Category Archives: community

And The World Keeps Spinning -

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When my youngest niece was born, I spent a good twenty four consecutive hours in the hospital with my sister. I’d just gotten a sun burn and I’d neglected to bring any snacks. But it was a remarkable experience nonetheless.

When I final left those fluorescent-lit hallways and found myself blinking in the brightness of the world, it seemed remarkable to me just how ordinary everything seemed.

Something miraculous had happened, but the world kept spinning.

I found a similar sensation a few years later when my father passed away. I got caught in traffic at 8:30am on a Monday and I couldn’t figure out where everyone was going. It seemed strange to think of people going to work. It seem strange to see people engaged in every day activities. It seem strange to see the rest of the world acting as if nothing had happened.

Something devastating had happened, but the world kept spinning.

These are a few of my private moments of disorientation, but this feeling happens collectively as well.

I remember the highs of Red Sox victories – knowing smiles and cheers passing between strangers on the street. I remember the shared anxiety and trepidation in the week following the Boston Marathon bombing.

In days of disappointing Patriots losses or of collective bemoaning of snow, my geographic community feels united, as if the whole world is focused on what we know. But contact with the outside world reveals just how isolated that collective feeling is. Somehow, despite what feels so pressing to us, everyone else in the world is just carrying on.

Something happened, but the world kept spinning.

While many things have been difficult to process about what’s going on in Ferguson and around the country, this feeling of disjointedness and disorientation has really struck me the last few days.

I turn on the news and – as much as I know exactly what to expect – I almost find it hard to believe there’s anything besides issues of race or justice being covered.

Thanksgiving feels strangely hollow, Christmas shopping especially trivial, in the face the deep racial injustice we face in this country. There is so much work to be done. How is anyone thinking of anything else?

My Facebook news feed is heavily slanted towards people who are out on the streets protesting, who are organizing vigils, walkouts, and teach-ins. I understand from their posts that this isn’t the norm, but it’s almost enough to let me breath a sigh of relief.

Someone else has got that covered, I almost want to say. Someone else is doing something. And while I care – of course I care – I also have things to do, other priorities, other concerns. And no one really cares what I think, anyway.

Someone else has got that covered, so I’ll just crawl back towards a sense of normalcy and hope for the best. What can I really do, anyway?

And then I see a comment not about Ferguson, not about racial justice, or not questioning the systems of privilege and oppression we’ve artfully constructed in this country. And as much as a part of me may want to move on in my life, I find myself baffled that others have moved on so quickly.

Something has happened, I want to exclaim. How can the world keep spinning?

Of course, that’s what makes a system of privilege so insidious. That is what makes the injustice so cunning -

I am white. I have the privilege to just walk away. I have the privilege to think that what happened to a black man in Ferguson, in Miami, in Cleveland, in Oakland, in too many cities – I have the privilege to think what happened to them has nothing to do with me.

It’s almost easier to walk away.

After all, if the world keeps spinning, I might as well be on it. I almost certainly can’t make a difference, I almost certainly can’t bring about any change. I have no expertise in law or law enforcement or even, really, in social justice. I’m just an average person with things I would change, but no idea how I’d fix them.

I have so little to offer, and it is so, so easy to just sigh and walk away.

But I can’t.

I just can’t. And neither should you.

There is so much work to be done. So much. None of us know all the answers. None of us can figure it all out. None of us can make it all right. We need to work together – and we need to all work – to find solutions to these complex problems.

We should all be in shock. We should all be in awe. We should all be terrified and hopeful about what the future may hold.

There is important work to be done, and no one gets to sit this one out. After all, the world keeps spinning.

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It’s Not About Ferguson

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I wasn’t sure what to write today. I’ve had a hard time finding my words.

Ferguson is all that’s on the news, and with good reason. A grand jury failed to indict police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed, 18-year-old, black man.

I could write about how the role of a grand jury is to evaluate a case by the low bar of whether there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed – advancing the suspect, still presumed innocent, to face a trial.

I could write about how incredibly rare it is for a grand jury not to indict, how of the 162,000 federal cases U.S. attorneys prosecuted in 2010, grand juries declined to indict in only 11 of them.

