“Honey, aren’t you just precious in your little get-up? Why, that little frock is just the cutest thing, with its little spaghetti straps and low neck line, I’ll bet anything you didn’t mean to forget your cardigan, did you, hon? Bless it, you come on over to the coat room and we’ll find you a nice coverlet for the services.”
This scene is courtesy of my memory banks, and describes the time I decided to defy my mother and act grown by wearing a sun dress to church, and was embarrassed to no end by one of the old ladies in the foyer, on the way into services, who was appalled that I would be so under-dressed, even in the Lord’s name, for a Sunday go to meeting. Instead of asserting her dominance openly (which, consequently, my mother would have done the minute she saw the sun dress anyway) the old lady used the art of “back-handed compliment” to put me in my place, by praising the very thing she intended to nail me to the wall for.
Bless her heart, I probably deserved it. I may have even been wearing white shoes before Easter, who knows. It’s tough in them congregation streets, y’all.
Here’s a example of when the backhanded compliment isn’t deserved:
The Senate Commerce Committee took time out today to recognize the trucking industry as leaders in the fight to combat human trafficking. After gushing about what a great job the industry has done to promote awareness and have specific training to prevent and combat human trafficking, in near-perfect dominant “old church lady” style, they said, “Bless their hearts, they’ve done such a great job we’re going to promote the notion that any trucker convicted of a human trafficking-related offense lose his or her CDL for life.”
Wait. What?
You just spent two hours talking about the gold standard, and testimony about this was praised and good feels were had all around and then you say, “But wait there’s more. We’re going to specifically single out the trucking industry to lifetime bans for convictions involving human trafficking. Never mind the boat captains, airline pilots, hospitality and liquor licensed establishments, cosmetology, masseurs, manicurists and a hundred other licenses used to traffiick and exploit people, we’re just going to specifically mention the truckers. Because they’re the gold standard.”
