“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.” – Leo Tolstoy, A Confession.
This morning, it is very difficult for me to get my head around the idea that what Donald Trump did to Hillary Clinton yesterday in one of his infantile tweets was right, while what Richard Caputo, a fellow seventh grade classmate of mine, did to Susie so many years ago, was so clearly wrong.
This is a big week in the world for our country, for the world, for the United Stations.
So I was startled to learn that our President was wandering around on one of his private golf courses with his cell phone sending off tweets from a nutcase about hitting a political opponent in the head with a golf ball and knocking her down.
I mean, really? Even I had better things to do Sunday morning, and I wasn’t addressing the United Nations today.
I remember thinking that some things are just wrong.
“Some things are just wrong.” It feels good to say it.
I dislike writing often about politics, that’s not why people come here or how I wish to spend my time, but it was upsetting to me to see the President’s re-tweet yesterday from a deranged conspiracy theorist showing him hitting a golf ball that struck Hillary Clinton in the back and knocked her to the ground.
I thought right away of Richard Caputo, a kid who went to Nathan Bishop Middle School in Providence, R.I. with me – he was in my class. Richard was a bully and a bit of a thug, he stole lunch money, preyed on the weaker kids (including me) and was often in trouble.
I liked Richard some of the time, he wasn’t all bad. He taught me how to play marbles and stood up for me a couple of times in the schoolyard. He also beat me up a couple of times. That was life in the good old days.
But Richard was a jerk, even by the looser standards of the day. Like so many young men in my class, he loved to ridicule and bully women, it seemed natural to him. My mother said that was what he probably saw at home.
One day in class he drew a two-part sketch in which a young man – presumably him – threw a rock at the back of the head of a girl with long hair, presumably Susie, a girl in the class who despised Richard and often told him so. She even smacked him once and pushed him to the ground after he said something offensive.
In the first part of the sketch, the rock goes sailing towards the girl, in the second sketch, it hits her in the back of the head and knocks her down.
Miss McCarthy, the fearsome, generally child-loathing old battle-axe who taught the class, spotted the sketch and called Richard up to the front of the class.
“Richard, this is just wrong,” she said. “It is a completely unacceptable way to behave. We do not, in life, or drawings, or conversation support the hurting of other people, not ever, and not for any reason. Do you understand that? I’m sending a note home to your parents, and you will come here every day after school and write on the black board 500 times “What i did was wrong. I will not ever promote the idea of throwing rocks at a girl or anyone else.”
Richard did seem to understand it, he turned red, looked embarrassed. He apologized to Susie, who graciously accepted the apology, and he asked Miss McCarthy if she would maybe not send the note home, his parents would be furious.
She said she would not consider it, he should be ashamed of what he did and learn his lesson. And stand up like a man, she said, and admit that you were wrong, and take your punishment.
After this dressing down, Miss McCarthy kicked Richard out of class and sent him home for the day to face his parents. He spent a good part of the year writing on her blackboard.
She then turned to the rest of the glass of seventh graders. “Is there anyone here who doesn’t understand that what Richard did is offensive and cruel and completely unacceptable?” There were no arguments from any of us, nor, to my knowledge, was there anyone in the class. There was no panel discussion claiming some girl had done this to a boy and never been punished.
And this was long before the women’s movement, or the deepening and long overdue sensitivity about violence against women and sexual abuse. Our leaders have always had their ups and downs and strengths and weaknesses, but in general, I can’t think of any who promoted the idea of throwing things at people and knocking them down, let alone women.
Hillary Clinton lost and seems to be paying for her sins. Is there anything to the idea that you don’t hit a person who is already down, and then kick them again? What is the difference between winning and losing?
I didn’t like Miss McCarthy much and she wasn’t wild about me, but I respected her message, I remember it still. Some things are just wrong. I hate the left and right world we have created, the tit-for-tat world where everything is either a grievance or a lie, if you shoot somebody, it’s okay, because they shot somebody five years ago.
I’m struggling with the idea that Richard Caputo, who was 12 then, was much more of a man than our President, who is 71 and never admits to a mistake or apologizes for it. I am sorry the response to this was so muted, we are, in fact, becoming numb to thuggery. Think what Richard could have gotten away with now.
I haven’t been in touch with Richard, but I had the sense then that the incident was good for him, he seemed to understand that there were some things that really were unacceptable, they were just wrong. It was as if he had never been told that before. I heard later he went on to become a lawyer in the Southwest and did well.
It seems sad to me that this common and universal ideas of right or wrong have fragmented and been clouded over by endless rationalizing and debate. We are becoming numb to cruelty. Miss McCarthy did not permit that to happen.
Right is right and wrong is wrong. We may be divided on many things, but there are common truths that will always guide me, and ethical people. Not everything is an argument.
That’s why I need to write this from time to time, I can’t rationalize away the morals that shape my life and guide it. I believe in change, but my understanding of right and wrong is important, it defines me.
The Washington Post asked a good question today in a piece about the grotesque tweet. Why doesn’t Twitter follow its own rules and kick Mr. Trump off for writing yet another post like that? I suppose we all know the answer, Twitter is a corporation, and corporations don’t have consciences, only profit margins.
I went and looked up Twitter’s guidelines on abusive behavior:
“in order to ensure that people feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, we do not tolerate behavior that crosses the line into abuse, including behavior that harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence another user’s voice.” Twitter’s terms of service also prohibit “violence threats (direct or indirect): You may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism.”
Twitter’s guidelines are a study in hypocrisy, only the hypocrite is truly rotten to the core. It seems these guidelines are empty words not meant for the rich and powerful.
Thanks to a teacher with a functioning moral compass, Richard Caputo came to understand this and abide by it. He never drew a sketch like that again. I wish Twitter had a Miss McCarthy.
Right is right even if even no one is doing it, wrong is wrong even if everyone doing it.
Wrong cannot be rationalized in my mine or argued away.
My seventh grade class was very diverse, we had many different ways of looking at the world. But every kid in it knew what Richard had done with his sketch was wrong, there was nobody standing out in the schoolyard in the pre left-right world standing up for him.
I appreciate Miss McCarthy’s clarity, and mourn the loss of it. Women everywhere are rising up to tell stories of abuse, exploitation and violence. We are not all warriors or ideologues, but the least we can do – especially if we are leaders or have blogs with some readers – is understand that what Richard Caputo did and Donald Trump did is wrong.
The difference is that Richard learned this and our President has not.