I could write about how the jury which failed to indict white police officer Darren Wilson was composed of nine white and three African-American jurors.

I could go through the thousands of pages of evidence, giving my own lay opinion of what it all means.

But none of that feels sufficient. None of that is enough.

What happened in Ferguson was shocking, but not surprising. It was horrifying but routine. It was a noteworthy moment, but a moment of little note.

The thing is – the true, deep, terrifying thing – is that it’s not about Ferguson.

In that moment, in that place, the details, of course, are everything. But in the grand scheme of things – it doesn’t really matter whether Officer Wilson genuinely felt threatened or whether he had genuine cause to feel threatened. It doesn’t really matter what the evidence indicates in this specific, individual, case. I mean, it matters a lot, but it also – it doesn’t matter.

What matters is that black men and women face a dramatic difference in life expectancy than white people do.

What matters is that black men and women are hugging their children tight, desperately praying for their safety. I don’t know whether Officer Wilson was genuinely threatened, but I know that my black brothers and sisters are genuinely threatened.

I know that black people are disproportionately more likely to be shot by police officers.

I know a 12-year-old black kid was shot and killed by police while playing with a toy gun.

You see, that’s the insidious thing about institutional racism – there’s always a reason why its “not about race” this time.

A police officer is trained to react a certain way, to anticipate a certain danger in order to stay alive. Can you really blame a white officer for feeling seriously threatened by a black man? It’s almost easy – especially as a white person – to look at the details and rationalize the injustice away.

But not everyone has that privilege.

Not everyone has the luxury of turning off the news with a sigh, saying this news has nothing to do with me. Not everyone has the privilege of feeling safe walking down the street in their own neighborhood.

Not everyone has that privilege. But everyone should.

As a white person, it seems so obvious, so assumed, that a person would have that safety. But my Facebook feed is full of people of color wondering which of their family members they might lose. My neighborhood is full of black men who look at me askance and hustle on their way – fearful I might find them a threat.

That reality is simply not okay.

I’m not interested in getting into a fight about evidence or laws. I’m not interested in picking apart the details or analyzing every action that has happened in Ferguson. What’s happening there has meaning, but it’s not the details that matter.

Black lives matter.

Black lives matter.  We cannot simply breath a heavy sigh, finding just enough compassion to calm our conscious. We cannot keep rolling our eyes, assuring ourselves that it’s not really about race this time. Assuring ourselves that we are not racist, or that there is no privilege which comes with being white.

We cannot let people of color fight this battle alone, and we cannot, we cannot – we cannot let our fellow man continue to die because of the color of their skin.

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Transgender Day of Remembrance

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Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The fact that we need such a day is a tragedy in and of itself. Transgender Day of Remembrance is a day to memorialize the lives lost to transphobic violence.

The mind reels to think there even could be such a thing.

According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), in 2013 there were 2,001 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence. That same year, 72% of LGBTQ homicide victims were transgender women, including 67% transgender women of color.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) reports that in schools, 16.8% of transgender students report being physically assaulted as a result of gender expression, while 32.1% experience physical harassment.

There is no universe in which that reality is okay.

Taken from the Transgender Day of Remembrance website, here is a list of those who have died from transphobic violence in the last year. That there should be one name on this list is too many -

Jacqueline Cowdrey (50 years old)
Cause of death: unknown
Location of death: Worthing, West Sussex, United Kingdom
Date of death: November 20th, 2013
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Rosa Ribut (Jon Syah Ribut – 35 years old)
Cause of death: blunt force trauma
Location of death: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Date of death: November 24th, 2013
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Betty Skinner (52 years old)
Cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head
Location of death: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date of death: December 4th, 2013
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Brittany Stergis (22 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head
Location of death: Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Date of death: December 5th, 2013
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Elizalber Oliveira de Mesquita (39 years old)
Cause of death: stoned to death
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 5th, 2014
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Paloma
Cause of death: multiple gunshots to the head and chest
Location of death: Belém, Pará, Brazil
Date of death: January 8th, 2014
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Rayka Tomaz (20 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds.
Location of death: Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
Date of death: January 10th, 2014
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Prince Joe (Joseph Sanchez – 18 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds, dumped on the street
Location of death: Belize City, Belize
Date of death: January 12th, 2014

