Category: In the News

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In the News Politics

Swamp Report: It’s Time to Change the Conversation

I reel in disbelief every time I hear a news commentator, nightly panelist, newspaper writer, or social media pundit pose the question “Is Donald Trump unfit to serve as President?” Trump answers that question every long, scandal-filled day. YES, he’s unfit. Next question?

Trump proved his unfitness when he publicly mocked a disabled reporter. He proved it when he encouraged physical assault at his campaign rallies. He proved it in the Access Hollywood tape. He proves it every morning with his pre-adolescent tweets. He proves it every time he speaks, with his third-grade vocabulary and schoolyard bully tone of voice. He proves it every time he attacks another government official or private citizen. He proves his unfitness each time he is declined representation by a reputable law firm. He proves it again and again in his rambling rants and his inability to focus on governance. He proves it most stunningly in his gross and utter ignorance of governance and of our constitution. He proves it by his obsession with Fox News and his preference for receiving his information from Sean Hannity et al. instead of from classified intelligence briefings. He proves it by his multiple violations of the Emoluments Clause. He’s a pathological liar, a crooked businessman who’s not nearly as successful as he has always portrayed himself to be, and a person with no conscience. When someone shows you who he is, the intelligent thing to do is believe him.

And there’s the problem. Millions of American voters see and hear the same things, yet a large contingent of that body continue to defend Trump’s fitness for the highest office in our government. And the question that haunts the rest of us is “Why?”

I loathe Donald Trump and everything he represents. My soul longs for the days of intelligent leadership. I broke down in tears while watching David Letterman’s recent interview with Barack Obama. Hell, I even find myself getting nostalgic over photos of George W. Bush. But Donald Trump is not the problem. I didn’t always loathe him. Before the infamous escalator ride, he was the same con man he is today, but I vacillated between feeling disgusted with him and being mildly amused by his tabloid antics. Mostly, when his life had no effect on mine, I paid no attention to what he did or said or how many women he slept with.  Donald Trump was simply irrelevant.

Trump declared his intention to run for  president because he believes he is uniquely qualified for the position, but that doesn’t offend me. He’s a narcissist; of course he thinks he’s qualified. Delusional people throughout history have claimed to be Jesus; dictators have believed they were heaven-ordained to wield life-and-death power over millions. And narcissist or not, we’re all entitled to dream. Dreaming alone doesn’t win elections. What decides elections is supporters and voters who buy into someone else’s dream. To borrow a line from Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” Bear with me here, but I’d like to say, “The fault, dear Americans, is not in Donald Trump but in ourselves, that we are in a state of chaos and in danger of destroying our democracy.”

So the real question is not “Is Donald Trump fit for the presidency?” (he’s not) but “Are we fit to choose a president?” Right now, the answer to the second question is pretty disturbing.

The obscenity of a Donald Trump presidency lies not in the person who occupies the Oval Office but in the electorate who put him there. The dark underbelly of American history and culture is on full display, and it’s ugly. There’s much to discuss about what’s wrong with Donald Trump, but protracting that discussion is futile and will do nothing to heal what’s really wrong with our country. The conversation that needs to happen now is what’s wrong with us and what we can do to heal ourselves. If we can answer those questions, we won’t have to worry about another Trumpian dictator being elected president.

The swamp that needs draining is not the White House; it’s not even Washington, DC. It’s every nook and cranny of this country where a snake oil salesman can win the electoral college vote. Where opposition to political correctness carries more weight in choosing a president than respect for knowledge and experience. Where guns are glorified and protected over children’s lives. Where being “pro-life” means opposing abortion but not giving a damn about people who are already born. Where the people who claim the inside track to God (Evangelicals) elevate to the level of spiritual prophet a thrice-married adulterer who brags about his exploiting of numerous women and who pays those women to stay quiet, does business with thugs, doesn’t pay his bills, lies as easily as he breathes, and displays no respect or compassion for other humans. It just doesn’t get any swampier than that.

And let’s go ahead throw in Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and all of the other corrupt leaders currently running our congress and serving in it. They’re reprehensible, but they are there because people keep electing them. If they were back home being private-citizen wackos, I might feel a tiny twinge of sympathy for them; but as long as they are leaders in our government, I can find only disgust for them and animosity for the people who elect them.

Donald Trump, and others in “the swamp,” have shown us who they are. Believe them. Then stop the endless conversation of analyzing and agonizing over why Trump does each little thing you hear about on the news. He does what he does because he is who he is. But who are we? That’s a conversation worth having.

Let’s take a moment to recap. So far, we have that Washington, D.C. is a swamp because the rest of the country–where the voters live–is a swamp. It’s us, not them. We need to talk about that. Spoiler alert: I have no magic formula to offer that will drain the Everytown USA Swamp. I do, however, have some ideas for conversation starters. First, a forgotten word in our culture is “compromise”; we should look into that. Second, the ground rules for our conversation should include forbidding the use of any of these words: “Democrat,” “Republican,” “liberal,” “conservative,” “left,” “right,” and any others that denote entrenched attitudes and opinions that are off the table. The conversation has to center on common ground, what we all want, not what one group wants; and nothing can be off the table.

Restoring a spirit of compromise requires letting go of the idea that we all have to hold the same opinions or live by the same rules. We need to find a lot more Barbara Bushes, who disagreed with her party’s stance on abortion but continued to support the overall party platform and its candidates–until they completely lost their minds and nominated the snake-oil salesman for president. Mrs. Bush’s pro-choice stance placed her at odds with both her husband and her son’s public positions; yet she passionately loved and supported them both. The singer and activist Bono once told George W. Bush that Bush’s mother helped diminish the stigma of AIDS and other diseases. Many who share Mrs. Bush’s stated religious beliefs are the ones who created that stigma, yet this noble woman was able to maintain her personal faith and ties to those who shared her faith while  also extending grace, compassion, and respect to suffering people. Mutual respect is the missing element in most of today’s conversations about divisive issues.

I’m a registered Democrat, and I don’t fully agree with my party’s position on abortion; but I support the Democratic Party and respect my fellow Democrats’ opinions because I believe we’re correct on more issues than not. I don’t need to agree with my tribe on every point; I can respect other liberals and hope they respect me and acknowledge my right to see certain things a little differently. It’s unrealistic to think everyone, even within a party, will see every issue exactly the same way.

I believe the government should butt out of people’s love lives. However, butting out means butting out, not just taking the opposite side. If a pastor feels deeply that he/she cannot in good conscience officiate a same-sex marriage, leave him/her alone! Plenty of pastors, justices of the peace, and friends willing to obtain an online officiant license will be delighted to perform the wedding. If I were part of the LGBTQ community and wanted to get married, I certainly would not want to have the joy of my wedding day dampened by an officiant who was there only because he/she was forbidden by law to decline. And in the case of a pastor, a pastor who declines performing the wedding is unlikely to welcome the happy couple into membership, so what’s the point? Many churches are inclusive; go find one. If a baker or florist doesn’t wish to be involved, find one that does. A wedding day should be a joyful occasion; everyone involved should share the joy and affirmation of the union. After enough bad publicity, those bakers and florists will see the results in their declining client base. So be it.

I hasten to add that pastors, bakers, and florists are private citizens, who I believe should be allowed to exercise and do business according to their private beliefs–however distorted those beliefs may seem to others. However, government officials, such as Kim Davis, the Kentucky woman who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, must be required to act in accordance with the laws, not their personal beliefs. I believe Kim Davis private citizen could refuse to officiate the wedding, bake the cake, or arrange the flowers; but Kim Davis public official had no right to use her government position to impose her personal beliefs on others.

Donald Trump ascended to the presidency by eschewing political correctness and inciting his rabid mobs to echo that line. For the most part, I believe the political correctness backlash was hogwash. What that group calls political correctness I call kindness, respect, and courtesy. Every now and then, however, I hear something that I think crosses the line between respect and absurdity; and on those occasions, I have a smidgen of appreciation for the Trump supporters’ scornful rejection of political correctness. Political correctness is disrespect for any opinion except the “correct” one. But who gets to decide whose opinion is the correct one, and what do we gain by fighting over it? Political correctness is in some cases a form of forced agreement, and why must we all agree? Can’t we find ways to respect each other without agreeing on every point?

If I were to hold the private opinion that all houses should be built of wood and painted yellow, lots of people would disagree with me and probably find me a bit wacky; but my opinion should be acknowledged and not denigrated, and I should not be made to feel like a defective person for my belief. If, however, I spray paint nasty messages on my neighbors’ brick or stucco houses, I’ve crossed the line between holding a weird opinion and abusing and assaulting my neighbors. The same is true if I take it upon myself to repaint other wood houses to my “correct” color. I shouldn’t be required to change my opinion in order to be respected, but I should be required to allow others the same right I claim for myself.

One of my favorite photos is the one in which Michelle Obama is hugging George W. Bush, and both are smiling with what appears to be genuine affection. It might be difficult to find two people with more divergent opinions on a wide range of social and political topics, but this photo captures the spirit of human beings celebrating what unites them, not focusing on what divides them. We need more such photos.

We need more friendships like the friendship between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill, described by Mr. O’Neill’s son Thomas in a 2012 New York Times article titled “Frenemies: A Love Story.” The younger O’Neill writes about others who have observed the irony that “the relationship between Reagan and my father, a Democrat who was speaker of the House for most of Reagan’s presidency, should serve as a model for how political leaders can differ deeply on issues, and yet work together for the good of the country.” Let that sink in: “differ deeply on issues” and “work together for the good of the country.” Thomas O’Neill also writes, “While neither man embraced the other’s worldview, each respected the other’s right to hold it. Each respected the other as a man.” And those last two sentences articulate precisely what is missing today, not only in our nation’s capital but more importantly in Everytown USA.

The article makes clear that although Reagan and O’Neill couldn’t be considered close friends, they more than once sat down together at the White House for drinks after each had spent the day fighting adamantly for his cause. Their devotion to the common good didn’t prevent either of them from expressing an honest opinion about the other. O’Neill is quoted as calling Reagan “a cheerleader for selfishness” and Reagan as comparing O’Neill to the Pac-Man character, “a round thing that gobbles up money.”

But here’s the part we so desperately need today:

“Such unyielding standoffs [this follows a long list of examples] were, in fact, rare. What both men deplored more than the other’s political philosophy was stalemate, and a country that was so polarized by ideology and party politics that it could not move forward. There were tough words and important disagreements over everything from taxation to Medicare and military spending. But there was yet a stronger commitment to getting things done. That commitment to put country ahead of personal belief and party loyalty is what . . . millions of Americans miss so much right now.”

Indeed we do miss leaders who are willing and able to compromise for the sake of “getting things done,” who are capable of “commitment to put country ahead of personal belief and party loyalty.”

Now here’s the catch: We’ll never get leaders who respect each other and work toward the common good until the voters who elect those leaders can make the “commitment to put country ahead of personal belief and party loyalty.” When citizens of Everytown USA cease to be “polarized by ideology and party politics,” we’ll start electing that kind of leaders. As it is, we elect leaders bent on carrying out our polarized beliefs; hence, Donald Trump. As I’ve often said, and many others have also said, Trump is the effect, not the cause. It’s high time we start examining the causes and turning the conversation toward fixing ourselves.

