Lack of Civility

I am so sick of the lack of civility in people these days. Three instances of it really got under my skin in the last few days. And I think I'd be just about ready to give up on the human race if it weren't for one thing I saw happen in that same span...

...I don't know. Maybe it's the political season that just ended. Maybe that's what's really gotten me fired up about it. I know that a few month ago I would NEVER have considered voting for Rand Paul. I even posted an entry on this blog asking Kentuckians not to vote for him. But then his opponent, Jack Conway, came out with that stupid TV ad questioning Paul's religion and making weird references to a time when Paul supposedly kidnapped a woman and made her pray to "Aqua Buddha." It was a dumb thing to do, it was decidedly uncivil, and it made me think twice about voting for Conway. In the end I grudgingly did so, but I certainly understand the people who moved away from him after that ad ran, an ad that turned a "dead even race" into a blowout.

But it's not just the political season that has gotten to me. Sunday morning I was at the grocery store stocking up on refrigerated goods (my refrigerator had been left open the day before and gotten to room temperature). I was in line at the check out register behind a Bengals fan who had a Chad Ochocinco jersey on. A man in his fifties--not some teenager, mind you, but a grown man halfway through his life--walked into the store wearing a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey, and when he saw the guy in front of me, he shouted--shouted!--in an angry voice, "Hey! You Bengals are a bunch of losers! Take that jersey off and I'll give you the jersey of a real team!" He grabbed his own jersey at his chest with both hands and tugged on it a couple of times. "Go on! Take off that piece of crap!"

At first I thought maybe the guy in front of me and this bellicose gentleman were friends, but it was apparent when the guy in front of me turned away from the man, looked at me, and said, "Who the hell IS that guy?" that he had never seen the man before.

"I don't know," I said simply as the Steelers fan, satisfied that he had gotten the better of the conversation, walked around the corner and into the produce section. "That's why I hate Steelers' fans."

But the thing that bothered me the most happened online, where a lack of civility is just the norm. I don't know why it is that way. I guess the seeming anonymity of posting things online makes people forget that they're human beings. I'm used to it.

But this time it got to me. As I mentioned a couple of posts ago (and as my Facebook friends and family are sick of hearing about), my daughter's high school marching band won the state competition Saturday. A local TV station covered the victory in a short 30 second segment, and then posted that story online. I went to the website to watch the video because I missed it on TV, and I couldn't believe the negative comments that users had posted at the bottom of the story. Many of the comments belittled the CHILDREN who had worked 3-4 hours a day five and sometimes six days a week for four months to build a show that would win state. Commenters said the band had cheated, that there was obvious favoritism, that the "little rich brats from Fort Mitchell" had paid off the judges because there were much better bands in the competition. Luckily, the news station monitors its comments, and they were all removed, so you won't see them if you look at the link above, though you will see the comments ABOUT the negative comments.

I just couldn't believe that people would be so petty, uncivil, as to make those kinds of comments about kids, especially my kid. I know that some of the users leaving comments may have been teenagers themselves, but still, didn't their parents teach them manners?

I would be just about ready to give up on humanity if it weren't for one thing that happened. And it happened at the marching band championship. Beechwood (my daughter's school) has a strong rivalry with Williamstown, a band from not too far away, who competes in the same class. Every year the two schools finish in the top four in the state competition. Sometimes Beechwood wins, sometimes Williamstown wins, and occasionally some other Class A school in the state wins. But the two schools definitely want to best each other.

Prior to the finals competition Saturday night, the bands had gone head to head three times. At a competition in early October Beechwood had won and Williamstown had finished second, but at the regional competition two weeks ago and then again at the semi-finals this past Saturday afternoon, Williamstown had come out on top. So both bands knew they were close to one another going into the finals.

Beechwood was the first band to perform in the finals Saturday night, and they gave an almost PERFECT show. The entire band left the field giddy with excitement: they KNEW how well they had done. After their band director said a few words for them, they began the 1/2 mile trek (literally) from the field entrance of Papa John's Stadium to the parking lot where the band buses were all parked. I was with them, pushing a giant, oversized drafting table (Don't ask). I was walking alongside the color guard, who were all jumping up and down, laughing, and telling one another how great they'd done. About halfway back to the buses we encountered, coming in the opposite direction, Williamstown. They were the third band of the night, and they were marching to the field entrance that we had just left.

A couple of the younger girls in the color guard jumped in front of the other laughing girls and one of them whispered, "Hey, stop laughing! We don't want them to know how well we did!"

"Yeah," the other girl said, "let's all pretend to be crying. Let's pretend we blew it!"

There seemed to be a growing enthusiasm for this idea until the senior leader of the color guard stepped in front of all of them, held up her hands to stop them, and then said--with the tone of a school marm--"That is NOT what we're going to do." She motioned over her shoulder to the approaching band. "We're going to stand here, and as they pass by we're going to clap for them and wish them good luck. It's the right thing to do." And they did. I stopped just to watch, and then I joined in as the Williamstown band passed between the color guard and myself. The applause spread to the other members of the "prop crew" behind me and to the other Beechwood band members. As the Williamstown band passed by, there were no jeers, no shouts to take off those Williamstown uniforms and put on a "real" Beechwood uniform. All they heard were expressions of "Good luck, Williamstown!" and "Go get 'em, Williamstown!" and "We love your show!"

I don't think I've ever been prouder of a group of kids, and of one kid in particular who took a stand for civility.