My spreadsheet brain

The Spur debacle and why I don’t care

The Spur debacleSo the whole Spur debacle has everyone talking and I’ve over here like, “what do you mean no more Monday burger special?!” Look, I don’t mean to sound cavalier about what went down at the eatery. In fact, I am down right appalled. But I was even more shocked at the response of South Africans – far and wide – who (get this part) was not even AT Spur at the time of the incident. That’s right ladies and gents. You were not there.

I’m going to take a gander and boldly state that majority of you do not even know the parents involved. (Are my super, amazing, psychic abilities wowing you this morning?) Your anger, however apt, is really not going to help the situation. Your opinion, however indepth, will do nothing towards building up your next door neighbor. With that said, as much as the totally unclassy behavior, displayed in the camera footage, shocked me, it honestly did not affect me to the point where I now want to boycott Spur and white people and black children and eating and (gasp) burger specials.

The thing is, readers, people are people. I’m sure there are a bunch of raving lunatics, who have yelled at each other over far less important things, in the past, and we don’t even know about it because there was no CCTV camera footage to document it. Why is this incident important? Why these people? Is it because the guy is a white man and she is a black woman? Is it because her child is almost married and his is a newborn baby? (I know, right… the way people can spin these stories, hey) Is it because it took place at Spur? Or is it because social media has the power to take an event (regardless of importance) and spread its message to millions in the blink of an eye.

The power and poison of the internet is that news and information is shared more easily. It’s not always a good thing, mind you, because everyone is just so darn opinionated now a days! Fiction becomes facts and facts become debatable and pretty soon, Helga the Housewife is an expert on criminal law. It gets even uglier when it becomes a race thing (sigh) and before you know it, we’re back in our pre-1994 mindset, acting the fool and cussing individuals that we’ve never even met, because we didn’t like what they had to say on a Facebook comment. Are we really being our best selves, right now, people?

If anything, the Spur incident has taught me a few lessons.
The main one being that I am in control of MY actions and MY reactions. No one else is.
The second one is that showing kindness and compassion, even if the other person doesn’t deserve it, is a strength and holds more power than I can even comprehend. Especially if I am doing it in the presence of my children!
Thirdly, I don’t always have to share my opinion. Like, for real, no one cares. Put it away.
And lastly, and most importantly: I really love burgers.

That is all. Moving on, shall we?

(PS: Yes, I am mildly bummed that the Spur Monday burger special will no longer be running. You can read more about that over here.)

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