Unintended Consequences......

With Super Tuesday upon us, I thought I would share a memory. My daughter attended the Junior State of America Conference back when she was in high school. When I picked her up along with a  group of her friends for the hour long drive home, I could tell they were fired up and they began to recount the events of the day.

This nonpartisan, student run, group always has key note speakers from both sides of the aisle. The Democratic speaker, a young House Representative, spoke on Millennials and the younger generation’s impact on politics.

The Republican speaker was a Reverend whose name I will not mention and don’t even remember. He proceeded to tell these high school kids that once he was finished speaking to them that there would be no more liberals in the room (the group was loosely made up of nearly equal conservative and liberal). He proceeded to say that there is no racism in the world, and that LGBTQ have no rights and that Black Lives Matter shouldn’t exist because it is black people’s fault what has happened to them. One important thing to note is that he is African American.

 So here is where the unintended consequences come in. These kids immediately recognized that this was not a Republican message, it was a personal message of hate and intolerance. It was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. At that moment in that room, both sides of the aisle came together to challenge him. The kids rallied and they ended up cutting his time short due to the outrage from the audience. It sparked a very spirited, healthy dialog among the group. For some reason, he seemed shocked by the outrage.

So here’s the moral to my little story….when someone is given a podium, there is the possibility that their words will have unintended consequences to reach into people’s hearts forcing them to identify the real meaning behind the message and bring us together to remind us what is compassionate and good and right. We can hope.