Contributor Carole McDonnell’s short stories and essays appear online and in print, in speculative fiction, ethnic, and Christian publications. She lives in New York with her husband, two sons, and their pets. Wind Follower, published by Juno Books, is Carole’s first novel. Her voice adds plenty to our discussion, so I welcome Carole and her column Faith in Color to Allaboutrace.com.

On top of my toilet is a book by Deborah Tannen called “That’s not what I meant.” It’s not a particular favorite but it’s a book I resort to every once in a while along with my true favorite: Suzette Haden Elgin’s “The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense.”

When I was preparing this post, I went looking in my trusty Bible Concordance for Bible verses on “answer.” Yeah, I know my Bible but I often don’t know the exact Chapter and verse..so handy concordance comes in handy.

You would be amazed how many Bible verses there are about the art of answering. Tips on answering foolish folks, tips on answering non-believers, tips on answering angry types, tips on answering someone who is angry with you with a cause.

The trouble with all these verses…as far as I can tell…is that they all require taking a kind of high road. To use these answers, the answerer – you or I– has to be utterly sure that the spiritual advantages of a polite, soft, gentle, and firm answer actually exists and is actually worth it.

Or else, why do the spiritual thing? Sorry, I’m pretty carnal. I don’t like doing good things that seem to have no real tangible profit. Honestly, doing the spiritual rarely feels right. Being human, I want to answer a jerk with a tit-for-tat answer. But the Bible forbids tit-for-tatting. (I forgot where the verse is but it really really does forbid it.) I want to answer a rude person and put said jerk in her place and leave the encounter feeling equal to the idiot. Or even….even…just a teeny bit superior. But, dang, being a Christian I have to be careful about those rude answers.

Now, if angels descended from heaven and played lutes and hugged me and told me how absolutely wonderful I was to be so gentle with the idiot, perhaps I could be persuaded that there is some advantage to behaving nobly and giving the proper, kindly, well-tuned, spiritual answer.

Cases in point:

My ebuddy went to a Borders bookstore to see if her book was on the shelves. This ebuddy is pretty famous and her book should have been on the shelves. It’s pretty much a modern Afircan-American speculative fiction classic. But we black writers are always afraid they have misplaced our books in the Black session instead of the fantasy section so we periodically go to bookstores to …well…look around and set things straight. So what did the Borders clerk say? “Is it one of those self-published books?”

Now, if you don’t know the publishing biz, you probably wouldn’t take too much offense. But we writers who are published by traditional publishers know the Borders’ clerk implication. (I won’t even get into the pros and cons of self-publishing here because many black writers do self-publish. Some of those books are great. And some are utter crap.) My friend, however, is a great writer. And unfortunately she wore dreadlocks and looked like a regular person so that didn’t help her cause. The Borders clerk – oh did I forget to mention that the clerk was white?– had done the typical thing. She had assumed that a black woman writer must have self-published her book.

My friend, who has a PhD and is a professor, was in a snit. She was also in a bind. She didn’t want to assume the Borders Clerk was racist. But she also didn’t want to let the Borders Clerk get away with such a know-it-all yet ignorant comment. And she didn’t want to appear to be a touchy black woman. Ah, but how to enlighten the Borders Clerk? She left the store feeling stabbed and destroyed and hurt inside.

Second case: My lawyer.

Back in the day when cell phones were just coming into vogue, I used to work for two lawyers. Nice Jewish folks. Husband and wife. These folks are my lawyers nowadays but back then I was their secretary. A black woman client of theirs called up one day and said, “Carole, I’ll just leave my cell # so they can get back to me.” When I relayed the message to my then-boss, her reply was a nervous , “Why does she have a cell phone? Is she a drug dealer?” She asked this as if I would know. Like black drug dealers would tell regular folks about their drug dealing. Like we black folks are tight like that. And yes, she was serious!

