Author: matt

Naming | #Friday500

I’ve recently discovered myself to be a fairly poor runner. I’m consistently inconsistent, and can scarcely muster 2 miles. I know. But on those rare and rough occasions when I strap on the sneakers, I always run past the above statue. Perched on a pedestal amidst a calmingly manicured wooded parcel, it gazes out over the “Midway Plaisance“—a stretch of green space that runs along the south section of the University of Chicago. It was originally a convention space for the 1893 World’s Fair; the site of the first ever ferris wheel.

Plaisance is a French word, which appropriately means, “pleasantness”.

It contains a cryptic plaque emblazoned only with “Linné”. During one such run, I determined to solve the mystery. I learned its likeness to be that of 18th century Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl von Linné, considered the Father of Taxonomy; viz., naming organisms. He devised our modern binomial i.e. genus, species).

Linné wrote:

The closer we get to know the creatures around us, the clearer is the understanding we obtain of the chain of nature, and its harmony and system, according to which all things appear to have been created.

Naming is a uniquely human activity; a component of what evolutionary biologist have coined niche construction—the way organisms shape their environment. Naming is a form of ordering and understanding, and it carries a power we are prone to under-appreciate—the power of definition. Continue reading “Naming | #Friday500”

For Your Consideration (06/28/17)

A GOOD WALK SPOILED

Mark Twain once referred to the game of golf as, “A good walk, spoiled.”

I tend to agree. I suspect the enduring resonance of the quote demonstrates it to be a commonly held sentiment.

In truth, I’ve had a similar sentiment toward Malcolm Gladwell material—an under-gratifying expenditure of time. You know Malcom Gladwell! He wrote David and Goliath and The Tipping Point. His main schtick revolves around a certain manufactured eureka. (He’s been accused of being reductionistic. Oftentimes he strikes me as a bit pedantic.)

Still, I’m coming around. (Not to golf, but to Malcom Gladwell.) I’m coming to appreciate his doggedly egalitarian bias, and his willingness to question societal and institutional status quo. (There is no agreement on the plural for that latin phrase, I’ve found.)

Gladwell has just begun season 2 of his podcast Revisionist History, which I’ve come to enjoy. Episode 1 probes the the absurdity of golf, specifically private golf courses in Los Angeles and the unconscionable subsidies they enjoy from a city devoid of adequate public parks.

He does a good job of this.

You should listen if for no other reason than to be exposed to The Ship of Theseus (or Theseus’ Paradox), and the comparison of mereological vs spatiotemporal theories on identity. Think, “Why does the Hudson River remain the Hudson River even though it is constantly composed of different water particles?” How might this same paradox be applied to rich white men?

FIRING FROM FEAR

Many were distraught this week after a jury acquitted Minneapolis-area police officer Jeronimo Yanez in the shooting death of motorist Philando Castile. I was also distraught.

Days later the dash-cam video was released. It is hard to watch. It is also hard to fathom how this was found to be anything but a criminal use of deadly force.

David French of The National Review penned a strong piece on the unwritten law equating fear with innocence in most police-involved shootings.

It’s imperative that juries understand that not all fear is reasonable, and some officers simply and wrongly panic…

When I saw that palpable panic, I immediately knew why he was acquitted. The unwritten law trumped the statutes on the books. The unwritten law is simple: When an officer is afraid, he’s permitted to shoot. Juries tend to believe that proof of fear equals proof of innocence.

He goes on to give other examples of this unwritten code, but asserts that juries must learn to differentiate between reasonable fear and reckless panic.

Absent corruption, incompetence, or malice, most officers are going to make reasonable choices in high-stress situations.

Some, however, will fail, and it’s imperative that juries understand that not all fear is reasonable, and some officers simply (and wrongly) panic. Perhaps some have unreasonable fear because of racial stereotypes. Perhaps some have unreasonable fears for other reasons. Perhaps some have a brutal habit of escalating force too quickly. But every officer must uphold the rule of reason, a rule that compels a degree of courage, a measure of discipline, and a tolerance for risk that is inherent in the job that they’ve chosen.

The vast majority of officers are up to that challenge. A few are not. They must be held accountable. Justice demands no less.

I would encourage you to read this, and to refine your own views on what must be expected of our police in order for them to not operate de facto above the law. Our nation is to be a place of law and justice. Police cannot operate outside of this, nor can our criminal justice system fail to offer meaningful accountability in those cases when they themselves violently violate those laws they are hired to uphold.

Once you finish that.

CONFRONTING THE MYTH OF POST-RACIAL AMERICA

American University (DC) history professor and author Ibram X. Kendi wrote an OpEd for New York Times on how our police-involved shootings (and the narratives we employ to explain them) expose whether we will hold a truthful or mythical opinion of our country; and that such race-based instances of violence always have.

He writes:

Black people were violent, not the slaveholder, not the lyncher, not the cop. Many Americans are still echoing that argument today.

