The Rally Cry for Respect

In these last months there has been a great hue and cry about the importance of showing respect, especially to law enforcement officers. I am in 100% agreement with this injunction. Law enforcement officers deserve our respect and admiration for a myriad of reasons. So do teachers and cashiers and pharmacists (my sister could tell you some stories! Whew!)

I’ve loved the two football teams for which my son has played, and one reason is because several of the volunteer coaches are police officers. Several times a shift has run late and they’ve come to practice in their uniforms. My son has the uncanny ability to suss out the power dynamic in a situation faster than any kid I’ve ever met. (And the hubris to step into any perceived power gap and take the reins of control for himself.) But when a large, muscular football coach in full police gear commands this bitty baller to drop and give ten, it’s clear who holds the power. There is no other response than, “Yes, sir!”

My kid being told to "guard the corner and stop getting sucked in!"
Both the coach and the chain crew are law enforcement officers. 

This builds respect. Because it also builds relationship. And here’s where I see the mandate that “people should teach their kids respect” breaking down. 

‘Cuz, y’all, can I just get a witness that it’s a daily, consistent, difficult battle teaching my child respect, and I’m living in a comfortable, fair, middle class world and surrounded by dozens of people supporting me in that effort - from his law enforcement football coaches to his teacher and classmates to his friends and my friends and family members to the high-fiving security guards at church. We’re working the program and he still gets mouthy and defiant and doesn’t always listen to directive.

But what of those parents who can’t or won’t teach this respect by reason of generational poverty, addictions, crime, abuse, injustice or fear? 

According to Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, Senior Fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy, “We know that our biology predisposes us to mirror the actions of those we see around us... These facts are wonderful when what we are considering repeating is loving and nurturing, but they are frankly terrifying when we think about the violence and the increasing number of simulations of violence that surround us and our children.” He continues, “The mirroring systems of our social brains make behaviors contagious. And again, this is wonderful when what you are practicing is sports or piano or kindness, but not so great when what’s being repeated is impulsive, aggressive responses to threat.”

So what are we to do? Are we to shake our heads at the Michael Browns of the world and tsk, tsk their fate because, well, they should have learned respect.

How are they to learn?

This seems a pivotal moment for those of us carrying the banner of respect - a moment either to make a different or to shake our heads. What if all those believers who shout, “Yes! People should learn respect!” step in to mentor youth? To model and teach respect?

Organizations like: Big Brothers Big Sisters, Every1Reads, (seriously, y'all, teachers are on the front line in this directive), Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Uspiritus, Orphan Care Alliance,  Boys' and Girls' Club, Portland Promise Center, just to name a few that come immediately to mind, are all desperate for volunteers and financing. They could all benefit from our desire that children learn respect. Respect comes from relationship. Who better to build those relationships than believers? Who better to stand in the gap for oppressed and downtrodden youth? Who better to build bridges and create relationships for “such a time as this”?

This is too big a moment to just talk the talk and lament the state of society today. If we want children to learn respect, then we need to show the way.

Stories

In fifth grade I attended a very small, very homogenous, very conservative school. The bookmobile came once a week for library time. We were allowed to check out a maximum of ten books if we thought we could read them all. I could and I did. One week I put Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume on my stack. I wasn’t especially excited about this particular book - it seemed to be about boys younger than I - but by that time in the school year the selection was running a bit thin.

Once at the checkout counter I was told, rather apologetically by the bookmobile librarian, that I wasn’t allowed to check out Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. “Not allowed?” I studied the book, feeling both anxious and incensed.

“Sorry,” she said. “School policy. Nothing by Judy Blume.”

Well. I checked with my teacher who assured me that was, in fact, the school policy. “Some of Blume's books explore themes and topics contrary to our values,” he explained.

That weekend I made my way to the public library downtown, where I checked out Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and, because I was feeling uncharacteristically rebellious, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

The story of Peter and Fudge helped me understand and cope with my own sibling relationships. The story of Margaret helped me understand and cope with growing up, helped me explore my faith - what I believed and why.

It was my first realization of the power of story, how story can connect us to one another and to great universal truths, but also how stories different from our own can incite a fear great enough to censor those stories. Because I was an inherently anxious child, it was books that helped me walk through that fear into a realization that I didn’t have to tremor away from all that was different. Through stories I could understand and respect those differences. Through stories I could fight that fear.

In sixth grade I transferred to a public school and was placed in the classroom of a teacher who read prolifically and encouraged us to do the same. There was no banning of books in her classroom, just wise guidance toward the right book at the right developmental time. She introduced me to Mildred Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, to Anne Frank, to Tolkien, to The Great Gilly Hopkins, to Shel Silverstein. There was world out there filled with conflicts and adventures, faith and doubt, injustice and redemption. I soaked in the stories of girls like Margaret who were a lot like me, growing up white and middle class in the suburbs, but also of girls like Cassie Logan, who grew up with dignity in a place of injustice.

We need each other’s stories. In a world where it is so easy to take sides - Republican versus Democrat, Christian versus Muslim, liberal versus conservative, straight versus gay, police officer versus black male - we need to hear each other, to listen, to empathize. We may not agree, but we can understand. People want to know they matter. Stories walk us through the fear of all that is different and into a respect for those people. Because they do matter. Their stories matter.

Indiegogo recently launched a We Need Diverse Books Campaign. Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, who is a brilliant writer and also a good friend (I recently walked into a fifth grade classroom that was reading one of her books aloud and began gushing Oh! Wow! I KNOW her so enthusiastically that those fifth graders now believe her to have celebrity status ranking right up there with a Disney XD star) wrote a blog on Jacqueline Woodson and Daniel Handler's watermelon joke that created impetus behind why We Need Diverse Books.

Because once we understand someone’s story, we can begin to move past fear toward respect, reconciliation, redemption.