Listen

Every day, people go on a mission to be offended by what they’ve heard

Because they did not listen.

What the heck with things like context;

As soon the warning goes out on social media,

The dog-piling begins.

Have we become so thin-skinned that a comment we don’t like

Warrants death threats and ending a person’s professional life?

Whatever happened to let’s agree to disagree?

Whatever happened to civility?

Why do we assume the worst and presume guilt before all the evidence in.

Because we hear but do not listen,

And every day our division grows;

We split into smaller and smaller factions in reaction to people’s speech and actions.

But I suppose that’s okay,

If you avoid anything verboten.

Foreboding or not, you decide. But soon there will be a lot we can’t we do or say,

And we’ll spend all day hiding away,

Afraid our words and actions could be misconstrued as offensive.

Because even the smallest slight will earn our hides a tanning.

I’m not stanning the banning of political correctness,

Just a less zealous reaction to things with which we disagree,

To listen to each other’s words and not just hear what we fear.