A New Beginning

Yesterday, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the election by earning over 4 million more popular votes than the incumbent and collecting somewhere near 300 electoral votes, well above the 270 required for victory. No, it wasn’t the landslide many of us hoped for, but neither was it ambiguous in any sense. It was a very solid win.

So what does this mean for the country? Right now, we are entering the gray zone of Trump’s lame duck presidency. He is still in charge, and technically his power is undiminished. But practically, his influence is slipping away hour by hour, day by day. A week ago, his bluster, his threats, and his attacks, as childish and irrational as they were, still seemed somewhat potent. After all, he was/is the commander in chief of the military and he wields tremendous political power over almost all branches of his corrupted government. But today, despite the fact that the vast majority of the Republican leadership still publicly clings to their standard bearer, Trump’s blustering, to me at least, now feels empty and impotent. He has always whined and complained, but now it feels as if there is nothing below that surface. Perhaps there never was.

With this election, we haven’t solved the fundamental problems of Trumpism but we have at very least bought some time to address them. Yes, we will in all likelihood have a divided government, even after the Senate runoffs are complete in January, so legislative progress will be difficult at best. But we will have two years before the next midterm election to set a new tone, to reverse some of the damage via executive orders, and perhaps even reestablish some constructive dialog with and within Congress. During these two years, we have the opportunity to further convince the country that cooperation, civility, international engagement, and rational domestic problem-solving can produce results that benefit all of us.

The challenges are daunting, but the Biden/Harris team has already revealed part of their strategy: the pandemic must be brought under control before we can hope to solve our other major problems. To this end, tomorrow President-elect Biden will announce the creation of a new Covid-19 task force which will begin planning immediately so it can be effective on inauguration day. The group will be composed of people who have actual expertise in the fields of epidemiology and public health. For the first time, there is real hope for a federally coordinated, focused and rational response to the virus that has killed over 237,000 people in our country and crippled the economy. For details on this and other priorities, see https://buildbackbetter.com/.

For the majority of our country, yesterday was a wonderful time of celebration, relief, and renewed hope. But I know it didn’t feel that way for all Americans. It is vitally important that we acknowledge that, and work to understand it. It would be an enormous mistake to assume that most Republicans are anything like the person of Donald Trump. They are not. As our President-elect has said several times, we should not think of our opponents as enemies. There will always be opposing views and conflicting policy efforts, and progress toward a more perfect union actually depends on this dynamic. But real and lasting progress can only be made when we spend as much energy on finding common ground as we do on defending our own small pieces of turf.

We’ve been given a chance at a new beginning. We’re at that unique point in time when everything is potential and nothing is yet kinetic. As we move into the kinetic phase, we are standing on one piece of solid common ground: a desire to defeat the virus. If we can come together around that goal, perhaps then we can find a way to cooperate on the next one, and the one after that.

1984 Has Finally Arrived

As of today, over 210,000 people in America have died from the effects of Covid-19, and more than 7 million have been infected. These are profoundly sad numbers precisely because they are much more than numbers. Each one represents an individual person. Each one of those 210,000 had dreams of building a life, developing relationships, doing meaningful work, raising a family — or for the many elderly victims, of completing a well-lived life with dignity, and in the presence of family. All this has been taken away.

The deaths alone are tragic, but to truly understand those tragedies we would need to understand the depths of pain experienced by the families and friends left behind. For these people, the pain is multiplied when they realize that many of their losses could easily have been prevented.

And now, we have an infected president who seems to recognize only the number One. This, of course, is nothing new for him. Instead of an epiphany, an awakening, a teachable moment for the nation, we only see more of the same: a hideous facade of strength covering the bones of victimhood and meanness. We are already seeing the emergence of a “spin” so Orwellian and dangerous that it threatens to multiply the suffering and pain in Trump’s America by another huge and preventable factor.

Here is the false logic that first began to appear yesterday. It goes something like this: President Trump got infected by the virus in spite of the herculean precautions that he and the rest of the White House have taken; if he can become infected in spite of these extraordinary measures, then the measures themselves are suspect; in fact, the argument concludes, we should relax the restrictions that our country labors under because they are doing nothing but bringing down the economy; they are not protecting us.

