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| Manners or morals? The choice is easy when the stakes are this high | Manners or morals? The choice is easy when the stakes are this high |
| (6 months later) | |
| On 22 June, Stephanie Wilkinson, owner of The Red Hen, a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked one of her customers – Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary – to leave. Wilkinson action has generated considerable controversy, and she has paid for it dearly. | On 22 June, Stephanie Wilkinson, owner of The Red Hen, a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked one of her customers – Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary – to leave. Wilkinson action has generated considerable controversy, and she has paid for it dearly. |
| Trump press secretary Sarah Sanders ejected from Virginia restaurant | |
| Donald Trump, in a tweet, called her restaurant “filthy”. Rightwing conspiracy theorists have blamed her for statewide child abductions. Her business has been severely disrupted, and she and her family have been targeted for online bullying. Demonstrators, among them self-styled “vigilantes” and KKK members, have gathered outside the restaurant, discouraging patrons from eating at (as one hand-lettered sign said) “the commie cluck”. | Donald Trump, in a tweet, called her restaurant “filthy”. Rightwing conspiracy theorists have blamed her for statewide child abductions. Her business has been severely disrupted, and she and her family have been targeted for online bullying. Demonstrators, among them self-styled “vigilantes” and KKK members, have gathered outside the restaurant, discouraging patrons from eating at (as one hand-lettered sign said) “the commie cluck”. |
| In private, and in the press, Americans have discussed whether a moral response justifies a so-called breach of civility and good manners. (One pundit in the Washington Post said that it didn’t.) It’s been suggested that such incidents might backfire and further enflame Trump’s base. Wilkinson has also had her defenders, most visibly and vocally the congressional representative Maxine Waters, who, in turn, was warned, by Trump, to “be careful” about encouraging her supporters to “push back”, to confront and heckle his associates. | In private, and in the press, Americans have discussed whether a moral response justifies a so-called breach of civility and good manners. (One pundit in the Washington Post said that it didn’t.) It’s been suggested that such incidents might backfire and further enflame Trump’s base. Wilkinson has also had her defenders, most visibly and vocally the congressional representative Maxine Waters, who, in turn, was warned, by Trump, to “be careful” about encouraging her supporters to “push back”, to confront and heckle his associates. |
| The speed, the virulence and the violence with which this story has played out is yet one more example of how our leadership has willfully turned every public discussion of ideas into the equivalent of trying to speak with someone’s fist clenched, inches from your face. We have lost all notion of balance and proportion if we feel that asking someone to leave a restaurant merits a death threat, and a warning to “be careful”. That alone is scary, and characteristic of the alarming way in which we are being schooled to cave in to every threat of vengeance and rage. | The speed, the virulence and the violence with which this story has played out is yet one more example of how our leadership has willfully turned every public discussion of ideas into the equivalent of trying to speak with someone’s fist clenched, inches from your face. We have lost all notion of balance and proportion if we feel that asking someone to leave a restaurant merits a death threat, and a warning to “be careful”. That alone is scary, and characteristic of the alarming way in which we are being schooled to cave in to every threat of vengeance and rage. |
| Myself, I think that Wilkinson showed remarkable restraint. It’s all too easy to imagine how impossible it would have seemed to ask your wait staff to fill the water glasses and describe the dessert offerings to a woman who, night after night, has been knowingly lying to the press and the American people. And when those lies have been exposed, she has mockingly dismissed anyone who seems to care about the truth. When a reporter asked Sanders if she, as a mother, had any feelings about the migrant families being torn apart – children being ripped out of their parents’ arms and sent to camps – she accused the reporter of showboating, of bringing up the subject to get more air time. | Myself, I think that Wilkinson showed remarkable restraint. It’s all too easy to imagine how impossible it would have seemed to ask your wait staff to fill the water glasses and describe the dessert offerings to a woman who, night after night, has been knowingly lying to the press and the American people. And when those lies have been exposed, she has mockingly dismissed anyone who seems to care about the truth. When a reporter asked Sanders if she, as a mother, had any feelings about the migrant families being torn apart – children being ripped out of their parents’ arms and sent to camps – she accused the reporter of showboating, of bringing up the subject to get more air time. |
| It’s easy to imagine the adrenaline that must have been running through Wilkinson’s system as she did something that, she must have known, would have consequences. (One wonders if she could have imagined how vile and punitive those consequences would be.) A simple polite request was made, and politely acquiesced to. Sanders left, followed by her entourage, though they (presumably not having been involved in enabling human rights abuses) had been told that they could stay. Their cheese platter remained on the table – the bill was “on the house”, the owner said. | It’s easy to imagine the adrenaline that must have been running through Wilkinson’s system as she did something that, she must have known, would have consequences. (One wonders if she could have imagined how vile and punitive those consequences would be.) A simple polite request was made, and politely acquiesced to. Sanders left, followed by her entourage, though they (presumably not having been involved in enabling human rights abuses) had been told that they could stay. Their cheese platter remained on the table – the bill was “on the house”, the owner said. |
| I’d like to imagine that, had I been Wilkinson, I would have done things slightly differently; judging from some comments I’ve read online, others have had the same thought. I might have asked Sanders about the missing children, separated from their parents. What does she plan to do about reuniting them with their families? I would have liked to ask her if she really didn’t believe that migrants are human beings, like herself, that they somehow deserved to be fleeing their home to save their lives and dying of thirst in the desert, while she deliberated among The Red Hen’s appealing farm-to-table choices. | I’d like to imagine that, had I been Wilkinson, I would have done things slightly differently; judging from some comments I’ve read online, others have had the same thought. I might have asked Sanders about the missing children, separated from their parents. What does she plan to do about reuniting them with their families? I would have liked to ask her if she really didn’t believe that migrants are human beings, like herself, that they somehow deserved to be fleeing their home to save their lives and dying of thirst in the desert, while she deliberated among The Red Hen’s appealing farm-to-table choices. |
