When I was in junior high, one of our put-downs for each other was the word “rat.” It possibly came to us from an old Jimmy Cagney movie in which the lead character, a crook, exclaims, “You rat! You dirty rat…” (I was an adult before I discovered Cagney actually never said that—it was said by TV comedians imitating Cagney.) For those of us in junior high, “rat” was a good put-down when we wanted to say another boy was sneaky, scummy, or just plain no good.
These days, it feels like the world is full of junior high boys. Rattiness is everywhere—lots of rudeness and meanness. You hear it on talk shows, podcasts, and in interviews. Doesn’t matter if it’s coming from the right or the left. Too many folks are spending too little time thinking about what others need, and way too much time focused on themselves and their own wants—including the urge to emotionally vomit on someone else.
That’s why it cracks me up to ponder this. Take the word “consider” and stick it in front of “rat”—what do you get? Considerat. Sure, it’s really spelled “considerate,” but close enough. There’s hope! If a rat spends enough time thinking about and acting on what others need, suddenly he’s not a rat anymore—he’s considerate. Quite a transformation, right?
Even a teenage troublemaker who stops to help someone out—without worrying about getting credit—becomes considerate, at least for that moment. Honestly, it might be easier to teach teenage boys to be considerate than to get adults on board! But hey, we can all start small. Try things like:
- helping the little old lady cross the street
- taking the trash can off the street for the widow who lives next door
- stopping to help someone change a flat tire
- visiting an acquaintance in the hospital
Stories abound about people who showed consideration without even considering (see how I did that!) how important the act of kindness was. Sylvester Croom is a Black man who grew up in Mississippi. In the late 1960s, when Sylvester was entering high school, a federal court ruled that public schools had to integrate. Sylvester was a good football player. As a freshman, he wanted to play on the team. Yet challenges remained, including the fact that the team practiced 3 miles from the high school. The players had to get there on their own. The team was predominantly white, and the white boys had no trouble finding rides. That was not the case for the small minority of black players, including Sylvester. They had to walk the three miles to practice, and that walk took time. There was no way they could arrive by the beginning of practice. But that was the only choice that Sylvester and his friends had.
Yet during that first week, the mother of another player, the team’s quarterback, pulled over while Sylvester and his friends were walking. She called them over to her car and invited them in. There were several boys, enough that they filled up the back seat and still had players left over. When the back seat was full, Mrs. Bradford motioned for the others to squeeze in the front by her. Three decades later, as Sylvester recounted the story, he emphasized that what Mrs. Bradford did would not even have been considered (there’s that word again) by white society. It was out of bounds. “You just didn’t sit with no white lady,” Croom recalled. “It seems like a little thing, but that lady did something that wasn’t supposed to be done in that time, and it changed my world.”
Did it ever! That one act made the world a better place. Sylvester played football so well he earned a scholarship to the University of Alabama, becoming one of the first Black players for the legendary Paul Bear Bryant. After a standout college career, he went into coaching. Fast forward to the early 2000s, and he became the first African-American head football coach at a Southeast Conference school. His alma mater even created the Sylvester Croom Commitment to Excellence Award to honor him and other outstanding college athletes.[1]
Mrs. Bradford’s simple act changed the course of many lives. Back then, too many people treated African Americans with anything but consideration. But Mrs. Bradford picked kindness.
Like Mrs. Bradford, consideration can come from the person whom you would least expect to provide it. We have a term, “good Samaritan,” that comes from a biblical story about someone whom you would least expect to provide care and consideration for an enemy. (See Luke chapter ten in the Bible.)
Consideration is the right thing to do.
Consideration can change lives.
Consider consideration.
Mark
Dr. Mark Edge
The WorkEdge Company
Telephone: 903-245-7851
Email: workedgetexas@gmail.com
Website: www.workedgetexas.com
Author of Holy Chaos How To Walk with God in a Frenzied World
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mark+edge&crid=3B1BM6W3LHOG0&sprefix=%2Caps%2C137&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_2_0_recent
WorkEdge leverages Grammarly as a resource. While this material was not written or generated by AI, some editing was informed by Grammarly.