You can be legally right and still be the problem.
Even if you don’t follow soccer, you’ve probably caught some of the World Cup coverage this month. One thing that keeps coming up: visitors are surprised by what kind of country this actually is.
If all you knew was social media, you’d think we’re at each other’s throats. Police and immigration checkpoints on every corner. Nobody happy to be here. The place a mess.
Then people show up and it’s nowhere close to that.
It’s nice watching that land on someone in real time. You’d think it might make the rest of us put the phones down. Stop getting ourselves worked up over whatever someone decided to be offended by this week.
You’d think that. You’d be wrong.
A little over a week ago, a woman in Celina said a local restaurant made her leave for breastfeeding her infant. She posted about it. It went everywhere. People who weren’t in the building had a lot to say about how we’ve apparently traveled back in time a hundred years.
The owner, also not in the building that day, said it was a miscommunication and that breastfeeding has never been against their policy. That part got considerably less attention.
It made the paper, which tells you something on its own. Read the article and what you mostly get is one woman’s account, repeated back as fact, plus some comments from people online. The owner’s side is in there, technically. A video statement, summarized. Her first name. No last name. Strange, for a story where the reporter supposedly tried to reach her.
If you’d actually talked to her, you’d probably have that. Or you could have asked around, it’s no secret who owns the place and she’s reasonably prominent around town.
I don’t know what happened in that restaurant. Neither does anyone who wasn’t there, which is most of the internet. What people will walk away remembering isn’t the truth. It’s just who got cast as the villain.
On the breastfeeding question itself: I don’t know a single person who’s bothered by it, or thinks it should be against the rules anywhere. I know plenty of people who believe in being considerate when you can be. Those aren’t the same position, and treating them like they are is how you end up shouting at people who already agree with you.
You’re allowed to open carry in Texas. I think that’s a real right and I’m not interested in arguing about it. But when I see a guy walking through Walmart with a pistol on his hip for no particular reason, I don’t read that as confidence. I read it as someone hoping somebody says something so he gets to be right about it.
Same instinct, different subject. You’re allowed to do the thing. Doing it the most visible way possible, without consideration for others, isn’t really about the thing anymore. Maybe the other person is wrong, doesn’t hurt you to accommodate them.
Do what you need to do. Just notice when you’ve stopped doing it for the reason you started.
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