Brevity is occasionally the enemy of wit.

Warning: the tenor of this article is different from the rest of this blog. That's right: SERIOUS POST. Travel on at your discretion.

 

On July 28, Shinder Purewal (@shinderpurewal on Twitter) tweeted the following item:

ShinderPurewal
Vancouver's so-called "Pride Parade" should be banned. It is vulgar...to say the least! #cdnpoli

This tweet raises many niggling questions, the most pressing being "who the fuck is Shinder Purewal?" Mr. Purewal wears many hats, but perhaps most relevantly, he was the recent Liberal candidate in the riding of Surrey North (a hop, skip and a jump away from my former ridings of Newton-North Delta and South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale). He's also a professor of political science at Kwantlen University, and his Twitter bio goes on to describe him as a "life-long learner,  ex-citizenship judge, writer, soccer dad, foodie, husband/son," and "community activist," though he's evidently very specific about which community that entails.

Since the tweet and subsequent ensuing shitstorm of bad PR went live, Mr. Purewal has further clarified his position, saying that he is opposed to "vulgar displays of open sexuality" and that he feels that he cannot take his family to the event. It's likely Purewal isn't self-aware enough to recognise the heterosexism inherent in holding up the approval of a heterosexual family as the arbiter of queer sexuality, or indeed to recognise the sticky ambiguity of a phrase like "open sexuality" in general.

It's sad that this attitude is seen as emblematic of Surrey, a place where the worst discrimination I suffered growing up was a dodgy case of indigestion after swallowing too much water at the Newton Wave Pool, but I'm less here to dwell on the nature of bigotry, accidental or otherwise -- because people have said and will continue to say far worse.

What I'd like to talk about is words.




I firmly believe, for better or worse, that Twitter is a medium that encourages people to speak before thinking. It's odd that way because the effect really should be the opposite: one would imagine that with fewer words at a person's disposal, that person would be more inclined to choose them selectively to convey intent as clearly as possible. However, it seems instead to be that people take brevity for informality, and whip off tweets as  one might make casual asides to a friend. And God knows I'm as guilty as this of anyone else; as someone who routinely sticks his foot in his mouth more than maybe anyone I've ever met, I'm sure combing my Twitter or this blog or my life would produce at least three hundred comments which would mortify and appall me.

I'm all for candour, in my life and in my online celebrities. It's the reason Amanda Bynes's Twitter is more entertaining than President Obama's. But when people take brevity and candour as synonyms, the potential for misinterpretation and hurtful remarks rises dramatically, because we fail to take into account that the sentiment we want to express, with all of its necessary qualifiers and caveats, is occasionally too complicated to discuss in 140 characters. That's why it's easy to Tweet that you're pissed at the rude hipster who coughed on your shoulder at Urban Outfitters but immensely more difficult to tweet intelligently about Darfur.

It's also easy to forget when tweeting recklessly that what might be a 140-character-or-less problem for you is not necessarily one for the hundreds/thousands of people who will hear you publicly say it. For thousands of marginalized LGBTQ, the Parade can symbolize identity, reclamation, exhibition, community, acceptance-- or marginalization, greed, body shame -- or fun, excitement, thrill. For Mr. Purewal, it means he needs to find an alternate activity for his kids for a day, like Netflixing Bride Wars or something (for which I am truly sorry because that is an awful movie that no one should have to watch).

Having tweeted about such a loaded issue also means that Mr. Purewal is now in the unenviable position of having to clarify the nuances of a position which he grossly oversimplified. It's possible that he's not very articulate even given a 140,000 character limit -- his public comments on his public comments seem to amount to "I like them as long as they don't flaunt it" -- and one would expect a professor and a politician to dodge loaded words like "vulgar" and "so-called" and "open sexuality" when speaking about a marginalised group toward which he claims to have no animosity. The point stands however that if Mr. Purewal had taken the time to compose and articulate his thoughts -- as politicians and professors should but often don't -- there would still be many people who disagreed with his views, but at least he wouldn't be dithering around now trying to clear the whole thing up as the new pariah of the Twittersphere.

I guess my point is, speak thoughtfully, and if you can't speak thoughtfully, at least tweet thoughtfully. This is something I will try to adhere to, but I shoot off at the mouth and I expect to fuck up and get my knuckles rapped. However, for your convenience, here are some things that are difficult to speak about intelligently in 140 characters or less:

• abortion
• genocide
• the state of Israel
• organized religion
• public breastfeeding
• the Holocaust
• rights of sex workers
• Canada's treatment of its First Nations people
• transmisogyny
• (_____________) this is by no means a comprehensive list.
  

If you feel compelled to tweet about these things, by all means; I'm no one's mother. But it's possible you should take the time to compose your thoughts intelligently, type them out, and then just link to them with one of those adorable tiny links people are so stoked on. And always remember, in Twitter and in life, that while it's possible your voice is valued and integral, it's just as likely that your uninformed contribution to the discussion is nowhere near as important as you believe it is. Because after all, who the fuck is Shinder Purewal?