T.I. feels the candidate on the right has better odds of becoming President than Hillary Clinton.
This week, hip hop artist T.I. shared his riveting thoughts about why he will not vote for a female president: “Not to be sexist [Oh, that’s never a good sign when a sentence starts there], but I can’t vote for the leader of the free world to be a woman,” he said. “Just because, every other position that exists, I think a woman could do well. But, the president? It’s kinda like, I just know that women make rash decisions emotionally – they make very permanent, cemented decisions – and then later, it’s kind of like it didn’t happen, or they didn’t mean for it to happen. And I sure would hate to just set off a nuke.” He then went on to add that he thought the Loch Ness monster had a better chance of getting elected than a woman.
So many ways to slice and dice those comments, but since T.I. does not write laws or vote on bills, most of them are moot. There were two things that did jump out at me, though.
First, it’s fascinating that we all make assumptions about groups of people based on the relatively small sample size of those we interact with or know personally. Understandable, since we are all limited by our life experience. This reaffirms for me why reading is so vital; it exposes us to thoughts and worlds that we never dreamed of, so we can gain empathy and understanding. Maybe Santa should put a biography of [Queen Victoria, Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel] in T.I.’s stocking this year.
Second, I am absolutely stumped why emotion is equated with weakness, and why I still hear men insist they are exempt from the messy dump heap that is human feeling. No such luck.
I suppose T.I. is referring to those moments when the women in his life fight, cry, scream, storm off, etc. But if you’ve ever witnessed a car accident between two scared, hot-headed men, you know damn well that voices will be raised and fists might fly. Just for the record: that’s an emotional response. And let’s not forget that men commit most of the crime in this country. For example, 96% of murder suicides are committed by men (per the American Psychological Association). Also an emotional response.
Suppressing emotion is not the answer; that merely exacerbates our problems. After all, emotion is not a failing. Fear makes you run. Anger makes you act. Sadness makes you cry, which is a proven stress reliever.
The answer is to learn and practice emotional intelligence, so that what we’re feeling can be directed in a healthy direction, instead of, you know, venting about women on the radio and making asses of ourselves. Hard to do, admittedly. That’s why emotional intelligence is an issue that many schools are trying to tackle. I admire school administrators and teachers who try to teach negotiation and compromise, compassion and empathy. And I’m equally dismayed when I see parents argue that all of those lessons should be learned at home. That’s an impossibility. When children are at school, they are thrust into a microcosm of the larger society, and they must learn how to negotiate their way through with their dignity intact and a healthy respect for others in place.
As for T.I., he Tweeted the obligatory mea culpa. I wish he wouldn’t have. Instead, when we inevitably say something asinine that hurts or offends others, wouldn’t it be more sincere and productive to drop our defense mechanism and ask, “What is it I don’t understand? What do I need to learn?” And then help each other learn it?
