The most recent unfriending took place this week when a sometime student who had sent me a friend request a few months ago put up an egregiously homophobic comment. I actually liked this guy - he was a lay minister and a teacher at a charter school who was very into the idea of empowering less-advantaged children. But, like any number of "conservative Christians" (as we call them), he considers homosexuality an abomination. After I unfriended him, I told the sponsor we should take him off of our dojo discussion group, both for the remark and the fact that after a few months he had stopped coming to okeiko anyway. My sponsor agreed (without an argument, for a change), especially after he saw the post. (News flash - not all budoka are straight.)
People's social opinions are no longer private. FB and related media are treated like people's living rooms, where they seem to feel comfortable expressing opinions and ideas that once were confined to personal discourse among family and real, not virtual friends. As a kid, I was aghast (along with much of the country) at the sitcom "All in the Family" for its very revealing Archie Bunker character - the casual working-class bigot who said exactly what he thought. The show started a national conversation about who Americans were, or thought they were - one of the few times a tv show had provoked such a reaction. As the series went on, Archie found out that people not like him are not so different in attitude (including that his black neighbor did not trust white people any more than Archie trusted blacks). Ultimately, his social views began to evolve. (I once heard that the actor who played him convinced the creators of the show that Archie should be portrayed as being more complex, which he ultimately was).
The thing that really bothers me is that the people I have been unfriending are fellow budoka, because that's what my FB list mostly consists of (along with family members and the occasional old high schoolmate). And it has set me to thinking: as budo teachers, do we have ethical responsibilities when it comes to deciding who we teach, or who we consider colleagues?
This is not a new topic. About 10 years ago, a group of budoka had a yearly forum at which they presented papers that addressed issues of sexism and other ethical topics as they related to their practice. One guy presented on a teacher who used his position of authority to sexually abuse a female student (he was caught, convicted and sent to jail for a few years). In another story, an aikidoka recommended a friend to his teacher, in spite of having an "edgy" temper. A few months later the guy disappeared. Upon inquiry, the aikidoka found out the guy had been arrested for using his newly acquired skills to put his wife in the hospital. The teacher was mortified, and the aikidoka was upset that he had recommended him, but until his arrest, he had no idea the person was violent or abusive.
In my own practice, I once refused to teach a guy who was mentally at least - if not also physically - abusing his girlfriend. My sempai at the time was irritated with me, because he noted that everyone involved was "an adult," and their private behavior was not my problem. I responded that the girlfriend was a victim and I was not going to teach someone capable of behaving in that way. (He was also disrespectful to me personally for Teaching While Female. Eventually, he and the sempai had a falling out and the issue became moot in any case.)
Koryu budo is a small world - I recently attended a seminar that was also attended by an "unfriend" who had expressed an obviously racist point of view, prompting me to delete him from my feed. I mentioned the episode to a few of the other people I was training with. The person is a disciplined budoka who is quite good at what he does; and, outside of a certain arrogance, is not a bad training partner either. But it's hard for me to have any kind of even casual relationship with him, knowing what I know. At the same time, I was not sure it was the right thing to "out" him to a couple of my colleagues. The sempai leading the seminar noted that he did not want to have a political discussion with him, but otherwise was ok teaching him. I am not. At the seminar, I was cordial and kept my distance.
My sponsor has said it's not his business to consider potential customers' points of view; even though, as a minority himself, he is not comfortable with racist remarks. I'm not comfortable either, and would prefer that any bigots lurking among my FB friends keep their opinions to themselves. But, unfortunately, the political discourse has recently made it okay for people to express their distrust of anyone not like themselves. Naively, they assume that their FB feed consists of users who think similarly. They now have one less "friend" who disagrees with them.
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