This blaming of the black victim stands in the way of change that might prevent more victims of violent policing in the future. Could it be that some Americans would rather black people die than their perceptions of America?

It was probably the best piece I read on the Yanez verdict, and its aftermath.

I do not dislike America. But the widespread refusal to truthfully appraise our country is actually at odds with what we claim America to be; the myth is standing in the way of bringing to reality forward toward its aspirations! But, in the meantime, the human and social to toll is grievous to say the least.

The deeper answer is that black death matters. It matters to the life of America, by which I mean the blood flow of ideas that give life to Americans’ perceptions of their nation.

In these high-profile cases, it is not just police officers who are on trial. America is on trial. Either these deaths are justified, and therefore America is just, or these deaths are unjustified, and America is unjust.

I can relate to this felt need to see America as somehow better than it is. I want us to be the good guys! But I can also readily admit that this is too simplistic of a version. I must love truth more than untruth, even if that means loving something ugly over something fake-but-pretty. As a Christian, I actually think this is a key tenant of our profession of faith.

BEFORE THE INTERNET

On a much (much!) lighter note, my wife and I found ourselves smiling and nodding as we read Emma Rathbone‘s meandering anecdotal article for The New Yorker.

Each vignette is led with the phrase, “Before the internet…”

You’d be in some kind of arts center, wearing roomy overalls, looking at a tray of precious gems, and you’d say, “That’s cat’s-eye,” and your friend would say, “Nope. That’s opal.” And you’d say, “That’s definitely cat’s-eye.” And there would be no way to look it up, no way to prove who was right, except if someone had a little booklet. “Anyone got a little booklet?” you’d ask, looking around. “Is there a booklet on this shit?”

Then you’d walk outside and squint at the sky, just you in your body, not tethered to any network, adrift by yourself in a world of strangers in the sunlight.

Kinda true, right? Remember?

Before the Internet, you could laze around on a park bench in Chicago reading some Dean Koontz, and that would be a legit thing to do and no one would ever know you had done it unless you told them.

Go read it. C’mon. It’s short. Probably should have been longer. But it’s short and sweet and on the internet, so.

Speaking of the internet.

SOCIAL CURATE

I like these little info vids from Vox. After you watch this, I’d be curious if any of you would diagnose me with ADHD? If so, should I keep treating it with coffee or pills or nothing at all? I’m open to suggestions!

Racism Series |#Friday500

Lately I’ve been reading, thinking and writing on the topic of race. Many have been so kind as to join me in this important conversation. Some have mentioned these posts to be helpful. In light of this, I am providing links to the entire series below, along with some excerpts from each.

Hoping these might serve you as you bring this needed dialogue into your own spaces.

RACISM I | RACE

But we can’t move this forward until we understand the term “race”.

Put briefly, there’s no such thing as race! The only thing that makes race a thing is that it has been socially engineered to be so. Race is a quasi-scientific category; a category that was invented for socio-cultural reasons, but has been met with repeated failure in its attempts to be “science-ized” in order to support the social construct.

This was observable in the middle of the last century in Nazi Germany, and their promotion of the idea of a superior Aryan race—an idea with roots in the 1850s. Nazi propaganda reflected their unique efforts to demonstrate Nordic racial superiority through pseudo-science. We recoil at these notions, but then forget to interrogate our own understanding of race. Nazi racial ideology is rooted in the racial constructs of Western, white civilization going back into the 1400s.

Now I’m sure that some of you reading are, at this point, so certain that race is a fixed aspect of humanity, that you are questioning the very notion of it having social origins; as though I am telling you that the elements of the Periodic Table are only a social construct.

But race, as we know it, is a superficiality that has been co-opted into Western thinking with a dehumanizing intent. Yes, intent!

RACISM II | DEFINED

And while a mutually-understood employment of the term “racism” is critical toward any meaningful dialogue, it must be said up front: whites are wrong on this, and non-whites are right.

My previous post was aimed at clarifying our understanding of race in general; namely, that it doesn’t exist. Race has, however, been conjured into existence as a means of sub-dividing humans in a fashion more akin to species. But why would anyone want to do that?

Race is a pseudo-scientific socially engineered construct for sub-classifying peoples based on superficial physical traits in order to justify sub-human acts of exploitation toward them.

Read that again. If you miss it, the rest of this will be lost on you.

Of course, there are physical traits that characterize people-groups from various regions of our world; skin color, hair color and type, other facial variations. This is undeniable. But this is not race—not as it has been deployed in the history of the West and in our nation!

And the socio-scientific concept of “ethnicity” is categorically valid; involving a multifaceted study of geographical, genealogical, cultural and lingual factors. Ethnicity is a sociological and anthropological category for understanding meaningful features of people-groups. But this is not race! Race it different. Ethnicity is benign. Race is malignant.

The fiction of race is the basis for the fact of racism—a superficial, systematic and societal sub-classification of people for the sake of exploitation.

But this is not how white people define racism.

RACISM III | WHY WRITE ON RACE?

