Inclusive, respectful, controversial?

In what passes for scandal in the current administration — I say this because the last president was twice impeached, once for blackmailing a foreign leader and once for inciting insurrection — Vice President Kamala Harris has headlined the blue-suit-scandal. This is different from President Obama’s tan-suit-scandal of 2014, but about as silly.

The vice president, while addressing attendees at an event that honored the 32nd anniversary of the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, introduced herself in a way that was easily and instantly mocked by many social media onlookers. “I am Kamala Harris,” she said. “My pronouns are ‘she’ and ‘her.’ I am a woman sitting at the table wearing a blue suit.”

The thing is, the vice president had not suddenly become bizarrely self-absorbed. The context of the moment was rather that she was speaking to an audience that included vision-impaired and blind people, and using a standard method of introduction to a population that might appreciate a brief description as an aid to forming a visual image for themselves.

In other words, she was being respectful. Conservative pundits and politicians on Twitter gleefully went viral with ridicule for the brief clip. I won’t quote them, but they speculated, among other things, that Vice President Harris had lost

a speechwriter and was too inept to figure out how to wing a self-introduction. The joke was on the tweeters when it turned out that many meetings that include vision-impaired folks begin this way. The other speakers at the table with the vice president that day introduced themselves similarly.

In spite of the blue-suit freakout, I suspect the right-leaning criticism had more to do with Vice President Harris’ inclusion of her pronouns in her introduction than to any reference to the color of her jacket. Including one’s pronouns is common in the LGBTQ+ community. It is becoming widespread in practice. Making this a routine custom is a way to set at ease those whose pronouns may not seem obvious.

Change may be inevitable, but it is often rocky. A decade ago, people who were uncomfortable with social evolution used to tar more progressively minded people as “PC,” meaning “politically correct.” Being PC was seen as restrictive of one’s free speech, as hampering one’s self-expression for fear of tipping off the PC police.

I wrote a column at the time about my habit of substituting the phrase “treating people with respect” for “PC,” which I felt (and still feel) was more accurate. How hard is it for anyone to adapt their use of language to a vocabulary that is more inclusive? How hard is it to endeavor to be less hurtful, even if unintentionally so? Answer: It’s not hard. It just requires a little mental reset, a little sensitivity, a little kindness.

Now many of the PC-resisters have substituted the adjective “woke” as an epithet meaning the same thing as the old PC. Using woke in a disparaging way signifies these individuals’ same lack of understanding and kindness. If it’s woke, it’s bad, according to this narrow philosophy of life. If it’s woke, it must be suppressed or banned.

I would argue that wokeness is a desirable state, as it implies that you are now awake to some of the pre-conceptions or speech or behaviors that, while once acceptable to mainstream culture, are actually thoughtless, mean-spirited, or even destructive to others. It means that you have been able to venture beyond your own experience and privilege to gain insight into another’s life. It means you are open to learning.

The inclusion of pronouns in one’s self-introduction, online profile, and signature may become customary in the future, but for now, there are those who would fight such progress.

The ever-classy Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, recently introduced himself to a group of college students by saying that his “pronoun is ‘kiss my (expletive).’” Never let it be said that the grammar-challenged senator would miss an opportunity to appear graceless. The students attending the conservative gathering reportedly cheered Cruz’s unkindness, which made my heart sink.

My vision-impaired cousin says that he appreciates the spoken description modeled by Vice President Harris, whether during a meeting or at live theater or even just among friends. It helps him picture something he can’t see. “What does it hurt?” he asks. “It only takes a few seconds.” It seems simple.

Oftentimes, however, the work of inclusion is hard, the journey to compassion a slog. Speaking for myself, a woke-in-progress parent of a trans adult, I will carry on.