As I was walking away, a gentleman shouted to an American of Hispanic descent, "no one invited you to come to this country!" I tapped the gentleman on the shoulder and mentioned that there was a lady with a torch in New York City who would disagree with him. This began a fairly impassioned, yet civil, discussion. I agreed that current immigration laws are not being enforced to the extent that they could be. The gentleman agreed that even the most recent legal immigrants have the same rights that he and I inherited from ancestors who emigrated here generations ago. Maybe it was the impassioned civility, or the fact that protestors from both camps began to circle us like it was a street fight, but the media began to shoot video and take photos of our discussion. Eventually, the gentleman I was talking with was engaged in conversation with another protestor. As I began to leave, one of the photographers asked me for my name. At that point I realized that my brief conversation had become news-worthy.
A couple hours later I realized how news-worthy my walk past the Supreme Court had been. When I Googled my name I discovered that a couple different photos of the event had been spreading across the online news media. The Daily Mail, Voice of America, and Yahoo News were just a few of the outlets that had posted my name and photo with their coverage of the Supreme Court hearing. Now this is where I could do a little proselytizing of my own about immigration reform, but I have to say that immigration is not the thing I keep thinking about today.
First, I question the thought process used to caption the photos of me showing up all over the internet. Any photo that had my name associated with it had me labeled as an opponent of the Arizona immigration law. No one asked me my position. At no time in my discussion with the gentleman at the Supreme Court did I say I supported or opposed any position. I merely questioned this gentleman's argument. I could have just as easily encountered an opponent of the law and asked him to make his argument in English. Too many of the opponents were preaching to the choir, and were not trying to persuade their opponents or even the undecided.
Second, I keep going back to my college speech classes and remembering how important body language is in a discussion. The reason for this is that I have seen two different photos of the discussion on the web. In one photo I am leaning back listening to the gentleman make his argument. Of course, that is how I see it since I was there and I know what I was thinking. With more objective eyes, I see myself shrinking from a strong forceful argument. In the other photo I am in a more aggressive posture, with my finger in the other gentleman's face. In my memory, I was pointing at him when I was referring to him or his argument. While I know that both photos were mere slivers from a longer moment, I will be working on using more open handed, and less aggressive, hand gestures in my face to face communications.
If you want to see how I am doing with my gestures, just ask me about immigration reform the next time we are face to face.