…my trusted non-white friends, colleagues and students all agreed that white voices must remain in the chorus on this topic. I’m understanding the why behind this more and more.

From the earliest days of abolitionism (a movement that arose immediately on the heels of the colonial era and the widespread advent of chattel enslavement), through the Civil War and Civil Rights movement, voices among the white populace have played an irreducible role toward the cause of racial justice. There is a position and venue into which our voice has more purchase, and oftentimes we know the vernacular for playing translator between both sides.

As much as anything though, I’m seeing how silence is a way of retreat. When those of us in the white community can’t or won’t name racism or address its damage, it communicates either tacit endorsement or craven betrayal. Most people of color have spent their lives swimming upstream against racial currents. They’ve become adept at feigning indifference and maintaining poise in the face of it. As uncomfortable as it is for whites like myself to confront these societal dynamics—even calling them “evil” or “unjust”—still those affected by them have no such choice. Measures of healing come when we enter into their sorrows and even anger. And though I’ve never once met a person who readily admits to being a “racist”, still we know racism is alive and well. If my own history can be any indicator, it seeps out despite our best efforts.

Maybe what I’m dancing around right now is my own racism; my willingness to prefer sloppy stereotypes over human considerations, to prefer judgement over understanding, to exclude or insulate, to remain willfully oblivious to how I benefit from racial constructs and willfully loath to consider my obligations toward remedies, my own hidden attitudes of superiority and innate deservedness. Maybe I’m learning how to grapple within and grapple without in these issues—whether I’m brave enough to enter further into the rough terrain of longsuffering involvement. I can, after all, still use my racial identity as exemption from all this.

But how can I do so, now that I grasp that this is the wrong thing to do?

RACISM IV | PRIVILEGE

Privilege is a good word, not a bad one. Its connotations overwhelmingly positive; fortified with the soul-nourishing nutrients of gratitude, humility, contentment and purpose. For instance, I am privileged to be a husband and father, privileged to be employed, privileged to be in good health. For all this, I feel blessed. Who am I to come into such bounty?

The recognition of privilege appreciates that we have been beneficiaries of forces external to ourselves; outside our powers of control. Privilege is the foil of entitlement, redirecting our attention to endowments, causing us to treasure them.

Yes, privilege has the power to animate those human faculties of kindness, responsibility, compassion and magnanimity which deploy us into the world as life-givers. Yet it carries with it an existential threat; like a conceptual Trojan horse, it might occasion the overthrow of our sense of personal credit—if permitted past our gates of defense.

You see, external credit—especially beyond one’s agency—is a diminution of self-credit, and undeserved prosperity is anathema to the American ethos, is it not? And so we come to privilege not entirely under amicable terms; it is more of a truce. “I will acknowledge you only so long as my own credit remain intact.” But privilege will never comply with this, because the truth will never comply with this. Thus, we are all prone to subscribe to a myth of singular self-credit; or at least we must preserve self as the majority agent in our personal credit narrative—and this usually carries over into our corporate identities.

No one wants to be confronted by the notion that there are two sets of stairs, and that theirs is the carpeted, sheltered, dependable set leading to a preferable location. We prefer the other set be tucked in the back-alley; out of sight. No one wants to be confronted by the revelations that we pass, as it were, through unequal portals, and that this may, in large part, explain why we end up in prefereable localities along with others like us.

But the point of mentioning white privileged is not an exercise in scolding. It is an exercise in awareness, and, as in the case of all privilege-awarenesses, to awaken humane attitudes and quell the baser ones.

RACISM V | A PATH FORWARD

My generation was indoctrinated into the post-racial mythology, and not just whites but all. We called it “color blindness” and it sounded sublime. But it was a bandage on a gangrenous wound; partially concealing, but impeding real healing. I mentioned it in a previous post that America cannot ever be truly post-racial. Racial ideology is among the chief architects of our nation and, as such, its infrastructures and design-intents may never be fully resolved. Post-racial America may be an oxymoron, but a racially redeemed America may be a worthy undertaking.

Truth and reconciliation must go hand and hand. Real reconciliation can never happen apart from truthful reckoning. I mentioned above the importance of our bases. Reconciliation places the basis of human concern above all others, be they politics, pride, personal preservation or the like. Nothing kinks the hose of empathy like defensiveness in all its forms.

Seeking truth and reconciliation means not minimizing pain, listening simply to understand, grieving others grief and, yes, owning up to our complicitness. I must say here that the onus rests on primarily on white communities. Race has visited its harms in our nation upon non-whites like an apocalyptic plague. If the least whites can do is come to terms with this, and learn to lament, it will be a quantum leap.

Racism V: A Path Forward | #Friday500

[This is post is part of a five-part series. You can find a link to all five here.]

His words ring like they were rung yesterday,

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.

Almost 53 years ago Martin Luther King Jr electrified more than 250,000 civil rights marchers from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. (Maybe stop here and watch it?)

