Make America Great Again

Usually, a slogan is just a slogan. Perhaps it’s a catchy rhyme or humorous phrase. Really, they’re just mnemonics; memory aids. I’ve been known to walk around all day singing “Chicken parm, you taste so good”. It’s ridiculous, and taken out of context, people should be giving me strange looks for singing about my food. But everyone knows that I’m referencing Nationwide Insurance. Imagine that:  a jingle about chicken parmesan sandwiches that make me think about car insurance.

Some slogans simply stand as a sort of mission statement; something that is intended in the message. That brings me to campaign slogans. President Obama used the “Change We Can Believe In” slogan, and presented to voters, stood as a powerful message of intent. But I can’t remember people walking around saying that, or using that phrase in conversation. What I find interesting about Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is that his supporters actually say those words in conversation with others. It has happened to me many times. It happened just the other day, actually. I was having a conversation with a Trump supporter who told me that he believed Trump was going to “bring back jobs and make America great again.” It didn’t even sound like he used it as some kind of rallying cry; like it was rehearsed. It may as well have been an original line in his dialogue based in his true beliefs about what comes next.

I’m passing no judgement for this at all. The purpose of this article isn’t debate the qualities of President Trump or to try to predict what kind of policies are to come. I won’t begrudge the person who cast their vote, confident that Trump will do well as president. Rather, what set me to thinking was the slogan itself. Make America Great Again. Again is the word that strikes me first. It implies that greatness had been achieved, but it was lost somewhere along the way. When did we lose it? Would Trump or his supporters mark that time with the previous eight years under Obama? Did his presidency evaporate American greatness that had been established in the aftermath of World War II? Or had our greatness been declining for some time? No one has quite pointed that out. I’m not sure that Donald Trump has even fully outlined that fall from grace and the timeline by which it coursed. Perhaps the idea is that, from a conservative’s perspective, America can’t possibly be great under the leadership of the left. “Make America Great Again”, therefore, begins to sound strangely akin to a previous slogan used by others—“Take Our Country Back”. That one always had me questioning what non-American outsiders had taken hold of our country and government. I guess if you’re different, you’re dangerous.

What really evokes deeper thought is the concept of greatness. I’d be willing to bet that the majority of Americans feel that America is or was great. I guess it depends on who you ask, though. Is it possible that someone whose family and ancestors have always been marginalized, enslaved, discriminated against, or even slaughtered might differ? Perhaps a Native American might not agree with the idea that America has ever been great. Perspective is a funny thing. I always grew up believing in America’s exceptional status in the world. Maybe that’s what I was taught, and I never experienced anything to personally challenge that idea. But the older I have gotten, I can see that not everyone has had that experience.

Doesn’t that mean greatness is kind of a subjective thing? Can it be great for some people and terrible for others? How do we even define such greatness? What are the parameters? I’ve decided that most people might point to wealth and military dominance. The biggest, baddest, richest kid on the block. We established a post-depression economy that was the strongest in the world, mainly because there was no competition. Europe, Russia, Japan, and China had been ravaged by war. They spent the following twenty years rebuilding, and not one shot was fired in America. On top of that, we had increased the size of our military during the war, and with the Truman Doctrine, escalated it from there. It was in those following decades after WWII that we built a strong sense of capitalistic nationalism that could see you locked up as a communist for questioning or defying. A rich country and huge military was the end result of the fighting our grandfathers had endured on the beaches of France and the jungles of the Philippines.

But are wealth and brute strength truly the measure of greatness. Let us personify those qualities. What about a person who is very wealthy? Does that immediately make that person great? They might be, but is it wealth that makes them great? That person might be a real shit stain. Thus, wealth doesn’t make you great. Neither does a person’s ability to kick another’s ass. It might make him a bully. In fact, it might very well land that person in jail for assault.

Some people point to our founding fathers and the constitution. There, I might say you’re on to something. From my perspective, I’ve never had to deal with racism or any other consequence of the darker aspects of our history. The Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil Rights Movement didn’t do much to affect my life today. I’ve never had to fight for the right to marry who I choose. I’ve never had someone discriminate against me for my religious beliefs. Slavery, Native American removal, Jim Crow—all of these things point to a society that has been far from perfect as our founding fathers attempted. But the spirit of what they did in the latter half of the 18^th century is the very thing that makes America great. It’s the spirit of progress. It’s the spirit of innovation. We take risks and try new things. We try to correct our misgivings and move forward.