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Toni Gretchen (50 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 16th, 2014
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Luana (20 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot to the chest
Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: January 10th, 2014
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Cristal (Alexandre Nascimento de Araújo – 22 years old)
Cause of death: Gunshot
Location of death: Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
Date of death: January 19th, 2014
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Thifani (18 years old)
Cause of death: dismembered
Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Date of death: January 27th, 2014
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Joice (José Antônio Vieira Freitas – 32 years old)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 28th, 2014
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Sarita (Marcos de Almeida Oliveira)
Cause of death: gunshot
Location of death: Itabela, Bahia, Brazil
Date of death: January 29, 2014
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Juju (Julian de Souza Cruz – 32 years old)
Cause of death: beaten and stoned to death
Location of death: Salgueiro, Pernambuco, Brazil
Date of death: January 29th, 2014
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Raíssa (Lourivaldo Xavier)
Cause of death: 6 gunshots to head and chest
Location of death: Cuiabá,Mato Gross, Brazil
Date of death: February 1st, 2014

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Tatty
Cause of death: facial injuries
Location of death: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Date of death: February 7th, 2014
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Rafaela (Alexsandro Alderotti José dos Santos – 32 years old)
Cause of death: multiple gunshots
Location of death: Recife, Brazil
Date of death: February 11th, 2014
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Alex Medeiros (8 years old)
Cause of death: Beaten to death by father for refusing to cut hair, liking women’s clothes, and dancing.
Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Date of death: February 18th, 2014
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Paulete
Cause of death: multiple gunshots to the face
Location of death: Taguatinga, Brazil
Date of death: February 19th, 2014
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Camila Veronezi (24 years old)
Cause of death: suffocation
Location of death: Bragança Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: February 21st, 2014
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Lu (Célio Martins da Silva)
Cause of death: multiple stab wounds
Location of death: Nova Serrana, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Date of death: February 23rd, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: gunshots
Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: February 27th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: gunshots
Location of death: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Date of death: February 28th, 2014

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Kitana
Cause of death: 3 gunshot wounds to the head
Location of death:Aracaju, Sergipe, Brazil
Date of death: Feburary 28th, 2014
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Sarita do Sopão (39 years old)
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: January 29th, 2014
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Andressa Pinheiro
Cause of death: 15 stab wounds, dragged, fractured skull
Location of death:João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil
Date of death: March 1st, 2014
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Rose Maria (32 years old)
Cause of death: stabbed in the neck
Location of death: Brás, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: March 5th, 2014
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Vitória (16 years old)
Cause of death: 2 gunshot wounds to the chest
Location of death: Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil
Date of death: March 12th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: burned to death
Location of death: Jardim Ingá, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: March 14th, 2014
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Paulete (Paulo Roberto Lima dos Santos – 19 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: March 17th, 2014
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Marciana
Cause of death: gunshot
Location of death: Iguatu, Ceará, Brazil
Date of death: March 24th, 2014

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Nicole (Marcos Vinicius Machado – 20 years old)
Cause of death: hands and feet bound, stabbed in the neck and abdomen
Location of death: Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil
Date of death: March 28th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: dismemberment
Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: March 23rd, 2014
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Giovana Souza Silva (33 years old)
Cause of death: gunshots
Location of death: São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: March 29th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: beaten with weapon, fists by several people, dragged through the street.
Location of death: João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil
Date of death: March 29th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: blow to the head with iron bar
Location of death: Sobral, Ceará, Brazil
Date of death: April 2nd, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: beaten and strangled to death.
Location of death: Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
Date of death: April 2nd, 2014
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Mileide
Cause of death: 4 gunshot wounds
Location of death: Santo Antônio, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Date of death: April 7th, 2014
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Valquíria (aka Josivaldo Ribeiro Oliveira Brito)
Cause of death: gunshot to back.
Location of death: Praça dos Carreiros, Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso, Brazil.
Date of death: April 20th, 2014