In his closing he said,

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood

Less than 5 years later, King would be dead. His voice and his presence have seemed largely irreplaceable. But what of his faith; the faith which allowed King to offer a vision that transcended hostilities in preference of brotherhood?

Having re-read his address, I sought to pay special attention to the basis of King’s faith—for faith misplaced is futile. And I can name three such bases: God, America and humankind. To King these three seem inextricably fused; that God might have actual agency in our society, and that the long moral arc of the universe might truly bend toward justice; that America’s creeds and purported values might continue shaping our nation the way the sea shapes shards of glass; that each human spirit is disquieted by injustice and might be animated by visions of justice, equality and freedom.

But was it all misplaced?

Several weeks ago I began this series of posts on race and racism. In the middle of this 5-part series, I inserted a piece outlining my own impetus for writing on race: to “repurpose this instrument of division into an instrument of dialogue.” But this itself is a statement of faith. Each day I observe evidences that such faith may be nothing more than naïveté; not only in the cultural/societal ubiquitousness, perniciousness and obliviousness regarding racism, but in the dismissiveness, recalcitrance and apathy (viz., “without humane pathos”) toward racism even among people from whom I might expect openness.

My hopes in writing (and engaging elsewhere) must be founded in some meaningful bases on the part of the recipient, mustn’t they?

So upon introspection, I think my own hopes would still mirror King’s: that God is real, always at work and a tireless champion of justice; that the virtues of our codified national values might not be done shaping its citizenry; and that human instincts for justice and equality are, finally, irrepressible.

But what does any of that sweeping rhetoric matter? For you are the one reading. And it is your own bases from which this transaction might falter or triumph. Continue reading “Racism V: A Path Forward | #Friday500”

For Your Consideration (06/14/17)

SBC ALT-RIGHT CRISIS

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is finishing up their annual convention in Phoenix, and things are not going as planned. This convention is like most gatherings: a time of teaching, workshops and relationship-building. But it is also an opportunity to vote on resolutions.

One such resolution was proposed by Dwight McKissic, the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist in Arlington, TX. It called for a vote for resolution that the SBC condemn alt-right ideology and white supremacy outright (read it here). The convention declined to consider it.

Once this became know, it led to no small uproar. Relevant Magazine quickly ran a helpful piece on the controversy. And Emma Green promptly tackled it well for The Atlantic. She quotes McKissic:

I certainly understand that hurt and anger, because to most people, this would be a no-brainer. Several of the resolutions they endorsed yesterday were just carte blanche things Southern Baptists believe. And so, it becomes a mystery how you can so easily affirm standard beliefs about other things, but we get to white supremacy … and all of a sudden, we’ve got a problem here.

The convention hastily re-gathered once the crisis was apparent, and voted a re-worded resolution out of committee for consideration by the general assembly. But it isn’t easy to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

Not many know that the SCB was originally formed during the lead up to the American Civil War, and that a hallmark of their founding ideas was a biblical defense of the institution of slavery. In 1860, Baptist minister Thornton Stringfellow wrote:

Jesus Christ has not abolished slavery by a prohibitory command. … Under the gospel, [slavery] has brought within the range of gospel influence, millions of Ham’s descendant’s among ourselves, who but for this institution, would have sunk down to eternal ruin.

Only a few weeks ago, SBC’s Southwestern Seminary embroiled itself in a racially-charged fiasco by tweeting a picture of a group of seminary professors dressed as gang-bangers.

Jemar Tisby gave a well-stated response to this incident in the Washington Post. He helps outline what makes an image like this offensive, and he quotes SWBTS president Paige Patterson’s apology statement:

As all members of the preaching faculty have acknowledged, this was a mistake, and one for which we deeply apologize. Sometimes, Anglo Americans do not recognize the degree that racism has crept into our lives…

Southwestern cannot make a moment of bad judgment disappear. But we can and will redouble our efforts to put an end to any form of racism on this campus and to return to a focus that is our priority—namely, getting the Gospel to every man and woman on the earth.

It is laudable that Patterson quickly responded to this issue. And it does constitute a regrettable area of ongoing blindness. But Tisby actually identifies a blindness in the apology itself,

His apology sounds biblical; For Christians, evangelism is certainly a critical priority. But he treats racism like a distraction from sharing the Gospel. When will white evangelicals realize, addressing racism is inherently a Gospel issue?

I’m finishing up my series on racism this Friday, but, suffice it to say, this issue is demanding attention in our society and in our institutions. The church, above all, ought to have an inherent basis for eradicating racism (as Tisby said), but the insidiousness of this issue obviously demonstrates that its forms can be quite elusive.

AJPLUS: RACIAL INEQUALITY IN CHICAGO

Chicago finds itself in the news a lot. It is a placeholder for inner-city ills like violence, drugs and neighborhood decay.

Al Jazera‘s AJPlus media arm produced a 5 part series delving into the roots of many of these issues, and I applaud them for it!

(So humble and mutually credit sharing!)