Progress, until recently, was not a politicized word. It wasn’t merely a left wing ideal bemoaned by the right. People on both ends of the political spectrum embraced innovation. Eisenhower was a Republican, and under his administration, we got interstate highways. The revolution, the 13^th amendment, the extension of marriage rights to same sex couples. The invention of flight. Jonas Salk created the polio vaccine and gave it away for free. If you look throughout American history, the bright points—the moments that define our country and make it great—are always moments of progress and innovation. We decided to do it better. We decided to make our society better. We pioneered modern democracy for many other countries to use as a model. We invented things that would change human life the world over. We revolutionized art and literature. That is what makes America great. So if you want to make America great again, go out and do something new. You make it great again. Not Donald Trump.

Is the Label of "Racist" Overused?

I’ve come to the conclusion that people overuse the word racist. Please let me explain what I mean. Racism is a complicated thing, and most people mistakenly believe that racism is simply overt hatred for a person of another race or ethnicity. That would be prejudice, and while that can certainly be seen as a symptom of racism, it goes much deeper than that. Racism is usually cultivated over time. It becomes woven in the very fabric of cultural norms. It begins with negative attitude about another group, and maybe mistreatment and discrimination. In our own history, for example, African Americans began as slaves; property. Once freed and extended citizenship, the attitudes people had about African Americans didn’t change. They still saw them as lesser Americans, and passed laws that limited their rights and ability to participate equally in our society. Over the course of centuries, that systemic treatment of African Americans became the norm. No one questioned it. If you were born white (even poor), at least you didn’t have to deal with the crap African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, or Latinos had to go through. There was a level of racial and social privilege that came with it. People of different races were kept in separate communities and separate in all social facilities. In no way was it ever equal. It was deliberate, and largely that segregation still exists today.

Here’s what changed. The Civil Rights Movement made this division and inequality a national conversation. Suddenly, people were standing up and fighting for their rights. Aside from the abolition of separate but equal conditions, this movement made outward, blatant prejudice socially unacceptable. Beforehand, it wasn’t uncommon for people to use racial slurs as part of their normal vernacular. But after the movement had finally settled down, not only could businesses no longer turn people away over skin color, it became wrong to call people by these racial slurs. But while we taught America that being racist was bad, we didn’t really define it, and we really only addressed certain aspects of it.

Racism is more commonly defined today by social scientists as a condition where one dominant racial group uses social and governmental institutions to limit the rights of people of a non-dominant racial group. For most of US history, this has been true. When people say that we’ve moved past that time, we have so in one sense, but the infrastructure is still there. We no longer call each other by those words used in the past. We may not even harbor any ill will or negative attitudes for people in the minority, but we have to realize that those systemic aspect of racism still lie beneath the surface in the form of stereotypes, segregation, and even the discounting of the lives and conditions often experienced by those who come from those minority groups.

It’s hard to see that from the perspective of a white person. We have largely experienced a different America, and it’s almost impossible to see the world through the eyes of others. That should be acknowledged. Here’s where I say the racist label is overused, and perhaps a little unfair.

One of the things white Americans are most sensitive about is being deemed a racist. That’s a powerful word; a powerful label. People get really upset when you call them a racist, or even imply that they are. I would even go as far as to say that saying, “that’s racist” may cause a person to think you’re calling them a racist. Truly, in their hearts, they believe they are not. They don’t hate people of other races or ethnicities. Perhaps they have friends in those groups. Maybe they occasionally step into that trap where they are either ignorant to something they didn’t realize about the other group, or they might mistakenly say something that plays into a stereotype or something that is insensitive. Hell, I do it from time to time. But I don’t think that makes a person racist.

