Why Do We Treat Each Other So Badly?

By: Kali Lamparelli
Posted In: Opinion

The sun was out and the monarch butterflies were swarming Brenton Point in Newport, RI that day. I was in a rush to get to work but I was stunned by something I had not seen in a long time on the Salve Regina campus-someone who looked unique. A beautiful blonde in a polka dotted dress riding a bicycle with a basket across the library lawn.

I was jealous she looked so free and full of spirit. Another girl who was dressed like the typical Salve student jeans, polo, and whatever sneaker is popular for the moment laughed at the sight before her.

Why are we all so quick to judge? Why must we point out people who look exactly alike as well as point out those who look nothing like the norm?

On the very same day, I entered a line at the supermarket and asked the young cashier, how are you today? Silence escapes her lip as she takes item one and slams it into the scanner; next, the soup becomes her victim as the scanner bleeps. I feel bad for the chips that become her next bleeping victim. I feel even worse for the frozen pizza that defrosts itself in her hands of fury.

The young woman who happened to be bagging was my old Learning Unlimited partner. She smiled and told me she forgot my name, she always forgot my name but never minded asking me what it was over and over again. She said my hair looked nice but so didn’t hers and asked if I was drinking tea to cure my insomnia. I smiled, she took the edge off my irritation that the cashier was slamming my items into the scanner. She asked me for a hug. I love hugs more than anything so I agreed to the horror of the woman behind me and to the chorus of giggles from her co-workers.

I want to get angry with people who judge so freely and laugh at other’s differences just as easily, but I can’t. It makes me feel sad that they don’t know she loves Nick Carter or that she talks of her family with such a free kind of love-that she believes in everyone including herself. They don’t even know that when I met Sarah, she chose to let me into her world which can be at times just as scary and painful as my own. She chose an “abled” video for us to watch that evening and now I cannot look at anyone without believing we all have a role in this world even if its 20mph as opposed to 100mph.

That begs the question, why do we treat each other so badly? Why do we go to the supermarket and see someone different and laugh? Why do we make fun of someone’s outfit, does it really make us special? Who are we to make a comment on so and so’s sweater vest? Who cares! It’s his, he likes it, we don’t, that is why he bought it and we didn’t. Why do we exclude those who look like us average college students because they are seemingly weird?

I am expert on the “oh you’re so weird we won’t talk to you” theme. Oh wel,l I guess I didn’t lose anything by not knowing you, though I would have liked to. Why don’t we capitalize on the good we have instead of nitpicking at the bad. Not all bad is truly bad and not all good is truly good. We all interpret the truth in different ways. Life would be boring if we all loved the same music, had rhythm, knew Spanish, spoke French, could play the piano, had a talent for drawing and a love of poetry. Life would be boring if no one knew how to skate, play soccer, run 20 miles, make snow angels and celebrate differences.

Life is a blank canvas you were born to add the paint. So why mix the paint into the land of let’s laugh at those of us who are creating a different canvas? What’s so right about you and your canvas? Please let me know.