If you want to have a more sophisticated understanding of the state of Chicago, and of other urban centers, this is a great place to start.

The final 4 videos simply would not embed correctly (only critique!), so here is the link to the rest!

OJ: MADE IN AMERICA

Speaking of 5-part series, my wife and I just finished watching the spellbinding ESPN documentary OJ: Make in America. You may remember that this series took home the Academy Award for best documentary?

We both agreed that director Ezra Edelman does amazing and thorough work telling this winding, sorrowful and surreal tale. We both agreed that it gave a revealing backdrop to racial tensions in America. We also agreed that it could be argued that OJ’s debacle and trial and their aftermath seem to have ushered in our modern American media landscape. (I.e., it could have been titled “OJ: Making America”.) You’ll remember Robert Kardashian was one of his lawyers?

It is an eerie, eye-opening and worthwhile watch. You can do so here.

SOCIAL CURATE

My mouth hung open the whole time I watched this!

For Your Consideration (06/07/17)

half-dome-1370492

ATHLETIC ACHIEVEMENT OF THE CENTURY (OUTSIDE)

There have been some impressive athletic feats accomplished lately. Kenyan Runner Eliud Kipchoge came  25 seconds away from breaking the 2 hour marathon during an orchestrated attempt in Monza, Italy in May. Oklahoma City Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook actually averaged a triple-double (as well as led the league in scoring) this season.

But, with a bit less fanfare, rock climber Alex Honnold free-solo-climbed the Freerider route of Yosemite’s El Capitan. El Capitan (or El Cap) is what the climbing community has dubbed the sheer 3,000 foot face of the famed Half Dome rock in Yosemite National Park (pictured above).

Solo free climbing means doing it alone and without any ropes or protective gear (pro). Just climbing shoes and chalk.

His friend Tommy Caldwell wrote a piece for Outside Magazine and commented:

Free soloing El Cap has been the most anticipated climbing feat of our generation, but only because of Alex…

Today, knowing that it has been done, I think that is a fair assessment of the significance. It’s a generation-defining climb.

In terms of mental mastery, I am convinced that it is one of the pinnacle sporting moments of all time.

That would be akin to climbing up a natural rock face two times at tall as the Sears Tower knowing that one slip would mean plummeting to your death. He did it in just under 4 hours, which is stunningly unbelievable both because of how short and how long the time period is!

Caldwell continues:

He’s climbed the Freerider at least a dozen times and practiced the most difficult sections to the point where he likely would have been able to do them blindfolded. But free soloing is a feat less physical than mental. Beyond the obvious factors of vertigo inducing exposure and unexpected obstacles (think breaking rock and birds flying out of cracks), hard granite climbing requires such precision that one must be completely lucid.

And,

In terms of mental mastery, I am convinced that it is one of the pinnacle sporting moments of all time.

I have no point except to admit my own amazement at what Honnold accomplished.

THE AMERICAN STORY CRISIS (BLOOMBERG)

Virginia Postrel wrote an OpEd for Bloomberg about the importance of the narratives our nation adopts.

She keys off of the tragic stabbing that took place on the Portland MAX light rail system, where three men sought to intervene in a situation where two female passengers were being threatened and verbally accosted. Two of these men were fatally stabbed by the deranged white-supremacist. One was critically injured. It is natural to focus on the vile actions of this violent perpetrator, but there is another story to tell.

She quotes columnist Michael Tanner:

America is about a Republican, a Democrat, and an autistic poet putting their lives on the line to protect young women from a different faith and culture simply because it is the right thing to do.

Postrel observes,

Cultures are held together by stories. We define who we are — as individuals, families, organizations, and nations — by the stories we tell about ourselves. These stories express hopes, fears, and values. They create coherence out of complexity by emphasizing some things and ignoring others. Their moral worth lies not in their absolute truth or falsehood — all narratives simplify reality — but in the aspirations they express and the cultural character they shape.

Evil forces are always stirring in our world. There are times when they surface from the dark deep in obvious and tragic ways. But, tucked in around these eras and their events, there are also always the most stunning human exemplars. These deserve attention and imitation.

I would recommend reading her short piece. It resonated with me.

THE AMERICAN INEQUALITY CRISIS (NYT)

Nicholas Kristof wrote a column for the New York Times addressing how inequality is one the major agents dividing our nation. I really agree. How to address it is far from simple, but consider this excerpt:

The data on inequality is, of course, staggering. The top 1 percent in America owns more than the bottom 90 percent. The annual Wall Street bonus pool alone is more than the annual year-round earnings of all Americans working full time at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour…

How a nation with such inequality can practically function, let alone not be sucked under by growing mass discontent is hard to conceive. It was this discontent, of course, which became the fulcrum for the 2016 general election. But it is clear that neither party has much to offer in addressing this.

Kristof quotes UNC psychologist and author Keith Payne on the destabilizing effects of inequality,

Inequality divides us, cleaving us into camps not only of income but also of ideology and race, eroding our trust in one another. It generates stress and makes us all less healthy and less happy.

