COMMENTARY: As the mid-term elections approach, the divisive political rhetoric becomes increasingly hard to ignore. We know that most Americans are repulsed by it, yet it continues to be used among many who hold or are seeking political office. What can we do to come together? How can we regain the ability to discuss our differences civilly and with respect for one another? How can we restore rationality in politics?
One topic grabbing headlines recently is a particularly good example of how tragic occurrences can be used to divide us. Sexual harassment is a bullying, threatening behavior used to gain power over another person. Sexual harassment at work, at school, in our government, military or in our churches creates fear, hostility, and undermines organizational goals and achievement. It is always unacceptable.
Courtesy photo
Janice Arnold-Jones
In 1973-1974 I was privileged to work with an extraordinary group to successfully replace the New Mexico Rape Statute with the New Mexico Criminal Sexual Conduct Code. A hard-fought battle to be sure.
I served, on call, for the relatively new Rape Crisis Center in Albuquerque and continued that work as I moved to San Diego and ultimately to Honolulu, where I helped to open two more rape crisis centers– one at Kapiolani Women’s Hospital and the other at Tripler Army Medical Center, the first rape crisis in a military facility that also treated male victims of sexual assault.
We have come a long way since the middle 1970’s. We all dreamed that the discussion of sexual assault and sexual harassment would be over and that human behavior would be changed for the better. Clearly, the journey is not complete.
Today, however, the claim of sexual harassment has increasingly been used as a weapon to discredit individuals, taking their reputations and their livelihood.
An allegation of sexual harassment requires every leader to act to implement due process to discover the truth. To blindly believe the accusation merely because of the sex of the accuser is an assault on a primary tenant of our justice system. An accused is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and the sex of the accuser should not matter. If we abandon these principles, we will not recognize the country that awaits us.
As a former New Mexico legislator, I have experience interacting with people with whom I disagree. Sometimes the disagreement can get very passionate and heated, but the underlying assumption was that both of us were expressing our opinions and positions from our own viewpoint of what was best for our state and the New Mexicans who live here.
I’m sure you have all heard stories about representatives and senators in Washington who were political adversaries but personal friends. And how about Supreme Court Justices Anton Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg? Those two held radically different positions on many legal issues, but the two couples were such good friends that they actually chose to vacation together. As the late Aretha Franklin would sing, that’s respect.
Recently though, as a society and especially when it comes to political discourse, we seem to have cast aside what our mothers taught us and what we learned in kindergarten. We say the most vile, awful things about and to each other with little concern about exaggeration or truth.
In this arena, I believe the solution must be undertaken one person at a time. Each of us must vow to stop engaging in incivility and to teach our children and grandchildren how civilized humans should behave. Calling out those who stoop below this standard might not be a bad idea, either.
In my experience, the further away from common sense we stray when making decisions, the more apt we are to make mistakes. Upon the recent death of a brilliant American, Charles Krauthammer, I was struck by a word that I heard repeatedly when he was described by his friends: Kind. A favorite quote by him, however was, “You’re betraying your whole life if you don’t say what you think, and you don’t say it honestly and bluntly.” I like to think by bluntly, he meant clearly, but never unkindly.
Let’s remember we are all Americans who are in this life together. We can dial back the emotion and use reason and the law as our guide while acknowledging the need for civil discourse.
Janice Arnold-Jones is a former state legislator and the current Republican candidate for New Mexico’s 1st Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Agree with her opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary here.