The DC Swamp is out of control, and there’s only one way you and I can change that situation. We have to start by draining our own little swamps, changing the conversation in our own corner of the world. Different world views have existed as long as the world has turned on its axis, and humans will disagree for as long as at least two people remain on the planet. The only thing anyone has control over is how those disagreements are handled. It’s time to change the conversation. It’s time to listen more and talk less. It’s time to allow others to hold opinions at opposite poles from our own yet extend to them the same respect we demand from them. It’s time, as Thomas O’Neill says, even when we can’t embrace another’s worldview, to respect the other’s right to hold it, to respect the other as an equal person.

If you’re saying to yourself right now, “Yeah, that’s what those other people need to do,” you’re part of the problem. Think about it.

 

 

Categories
In the News Politics Religion

Hurricanes, Hubris, and Humanity

On Sunday, September 10, 2017, I had an orchestra-level seat for what was promised to be the most spectacular show Mother Nature has ever produced in this section of the world. Hurricane Irma—or just Irma in Florida talk—having already decimated a few islands in the Caribbean and the Florida Keys, roared toward my coast of the Florida mainland with Category 4 intensity. By the time it reached my neighborhood, it had weakened to Category 2—still enough to do major damage and, if the forecasts regarding storm surge had become reality, enough to flood every house in my community. A slight last-minute shift to the east spared us such catastrophic results. My home and my neighbors’ homes are all intact; and even though our yards look like war zones, we have much to be grateful for.

I took shelter at my oldest son’s house, which is farther inland than mine and built like a small fortress. Because of the wind direction and the shape of the house, we were able to watch all but the final, and fiercest, 20 to 30 minutes from a secure corner of his front porch. As I stood there beholding in awe giant trees blown about like small daisies and a probably 40- to 50-foot pine gradually lose its grip on the earth and finally topple to the ground, my philosophical mind reflected on the awesome power of nature and the place of human beings in the grand scheme of the universe. And I marveled that any species of creature could ever have been given to such hubris as to believe we could control those forces being unleashed before my eyes.

That spectacle affirmed for me once again that modern humans, although we arrogantly fancy ourselves the smartest creatures ever to grace Planet Earth, often live like the dumbest. We have built a world dependent on electricity and technology, oblivious to the fact that one act of Nature can plunge us right back into the primordial darkness from whence we emerged. Yet unlike our more primitive ancestors, or even some contemporaries in less “developed” countries, we are woefully under-equipped to live in such conditions. We sometimes can’t even figure out what to do when one traffic light is out at an intersection. Throughout my four days without electricity in the wake of Irma, I mechanically flipped switches in my house with one hand even while holding a flashlight in my other hand—so habitual is our dependence on humanly generated power.

In our hubris, we modern humans have considered ourselves the most powerful forces in the universe. Watching Irma’s strength up close was a graphic reminder of how weak and impotent we really are. In our hubris, we have forgotten the only power we have in the universe lies in respect for and cooperation with Nature; yet we instead live in defiance of Nature, as if we fancy ourselves more powerful than wind, fire, and water. We’re not.

Living in harmony with nature and in community with fellow humans are habits which primitive peoples practiced instinctively. We modern humans build buildings that rely on artificial climate control to be habitable, so Nature has to keep reminding us of our foolishness by periodically turning off the juices on which we depend for survival; then as soon as the crisis has passed, we revert to our old habits and take refuge in the hubristic belief that we’re in control. We’re not.

What can be learned from Irma and from her concurrent natural disasters in other parts of our country and the world?

A good place to begin is learning the difference between the word “believe” and the expression “believe in”; in other words, the difference between science and theology. “Believing in” implies choosing to believe as fact something not supported by factual evidence. Humans choose to believe in God or not believe in God; and although both groups cite evidence, little of it is factual. “Believing in” is in general a theological term; it applies to the existence of God, along with the tenets of the specific system of theology to which one ascribes. “Believing in” does not apply to scientific information.

The options for scientific data are either believing the facts as presented or disbelieving one set of facts and rebutting it with another set of facts which one considers more reliable and accurate. Citing some vague theological principle in refutation of scientific data is not an intelligent option; it is evidence of gross ignorance and irresponsibility, and such ignorance endangers our planet and the future of its human habitation.

Every natural disaster—hurricane, earthquake, flood, fire—turns on the chorus of ignorant voices proclaiming that such disasters are wake-up calls from God, because God is pissed at us for allowing gay people to get married and allowing fetal humans to be aborted. God is raining down judgment upon us for failing to follow what those people believe are God’s laws.

I agree natural disasters are wake-up calls, but what we need to wake up to is not some angry God meting out justice on disobedient human beings. What we need to wake up to is our own arrogance, selfishness, and irresponsibility. We have to wake up to the fact that, in our relationship with nature, our only control is respect.

After every disaster, those voices proclaim, “This is not the time to talk about climate change.” If not now, when? What time would you like to discuss the abundance of scientific data that tells us the results of our hubris and our reckless lifestyles? Perhaps after all of the debris piles have been cleared, the roofs replaced, and the demolished structures rebuilt? Would that be a better time to have the discussion? When Harvey and Irma are just names in the history books and recalcitrant humans have returned to their “normal” lives, Harvey and Irma just unpleasant memories—flukes which “couldn’t possibly” happen again?

Smart people called scientists have been telling us for years that natural disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity, and they’ve been telling us why: our climate is changing, and humans are a large part of the cause. Our hubristic defiance of nature has caused us to live recklessly, placing personal comfort above care for our home planet and the more than 7 billion other people with whom we share it.

Ignorant people continue to parrot the angry-God theory over the careless-humans theory, and we all suffer the consequences of that ignorance. And just a quick question to myself and others who smugly proclaim intelligent belief of scientific data: How has that belief altered the way you’re living your life? Yes, I believe what scientists say; but no, I have not done as much as I could do to educate myself on what I as an individual should be doing in response to that information.

Many of the people who scoff at climate change science scream from their soap boxes about aborted babies; yet the same science which peeks into the womb and gives us a day-by-day report of what goes on during those 40 weeks which each of us spent in utero tells us we’re in imminent danger if we don’t do something to reverse climate change. The same science that allows meteorologists to track hurricanes and predict with a fair degree of accuracy where, when, and with what intensity they will strike tells us we’re part of the cause. Science is science. Humans don’t get to cherry pick which parts to believe and which parts to dismiss. My denial or your denial does not change facts.

Humans need to adjust their theology. Not everyone will choose to believe in God, but those who do believe need to review their concept of who and what God is. If I saw God as the angry old man raining down judgment and punishment on disobedient humans, I’d probably join the ranks of unbelievers. An angry God conjuring up disasters and then dispatching them as revenge upon rebellious mortals is the stuff of mythology. God does not create hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, floods, tsunamis, or any other nature-gone-wild event; such things are the result of natural forces. This is God, according to my theology:

You do not send us devastating winds and floods, or make the earth to shake; but you do stand with those who know fear in the face of the storm, and those who must rebuild after devastation. You stand with the victims of this earth, whatever calamity they experience, and you send the faithful into a shattered world to extend your love, grace, mercy, and life-saving acts to all in need. God reaches into the lives of all who suffer and tells them in myriads of ways that they are not alone. (Excerpted from the Affirmation of Faith in the Covenant Presbyterian Church liturgy one week after Irma struck)

May we all have the good sense to let science be science and theology be theology and never conflate the two, and may we resolve to give more than lip service to scientific fact. Belief that does not lead to action is not belief.

The most basic lesson of disaster is that humans need to return to living in community. We have to care for those beyond our own four walls, acknowledge that the least among us are our neighbors too, and know that we’re all on this ride together. If one of us fails, we’ve all failed.

Every hurricane results in a few new tweaks to the building codes, ensuring that the most affluent among us will be more protected during the next disaster; yet those codes and standards do not apply to the shacks inhabited by the least among us—which on their best days would barely survive a hard sneeze, much less a Cat 1 hurricane. A Cat 4 or 5 would level entire communities. We know that, but what are we doing with the knowledge?

I recall hearing my grandparents talk about barn raisings and quilting bees. Neighbors gathered to help neighbors, because their generation focused on the safety of the entire community, not just that of their own families. When did our focus shift? When did our hubris lead us to believe our own lives and the lives of our immediate family members are all that matter?

An essay in an old textbook from which I taught years ago suggests the shift occurred in the 1950s, with the architectural change from front porches to backyard patios. The hubristic belief that we are self-sufficient and no longer need to rely on our neighbors caused a cocooning trend. Front porches welcomed friendly interaction among neighbors and strengthened the sense of community. Rear-facing patios sent the message: “Leave me alone. I’m not available.” That theory may or may not be accurate, but no intelligent person can deny we have become an individualistic culture, with a weak sense of responsibility for each other and, most tragically, for the least among us.

I’ve learned much this week about community. In Irma’s wake, my neighbors and I shared resources since we all spent four days without electrical power; some neighborhoods are still without power one week since the storm passed. Here in my little corner, one neighbor had a generator, so she charged my phone each morning. I have a gas stove—a rarity in Southwest Florida—and a French press, so I made coffee for her. The neighbors who evacuated to another state asked us to check their freezer and use whatever was still good but wouldn’t last until their return. On the first day, I made pot roast from the last three chuck roasts in my own freezer, since I was the only one with a functioning stove. Then each day I cooked the food from my neighbors’ freezer that was ready to be used and shared it in meal-size portions since we didn’t have the means to preserve leftovers.

Power restoration is a gradual process, one grid at a time; so as soon as a friend’s power was restored, he/she sent out messages or posted on social media welcoming those still without power to come over, cool off, use wifi, take a hot shower, wash a few clothes, or sleep in an air-conditioned guest room. Even as I planned to go to a friend’s house to spend a cool night, a plan which was changed by the welcome restoration of my own house’s electricity, I had to wonder about my human brothers and sisters who on their best days are not surrounded by the loving community that sustained my friends and me through a stressful ordeal. When the time came for my neighbors to empty their fridges of food about to go bad, we looked at each other, knowing the potentially stinky stuff we removed from our houses was sure to get really stinky in hot outdoor trash cans. But we agreed, “Oh, well, we’re all in the same boat. We’ll stink together!”

I wondered every day how different my life would be if my post-Irma circumstances were my normal state of existence and if, instead of being in the boat with everyone else, I was treading water beside the boat with few people offering to help rescue me. What must it be like to live every day in crisis mode while others have plenty? How would it feel to smell the aroma of food cooking all around me while I had little or nothing to feed my own family? What resentment would well up inside my soul if those enjoying their lives of plenty judged me lazy, completely at fault for my own poverty, and undeserving of their care and compassion?

Less than 40 miles to the east of my usually comfortable house live some of the hardest-working people I’ve ever met. Laziness is a luxury unknown to them. They labor hours every day for a pittance and live in dwellings which on their best days don’t compare to my house in its post-Irma state—not even close. In our hubris, we modern humans have built a social structure that ignores these fellow humans—our “other” neighbors—while still greedily accepting the tomatoes and other winter crops with which they keep us all supplied. We share resources with those in our own comfortable neighborhoods, but we selfishly fail to acknowledge that those Immokalee field workers are our neighbors, too. Shame on us! We can be better than this.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.- Mahatma Gandhi

Above all, humans MUST acknowledge that our reckless lifestyle has dire consequences. We have to relearn the wisdom of our ancestors to live in harmony with, not defiance of, Nature. I can tell you, as a member of Irma’s audience in one of the pricey seats, Nature WILL win. Every time. Our only power against Nature’s forces lies in respecting and cooperating with it.

