People Behaving Badly

I am sure we have all been around people who are being totally contrary, unreasonable, hard-headed and unwilling to consider other perspectives. They have their minds made up about something no matter how unfair or even inaccurate the foundation on which their views and possible actions are based. They are simply blinded by their own ideology and lack any meaningful ability to be reasonable, look at things from a different angle, or willingness to meet others halfway. Being honest, there have been times when I have behaved this way. I can only imagine how "unfun" it was for others interacting with me at these times since I know first hand how frustrating it is to deal with others who are in this kind of one-dimensional mode. It makes any kind of meaningful communication nearly impossible.

I am reminded of this kind of mind-set by the recent controversy surrounding Shirley Sherrod, the federal government employee who was wrongly and unfairly forced to resign her position as a result of the release of a tape of a recent speech she gave in which she discussed her own personal journey toward realizing the importance of people from all ethnic background and races to work together. Unfortunately, the tape had been edited in such a way to depict her as a racist. Once the full tape was released, however, it was quickly learned that Sherrod was the victim of a person or perhaps people who are blinded by their own ideology and who are so certain of their righteousness of their perspectives that to their way of thinking the ends justifies the means when it comes to promoting their own cause or political agenda.

Ideally, communication is a team sport. For it to be most effective and to lead to the most meaningful results, it requires more than one person to participate in the process where open interaction occurs. Make no mistake, the Sherrod incident was the result of one way communication with very negative and malicious intent. No one involved in this entire mess, including those who released the edited tape, reported on it or eventually fired Sherrod initially gave any thought to making Sherrod herself part of the conversation. They were simply oblivious to being fair or communicating effectively. What was done and how it was handled illustrated the ugly consequences of this kind of poor communication.