Op-Ed
Any Given Sunday
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Gain Through Loss
September 17, 2007 - 11:00pmDespite the fact that I had never sold a lottery ticket to anyone in my life, the fellow sitting two rows up from me repeatedly insisted that I sell him one. His requests were made known to our entire section and were particularly pronounced after most Packers touchdowns.
I was in Giants Stadium this weekend in East Rutherford, N.J., watching my beloved hometown Packers take on the New York Giants. Wearing the token cheesehead and green and gold of the Packers certainly brought some friendly jeers from many Giants fans sitting around us in the stadium. However, there were a few other fans my friends and I seemed to personally offend in a special way, cheese and team colors aside.
Somewhere in the middle of the fourth quarter, it appeared the game was out of reach for the Giants and many fans began to leave. Two rows up from me, the gentleman who had been repeatedly requesting lottery tickets got up, turned around and looked directly at me, yelling “Sell me a lottery ticket! Sell me a lottery ticket!”
I didn’t really understand what he was saying. “What, I’m sorry?” I responded several times.
“Sell me a lottery ticket!” he yelled over and over again. I asked him again what he meant.
“Come down here and I’ll show you what it means, you Hindu (expletive),” he said.
Kyle, my accompanying friend, asked the gentleman to leave.
“Shutup, Opie,” the gentleman responded to Kyle. “Yeah, you, Opie! With your freckles,” he explained to Kyle, gesturing to his own cheeks and puffing up his face.
The man continued to hurl racial slurs mixed with expletives in unlikely combinations as he walked out of the stadium.
A few minutes later, another gentleman from several rows down walked past Kyle and explained to him in vivid detail how he wished to lewdly punish Kyle while his girlfriend was watching. He then turned to Kyle’s girlfriend and told her to “shut up, (expletive),” pointing his finger in her face as he walked out. Throughout the verbal onslaught, we remained quiet.
Maybe you think we’re not real men because we didn’t retaliate. While there may be mounds of evidence one could present to build a case against my being a real man, I would disagree that retaliation would have proven my manliness.
The easy thing to do would have been to retaliate. Doing what’s easy doesn’t make you a real man. It takes no wisdom and no strength to spit out hateful and dividing words. Wisdom and strength lead to self-control, not retaliation. Repaying evil with evil is the story of mankind’s history; a history marred with circles of destruction.
So, maybe history shows that it isn’t our job to be the avenger? Maybe we should try something radically different?
Forgiveness is a start, but we need more than forgiveness. We should wholly strive against all thoughts of revenge. Real forgiveness happens when we will not do our enemies mischief, but wish well to them, grieve at their calamities, pray for them, seek reconciliation with them and show ourselves ready on all occasions to relieve them.
The situation that day was messed up, but not because either of those gentleman were messed up. The situation was messed up because mankind is messed up.
There appears to be an automatic and deeply rooted sense that if we’ve been mistreated, the other person deserves to be shown up and brought to justice. Often criticism or slander are employed to make sure retribution is delivered. This is wrong and destructive.
Want to be strong? Endure unjust suffering without bitterness or revenge or the desire to hurt back, and wish well to all people, even those who persecute you, for it is not they who are the problem, but rather, our condition.
It only takes a rudimentary understanding of mankind to see that retaliation is the easiest and most destructive answer. It takes much more than that to substitute our “right” to fight back with endurance for pain. Our choice is whether we choose to stand up for ourselves or choose to stand for something bigger.
Behzad Varamini is a graduate student in Nutritional Sciences. He can be contacted at bvaramini@cornellsun.com. Gain Through Loss appears alternate Tuesdays.