Of course this argument is blindingly easy to refute with one simple question: what “extraordinary measures” are these, exactly? The refusal to wear masks to protect (primarily) those around us? The obvious lack of distancing at gatherings like the Judge Barrett celebration at the White House or the indoor and outdoor rallies which have continued unabated? The insistence upon attending events even after known exposure?

1984 has arrived late, but it is finally here in force. A shockingly large percentage of our population seems quite happy to believe that black is white, truths are lies, and lies are truth. The upcoming election is an important remedy for our sad situation, but it will only be a start. It may take years, or even decades, to undo the deep and fundamental damage that this president and his followers have done. But start we must.

Give More, Grab Less

Over the last decade or so, I’ve been bothered by the increasingly common use of the verb “grab” in online ads, TV commercials and general conversation. Here are some examples:.

“Let’s grab a sandwich.” Okay, pretty benign, just a colloquialism.

“5 years from now, you’ll probably wish you’d grabbed this stock.” From the Motely Fool today. Implications of desperation, greed, get-it-before-its-too-late, don’t be stupid.

“Grab this deal before its gone.” Same, with the implication that one needs to act quickly to beat out others.

“Grab ‘em by the …” Crass, offensive, implications of special rights for the privileged, denigration, disrespect, domination, wrongful assertion of power.

At the core of all this is the notion that we should act in our own self-interests, and quickly, before someone else has the same idea and takes something of value away from us. Sometimes this notion is justified by the (in my opinion false) Ayn Randian narrative that overall good, overall progress, is made when each of us acts in our own self-interest. This leads to a highly transactional and self-centered philosophy of personal interaction. Where have we seen that, and its results, in the last four years?

There was an interesting article by Cameron Hilditch yesterday in the National Review related to the grabbing problem. The article’s title is “Self Interest is Not Enough” and it discusses President Lincoln’s argument in 1854 against Stephen Douglas’s doctrine of Popular Sovereignty under which states and other localities would be allowed to make their own decisions about the continuation of slavery. Lincoln argued strongly against the idea that “there is no right principal of action but self-interest.” The article can be found here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/abraham-lincoln-american-founding-self-interest-not-enough/#slide-1 .

Recently, a subset of Trump supporters have declared mask-wearing during our pandemic to be an assault on individual freedoms. On more than one occasion I’ve read of anti-maskers elevating masks to such a symbolic height that they say, “If I die, I die.” What worries many of us about such statements is not so much the absurdity and stupidity of not taking such a simple precaution. Rather, it is the blatant disregard for the safety of others. Yes, masks do give the wearer some measure of protection, but they are even more effective in preventing the spread of the virus from the wearer outward. And none of us can be certain at any given time that we are not unwitting carriers.

So, my hope for the coming year is that we will all learn to be much more giving and much less grabbing. Maybe the new bumper sticker should be, “Give More, Grab Less.”

Reason For Hope

I think President Trump is serving our country exceptionally well right now. But this form of service is not something he will ever boast about, nor will it ever be mentioned in a presidential tweet or serve as fodder for his reelection campaign. It will never be trotted out by the likes of Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity on Fox News.

Trump is many abhorrent things, but he is not the root cause of the Covid-19 epidemic, or systemic racism, or voter suppression, or any of the other crises we currently face. It is popular right now to label him a “symptom” as opposed to a cause. But this is a passive description that misses an important point: he is an active amplifier of underlying ills that have plagued us for centuries. To overtly re-purpose a phrase from 1 Corinthians 13, we’ve been “seeing through a glass darkly” but now “face to face.” Trump is anything but subtle, and perhaps that is a good thing. The face he presents to the world exposes our worst characteristics and shines a bright light on our deepest failings.

But the necessary first step in solving any problem is recognizing and acknowledging its existence. Trump has been, and continues to be, highly successful in helping us do this. His skill in this one area has brought us to the “inflection point” that was referenced several times last night in the hope-filled first installment of the virtual Democratic Convention. And now that we’re here, we can move to the next steps: flesh out effective and healing policies, elect a competent and decent president, and take action.

Historian Joanne Freeman, in her article in The Atlantic this morning, put it so well in her closing sentence: “In short,” she wrote, “there’s no escape from the urgency of now. We owe it to ourselves and to the future to recognize the meaning of this moment, and to choose our actions wisely and well.”

