What I did, I did for a reason. And, yes, I have replayed the whole thing nearly every day since it happened, damning myself for failing to say X or add Y. It has become an obsession. An obsession that was waning with time, as these things always do, until the phone call ramped it all up again.
But let me step back.
About a month ago, I was in a training with about twenty colleagues on campus. Out of the blue, I notice my colleagues on one side of the room growing agitated—pointing through a window in the training room that gives onto a hallway outside. Apparently, someone was out there filming through the glass, and no one knew why.
As the training ground to a halt and everyone scrambled to figure out what was going on, I was aware that some of my colleagues were terrified. I knew why. They had been the victims of a local, what shall I call her, madwoman (seems apt), who has been attacking trans people and their allies for some time. She is terrifying, and I knew folks were reacting as they were because of a well-founded fear that someone out there was doing the same thing.
Our public campus welcomes people of all views to express themselves in public spaces, and the people who do so tend to be on the unhinged side of a variety of issues (you can guess what they might be). They tend to be loud, in-your-face, and confrontational. Their clear goal is to provoke you and then film you in the most unflattering way. They then upload the videos onto whatever platform they call home and monetize your frustration and suffering. They are, quite simply, awful people.
In the event, it was clear to me that the training would not continue until this individual moved away. I also knew that he was unlikely to do so without a bit of encouragement. So, I left the training to engage in a “meet and greet” with the videographer.
I did what I did to enable the training to continue. And that is what happened.
You can see the video of our engagement online, though I am not linking to it because I will not encourage you to give him the clicks he so desperately desires. All I am going to say is that our conversation never got heated, I did not deny him his rights, and after a bit, he decided to leave, realizing that he was not going to get any meaningful reaction from me.
Of course, I could have done things differently. I could have been more articulate on a couple of points. I could have also chosen to do nothing. No one else was going to, so why should I?
Well, I have already said why, but let me add a word on the “how.” I have been in situations like this many times over the past decade. My role as an elected official, and then a staff person at my university, where I worked on protected speech on campus, has brought me into contact with folks like this many times.
I want you to know what is happening in these situations. First, your mind races. What do I want to see happen here? What is this person likely to do? What do they really want? Am I placing myself in a dangerous situation? What can I say that expresses concern without heightening tension? Where is this heading? What can I say to calm things down? How can I show compassion? These questions flood the brain, and step one is to engage in a little “mindfulness” to control the flood and try to have something productive happen. In my mind, I tell myself to go to my “quiet space.” Once I get into that space, I know everything will be fine. Even if it isn’t, immediately.
Anyway, he got bored and left, and that was that until he decided to drop a video last week—not just of my interaction with him—but with his entire glorious foray across campus.
Like I said, while I kept beating myself up in the weeks after, I could at least take solace in the fact that the training resumed as soon as I stepped into the hall to talk to the guy. And it was all fading until the phone call.
The call came to our center and was answered by a student. The caller wanted to talk to my supervisor about me. The student denied them this opportunity and got off the phone. But then they called back, again, and again.
The student was flustered and could only say it was someone unhappy with how I had treated them. I thought it might be a disgruntled student—they are not always happy with the outcomes of our meetings.
So, I picked up. It only took about ten seconds for me to realize that this call was related to the incident of the month before. I won’t get into the back-and-forth of it, but it was full of accusations and threats (not of violence). The person insisted that I needed to apologize for my “aggression” against the “journalist.” I initially made a mistake by saying the person was not a journalist. That really set the caller off, and he told me that I was about to experience a reality check the likes of which I had never seen. He threatened to have me fired—though he immediately denied having said it.
Unfortunately, a lot of staff was standing around and saw and heard the conversation. It got testy, but never out of control. I quickly realized that my goal was to get this guy to stop calling us. He demanded an apology, but I could not offer one, because I felt I had done nothing wrong.
And then, as my mind spun out, I decided to offer a compromise. I told him that if the “journalist” (I conceded the moniker) wanted to meet with me, I would be glad to. I said I would commit to listening to him and that he could tell me specifically how my actions that day had harmed him. I promised to make the harms right. This is sort of classic restorative justice language, and as soon as I offered it, the conversation changed. The caller said something to the effect of “maybe you are not as bad as I thought,” and we were off the phone within a minute.
He has not called back.
The conventional wisdom around here seems to be that I should have done nothing in either case. Ignore him, and he will go away is what I am hearing. “Why did you have to do anything? Why pick up?
But I did what I did for a reason—in both cases. In the first instance, to help trainees move back into learning mode, and in the second, to figure out a way to stop the person from calling our center.
This is my apologia.
Traveling at the Speed of Bike 