Often during my younger years, I heard the expression “going to bed with the chickens,” which I’m told was based on creatures’ instinctive sense of harmony with nature. When the natural lights go out, they sleep; when the lights come back on, they wake and begin their daily activities. Only humans have defied nature with our artificial lights and internal climate control that allow us to live in disregard for Earth’s natural cycle. How often we forget that our safe, comfy abodes are only one natural disaster removed from those of our most primitive ancestors! Our survival depends on sharpening our own natural instincts and reducing our dependence on Earth’s non-sustainable resources.

During the almost four days I spent without electricity after Irma passed, my cell phone was my only connection to the outside world. It was charged once a day by my neighbor who had a generator, so I kept it turned off except for a few minutes at a time when I checked for messages, to make the charge last until the next morning. My son did the same; and we shared a cyber chuckle in one text message exchange that we were turning into Grandpa—my stepfather whose cell phone is always turned off except on the rare occasions when he decides to make a call on it. Fortunately, he still has a landline, but it’s a longstanding family joke that there’s no need trying to call Grandpa on his cell phone because it won’t be on. No amount of good-natured teasing or appeals to reason over the years has persuaded him to change his ways. The phone remains off.

He and my mother were children of the Great Depression; they never developed any illusions that Earth’s resources are unlimited. They knew from the time they could tie their own shoes, every pot has a bottom, and the contents are precious and not to be squandered. My generation retained that sense to an extent, thanks to our parents’ modeling. Yet many of us failed to teach it to our children, and in our old age, we’ll reap the consequences of that failure. The world will be led by our grandchildren and great grandchildren who believe environmental responsibility means placing their plastic water bottles into the recycle bin instead of the regular trash, and who will be two to three generations removed from the generation who knew better than to put water into plastic bottles in the first place.

As Irma’s fury was being unleased in Charlotte County, Florida, my family watched from our secure viewing space egrets flying about unhindered by the fierce wind. We saw three ducks land on my son’s pond, instinctively positioning themselves to face the wind, flying away only when the giant pine tree fell and startled them. My daughter-in-law’s cat didn’t manage to make it back to the house before the storm, so she found shelter in an old pickup truck and waited for my daughter-in-law to rescue her after calm had been restored. We humans have largely lost our survival instincts; those animals are smarter than we are.

I was told yesterday that the lot surrounding the mission where I volunteer in Immokalee was fairly quickly cleared of tree debris after the storm, because the poor migrant workers took the wood—not to make giant piles for overstressed city and county collectors to eventually clear away as we’ve done in my neighborhood—but to make cooking fires to feed their families while their power was out. Those people who lead such simple lives know a little something about survival that we sophisticated, “advanced” folks would do well to learn.

If we’re to survive, humans simply have to be smarter in electing those in whose hands our collective fate will be held. Anyone who doesn’t “believe in” science should be immediately disqualified. Those who don’t live in hurricane zones do live in earthquake, tornado, flood, and fire zones. All humans live on small islands of land surrounded by vast bodies of water, which together comprise almost three-fourths of our planet’s surface. Every human is at risk of experiencing Nature’s power and fury, so none of us can afford to ignore the warnings or elect foolish people to make laws and determine policies.

Belief means action. If you believe your house is on fire, you leave as quickly as possible. You’d be a fool to sit comfortably in your recliner saying, “Yep! My house is on fire.” Yet how many of us humans are sitting in our comfy houses saying, “Yep! I believe what those scientists are saying,” while making not the slightest adjustment to our lifestyles or our politics? Belief without action is not belief. And it’s not smart!

Signing off from Irmageddon! Stay safe, fellow humans, and let’s all promise to put our heads together after this to figure out how we can live smarter and more responsibly. Now IS the time to have the conversation about climate. There may not be another opportunity.

Categories
In the News Politics

Is It Fake? Or Can You Not Handle the Truth?

There’s a name for sensational information and opinion sources posing as news: we call them “fake news.” A writer who identifies as Seminole Democrat offers this definition of the term: “’Fake News’ is a very real thing. It is the publication of hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation purporting to be real news with the deliberate intent to mislead. Many fake news websites originate from Russia, Macedonia, and Romania” (“Media Bites Back,” The Daily Sentinel).

Anyone who has been marginally conscious during the last month knows one thing above all else about our new “president”: He HATES the media. His hatred extends to any news source, any reporter, and any writing which does not feed his gargantuan ego. He was so discouraged after his first four weeks in office that he felt it necessary to throw himself a great big love fest in Florida, attended by about 9000 enthusiastic rally goers who gave his spirits just the lift they needed.

Having a name for a phenomenon which is clearly a problem is good; readers need to distinguish between what is factual news and what is propaganda, and labels help us sort things out. However, Trump’s media war and his irresponsible attacks on the free press have rendered the term meaningless and left us once again without clear guidelines on what to believe and what to reject in the flood of information we encounter each day. Trump latched onto the term “fake news” like it was a stack of $100 bills and turned it into a convenient slur for any reports that cast him in an unfavorable light, of which there have been plenty.

To be fair, probably everyone reading this article has at some time criticized the media and blamed them for all that is wrong in the world. It’s a national pastime. I’ve done it. So why is it an emergency when the “president” does the same thing? Well, because he’s not really doing the same thing. Most of us have a limited audience for our rantings: a dinner party perhaps, an action group, blog readers, social media friends, students. But when the president speaks, the whole world is listening; and his words shape thoughts, opinions, attitudes, policies, and alliances or conflicts. Our nation’s chief executive is expected to speak publicly with intelligence, judgment, and diplomacy. That’s what we mean when we talk about being presidential, and those who are still expecting this “president” to pivot to presidential behavior are at best naïve.

Much as we may occasionally disdain the media, we live with the fact that without a free press there can be no democracy. What’s the old saying? Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. The press is sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate. Thomas Carlyle, in his book On Heroes and Hero Worship, attributes the origin of the term to Edmund Burke: “Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.” The three estates of Parliament to which Burke refers were the Lords Spiritual (the clergy), the Lords Temporal (the nobility), and the Commons (the commoners).

Visualize that image: Three estates were joined in the governing body, each with a voice in the political process. Removed from that triad was the fourth estate: observing, reporting, but without a direct voice in the political process. They were politically independent and were expected to speak the truth to their readers; so while the other three estates’ purview was politics, the purview of the fourth estate was truth. The fourth estate was said to be “more important far than they all” because they act as the liaison between the government and the governed. Though they have no voice in government, their voice to the governed is invaluable.

Their presence acts as another check on the governing body, providing incentive to behave ethically or face the consequence of having their transgressions made known to the public. That’s not an enviable assignment. It takes courage and conviction to report honestly and hold people accountable, knowing that one’s honesty is not going to be appreciated by those being reported on. Nonetheless, a free and independent press is at the core of any democracy.

Governments that want to shun accountability and transparency and to conduct their operations in secret make the press their first target. Of all the appalling things Trump has done during his campaign and during the first five weeks of his “presidency,” his war on the media is the most significant. He has, in the minds of his followers, so delegitimized the press that the followers will accept his lies as truth and reject the press’s truth as lies. This is a very dangerous situation, and few members of our current congress are going to do anything about it. It’s up to each of us to be informed, to be willing to call a lie a lie every time we hear one, and to stand in solidarity with the honest journalists who devote their lives to bringing us the truth.

To begin, we have to sharpen our critical thinking skills. There really is fake news, and there really is honest journalism. Believing everything one reads and rejecting everything one reads are equally naïve, lazy, and dangerous; knowing what to believe and what to reject is not for the mentally slothful. Let’s look at a completely non-political example to illustrate the differences.

Imagine that you’re 12 years old, and your parents have left you in your grandparents’ care for the day. Your grandparents instruct you at the beginning of the day that you may play unattended, but you must stay close to the house so that they can know where you are at all times. You agree and head outside. After a while, you meet some of the neighborhood kids who join you in your activities; and soon they invite you to go with them to hang out at their house and swim in their pool. That sounds like fun, so you go. An hour later, when you return, your grandparents are upset because they have been unable to find you and have been worried. Because of the safety factor (they don’t know the people whose house you visited) and the trust issue (you didn’t do what you agreed to do), they decide your parents should be informed.

Scenario One: Fake News

You really didn’t do any of this; but your grandparents are still a little miffed at you over something you did the last time you visited, so they fabricate a story for the sole purpose of getting you into trouble with your parents. Or perhaps your grandma went out to check on you, couldn’t see you for a few minutes because you were riding around the block on your bike, freaked out, and then exaggerated and embellished the story to teach you a lesson.

Scenario Two: Biased News

Your grandparents relate the facts exactly as they happened but focus on the fact that the people you visited are a different ethnicity or religion than your family is. They don’t lie, but they seem more concerned about the ethnic or religious difference than they do about the relevant factors of safety and trust.

Scenario Three: Objective Journalism

Your grandparents relate only the facts, leaving your parents to make their own decision about the gravity of the offense and what if any consequences you should incur.

Obviously the first scenario should never happen. It’s mean, unethical, and destructive. Just as obviously, the third scenario is the ideal; however, we all know that kind of reporting is probably the least common these days. The second scenario seems to be the most common. The important distinction, though, is that neither the second nor the third scenario is fake news. Both types report the facts, and a critical reader or listener can usually detect the bias and disregard it. Because fake news is either pure fiction or fiction built around a kernel of truth, and because one of the disturbing realities of our time is the low regard for fact and the high regard for anything that reinforces our previously held opinions, and because propaganda is composed with the intent to deceive, fake news is not so easily detected or rejected.

Although biased news sources attempt to influence readers toward a particular slant on the truth, fake news sources disregard truth altogether. They are operated for the sole purpose of spreading misinformation and propaganda—sometimes favoring the right, sometimes the left. They are characterized by sensational, misleading, and often downright dishonest headlines. The writers make no pretense of having vetted their information, and their readers do not require adherence to journalistic standards of investigation, use of primary sources, and vetting of sources and evidence. These sites exist only to reinforce the prejudices of their readers; and again, some are left and some are right.

CNN is not fake news; and even though I prefer CNN over Fox, I will say that Fox is not fake news. CNN leans a little left, and Fox leans a lot right, but both employ legitimate journalists who report documented information from different points of view. And calling the New York Times, one of our country’s most respected newspapers since 1851, “fake news” is just absurd! I would add that not all of those who host shows on Fox are “legitimate journalists”; but they offer opinions and would, in think, be most accurately categorized as talk shows. Talk shows are not fake news; they are sources of opinion, discussion, and entertainment and should be recognized as such.

So when DJT cries “fake news,” is the news really fake, or can the thin-skinned orange guy just not handle the truth? Well, you know what I think; and if you’ve read this far, you probably agree. Let’s all scream it together: “You can’t handle the truth, Donald!”

Here is CNN’s Don Lemon explaining to a Trump surrogate the definition of fake news:

Trump’s only defense is revenge; when you don’t have intellect, class, or integrity, all you can do is hit back at any perceived opponent. Our (yours and my) best defense, however, is knowledge. Here’s a good link recommended by one of my librarian friends on how to know the difference between fake news and objective or biased journalism: http://blogs.ifla.org/…/01/How-to-Spot-Fake-News-1.jpg

Meanwhile, Trump’s war against the media will go on. In his most shocking and egregious battle so far in that war, his administration barred news organizations from attending a White House briefing session conducted by press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday, February 24. Journalists from The New York Times, CNN, the LA Times, and Politico were told that they could not enter the briefing room because they were “not on the list.” Breitbart News was, of course, among the select groups granted admission. The New York Times’ executive editor said, “Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties.”

