Newsflash: Facebook Is Not Your Living Room
Early yesterday, Patch posted a story about John Kelly, president of Westside Baseball, being suspended for making racist comments after the death of Whitney Houston. All-too-predictably, the reader comments turned far uglier and even more deeply racist than what Kelly put on Facebook in the first place. Mixed in with the hate speech (and lousy spelling) was the message that what Kelly put on Facebook is his business and has nothing to do with his job.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. It has everything to do with it.
No matter how you set your Facebook privacy settings or try to limit your friend list to “like-minded” people, there is a 100 percent chance that someone outside your own private circle is going to see what you post. A friend comments on your post and it now shows up on the right side of all your friend’s friends’ pages. Another person you think shares your views takes what you post and sends it to all his or her friends with a comment like “Can you believe this guy??” Or, as appears to be the case with Kelly, the comment you posted in the heat of the moment hurts someone so deeply that they respond by making sure everyone knows what’s really in your heart. The reality is that once you attach a comment to your name, it is no different from standing in the Jewel parking lot and shouting it for everyone to hear.
Just to be clear, my point is not that Facebook needs better privacy controls or you need to pick your Facebook friends more carefully. My point is to shut your mouth. Stop with the hate speech. Stop indicting an entire race of people just because you don’t happen to like a few people of that color. Stop saying things on Facebook that you wouldn’t be willing to say to all the parents of the kids on your baseball team. If you think it makes you sound better or smarter than the people you’re throwing slurs at, you’re wrong. Just take a look at the comments on yesterday’s story, if you can stomach them. Who sounds like the real “dumass?”
It is no secret we live in the most segregated and racially tense city in the world, and that the South Side has historically been the epicenter of those issues. Just like when I was a kid, people throw around ugly, nasty words like they are talking about the weather. I don’t expect years of this deep-seated bigotry to go away anytime soon. But I hope eventually people figure out that while Facebook can be a great tool for staying in touch with friends and family, it also can reveal a lot of ugly things about you to those same people – and hundreds more.
Stacey Roseen
11:22 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Thank you for writing what so many of the rest of us feel about this situation. You hit all the important "nails" (and there are many) directly on their heads. Very well stated Jacqui! I expect you'll now be a target for the rage and hate, but I also expect you'll handle it just fine. :) I hope you keep on standing up for what is right and true.
my three sons
11:33 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Totally agree!
ME
11:45 am on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Thank you for this commentary. People know this but need to be told about it from time to time so they start to remember it! Thanks again!
andy skoundrianos
12:11 pm on Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Thanks Ms, Cook You have said What a lot of People in Oak Lawn think, I have lived here for 44 years and my Brother and I were proud members of West Side baseball in our youth and my brother was also an umpire for West Side for many years. This person does not reflect the majority of residents or members or past members of West Side baseball... Thank You
Julie
7:32 am on Thursday, February 23, 2012
Bravo! I may just share this on my FB page. Thank you!
Dave W.
1:32 pm on Thursday, February 23, 2012
I was worried for a moment that it was going to be another "Facebook is public." proclamation that others stated as a sort of weird way of saying he was just stupid for saying it there, in...public. Then you rallied with the appropriate (in my personal estimation, which I'm sure you are SO glad to have...) finish, wherein you took to task all the collective fools and bigots for their idiot beliefs and behaviors. Patch is a wonderful forum for a great many things Oak Lawn, but sadly, it seems that too many people have taken the Freedom of Speech to mean that they have the Freedom of Bullying or Freedom of "I can't write a proper sentence or correctly spell three word in a row, but I sure am gonna say how I hate them 'darkies' in my town."
It always amazes me how racist white people seem to still think that all the white people belong to some big, card-carrying club of unspoken-of white-supremacist. We don't, and we wish you who think so would all just go away, yes, to a special island, hopefully right in the path of frequent hurricanes...and a volcano...a very active volcano. It is too big a world for small minds to rule anymore.
OakLawnBill
7:55 pm on Thursday, February 23, 2012
The issue with me is not so much his racism. It was he was completely wrong. I did not see any coverage whatsover that held Whitney up as a role model. The opposite was true. Even before they determined the cause of death, everyone was lamenting the fact that drug abuse killed her.
Mary
10:49 am on Friday, February 24, 2012
3 words: "Speaks to Character"
Jacqui Podzius Cook
11:50 am on Friday, February 24, 2012
Thank you for writing such kind and supportive comments. Wouldn't it be nice if the other articles about this issue got the same kind of response instead of the terrible stuff that's STILL being written? I am just glad to know I am not the only one fed up with this kind of behavior in Oak Lawn. Let's keep fighting the good fight!
