Crying “Sheep!”

Earlier this week, a Karen walked maskless into a Starbucks and was refused service by a barista, Lenin. She recorded the encounter and posted it on Facebook which has since gone viral. According to the barista, Karen cursed at everyone, called them “sheep” and walked coffeeless out the door.

Masks have been a tricky problem for us. At this point everyone knows that a cheap mask is unable to protect the wearer from COVID-19, but what’s escaped so many is that masks have been proven to reduce the spread. We don’t wear masks to protect ourselves, we wear them to protect others.

How is it that there are still people, in this second peak of COVID-19 that’s eclipsing the first one, who are operating with only a half-truth about masks, accusing anyone who doesn’t think like they do of being a mindless sheep.

It’s what we do. Armed with a partial story, unable to articulate the other world of facts and data that we’ve recused ourselves from, we forge ahead into the unknown, convinced that we’ve gotten things figured out. Our view is so righteous that there’s no need to step into the dark, evil realm of someone else’s point of view.

And because of America’s current media problem, it’s gotten way too easy for us to limit our diet to those who tell us what we want to hear. Granted, there’s not much lying, or “fake” news coming from these voices, just things that are spun enough to keep us coming back for more. So, when my favorite media outlet says a mask can’t protect me, that’s truth. When it leaves out the part about masks and protection, that’s spin.

Either way, we’re left wondering why, if masks can’t protect us, are people wearing masks? Lacking a fuller picture, we tell a story of “sheep” blindly following everyone else at the expense of our great nation. Ironically, the story that we embrace makes us right, our perspective righteous, and the people who don’t hold it, mindlessly forging ahead in a cause that doesn’t exist.

And so, on June 14th, as COVID-19 cases began to again spiral out of control, Karen wrote:

“If you think a cheap lil mask is going to protect you, you are not thinking clearly. stop judging people who don’t comply and start judging the ridiculousness of the useless requirement, if you think covid is going to kill you, your [sic] not thinking clearly, it’s the mal practice [sic] of a doctor that works at a bankrupt hospital desperate enough to kill you for $$$ that will.”

Wherever it is that Karen’s gotten her information from has failed to give her a fuller understanding, or at least a bit more of the other aspects of this current issue so she can make an informed decision. In the absence of a fuller story, she’s understandably chosen the mindless sheep narrative.

The same phenomenon is happening with America’s current race discussion. Black Americans are accusing whites of injustice, and groups like Black Lives Matter have some pretty harsh things to say about race in our country. The white world is divided on this; one side embracing the “Blacks in America have never had it so good” narrative, and an increasing number of whites, myself included, who’ve embraced an entirely different story, seeking to be allies.

So, if I kneel in support of BLM, or invite my friends on the other side of the story to operate with a bit more compassion, I’m a sheep; someone has convinced me to follow a large herd of people who’ve gotten things wrong and I’m too dumb to know the difference.

But I didn’t get my perspective from CNN, though I’ve been told numerous times that I have. I once lived fully in the other story, convinced that Blacks just need to be a bit more thankful, feeling like a victim when their protests turn violent and echoing the fearful statements that my white forbears have cried out everytime America takes a few steps away from racist expression. Then I married a person of color and moved to a popular urban area, crawling with liberals, and was introduced to the other side, a narrative that I didn’t know existed.

I’ve also spent the majority of my adult life as a conservative Christian, a southerner no less, and have lived fully submersed in the half stories that drive America’s current resistance to our next iteration of racial justice.

For me, changing stories was painful, but there’s too much evidence, data, and eyewitness accounts indicting my former understanding of things. I was compelled to change sides. My biggest complaint now is not that people need to think like I do, it’s that there are too many from the other side who can’t even articulate my version of things, much less understand why I think the way I do.

My friends on the other side constantly remind me that Blacks have nothing to complain about, that the injustices we’re addressing are merely the entitled rantings of people who’ve never had it so good. Karen herself reflected:

“…still black men are incarcerated more, however they are mostly young adolescent gang members engaged by criminal activity.”

Nope. But again, this is half of the story, i.e., that Blacks are incarcerated at higher rates than whites. Karen dismisses this with the culturally driven narrative that, yes, mass incarceration is real, but Blacks deserve it. To embrace this, the facts and data that very clearly tell us who’s incarcerated and why must be ignored. From there, we can tell a story of mindless sheep giving Black voices authority, God forbid, supporting them in a cause that doesn’t exist.

Crying “sheep!” is a dangerous game for our country. It adds fuel to the fire of our already raging division, refuses the painful albeit maturing process of sacrificing our deeply held beliefs for the sake of a deeper truth, and in the case of America’s race problem, a deeper healing for everyone on this rock. Most importantly, this pastime keeps us from seeing the white fluffy backside of our own crowd.

But I get it, labels make us feel good, like we’re on the right side of things, the smart, righteous ones.

But we have no business calling someone else a sheep until we’ve done the very difficult work of trying to understand why they think the way they do. Too many times we’ll let people from our own herd tell us why people from the other herd think the way they do instead of actually going to the other herd to get a fuller picture. But those people are evil, and if I’ve already gotten everything figured out, what purpose does it serve to talk to an idiot? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

I’d prefer not to be called a sheep. So would you. It’s a deeply insulting lable and, well, it hurts my feelings, inciting me to hurt back. I can’t tell you how powerful it would be for someone to sit me down and ask for my perspective, to listen to my side of the story, without challenge, to the point that they could accurately articulate my position and how I got there.

But again, that’s a painful proposition that the majority of us will reject.

For now, I continue to be labelled by people who got their understanding of my perspective from someone who doesn’t know me, or the painful story of how I came to see things as I do. It’s a product of the non-listening world that we find ourselves in. I’ll do my best to not fire back, with the exception of a few late night rants this week, and pray for forgiveness when I lose Jesus’ plot.