Book Announcement

Yesterday, I announced the publication of Bending the Arc and its connection to The Kindness Corps. I was pleased by all the supportive email responses and book pre-orders that followed. The paperback will begin shipping on July 10 and the Kindle version will begin downloading at the same time.

100% of my proceeds from book sales will go to The Kindness Corps on a quarterly basis and I’m excited to see what we can all do together to help this wonderful organization spread kindness.

Why Do We Hate?

When I was ten years old, I did something I’ve always regretted and never fully understood. 

At dusk on a Saturday in October, I trudged down the alley behind my house clutching a pair of heavy channel-lock pliers hidden in the front pocket of my black sweatshirt.  As I passed the halfway point in the alley, I glanced over my shoulder to be sure no one was following me.

When I got to a small white house with flaking paint and a weedy overgrown lawn at the end of the block, I checked again. No one around. I walked up to the sagging garage door and peered inside.  No lights, an oil-stained concrete floor, an old green Ford Fairlane, a few scattered tools on a bench, and a red bike.

I had never been in this garage before, but I knew it was Billy’s, and the red bike confirmed that.  The bike was newer than anything else in the garage and it was my target. I pulled the pliers from my pocket and opened the big jaws. Fastening them around several of the shiny chrome spokes on the back wheel of the bike, I yanked and twisted until the mangled spokes pulled away from the hub. I did it again on the front wheel. And then I ran.

It was a mean-spirited and cowardly act of revenge aimed at a kid who happened to live at the “wrong” end of the block. Maybe Billy had insulted one of us at the “right” end of the block. Maybe he had just looked at us wrong. Maybe he had a few choice words for us. I really don’t remember what his crime was. But some small provocation, probably combined with a desire to prove allegiance to my end of the block, led me to wreck Billy’s new bike that night.

I lost track of Billy when he disappeared a few years later, apparently dropping out of high school. But that one senseless act of mine, however minor it might seem in the context of today’s polarized and hate-stained world, stays with me.  For me it was a deliberate choice, something that I caused to happen.  For Billy, it was something that happened to him.  Did it contribute to anger, bitterness, or a sense of powerlessness in his developing personality?  Or maybe a feeling of failure as a member of our little community? Could it have been a part, however indirect, of his decision to become a high school dropout? I’ll probably never know.

The choices we make every day, big or small, good or bad, affect the lives of people in our present and future. We never know about most of these impacts because they extend into the future well beyond our lifetimes, affecting people who influence others, who then continue the process with others, forming a branching tree of change. Sometimes we all feel small and powerless, but we are powerful beyond imagining.

Looking back, I wish I had chosen kindness and friendship over ignorance and hate. This kind of meanness was not the norm for me — I had never done anything like this before and haven’t since — but in that moment I acted on something real inside me. I even felt oddly righteous. I was not forced to do it. No one dared me to do it. No one even suggested it. I just did it. Why?

I can only speculate from my vantage point nearly sixty years later. I don’t think that I, or anyone else at my end of the block, felt threatened by this kid. I don’t think that Billy had ever done any physical harm to any of us or our property. I do think that he felt looked-down-upon by us and, sadly, he was right about that. As a result, he probably said some things we interpreted as aggressive or mean.

Billy’s family was struggling financially; his house and yard showed it. My family, like others at our end of the block, was financially stable, not wealthy by any means, but we had all we needed. Billy lived at the other end of the block, and even that small separation seemed to amplify our differences. Another kid in a similar situation lived just across the street from Billy and neither kid was doing well in school. I don’t remember ever seeing Billy’s parents around, and it never occurred to me that he might need help, or at very least a friend.

This was my first personal “us vs. them” experience and I haven’t been a direct participant in anything like it since, at least not in such an obvious way. But I’ve participated in more subtle yet still destructive ways: like staying silent after hearing a class-related, racist, homophobic, or misogynistic comment or joke; like repeating a rumor; like making assumptions about someone’s intentions based purely on race or appearance.

Dr. Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton (UC Berkeley), like many other researchers, has pointed out that humans are exceptionally adept at making distinctions. We are naturally quick to identify someone either as one of “us” or one of “them.” This ability makes our world simpler to navigate: we don’t have to think as hard about who to trust and who not to trust. We can make faster decisions, and in our primitive past, speed often meant survival. But of course our ability to distinguish, coupled with our tendency to generalize, also leads us directly into racism, misogynism, homophobia and other maladies. It leads us into hate.

