Good News from The Boston Globe

So already, words are one of the few things that almost everyone has. So what do our words say about who we are as individual people who necessarily share the same times, spaces, and places with one another? A number of the stories in today's Boston Globe had me thinking not only about the words we choose to use, ignore, embrace, and deplore, but also about the ways we arrange and deploy the words we use. Depending on our choices, we might include or exclude, harm or heal, right or wrong, divide or unite, discourage or encourage. And anything in between.

The Globe stories that particularly caught my attention as I considered the power of words fell into several action categories:
 

Taking Responsibility

• Melania Trump’s Speechwriter Takes Responsibility for Lifted Remarks**

Apologizing

• I am So Sorry, Mitt***

Attempting to Avoid History

• The Cocoanut Grove Fire and the Importance of Preserving History****

Commemorating History

• A Once-Scorned Rebel is Celebrated*****

Reporting Hate Speech and Its Aftermath

• Hashtag this, Twitter: Stop Racist, Sexist Abuse******

• User's Ban Highlights Twitter crackdown*******

• Students' Racist Rants Online Stun Wellesley********

• N.H. Official Calls Clinton 'Garbage'*********

In terms of people and institutions using words to behave responsibly, we saw or learned of Twitter's, Yvonne Abraham's, and Meredith McIver's doing the the right thing after having done the wrong one. McIver said, "'This was my mistake'" regarding her having plagiarized from Michelle Obama's speech of four years ago. Abraham apologized to Mitt Romney for her failure to have appreciated fully that "your speech was a model of civility and hope." And Twitter banned Milo Yiannopoulos from its site, issuing the following explanatory statement: "'People should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter. But no one [Twitter was no doubt referring specifically to the ongoing verbal abuse that Yiannopoulos had been heaping upon Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones] deserves to be subjected to targeted abuse online, and our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others."

In addition to reporting about Yiannopoulos' online nastiness, the Globe also reported about two other instances of  speech's being used to disrespect  and denigrate--perhaps even to incite. In response to a series of racist comments made on Facebook by Wellesley High School students--"diatribes" might be a better word for these comments that the article's headline characterizes as "rants"--both school and police officials are working to develop a plan to address racist attitudes and behaviors.  

Meanwhile, a New Hampshire official called for the execution of Hillary Clinton for treason. When questioned by an WRKO reporter, New Hampshire state representative Al Baldasaro said he stood by his comments, explaining the aptness of his prescription for Clinton. Apparently, the Secret Service is investigating, but to date, Baldasaro is defending his comments as free speech and others seem to be accepting them as such:  “'Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing. I spoke my mind about how I feel. She’s not above the law. Any other State Department employee or veteran did the same thing, they’d be in jail.'”  

If only Anne Hutchinson could have said, "Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing" and then just gone on about her business in 1600s Puritan Boston!  Hutchinson's legacy as a woman of "courage" and "strength" was honored yesterday in Boston. As the article about that event explained, "Things were going well for in the new world until she began to critique the sermons of the male ministers in Massachusetts. She was charged with sedition, declared a heretic, banished from the colony, and was later killed with most of her family in an Indian raid in 1643."

In Boston, there's history that some Bostonians are glad be reminded of that other Bostonians would rather ignore. Illustrating this, the main editorial in today's paper talks about the successful efforts of a group of Bay Village Bostonians to effect the removal from their block of a plaque that, since 1993, had reminded passersby that they were standing at the site of the1942 Cocoanut Grove fire that claimed so many lives. The goal of the activist citizens, most residents of a new luxury condominium complex, was to protect not just their personal privacy but their abilities to "'enjoy our homes in peace, without tragic memories,  . . ..'" 

Would the absence of those words really mean peace and peace of mind for the Bay Village condo owners? I began to wonder if Bay Village's newest residents are as sensitive to and concerned about language that conveys present-day race- and gender-based hate and threatens present-day violence as they are to language that summons memories of long-ago tragic events. But because of the editorial, I avoided falling of the cliff into the land of passionate, self-righteous anger and disapproval. 

Though it lays out the self-serving reasoning of the condo owners, the editorial explains that, despite the plaque's having been moved, no harm was really done: Boston's mayor Marty Walsh had already committed to the "building of a large-scale memorial to the fire’s victims, to be built with private funds."

And then it offers a gentle, cautionary history lesson--to all of us: 

"History is part of the unique fabric of everyday life in Boston — . . .. History here isn’t just in museums or specially built parks. It’s underfoot and in the air. Property owners should show due deference before they think of plowing it under or moving it down the block.The Cocoanut Grove is part of that history. Mayor Walsh is right to support a memorial. He should make sure it happens."

Rather than lambasting the Bay Village property owners to for asserting their personal interests with little to no regard for Boston's history generally and the continued significance of Cocoanut Grove fire in particular, the editorial first reminds us of the omnipresence of history in Boston. Only after that does it urge any and all property owners who in the future might think of tampering with "history" to consider some other perspectives before acting exclusively on their own. No one is left to feel shamed, humiliated, or excluded as the editorial concludes: if anything we're newly all in it together as regards taking care of the historical legacy of the city we love and share. 

In today's Boston Globe, for every story of hate speech, there is a story of love speech--or perhaps I should call it respect speech. The lesson of that is that being responsible, civil, and generous is very much within our capacities. Every time someone in print, online, or in life acts well, we're all emboldened and encouraged to use words and other means to act well ourselves, separately and together. If we act on that encouragement, we may indeed find ourselves part of a civil society that can solve its many problems.

* Today's paper 07/21/2016 - the boston globe epaper. (2016, July 21). Retrieved July 21, 2016, from http://www.bostonglobe.com/todayspaper/2016/07/21 

** Horowitz, J. (2016, July 21). Melania Trump's speechwriter takes responsibility for lifted remarks. The Boston Globe, 290(21), A12.

*** Abraham, Y. I am so sorry, Mitt. The Boston Globe, 290(21), B1.
**** The Cocoanut Grove fire and the importance of preserving history [Editorial]. The Boston Globe, 290(21), A12. 

***** Thadani, T. (2016, July 21). A once-scorned rebel is celebrated. The Boston Globe, 290(21), B2.
* (6)  Graham, R. (2016, July 21). Hashtag this, Twitter: Stop racist, sexist abuse [Editorial]. The Boston Globe, 290(21), A13.  
* (7) Isaac, M. (2016, July 21) N.H. official calls Clinton 'garbage.' The Boston Globe, 290(21), C5. 

* (8) Wang, V. (2016, July 21). Students' racists rants online stun Wellesley. The Boston Globe, 290(21), B1, B5.
* (9) O'Sullivan, J. (2016, July 21). N.H. official calls Clinton 'garbage.' The Boston Globe, 290(21), B1, B4.