Comfortable with being Uncomfortable

It's okay to be uncomfortable. It's not fun. It's not something we actively seek out. But it's okay--even necessary. To bring about great change on an individual level, we have to be aware of and uncomfortable enough with our flaws to want to fix them. To bring about change on a macro level, enough people have to be aware of and uncomfortable enough with the flaws in society to want to fix them.

However, the fact remains that it is often easier to turn a blind eye to personal or public imperfection in an attempt to simply avoid feeling uncomfortable. In psychological terms, this is referred to as cognitive dissonance. We do not like feeling uncomfortable, and so when we have complex or even competing views or ideas, our we often seek out the path of least resistance and rationalize not dealing with the deeper problem.

With the current issues facing society, that means it that while most of us condemn racism and support the right to peacefully protest change, we also don't like the rioting and looting that often accompanies it. Rather than recognize the uncomfortable complexity of the issue and that many of those rioting and protesting are taking advantage of the situation for a variety of reasons, it is easier and more comfortable to simply group them all together and condemn the entire protest movement because of the actions of a few.

In addition, almost everyone universally agrees that the death of George Floyd was a senseless tragedy, but we also recognize that most police officers are heroes, not villains. Rather than recognize the uncomfortable truth that systemic and institutionalized racism have embedded themselves into our social fabric, and that one of the symptoms of this is that police brutality that unfairly targets people of color, it is more comfortable for us to condemn the movement as a whole as anti-law enforcement--when that could not be further from the truth.

Our ingrained desire not to be uncomfortable, in this instance, to say things like “I don’t see color; I’m colorblind” or “Racism may have been a huge issue in the past, but we have gotten a whole lot better.”  That is a way of sidestepping the conversation all together and not taking any accountability for change—all because we don’t want to be uncomfortable.  Some would go even so far as to say that bringing racism to light and pointing out the injustices of society is somehow unpatriotic in an attempt to make people uncomfortable for fighting against it.  I cannot think of anything more patriotic than loving your country enough to recognize that it could be better.  Would our founding father’s want us to shun movements for meaningful change because it made us uncomfortable? Were they themselves like enablers for an addict who, rather than point out their problems and help them get help, ignored them to maintain the status quo and avoid making the relationship uncomfortable? The answer is no—they were not afraid to make people feel uncomfortable about things that mattered, and they would support those doing the same now. 

I will readily admit that one of the things that makes me most uncomfortable is conflict.  While I have made significant progress in the past 13 years since I was diagnosed, I still grapple with my social anxiety daily.  One of the many difficult symptoms of this mental illness is that I sometimes go out of my way to avoid situations that will make me uncomfortable—especially situations that may lead to conflict. Even though I consider myself a feminist and an advocate for women's rights, I have rationalized not speaking up in certain situations by saying "I don't want to come off as someone who understands what women have to go through in this society or as a man trying to rescue damsels in distress," when in reality, I just didn't want to be uncomfortable.  In this instance, I have thought "I don't want to pretend to know what it is like to be an African American in this country and unintentionally silence them by using my privilege as a means of presenting myself as some sort of white savior," but really, when in reality, I just didn't want to be uncomfortable.

I am also ashamed to admit that, as an educator who sees it as one of his primary responsibilities to get his students to think more deeply about the world around them and influence it for the better, I have often avoided tough conversations with my students in an effort not to make them or myself feel uncomfortable.  Don’t get me wrong, we talk about and work through difficult subjects like sexism and racism, but I have often found myself not doing enough to push my students further on issues that make us uncomfortable.  For example, when we discussed sexual harassment and violence while reading Of Mice and Men, I would often have male students point out that sometimes girls are responsible for what happens to them if they are too flirtatious or wear revealing clothing.  This occurred during a Socratic Seminar where students are supposed to discuss while I stay out of it, and I was happy to see that many—both male and female—tackled this issue, but I also felt like I needed to do more make it clear that victim blaming or shaming is inherently wrong and immoral.  I didn’t.  I have a group of students who come in my room daily to eat lunch.  Oftentimes, I overhear them making insensitive or bigoted jokes/remarks.  More often than not, I have pretended not to hear those remarks and stayed silent so as not to disrupt our positive relationship and make things uncomfortable.  I am disgusted by myself.  I can rationalize and say, “My job is to teach students how to think and not what to think,” or that “they are just teenagers—I was ignorant at their age as well,” and while both of those things may be true, they equate to trivial excuses for staying silent on issues that matter in an attempt not to feel uncomfortable. 

I have often hypocritically told my students as we have difficult conversations not to stay silent about things that matter—that it is up to them to fix problems we are fixing in society.  I am now trying to heed my own advice.  I do not have all the answers, and I am still trying to become aware of how my privilege as a white male affects my world view, but I know that I can no longer stay silent.  We can no longer stay silent.  Even if it makes us uncomfortable.