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Çağla Joker
Cause of death: gunshot to the chest
Location of death: Tarlabaşı, Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Turkey
Date of death: April 21st, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: four gunshots
Location of death: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Date of death: May 29th, 2014
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Marcia Moraes (34 years old)
Cause of death: four gunshots
Location of death: Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Date of death: May 29th, 2014
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Kandy Hall (40 years old)
Cause of death: massive trauma, body left in a field
Location of death: Montebello, Maryland, USA
Date of death: June 3rd, 2014
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Paola (Anderson Arruda Camote) (29 years old)
Cause of death: knife wounds to neck, feet and hands tied
Location of death: Arandu, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: June 8th, 2014
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Zoraida “Ale” Reyes (28 years old)
Cause of death:choked to death
Location of death: Anaheim, California, United States
Date of death: June 10th, 2014
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Mia Henderson (26 years old)
Cause of death: massive trauma, found dead in alley.
Location of death: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Date of death: June 16th, 2014
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Yaz’min Shancez
Cause of death:murdered, and burned
Location of death: Fort Myers, Florida, United States
Date of death: June 19th, 2014
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André Luiz Borges Rocha
Cause of death: gunshot wounds to the face
Location of death: Tijucal, Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Date of death: June 23rd, 2014
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Tiffany Edwards (28 years old)
Cause of death:shot to death
Location of death: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States
Date of death: June 26th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: raped before being brutally executed with blows to head.
Location of death: Coruripe, Alagoas, Brazil
Date of death: June 30th, 2014
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Kellen Santorine
Cause of death: raped before being brutally executed with blows to head.
Location of death: Uberaba, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Date of death: July 13th, 2014
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Mackelly Castro (age:24)
Cause of death: hanging
Location of death: Teresina, Piauí, Brazil
Date of death: July 18th, 2014
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Lele (age:24)
Cause of death: beaten to death
Location of death: Roatán, Honduras
Date of death: July 18th, 2014
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Dennysi Brandão (age:24)
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds to the hip, chest, and back.
Location of death: Contagem, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Date of death: July 24th, 2014
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Alisson Henrique da Silva (age:25)
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds
Location of death: Macaíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Date of death: July 31st, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: found dead, with eyes removed.
Location of death: Jardim dos Ipês Itaquaquecetuba, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: August 9th, 2014
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Alejandra Leos
Cause of death: gunshot to the back
Location of death: Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Date of death: September 5th, 2014
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Karen Alanis (age:23)
Cause of death: thrown from vehicle, ran over
Location of death: Caçapava, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: September 9th, 2014

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Marcela Duque (46 years old)
Cause of death: stoned to death
Location of death: Medellín, Colombia
Date of death: September 9th, 2014
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Cris
Cause of death: multiple gunshot wounds
Location of death: Portal da Foz, Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil
Date of death: September 13th, 2014
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Marcela Lopez
Cause of death: Stoning
Location of death: Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia
Date of death: September 14th, 2014
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Mahadevi
Cause of death: pushed off moving train
Location of death: Malleshwara, Karnataka, India
Date of death: September 25th, 2014
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Bruna Lakiss (26 years old)
Cause of death: gunshot wound
Location of death: Várzea Grande, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Date of death: September 30th, 2014
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Aniya Parker
Cause of death: gunshot wound to the head
Location of death: East Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Date of death: October 3rd, 2014
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Gaivota dos Santos
Cause of death: three shots to the face
Location of death: Rio Largo, Alagoas, Brazil
Date of death: October 1st, 2014
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Géia Borghi
Cause of death: shot in the chest, bound, gagged, set afire
Location of death: Monte Mor, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: October 9th, 2014

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Jennifer Laude
Cause of death: asphyxiation by drowning
Location of death: Subic Bay, Zambales, Philippines
Date of death: October 11th, 2014

