Learn. That’s the best hope we have for a peaceful and compassionate future.
I’ll be back in touch next week,
Susie from Stix-N-Stonez