Mean People Suck!

Out of the mouths of babes … and our elders, too.

A few years ago, t-shirts, notebooks and other items with the saying, “Mean people suck”, were very popular among the younger people (middle school students). In our grandparents’ generation, “mean” was another word for stingy, the opposite of generous.

Of all of the four traditional values, generosity is the one we have discussed the least. With all the talk in the news about the bailouts of banks, huge insurance company AIG getting billions of dollars in government money and then giving $165 million in bonuses to executives — well, greed is out. Greed and selfishness, the flip side of generosity, have always been seen as a bad trait on the reservation.

Joe the Tribal Worker is a fictional character discussed throughout our Introduction to Ethical Issues on Indian Reservations course. When asked whether they would vote for Joe, many respondents agreed with the Spirit Lake woman who wrote:

No because he will not do anything to help people out of their lifestyle or try to make changes for the better for them …. He will end up hurting the tribe because his motives are very selfish.

Like all ethical issues, everyone thinks of him/ herself as the most ethical person in the room. People like to show their generosity by giveaways, feeds. If they are a program director, you can count on them to donate money, supplies or staff time for the community health fair, sobriety ride or Head Start activities. That’s generosity, right?