People break the law all the time. I’m sure I drive faster than the speed limit at least 95% of the time. I have run red lights and driven with my seat belt unbuckled. Does that make me a criminal? I have committed crimes, but am I deserving of the label? The label changes everything. It comes with a stigma. If you were to tell someone who didn’t know me that I’m a criminal, they might assume that I rob people on a regular basis or something worse. They wouldn’t be thinking about traffic violations. I don’t even think we really view people with DWI convictions as criminals, and that’s something we take very seriously as a society. Furthermore, placing a suffix like –ist at the end of a word implies that a person is actively operating something. A motorist actively drives a car. You’re not a motorist if you’re a passenger. A racist, to me, might do more to describe someone who actively uses a prejudiced attitude and sees people of a non-dominant race as inferior. David Duke? Racist. Neo-Nazis? Racist. You’re Uncle Joe that uses the n-word every five minutes? Probably racist. I believe that most people, when they say they’re not racist, are probably being truthful. They don’t dislike another on the basis of skin color or ethnic background. They may say things, often without realizing, that are part of the remnant infrastructure of racism. They may even say or do things that are racist. But I don’t think that necessarily makes them deserving of the label of racist. Why not reserve that word for true, blatant racists? Don’t cheapen the power of that word by using it to describe anyone who says something insensitive. It corrupts the conversation about what racism is, and how to change its presence in society. 

Moving Forward: The Trump Presidency

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, there are a lot of emotions taking hold. Supporters are gleeful, if not perhaps a little bit shocked themselves. Some may see him as a Godsend of an alternative to the partisan establishments. Others see him as a reprieve from what they consider the loathsome Obama years.  Of course, on the left, there is sadness and horror. How could someone as pompous and disgusting be chosen as president? Can we trust him with the nuclear codes? We see the scatterplot of triumph and dismay apparent in every conversation you’ve heard since Election Day and in your social media feed. With much speculation about where America goes from here, this what I think to be a reality.

From a legal and legislative perspective, chances are that not much will change. With a Republican-controlled Congress and White House, there is a great potential for some policymaking that conservatives might champion. But with that said, I don’t think you can expect massive rollbacks in laws that exist. Obamacare comes to mind. They’ve tried to repeal it dozens of times since 2009, and it always fails. The truth is that there are millions of people that actually benefit from it despite rising premiums and whatever your racist cousin might say about it all. And these beneficiaries fall both in the liberal and conservative spectrums. At this point, only two years from midterm elections, the GOP has a vested interest in holding control over both houses for as long as possible. The last thing they need is backlash from the working class costing them conservative votes, as well as energizing Democrats in 2018. If anything, you’ll see some Republican tweaking of Obamacare, not a repeal. And maybe, just maybe, red states will now accept the Medicaid expansion money now that Obama’s cooties aren’t all over it.

I certainly don’t think you will see a lot of real backtracking on civil rights. Americans are very conscious of this—even conservatives to some degree. In the age of social media, we are all plugged in, and we are all watching. Social views are changing, and anytime there is a threat to civil rights, there is an immediate response. I don’t think the GOP wants to continue to be the party of archaic social views. They might not want to go as far as progressivism on these, but they’re not going to undo marriage equality for gay and lesbian people. Again, they don’t want Democrats energized for 2018, and they don’t want to be the prejudiced party. Plus, it’s hard to overturn Supreme Court precedence.

And that’s another element I’m not quite as worried about. There is an open seat on the Supreme Court. And as you may well know, the Senate, controlled by Republicans, has obstructed the appointment of a new justice for the last two hundred-plus days since Antonin Scalia’s death. So now, as was the plan, they will fill that seat on the bench with another conservative. But try to understand that though this will be a conservative pick, he or she will replace another conservative. Really, Scalia was one of the most conservative justices they had, and yet marriage equality was still approved. Yes, a conservative majority Supreme Court will sometimes lean right on certain decisions, but rest assured that they are still bound by the constitution, and when it comes to equal protection and civil rights, they will usually rule in favor of American equality.

That being said, I’m a white guy. Almost nothing will change for me other than not feeling aligned with many of the views of our new president. But I have no need to fear when I step into public. I won’t be met with racism and discrimination. I’m a white male raised as a Christian. So my experience with this election and the days, months, and years to follow will differ from that of gays and lesbians or Muslim Americans. And I can tell you that my friends and students who are members of minority groups are frightened. Can you imagine being a Muslim woman who wears a hijab (head scarf) for your religion, and feeling afraid enough that you can’t even carry out religious duties? Muslims, Latinos, gays, lesbians, and African Americans all tell me they’re afraid. They’re not afraid of what Donald Trump will do. They’re afraid of what his supporters will do.

