Remember- I'm a Person

Usually it happens when you're walking down the sidewalk. It's the thing I love and hate about being out in public. People don't really know who you are. I was doing just that-- walking back to the office from CVS & decided to grab a coffee across the street.

Walking Shadow. Oliver Raffy, from the walls of Dubrovnik, Croatia

My head was up, laughing to myself as I remembered some dumb joke one of my co-workers had told a few minutes earlier. It was warm and beautiful outside. There was a big truck right in front of the coffee shop with four construction workers leaning up against it facing the street in the sun. They were smirking and I felt them looking at me. I looked up to say hi as a courtesy and immediately shrunk back. Not because they weren't smiling, but because of the way they were doing it.

They were looking right at me, but their eyes said they saw something else. I could tell I was an impersonal invaluable thing to them. I tried not to react, just to dignify the situation, make eye contact, say hello and keep walking. Not all of them were necessarily even bad looking, or too old, or too construction worker-y, but they made us into foreigners by their demeanor. I passed by and continued toward the coffee shop's glass window front and saw them all whip around in the reflection as soon as I'd passed, gesturing crudely. I stopped, my arm halfway reaching for the door handle, then turned around to face them. I stood there, all of us staring nervously, and I was trying to think of what to say.

"Remember - I'm a person," was all I could manage.

We all do it to some degree. We treat each other like caricatures--ideas that meld themselves to what we think the world does or should look like. I don't know any of those men, but I hope that I can continue to treat them like human beings. The truth about that interaction, which is commonplace, is that they were attempting to express their manliness, but did just the opposite.

When a man objectifies or disgraces a woman, he innately dishonors himself --and vice versa. It is impossible to separate. It will always be to the glory of all people (but especially true between men & women) to treat each other with dignity. When a woman cuts a man down it is to their mutual shame, even if he doesn't treat her badly. But by the same token, when one treats the other with respect, it is to their mutual honor & glory.