Gigi
4:25 pm on Friday, February 24, 2012
I agree with your comment about where these comments on Facebook eventually end up. I have always said and continue to tell my kids that social media can destroy your future. Facebook was intended for college students to stay connected, not for adults to commment & send pictures to "friends they do not even know" (That is what email is for and exclusive to who you send it to). Or for children to post where they are every minute of every day. We can argue the points of social media all day, but bottom line is we are the adults, and need to start acting like it. That is why I do not agree with your comment about the "kind of behavior in Oak Lawn" This behavior is world wide, and not exclusive to Oak Lawn. I am fed up with it everywhere! If you are going to write about an issue, please address the issue, otherwise you are commenting like every other person writing "terrible things" A little hypocritical no? I am a member of the Oak Lawn community most of my life, and my children were involved with Westside program many years ago. There were always people involved with the program that were there for their kids and the ones climbing the political ladder, as with every program including Oak Lawn Baseball. It is not exclusive to our community or our programs. Again, we as adults can choose to make the program what we want, and what we are teaching the children is what is important. Teaching are children how to deal with social issue, good and bad, should be our main focus.
Dave W.
4:04 pm on Sunday, February 26, 2012
Gigi,
While you are right that social media might very well destroy somebody's future, that is only true if somebody is not taught properly at home when they were younger, HOW to be a good person, not just WHEN to be a person that didn't get caught being a jerk.
While you are correct to say that bad behavior is widespread, well beyond Oak Lawn, I disagree that the writer should not be locally focused. If everybody started caring about their own town, their own schools, their own block, their own HOMES, more, that would cause a rippling effect outward. It would be a culmination of many places to fit together as a giant community puzzle where people of all types cared about everyone for who they were, not what they looked like. So, starting with Oak Lawn, about the small-minded yahoos that live HERE, in OUR town, running OUR sports associations is 100% appropriate. Most especially because this is the place that WE, the writers, the readers, the citizens can have the most impact. It may feel good to complain or criticize a racist in Kentucky or Montana or Arizona (or wherever), but it is far less likely to do much good there, now isn't it? Instead, perhaps such public pressure might make one person, even just one, rethink their actions, their narrow-mindedness. THAT is why this was an important article.
Brainweapon
7:21 pm on Friday, February 24, 2012
This was a very good article. I am glad to see that this is a teaching moment for everyone. Sometimes you have to take the good from the bad, learn from it and move on with your life.
Brainweapon
7:58 pm on Friday, February 24, 2012
I forgot, to keep it real though, the board should consider not having this guy involved with this program which seemed to be positive for the kids. If they are rational how could they even consider keeping this guy involved with the program in anyway, let alone be the president of it. To me that was insane. Also, to think that he had to punish himself for his actions, and not have that happen by the board was not right. They should consider not having a racist work with children in that program let alone be the president of it as it brings negative publicity to it. I saw this incident on Fox News today and was disgusted with the negative attention it brought to the town I live in. This is 2012 and people still judge others by their skin color and not their character, really, Wooowww. This is black history month on top of all this, is what I can tell you what ignited a lot of people including myself. If she wanted to snort 2 billion dollars worth of drugs with her money, not tax payer dollars, that was her business. His stupid comments actually lead to more discussion about Whitney Houston which is how all of this got started.
OL Resident
7:53 am on Sunday, February 26, 2012
To Jacqui:
You hit all the bullet points. It has been so disturbing to read/witness what was transpiring in the public comments. I worried how the anger would spread under the umbrella of free speech. Someone had to hit Ctl Alt Delete before the whole program crashed. Someone had to save us from ourselves.
It is sad because the comments came from our neighbors....many of the comments were (in all probability) not the result of TUI. If we continue to conduct ourselves in this fashion we will be no longer be remembered as the town that the tornado destroyed, but village idiots....to be called out by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
All articles are submitted with one specific intent: TO SPARK DISCUSSION.
A debate lets the author know he/she has found a live topic. It's journalism 101.
This was not about a hospital, or a hot dog, or even the name of a memorial. One can imagine what Patch had to censure for our own good.
We are all responsible for what we say here (or on Facebook). It is not the bathroom stall. This is (quite sadly) a teachable moment for John Kelly. It is a teachable moment to the editor who forced a print publication to shut down the bulletin board. It is a teachable moment to me because the editor wanted to see who we are....and she got it.
This is all I wish to say about this topic. Thank you for allowing my voice to be heard. I wish you all a low stress day.