I Have Never...

So I've been meaning to write a new post for weeks now, but Things Keep Happening and whatever I was going to say gets eclipsed by whatever else is in the headlines.  I have like three started and discarded posts just in the last month.  Maybe at some point I could get them together and publish them under Things I Might Have Said If They Had Still Been Relevant, or something like that, but I doubt that anybody would be interested.  Anyway, there is only one subject at the moment and it's about people with a skin color different than mine being murdered by police, in part because of an insidious, systemic racism that's been with us since essentially forever.  And what we can do about it.  Yes, even us pale folks.

I dunno about you, but when I was in school, we learned basically nothing about African-American history. Zero. Zilch.  Oh, we talked about slavery for about five minutes in the lead-up to spending three weeks on the Civil War, but it was like, "Yeah, there was slavery, and it was bad, and then we had the Civil War and after that there wasn't slavery anymore, so we're going to spend the next week talking about the Battle of Gettysburg."  I majored in English in college, at an allegedly liberal institution, and out of all the literature classes I had to take (and there were a lot), we got assigned exactly one book by an African-American author.  One.  Seriously, just one (and it was Beloved by Toni Morrison, and if you haven't read it yet, what's stopping you?), and when it came time for the final exam, there weren't any questions on it because we ran out of time to discuss it in class. (Sigh and eye roll here.) And forget the civil rights movement or the March on Washington or Martin Luther King.  None of that ever even got mentioned. "Anything that's less than fifty years ago isn't history, it's current events, and so we're not going to cover it in a history class," said a professor of mine.  I mean, I guess I could have pointed out that it's still going on, but that would have only proved his point.

So everything I know about African-American history, which is still not a lot, I learned as an adult.  The books I've read by black authors (most recently: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and I could not. Put. It. Down.) I read as an adult.  And I'm not sure adult brains are the best, most fertile ground for learning essential truths about humanity, though I guess they are better than nothing. I'd like to think the schools are doing a better job with this stuff now than they were then. 

For the record, I grew up in Utah, and at the time, there were no black people in Utah.  Well, I'm sure there were, somewhere, but I didn't know any and nobody I knew knew any.  (I might add here that the Mormon Church didn't let black men into the priesthood between 1849 and 1978, and I was nine in 1978, so for the bulk of my childhood, African-American folks should be forgiven for suspecting that Utah might not be the friendliest place they could settle.  They would also be right.)  I made my first African-American friend when I was about eleven.   I find this both pathetic and sad. This is also part of the whole insidious systemic racism thing.  Just because all the segregation laws have been thrown out doesn't mean segregation doesn't still exist.

Also, there's this thing called white privilege.  That is, the things that white folks get because they are white that black folks don't get because they are black.  There's a lot to say here because it covers so many facets of life, but I'll try to hit some of the big ones:

• I have never, in an emergency room, been asked if I'm using illegal drugs, or for that matter, had a doctor accuse me of lying.
• I have never, in a workplace environment, had to hunt high and low for any colleagues that might look a little like me.
• I have never, when pulled over by the police (three times that I remember), worried that I might not make it home alive that night.
• I have never thought to take my small child on a walk with me so as to look less threatening and therefore less likely to be shot or have someone call the police on me.
• I've never been asked about my religion as I was about to board an airplane.
  
• I've never had a delivery service refuse to come to my neighborhood. 
• I've never felt like it was necessary to tell my kids how to survive an encounter with the police.  (Okay, I don't have any kids, but if I did, I would think it part of my job to teach them how to stay alive from day to day, and that's just not something I would think to bring up.)
• I have never been fired from a job or not hired for a job because I had the "wrong" first name or skin color.
• I have never had anyone tell me I need to leave a certain neighborhood by sunset.  And yes, for the record, I do live in Texas.

I mean, I could go on.  Lots of people have, and a lot more eloquently than me.  But the thing about racism generally is that it is so insidious.  It permeates every facet of life.  It's in our faces all the time, but most of the time we don't see it.  So what can we do about it?