That statement isn’t meant to equate Trump supporters in general with bigots by any means. But consider this:  the KKK and the American Nazi Party both endorsed him. And I think it’s safe to say that there were a lot of actual racists and bigots that did support and vote for Trump. You can see this in his rhetoric throughout the campaign. With all the things that he has said about Mexicans or Muslims throughout his campaign, it’s quite possible that very little of that aligns with his actual beliefs. He said those things to get elected. There is no wall. Never was. A real estate developer with contractors on his speed dial has a year and a half to come up with estimates, dimensions, and plans for a wall, and right after the election, still has none of those things? It was just something that some conservatives wanted to hear. The same goes for his position on Muslims. He’s playing to the cheap seats—the people that actually believe Sharia Law is coming.

That seems relatively harmless, I know. Oh, maybe he’s not as racist or xenophobic as we thought. Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. That remains to be seen. But here’s what I do know. There are people out there who voted for him because of that rhetoric, meaning there are some people out there who hate Mexicans, Muslims, gays, and African Americans, and they voted for Trump. And since he won, perhaps they feel represented, and thus emboldened. And for the people in these minority groups, this is a terrifying thought. Again, before you shrug off this notion, please take a moment to remember that if you’re not a member of those groups, you might not understand this the way they do. You haven’t walked in those shoes.

Folks, it’s probably going to be okay. And if you don’t like the result of this election, get out there and vote next time. But please don’t perpetuate hate, regardless of your views or who you wanted in office. We are all Americans. You may feel like you took your country back or you had your country taken away from you. But this country belongs to all of us. 

Be Bold. Stand For What You Believe. And Take Responsibility For the Consequences

Can we talk for a moment about Colin Kaepernick? I’m not a huge 49-ers fan. I’m a Saints fan. Moreover, I’m not a Colin Kaepernick fan. But honestly, I fully support his right to protest in the way he wants to protest. If you haven’t been paying attention, Kaepernick opted to sit through the national anthem during two pregame football games so far. When asked why he did it, he revealed that he is staging a personal protest, citing that he refused to show pride in a “flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” Since then, plenty of people have shown just how they feel about that. One video I’ve seen shows a man torching a Kaepernick jersey while saluting the flames and playing the national anthem.

It’s important to remember that we are a nation of diversity; a nation of varied individuals with all sorts of different experiences and outlooks on life. While that may hold relevance in the overall conversation about Black Lives Matter and Back the Blue alike, it also holds relevance in how we express ourselves. We have the freedom to speak our minds or boycott products we don’t agree with. We have the right to criticize our government or drone strikes in Pakistan. We also have the right to sit down during the national anthem or refuse to pledge allegiance to the flag. You may not agree with it. It might anger you. But this is well within our rights.

To be honest, what Kaepernick is doing is mild compared to how heated BLM rallies have gotten. Some have even escalated into riots. Silent disobedience is essentially what Kaepernick’s actions boil down to. Something akin to Gandhi’s tactics against the British in India. He didn’t trample a flag. He didn’t disrespect anyone directly. He made a simple choice, and wasn’t even super outspoken about it in the beginning. Someone had to ask him why he didn’t stand. And he has been crucified over it. He and Gabby Douglas are met with outrage far beyond the severity of our social sanctioning of Ryan Lochte and his buddies. Vandalize a gas station and lie about the police robbing you in an Olympic host city? No big deal. We’ll get over it. Forget to place your hand over your heart or refuse to stand during the national anthem? Outrage.

At the same time, free speech and expression isn’t free. It comes with a price. That’s the other part about this. People are going to react. If you willingly dissent—if you say or do something out of protest—that can be an honorable thing for some. However it won’t always be popular. If fact, it usually isn’t, at least at first. Martin Luther King, Jr., were he alive today, would tell you that. His legacy has been a positive one. But at the time, he was well hated by most white Americans in his time. Your public words and actions have consequences. Your freedom doesn’t make you immune to the outcome. Just ask Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty or Don Imus, who on his radio program called the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hoes”. He was fired, and people were outraged that his “freedoms were being infringed upon”. No. He had every bit of freedom afforded by the Constitution. No one locked him up on a federal prison for what he said. But what you say can get you into trouble. People will react. And if we’re talking about an employer, that can be a rocky situation. Colin Kapernick may even see some of that sanctioning come his way. Who knows? Stand up for what you believe. There is honor and respectability that is due for having that courage. But it’s not easy. Expect consequences.

