Friday, June 29, 2012

May I Quote You on That?



You know how sometimes you read something a celebrity has said and you think, “Thanks for explaining the Fukushima nuclear disaster so clearly, Miley Cyrus”? Were you to spend any time wondering about this (which in this case you wouldn’t because it’s Miley Cyrus, but work with me here) you might question the wisdom of a reporter asking her about, well, anything.

I have never been a fan of people spouting off about subjects when the only concrete knowledge they have of them is that they have an opinion. This is probably why I only read two Facebook pages and my own is one of them. (Yours is the other. You are smart and fascinating. Trust me.) I know that talking out your ass is not only a popular pastime but it’s one of our rights as Americans. The first amendment is basically the right to talk out your ass. But just because a question is asked, should you answer it in a public forum if you know you’re only talking out your ass? What do you think, 2009 beauty pageant contestant? What would you say if asked, “Should the U.S. have universal health care as a right of citizenship?”

"I think this is an issue of integrity regardless of which end of the political spectrum that I stand on. I was raised in a family to know right from wrong and politics, whether or not you fall in the middle, the left or the right it’s an issue of integrity, no matter what your opinion is, and I say that with the utmost conviction."

Saying it with conviction is what made her a winner, ladies and gentleman. Miss Congeniality probably gave a really incoherent, stupid answer. But what if she had said, “I’m an eighteen year old girl. I appreciate your asking but I don’t really feel informed enough to give a nationally broadcast answer to that question”? Ironically the audience would have thought she was an idiot.

For the last several weeks, I have been doing interviews in order to promote my book. I’ve gotten pretty good at deflecting when questions are outside the scope of my expertise, even though it’s hard not to answer questions in an interview when you are a people-pleaser and a talker like I am. It would be so much easier and make the conversation flow so much better if I would just talk about things I know nothing about. One reporter asked me an odd, racially charged question that was related to the material in my book by a very long, twisty thread. While I could kind of follow her thought process and see how she got there and how this issue might be a tangential, shirt-tail relative of a small aspect of a line in one chapter of my book, I knew I had no knowledge of her subject matter. I also knew that the last topic of conversation I wanted to pull out of my ass was an area of midcentury race relations of which I am woefully uniformed. I complimented the reporter on her amazingly creative question and didn’t answer it.

Because my book features a character with an autistic spectrum disorder, I am asked a lot of questions about autism. As the mom of an adult child who has Asperger’s Syndrome and as a former teacher in a school for kids with language-based learning disabilities, I’ve had both training in and experience with autism. But I have too much respect for the material to offer uninformed, potentially dangerous opinions in public forums. Vaccines, special diets, changes in the DSM V, increase in numbers—I’ve heard the same things you’ve heard and I’ve read the same reports you’ve read. But that doesn’t make me an expert and it would be irresponsible for me to pretend it does.

What say you 2007 teen pageant contestant? I’ve got a question for you. Why can’t one fifth of Americans identify the US on a world map?

"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq and everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, should help South Africa and should help Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children."

Oh, Sweetie, I think you pulled that out of your ass. Just say you have no idea.

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