Classless

As the old Sir Francis Bacon quote goes, “knowledge is power”. While that may be true, knowing something doesn’t necessarily give you the right to exploit it for personal financial or political gain. But people make choices, right or wrong, and there’s nothing you can really do, other than call them out when you disagree, knowing that it’s unlikely anything, other than the expression of some righteous indignation, will come of it.

That’s where I’m at today.

In this post yesterday the blog that bills itself as the home of controversy wrote that Memphis City Councilwoman Wanda Halbert would be fired from her job at FedEx.

Now certainly, if this happened it would be news. But to the best of my knowledge, it hasn’t happened, which makes it gossip.

Gossip needn’t be false to be evil – there’s a lot of truth that shouldn’t be passed around.

I don’t know if this is true or not, but I do know one thing, passing crap like this around is, if not evil, pretty damn rude and self-serving.

Sure, Wanda Halbert is a public official, but she’s also a person, with all the positives, negatives, trials and tribulations that we all, as people have. By running a rumor as inevitability, the author has ignored that humanity for the sake of self-promotion, and that’s just classless.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with someone. Certainly, I have disagreed with Ms. Halbert on many occasions, and will likely do so again. What matters is that you, at least try to treat people with dignity and respect, regardless of your opinion of them, or their opinions.

I haven’t always done that, I know. We all slip from time to time. But in the end you have to ask the question, “What is the net impact of this information.” And if you’re the only one who benefits, then perhaps you should tuck it in your pocket and take a lap, or call the individual personally rather than using it as a platform for self-aggrandizement.

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