Cleveland, Louisiana

The great American playwright Tennessee Williams once wrote that America has three cities:  New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everything else is Cleveland. That’s nothing against Cleveland. It’s just that Cleveland, is Anytown, USA. Vanilla middle America. New Orleans is unique, and what makes that happen is the people and their diversity—a collision of culture and history that could only have happened in that little crescent on the Mississippi River. But like a lot of unique American towns and cities, from San Francisco and Austin, TX to Honolulu, Hawaii, what makes these places vibrant and special is slipping away. And it isn’t some natural cultural erosion. It’s kind of on purpose.

I was just recently visiting the city I call home. It’s worth noting that I was not born or raised in New Orleans proper. I grew up in the area—close enough to call it home. It’s my favorite place on earth. Her Southern US meets Northern Caribbean vibe continues to inspire the stories in my heart and the music in my soul. I was there promoting my upcoming fourth novel, The Barataria Key, which is largely set in New Orleans and involves some of her darker history and lore. While there, I had the opportunity to catch up with some old college friends, and for some reason, the conversation turned to the gentrification of the city.

The guy I was talking to took the position that this was a good thing. Local and out of town developers coming in and transforming old, dilapidated sections of the city into nice, attractive, high-end neighborhoods, thus running out all the crime elements. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? It’s first worth noting that these areas are particularly predominantly black neighborhoods with a history of poverty and desperation. So of course there is a crime element. There are two common denominators in these high-crime neighborhoods. The race of the inhabitants and their socioeconomic status. So let’s ask which of these things causes the crime? Race? Would you be insinuating that somehow the melanin levels in someone’s skin drives them to rob, steal, or murder? That’s like saying the spots on a dog makes it more aggressive or not. I couldn’t think of many more sentiments that are more racist and vile than that one. So it has to be the other thing. Think about it. A neighborhood purposely segregated for most of its existence and bypassed by opportunities for adequate employment. A dumping ground for poor black citizens in a city where public education is among the worst in the country. Areas like this breed desperation and a mentality of survival, which sometimes drives people to rob, steal, deal drugs, and form gangs.

These are all things that should go away for sure. We want people to visit the city, but who is going to want to if they are afraid of getting murdered? But is gentrification really the answer? This is a topic that really got stirred up in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. What a perfect opportunity for a modern group of carpetbaggers to come in and take advantage of a suffering and devastated city. I remember that in the years following the hurricane there was a renewed national intrigue with New Orleans. That city everyone thought of as just a humid Las Vegas—a place of gambling, excessive drinking, and college girls flashing their boobs—was back on the map as a cultural Mecca right there in Cleveland’s backyard. The hurricane stirred up a renaissance of sorts as people in Anytown became interested in gumbo, jazz, Mardi Gras, and the second line. Movies were made about it. And of course we got to witness the wonder that is Scott Bakula pretending to be a New Orleanian in CSI: New Orleans. If you’re a New York or Texas developer, you see this and you also recognize that as people from Anytown will visit unique cities around the world, but don’t want to be too far away from their Starbucks and Olive Garden. Americans need some level of familiarity to travel. A person from Madison, Wisconsin will visit New York City for the first time and despite the great local restaurants one can choose from, they will still eat at the Times Square location of Applebee’s. So you go into NOLA and transform all these poor neighborhoods into high end real estate. If you build it, they will come.

But here’s the problem. Where are the people who lived there going to go? Here’s a bit of a history lesson. When the French founded New Orleans in 1718, they brought slaves with them. But swamps and humidity bred disease-carrying mosquitoes, and on top of that, famine plagued the settlers. They could barely feed themselves, much less their slaves. So they let them go. They were freed—some of the earliest freedmen in all of what would become the US. They were allowed to set up residence outside the all-French (and all white) colony now referred to as the French Quarter. These early French-speaking African Americans (who often gave birth to mixed-race children) became known as Creoles. The neighborhoods they founded have been predominantly black Creole sections of the city ever since. They invented jazz in these neighborhoods, and still give residence to some of the best jazz clubs in the city. They also invented Creole cuisine in these areas. People. Culture. Uniqueness. The very elements that give New Orleans its soul—the whole reason people visit.

