You might want to think about the following:
1) What arguments or observations does Wright make about the psychology of groups? What connections does he make between crowds and violence?
2) Continue to explore the role of reading, writing, and interpreting to his process of self-discovery.
3) What do we learn about the South during this period? How does Wright describe Jim Crow segregation?
4) Any other aspect of the text you find intriguing or baffling.
Pages 117 and 118 describe the fallout of Richard's claiming that if he ever saw an angel like Jacob did, he would believe. (Notice that this is another "if/then" statement like the catalog we looked at in class yesterday.) In this scene, Richard's grandmother misunderstands him and thinks he is claiming to have seen a vision. All Richard had to do was make one statement, true or untrue, and the church's whole attitude changed. His statement filled the congregation and his grandmother with feeling, the same way they say the Holy Spirit does. This shows how language can be warped and misinterpreted, of course, but it again reveals language to be something very powerful.
ReplyDeleteChecking out books from the library by H.L. Mencken, is an interesting turning point in Wright’s life. He now has the chance he has wanted since learning to read, to gain knowledge through books; however, what he learns almost hinders his journey to the North, rather than propelling it. It is interesting to note that when Mrs. Moss asks what he is reading he answers by saying, “Oh, nothing,” and “I’m just killing time.” This is similar to the way he responded to his neighbor after writing the tale of the young Indian Woman. The overwhelming amount of knowledge he has gained has almost reverted him back to a child like state.
ReplyDeleteAt the time, white people did not want the blacks to have access to books because they felt that knowledge would allow black people rise up in society. On the other hand, Wright feel even more hindered after learning about different lifestyles in the United Sates alone. He now feels the “terror, tension, and anxiety” he had as young adolescent even more sharply than before.
When I started reading this novel I almost immediately knew I was going to form an emotional attachment to this character and assumed that there would be much in this tale that spoke powerfully. What I didn't see coming was the message the author is slowly forming in several different ways. I think the author is focusing just as much on white supremacy as he is on his fellow African Americans for conforming to the ways of the white culture. His message is subtly proven in instances like Richard standing up to the principle of the school and delivering his own speech when he had been ordered to read the hand-crafted speech he was given. As he leaves the auditorium after defying his school, he thinks to himself
ReplyDelete"I did not want to see any of them again. I walked home, saying to myself: The hell with it! With almost seventeen years of baffled living behind me, I faced the world in 1925." (pg 178)
There is something to powerful about that last sentence, especially the "I faced the world in 1925." It almost gave me goosebumps reading it the first time. To me, he is associating the black world with the white world and putting them together as one. If not then I surely think he would've said something like "I faced the world of whites in 1925." And that, therefore, would've been enforcing the general view of an African American in his time. Instead, he makes no blatant statement about the differences in the black and white world which leads me to believe he is scorning both sides.
He is certainly a character that likes to ostracize himself but I've grown fond of his inability to follow the rules. That he questions everything around him and inside of himself is really more to be respected than anything else. I guess, as this book continues, I am forming a great deal of respect for this main character. For his tale, and for the way he is presenting both sides instead of solely ripping apart the white people. Not that I necessarily agree with his anger towards his fellow black men. I don't. I truly don't believe I would be able to not conform and do what Richard does because I have always cared too much about what people think and I would've been scared out of my mind of lynchings, beatings, etc. So therefore, I think this is why my respect level for him has grown so much in every chapter.
I'm anxious to see what he has in store next.
I LOVE YOU – I HATE YOU
ReplyDeleteChapter 11, pages 214 – 218 (Mrs. Moss and Bess) is an intriguing passage in the process of self discovery for Richard. As discussed in class, we see the development and crafting of his writing skills, appreciative that it is exceedingly fundamental for Richard to use suitably fitted words with their correct, assigned meanings in effectively constructing the imagery and metaphors, psychological and naturalistic art of his powerful novel. Chapter 11 is Richard’s reaction when coming in direct conflict with two contrasting individuals who are inconsistent, lackadaisical and free-wheeling in the use of the English language in an attempt to manipulate him in fulfilling their simple, self-centered desires. The two individuals are Mrs. Moss and Bess, the mother-daughter, husband-hunting tag-team suffering from the imposing infliction of a “peasant mentality” (p.214), and the shared delusion that the seventeen year-old Richard was marriage material; especially Bess, who Wright deeply scrutinizes: “I stared at her, becoming more aware each minute of the terrible simplicity of her life. That was life for her, simple, direct. She just did not attach to words the same meanings I did” (p.218). The passage persists as Bess offers herself to Richard while whispering “I love you” (again, 218). Tempted by her aesthetic and sensual vitality and tempted to exploit her teasing, wanting nature, our maturing, pubescent protagonist takes the high road and shows us his heroic, blue-balled, brave self by not taking advantage of her; ultimately exposing the idiocy and vainness of her feeble, momentary, frivolous and naïve (word) manipulations. Faucetted emotions and faucetted words; “I love you” flows into “I hate you”; hot to cold, on and off, revealing the neurotic insecurities of a childish young lady and not so subtle, simple and reckless use of the English language. It was, as Richard later in life disseminates, “impossible” (p. 214).