But we aren’t powerless victims of evolution. We can change. Mendoza-Denton points out that one of the most effective and powerful ways to do that is through personal relationships:

“Familiarity breeds liking. The more often and consistently people experience one another through inter-group contact, the less likely they are to be influenced by stereotypes and prejudices. Some of our prejudices arise simply because we don’t have experience with other groups. We never have the chance to disconfirm our faulty stereotypes.”

I hope to follow this advice more consistently in the coming weeks and months. I only wish I could go back and convince my ten year-old self to do the same.

Hope

I’ve been feeling strangely hopeful in the last couple of days. It could be a case of unfounded optimism, but I don’t think so.

George Floyd’s murder was horrendous, and there will never be a “great day for George Floyd,” as the president so callously and inexplicably said a few days ago when bragging about the small turnaround in unemployment. At the same time, there is a strong sense of change in the air. We’re seeing the largest protests, internationally, that the world has ever experienced. Peaceful but forceful statements are now being heard above the diminishing noise of looting. Large numbers of former military and government officials and a few Republican leaders are speaking out against the president’s use of military force to deny the First Amendment rights of the peaceful protestors. We’re even seeing some police officers showing solidarity with demonstrators.

There seems to be a growing realization that opposition to the sitting president need not be a purely political act. Now, more than ever before, we’re seeing opposition to inhumanity, to the abject abuse of power, to the self-serving actions of a man who simply does not have the ability to serve the country. My hope is that many more Republicans will soon come to the conclusion that the human cost of the Trump presidency outweighs any policy advantages they may see in the short term.

But I’m not assuming that substantial and meaningful change will now magically happen. It will take sustained pressure between now and November. It will take even more voices, especially more Republican voices, consistently raised in support of compassion, inclusion, and reason. It will take more awareness of the continued pervasiveness of racism, and it will take active anti-racism.

There is more reason for hope today than there was a week ago.

A Modern-Day Lynching

George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer this past Monday was a modern-day lynching. That’s how Philonise Floyd, George’s brother, described it yesterday on MSNBC, and he was right. By now, nearly everyone in America has seen the horrendous video of Floyd’s arrest and killing. The protests which followed are not only in reaction to George Floyd’s murder but also to the persistent pattern of police violence against African Americans in this country.

What lies behind this brutality? It seems clear that under the veneer of (sometimes) justified law enforcement are layers of fear and hate directed at some bent archetypal concept of a black person. Sometimes this warped concept rises to the surface in the heat of an arrest and results in the killing of a fellow human. The killing isn’t usually a reaction to a specific offense. It flows from 400 years of deeply-embedded prejudice initiated by our own institution of slavery. We (white people) artificially and cruelly placed black people in a position of servitude and have worked ever since, sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly, and sometimes even unconsciously, to keep them there. We are racists, whether we admit it or not.

What then, can we do? Ibram X. Kendi, in his recent book, “How to be an Antiracist,” suggests a new perspective. First, he suggests recognition — recognition of the pervasiveness and internalization of racism in all of us (himself included). Then, Kendi makes the point — in multiple ways — that being non-racist is not the same as being anti-racist. The former is largely passive while the latter is decidedly active. Recognition should be followed by specific actions to counter racist attitudes and racist policies.

I admit to struggling with this, partly because actions are so much harder than neutrality and require personal investment and risk; and partly because I don’t know where to begin or how to make a difference. The problem seems so enormous and so systemic.

An African American friend and the founder of The Kindness Corps provided some valuable insight last year when she was consulting with me on the creation of Bending the Arc. She encouraged me to think about actions in terms of personal relationships and not just vague position-taking or policy-advocating (or blog-writing, for that matter!). Personal relationships are key. I suppose an analogy might be made to the old adage about thinking globally but acting locally.

At the same time, my friend would probably be one of the first to point out that, while personal relationships are the key to real progress, political action is also important and cannot be ignored. And from my reading of Kendi’s work, he would probably agree. He argues that one can’t effectively fight a vague “System.” Since system policies are ultimately created and enforced by individuals, change still depends upon us personally helping others to see the world differently; and, just as importantly, allowing others to help us change.