Are we then willing to sacrifice the local musicians and cooks, not to mention the people who work in the hotels and businesses throughout the city, just to get rid of the “crime element” within it? Let’s say you find a trailer park where one of the residents has a meth lab. Do you get rid of everyone the in the trailer park and build a strip mall with an Old Navy and a Chick-fil-a? And where are these people going to live? What about when Bernie Madoff stole billions from investors. Did we kick every millionaire out of Wall Street or out of their penthouse apartments? No. We went after stock swindlers and increased regulations. We attacked the problem, rather than the people. Why can’t we do that in New Orleans? Why can’t we improve public education or transit systems so that people in these neighborhoods can get to the better-paying jobs? Instead, there are those who want corporate restaurants and themed blues bars on Frenchmen St. in place of the local venues and flavor. They want these neighborhoods to be too expensive for the residents and once they’re all gone, they can up the rent or tear down 150-year-old Creole cottages and shotgun houses to build million-dollar high rise apartments for Hollywood actors and pretentious pop stars. The look of New Orleans will change. The sound will change. Street performers will disappear. Your crawfish etouffeé will cease to taste authentic and become a processed, preservative-filled version of its former glory. You will ruin New Orleans the way Silicon Valley has ruined San Francisco, and Carnival Cruiselines will ruin Havana. Austin, Honolulu, Key West…all facing the same fate. I’m all about making NOLA safer, cleaner, and better. I’m just not willing to make it Cleveland in the process. 

Unity: Why We Don't Have It

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled, in a landmark decision, that segregation in schools and in society was unconstitutional. It would take another twenty years to integrate schools. In the meantime an entire Civil Rights movement occurred and even a Civil Rights Act, all with the intent that previously second class citizens could have equal rights and equal protection under the law. Did it do some good? Of course it did. But if you think true equality has been achieved, you haven’t been watching the news for the last year and a half. There are actually people who would tell you that racism died with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Those people would be white. Then there are some who will admit there is a problem and throw up their hands with the attitude that nothing can be done about this. It’s just what we do. Racism will always exist. It’s human nature. I say that’s bullshit. I’ve seen proof of it. Here’s the primary reason racism continues.

But first, we need to clarify something. Everyone has bias. It’s hard not to. I have a positive bias for the New Orleans Saints. I love my team. I have a favorite. I might also have a bit of disdain—a negative bias—for the Atlanta Falcons. That comes with the territory. I also have a bias for my own family. I’d generally make my own family a priority in most cases. Who wouldn’t? Everyone has bias. It’s not even out of the question to prefer to hang around people with similar ethnic, cultural, or religious particulars. Prejudice, however, is a strong negative bias against a group of people with some kind of commonality. It lumps everyone in that group together, regardless of a person’s individuality. Combined with unfair stereotypes and assumptions about everyone in that group, prejudice becomes a strong negative attitude that breeds hatred and can lead to discrimination, which is prejudice-based action against members of that group. It assumes the worst in people, rather than the best.

Racism, however, takes on a different social dynamic. Racism occurs under the social framework of the powerful and the powerless. This dynamic exists throughout society. Bosses and workers. Teachers and students. Parents and children. There are people or groups in power. They want to stay in power. So they do what they can to maintain the status quo and remain dominant. The wealthy want to preserve their wealth and influence. Politicians concern themselves with reelection. Teachers enact rules and consequences to maintain order in their classrooms. With racism, there is a dominant cultural, racial, social, or religious group who seeks to maintain that status quo. Muslims, in some countries, are intolerant of Jews or Christians. In South Africa, the minority white population has historically sought to restrict the rights of blacks. In the US, you could be a minority in a certain neighborhood and be singled out for racism; white in a black neighborhood, black in a Hispanic neighborhood, and so on. And of course, there are plenty of white Americans in our country who seek to restrict the rights of black, Hispanic, Muslim, and even Native American groups.