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Sara (27 years old)
Cause of death: Gunshot
Location of death: Camaçari, Bahia, Brazil
Date of death: October 12th, 2014
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Aguinaldo Cláudio Colombelli (45 years old)
Cause of death: 30 stab wounds
Location of death: Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Date of death: October 16th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death: beaten to death
Location of death: Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil
Date of death: October 16th, 2014
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Flávia
Cause of death: three gunshots
Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: October 20th, 2014
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Mary Joy Añonuevo (55 years old)
Cause of death: stabbed 33 times
Location of death: Lucena, Quezon, Philippines
Date of death: October 21st, 2014
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Ashley Sherman
Cause of death: shot in the head
Location of death: Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Date of death: October 27st, 2014
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Maicon
Cause of death: Gunshot
Location of death: Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil
Date of death: November 1st, 2014
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Letícia
Cause of death:stabbed in the chest
Location of death: Sorocaba, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: November 6th, 2014
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Raquel
Cause of death:Gunshot
Location of death: Parnamirim, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil
Date of death: November 6th, 2014
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Adriana (16 years old)
Cause of death:Gunshot, body wrapped in sheet, tied to tree trunk, thrown in river.
Location of death: Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil
Date of death: November 9th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death:throat cut
Location of death: Jundiaí, São Paulo, Brazil
Date of death: November 9th, 2014
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Unknown woman
Cause of death:shot and burned
Location of death: Tblisi, Georgia
Date of death: November 10th, 2014
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Gizzy Fowler
Cause of death:Gunshot
Location of death: Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Date of death: November 10th, 2014

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The Adjustments Between Individuals

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What is society? What does that word describe?

The first dictionary definition I ran across describes society as, “the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.”

Without over thinking it, that sounds about right. A society is a group of people. They may be in the same physical place, and they may have some means of communicating with each other. They may share certain values or have other characteristics in common.

Those are details over which reasonable people are right to quibble, but the fundamental concept is the same: a society is a group of people.

But what if that fundamental concept is a myth? An oversimplification, or, perhaps a convenient lie? What if society is not a group of people?

Well, then, what should we conceive it to be?

In his 1925 book the Phantom Public, Walter Lippmann argued that we ought to “think of society not as the name of a thing but as the name of all the adjustments between individuals and their things.”

That is to say, society is not a group of people – it is a group of relationships. Relationships between people, between objects, between issues. A complex web describing how each person interacts with the word, and by extension, how we interact with each other.

As Lippmann bemoans:
We have been taught to think of society as a body, with a mind, a soul, and a purpose, not as a collection of men, women and children whose minds, souls and purposes are variously related. Instead of being allowed to think realistically of a complex of social relations, we have had foisted upon us by various great propagative movements the notion of a mythical entity, called Society, the Nation, the Community.

In Lippmann’s account, the error of taking society to be Society is more than an issue of semantics, and it is more than an innocent oversimplification. A theory of democracy which personifies society as a coherent whole, rather than a network of individuals and relationships, is not only mistaken – it is dangerous.

In post-World War I America, Lippmann looked out and saw the challenges of an increasingly globalized, centralized and professionalized world:

To defend themselves against the economic powers of darkness, against the great monopolies or a devastating competition, the farmers set up great centralized selling agencies. Businessmen form great trade associations. Everybody organizes, until the number of committees and their paid secretaries cannot be computed. The tendency is pervasive.

The concern, of course, is not necessarily with the centralization per se. Rather:

The men who make decisions at these central points are remote from the men they govern and the facts with which they deal. Even if they conscientiously regard themselves as agents or trustees, it is a pure fiction to say that they are carrying out the will of the people. They may govern the people wisely. They are not governing with the active consultation of the people.

Whether these people are elected, appointed, or otherwise endowed with power makes little difference in the end. Those with power are the ones who have power – everyone else is left out.

Yet the myth of Society, allows this to be so. A democratic people would never accept a king imbued by God – but they will accept government anointed by Society.

The people have spoken, they say. They cheer in victory or moan in disagreement, but the sentiment is the same. It is the Will of The People.

But “The People” is not a collective whole. Society has no unified will – and the myth that it does only allows those in power to falsely view themselves as benevolent actors of the people.

It would be impractical to do away with representative government, but what would it look like, I wonder, if we could divorce ourselves from this collective notion? If we could see society not as a unitary object, but as a messy web of relationships? If we truly saw our elected officials not divinely as the Voice of People, but as individuals themselves – given power not by social fiat, but simply for necessity’s sake.

