Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Git into a huge fight with brother's date at a wedding and ruined dinner" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster describes attending a family member's wedding when, during dinner, her brother's date began discussing politics and making increasingly racist statements. At some point, the original poster began challenging some of the woman's statements, leading to a sort of low-key argument which made others uncomfortable and possibly prompting some of them to leave. Now many people are angry with the original poster, but she refuses to apologize and asks what should be done in these situations. Sadly, but I guess not surprisingly, very few posters sympathize with the original poster. Most of the initial responders suggest that she should have excused herself from the table. But, when the original poster explained that circumstances did not allow that, posters begin to put blame on her. I think the responses in this thread, as well as its length, are illustrative of where our society currently stands with regard to dialogue on race. On the one hand, there is a constant drumbeat that society is "woke" and even completely innocent statements are being characterized as racist and leading to individuals being wrongly "cancelled". However, at the same time, appeals to racism and increasingly overtly racist statements have become distressingly acceptable and anyone standing against racism is criticized as being "woke" (which for some reason is considered to be bad). More often than not, it is not the borderline or full on racists who are castigated, but those who refuse to tolerate their racism. As such, the original poster is the target of most of the criticism in this thread. Posters argue that the woman's statements probably were not that bad with more than one poster suggesting that she probably said the sort of thing that you might hear on Fox News. Well, exactly. That is part of the problem. Sadly, where much of our society stands right now, anything less than the most blatant racism is supposed to be accepted while those who challenge it are blamed for intolerance. That is clearly demonstrated in this thread. Some posters even appear to take a sort of joy in ridiculing the OP for being offended, implying that she demonstrates a deranged liberal mindset. To be fair, there were a few lonely voices supporting the original poster. Even more posters agreed her brother's date was out of line, though those posters generally felt the original poster handled things poorly.

Yesterday's second most active thread was posted in the "Private/Independent Schools" forum and titled, "Go for a run if you don't get into your choice college." This thread is practically an amalgamation of past threads. Like the first thread discussed today, it deals with race. Just like one of the topics mentioned in yesterday's blog post, it deals with Georgetown Day School. Also like the post discussed yesterday, it was provoked by an article in the GDS student newspaper, "The Augur Bit". I continue to be impressed with this newspaper, though if I am honest, this particular article could have benefited from tighter editing. At any rate, the article discusses a school meeting that was held after students were apparently heard expressing the belief that some students of color had only been admitted to top colleges because of their race. The purpose of the school meeting was to explain affirmative action in its historic context and clarify what it does and does not do. The title of the thread refers to one educator's advice to students who were disappointed by not being accepted at their preferred colleges. They were advised to work through their disappointment in healthy ways. For instance, they could go for a run. Students interviewed in the article universally agreed that it is inaccurate to claim that race is the sole factor for an acceptance, though some also suggested that it was equally wrong to argue that race played no role at all. Many posters criticized GDS students, who they believe have benefited from numerous advantages, for being upset that they may have been disadvantaged in this instance. Several posters thought this displayed hypocrisy on the part of a school famed for being progressive with regard to race. Eventually, this thread became a debate about the role of race in college admissions and, frankly, the thread became an embarrassment to both GDS and DCUM. I eventually locked it.

Third was a thread titled, "I cannot stop feeling so deeply angry at someone" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster says that the anniversary of an event in which someone was very abusive toward her and then humiliated her when she confronted them about it is approaching. She is extremely angry with this person and is having a difficult dealing with the coming anniversary. The thread is mostly an opportunity for the original poster to express her anger and describe her feelings about the events. She says that she doesn't think she is even looking for advice. This is the sort of post that the original poster might have been better off writing and then deleting rather than posting. Once posted, it prompted others to offer advice whether it was wanted or not. The original poster has already heard almost all of the advice many times and found to be of no help. Her rejection of the suggestions caused others to accuse her of playing the role of victim and preventing her own healing. Many posters did provide supportive posts that the original poster welcomed. I think the lesson of threads like this is that offering advice when the original poster is not receptive to it is normally counterproductive. If you want to be helpful, just offer support and assurance. Some posters recounted their own traumatic experiences and described how they came to terms with them. The original poster seemed to find those posts helpful as well. This is another case of DCUM being used as therapy, though I am not sure that all of our users are cut out to be therapists. Therefore, as this thread demonstrates, the results are mixed.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. Titled, "Is this a common feeling in your early 40s? Feels like friends are getting rich and we're stagnant", the original poster says that most of her friends have purchased homes that cost twice or many more times the cost of her house. She has always felt that she and her friends were roughly on the same level financially, but increasingly realizes that she has fallen behind most of them and she doesn't understand why. She is embarrassed about becoming the "poor friends". Many posters reply saying that they are in similar situations. In many cases, they attribute the wealth disparity to family inheritance or the others living beyond their means. Others argue that the wealthy folks might be responsible for improving their financial situations though careful money management or via businesses that might not appear very glamorous from the outside, but could be quite lucrative. One poster points out that stock market gains could account for tremendous financial gains. Without reading the entire 10 pages of this thread, it looks like there are at least three types of common responses. There are those sympathizing with the original poster and advising about how to adjust to the reality. Many in this group point out that the original poster has it better than many and should be happy for what she has. This is undoubtedly true in a general sense, but apparently not true in the specific case of her friends. Others explain the growing wealth disparity as the result of personal choices, suggesting that the original poster made choices that led to stagnant finances while her friends benefited from risk-taking. The third group blames an unfair system in which the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and those in the middle plod along. Many posts consist of the second and third groups debating each other. Several posters don't necessarily have an explanation for what the original poster describes, but they are simply resigned to it, noting that we live in an area of significant wealth.