In the past weeks, the subject of “tolerance” and understanding has been considered a high priority by groups of people who exercise none. Suddenly, millions of people who have been spouting misinformation and vitriol into whatever abyss the inhabit, are now highly self-interested in being their definition of tolerant. What it really translates to, is wanting us to tolerate them. They are not asking you to come from a factual place in your understanding of their ideologies; they are asking you to not hold them to account.
The first experience I had with this phenomenon, a few weeks before thanksgiving, a woman was shopping near me in a store and her irate nature was spilling from her phone call into the aisle. Whomever she was speaking with had clearly dis-invited her to an event. She was screaming the freedom of speech and “how dare they judge me” reactions one tends to hear more commonly. I will admit, it gave me this small glimmer of hope that people would hold others accountable for their actions.
A vote is an action. It sets in motion the gears of millions of other actions we have little to no say in. The vote is it.
The second experience, a previous person I held in better regard came to me about my writings. Telling me, “This is not you.” Is it not? I wrote it. I believe it. He was referring to my reference that I will not tolerate intolerance. The concept of tolerating those who exercise hatred and fear mongering, as if it is an easy path to walk. I do not wake up every day looking for negative news, but we live in that cycle. I do not wake up every day looking for a way to blame others for my life’s path, some do. I do not wake up every day looking for ways I can blame the entirety of the world’s problems on one group or the next, but again, some live in these cycles. If my saying I will not be part of those cycles makes me my own version of intolerance, then so be it.
My most recent experience was a silent one. In a café, in the city I have called home for many years, I was with a friend and my mother catching up on life as of late. My friend participates in medicine and activism. My mother is retired. The table is also a melting pot of race, as I am mixed race, and my mother and friend hail from differing as well. A table next to us happened with a couple who seemed quite fixated on our table. As we discussed current political events, negative repercussions of decisions being made and a variety of ways we had all been engaging in keeping our sanity intact, while simultaneously finding ways to support positive impact going forward, it was apparent the man next to us was becoming hostile.
His body language changed, stiffened in our direction. His eyes did not leave our table. When I would catch his gaze, his face was contorted. When I would catch his wife’s, she would turn and bury her eyes. No one at my table stopped their discussions. As if the conversation itself, discussing goodness and fact, was its own act of in the moment resistance to these clearly bothered by it to my left. Eventually, the couple gathered and walked out. They never spoke to us, but their engagement spoke volumes on its own.
These interactions, in passing and reactive, have illustrated to me the changing nature of tolerance. While we know it as an understanding and development of ideas, tolerance itself seems to take on an entirely different meaning. Whatever sphere we are living in currently, tolerance seems to have left the building.