License for Rudeness

It’s 5K Time! Peltier Park race gives proceeds to Brain Aneurysm Foundation
August 26, 2015
OUTDOOR MEMORIES
August 29, 2015
It’s 5K Time! Peltier Park race gives proceeds to Brain Aneurysm Foundation
August 26, 2015
OUTDOOR MEMORIES
August 29, 2015

But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment. And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘fool’ will be sent to fiery hell,” Matthew 5:22 (NET Bible translation)

I don’t know when good manners, the love of one’s neighbor or outright common courtesy became “political correctness,” a phrase that wrenches itself from the mouth of people such as Donald Trump.

But The Donald’s weak excuse for calling women things my mama taught me I should never call them – and men, too, for that matter – has given a lot of other people the idea that they have a license to be rude.


It is increasingly popular for people to say that they are merely “speaking their mind” to justify rudeness and even cruelty This has gone on for a while but Trump has brought it to a whole new level.

More often than not, I am the guy who has to make the phone call asking some person, most often one who is in public life, to account for their words and later write about what they said – or didn’t say – as a means of telling readers more about the world they immediately live in.

My recent experiences with two different situations, one involving an elected official and the other an elected official’s child, have taught me a lot, and provided crystallization of at least one truth which, up to this point, was sought but had escaped me.


Terrebonne Parish School Board member Vicki Bonvillain was the subject of one. For those who have been sleeping under a rock the past few weeks, here is the summary

Bonvillain shared a meme – that’s one of those pictures with words that everyone passes around on Facebook and other social network places – that featured a rebel flag. Below it were logos of various organizations such as the NAACP and the United Negro College Fund. If you find the flag to be a hate symbol, the meme states, then you will or should find the logos to be symbols of hate as well.

People were offended.


Bonvillain did post an apology of sorts, but refused to speak with me about it. She also remained mum when a few people appeared at a School Board meeting expressing hurt, anger and frustration.

Her supporters question why people were offended, and how they could be so thin-skinned.

Fast-forward to this past Sunday A video by a guy named Joshua Williams appeared in social media in which he talks about being pulled over by the police, what with him being a young black man and all. He won’t be stopping, he said. And he wants people to burn stuff and “turn it out” should he ever be killed by officers.


Joshua is the son of Arlanda Williams, a Terrebonne Parish Council member.

He was also – until late Sunday – a Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office dispatcher.

A lot of people who like cops, as well as the cops for whom Joshua had been a lifeline, found the video offensive.


Friends and supporters of Joshua, whose postings on Facebook appear as those of his alterego, Jo Jackson, attempted to invalidate the feelings of those who were offended.

Williams quit his job. His mother, who spoke to The Times, issued an apology She was perfectly willing to be questioned about the matter, even though the video wasn’t of her doing.

What each of these scenarios had in common is that people in both tried to invalidate the feelings of others.


A person who is insulted by references to or in support of a flag of rebellion against the United States should not have to enunciate why she is insulted. It should be enough that my neighbor is insulted for me to remove it, in most cases.

A police officer or his wife who finds the words of Jo Jackson insulting should not have to explain why

In each case it should be enough that someone – and not just one or two people – have made clear that they are insulted. The result should be a statement or action of apology, or at the very least a recognition.


If I tell you that I am in pain, then you have a duty to explain your actions, particularly if you are a government body’s agent, or come from a public service family

Asking that one’s neighbor recognize my pain is not asking them to be politically correct. It is asking them to be a neighbor, to not be rude.

Continue hurting me then, if you must.


But don’t tell me I don’t have a right to cry, or treat me as if I am a fool.

License for RudenessLicense for Rudeness