Never happened before. That makes this decision an historic moment. Dan Rather calls it an emergency:

The time for normalizing, dissembling, and explaining away Donald Trump has long since passed. The barring of respected journalistic outlets from the White House briefing is so far beyond the norms and traditions that have governed this republic for generations, that they must be seen as a real and present threat to our democracy. These are the dangers presidents are supposed to protect against, not create.

For all who excused Mr. Trump’s rhetoric in the campaign as just talk, the reckoning has come.  . .  . What are you going to do about it? Do you maintain that an Administration that seeks to subvert the protections of our Constitution is fit to rule unchecked? Or fit to rule at all?

This is an emergency that can no longer be placed solely at the feet of President Trump, or even the Trump Administration. This is a moment of judgment for everyone who willingly remains silent. It is gut check time, for those in a position of power, and for the nation.

Jen Psaki, who held various positions related to communications during the Obama administration, sums it up well:

The Trump administration wants to continue to delegitimize institutions like the mainstream media. The more they can confuse the lines between facts and truth, legitimate and illegitimate sources of information, the more they will be able to brainwash the small segment of the public they care about reaching.

Because the way an administration interacts with the free press in the United States, through briefings and access to reporters — even those who have reported unflattering, harsh and sometimes unfair stories — sends a message to the rest of the world about how much we value the freedom of the press.

Knowledge is power. Is it fake, is it factual but biased, or is it factual and objective? Know before you share. Our lives depend on it.

 

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In the News

Don’t Be Fooled by False Narratives

Since long before human beings began to write or even to develop alphabets, they told stories, the earliest of which are recorded in the form of cave drawings. Later, around campfires, oral literature began to be created and transmitted; by the time the written language was ready to record stories for all time, there was already a body of oral literature waiting to be set to paper. Then came the printing press, and then came social media; so now, as things happen to us during the day, we’re already mentally composing our social media story to be sent out as soon as we have a free moment or as soon as the boss isn’t looking.

Story telling is as integral a part of being human as eating, sleeping, and the other necessities of survival. In fact, stories—or narratives—are themselves among the necessities of survival. In addition to fictional narratives in the form of novels, short stories, movies, and TV shows that entertain us and offer a few moments of escape into another world, narratives form the underpinnings of our belief systems and our relationships to our fellow humans. They connect us to our fellow humans and determine how we will relate to them. Every culture has its stories, shared by its members and passed from one generation to the next.

Most countries of the world have a story about children receiving gifts in the month of December; but the character who delivers the gifts, the type of gifts delivered, and the method of transportation for the gift giver vary widely from one culture to another. Our American Santa Claus, as we all know, is a jolly old white-bearded, red-suited guy who circles the globe in a single night, propelled through the sky by eight reindeer, and who goes down every single chimney in the world and leaves gifts for every child. Never mind that such a feat would actually take several years and a team of workers instead of a single night and one overweight guy surviving on cookies, this story has fascinated children for hundreds of years and underlies some of the most cherished memories of all of our childhoods.

In Iceland, thirteen mischievous creatures known as the Yule Lads deliver the gifts. In Norway, Finland, and Sweden, the Tomte are small, gnomish creatures who may travel by sleigh, but the sleigh doesn’t fly; and instead of living at the North Pole, they are said to live in the woods surrounding people’s houses. In Italy, the Befana is a witch-like character who also flies around the world but on a broomstick instead of a sleigh; legend has it that she is a kind character who provided food and shelter to the three wise men on their journey to visit the Baby Jesus. Name the location, and there is yet another legend, and all form part of the fabric of the shared experiences of that culture.

Stories are an important part of our human efforts to explain and make sense of the world we live in. Creation stories attempt to answer questions about how the world came to be and how we came to live here. Stories of gods and goddesses who are always raising a ruckus, engaging in plenty of shenanigans, and acting out their petty disagreements offer primitive explanations of things such as weather, human emotions, and other natural phenomena. Biblical writers used stories to explain and illustrate human relationships and try to steer us toward right relationships with ourselves and others. Family stories unite members and give us a sense of identity and pride in those whose DNA we share and carry on.

In June of this year, a movie was released—The Free State of Jones—about a Civil War story involving my great great grandfather Jasper Collins. He has always been a legend in my family, and now his story—and the story of his comrades—has been told to the whole world. Through reading the book and seeing the movie, I have learned even more about Jasper than I learned from my family; and I have an increased sense of pride in knowing that I am descended from such a great man.

Because stories are such an enormous part of our personal, family, and cultural identity, they’re not easily changed or let go. The Santa Claus story never made a lot of sense; there were always doubts and questions, especially among those of us who didn’t have chimneys. Yet we rationalized and dreamed and held onto that story, even when we began hearing whispers among our classmates at school that Santa was not real. Angrily, we dug in our heels and declared “I believe!” as the evidence continued to mount and the pressure to let go escalated. But if we let go of Santa, what else might we have to let go of? Would the Bunny be next to get the axe? Or what if it was something even more serious? What other parts of our shared lore might also be false?

This is my second post about stories, or narratives, because they are such an integral part of who we are and what we believe. Even though stories are not always factual, they are always part of our truth. Santa Claus, a magical sleigh, eight flying reindeer, and a large toy manufacturer at the North Pole are not facts; but in our childish minds, they were the most sacred truth. And our belief in those things was enough to induce us to be on our best behavior throughout the year so as to avoid ending up on the “naughty list” come Christmas time. Our belief steered our behavior.

What other narratives drive our behavior? What other narratives, not backed by fact, but believed as truth in the deepest parts of our beings, cause us to treat others in inhumane, immoral, and unethical ways? And how do those narratives then justify the wrong we’ve committed?

Throughout history, whenever one people group have wanted to exploit or persecute another, they’ve first had to give themselves permission to do so by creating a narrative that justifies the abuse. Hitler could not have carried out his agenda to create a perfect blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan race without attempting to eliminate or weaken the parts of the human race that didn’t fit his plan; and eliminating those unwanted humans required a narrative to justify the action. A passage from his well-known book Mein Kampf, which makes frequent references to the “filthy Jew,”  is quoted on The History Learning Site:

The Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end . . . spying on the unsuspicious German girl he plans to seduce . . . He wants to contaminate her blood and remove her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew hates the white race and wants to lower its cultural level so that the Jews might dominate. Was there any form of filth or crime . . . without at least one Jew involved in it. If you cut even cautiously into such a sore, you find like a maggot in a rotting body, often dazzled by the sudden light – a Jew.

If that’s the narrative embedded in one’s mind as truth, one could kill a Jewish person as easily as squash a cockroach and feel as little guilt. In fact, the person who killed a Jew could feel he had done the world a great service by ridding it of such a menace. For over half a century, people have wondered how on earth Hitler persuaded so many people to go along with his diabolical plans. He created a persuasive story.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows the results of white Americans surveyed on the questions of whether African Americans are equal to whites in their intelligence, work ethic, manners, violence, and lawfulness. The poll rated four groups, divided by the presidential candidate they were supporting during this year’s primary: Clinton, Trump, Cruz, and Kasich. On the matter of intelligence, an average of 22.5% of respondents saw blacks as less intelligent than whites. On work ethic, an average of 26.8% saw blacks as lazier than whites. When asked about manners, an average of 31.1% said blacks are ruder than whites. An average of 32.8% said blacks are more violent, and 33.2% saw blacks as more criminal than whites.

Once again, if this narrative is someone’s “truth,” it’s pretty easy to figure out why whites see people of color as inferior and why police officers might be quicker to pull the trigger on a black person than a white person with all other circumstances being equal. It’s easy to see why some women walk a little faster and avoid eye contact when approached by a black male.

And the narrative works from both sides. One memorable experience of my life happened when I was a 17-year-old newly licensed driver, eagerly volunteering for any errand that involved my getting behind the wheel of the car. My family was visiting my Alabama relatives, and my aunt had a woman who happened to be black doing some light housework for her. The woman needed a ride home, so I drove her. As I slid into the driver’s seat, I glanced over expecting to see her in the passenger’s seat. When she wasn’t there, I looked around to see why she wasn’t in the car yet; and I discovered that she was in the car: in the back seat. I felt so strange, I asked, “Why don’t you come up here?” This thought had obviously never occurred to her, as she replied, “Oh, no! I couldn’t.” I insisted that she could, but there was no persuading her.

That experience lingers in my memory after all these years because I can’t help thinking of the narrative written into that woman’s heart and mind. Her narrative had taught her the truth that she was unworthy to take a position equal to a white person—even when that white person was a 17-year-old girl. What I wish I could say to that woman now is “You are worthy. You have lived. You have been a good, honest person. You do not need to take a back seat to anyone. My 17-year-old self should be learning from you.” Sadly, that is a narrative I feel sure the woman never heard.

The narratives about women, of course, are too numerous to list: they’re the weaker sex, their main goal in life is to get married and have children, they’re suited only for certain types of jobs, they need men to protect them, they want to be complimented more for their beauty than for their brains, they’re not as smart as men—just a small sampling but enough to make it clear why we’re just now seriously considering electing a woman as president.

Cultural narratives also play a huge part in our inability to reduce gun violence. Many gun owners have accepted as truth the NRA narrative that the government is hostile and that their personal stock of weapons is their only defense against police and other law enforcement officials. In spite of the fact that NO president or presidential candidate has ever threatened to confiscate all guns from private citizens, the narrative continues to be told as truth: Obama/Clinton/whoever is coming to get your guns and repeal the Second Amendment. And once again, if the narrative is your truth, you’re going to resist any attempt at placing even the most sensible restrictions on gun ownership.

The history of conflict in the Middle East is long and complex, and telling the whole story would require volumes; it would also require a different story teller, since I don’t claim to understand it all. So for the purpose of this brief article, I just want to look at the effects of narratives on how the rest of the world responds to the violence and turmoil. Those who accept the Zionist narrative that the Jews are simply returning to their homeland to claim God’s promised inheritance interpret any resistance or act of self-defense on the part of the Palestinians as aggression. The Jews who build settlements in Palestinian territory are claiming what is rightfully theirs, and if the Palestinians don’t want to get hurt, they should be a little more cooperative.

But that’s not the only narrative. The other story says that in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan, to take effect in 1948, which would create two independent states: Palestine and Israel. Those who accept this narrative as their truth see the continuing conflict as Jewish violation of international law and the building of settlements in land awarded to Palestine as illegal and immoral. In this story, the Jews become the perpetrators rather than the victims, and their offenses against Palestinian human rights amount to apartheid.

Stories drive actions and attitudes. Increasingly, reciting facts to people is futile, since their stories are their truth; and any fact which doesn’t match that truth is obviously incorrect in their minds.

Since our narratives are much of what bind us together with our families, our communities, our tribes, they’re not easy to change or let go of. Many people know what it means to be ostracized from family and community because they’ve adopted a different belief system from the one sanctioned by the tribe. Our narratives are part of our world views, the belief systems that have made sense out of chaos and confusion, that have given us a sense of safety and security in an unstable and frightening world. They’ve been the anchor that’s kept us from going adrift. They’ve given us a sense of belonging, a feeling of being right, a feeling of being good and virtuous. They’ve even influenced our relationship to God. It’s understandable that we’re reluctant to make changes.