Well, in a word, lots:

• Here's 75 things white people can do to for racial justice.
• Here are four steps we can take to fight racism.
• Here's a book we can read about why this is so hard for white people.
• Here's another book we can read, especially for folks in the legal field. 

But by far the biggest, most important thing we can do is to listen.  Be willing to let go of our preconceived notions about racism generally and white privilege in particular.  Be willing to listen to people who are actually affected day to day.  And work to change those things that we can change, depending on where we are and in what field and in what station of life.  I had to twist a few arms to get my book club to read The Underground Railroad, but I did it.  It is a small thing, but small ripples of air spilling off the Western Sahara can start swirling around the Canary Islands and eventually become hurricanes. 

Oh, and in case I haven't mentioned it yet, VOTE.  The whole ticket, not just against the Cheeto in Chief.  The small races for City Council and State Senate and who should be judge of what court have a lot more to do with people's day to day lives than what happens in Washington.  They're also the races where your vote really counts, because these are the races that are often won or lost by a handful of votes. And if you don't know who's running for what on your local ticket, this is a great time to find out.  You have five months.  Get busy. 

The Great Divide

--Here comes the great divide.
I walk the slide
That only killers should fear.
Here comes the great divide
I walk the slide
I hope I never fall.

--Stuart Adamson

A while ago Joan installed a "podcast app" on my new cell phone. (I had to get a new cell phone because my old cell phone was flipping into "airplane mode" by itself, and at odd times.  A real problem if, say, my boss wanted to call me.  Naturally, T-Mobile couldn't fix it and gently "suggested" that I get a new phone.)  If you're not familiar with "podcasts," all I can say is, check a few out.  They're like radio programs, usually about half an hour long, recorded by regular people, some with agendas and some who just have a topic they like to talk about and educate other people about.  You download them from the Internet and you can listen to them on your computer, or through your tablet or cell phone or what have you.  Because my cell phone talks to my car somehow (I still think this is magic, or else the little guys inside my cell phone talk to the little guys inside my car dashboard and tell them what to say), I can now listen to "podcasts" while I'm driving to and from work, and in rich, stereo sound, too.  This was a revelation.  Imagine; all this time I could have been learning something instead of bouncing around at intersections and belting out the lyrics to "Come On, Eileen" for the 9,827th time.

Anyway, one of my favorite podcasters is Dan Carlin.  He's a political commentator, in a sense, but he approaches U.S. politics as though he's a space alien who has just come to Earth and is starting to learn a little bit about human society.  He's neither conservative nor liberal but kind of a maddening mix of both, which is what makes him so interesting.  Mr. Carlin has two main podcasts; "Common Sense", which is about politics, and "Hardcore History", which is also about politics but in the context of what happened during, say, World War I or the Holy Roman Empire.  (We interrupt this blog post for a quick plug: Although the podcast about World War I was six episodes long and each episode ran about three hours, it was totally and completely worth the time spent and you should go download all six episodes from his web site right now, while they're still free.)

Up until just before The Election, Dan Carlin was saying in his "Common Sense" podcast that he thought the biggest problem we face as Americans is corruption in government.  What, you might ask, did he think the solution was?  Well, he thought we should vote in an outsider who would do things in a way nobody's ever done them before.  So we did that, and, uh, guess what happened.  Now Dan Carlin is saying no, I was wrong; the biggest problem we face as Americans is not corruption in government, nor Donald Trump, as you might expect, but the fact that a large chunk of our population hates another large chunk of our population.  And the reverse.  Which is where Donald Trump came from.  And there are smaller groups that hate other smaller groups, and those smaller groups hate lots of other small groups, and primarily it's just a great big hatefest out there, and if we're not careful, the whole country is going to break up into a bunch of nationalistic, nuclear, surly little rocks.  Sort of like the Soviet Union did--oops, I'm getting ahead of myself.

