Ebenezer Lodge #76
I post a lot of things to Facebook. I post music, political commentary, observations about life in general, and things about the world that strike me as odd or entertaining. On occasion I post to Facebook pages including the Grand Lodge of Mississippi.
Recently I posted what I thought was a very positive piece about looking for the good in people and focusing on the positive things we see in the world. Hundreds of other people either “Liked” or “Loved” the post or left supportive comments.
Three people objected.
In the beginning I was shocked and surprised. How could anyone object to looking for the good in people? Well, they didn’t. Their complaint wasn’t really with what I had written. They objected to the fact that I was from Mississippi.
The gist of their comments was that people from Mississippi are not open to ideas that are different from their own and like many other people who don’t live in the big cities on the coast Mississippians tend to generalize about other people. (I really enjoyed that generalization.)
My first response was to be irritated that someone who didn’t know me, didn’t know anything about me, and had never met me would make such an unfounded assumption. My second thought was to reflect on times I had made assumptions about people I didn’t know.
When was the last time you read a news story about someone you didn’t know and formed a negative opinion based on that bit of hearsay gossip? Years ago I met a famous musician who was notorious in the tabloids for his bad behavior. He and I shared a table at a banquet, not by my choice. We hit it off and our dinner lasted for about six hours. We then spent the better part of the next two days together. I found him to be one of the most polite, considerate and humble people I had ever met. I learned from mutual acquaintances that much of what I had heard had a small grain of truth to it but was either exaggerated or that important details had been left out. In other words, what I thought I knew about this person didn’t fully coincide with reality.
Too often we don’t take the time to learn about the real person, but instead make assumptions based on their family, their home town or country, their dress, their choice in tattoos, their religion, their race, their occupation, or their political affiliations. What we forget is that groups are made of people and that each person is a unique individual with their own personality.
My friend Daryl Davis is an oddity. He’s a fantastic musician and story teller. He’s also a black man who has made a point to get to know and befriend members of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klansmen made assumptions about Daryl based on his race, but because they and he were willing to talk, and more important, willing to listen, he has changed quite a few of their lives.
He, and in many cases they, looked beyond the external to learn more about the internal hopes and dreams and beliefs of people different from themselves. We should all learn from Daryl’s example, and take time to know the person inside the skin instead of the person we think we know from how they look from the outside.
Richard B Stevens PM
Ebenezer Lodge #76
Senatobia, Mississippi