But change is necessary; if we’re to survive, the stories must be rewritten. My story is what I will pass on to my children and grandchildren, and it will affect what they pass on to their children and grandchildren. I have to get it right, even when it means making sacrifices and stepping out of my safe territory. Wrong narratives perpetuate injustice. Denouncing and working to eliminate injustice is a human responsibility, and it begins with changing the narratives. Our stories will be told for generations to come. Someone has to be the change.

 

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Global Communication Means Always Having to Say You’re Sorry

In this age of global real-time communication, the public apology has become almost as routine as the daily weather report. No longer is it possible to catch a comment or an act when it’s still in the smaller stages of impact and do damage control before stuff really hits the fan. That great big fan is now running 24/7, so there’s no stopping anything once it’s been said or done.

We’ve all heard the apologies, from the politician confessing marital infidelity and typically accompanied by his stand-by-your-man wife who’d probably rather stab him at that moment than show her face to the world in front of TV cameras, to the Olympic athlete who “over-exaggerated” a story about a night of drunken reveling in Rio. And the questions are always the same: How sincere is this apology? Is it a real admission of guilt or just a “Damn, I got caught”? Accepting an apology is often even more difficult than making one, and the greater the number of hearers the greater the possibility for disagreeing on the sincerity or lack thereof.

What are the criteria for a sincere apology? Everyone has gotten the old non-apology a few times: “If I’ve offended you in any way, I’m sorry.” The speaker makes no admission of wrongdoing and therefore cannot be genuinely sorry. What this line really means is “You’re mad at me. I don’t think I did anything wrong, but I need to make you stop being mad, so I’m going to say some words to try to smooth things over.” The red flag here is the word “if”; I can’t possibly feel “sorrow” for something I don’t even know I did. According to Dr. Robert Gordon in his TED Talk The Power of the Apology, “Most people apologize to get something rather than to give something.” I couldn’t agree more.

Jeffrey Bernstein summarizes Dr. Gordon’s talk in a Psychology Today post entitled “The Three Parts of a Meaningful, Heartfelt Apology,” dated December 3, 2014. These are the three parts:

1) Acknowledgement – Being able to see how your actions impact others is key to making a sincere apology. The acknowledgement part of the apology needs to start with “I.” For example, “I am sorry for being late tonight.”

2) Remorse and Empathy  – Remorse is truly feeling bad for what you’ve done. Empathy is about being able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and know how she or he feels.

3) Restitution – This means taking action to provide an act or service to make up for the transgression.

Start with acknowledgement. One has to be sorry for something. When a child is instructed to apologize to a sibling or playmate, the child often mumbles “Sorry” while facing the opposite direction and walking away from the offended party. Anyone can see the insincerity in this situation, but is the adult who says “IF I’ve offended you, I’m sorry” any more sincere than the child? Any apology must begin with an honest mea culpa. If I’m not willing to make a humble acknowledgment of what I’ve done, there’s no way I can be feeling any sorrow for my action.

Remorse is deep regret, and empathy is putting oneself in the other’s place. It means admitting how I would feel if the situation were reversed. It means feeling the heartache I’ve imposed on another person. When I can do those things, I’m ready to say “I’m sorry” and mean it.

And finally, restitution means being willing to do something to make the offended person feel better, whether it’s sending flowers after an argument or simply making sure the offensive behavior is not repeated.

I believe it’s also important to distinguish between “I’m sorry” and “I regret.” Expressing regret does not usually qualify as an apology, because it doesn’t acknowledge wrongdoing. It is possible to honestly deeply regret a situation without feeling any personal responsibility for it. For example,

  • “I regret having to break my promise to take you to the beach because we’re under hurricane watch.”
  • “I regret that you didn’t tell me you were married before I decided to date you.”
  • “I regret having to decline the invitation to your dinner party.”

None of these examples involve guilt on the part of the speaker, but the speaker may genuinely feel bad about the situation.

With these guidelines in mind, let’s look at how two public apologies from the last week measure up: Donald Trump’s statement of regret about things he has said in campaign speeches and Ryan Lochte’s public statement regarding his escapades in Rio.

In Trump’s latest effort to turn around his failing “campaign,” he offered this admission in a speech on August 18:

Sometimes, in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don’t choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that. And believe it or not, I regret it. And I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain. Too much is at stake for us to be consumed with these issues.

Is this a real apology? I would say “No.” And I would add “Hell, no!”

What’s missing here? Pretty much everything. First of all, it clearly sounds like what Dr. Gordon described as apologizing “to get something rather than to give something.” His campaign is failing and his poll numbers are sliding, so he clearly needs to get more support. Then why not try a new approach, something he had never done before? Why not admit that he has said some wrong things? Doing so might sway some voters in his direction. He was not giving anything, because he didn’t even state to whom he was “apologizing.”

Where is his acknowledgment of wrongdoing? He does say he has sometimes chosen the wrong words and said the wrong things, but he doesn’t acknowledge any statement in particular; and we all know the list he could have chosen from would fill a book. This is very much like the toddler’s apology: “Sor-ry!” Trump also begins the “apology” with an excuse: he was “in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues.” He’s already implied even before his confession that he was only being human, that these things happen. And of course they do happen, but an apology must start with taking responsibility for one’s own behavior, regardless of the circumstances.

Body language counts, too. When I saw the video of these remarks, I noticed that he pauses after “I have done that,” with a facial expression that suggests this may come as a surprise to anyone who’s not been living under a rock for the last year. He seems to be expecting affirmation that he really is a good little boy and that what he said was not that bad.

Why does he preface his expression of regret with “And believe it or not”? Why would anyone have believed up to this point that he had any regrets, since he had never said he regretted anything, never retracted a statement no matter how outrageous, and never apologized for anything? He is even on record as saying he’s never asked God to forgive him for anything, even though he claims to be a Christian.

He “regrets” unspecified wrong words about unspecified people, then adds, “particularly where it may have caused personal pain.” May have caused? He knows the pain he’s caused, or at least he’s been told. Unspecified words about unspecified people which have done unspecified damage do not suggest remorse or empathy.  This is a classic non-apology: If I’ve offended anyone, I’m sorry. How about looking into the camera and saying “Mr. and Mrs. Khan, I am so sorry for the pain my words have caused you. Your son was a hero. Please forgive me”; or “Senator McCain, Thank you for your service and sacrifice. Please forgive me for my cruel words.” He could have directly addressed any of the other dozens of people he has callously attacked.

As for restitution, so far there’s been none. At last reporting, he has made no phone calls or any attempt to reach out and make amends to any of the people he has offended. And although he attributes his “wrong words” to “the heat of debate,” that excuse doesn’t hold up because he has never made his insulting remarks only one time. When confronted with any specific attack, his standard response has been to double down and reinforce the original words when he is no longer in the heat of a moment. And since he has made no effort at restitution after his speech, I think listeners are justified in doubting his sincerity.

Now how does Mr. Lochte’s public statement hold up to scrutiny? Here’s what he said:

I want to apologize for my behavior last weekend — for not being more careful and candid in how I described the events of that early morning and for my role in taking the focus away from the many athletes fulfilling their dreams of participating in the Olympics. I waited to share these thoughts until it was confirmed that the legal situation was addressed and it was clear that my teammates would be arriving home safely.

It’s traumatic to be out late with your friends in a foreign country — with a language barrier — and have a stranger point a gun at you and demand money to let you leave, but regardless of the behavior of anyone else that night, I should have been much more responsible in how I handled myself and for that am sorry to my teammates, my fans, my fellow competitors, my sponsors, and the hosts of this great event. I am very proud to represent my country in Olympic competition and this was a situation that could and should have been avoided. I accept responsibility for my role in this happening and have learned some valuable lessons.

I think this one measures up to the criteria a little better than Trump’s does. He does acknowledge a specific wrong: “not being more careful and candid in how I described the events.” I’d feel better if he’d said “I’m sorry for lying about the events,” since I’m not a big fan of euphemism; but this is at least a somewhat specific acknowledgment. He also expresses some remorse and empathy by naming specific people who were hurt by his actions and how they were hurt. He seems to have some understanding of how it would feel to be in their place. It remains to be seen whether he will make any form of restitution, and that decision will probably be dictated at least in part by the authorities. If, however, he has in fact “learned some valuable lessons,” we should be able to expect better behavior from him in the future.

On the other hand, he implies that he’s sticking to his original story when he offers the excuse about the stranger pointing a gun at him and demanding money from him. Like Trump’s excuse that he spoke “in the heat of debate,” this excuse weakens the apology by implying that his actions were the result of circumstances beyond his control.

Although Lochte acknowledges his wrong words, he says nothing of his wrong actions. He never mentions the acts of vandalism or public drunkenness, without which he’d have had no reason to lie about his evening and there would have been no story. His apology is better, I think, but still incomplete.

Saying “I’m sorry” is hard, especially when it has to be said in front of the whole world. We all want to excuse our behavior, even when it’s wrong. “Humble pie” tastes terrible. It’s also sometimes hard to accept an apology: the hurt is too deep, I’m not quite finished being mad at you yet, you’ve given me no reason to believe you’re going to change, or I’ve heard this song before.

Public apologies will continue as long as there are politicians and TV/radio personalities. We’ve heard them before, and we’ll hear them again; but sometimes the apology comes too late, and sometimes it’s just desperate words and not an apology at all. Sometimes “sorry” isn’t enough to make up for the damage done. We’re the court of public opinion, and we’ll decide which ones we believe and which ones we don’t. Meanwhile, maybe we can all hum along with Elton John:

It’s sad, so sad, it’s a sad, sad situation
And it’s getting more and more absurd
It’s so sad so sad, why can’t we talk it over?
Oh, it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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In the News

Who Wants to Be Politically Correct?

If you haven’t heard or read the term “politically correct” lately, you have not turned on your TV, read the news online or in print, and certainly not followed this year’s election. And you just may be the most sane among us. As for the rest of us, I think it safe to speak for the majority, we’re up to our eyebrows with all the talk about political correctness, or as it’s commonly called, PC. If a political candidate can build an entire campaign on it, and if that campaign resonates with millions of voters, this PC stuff must be pretty darned powerful. But does anyone really know what the heck it is?

I did a little research and learned that “the term ‘politically correct’ was first coined in the late 1920s by the Soviets and their ideological allies around the world to describe why the views of certain of the party faithful needed correction to the party line” (Washington Post editorial, 11/15/2015).

I also learned that historians have written revisionist histories to impose current cultural standards on past events and cultures. That doesn’t sound like an honest or ethical thing to do.

Various online dictionaries offer these definitions:

the avoidance, often considered as taken to extremes, of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against.

agreeing with the idea that people should be careful to not use language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people.

marked by or adhering to a typically progressive orthodoxy on issues involving especially ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation.

