People Worthy of Respect

One of the things I have noticed is that young people (and I notice this much among young social deviants) demand respect. If there is one word social deviants know it is the word respect. They use it quite a lot, and the threshold at which they can feel disrespected is rather low. It takes nothing for a member of one of the gangs hugging the corners of our Caribbean avenues to feel "dissed" or disrespected by anyone in society- they can feel disrespected if a young, beautiful girl whose attention they have been trying to attract as she passes along from college on her way home refuses to give them her time and attention-. It would not take long for the catcalls to become words of insult and derision. They feel disrespected. The list of things under which one can be deemed disrespectful is long and broad: parents can be accused of disrespecting one of these youngsters for simply refusing to answer one of his questions, or for failing to respond to any of his demands. Teachers can be accused of disrespecting them for refusing to react to one of their confrontational attempts, and officers of the law can be deemed disrespectful for issuing a warning.
 Respect is an important matter in any society. People must be respected. The problem is that most of us tend to respect persons for the one, and often only the one thing we truly know about them. We know that they have a respectable position is society; we know they are famous or popular; we know they  accomplished some outstanding feat, or have done something out of the ordinary. If we were to look at why we feel this sense of respect for some of these people, we will discover that we know very little else about them, and this, I believe, is the primary reason we feel so disappointed when any among such persons behaved terribly and let us down. If we had genuinely known this person beyond of the single respectable deed or act for which we knew and admired him or her, it is doubtful whether we would have felt any respect for that individual at all.