Coming Soon: Bending the Arc and Kindness

I’m happy to take a break from writing about the pandemic to note that the release date for my new novel, Bending the Arc, is now within 45-60 days. I’m excited about the book’s upcoming availability but even more enthusiastic about the opportunity it presents to support an organization called The Kindness Corps.

The Kindness Corps, as the name implies, is all about spreading kindness to those people who need it the most, and in very practical ways. Serving predominantly black communities in Washington D.C., Dallas, New Orleans and Boston, The Kindness Corps “offers a range of community service opportunities for those who want to spread kindness one helpful act at a time.” Since 2015, this volunteer-coordinating group has been providing backpacks loaded with school supplies for kids unable to buy their own, meals for hungry families, and even Thanksgiving turkeys for those who would normally go without. And now, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, needs like these are even more acute. To learn more, please go here and here.

So, what’s the connection between the book, Bending the Arc and The Kindness Corps? In consulting with the Kindness Corps’ founder and psychotherapist, Leathia West, on the cultural and racial aspects of the book, I asked about her organization. I was inspired by what I learned from her as well as from my in-laws, Susan and Dean, who have volunteered with the organization. The basic philosophy is simple: show kindness whenever and wherever possible. And do it in practical ways. Meet real needs.

Last year, when I wrote my personal goals for 2020, one of them was this: “Make one significant contribution to the life of someone not in our family.” Then, after learning about The Kindness Corps, it became clear to me that this would be a great way to realize that resolution. I decided to contribute all profits from the sale of Bending the Arc to The Kindness Corps. But the significance of this contribution depends very little on anything I do from here on out. It depends almost entirely on my potential readers. Profits from book sales in general are small. So in order to make a real difference, we need to sell lots of books!

Immediately after the book goes on sale on Amazon as both a paperback and a Kindle book, I will send an email to my Contacts list announcing its availability and explaining the opportunity to support the Kindness Corps by simply buying a copy. I’ll also ask recipients to consider forwarding the email to people who they think might be interested, and from there to others, and so on. In this way, we should be able to reach a large set of potential readers/contributors.

I’m very excited about this and hope my readers will be too.

One Month On

Less than a month from my last post, the U.S. Covid-19 infection and fatality numbers are very close to the worldwide totals cited then. In this country alone, over a million people have been infected and approximately 60,000 have died. In spite of the fact that our numbers are now greater than those of the next highest six countries combined, several states are about to reopen businesses and relax other restrictions in an attempt to salvage their economies. The desire is understandable. The tradeoff could be devastating. Federal leadership remains almost absent, and when present at all, is often self-contradictory and inconsistent.

Writing about the pandemic is not what I originally intended to do here. I’d much rather talk about my upcoming book, the challenges and joys of writing it, and the growing importance of organizations like The Kindness Corps. It may be too early to open up our economy but it’s not too early to begin ramping up our care for those who will be most severely impacted by its painful but necessary shutdown. I promise to shift gears, at least temporarily, in my next post.

The Pandemic

I write this blog entry as the world suffers through the early to middle stages of the Coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of people have lost their lives and it appears that many more will follow soon. As of today, there are over 1.1 million confirmed cases worldwide and over 60,000 deaths. Here in the United States, the severity of the outbreak is largely due to the absence of leadership at the top of our government. But it goes beyond absence. It is also denial, ineptitude, inconsistency, and ignorance. It is an unwillingness to accept responsibility and act.

So the states are trying to take action on their own, and a few are making heroic attempts, even with a lack of resources and support from the Federal government. But several others have not taken any meaningful action at all as they look to the president for guidance. As of this writing, no coherent guidance is forthcoming. Yesterday, the president said that it would probably be a good idea for everyone to wear protective masks when in public. But then he proceeded to destroy any semblance of strong direction by stating that this was purely voluntary and that he himself would probably not comply. So several states wait, and while they do, their hospitals rapidly approach maximum capacity and their death toll rises.

The next couple of months are likely to be worse than anyone wants to believe right now. Things will get better eventually, for those of us who survive and whose families remain untouched. But almost all of us will be touched in some way.

For now, the best things we can do are to physically isolate ourselves to slow down the spread of infection and to look for opportunities to help one another recover.

I’m sorry for the sad tone of this first blog post. I will always try my best to be honest here, and right now this is how I’m doing that. There are many things I’m grateful for and happy about, and I think you’ll see that from me in the future. But for now, this is the state of things.