I’m not a naive utopian socialist, nor am I blind to the economic dynamism of free-market capitalism. Scottish economic patriarch Adam Smith put is best:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

The flip side of this is that self-interest must be constantly placed in check. The levels of inequality in our own society verge on exploitation, and the recent histories of Enron, Bernie Madoff and those complicit in the sub-prime mortgage crisis (among many others) show that unchecked greed results in an enormity of human suffering and hardship.

Kristof is always a good, humanitarian voice. I just hope our nation can understand the urgency of this, and not keep falling prey to fear-based populist rhetoric. We do need a reboot, but we need the right kinds.

STRUCTURAL RACISM (THE GUARDIAN)

This article in the Guardian by   contains some of the most helpful material I’ve read on racism and its structures.

She speaks from the standpoint of a British ethnic minority, and her experience and viewpoint mirror that of many American minorities.

Several years ago Eddo-Lodge wrote a blog post titles “Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race”, which went viral. This article is her follow up.

She writes:

Structural racism is dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of people with the same biases joining together to make up one organisation, and acting accordingly. Structural racism is an impenetrably white workplace culture set by those people, where anyone who falls outside the culture must conform or face failure.

She continues,

This is what structural racism looks like. It is not just about personal prejudice, but the collective effects of bias. It is the kind of racism that has the power to drastically affect people’s life chances.

She concludes,

Structural racism is about how Britain’s relationship with race infects and distorts equal opportunity. I think that we, as a nation, placate ourselves with the concept of meritocracy, and by insisting that we just don’t see race. This makes us feel progressive. But to claim not to see race is to demand compulsory assimilation. Colour-blindness does not accept the existence of structural racism or a history of white racial dominance. Indulging the myth that we are all equal denies the economic, political and social legacy of a British society that has historically been organised by race.

For a more developed picture, you really need to read the whole piece. There is an option to either listen to the article or read it, and I would recommend doing so.  It might be helpful to to simply read through this thinking, “How would I do if I lived in a society where my way of doing things was abnormal and where my color of skin became a subtle (or not so subtle) vetting criteria for my own enfranchisement?” How would you handle that?

DID THE DRUG WAR CAUSE MASS INCARCERATION? (VOX)

Drawing heavily on a new book by Fordham University criminal justice expert John Pfaff, German Lopez critiques the common view that the drug war is the cause of racially discriminant mass incarceration.

It’s not drug offenses that are driving mass incarceration, but violent ones. It’s not the federal government that’s behind mass incarceration, but a whole host of prison systems down to the local and state level. It’s not solely police and lawmakers leading to more incarceration and lengthy prison sentences, but prosecutors who are by and large out of the political spotlight.

Lopez (really Pfaff) brings some needed data to this important discussion, and also broadens the scope of what’s behind the mass incarceration epidemic (Michelle Alexander notes, “Although the United States makes up only 5% of the world’s population, it now accounts for one-quarter of the world’s prisoners”)

Based entirely on the article, I think Pfaff often misses the forest for the trees; failing to understand the interconnectedness of the criminal justice machinery and failing to connect meaningful dots. That is to say, I don’t fully agree with the thesis.

But grappling with the causes and realities behind this sad American phenomenon is an important task. As was mentioned in this week’s Economist, prisons “make bad people worse” (I don’t love that language).

Nelson Mandela famously said,

No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails.

Mass incarceration and our criminal “justice” system do not bespeak a healthy nation. This article does thoughtfully suggest how we might start backing our way out. It’s an informative read.

SOCIAL CURATE

 

For Your Consideration (05/31/17)

Confederate Statue Removal

N.O. MAYOR LANDRIEU ON CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS

Brave, articulate and timely political rhetoric is so rare these days; rhetoric that makes a case. This is why I, and many others, took note of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s compelling, concise and self-effacing explanation for the removal of Confederate Monuments.

His decision to enforce the overwhelming sentiment for removal resulted in death threats and protests. So the speech wasn’t his only act of bravery.

He actually debunked the notion that we’re somehow ignoring our nation’s history through the removal of such monuments fairly deftly.

The historic record is clear: the Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This ‘cult’ had one goal — through monuments and through other means — to rewrite history to hide the truth…

The fact that these monuments were little more than propaganda, makes the removal of them that much more obvious.

I would encourage you to watch the 19 minute speech below. Also, there was a write up in Esquire on the speech, which included its transcript.

A highlight for me was Landrieu’s own admission of previous obliviousness, and the formative conversation he had with jazz musician (and New Orleans native son) Wynton Marsalis:

As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought.

So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race. I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes.

Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it?

Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too?

We all know the answer to these very simple questions.

I do hope we can all take our own journey on race.