So far, I’ve learned that political correctness started as a way to be sure Soviet party members toed the party line, has been applied by some historians to make history more palatable to modern audiences, and has been adopted by others as a way of showing respect to people of all demographics. The term can also be used pejoratively. Our understanding of the term suffers not from a lack of definition but from a plethora of loosely related and sometimes contadictory definitions. And that is precisely where Jesse Walker begins in the excellent and informative article “What the Hell Does ‘Politically Correct’ Mean?: A Short History” (01/30/2015).  http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/30/what-the-hell-does-politically-correct-m

In his opening paragraph, Walker addresses the multitude of meanings which have been assigned to the term:

Amanda Taub’s Vox piece denying the existence of political correctness does get one thing right: The phrase political correctness “has no actual fixed or specific meaning.” What it does have, though Taub doesn’t explore this, is a history of meanings: a series of ways different people have deployed the term, often for radically different purposes.

Walker goes on to echo what we learned from the Washington Post editorial writer: the term first gained prominence in 1920s Soviet culture. He adds:

By then [mid-1980s] the term was fairly well-established on American campuses. When future Clinton speechwriter Jeff Shesol debuted his comic strip Thatch in Brown’s student newspaper in 1988, he included a faux superhero called Politically Correct Person, a character forever correcting people’s language and consumer choices.

Walker’s history continues:

The end of the 1990-91 academic year . . . happened to be the [time] the phrase had its national coming-out party. The December 24, 1990, Newsweek featured the words “THOUGHT POLICE” on its cover; inside, a Jerry Adler article argued that “where the PC reigns, one defies it at one’s peril.” A month later, John Taylor’s cover story “Are You Politically Correct?” appeared in New York magazine. The Wall Street Journal ran a series of pieces attacking political correctness. And around the same time that issue of P.C. Casualties appeared, President George Herbert Walker Bush warned the graduating class at Michigan that “the notion of political correctness” was replacing “old prejudices with new ones.”

Whew! Busy year!

Walker says, “’Politically correct’ had now entered the mainstream lexicon—and, maybe more important, the conservative lexicon. But what did people mean when they said it?” And we’re back to our starting question. Various understandings and use of the term include “anything left of center”; “what conservatives call political correctness is really ‘just politeness’”; it has been viewed by some as a myth; and definitions are subject to “the jargon of the week.”

With that as background, Clint Eastwood has provided an up-to-the-minute definition in an interview with Esquire Magazine, which is currently being reported in the Huffington Post: “If Trump Offends You, Just F**king Get Over It.” As you recall, this is the same man who talks to chairs. To the Esquire interviewer he said this:

You know, he’s [Trump’s] a racist now because he’s talked about this judge. And yeah, it’s a dumb thing to say. I mean, to predicate your opinion on the fact that the guy was born to Mexican parents or something. He’s said a lot of dumb things. So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody—the press and everybody’s going, ‘Oh, well, that’s racist,’ and they’re making a big hoodoo out of it. Just fucking get over it. It’s a sad time in history.

He continues:

(S)ecretly everybody’s getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That’s the kiss-ass generation we’re in right now. We’re really in a pussy generation. Everybody’s walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.

Eastwood says he will vote for Trump, even though it’s a “tough one,” but has not yet endorsed him. However, Trump is not the point here. The point here is the power of political correctness overload to incite the kind of rebellion and political turmoil which has turned 2016 into a year to which history will certainly not be kind. And I think Mr. Eastwood’s comments get to the heart of that power; those who are the most angry and vocal about political correctness are those who see it as Eastwood does: “kissing up,” “kiss-ass,”  wimpy, “walking on eggshells,” and having every action interpreted as racist or some kind of phobic. He says, “When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist.”

And that’s the first point on which I agree with Mr. Eastwood. He and I grew up around the same time, and he is correct in saying those things were not considered racist; but I would argue that they damn well should have been considered racist. I recall people freely telling ethnic jokes; in fact, they were the most popular jokes during my childhood and young adulthood. There were “hillbilly” jokes, jokes about people of color, and in various geographic areas jokes about minority populations specific to that region. I spent the late 1960s in the Detroit area where there was a large Polish population, so there was a whole series of “Polock” jokes. Jeff Foxworthy, in the 1990s, introduced us to redneck jokes. And of course, jokes about women have transcended all decades and cultures.

An interesting observation about all of this ethnic “humor” is that most of the jokes were interchangeable, depending on which group the joker wanted to denigrate. Just substitute the name of your group into the opening line, and you had a ready-made joke for your next party. Whether the subject was “hillbillies,” rednecks, dark-skinned people, or Polish people, they were always portrayed as ignorant, uneducated, unsophisticated, backward, and socially inept. Throw women jokes into the mix, and it’s easy to pinpoint the yardstick by which everyone else was being measured (and falling short): the white male, of course.

Is THIS the America Clint Eastwood and the angry rally goers want to go back to? Is this what they think will make America great again? Are they just tired of having to be respectful and polite to people who are in some way or ways different from them? Do they just want us all to go back to being casually and openly racist, sexist, and in other ways prejudiced? Is it such a grievous burden to bear that we must use language which reflects love and respect for all of our fellow human beings? What a sad, sad commentary on our failure as a culture!

Do Mr. Eastwood and the rally goers want to go back to the America where the N word was spoken freely, where there were separate entrances, water fountains, and restrooms for whites and blacks? Would they like our dark-skinned friends to be banned from libraries and restaurants? Do they want to return their fellow humans to the back of the bus? Is that politically incorrect enough for them? Again, has it been such a grievous burden to bear to allow all citizens the same rights and privileges and to be spoken of with equal respect?

I have to go back to Eastwood’s statement, “But everybody—the press and everybody’s going, ‘Oh, well, that’s racist,’ and they’re making a big hoodoo out of it. Just fucking get over it.” I’m going to argue that racism IS “a big hoodoo.” It’s a VERY “big hoodoo.” And we don’t need to f**king get over it; we should have made a whole lot more progress than we’ve made toward eliminating it. It seems the last two and a half decades of having to watch their cultural language, including eight years of having a black man in the White House, has made some of our fellow citizens into little pressure cookers just waiting for someone to give them permission to blow their lids; and they have found that permission, and they’re exploding. This short video is absolutely terrifying. Note the dominance of white males.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004533191/unfiltered-voices-from-donald-trumps-crowds.html?smid=fb-share

I agree with the earlier statement that what these people call political correctness is really just politeness, so maybe it’s time to give it a different name, to remove the stigma left by the decades of baggage. Maybe we could call it love, courtesy, respect, human dignity, kindness, or godliness. Maybe then we could stop thinking of it as a burden and start seeing it as a privilege to share this beautiful planet with so many different kinds of people and to have our own lives enriched by what each one adds to our collective experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Can We All Please Just Listen!

One of the weirder evenings of my life was September 26, 2008, when I joined some friends to watch the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. That doesn’t sound very weird. Getting together with friends for snacks, camaraderie, and watching an important political event sounds downright normal. The weirdness in this case arose from two facts of which I was not entirely aware before arriving at my host’s home. The first, which I’d had an inkling of but didn’t know for sure, is that I would be the only Democrat in a roomful of “enthusiastic” Republicans. The second took me completely by surprise: I was the only person in the house who went there for the purpose of listening to both candidates and drawing conclusions based on what I heard; you know, making an effort to be open minded. Silly me! I thought that’s why we were there.

I was about to find out I was in a minority of one. As soon as Barack Obama’s lips began to part, before any sound had emerged from his mouth, these people were shouting at the TV: “Idiot!!! That’s the stupidest, most ridiculous thing that’s ever been said in the history of the world!” (Or something that meant the same thing) The room was filled with scorn and derision in high decibels. When John McCain began to speak, they shouted their agreement, approval, and undying support. What their responses had in common is that they were based, in both cases, not on the words the man had just spoken but on their predetermined assessment of who the man was, and in this case on which one was the Republican and which one was the Democrat. The one person who formed a barrier between me and the TV screen was the loudest and most vocal of all, so my efforts to hear what the candidates were saying were mostly futile. My lame attempts at interjecting reason into a couple of their comments were not well received, so I just watched and looked forward to viewing the second debate in the lovely quietness of my own home.

Many times during the evening, I wanted to scream, “Can we all please just LIS-TEN?!” I didn’t. But that evening comes to mind often these days since it so perfectly exemplifies what passes for public conversation in our time. With very few exceptions, people today respond to the speaker, not to what the speaker says. The essential information is the speaker’s political party, where they fall on the conservative-liberal spectrum, their opinions and beliefs on key issues, possibly their religious affiliation, and their basic demographics. For the average listener, this information—or any portion of it—is enough to judge anything the speaker could possibly say, so there’s no need to actually hear it. This makes conversation pretty simple: I will pause while you say your words, and then I will give you the response which I already decided on as soon as I met you.

Think about it. It’s well known that millions of people in our country hate our current president. And for most people, this is not the usual disagreement over policy or disappointment that the candidate they voted for didn’t win or disapproval of the president’s general conduct. Those are some of the normal reasons for disliking a president, even strongly disliking; but the vitriol that has been spewed daily about President Obama is unprecedented. And those who do the spewing are undeterred by anything good that the president could possibly say. He has given moving tributes to fallen police officers, he has inspired us through many national tragedies, he has sung “Amazing Grace” at a televised funeral and given clear statement of his Christian faith, and the guy is a great comedian on happy occasions.

Yet nothing he says even pierces the thick shell of hatred surrounding his critics because they don’t hear a word of it. In every one of the examples I’ve listed, his haters have responded by calling him names (including the N word), declaring him a Muslim, labeling him a dismal failure (against all factual evidence), calling him the worst president ever, saying he was born in Kenya and is therefore unqualified to be president, and other things so vile I’ve chosen to dismiss them from my mind. How many people have really listened to what he has said, and how many don’t care what he says because they’ve already judged him?

One of the most baffling connections I’ve seen this campaign season, and that’s saying a lot, is the evangelical support of Donald Trump. An article that’s making the rounds this week is called “Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice.” The author is Wayne Grudem, an evangelical theologian, with a long list of credentials, including studies at Harvard University, Westminster Theological Seminary, and University of Cambridge; serving as a seminary professor of Christian ethics for 39 years; authoring a number of books, including a highly respected systematic theology; and acting as general editor of a study Bible. Impressive. But now he says this: “I do not think that voting for Donald Trump is a morally evil choice because there is nothing morally wrong with voting for a flawed candidate if you think he will do more good for the nation than his opponent. In fact, it is the morally right thing to do.” Hmmmm.

He continues:

He is egotistical, bombastic, and brash. He often lacks nuance in his statements. Sometimes he blurts out mistaken ideas (such as bombing the families of terrorists) that he later must abandon. He insults people. He can be vindictive when people attack him. He has been slow to disown and rebuke the wrongful words and actions of some angry fringe supporters. He has been married three times and claims to have been unfaithful in his marriages. These are certainly flaws, but I don’t think they are disqualifying flaws in this election.

Flaws? Not disqualifying flaws? So Professor Grudem, what on earth would you say IS a “disqualifying flaw”?

But wait, there’s more:

On the other hand, I think some of the accusations hurled against him are unjustified. His many years of business conduct show that he is not racist or anti-(legal) immigrant or anti-Semitic or misogynistic – I think these are unjust magnifications by a hostile press exaggerating some careless statements he has made.

Careless statements? Magnified? When he called women “fat pigs,” “dogs,” “slobs,” and “disgusting animals,” those were just careless statements? And they’d have been no big deal if those mean old reporters hadn’t gone and made a big fuss over them? A president, or someone running for the office, doesn’t have the luxury of making careless statements.

