Radical Civility Archives | Page 2 of 2

It’s time to reintroduce this term: radical civility. By all things holy and otherwise, we need it. Desperately. Immediately. Please. I can’t read one more days’ worth of social media frothing full of half-truths, mostly lies, and the simple unwillingness to listen to one another, lest I go looking for the nearest bridge from which to leap. Not one more day of posting drivel that passes for well-researched argument, for repeating the deluge of argument from the internet without bothering…

Why do we have to explain racism?

Les Kertay

Don't Be a Dick, Radical Civility, Showing Up

The internet is full of funny memes and articles like the one on the right here. My favorite is still my beloved Maddie’s “just because I say ‘save the forests’ doesn’t mean I think ‘fuck the oceans.’” I shared the one pictured here on my social media feed, because I thought it was funny. But then I thought, what’s funny about apologizing for Black Lives Matter? Why do we have to explain racism? Here’s my question: why are we seeing so many…

This time it’s Dallas

Les Kertay

Radical Civility, Showing Up

Today I was once again on a plane because of a despicable shooting, perpetrated by an angry man with easy access to guns. This time it’s Dallas. Just a few weeks ago it was Orlando. Last time people were targeted because of who they love. This time people were targeted because they wore uniforms. People in uniforms who were protecting people who were peacefully protesting the fact that other people in uniforms killed two young black men who were guilty…

Hope: Reflections from Dallas

Les Kertay

Radical Civility, Showing Up

Last night, Dallas still looked, and felt, like a war zone. Everywhere people looked as though they were still in shock. I realized that wherever a mass shooting has happened, I hear some version of this: “I didn’t think it could happen here.” That seems the crux of it. The greatest violence done by a mass shooter is to our collective illusion of safety, and to our sense of hope. If that isn’t a definition of terrorism, then it’s a damn…

Lessons from Pulse: Safer Together

Les Kertay

Radical Civility, Showing Up

Having just come home from Orlando, the dream from which I woke this morning didn’t take six years of graduate school and a Ph.D. In clinical psychology to figure out. The meaning was plain, and it is the lesson of Pulse: we are none of us safe, until we are all safe. I was in a large, enclosed space, with lots of other people. A faceless man with a gun was methodically walking around shooting people, once each, whether fatal…

Refuse to be helpless about Orlando

Les Kertay

Radical Civility, Showing Up

I refuse to be helpless. Heaven knows I’ve felt it, as many of us have, in the aftermath of Orlando. Helpless, an emotion captured so well by a friend in this post. Heaven knows it’s tempting to wallow, lost in hand-wringing, or rage, lost in the pointless hatred of some faceless enemy out there, anywhere but here, inside, looking back at me in the mirror. I’m on my way to Orlando today. The company I work for, among other things,…

E Pluribus Unum

Les Kertay

Don't Be a Dick, Radical Civility

E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Our country’s motto. On our currency. Part of the Great Seal of the United States. I think maybe we’ve forgotten what the hell it means. I am in Washington, DC, a city with which I have a love-hate relationship. I love the rich history, the memories of coming here on one of our early Kertay Guy Trips, the pomp and circumstance. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing the original constitution in the…

Paradox for a Sunday Morning

Les Kertay

A Man's Perspective, Radical Civility, Showing Up

“I’m not bi, but my wives are.” It’s a joke in our household, but today the joke – alongside an excellent post that Maddie put up on BadAssQuiltersSociety – got me to thinking. Where do I fit in the world of inclusion? I’m not sure it’s a question that I even get to ask, or that will be welcome. Maybe it will be seen as something akin to a rich, white guy asking in the face of an affirmative action…

What a world it could be

Les Kertay

Radical Civility, Showing Up

Imagine a world where we all behaved like this – both the man brave enough to ask for a blessing, and the one compassionate enough to give it! Now, let’s go build that world.