 

TEEN VOGUE ON RIGHT WING RADICALIZATION

Two weeks before the horrific stabbings of three men on the Portland MAX light-rail system who’d sought to de-escalate a man verbally berating two teenage women, Teen Vogue featured an article questioning why we focus so much attention on addressing the radicalizing influences on Muslims, while refusing to do so in the case white supremacist ideologies.

Do I read Teen Vogue? No. Is this a better question than most news sources give column-width to? Probably.

Since 9/11, American citizens are 7 times more likely to be killed by a right-wing extremist than a Muslim attacker. Yet, when we speak about the two in comparison, even elected officials refuse to relay that reality to the public.

The article is a bit of a social-media catchall—it is Teen Vogue, after all—but don’t we recognize some undead ideologies venturing out from the shadows lately. Isn’t radicalization radicalization; terrorism terrorism?

Considering the astronomically low probabilities of being killed by a terrorist (foreign-born or domestic), these real and present danger component is ostensibly lacking.

The perpetrator of the stabbings in Portland is clearly deranged; and yet his derangement is far from unmoored from conflagrating ideology. Just as ISIS preys upon the vulnerability of their own targets, so the messaging of white-supremacy is predatory.

Ideas and ideologies can gestate real tragedy. How to address this is complicated. But why the reluctance to name the evil of their roots?

Still, I also can’t help but be deeply moved by these 3 men who put themselves in harm’s way to intervene.

WALMART BANS RACIST CUSTOMER

Speaking of intervention, many saw the viral video of a Walmart customer berating a fellow customer at a store near Walmart’s Bentonville, AR headquarters.

Walmart has indicated that this woman is no longer permitted in their stores, which is a strong, important signal.

But, I was also impressed by the customer and employee who calmly intervened; and absorbed the woman’s bigoted ire themselves. At one point the woman filming (who had the audacity to try to reach for medicine near the other woman’s cart) becomes distraught.

The woman tells her, “This is not your country.”

She replies, “This is my country!”

“We don’t want you here,” the woman snarls.

The store manager intervenes, “That’s not true. You are wanted here!”

He then insists that the abusive customer leave. The camera pans over the employee, a slightly gawky, unassuming white man, and the black customer who had also come to her aid. And I’m thinking, “Now that’s an unlikely tag-team.”

I think the awareness on the part of this Walmart employee to not only handle the situation, but to offer the affirming counter-narrative to this hectored latina shopper was something worth noting. I’m thinking he may not be in his dream job, but, guess what, he stepped up in the moment of truth.

I also appreciated this young black woman’s  bravery. She knew what she was seeing, no doubt. Not on her watch. She also simple came to shop, but ended up doing battle; even taking some shrapnel.

Those two are also America at its finest.

HASAN MINHAJ: HOMECOMING KING

Hasan Minhaj is a first-generation Muslim American from Davis, CA. He’s a correspondent for The Daily Show on Comedy Central. (He gave this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.)

He did a comedy special for Netflix called Homecoming King (is was filmed live in Davis, CA and also because it features a homecoming-related thread).

Props for the recommendation go to:

It can skew pretty blue, but it also turns out to be a pretty category-defying mix of comedy and American immigration memoir. It is funny, smart, warm and well-produced. Worth a watch.

SOCIAL CURATE

Racism IV: Privilege | #Friday500

[This is post is part of a five-part series. You can find a link to all five here.]

Stairways used to be segregated, to quote Isabel Wilkerson, “so the soles of their shoes would not touch the same stair.” Some theaters had external entrances accessible by stairways akin to fire-escapes which led colored patrons to the hot upper-balcony seating; more numerous, more steep and more exposed to the elements. The internal, carpeted steps with smooth, varnished banisters led white patrons to the well-vented, unobstructed main-level seating.

These no longer exist, but that’s not to say similar principles no longer apply.

Privilege is a good word, not a bad one. Its connotations overwhelmingly positive; fortified with the soul-nourishing nutrients of gratitude, humility, contentment and purpose. For instance, I am privileged to be a husband and father, privileged to be employed, privileged to be in good health. For all this, I feel blessed. Who am I to come into such bounty?

The recognition of privilege appreciates that we have been beneficiaries of forces external to ourselves; outside our powers of control. Privilege is the foil of entitlement, redirecting our attention to endowments, causing us to treasure them.

Yes, privilege has the power to animate those human faculties of kindness, responsibility, compassion and magnanimity which deploy us into the world as life-givers. Yet it carries with it an existential threat; like a conceptual Trojan horse, it might occasion the overthrow of our sense of personal credit—if permitted past our gates of defense.

You see, external credit—especially beyond one’s agency—is a diminution of self-credit, and undeserved prosperity is anathema to the American ethos, is it not? And so we come to privilege not entirely under amicable terms; it is more of a truce. “I will acknowledge you only so long as my own credit remain intact.” But privilege will never comply with this, because the truth will never comply with this. Thus, we are all prone to subscribe to a myth of singular self-credit; or at least we must preserve self as the majority agent in our personal credit narrative—and this usually carries over into our corporate identities.