The relations between whites and blacks in the time period of this memoir create a slew of problems from the obvious to the subtle, revolving mostly around those thin daily relationships and connections between people that are made in passing and lost just as quickly. The public self, the polite self, revolves completely around things inherently learned from upbringing, social placement, status and interactions with people on a daily basis. What do you do when you are walking down a hallway with only one other person in it? When are you supposed to divert your eyes? When do you speak up? When are you to be quiet? When is it okay to lie? These are all questions that Richard cannot answer, being from a very small boy so shut off from the world, from his family, and finally from the human race. He mentions repeatedly how simply he takes things wrong, or says them wrong, or says them at the wrong time. We as the audience know that nothing sinister is implied, but he, nonetheless, is taken that way. People are forever afraid of change, of differences. Richard, being a pretty progressive thinker, ahead of his time on his ideas about race, or so it would seem, seems to be incapable of fitting into this society.
ReplyDeleteThe whites went to great efforts to place a "premium upon black deceit," and "encourage irresponsibility," with the aim of feeling "safe and superior" in the presence of blacks. Whites encouraged stealing by attaching it to the negro character created in their minds, according to Wright. Richard will have none of this, and that's why he can't fit in, but in order to escape, he still must stoop to the level of crime. There only way to escape a vile world is by vile means.
I found his dealings with Jim Crow sort of puzzling in his lack of detail. When you think of Jim Crow you think colored drinking fountain next to a white drinking fountain and just the sheer absurdity of it all. In Wright's narrative there is really isn't any of these material distinctions. The only one that I can recall is the fact that he couldn't check out books from the library. Which didn't seem segregated at all but just out right denied. Although I suppose if whites were controlling segregation (and of course they were) then it could be reasoned that they wouldn't see a need in providing black libraries in light they didn't think blacks could read or as Wright encountered, didn't believe they had a reason to. So out side of the typical descriptions of material separation we find Wright more focused on the separation of the personal and emotional beings of whites and blacks. I got the greatest sense of this deviation when Wright was trying to get a job in Memphis as he describes learning how to be the white expectation of what it is to be black. That he had to learn to talk a certain way, act a certain way. In his relationships with whites (the good and the bad) there is this sense of acting, that Wright responses become scripted, and mainly just a overwhelming sense of paranoia.
ReplyDeleteThere is one other place where Wright comments on Jim Crow and in this case its to comment on its absence, this is after he goes to Chicago and he gets on the bus and sits next to a white man. He observes that the white man doesn't act like he knows Wright is there and that he's black. The problem with this example for me is that Wright goes on to describe the general atmosphere of a big city, that no one cares about you in general. That fact takes away for me the Jim Crowness of the example. What I'm trying to get at is that if we take Wright's account as being true or true as he felt it was true (example of him not being as poor as he said he was) then it seems that the idea of segregation in as far as it is taught is off the mark. That for Jim Crow to taught as a material/physical separation isn't really right. That yes there was this absurd separation of public facilities but in the end that was simply there as a reminder of the personal/emotional separation that the blacks and whites were living in.