Okay, those of you who don’t know many black folks…I’ll just say that some black folks are often the first to get the newest gadget. Back then, few folks had cell phones. But many of those folks who HAD cell phones were indeed black folks. I suppose I could have answered, “Why the hell do you think she is a drug dealer just because she has a cell phone? Would you think a white person who has a cell phone is a drug dealer?” I didn’t say that though. I merely said, “No, I don’t think she’s a drug dealer.”

I’ve always felt bad about that answer. I should’ve enlightened the woman. Because my lawyer is one of those professional women who says stuff like that and who thinks she’s enlightened about racial stuff when she really isn’t. Besides, she has that superior attitude most professionals have, the “I’m so educated therefore I know everything and you are utterly stupid compared to me” look. If you’re poor or black or not college educated or any one or all of the above, you know what I mean. Professionals love the rest of the world to know how professional they are. And honestly, professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and teachers really have to start toning down their attitude when they speak to regular folks.

Third case: Also with the same lawyer. (And honestly, they’re good folks but sometimes I really do wonder about them.)

In this third incident, I said, “I just can’t deal with my mother’s will and I can’t afford all that money for a lawyer. I guess I’ll just let the Brooklyn courts probate the estate one of these decades. I don’t care. I can wait.”

She snapped back at me: “And why do you think the Brooklyn court would probate your will?” She had a great amount of venom and superiority when she said this..

Well, the reason I “knew” that the Brooklyn court would probate a will was because if one has no lawyer – sooner or later, even if it takes twenty years– the court decides to probate the last will and testaments of people instead of leaving all these unprobated wills hanging in thin air. It’s rarely done because most folks do get their wills handled by lawyers. But lackadaisical artist type that I am, even though my mother has $10,000 in the bank and property in Jamaica, I just don’t have $4000 to pay a lawyer to get at it.

So what did I answer this lawyer? “Well, Jamie, I think they DO probate wills when folks let those things just lie around.”

Good answer. No broken friendship. No argument. And yet… And yet… although I answered her and later a doctor who does wills proved her wrong to her own satisfaction I still feel the sting of her original snap. I still feel vaguely destroyed. I still feel vaguely inferior to her. I still feel I should have said something more in the vein of, “And why do you NOT think the Brooklyn courts would probate it? Wow, where did you learn about law?” Then I would have hung up the phone and spitefully left her to seethe in my superiority. But no!!! I had to be polite.

Now, I have to get an annual checkup. But I’m still kinda peeved at the doctor who treated my mom in the nursing home. I won’t tell you the various incidents. Sufficeth to say the guy was my doctor until I saw his true colors, heard his professional superiority, and decided I’d rather have another doctor. I wonder how many doctors realize that people have died rather than go back to doctors. I wonder how many white doctors know what their black patients go through in order to see them, in order to investigate them, in order to trust them. I wonder how many teachers understand that some minority kids have made inner vows declaring, “I will NOT learn from you.” I wonder how many psychotherapists understand that their Christian patients are only telling them half the truth in their sessions.

Professionals need to learn to speak. Then we wouldn’t have to learn how to answer them.

A soft answer turns away wrath Proverbs 15:1

Know how ye ought to answer every man… Colossians 4:6

Answer a fool according to his folly, else he be wise in his own eyes.Answer not a fool according to his folly, else thou also be like him Prov 26:5

Lord, so much in life is full of the study of warfare. We study how to answer. We study how to answer to destroy. We study how not to accidentally hurt others. We study how to heal from cruel answers. How tiresome and wearying it all is! I love you and I long for heaven my true home, for the place where the spirits of just and kind people live, for that time when loving conversation is normal, when we will live life daily with joy and without fear of being emotionally or physically harmed. Lord, I long for peace on earth when nations – and regular folks– will study war no more. And please, when I act decently and behave nobly instead of giving the cruel hard-hitting retort, please show me that you’ve seen my actions. I’d like to know that you at least know I have strength and power…even if it’s just the power not to be cruel. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.