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Is There an Obligation to Vote?

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Voting is often referred to as a civic duty, yet there is no shortage of Americans who choose not to vote.

People give all sorts of reasons for not voting. The most common reasons are being too busy/having conflicting work or that they were not interested/felt my vote would not count. Illness or disability is also not an uncommon reason for not voting.

Frankly, I don’t put much stock in people’s self-reported reasons for doing or not doing anything. As marketer Clotaire Rapaille – who developed the marketing vision for Hummer – will tell you, people commonly make an instinctual decision then come up with rationalizations to explain it.

But irregardless, many people don’t vote and have stated reasons for not voting. Perhaps some of those people – such as those with illness or disability – literally don’t have the logistic support to vote. But certainly, the majority of non-voters could vote if they tried.

Yet none of this answers the question – is there an obligation to vote?

In many ways voting is irrational. From what I know, I have never been the deciding vote in an election. Given my ideological similarity with those in my ward, city, and state, I am unlikely to ever cast the deciding vote in an election. So, really, in many accurate ways, my vote does not matter.

Of course, if nobody voted that would be a problem. And if no one of my demographic profile – my supposed “voter blocker” – voted that would be a problem, too.

But none of that changes that my own, individual decision to vote is, essentially, irrational. Just as I dismissed people’s reasons for not voting, one could easily dismiss people’s reasons for voting. We have a behavior and we rationalize it afterwards. Perhaps we just invoke terms like civic duty and obligation to make us feel better about this random little deed.

And, still, none of this answers the question – is there an obligation to vote?

I’d like to push this question even further, asking, is there an obligation to be an informed voter? Having an obligation to show up in a cramped room and mindlessly check a few boxes doesn’t seem particularly compelling.

But asking for informed voting is an even greater burden for the individual involved. If I was too busy to vote before, I’m certainly not going to have time to become informed. This demand also raises important questions about what it means to be informed – is the word of a trusted friend enough? What about inferring from party affiliation? What about learning from candidate ads or from the ads of PACs with agendas?

Are you informed if your information is biased?

The answers are entirely unclear.

But does one have an obligation to vote?

Perhaps the question is too narrow. An obligation to show up on designated days and draw some lines? That is uninspiring.

But the doesn’t mean we have no obligation. Anyone who is part of a community benefits from their membership in that community, and anyone who benefits from a community has an obligation to participate in that community.

For me, voting is an essential part of that participation. Even when I’m uninspired by candidates or feel that the system is stuck in a broken status quo. I keep irrationally voting because it is one of many things I do to participate.

I can imagine a society of corruption and rigged elections where refusing to vote could be a more powerful statement than lending legitimacy to the system. But, complain as I might, we don’t seem to be that far gone.

Refusing to vote is not a powerful statement. It is a silent assent. A willingness to be ignored. It is a triumph for those in power, with even less impact than my paltry ballot.

Is there an obligation to vote? Maybe not. But there is an obligation to participate. From inside the system and from outside it. You can do both, and you can do both simultaneously.

And right here, right now, a vote may be a tiny tick in the universe but it is a piece of the larger puzzle, and a piece a good citizen ought to participate in.

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Let’s Stop with the Screen-Shaming

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I read an article this morning about a photographer’s project capturing images of people who are together…but separated by their smart phones.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself in a conversation about how online engagement compares to “traditional” civic engagement. That is to say, is engagement online an acceptable replacement for face to face interaction?

This is a hot topic in many spheres – raising important questions about how we act and interact. Does digital technology open new horizons of global communication or ironically block us each off into our own self-imposed cell?

The answer is entirely unclear.

Probably its a little bit of both.

As framed, of course, the question is misleading. As if all in-person communication is some ideal and digital communication is audacious to think it could ever be equal.

This is a false dichotomy. Different forms of communication work well for different kinds of people and different kinds of communication work well for different kinds of topics.

Face to face interactions are high-context – that is, there are many contextual clues to draw from in interpreting your interaction. Language and words used are a piece of it, but tone, body language, and facial expressions mean everything.

Digital interactions started out exclusively low-context, but they don’t have to be.