What really baffled me was the realization Wright came to on page 200. He's talking about the acceptance and acknowledgement of stealing, both of blacks and whites. Throughout this part of the text, Wright has been considered a black person who considers himself equal or to the status of a white, from a white's point of view. He continually encounters incidences where blacks are treated with blantant disrespect and cruelty and they don't retaliate. He doesn't understand this and his facial expressions don't conceal this emotion. White's constantly pick up on the fact that Wright is bothered by certain actions and words and they don't like that he isn't simply numb to the "white way of life". On page 200 he is going over why it is so ironic that whites know that blacks steal yet they keep them around because blacks are too scared to stand up for their own self worth. Wright knows that he is different from his race because he doesn't just accept what happens, doesn't just play it off. It pains him to conform and to allow whites to treat him as though he is an animal instead of a human being. He even states on page 207 that "crime carries its own punishment" and thus cannot commit a crime that is widely accepted because it pains him so much. This whole passage was very interesting and baffling to me.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading the vivid boxing scene at the end of chapter 12, parallels between Wright's current situation, boxing his pseudo friend, and his general predicament, surviving as a black man in the South, become increasingly apparent.
ReplyDeleteThe boxing match is a sham set up by Wright's and Harrison's decietful white superiors. After the boys refuse to kill each other on a whim, they finally agree to fight because Harrison pleads that he really does "need that money."(240) The boys fight, thinking that they will be able fake the blows and turn the tables on the scheming white men, escaping unharmed and five dollars wealthier. However, once in the ring, Wright discovers that he cannot fake the fight and instead proceeds to try to release his anger and shame onto Harrison's face.
Similarly, Wright repeatedly tries to make it in the working world with little success. Every trick and strategy that Wright employs ends in failure due to the stratified racial situation of the South. Like the fight with Harrison, Wright is just trying to get by when he is pulled into racial conflicts of which he does not desire to be a part. Ultimately, racial divisions play their role and Wright ends up with either humiliated, unemployed, or bloody. Wright writes that the "fight was on...against our will. I felt trapped and ashamed." Wright, perhaps even more than many of those around him, is disgusted by his expected subservience to whites, yet he repeatedly is pulled into situations in which subservience and humiliation are his only options.
One message that may be read so far in the novel is the overwhelming feel of hopelessness about the race struggle in the South in the early 20th century. At this point, Wright has had little positive interaction with whites. Any non-violent relationship with a white is acceptable and as Wright progresses and his knowledge increases, he becomes equally more jaded rather than hopeful.
(Aaron Nugent)
ReplyDeleteI agree with AE's comment about page 200. I think this is a key section for Wright's realization about his life in contrast to the black community.
He says, "But I, who stole nothing, who wanted to look them straight in the face, who wanted to talk and act like a man, inspired fear in them" (200).
Wright sees the growing disparity between the other blacks and himself, and he struggles to conform in the way that the other whites want him to. However, he has to find some medium where he can get by in the South and not compromise his morals or his dignity by bowing to every whim of the whites. But as we've so far in this book, that hasn't been easy.
"The southern whites would rather have had Negroes who stole, work for them than Negroes who knew, however dimly, the worth of their own humanity" (200).
Wright very clearly expresses his frustration at the southern whites in this line. He wants to own up to his humanity, but so far in this book, he has been beaten and put down so much that he has hardly been human. Human to him simply means "to talk and act like a man," without fear of losing his job, or worse, his life by a mad white man who thinks Wright didn't call him Mr. or sir.
There are a lot of substantially icky (and bodily) things happening in Black Boy, but one of the most fascinating comes with Tillie, the Finnish cook. Wright narrates, “I heard Tillie clear her throat with a grunt, saw her cough, and spit into the boiling soup. I held my breath; I did not want to believe what I had seen…Nobody was ever able to fathom why Tillie like to spit into the food” (274-277). Finnish culinary secret? Not likely. This sequence has a different meaning, I think, for the reader than does the story of Richard as a boy watching people in the latrines or of the young black man who tells Richard a man is not a man who hasn’t had the clap at least three times. Instead, Tillie’s spitting in the soup seems an expression of not only general contempt but of utter disenfranchisement. Her bodily function (spitting) takes the place of her voice, and by extension (at least in the context of Black Boy) of her personhood. For Wright, Tillie’s actions serve to draw attention to the importance and the meaning of voice in his autobiography. It is the voice that has the power to express personhood and it is his voice that Richard so often feels is stolen from him by the culture in which he lives, his voice his only weapon and his greatest possession. Tillie’s actions are as silent as they are repulsive—she is a picture of a disenfranchised individual. She has no power of voice left, only the power of the misbehaving body.
