We moved to Florida from Puerto Rico in 1978, about a year after my father’s death. I had just finished fourth grade in our Catholic school and transitioned into the Broward Country public school system. During that first year in Florida, I attended a Spanish and English bilingual classroom. Our convertible classroom sat in the corner of the school, and the few dozen students spanned all grades from the school. My sister and I spent the entire school day in this room, except for recess.
David, a boy outside of our bilingual program, befriended me during recess. We could barely communicate, but still he demonstrated a genuine interest in me. As our friendship grew and the holidays approached, I asked him what his plans were for Christmas. His face grew stern, and he responded, “I’m Jewish; I don’t celebrate Christmas.”
In Puerto Rico, everyone I knew was Christian. To know someone who deviated from this resembled something defying the laws of gravity. Though nothing prepared me to learn about David’s Judaism, I knew him to be decent and kind. He befriended me, a Chinese boy who spoke mostly Spanish; what kind of friend would I be for severing our relationship due to his religion? His faith wasn’t a thing.
Living as an outsider
Growing up as a Spanish-speaking Chinese boy in the Fort Lauderdale area posed its own set of challenges. The kids in school or the neighborhood generally found it easier to associate with others like them and forgo the challenges with culture and language with me. Conversing with me became a bit of a parlor trick, “How do you say X in Chinese (or Spanish)?” Initially, I humored them and responded with words that they either would not remember or could not even pronounce. Eventually, I simply refused.
Naturally, I developed good friends. They focused on the elements we had in common in order to build our friendship and slowly learned about the differences. Those friends were instrumental in my acclimating to life in Florida, which felt more like a foreign country when I arrived. Our conversations filled with questions to address our natural curiosity and setting healthy boundaries. Though I didn’t know it at the time, it started that journey into understanding the term “being your most authentic self”.
Similarly, in the way that these friends gave me compassion and grace, I gave to others. My world started small, born from my reserved Cantonese community where no one got divorced. One by one those life lessons came. A close friend divorces from a loveless marriage. Another friend tells me that he’s gay. Eventually, another tells me that they’re transitioning to a woman.
Each of them and many others challenged my biases; they all conducted themselves with grace and honor. One by one, they broke all those stereotypes that I held for those labels.
If you can be anything, be kind
Fifteen years ago, we didn’t talk about gender identity. While I considered myself progressive even then, that conversation had not crossed my path. I resisted at first. I asserted that introducing myself with preferred pronouns was awkward. Then I learned, and finally I adjusted. We don’t know what our challenges will be in another fifteen years, but we know that it will be different.
My wife in her gentle wisdom repeats, “If you can be anything in this world, be kind.” Show people grace. Practice natural curiosity. Conduct your life with empathy. Those moments of kindness that people gave me inspired me to pay it forward. If there’s such a thing that can unify and heal us is kindness; let’s put the stop to the pettiness.
Though the bookend to kindness is tolerance. We’re all different. Sometimes those differences are subtle; other times they’re unmistakable. None of us are a perfect match in opinions or temperaments. The key to our peacefully coexisting is tolerance. Understanding that you have every right to be here and exist must also mean that they (whoever ‘they’ are) similarly have every right to be here and exist. It’s a big world; there’s enough room for all of us.
Without tolerance, it’s not kindness; it’s just politeness.
The healthy limits to tolerance
Years ago, I attended a conference where they introduced us to the concept of the paradox of tolerance:
The paradox of tolerance states that if a society’s practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them. Karl Popper describes the paradox as arising from the fact that, in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.
It’s really quite simple; another word for a society with infinite tolerance is anarchy. The very notion of a law-abiding society, at a very basic level, defines behavior that we won’t tolerate.
That said, I doubt that many will debate that in order for us collectively function, there must be a line. We can’t coexist if the intolerant do as they please unbound by any rules; we must be intolerant of intolerance. The interesting question is not whether the line should exist, the interesting question is…
Where does that line sit?
Understanding the nuances to this very question lies at the heart of future posts. How do we know when we’re too permissive or too restrictive? Laws change all the time, and thus citing current legal standards is a poor proxy for where that line should sit. Current social standards also evolve over time and similarly suffer from the same fate. Let’s examine the following as a modest historical sample:
- US citizens could outright own other humans as property before the Civil War.
- Rosa Parks technically committed a crime in 1955.
- Virginia had every right to imprison Richard and Mildred Loving in 1959 for simply getting married.
All the above were once permissible by law here in the United States. Then, one at a time, we crossed that threshold. What was once something we tolerated, gradually became intolerable. However, decades of social change crystalize our current stance on these issues. Let’s ponder more current issues:
- Is doxing a legally protected form of freedom of speech?
- Is the intentional (or accidental) spreading of misinformation protected by the first amendment?
- If we truly have freedom of religion, why do we disallow polygamy?
Natural curiosity and humility
As I reflect on the numerous times where we drew that line of intolerance decades ago and how much it has moved, how do we establish those standards in ways that are futureproof? Today, you may assert that we should not allow transgender women into women’s bathrooms because it makes us uncomfortable, and you have many rationalizations. Did we not assert very similar concerns about racially integrated schools and bathrooms? Have those been a problem? Why do we believe that transgender women in women’s bathrooms subjects them to greater danger?
My hope is that as we set these standards going forward, we aspire for fairness, inclusivity, empathy, and equality. To put it bluntly, we figuratively ask a collection of tone-deaf people to pick out music for a wedding. How do we navigate around our biases when we know that we have them? Have we embarked on an impossible task? My answer is two-fold.
First, navigate this space with natural curiosity and humility. Don’t presume to know what their experiences are (whoever ‘they’ happen to be) before asking and don’t hold yourself in higher standing. It doesn’t matter who the ‘us’ and ‘them’ are in this relationship; just don’t. This applies to men versus women… Christians versus Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Satanists, etc… straight versus gay people… even cisgender versus transgender people. We all have equal standing.
Second, aim for progress, not perfection. None of us will get this perfectly the first time; give yourself some grace. You will make mistakes, just hold yourself accountable. Own your mistake, apologize, and make amends.
Aspiring for fairness and equality
Is there a trend among the standards that persist? If we historically trace how we even legislated racial discrimination decades ago, can we short circuit our bigotry and correct homophobic and transphobic intolerance today? Some lessons are hard; do we absolutely need to suffer in order to learn? Can we figuratively learn to toast bread without needing to burn it first? Will we at least occasionally walk around an obstacle instead of facing it head on?
For instance, on a basic level, homophobia is born out of the basic misguided premise that heterosexuality is better (‘normal’, not sinful, etc.) than homosexuality. Once you conclude that, it’s trivial to assert that they don’t deserve fairness and equality. Military career? Denied. Marriage? Nope. They don’t want special treatment; the same rights and privileges straight people get will do just fine.
Let’s start with the simple premise that we’re all created equal. We’ll entertain the idea that we all implicitly get the same rights and freedoms. These rights and freedoms do not change based on your gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. Navigate our world with grace; if we can be anything in this world, be kind.