People Too...

I cut school during high school pep assemblies. Regularly. In addition to the crowds and the noise, the idea of building up a community by encouraging the ‘squashing’ of an opposing community never made me feel good about being in the room. Were the kids at Snider, not people too? Did their efforts to play a mean game of roundball deserve the disdain of 2,000+ students attending another school?

I get teams. I’ve been a member of teams. While I’ve never been a star, I’ve served as part of the back bone on more than one team. (Without stepping foot on the court, I have a middle school basketball letter to prove it.) I’ve always viewed sport, much the same way I approached the speech team - as a skills challenge. The team with the best set of skills on a given day in a given field of play wins. My performance on the field (or in the classroom) depended entirely on my day.

I don’t get the culture around teams. The need of fans to paint the guys [1] on the other side as evil, as bad, or as less than human turns my stomach. It makes me crawl away from competition. It disgusts me to be associated to such dehumanizing behavior.

I know, it doesn’t seem like alot. That tiger you have noosed and dragging behind your car is just stuffed and you’re not hurting anyone’s feelings. As spectators, do we even acknowledge that the guys on the other side of the field are humans? They might dress differently; they might think differently; heck, they might think differently; but, they’re still humans. While they chose a different school than you did, they bleed when you prick them. Your disrespect of a stuffed tiger becomes your commentary on their choice.

These aren’t big things, and to some they’re probably don’t even register. I wonder how we can even have civil discourse in a culture that seeks to indoctrinate students, young and old, in an US verses THEM mentality. When it comes to facing the big issues we feel powerless about, US verses THEM complicates an already nuanced debate.

While the bulk of the post doesn’t directly respond to Representative Joe Wilson’s actions in Congress last night [2], it is in large part about it. Mainly because, it’s possible that the competitive nature forced in pep rallies bleeds into adulthood in unacknowledged ways.

Representative Wilson, my questions to you are: so what if President Obama lied? [3] Are illegal immigrants not people too? Is humanity only imparted upon the recognition of the state? Does the lack of being born or naturalized as a United States citizen mean that other humans should be treated as less than humans and left to die outside of hospitals? Are we, the tax paying insurance buying citizens, not already paying for the medical bills of illegal immigrants? Is looking out for those less fortunate than ourselves not a tenant of the Christian faith?

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[1] Guys is used generically, in a non-gendered manner.
[2] It’s behavior that my flatmate would call tacky; I would call it rude. But then, I think the clapping and ovating is rude. Let the man speak.
[3] I recognize that presidental lying is a big deal. It is not however, the focus of this piece.