And to sum it all up, Grudem says:

Under President Obama, a liberal federal government has seized more and more control over our lives. But this can change. This year we have an unusual opportunity to defeat Hillary Clinton and the pro-abortion, pro-gender-confusion, anti-religious liberty, tax-and-spend, big government liberalism that she champions. I believe that defeating that kind of liberalism would be a morally right action. Therefore I feel the force of the words of James: “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17).

You can read more of Professor Grudem’s “analysis” here: http://townhall.com/columnists/waynegrudem/2016/07/28/why-voting-for-donald-trump-is-a-morally-good-choice-n2199564

My point in this essay is that Barack Obama can sing “Amazing Grace” and get called a N*&&^^%, and Donald Trump can threaten to bomb the families of terrorists and insult numerous individuals and entire people groups and he just “lacks nuance” and is “flawed” but not fatally flawed. And those are the words of a leading evangelical whose life’s teaching has opposed everything Donald Trump stands for. Obviously Trump gets the pass here because he’s a Republican (the default party for evangelicals) and he’s not Hillary Clinton, not because his words are moral or make any sense. So Trump can go on saying whatever grinds his axes and proves his ignorance and still score the evangelical vote in November.

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell cringe and go into damage control mode every time Trump opens his mouth yet refuse to withdraw their endorsements because he’s the Republican candidate and they’re Republicans, and that association counts more than what he says.

Even in personal conversations, the same truth applies. We paint whole categories with one brush stroke, and then we can’t hear what individuals say. Liberals are out to destroy the second amendment and confiscate everyone’s guns, they’re always playing the race card, they enable people to be lazy by handing out food stamps and welfare, they’re socialistic, they want to open our borders and jeopardize our national security, and they’re always wanting to enact policies God disapproves of. Conservatives are backward, racist, making war on women, God-flaunting, gun-toting, climate change-denying Neanderthals. And we too often respond to each other based solely on these stereotypes rather than on the actual words coming out of an individual’s mouth. I posted a joke awhile back on social media, and one of my conservative friends took it seriously. When I responded that it was meant to be humorous, my friend responded, “Lib humor.” Oh, so it might have been funny if a conservative said it, but today it’s not.

We can’t have rational, productive conversations about gun violence, abortion, public restrooms, LGBT concerns, or multiple other social issues because we’ve decided before the first word is spoken whether we agree or disagree with other speakers based on the category to which they belong. And even when we may agree with someone in another category, we find it difficult to cross lines because of group loyalty. Paul Ryan is a prime example in his love-hate relationship with the Republican presidential nominee. Voting against their own party’s nominee is hard for many people. People speak all the time about “both sides” of an issue. “All sides” would be more accurate because we all have individual opinions which don’t exactly match our category label, but the only way we’ll ever know that is to start listening to each other instead of assuming everyone in a particular category thinks exactly alike.

A counselor I once knew had a great exercise she used in couples counseling. The couple would take turns speaking and listening. The speaker would have to tell the listener something that person did which was offensive. Before the listener could respond to the charge, however, she or he had to first repeat what the speaker had said and continue repeating it whatever number of times it took for the speaker to say, “Yes, that’s exactly what I said.” The point was that you can’t respond to something if you didn’t hear it correctly; and hearing correctly requires active, attentive listening. If only we’d all start making that a habit in our daily conversations, we might find out a lot of people have important, interesting, intelligent things to say; and we might get somewhere in solving our country’s problems. It’s worth a try!

 

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In the News

Good Cop Bad Cop

Trevor Noah recently made this statement on The Daily Show: “If you’re pro-black lives matter, you’re assumed to be anti-police; and if you’re pro-police, then you surely hate black people. It seems that it’s either pro-cop and anti-black or pro-black and anti-cop when in reality, you can be pro-cop AND pro-black, which is what we should all be.”

It’s been a grueling couple of weeks. Innocent blood has been shed, tears have flowed, protests have abounded. And writers have diligently tried to make sense of it all. Some have defended the police actions which killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile; some have defended the victims and decried excessive use of force and racism among officers of the law. Some have focused on the families of young black men and the agony they must endure over the unjust loss of their loved ones, while others have spoken just as eloquently of the families of the murdered police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge and the police departments reeling from tragedy. Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter. Friends on social media have declared that they stand with black people and against racism as others stand with the police and support the sacrifice they make as they place themselves in harm’s way every day.

Trevor Noah’s statement is not really all that profound if you think about it. It’s one of those things we all should have known already, but obviously many of us either don’t know it or don’t act like we know it. Why do we always set up these adversarial either-or divisions? Us vs them, blacks vs whites, blacks vs cops, gay vs straight, Christians vs Muslims. Why do we think we must be for one and against the other? Why do we assume that all members of a particular group fit the same description?

As my pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeffrey DeYoe, said in a recent sermon, we have to stop seeing categories and start seeing individuals. He pointed out that the characters in his text, the parable of the Good Samaritan, acted as individuals. Most people are familiar with the story: a man is robbed, stripped, beaten, and left half dead on the side of the road. A priest sees him and passes by on the other side of the road. Then a levite (also responsible for religious duties in the Jewish culture)  comes by and does the same thing. Finally, a Samaritan man sees him, takes pity on him, performs first aid on his wounds, transports him to an inn, and promises to pay his expenses for the duration of his recovery. As you may know, the Samaritan man’s actions are especially significant because the Samaritans and the Jews hated each other; yet this man sees the victim not as a Jew but as a human being in need, a human being whose life matters. Pastor Jeff pointed out that not every priest would have been so uncaring nor would every levite, and not just any Samaritan would have stopped to help. These people’s actions represent only themselves as individuals, not the categories to which they belong.

I’ve met some really good, caring, dedicated police officers. On July 13, 1997, my daughter (then 15 years old) was involved in a head-on collision in which she and two other young people were severely injured and the 16-year-old boy driving the car in which she was riding died. The first responder to the accident scene was a young officer who went straight to the boy who was pinned in the driver’s seat, since some passing motorists had already removed the three girls from the two vehicles. The young officer spoke soothingly to the boy while trying desperately to extricate him from the burning car. He was unable to do so, and within a few minutes, the boy died. Two weeks later, when my daughter was home from the hospital, the officer made the rounds visiting the three kids who survived the accident. This man showed me the heart and soul which the people who go into harm’s way every day put into their jobs. After visiting with Lisa for a few minutes in our home, he talked to me on the front porch about the agony he’d gone through as he relived that boy’s death over and over; he had even taken a whole week off work to deal with his grief. As we talked, he wept like a baby right there on my front porch. I’ll always remember that incident because it reminds me of all the competent and heroic officers of the law who genuinely want to serve their fellow citizens and make the world better and safer.

I’ve also met a few not-so-competent police officers. About fifteen or so years ago, while I was at work teaching my classes, someone attempted to break into my house. When I came home around noon (it was a summer semester), I reached for the key pad to disarm my security system and noticed the alarm had been activated. I immediately called the security company to find out what had occurred and was told they had attempted to contact me and had dispatched the police when I didn’t pick up the call (I was in class). They asked if I’d like for the officer to come out again and go over what had happened, and I said I would definitely like to know the details. While I waited for the officer to return, I started looking around. Among other things, I found the screen from the window by the front door sitting on the ground, and I found a full set of hand prints–two whole hands!!–on my kitchen window. When the officer arrived, he casually explained what he had seen and assured me nothing was amiss. When I asked about the screen, he said, “Oh, those things fall out.” Huh? Really? When I asked about the hand prints on the window, he was taken back since he obviously hadn’t seen them. He dusted them, and that evidence led to identifying the would-be burglar. Meanwhile, he made up some ridiculous story to try to cover his incompetence. Some time later, I received a bill from the sheriff’s department for a false alarm. Needless to say, I set them straight and didn’t have to pay; but I would not label this officer one of Fort Myers’ finest.

One good cop, one bad cop. Or maybe the bad cop was really a good cop having a bad day. Even good people make bad judgments and have bad days. Saying the officers who killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile may have made bad judgments does not mean all police officers are bad or that we can’t respect and support them. Everyone’s had a bad day at work. Good surgeons sometimes make serious mistakes in the operating room. Good teachers sometimes make bad calls, unfairly discipline, and give unjust grades. Good hairstylists sometimes give bad haircuts. Good chefs sometimes serve lousy food. The problem is bad haircuts grow out and one lousy meal won’t ruin my whole life, but a mistake in the operating room or in a police confrontation can have permanent consequences. If I decided to change a grade, I could fill out a form and it was done; if a police officer uses unnecessary force and kills someone, that’s final. It’s a heavy weight of responsibility, and I respect those willing to carry that weight; but I don’t think that means we have to overlook tragic misjudgments.

There has to be accountability, and there has to be compassion. We all have a stake in everything that happens in our country. Therefore, we must hold each other to high standards, but we must also have compassion for each other when we fail, as we all do. The hatred, the vitriol, the blaming, the categorizing–these all have to stop if we want to survive.

We can no longer ignore the inequities which are deeply rooted in our culture. Some people have not been served as others have; so although it’s accurate to say “all lives matter,” those who are still waiting for equal status are the ones whose needs must be addressed right now.

I used to teach a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story titled “Young Goodman Brown.” Young Mr. Brown dreams one night of wandering into the heart of the forest where he sees everyone he knows from his village engaged in unseemly activities, and the scene shakes the young man to his core:

“Among them, quivering to and fro between gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor was there. At least there were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. . . . he recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints.”

In the village, there were social and moral distinctions; in the heart of the forest, they were all the same. We’re all the same at heart. Why do we try so hard to elevate ourselves above our fellow human beings? We need to stop judging other people on their worst day. We need to stop thinking of people as categories and start seeing who they are as individuals. We need to stop hating and start loving each other, because if one falls we all fall. United we stand.

 

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Bathrooms and Wedding Cakes

You’ve heard about Job, the only gentile guy who has his own book in the Old Testament. He’s the one people talk about when they say “She has the patience of Job.” Job got the reputation of having a lot of patience because he went through a lot of suffering and loss without ever renouncing his faith in God. The story begins with a kind of wager between God and Satan: God tells Satan to check out his “blameless and upright” servant Job, Satan says he bets he can get Job to renounce his faith, and God grants him limited ability to try. After losing his children, all of his live stock, and everything else except his wife, Job is left sitting in the ash heap trying to make sense of all that has happened. Oh, yeah, he also has boils all over his body, head to toe, and has been scratching them like crazy; so you can imagine how he looks. We could argue about whether he demonstrates much patience, but he clearly retains his faith and does not denounce God throughout the ordeal.

While Job is sitting in the ash heap, three of his friends show up to console and comfort him; their names are Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Upon seeing their wealthy, powerful friend reduced to this broken, boil-covered, grieving mess, they barely recognize him. For the first seven days, the friends don’t speak at all; they just sit there with Job, keeping him company. So far, so good. After Job finally breaks the silence, one of them starts to speak, and the situation goes south from there. Because it’s assumed by all present that Job’s condition has been inflicted by God, the three of them, in turn, attempt to defend God’s actions, explain why these things have happened to Job, and persuade Job to repent so that all of his troubles will go away.