ReplyDeleteThere seemed to be a powerful reaction in Wright to his interaction with Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman. When he initially hears Mrs.Hoffman's voice he is shamed for his memories shouting obscenities to the Jewish storekeepers in his childhood. There is a moment of shame, followed by the realization that though he is American "she, an alien, could operate a store and earn a living in a neighborhood where I could not even live." There seems to be a sudden awareness that other races may feel prejudice too, but the discrimination for the black race in America seemed to be insurmountable. Wright follows this moment (in chap. 15) with two pages of contemplation and reflection on race where he begins each paragraph with parenthesis, separating his thoughts and ideas, and finally uniting them together at the end. Similar to the previous mentioned cataloging, yet somehow grouped together as one thought or comment on race.
ReplyDeleteI think this section of reading gave true testiment to the power of language and words. Richard finally begins to realize what makes whites and his peers so angry. It is his words and what he expresses through them.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the most blantent example of this is seen when the principal tries to force Richard to read a speech he had written for him. Richard's refusal caused great backlash from both the white and black community. They all knew that by reading his own speech; conveying through his own words his thoughts, Richard was giving up all his opportunities. The fact that he could lose everything by using his own language shows how powerfully language is received.
Again language plays a very important role in the boxing scene. The white men were able to manipulate language in a way to make Richard and Harrison feel fear, anger, resentment, and awkwardness towards eachother. This is an example of language being used by a superior. Eventhough, the boys know the men were lying, because the words were spoken by men of power, they still have doubts towards eachother.
After Richard dropped the jar in the store, we see the power of language acknowledged by Richard in his own words, "My words were innocent enough, but they indicated, it seemed, a consciousness on my part that infuriated white people."
And later when Richard encounters the Yankee man at the eyeglass counter, "The Yankee white man did not know how dangerous his words were."
Wyndham Wyeth
ReplyDeleteI think the role of reading, writing, and interpreting is one of the most interesting aspects of the text. The knowlege and sense of self-awareness that Wright gains through his pursuit of literature is reminiscent of a trend that we have seen several times before particularly in slave narratives. It really gives him a sense of individualism in his principles and opinions that many of his black peers do not have. This causes him rise up above them to some degree, or at least Wright percieves that he has risen above them. This can be seen in Wright's disgust for the illierate woman that he sleeps with on his insurance route.
Also, the seen with the dogs in the lab getting their vocal chords cut was sad.
I thought it was odd that Richard seems to change pretty suddenly from a boy with morals to a man who is guiltily abusing his power as an insurance sales man. On page 218 Wright succumbs to Bess’ advances momentarily before shoving her off and telling her they need to get to know each other better. I think we can all agree that this stems from his personality as well as his slight disdain for Bess because of her naivety and her unwillingness to better herself. Later in the story on page 290 Wright is very clear that with his position in the insurance agency, he can use women who are unable to continue paying. It is also clear that the woman Wright is with is no better than Bess. She is uneducated and has no interest in bettering herself; it seems to me that her only focuses are the circus and other men.
ReplyDeleteI think my main conflict with the autobiography right now is that I want to know more about Richard Wright from his own perspective. I feel like while he shows the reader both his strengths and faults, he is shaping the way he is seen instead of letting the reader do it themselves.
On page 200 Wright says, "I longed to be like the smiling, lazy, forgetful black boys in the noisy hotel locker rooms, with no torrential conflicts to resolve." He then talks about how he is "weary of the secret burden," his dreams and aspirations.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I read this, I was reminded of Fredrick Douglass's "Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass" and how he wished he could be an ignorant slave, that he had not been "cursed" with literacy. This way he would not be so acutely aware of his deplorable condition and could live more blissfully ignorant. At first reading had lifted him up, but not before he felt that it made the situation feel worse.
In this part, I feel like Wright is having the same sentiment. He sees all these more simple and more easily pleased people around him who are content to live their lives the way they are and he is not. He doesn't want to conform to Jim Crow and the "yes sirs and no sirs." Wright knows there is more to life and wants to strive for it unlike some of the guys he works with who live for the moments pleasure. Wright feels like he is "poised for flight."