But even if you assume low-context discussion spaces, that doesn’t intrinsically mean that deeper dialogue is not possible. It’s just different.

It may be better for some people, it may be worse for some people. It’ll just be different.

To be honest, I personally have a general bias in favor of the in-person experience. I don’t have a smart phone. When I was little, I stopped listen to my walkman on road trips because it distracted me from the experience.

I’m just kind of old fashioned like that.

But what’s best for me is not best for everyone. Just because I’m not big on communicating digitally doesn’t mean that my traditional modes are intrinsically preferable.

If you have a smart phone and you feel like it’s detracting from the life you want to live then by all means, take screen breaks or develop other tools to manage your connection. But your personal distaste for smart phone browsing doesn’t translate into a universal wrong.

So let’s stop screen-shaming. Let’s stop assuming that digital communication needs to meet some theoretic ideal measured against in-person interactions.

Let’s keep asking how to build spaces where people of all backgrounds and communication styles can interact genuinely and respectfully, where they discuss important issues and collectively work to address pressing problems.

We have many real and virtual tools to help build these spaces. And we should take advantage of all of them.

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Implicit Bias

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I had the opportunity today to learn from two impressive Tufts faculty members, Keith Maddox and Sam Sommers. Both social psychologists, Maddox and Sommers specialize in issues of implicit bias, stereotyping, and group interactions.

If you’ve never done it before, I highly encourage you to visit Harvard’s Project Implicit to take an implicit bias test. Through a series of categorizing tasks, the test will show you what biases you have on a number of topics such as race, gender, and sexuality.

I say, “what biases you have” rather than “whether you have biases,” because, unless you are dead, you will have biases.

People need to use short cuts, heuristics, in order to make sense of the complex stimuli we are constantly inundated with. This is a helpful, and often good mechanism. If we could only ever work from complete information, we’d find ourselves practically paralyzed by the enormity of information flooding our way. We literally could not function without these heuristics.

But these snap judgements can also be dangerous. Studies have shown, for example, that we typically form opinions within seconds of meeting someone, and those impressions tend to vary little after being formed.

That might not be a problem if our first impressions were always surprisingly accurate, but in a society with deep preferences favoring people who look a certain way or act a certain way, our heuristic judgements devolve into damaging stereotypes.

So, what is a person to do?

We can’t – and shouldn’t want to – cleanse our minds of all heuristic processes. But neither can we rely on our mental shortcuts to always present us with accurate, unbiased information.

Well, first, you should take the tests. Find out what biases you have. It will be hard. You may not like the results. After all, three quarter of white people and half of black people show a bias favoring Whiteness.

And if you are not biased on that, you are likely biased on something else. But have no doubts that you are biased.

Of course, knowing is half the battle, so get to know what biases you have. Face them. Accept them. The reality is your brain does things that you have little control over, and while we might wish it didn’t…ignoring our biases won’t make them go away.

So recognize your biases and commit to questioning your actions accordingly. Notice when your bias jumps in and push yourself to question your judgements, assumptions, opinions and the actions which flow from those views.

Never settle with the answer that it’s okay, “in this case.” Your brain will always come up with extenuation circumstances to explain why your bias is okay.

This is a critical first step, but in my view it is still not enough. Privilege and power are deeply ingrained to the benefit of some and the determinant of others. Overcoming bias is more than learning not to judge someone by the color of their skin – it is learning to accept them for who they are. It is understanding and expressing that the White way is not intrinsically the right way.

There is no gold star for the 25% of white people who don’t favor Whiteness. There is no person who doesn’t need to be concerned about implicit bias or the very real ways it skews and damages our society.

We are all us members of this society and we each have an obligation to work every day at uncovering our own biases undoing the harm that has haunted us for generations.

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The False Utility of Civic Engagement

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Civic engagement is often seen as a utility.

There are problems in society, so we need to galvanize “The People” to do something about it. “The People” have power, after all. If only they can be motivated to claim it.

But who are these shadowy Masses who could control our country’s destiny?

Well, they are us.