Eliphaz speaks first, reminding Job the things which have happened to him don’t happen to people who are as good as he is reputed to be; therefore, it’s obvious he’s been hiding something, and the best thing he can do is ‘fess up and the sooner the better because that’s the only way out of his situation. Next, Bildad takes his turn, pretty much echoing what Eliphaz has said. Finally, Zophar adds his agreement that Job’s distress is God’s judgment for unknown wrong doings and adds that Job is lucky he didn’t get even worse (which would have been . . . ??). The conversation is much longer, of course, covering about 39 chapters; but this is the essence. What these three are doing is expounding traditional wisdom, which is that those who do right prosper and those who do wrong suffer the consequences of their wrong doing. There are no exceptions. Period. And they affirm that principle to be true because they speak on behalf of God.

Well, the best part of the story happens when God shows up again in the last chapter. If these guys had been speaking the truth, what should happen at the end is God should thank them and demand repentance from Job. What really happens, however, is the exact opposite. God says to Eliphaz, I’m mad at you and your two friends because “you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has.” Take that, you three!!! He then orders them to make a burnt sacrifice and plead with Job to pray for them because Job’s prayer is the only thing that will get them off the hook, and God reiterates that everything they’ve been saying is pure bologna. Well, that’s an interesting turn: the guys who thought they were speaking the mind of God are wrong and the guy who didn’t know what the heck was going on but trusted God through it all anyway is right.

You’re probably wondering about now what the point of this little story is. I know I would be. Have you ever noticed when a social issue comes up for public discussion, the people who speak first and the people who speak loudest are a certain group of Christians? I have. They enter the conversation for the sole purpose of telling us what God thinks about it–a lot like Job’s buddies. They speak with authority and confidence because that’s how they’ve been trained to think and to speak. They’re not open to considering any variation on their preconceived conclusions; therefore, they don’t really want to have a conversation, only to inform the rest of us who are not as privy as they are to what God thinks. I say again, I am a Christian, so my critique of the state of Christianity comes from one who has no intention of leaving but would like very much to see a change of attitude.

Here is a partial list of issues about which the Bible says nothing: the right to bear arms, abortion, public restrooms, same-sex marriage, wedding cakes, who should be president, and gender identity. I’m not saying we can’t have opinions on these issues, only that we should leave the Bible out of it because they’re not in there. You can cherry pick a verse or two to try to make God support what you believe, but you’re just going to end up looking silly.

One current subject the Bible does mention is homosexuality. This subject comes up a mere six times, and the passages most often referenced are Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13. Although both verses straight-up call homosexuality an abomination, the same passages also order that those who commit this “abomination” should be put to death. Surrounding verses say people should not have sex with animals (I’ve always wondered who has to be told this, but I don’t think I want to know), people shouldn’t have sex with close relatives (also not necessary to mention), a man shouldn’t have sex with a woman during her period, we should not go to fortune tellers, people who dishonor their parents should be put to death, people who commit adultery should be put to death, a man who sleeps with both his wife and his mother-in-law should be burned to death, people should follow all the rules regarding eating meat from burnt sacrifices, farmers should not harvest their entire crop but should leave some around the edges for poor people to pick, one should not hate any of one’s relatives, no one should hold grudges, everyone should love their neighbors as themselves, animals owners should prevent cross breeding, planters should not sow two kinds of seed in the same field, no one should wear garments made of two different materials, people should not have sex with slaves, no one should not eat the fruit of the trees they plant until the trees are at least five years old, people should not get tattoos, and a lot more stuff. These days, we don’t execute anyone for adultery, disobedience to parents, or homosexuality; we plant as many kinds of seed in our fields as we want and don’t leave any of the harvest for poor people; we wear garments made of mixed fibers; we do hold grudges; we do get tattoos; we don’t love our neighbors as ourselves. But dammit, those gay people are an abomination because God said so in Leviticus! Every other rule in the whole passage is deemed culturally specific, but that ONE is for all time.

Again, I respect other people’s opinions. I just don’t respect people who–like Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar–think they have a monopoly on knowing the mind of God or who act on their opinions by showing hatred and intolerance toward other human beings. No one has a monopoly on knowing what God thinks! I have a great deal more respect for people like Job who admit they don’t understand everything and realize we’re all just muddling our way through trying to figure things out while we hold steadfastly to whatever anchors us in a confusing world.

And here’s another thing about God’s spokespeople: they like to say things like “Fight the good fight!” and “God is on our side!” and “God hates _____________ [fill in the blank].” If the fight is not founded on clear principle, it’s NOT a good fight! And who said God’s on your side? Can you prove that? I don’t want God on my side because I don’t always know what the heck I’m doing. My understanding of the Christian faith is that I’m supposed to be on God’s side, not vice versa. And how do you know what God hates? What makes you right all the time? And if I really am on God’s side, I will do my best to follow the example set by Jesus: I’ll love my fellow human beings, I’ll try to help those who need help, I’ll humbly attempt to set a positive example for others to follow. I won’t waste my time shouting about bathrooms and wedding cakes. I’ll make my own choices and form my own opinions regarding social issues, but I won’t pretend to have the ear of God or to have a monopoly on speaking God’s mind on those subjects. If I have a point to make, I’ll make my point without dragging God into something on which God has been silent.

Things didn’t end well for the three guys who thought they knew exactly what God thought about everything, so they’re probably not the best example to follow. I wonder what would happen if God showed up in real life as in parables and declared who’s right and who’s wrong. I bet some people would be surprised. To paraphrase Jesus’ words, all you really need to know is this: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Just loving our neighbors–all of them!–would solve most of our problems, so why aren’t we doing that instead of shouting about bathrooms and wedding cakes?

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In the News

All Lives Matter, Except When They Don’t

“I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to know where my son was because I didn’t want him to die alone.”
Those are the haunting words of Philando Castile’s mother on Wednesday, July 6, 2016, when she rushed to the scene of her son’s shooting. But she didn’t reach her son in time to say goodbye or hold her baby one last time as he died; and 24 hours or more after his death, she hadn’t even been granted the human decency of being allowed to see her son’s body.

Only one day earlier, 1200 miles away, Alton Sterling’s family received the same devastating news: your son/father/love of your life has been shot and killed by police.

Black mothers live in fear of having their sons shot down in cold blood. All parents these days live in fear for their own lives and the lives of their children, but white mothers do not have the same fear for their sons that black mothers do; and anyone who says they do is either lying or grossly uninformed or just doesn’t care.

Sterling was the 558th person to be killed by police in the U.S. this year, according to The Guardian’s database, The Counted. Not all of them were black men, but the majority were. So what do we tell black mothers terrified for their sons’ safety? Should we tell them to give us a little more time to work all these things out? In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther quoted William E. Gladstone: “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.” So if we’re honest, we’ll say, “Sorry, grieving mother, protecting your son’s life just isn’t important enough to be moved to the top of the to-do list.”

King goes on in his own words: “We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. . . . Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers . . . when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society . . . when you are humiliated day in and day out . . . when your first name becomes ‘nigger’. . . when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.” King wrote those words in 1963, and a half century later, his brothers and sisters are still waiting. And I can only imagine what the impatience level is by now after 393 years of waiting.

Alton Sterling was pinned to the ground and then shot at a range of only a few inches. Why was it necessary to pull the trigger on someone who was already pinned to the ground? Shooting should be the last resort, not the first. They supposedly thought he had a gun, but they didn’t see a gun, his hand was not touching a gun, and as the gun-rights folks love to remind us, “The gun can’t shoot itself.” So exactly how were these officers’ lives in danger? And why was some less extreme action not tried first? Something like, oh, holding Mr. Sterling’s arms above his head if they were so worried that he might pull a weapon out of his pocket? He was already pinned down. Would it have been so difficult to further restrain him? How about snapping on a set of handcuffs? Was that man’s life so expendable, so devoid of value that it was easier and more convenient just to shoot him, like squashing a bug? I think we know what his family’s answer to that question would be.

Philando Castile was driving a car with his girlfriend in the passenger’s seat and her four-year-old child in the back seat when a policeman pulled them over for a broken tail light. Mr. Castile informed the officer he had a gun and a concealed carry permit, but when he reached for his wallet in compliance with the law for traffic stops, the officer shot him in the arm and then proceeded to fire three more shots. I understand police officers’ fears; they get killed, too; and blue lives matter, too. But why is shooting so often the first thing they do instead of the last resort? While both of Mr. Castile’s hands were still visible and free of weapons, couldn’t the officer have given him more clear instructions about how to retrieve his license and registration?

And why, in both cases, was it necessary to fire multiple shots? Both men were shot at close range. IF any shots had to be fired, wouldn’t it have been enough just to temporarily disable them? Did they have to die? Were their lives not worth a little extra caution?

On May 31, 2016, Cincinnati Zoo officials made the call to kill a rare gorilla to save the life of a three-year-old boy who had fallen into the gorilla’s cage. On July 1, 2015, an American dentist shot and killed Cecil the Lion who lived in Zimbabwe, a trophy kill. After both of these incidents, social media lit up with outrage over the senseless murders of these beautiful animals. And I admit I, too, felt some of that outrage. For days on end, the diatribes continued, including death threats against Dr. Walter Palmer.

When Alton Sterling died, the first thing I saw on social media was a post by a repugnant bigot who expressed relief that tax payers of Baton Rouge will now have one less person to support. The next thing I saw was a meme suggesting that black guys would be a lot safer if they’d just wear belts to hold their pants up around their waists and graduate from high school. And then there was the meme showing some unsavory and irrelevant information about Mr. Sterling’s history.

So when a lion or a gorilla is shot to death, the weeping and outrage are heard all over the Internet; but when a 32-year-old or 37-year-old black man is shot and killed, the first responses blame the victim for not listening to the police, for dressing in a way distasteful to some, for dropping out of high school, for unrelated alleged crimes. Stereotypes drive public opinion and feed the fires of hatred and prejudice. Can someone please explain to me the difference between these two incidents and the scene in the current movie The Free State of Jones in which Newt Knight (Matthew McConaughey) finds the beaten and castrated body of “freed” slave Moses Washington (Mahershala Ali) hanging from a tree? The only crime any of these three was guilty of was being a black man.

To the mothers of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, I’m so sorry for your loss. My heart aches for you and for everyone who loved and cherished your sons. You and your families are in my thoughts and prayers. I’m the mom of a 42-year-old and a 40-year-old son, and although I have my worries and concerns, lying awake at night fearing a phone call informing me my son has been shot to death by police officers is not one of them. I’m ashamed that it is one of yours. You carried and gave birth to your sons just as I did mine; you held them in your arms as I held mine; you loved them and gave them your best just as I loved mine and did the best I could to raise them to be responsible men who can achieve their dreams. You should not have had to live in fear for their lives, you should not have been “plunged into the abyss of despair” by their early deaths, and you should not experience the indignity of victim blaming and the anticipation that justice will once again be denied. And I’m truly sorry, Valerie Castile, that your son had to die without you. I understand your impatience for justice, and I will use my voice as long as I can to speak for real liberty and justice for ALL.

Update: Since I wrote this article, we’ve seen an outpouring of anger and grief all over the country, by people of all ages and races. I woke this morning to read the news that five police officers were shot and killed and six more injured in Dallas. Blue lives matter, too! Violence does not solve violence! Killing people who had nothing to do with killing Alton Sterling and Philando Castile compounds the crime. But let us not forget, the vengeful action of one angry person does not absolve the officers who shot Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. It only leaves five more families to grieve and more people angry. We have to STOP killing each other!