A Lacking Response

Confronted with the confines
of your hate-centered speech,
I choke on disbelief,
mind sputters, stalls,
conversation moves on
and all I can manage
is an impotent withdrawal.

(Submitted for Ragtag Community’s prompt: sputter, and Fandango’s: manage.  Inspired by the hate rhetoric passed about on social media, often initiated by those I otherwise respect. How do you respond?)

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VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

20 thoughts on “A Lacking Response”

  6. This is well written, reflects, I believe, a situation we all find ourselves in at one point or another. On facebook, I rarely do respond. I probably should. In person, I try to speak up as I believe silence is part of the problem.

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    1. Facebook seems to be the worst. I have tried to educate people, and even blocked certain posts – all ineffective. Wish I was quicker to think of responses in person. I will keep trying. Thanks.

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  7. Sputters is a good term for this. My mind goes into a freeze. I quit Facebook partially because of this type of conversation. My in-person response is to offer my opinion. And then move on. No sense arguing with some people. Toxic speech just pollutes the air around me.

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  8. I will be disappointed, too. I’ll just think that no one really is perfect. The same person who can say good things can one day slip and say something, intentionally or inadvertently, another may find offensive. And vice versa.

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