“You don’t know what you don’t know until you know.”
There’s a lot I don’t know. I will be the first to admit that. I don’t know how atoms really make everything up. I think I get the concept but I’m not actually sure I know how it works. I don’t know how to build a house. My Dad does. He’s a contractor. I know the basic concepts but I don’t know the execution.
There’s something that makes me super aware of what I don’t know. That would be a big two word thing. A big thing that makes lots of people uncomfortable. Here we go- Political Correctness.
I try hard to be politically correct. I really do. But there is always something changing! There is always a new correct term. And besides that- there’s always someone waiting to be offended. Some people have genuine reason to be upset but sometimes the language changes. And sometimes people just have different preferences.
My sister has dark skin and she told me she prefers to be called “brown” and not “black”. One of my friends from college has dark skin and they told me they prefer to be called “black” and not “brown”. So which is it? What do I do?
Here’s the key to all this- having grace for those that don’t know what they don’t know. There’s a lot I don’t know. There are a lot of things I don’t get. It can take me awhile to catch on to a joke, which means it can also take me awhile to know that something isn’t politically correct. Since things change so quickly, politely correct me. That’s all it takes. Jacqueline Woodson’s audiobook Harbor Me has a very interesting conversation at the end. She discusses having grace for those who don’t know what they don’t know. She suggests that we have grace and politely correct others, instead of choosing to be offended at their lack of knowledge.
This is one of the reasons I love to read books about people who are different than me. They have different experiences and I can learn from them! I don’t have to be them to learn from their mistakes and their experiences. I have never been a dark skinned man. But I can learn about the experiences of a dark skinned man in the books that I read. I have never been a woman of Latino descent, but I can learn a lot about what it is like to grow up as one from reading a book from that viewpoint. Yay Diversity in Literature!
We are all just trying our best here. Let’s learn to have grace and politely correct each other instead of choosing to be offended.
Keep Sparkling,
B
The Sparkling Librarian 