No one wants to be confronted by the notion that there are two sets of stairs, and that theirs is the carpeted, sheltered, dependable set leading to a preferable location. We prefer the other set be tucked in the back-alley; out of sight. No one wants to be confronted by the revelations that we pass, as it were, through unequal portals, and that this may, in large part, explain why we end up in prefereable localities along with others like us. Continue reading “Racism IV: Privilege | #Friday500”

For Your Consideration (05/24/17)

IMG_3203.JPGON WRITING WELL

William Zinnser wrote a book I’ve never read called On Writing Well. He died 2 years ago, and a few people I consider to be good writers and good readers took up the occasion to remember him.

Blogger and pastor Tim Challies evidently had combed through the volume shortly after his death and extracted a few of the key thoughts. His piece reads like a Cliffs Note, and made me genuinely interested to grab my own copy of the book.

You should take a few minutes to peruse it, especially if you want to improve as a writer. Challies includes a few gems such as,

A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard

and

Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

and I especially liked this one

Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with “but.” If that’s what you learned, unlearn it—there’s no stronger word at the start. It announces total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change.

Challies categorizes this as “5 Big Tips” and it’s a quick, rewarding read.

A RACIAL RIFT IN EVANGELICALISM

The USC Annenberg School of Journalism‘s site has an interesting section called Religion Dispatches—a section devoted to writing and reporting on religious issues.

Last month Deborah Jian Lee profiled the rift developing between white and non-white evangelicals in the current political climate. Having seen this first-hand for several years now, I was curious.

She writes of the “divestment” of non-white evangelicals from the broader evangelical church. Regarding the recent presidential election,

So while white evangelicals captured the election, they may have lost their fellow believers, the very people who could keep their churches, denominations and institutions from the attrition that has many Christian institutions and leaders genuinely worried for the future.

While the piece is mostly anecdotal and lacks a strong statistical case (e.g. “Jan is one of many evangelicals of color choosing to depart from white evangelical spaces.”), still I consider it a very valid observation that jives with my own last few  years of experience. It is probably sloppy to lump “white evangelicals” together actually, but there seem to be (to use Mike Frost’s term) a bifurcation happening in evangelicalism; a needless and unfortunate one.

I actually wouldn’t recommend the article itself. It’s a bit aimless and lacks a needed nuanced treatment of issues plaguing evangelicalism; caveat emptor.

HOW OLD IS RACISM?

Messiah College Theology professor Drew GI Hart wrote a piece in The Christian Century that mirrors some of my own recent writing. He addresses the question of “How Old is Racism.”?

It is a helpful, brief read. He elucidates the Enlightenment contribution to racism,

Western Europe gained confidence in their own ability to be objective interpreters and catalogers of the world around them. And so they classified everything, from plants to humans, based on their own supposedly objective perspective. It seemed common sense to them that biologically there were different kinds of humans. Through a pseudo-science, that has now been repudiated, they ranked humanity into a racial hierarchy. And to no one’s surprise, they classified white Europeans as the pinnacle of humanity at the top of the hierarchy. White people are superior and supreme. They are the standard for what is right. Likewise, for most people, the Black African, was in their estimation the opposite of whiteness and western civilization. They normally fell at the bottom of the racialized hierarchy.

There are hints of racial constructs throughout antiquity (Hart quotes Plato on the topic), and this needs to be acknowledged. However, Hart does return our attention to the “unique and distinct” aspect of Western racism, especially in it’s global and historical scope.

I intend to suggest that the kind of racism that developed, and how it has so deeply shaped our mindsets and human interactions not only in the United States but all around the world is unique and distinct. It is not a repeat of what has gone before. However, in some sense, there is a proto-racial imagination that goes back to ancient thought.

SOCIAL CURATE

A dude trying to pull off a sick grind attracts a cheering section of black women in purple shirts. Things start looking up.

Racism III: Why Write on Race? | #Friday500

[This is post is part of a five-part series. You can find a link to all five here.]

I’ve been writing of late on the topic of race and racism, and I intend to conclude this topic with a couple more posts over the coming weeks. However, I’m realizing some context may be helpful.

A large portion of those who read these posts have some personal connection to me. And I also imagine the majority of my readers to have a divergent starting point from my own on the topic. Regardless of whether you know me or not, I know what I’ve been writing may resist compatibility with your longstanding conceptual constructs. I say this because I myself not only had a divergent view from my own current one only a few years ago, but, until lately, could scarcely have comprehend the view I now hold.

I want to mention up front that this is neither a liberal nor political exercise, though I understand that it may seem this way. I find myself allergic to the political climate in general of late—disillusioned with both parties, with the system in general and with the toxified smog of politico-centric attitudes in our nation. The current ineptitudes toward sympathy in otherwise kind and reasonable people can only be explained by the state-altering psychosis politico-centric thinking produces.

No, my intentions are of quite a different variety—humanitarian, in nature. Continue reading “Racism III: Why Write on Race? | #Friday500”