You Can Catch More Flies With Honey…

 

I’ve debated long and hard about sharing the nasty comment that was left on a previous blog around a year ago. Especially now, after having published a post where I conceded that the woman who wrote the comment had a point. However, in this day of the Internet, many, if not most, people seem to have forgotten the old adage, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

In other words, you can persuade a person to your point of view a lot more easily by treating them as you want to be treated (with kindness and forgiveness, I hope!), than by beating them over the head with guilt and condemnation.

Though the woman who left the comment in question signed her name as “boldly and sincerely” for anyone to see, I seriously doubt she would have used the same words to my face as she did on my blog comment. Even if you know that someone can find your online hang-outs, simply communicating on the Internet, whether it be a blog or YouTube comment, or a social media post, or a comment to someone else’s social media post, makes it all too easy to forget that the person whom you’ve never met actually has feelings.

It’s easy not to think that that person might be struggling with suicidal thoughts, and your comment might just send them over the edge.

Or that whatever you say will cause them either to get off track with what God’s called them to do, or to open the door wide for the devil to come in and torment them.

Yes, we need to learn to discipline ourselves to let go of negative emotions, let the past stay in the past, and to live in the moment, but we are human. You are human. I am human. And most of us have not arrived to the point where painful words won’t cause us pain to some extent.

The comment.

Following is the comment I’m talking about. I’m leaving off her name, even though she signed it on my blog, because I’m nice. Because I know, one day, she might realize how hurtful she was and not want her name to be associated with her words.

Here goes, and I quote verbatim; all errors belong to the commenter:

 I have to say I was initially excite to find another author that write clean, faith-based fiction however after reading just a few chapters of you book, Worth the Risk, I was extremely disappointed with her characterization of one particular supporting character.

The dialogue written for Deshawn, African American bodyguard in this book was a disgrace, especially for someone professing to have Christian believes and values. It was disrespectful to African Americans as well as to the “HUMAN RACE” as referred to as mankind. Deshawn character who incidentally was also referred to as a friend to the protagonist’s in the book.

As an African American woman, I found Deshawn’s conversations in this book highly offensive. To say this book was published in 2020 your mindset is stuck somewhere between African Americans still being slaves on the plantation and the era of Jim Crowe. How dare you marginalize this character to make him seem like an uneducated, ignorant Uncle Tom who’s only objective it to please his master/employer and know his place.

Not once in this book did you create dialogue for this chat that contained one (1) complete sentence that did not have him speaking improper grammar/sentence structure NOR using proper English. This character was a representation of blacks being portrayed in the media as a “Coon Caricature” after over 60 years since the Civil Rights movement and after all of the advancements African Americans have made.

Please wake up my “Christian” sister. This 2022, your book was published in 2020. It’s thinking (having a mindset) like you that is disgraceful, disrespectful and embarrassing.

Let’s just say that I wail never another book you write nor would I ever recommend it except as a teaching tool on what’s still wrong in this country, this world and the “Christian” community at-large.

Boldly and sincerely,

NAME WITHHELD

An ex-reader

You can see, as I wrote in this post, where I admitted she was right, that after reading this comment I wanted to quit writing. Really, I wanted to hide from the world forever. I’m still not quite over it as I write these words. The devil has used her cutting words to his purpose, that’s for sure. And I’ve lost a lot of mental and spiritual energy fighting the repercussions of being exposed to them.

Or, shall I say, exposed to her vinegar?

The honey way.

What if, instead, she had not made assumptions about me (mainly, that I’m racist, or mentally deficient, or both)? What if, after calming herself down, she had gone to my blog and written thusly:

Emily,

I was so pleased to find a new author writing Christian romance. But I have to ask you, when you were writing the character Deshawn, did you have any thought to how his manner of speech would make those of us who share his race feel? Maybe you don’t remember, but you make him sound like an uneducated, ignorant redneck groveling at the feet of a white rich man. There’s one part in the book that I found particularly offensive, when Rachel actually mimicked what you apparently perceive as typical African American Southern speech.

Would you do me a huge favor and go back and reread all the lines you gave to that character? I think that, if you’re the Christian you claim to be, you’ll realize that you have some serious editing to do.

Your caring and concerned sister in Christ,

NAME

What do you think my response would have been, had she phrased her angst in that way? Do I have to spell it out? No? Thank you. 😉

But. I need to.

Because.

I wouldn’t have been the saint some of y’all would like to think I would have been. After first reading the comment, I likely would have huffed and grumbled something about how I have a right to portray characters however I want. I would have ranted a bit about how I’ve lived in the South for over twenty years, and I’ve heard people of both races use the kind of grammar I gave to Deshawn. Even people more educated than I.

That’s a personality thing. I never take advice, suggestions, or opinions at face value. My initial inner response when someone suggests I change something about myself is almost always, I don’t think so.

Inevitably, however, I walk away, ruminate over the point in question, and analyze it. Almost always, I decide that the other person had a good point. And if there’s an action to be taken regarding that point, if it turns out to work for me (that's if the question is in regards to a personal preference thing), I’ll take the action.

So. It would have taken me a few hours, but for sure by the next day I would have opened the document and began doing a search for “Deshawn.” Begun reading his dialogue from the perspective of a Black person.

And been properly mortified.

As a result, I would have made the “serious” editing, and reuploaded the manuscript.

All because the commenter remained calm, didn’t make false assumptions out of her emotional state, and used honey to get me to see my mistakes.

The principle of catching more flies with honey should be the go-to any and every time anyone – especially a believer – has a difference of opinion with somebody else. And if you are a believer, you shouldn’t even say anything unless the Lord, not your emotions, is prompting you to.