Richard experienced the power of words in the descriptions in the books he discovered as a child. He felt the power of words when he shared his first story with a neighbor. Next we see him graduating and having to give a speech. He knew that the speech the principal wrote was more eloquent than his, but it didn’t SAY anything as powerful as Richard’s speech. He knew he was being worked over at this point, but he didn’t fully grasp why until later. I hated to see his realization when he started working for the southern whites. The depression I could feel in discovering that you have been labeled as less than human. To know someone has that thought is one thing, to hear those words over and over is another. The power of the thought or written word is not unleashed until it is shared, read or spoken. Although it hurled a blow at him, it was also the point in the story where I think he realized fully WHY he was a threat to the southern whites. Not only did he have thoughts like other black boys must have had, he wrote them, he spoke them, and he expressed them in his glares and glances. His desire to be a writer was not out of his reach in the south because he wasn’t smart enough, it was because he was black. That was a label, a word that had a different meaning, a different power in the south. Sometimes the word doesn’t matter, like in the optical lab. The correct answer, the truth was “no” he didn’t say that. The truth wasn’t about to set him free though. For Richard to say “no”, however, would have implied something completely different to the other man at the shop. It wasn’t enough to know the correct words, or be able to string them together sensibly as Richard seemed more than capable of doing. What he comes to learn is that words are arbitrary until a label is assigned to them within the context of their current environment.
ReplyDeleteIt seems ironic to me that even though Wright seems to be more intelligent than his peers he seems to get into more trouble because of his mouth and actions than they do. His intelligence in this way seems to be his curse. Or at least it is as big of a negative aspect as that of the awful ways of thinking that the whites around him had. He is to intelligent to play this game that the whites want him too. He is able to manipulate it, for example he takes advantage of their expectation for him to steal in order to better himself. But in some instances he has no change to escape the ignorance of this time in history, mostly by whites but some by blacks, and those are most often family members.
ReplyDeleteHis grandmother has been brainwashed into thinking that reading and writing is the devils work. Most likely simply because the whites didn't want her to learn how. His Uncle Tom is unable to recognize the maturity level of Wright while they are living together and therefore seems to try to take a fatherly position early on. Something that Wright has long passed the need for having. Then there are the whites who pass through his life, all of which seem to be ignorant of the blacks world which is so close to theirs. Varying from the Yankee who offers him money to the many jerks that he has to work for.
Wright's story greatly exemplifies how awesome a thing it was for any one, white or black, to transcend the misconceptions of this time and become something better, and something good in the world.
What I found most intriguing in this segment is the development of Richard's writer-self. His desire to write as eloquently as Proust is indicative of his wish to convey the torments of his own psyche, and by extension of the collective unconscious of blacks under Jim Crow. Here we see reading and writing open avenues for him in ways in which he has only implied before—he seems to recognize writing as a means of making progress rather than merely edification. Mencken’s bold work exhilarates him and distracts him from work, and eventually we see the development of a group of Irish, black and Jewish intellectuals, feeding upon each other, “instressing one another’s inscapes,” as Gerard Manley Hopkins might have described said.
ReplyDeleteThe significance of this literary circle is a resolution of Wright’s countless parallels to modernist psychology and literature; after chapters and chapters of Freudian slips, Jungian archetypes, and the dangers of group-think, not to mention an intense fear of drowning as the antithesis of baptism, which might as well have been pulled directly from the pages of Eliot’s The Waste Land, Richard finally acquires a group of like-minded friends not unlike those of Gertrude Stein’s famous parties abroad. Thus may he at last engage the writer-self so evidently buried within him throughout his youth.
I appreciate Wyndham’s comparison to the slave narratives and mentioning the sense of individualism, which seems to be a prevailing theme in our series thus far. In most of these stories we encounter not only the author’s abuse at the hands of white folks, but also the reciprocal hatred that builds and has no outlet, along with episodes of disgust and loathing towards other black people. It seems our authors condemn the closed-minds of white people who view colored people as animals, but as they start to separate themselves from their fellows by learning to read and write, they often begin to view their own neighbors with similar contempt. Richard is disgusted with Shorty for his laziness and willingness to literally be kicked to gain a quarter to buy lunch. He thinks Bess is a fool for having hope and naive belief; he wants to try to talk some sense into her but cannot find the words to even attempt it. There is a communication gap between them despite them being the same age and both coming from a Southern upbringing.
ReplyDeleteRichard doesn’t discuss what he is reading with anyone despite Falk asking him to let him know what he gets out of the books and direct questions asked by those who see him reading. His fear and distrust of others due to a lifetime of abuse will not allow him the liberty of discussing his discoveries and ideas with anyone. One wonders if he might have found some confidant amongst those inquiries if he had only felt at liberty to openly share his discoveries.
