The dominant characteristic of fear-based toxic communities is the prevalence of gossip. Talking behind the back of others is a bond-breaking breach of trust. And trust is what makes communities safe and healthy for people to thrive. In this brilliant 1 minute video, @SalmaHayek describes gossip as a form of alcoholism. #ChooseLove #BeAnUpstander
Imagine what would happen if the courts could convict people on the basis of gossip. That, we understand, would be unjust. Well, gossip is like a thief – a bully that desperately tries convict to steal joy, reputations and security -- without fact, honesty or integrity.
Gossip says more about the perpetrator than the target. Behind the veil of gossip is a dark pathology – a person twisted by covetousness, jealousy and pain, in desperate need of healing.
Communities and workplaces consumed by gossip are like a bucket of crabs, tearing each other down in a king of the hill competition that leads to their collective demise. A "community" of bullies and bystanders.
Just because gossip has been normalized by the mass media, it doesn’t make it right.
🙏A great first step to loving your neighbour is to stop gossiping about them behind their back.
TRANSCRIPT OF SALMA HAYEK VIDEO BELOW:
We have to think of gossiping, as putting people down as not cool to do. Because it is not even about the person they are talking about. It is people desperate for attention that are using putting people down to have some attention and voice and it is really ugly and desperate.
I understand a lot of people are desperate to have an opinion, But find something more interesting to have an opinion about.
Anybody can have an opinion on a skirt or drinking, it doesn’t make you special that you have an opinion on that. If that is the best thing that you can have an opinion on, then something is terribly wrong with your life. You should be looking at your life before you start looking at the life of others.
And it should be looked almost as an alcoholism or something – you have to go, you have to look, you have to say something mean. There is something terribly wrong with this picture.
And because everybody’s doing it you think it is okay. It is not. Gossip is CORRUPTING YOUR BRAIN."
- SALMA HAYEK
For more on how toxic culture kills community & what to do about it, read Save Your City (Citizen's Edition) or the exclusive local government edition here (Municipal World, 2019): https://www.municipalworld.com/product/save-city-toxic-culture-kills-community/