One movie that I never tire of watching is Remember the Titans starring Denzel Washington. I love inspirational sports movies like that, and Titans provided me with many memorable scenes. One of these scenes, and I think a scene that represents the theme of the movie well, occurs after one of the team's first win of the season.
During the game, the Titans give up an early 7-0. When the Titans are on offense, Petey misses a tackle, causing the head coach, Boone, yell at him and to take him out of the game. Petey walks away dejected but is intercepted by assistant coach Yoast. Petey explains that he can't deal with Coach Boone's criticism and it just makes him play worse, so Coach Yoast tells Petey to come play for him on the defensive end (Boone is in charge of the offense, Yoast the defense). Though hesitant at first, Petey goes along with what Coach Yoast says and plays splendidly, helping lead the Titans to victory.
The next day, Coach Boone brings up Coach Yoast's move, calling it insubordination. Yoast explains that some players just don't respond well to public criticism, and that he just tells the boys what they need to know without humiliating them. Boone asks, "What boys?" and puts out that it's only the black players that Yoast seems to protect and patronize. Boone goes on to say:
"Now I may be a mean cuss. But I'm the same mean cuss with everybody out there on that football field. The world don't give a damn about how sensitive these kids are, especially the young black kids. You ain't doin' these kids a favor by patronizing them. You crippling them; You crippling them for life."
This leads me to my point. While I'm not suggesting that people be unkind and mean spirited, what I am saying is that however you act, act the same way to everybody. The context of the movie dealt with racism, but since I feel that any well-raised knows that to act differently towards one based on race, religion, sexual orientation, I want to focus on two types of people we subconsciously treat differently: the opposite gender and family.
From a guy's perspective, one of the things that kind of irritates me is when I try to talk to a guy, and he seems disinterested and unfriendly, but when that guy is with a group of girls, he's suddenly the most interesting person on the planet. I can't really speak so much for the female gender, but I've always noticed that guys tend to treat girls better than guys, as a way of trying to impress them, or even flirt with them. For instance, when I asked my dorm roommate how his midterm went, he just said, "Eh" and didn't even bother turning around to look at me. Yet, bring a couple of girls into the room, and he'll be talkative and charming. Now, there are a lot of guys who believe that women should be treated better, and I'm okay with that, but I don't necessarily agree. I've always believed in treating everybody as well as possible, and if you treat girls better than guys, then you're not making the effort to treat guys well too.
The second thing I mentioned is how we treat family. I think just about everybody acts different when they're socializing with peers, then when they're with relatives. People tend to be a little bit better in their public life than in their private life, because they can hide their lesser moments that way. One thing that I've noticed, though, is that most of the best people I know are family people. My theory for this is that how you treat your family, though it may be different, correlates with how you treat your friends. Being exposed to your family all the time growing up, that's where one practices and learns good qualities and traits. If we learn to act kind to our parents and siblings, then that naturally translates into how we act towards our friends.
Every act we may shapes who we are as a person, regardless of who we're interacting with. Thus, however you choose to act, be it towards a stranger, a family member, or a close friend, be the same to all.
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