| But maybe that would have been the wrong strategy, too. Such questions would have been audibly tinged with accusation and hostility. Perhaps it would have been more useful to ask her less leading questions. Tell us, Ms Sanders, what’s your favorite part of your job? It might have been interesting to try to find out how someone can work, every day, to promote lying, greed and hatred. | But maybe that would have been the wrong strategy, too. Such questions would have been audibly tinged with accusation and hostility. Perhaps it would have been more useful to ask her less leading questions. Tell us, Ms Sanders, what’s your favorite part of your job? It might have been interesting to try to find out how someone can work, every day, to promote lying, greed and hatred. |
| Wilkinson did what needed to be done: the best that she could do. We are under no legal or moral obligation to discuss the wine list or describe the nightly specials to someone who is complicit in crimes against humanity. Our moral obligation is to tell them that they are doing something reprehensible, even if, at the moment, they are on their own time, off the clock. The caged migrant children crying for their parents in detention centers aren’t spending their weekends eating gourmet meals in pretty Virginia towns; for them, there is no time when they officially go off duty and can enjoy the benefits of upscale hospitality – or ordinary civility. | Wilkinson did what needed to be done: the best that she could do. We are under no legal or moral obligation to discuss the wine list or describe the nightly specials to someone who is complicit in crimes against humanity. Our moral obligation is to tell them that they are doing something reprehensible, even if, at the moment, they are on their own time, off the clock. The caged migrant children crying for their parents in detention centers aren’t spending their weekends eating gourmet meals in pretty Virginia towns; for them, there is no time when they officially go off duty and can enjoy the benefits of upscale hospitality – or ordinary civility. |
| A decade ago, when I was visiting a small former communist country, a US government official invited me and my husband to dinner. Also present at the dinner were four other writers, men and women of different ages, all more or less personable and more or less politely interested in our views about the (then recent) Obama election. The next day, local friends asked who had been at the dinner. They paled when we told them. Three out of four of our fellow guests, they said, were “murderers” – government informers instrumental in the imprisonment and death of their fellow writers, whose only “crime” was to have criticized the current dictatorship. As far as I could tell, the American diplomat had no idea who they were, though surely he should have known. | A decade ago, when I was visiting a small former communist country, a US government official invited me and my husband to dinner. Also present at the dinner were four other writers, men and women of different ages, all more or less personable and more or less politely interested in our views about the (then recent) Obama election. The next day, local friends asked who had been at the dinner. They paled when we told them. Three out of four of our fellow guests, they said, were “murderers” – government informers instrumental in the imprisonment and death of their fellow writers, whose only “crime” was to have criticized the current dictatorship. As far as I could tell, the American diplomat had no idea who they were, though surely he should have known. |
| I felt as if I had not only been misinformed but tricked into acting as if criminality were no big deal. What was the loss of a few dissidents compared with sharing a pleasant diplomatic dinner? Treating others with odious cruelty, sending them to their deaths was all in the game, an easily overlooked and forgiven bad patch in (also recent) history. No reason for us to show bad manners. | I felt as if I had not only been misinformed but tricked into acting as if criminality were no big deal. What was the loss of a few dissidents compared with sharing a pleasant diplomatic dinner? Treating others with odious cruelty, sending them to their deaths was all in the game, an easily overlooked and forgiven bad patch in (also recent) history. No reason for us to show bad manners. |
| If we’d been told who those people were, we would have left as soon as we found out who was, along with us, enjoying the cold watercress soup. | If we’d been told who those people were, we would have left as soon as we found out who was, along with us, enjoying the cold watercress soup. |
| For anyone with a conscience, that experience must be what it is like to serve dinner to – or have dinner with – any of Donald Trump’s officials. We need to be able to speak up and tell them what we think, to quote Maxine Waters, “in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station”, anywhere we see them. It’s as American as apple pie to hold public officials accountable for their actions. That is part of their job, what they signed on for. Their obligation to represent us – to answer to us – is the condition of their employment, especially when their duties require them to uphold and implement heartless and morally indefensible positions. | For anyone with a conscience, that experience must be what it is like to serve dinner to – or have dinner with – any of Donald Trump’s officials. We need to be able to speak up and tell them what we think, to quote Maxine Waters, “in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station”, anywhere we see them. It’s as American as apple pie to hold public officials accountable for their actions. That is part of their job, what they signed on for. Their obligation to represent us – to answer to us – is the condition of their employment, especially when their duties require them to uphold and implement heartless and morally indefensible positions. |
| Changing their minds seems unlikely; no one imagines that Sarah Sanders will mend her ways as a consequence of being denied service in a Virginia restaurant. Still, we need to speak up – if only for ourselves, to remind us of who we are and what we believe in. We have a right to express our opinions about how our government is being conducted, and no one, not even Donald Trump, should be able to warn Americans to be careful. | Changing their minds seems unlikely; no one imagines that Sarah Sanders will mend her ways as a consequence of being denied service in a Virginia restaurant. Still, we need to speak up – if only for ourselves, to remind us of who we are and what we believe in. We have a right to express our opinions about how our government is being conducted, and no one, not even Donald Trump, should be able to warn Americans to be careful. |
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