 See, back in the 1960s, and even probably up until maybe ten or twenty years ago, if you told somebody the United States might break up, their likely initial reaction would be, "Oh no!  What can we do to preserve the Union?"  Nowadays, the reaction's a lot more likely to be, "Good.  I don't want to live with those people anymore."  Whoever those people may be.  The Jews.  The blacks.  The gays.  The conservatives.  The liberals.  The Society of Left-Handed Spanish-Speaking Librarians Without Tonsils.*  Pick your label.  Depending on who you talk to, you'd be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that in the very near future, you'll have your choice of Californiastan, Texasberg, the Kingdom of Washoregon, Utahsville,  New Yorkguay and the Republic of Gilead--oops, I mean the Confederate States.  (Maine, of course, will make like a tree and join Canada.) Presumably they'll all have separate currencies and you'll need a passport to travel from one to another. What's more, you'll have to pass an ideology check. No one beyond this point may openly advocate interracial marriage, for example.

So what can we do about this?

Maybe nothing.  Maybe us fragmenting and falling apart would be for the best.  We are using 25% of the planet's resources, after all, which is all the more shocking when you know that we only have 5% of the world's population.  We export our environmental damage by buying lumber from countries that don't have sustainable forests, messily manufacturing our products in countries that don't have air pollution controls, and overfish oceans that aren't subject to our environmental laws.  Breaking us up might be good for the world.  I think it'd be just terrible for us, though.  For all kinds of reasons. I mean, we've been a country for a long time.  It'd be kind of cool if we could keep on being one.

Dan Carlin isn't sure what to do, but I have a suggestion. It's kind of Buddhist-y, but here it is: Let's try actually listening to each other, instead of just seeing who can shout the loudest.  Let's get to know some of our neighbors who think differently than we do. And more to the point, find out why they think differently than we do.  How they came to those conclusions.  What pieces of information they considered.  And whether or not they're convinced of the truth of those pieces of information and, if they're not, if they've ever considered any other pieces of information that might point to a different conclusion. And (here's the hard part) let them get to know the same things about us.  And give us the same pieces of information.  After all, we might be wrong about a thing.  It's not unheard of.

In Buddhism we have this thing called "nonattachment to views."  About which there have been lots of words written, but what it basically boils down to is, "I might be wrong.  Therefore I'll listen and see if I can learn something."

How important is nonattachment to views?  Well, Right View is one of the eight things on the Eightfold Path that leads to enlightenment.  And I quote:  "“Right View” is also called “right perspective”, “right vision” or “right understanding.”...You need to see the world and yourself as they truly are, not what you have been conditioned to see."  And nonattachment to views is a big part of this.  In short, if you've grown up, say, in a country that has a dominant religion, and you and your family are of a different religion, you could perhaps be forgiven (at least for a while) for thinking that people of the dominant religion are inherently bad, evil, or otherwise nasty--especially if people of the dominant religion went out of their way to harass, repress and terrorize you.  (And I have no experience with this whatsoever, as I'm sure you know.)  But, once you got out there in the world and met some of the people of this dominant religion, you might learn that they have the same dreams, aspirations and ambitions as you do, that they want all the same things you want, and that just because they believe something other than what you believe, they're all individuals and it's unfair to paint them all with the same bad/evil/nasty brush.  Even if they've done the same to you.  Which, let's face it, a lot of them have.

We have so many choices anymore for our sources of information, and it's easy to get stuck in a bubble by turning only to those sources of information that support things we've already made our minds up about anyway.  Like, say, watching only Fox News, logging in only to Breitbart, and hanging around only with the #tcots on Twitter.  Conversely, you might watch nothing but CNN, log in only to The Daily KOS and hang around only with--with--I'm not sure there's an opposite label from #tcot.  But if there is one, that's the one I mean.

So what am I suggesting, you may ask.  Am I suggesting you watch Fox News for ten minutes a day?  Follow Karl Rove on Twitter? Log in to LifeSite News, for crying out loud?!  Well, yes, sort of, but more to the point, I'm suggesting you actually talk to people.  People people.  Human beings people. People who think differently than you do.  Find out why they think differently.  Ask them what they believe.  Here's a thing--people love talking about what they believe.  Get them started and you probably won't have to say a word for ten minutes or more.  Excellent tip for cocktail parties where you don't know anybody and you're only there to be arm candy for your wife.

