#nonconfrontational

There's benefit to firmly standing by your own principles as an example to others, and there is also benefit to treading carefully enough that you can maintain connections with others who feel differently than you about certain issues so that you'll have the chance to influence each other's perspectives in the future.

The extremes of this spectrum are cutting off every person you know who behaves in a way you disagree with on one end and caving to social pressure on everything on the other, neither of which are good for you or the issues you care about in my opinion.

I have my own set of techniques that I use to try and maintain friendships while also standing by my principles in a practical way.

For example, I am currently doing my best not to shop anywhere blacklisted by the BDS boycott for Palestine.

What do I do if someone has brought me a sandwich from McDonald's?

Well, from a practical perspective, the "damage" has been done, i.e. the person has already given money to an organization that I'm trying to boycott because of their complicity with the genocide in Palestine.

If I immediately respond negatively, from the other person's perspective, they were just trying to do a nice thing for me, and I criticized them for it. So if I were to do that, not only is the harm already done from the perspective of my principles, I have now potentially harmed my friendship with the other person who may not know about the boycott or may not be able to conceptualize how buying a sandwich can hurt people an ocean away (i.e. they're not a bad person but they don't fully understand the issue).

In situations like that, I usually don't say anything in the moment, but I try to bring it up later in a different context that puts some distance between the incident and the information I want to give them so that they don't feel attacked (they may have even forgotten they bought me a sandwich) and because what I want to migitate is the potential of future harm from the perspective of my principles, i.e. I don't want this person to keep bringing me McDonald's sandwiches because they don't know I have an issue with it.

Usually I'll either bring it up in passing when I see an opportunity (ex: we're talking about world events, the genocide comes up, and I'll be like "Yeah, McDonald's, Starbucks, and a bunch of pizza chains are apparently complicit with that,"), or I'll bring it up like a wild fact I just heard so that it feels like the information is new to both of us, and therefore I'm not trying to act superior by conveying this knowledge (ex: "Did you know McDonald's, PUMA, and Starbucks are apparently complicit in the genocide too? Like why does McDonald's care about Israel???").

The point of this is to present information in a way that isn't so abrasive that people become uncomfortable talking to/hanging out with me because a big part of activism is being able to work with and converse with a wide range of people, and also personally, I don't want to be cutting off friends left and right just because they're unaware of the issues, or not able to fully understand the issues. Those things don't make someone bad or unreachable. There are, of course, limits to that. I won't end a friendship over eating at McDonald's, but I would over a friend joining the KKK. Those are different magnitudes of things for me, and with the latter, I can't really believe that the person doesn't understand the harm they're doing.

At the same time, I want to reduce the real harm that I may associate with another person's actions to whatever practical degree I can, which in this case means I want to give them information that will encourage them not buy me food from places on the BDS boycott list without being rude, and hopefully by gently informing them about the BDS boycott, they will choose to participate in it too.

In any case, I think this has more of a chance of convincing the other person to change their behavior (while also doing the most to preserve our personal relationship) than having a direct confrontation about it in the moment would.

I know there are people who feel so extremely that they'd call me a sellout for not immediately refusing to eat the sandwich, but the fact of the matter is that refusing to eat it is 1) only symbolic at that point. It's not eating the sandwich that does the harm; it's giving the money to the company that makes the sandwich. That has already been done. 2) can only upset my friend who tried to do a nice thing for me, and with enough repeated negative experiences like this, they may eventually decide I am impossible to hang out with and that they no longer want to listen to me at all.

"What the heckle bro! Leave me out of this!"

I’m a fairly non-confrontational person unless I’m in my shower. No one is safe from the feuds that I’m willing to start from the bathroom. 

In my shower, I’m a criminal justice lawyer, human rights activist, bully stopper, and pedophile catcher. 

Most of the people in my shower are horrendous. Some are sexist pigs who I encounter in line at the Starbucks in my shower. Others are judgemental teenage girls who side-eye me while talking smack with their little Tic Tac teeth. 

Witnesses record as I confront my daily shower demons in a viral video that inevitably gets picked up by The Today Show, where I’m invited to speak with Hoda Kotb about how brave I am. 

My shower arguments are usually with strangers. But now and again I’m confronted by a relative who said something so passive aggressive one Christmas that I’m forced to confront her shower ghost at least once a quarter. 

Occasionally, the people that live in the apartment above me will force their way into my shower. I skip the pleasantries and get straight to the verbal filleting. 

“Your stomping has got to end. It sounds like you’re wearing cement shoes up there!” To which they say, “There’s no such thing as cement shoes, bitch!” or “What are you insinuating, bitch?” 

They always call me bitch. 

To which I cooly reply, “I'm not insinuating anything. I’m s-a-y-i-n-g, you are too loud, and that I’ve reported you to the international counsel of apartment justice... Who’s the bitch now?!?!” 

The offenders (i.e., the people in my life who are wrong) always get pretty steamed and fully obliterated by my wit and sarcasm and insults. 

It’s not always fun and games though. Sometimes I get so caught up in my arguments that I condition my hair before shampooing or cut a chunk of my leg off with my razor.