(Charlie Baker)
ReplyDeleteI found this book to be real journey through the South during the unfortunate days of Jim Crow segregation. Richard Wright really had a tough time growing up, and he discovered that life gets better but no matter where you go and what yo do life is still hard, fortunately Richard is a very driven fellow. I thought it was really discouraging to see just how badly treated black folk were treated back in the 20's in Mississippi. When Richard began working in the optical business and was run out by his white co-workers simply because he was black, I believe that be plainly put wrong unfortunately it was probably true at the time. Richards friend tried telling Richard that he had to "uncle Tom" to the white folks and Richard either couldn't do it or he just diddn't want to. I remember the scene when Richards friend told Richard that he acts like he was white, and that Richard diddn't act any different towards white folks as he did with black folks. Richards home life of constant squabble really effected his psychological makeup by causing Richard to not let anyone really get close to him and to not trust anyone because he had never known kindness before, I thought it was pretty interesting when Richard realized his own fault in never letting anyone get close to him when Richard moves to Memphis and he meets Mrs. Moss and Bess and Richard is completely thrown out of whack by their seemingly endless and random kindness towards him because he has never had a home where there was conversation that didn't involve either his soul being in mortal peril or how he was a bad example of a human being. I believe that this was a culture shock to Richard that he had never felt before. The most fascinating statement that I have read so far was when Richard writes, "Wherever I found religionin my life I found strife, the attempt of one individual or group rule another in the name of God. The naked will to power seemed always to walk in the wake of a hymn." I realize that line was relatively near the begining but I just had to bring it up, it was just to true not to. I believe that do to his religious family Richard has been alienated to everything in life that he wants but is forced to hear what others want him to believe and he simply doesn't buy it because he has seen first hand just what kind of evil religion spreads.
Wright is aware of the ignorance and lack of passion of the groups of people. He associates these groups with the languages they use. For example, the group of white girls with whom Wright works at the cafe talk about anything material and superficial but their feelings. Wright feels a great distance between him and this group, thinking "Their constant outward-looking, their mania for radios, cars, and a thousand other trinkets made them dream and fix their eyes upon the trash of life, made it impossible for them to learn a language which could have taught them to speak of what was in their or others' hearts" (273). He describes a Negro literary group he met, “Always friendly, they could never be anybody’s friend; always reading, they could really never learn; always boasting of their passion, they could never really feel and were afraid to live” (286). He observes Negro Communists, who are dressed like European Communists and mimic their accents without knowing what communism really is. He says, “Communism, instead of making them leap forward with fire in their hearts to become masters of ideas and life, had frozen them at an even lower level of ignorance than had been theirs before they met Communism” (296).
ReplyDeleteWright is aware that it is dangerous to passively accept and use a certain kind of language to identify oneself. Just by “wearing” a language, one can feel like he or she is somebody with thoughts and purposes, but in fact, it merely shift his or her focus from the core of the problem to something unimportant. Wright says, “At twenty years of age the mold of my life was set, was hardening in to a pattern, a pattern that was neither good nor evil, neither right nor wrong” (283). Here, I see his critical attitude and effort to form his identity by his original thoughts attained by actively using the language he has obtained.
Wonderful comments!
ReplyDeleteComing in a bit late here, but most of all from this story I am amazed at the sheer depth of psychological intrigue explored. The author powerfully depicts the "us vs. them" mentality throughout this work and how people use the perceived differences between them and others to create seperation and breed feelings of negativity.
ReplyDeleteSome excellent points regarding this are how crowd psychologies tend to be so able to be emotional without regard to logic when it comes to "us vs. them" situations. One group of invididuals sees another in another group acting in a way that might be interpreted as deliberately offensive (even if it isn't intended) and then reacts negatively in a way that creates a negative reaction among others in both groups. All regardless of the fact that the action in question may or may not have been deliberately intended to be offensive.
It is in such matters that I believe it is best to err on the side of Love. That is to say, don't assume a negative reaction or thought concerning a matter that can be interpreted any number of ways. Misunderstandings can be the breeding grounds for catastrophe.
That said, just stay positive in your thinking and interactions with others regardless of circumstance - is what I get from this work.