And if you can, without being obvious, ask people why they believe what they believe.  And don't take "Because that's what it says in the Bible" as your answer.  Come back with "Okay, but you decided to believe that the Bible is true. When did you decide to do that?  What happened?"  And maybe the person had a born-again experience when he was fourteen or maybe he was in a terrible accident and almost died and thinks that God saved him or maybe he hasn't a clue when he made that decision or why.

Ah, now you are getting somewhere.  You have, after all, just learned something about this person that you didn't know before.  Maybe it will be enough to alter your view of him.  Maybe not, but more to the point, he's learned something too.  About himself as well as about you. If nothing else, he now knows that you're a good listener.  And what's more, you want to learn things.  Curiosity may have killed some feline back 70,000 years ago, but trust me, intellectual curiosity is about the best asset a human being can have.  Besides being a good listener.  I really think that trumps just about everything.

So that's my suggestion.  Maybe it'll work and maybe it won't, but it's certainly worth a try, isn't it? Because breaking up the country isn't only stupid, it would be really expensive.  You think taxes are high now?  Buddy, just wait until Utahville figures out it needs to host the Olympics again  You ain't seen nothin' yet.


*Not a real political action committee, but wouldn't it be interesting if it were.

We Interrupt This Blog For An Announcement.

You guys, Justina Pelletier's family has just filed suit against Childrens' Hospital Boston for civil rights violations and medical malpractice.  Here's the link. (It's a short story but there will probably be a press release later.)   If it were my petition I'd throw in negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress, loss of consortium, gross negligence and reckless endangerment, but I'm sure the lawyers know what they're doing. (And I just have to say, I'd give a very valuable body part to be on that legal team right now.  Which one do they want?  We can discuss.)

I realize my point of view is a little jaundiced because I write about institutional stupidity, of which there seems to be no end, but still, thank God and it's about time.  (Though, I might have waited until Justina turned 18.  Just in case, you know.)  You shouldn't get to abuse a child for 18 months, threaten her life and her health, lock her up when she hasn't done anything wrong, and then just walk away like nothing happened.  I hope by the time it's over, the family ends up owning this hospital and the whole medical-kidnapping thing comes to a screeching halt because everybody's afraid to try it again.

If you missed my posts on this case, you can find them here, here and here.  I won't bore you with a recap.  Let's just say, I've done my own writing on this thing, and maybe something will come out of that and maybe it won't.  And I'm sorry the religious right has seized on this case and made it one of their pet issues (meaning you have to wade through a bunch of hysterical rantings from so-called "persecuted Christians" and anti-vaccination insanity to find out much about it) but since they have, maybe they've done something good for a change. Even Mike Huckabee, with whom I virulently disagree about practically everything, took on Justina's case as a personal cause of action.  And isn't that what we should be doing, us human beings (never mind us Buddhists)?  The right thing, even if we have to hold our noses and do it with people we don't like very much?

Meanwhile, back at the Flaming O Ranch, things are unusually copacetic. Calm, even, sometimes. We're almost done with the painting of our Spare Room, just the chair rails and the trim to go, and after we let that sit and "cure" for a few weeks, we can start moving back in. Finally.  I'll post photos.  I'm still rolling around on the floor fighting this sugar addiction thing tooth and nail, but nothing's really changed there; sometimes I win, sometimes the sugar wins. I'm paying basically no attention to the election except for stuff people post on Twitter, and I've stayed out of Yahoo chat rooms almost entirely since, let's see, January.  At which time my mood seems to have lifted. Coincidence? Probably.  Oh, and we marked the passing of David Bowie. Rest easy, Mr. Bowie.

Anyway, I'll try to come up with something substantive to write about next week.  Maybe some obscure point of admiralty law.  Or maybe Buddhism.  I think I'm supposed to be writing about Buddhism.