Walter Lippman was always skeptical of “The Public,” describing them as a “bewildered herd” liable to “arrive in the middle of the third act and will leave before the last curtain, having stayed just long enough perhaps to decide who is the hero and who the villain of the piece.”

In my opinion, Lippman didn’t say this because he was an elitist technocrat, but because he recognized the danger in formulating a “phantom public” which disempowered a key population -

That would be you and me.

There is no real “public,” just lots of individual people with individual lives, beliefs, opinions, concerns, and priorities.

So I get a little skeptical when people refer to “the public” as a tool. Want to change a law? Get a certain number of signatures or a certain number of votes. Want to challenge the status quo? Get a large turnout for a protest or rally. Perhaps a certain number of views on a video where you’ll never believe what happened next.

And perhaps this makes sense. After all, it seems reasonable to have some threshold of demonstrating public support.

But there is no “Public” and civic engagement is not merely a utility.

It is great to engage people in a cause or an issue, to mobilize “people power” in changing the way things are done.

But I believe there is real value, fundamental value, in simply having people live and work and function together.

Communities are better when people – all people – have a voice within that community. People are better when every person around them has a voice.

So go ahead and push for a change. Fight for what you believe in and try to get others to fight along side you. But always remember that true engagement is deeper than that. True engagement is more than a cause or a battle or an issue.

It is listening genuinely to everyone around you. Empowering them to have their voices heard. It is recognizing that we are all better – individually and collectively – when every person is engaged.

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Celebrate a Local Harvest

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Join Somerville Local First on October 18 for HarvestFest, a fun celebration of all things local and fall! The festivities will take place at Arts at the Armory in two sessions: 2:00PM-5:00PM and 6:00PM to 9:00PM.

As board member of Somerville Local First, I will be there all day long – so stop on by any say hello! And, of course, don’t forget to buy your tickets before the event sells out.

This years HarvestFest will feature tastes from these local brewers and restaurants:

Beverages
Aeronaut Brewing
Bantam Cider
Berkshire Brewing Company
Blue Hills Brewing Company
Far From the Tree Cider
Harpoon
Jack’s Abby
Mystic Brewing Company
Mayflower Brewing Company
Rapscallion
Tower Root Beer

Food
3 Little Figs
Bibim
Brass Union
Daddy Jones Bar
Dave’s Fresh Pasta
Eat at Jumbo’s
El Potro
Foundry
The Independent
Kirkland Tap and Trotter
Olde Magoun’s Saloon
Qs Nuts
Riverbar
Saloon
Scoop N Scootery
Taza Chocolate

Throughout the day,  entertainment will be provided by Somerville favorites:
Red Square
3D and the Greaseballs
The Hospitality
General Motor

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Adventures on the Bus

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I watched a man get on the bus yesterday and give a nonchalant, “Hey mom” to one of the other passengers.

She didn’t respond.

I assumed I’d misheard.

He turned to me and said hey something, so I said hey back.

You’re going to be my sister, now. He told me.

Okay. I said.

Hi, sister! He said.

Hey! I said.

Then he started quizzing me.

Who am I? He asked.

You’re my brother, I told him.

(This answer took a little while because questions like who am I? and who are you? Always throw me off. Who am I? I don’t expect to answer that with a name or a title.)

Who is she? He asked, gesturing to the woman he’d first woman greeted.

She’s your mother, I said.

Sigh. She’s your mother, too, you know.

Okay, I said.

Who is she to you?

She’s my mother, I said.

Yes! We’re one big family, he said.

Our mother was not amused.

She remained silent, but if she had chosen to speak at this time, I imagine she would have said something like, Why is there talking now?

Who is the bus driver? The man asked me.

I wasn’t sure, but a quick look to the front of the bus told me the driver was an African American man about my age.

He’s my brother, I said.

Right! The man said. We’re one big family.

Yeah, I’d gotten that.

And there’s our family dog! The man added, pointing out the window to a Golden Retriever.

Oh good, I said. I’m glad our family has a dog.

And then it was time for me to get off the bus.

I wished the man a good day and he wished me a good day.

I said thank you to bus driver.

The driver smiled and nodded – Have a good day, sister! He said.

Yeah, you too, brother!

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