Whether we’re talking about prejudice, discrimination, or racism, there is one thing in common with all of it. It’s indoctrinated. It’s taught. What you learn about people of other groups depends on one’s environment. That doesn’t mean that a person brought up with prejudice can’t change their minds. That decision to evolve one’s viewpoint also is a product of environment. As an educator, I’ve taught in a variety of these environments. Personally, I was schooled in a small, all-white private school in a little south Louisiana town. I went to college with thirty thousand people of all kinds of racial and ethnic backgrounds. I have taught in 100% black schools in impoverished neighborhoods. I have taught in predominantly white suburban schools. But currently, I teach in a school situated in the most richly diverse neighborhoods you can imagine. Every day, I teach white, black, Latino, Muslim, Catholic, Mormon, Native American, Pakistani, Vietnamese, Buddhist, Bengali, Arab, German, British, Hmong, Laotian, Samoan, Tongan, gay, straight, transgender, and Jewish kids. And I’m just scraping the surface. Do you know what I don’t see a lot of in my school? Racism. Prejudice. Bullying. Discrimination. These kids all grow up together. They see each other as people, and only people. No one is vying for dominance as a group. There is no us or them. No status quo. Everyone gets to be unique, and everyone gets along despite the differences in view, culture, language, and creed.

This has taught me that de facto segregation in our country is one of the primary culprits in perpetuating hate and prejudice. When legal segregation ended, and schools were beginning to integrate, the white population responded by founding all-white private schools. People uprooted their families and moved further out into what became the suburbs. They could afford it. Black and Latino families couldn’t. These white families took with them their superior consumer buying power and their businesses. Job opportunities and tax dollars left these minority families and ensured that these low income slums became more desperate. Desperation breeds crime. Suddenly dads start going to jail, leaving single-parent households with less income. People sell drugs to get extra cash because the Quickie Mart doesn’t pay worth a shit, and so addiction rises. Prostitution becomes rampant, and then so do STDs. Without an adequate tax base, there is no money to properly staff and furnish schools. Thus begins the cycle.

Neighborhoods are now often segregated by race and ethnicity. They develop their own culture. People grow up with different states of mind and different values. In poor, minority neighborhoods, survival takes priority. These are people that have never seen education better a person’s life. They have never seen a school or a teacher who truly cares about their students. You have to do what you have to do to survive. That’s life. In the suburbs, kids are raised with relative privilege. Good schools, a path to college, a new cell phone for their birthday, and access to healthcare. Wealthy kids are raised with yet another set of conditions and values. With these values come attitudes about the world, about life, and about people outside of their own communities. One person might be raised in an all-white area and taught to view black people as lazy, ignorant, thieving, welfare leaches. He or she might be taught to call these people all kinds of horrible things. They tell racist jokes rife with stereotypes. They avoid black people in the supermarket. They avoid any unnecessary contact. Another person might be raised in an all-black neighborhood across town. The grandparents still remember the days of open racism. They remember the fire hoses and segregation. They remember being specifically targeted by outright racist police officers. They remember what people called them to their faces. They teach their kids, and their kids teach their kids. They teach that those white people across town don’t care about you. The cops don’t care about you, and will even target you over anyone else. No one will ever lift a finger for your well-being. YOUR LIFE DOESN’T MATTER. Sometimes they’re right. But that’s not the real problem.

The real problem is that people are indoctrinated without any way to challenge that upbringing. Segregation limits who you grow up around. It limits contact with people that are different from yourself. You grow up with stereotypes for other groups, and all it takes is even the occasional example of truth in them to confirm what you have always been taught. A person needs long-lasting exposure to people of different groups to undo the prejudice and hatred that is often learned from birth. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it work. I’ve experienced this myself. I am one of those people. My mind has changed gradually over the years. The more people of diverse backgrounds I talk to and come to understand, the more clearly I see. The longer we segregate ourselves and shy away from diversity, the longer our problems persist. Look beyond your biases and your cultural indoctrination. People are people, and yes there are bad ones. But if we are to defeat the division and achieve unity—black, white, cop, civilian—we must cast aside all notions of us and them. Come to know your brothers and sisters. Spend time with people of differing backgrounds and viewpoints. Converse with people who disagree with you. Open your mind to someone else’s perspective. Start today. Please…hurry up.

Choosing Sides: Choose Justice

Seems simple, right? Choose justice. A murderer goes to prison. A thief, a rapist, arsonist, whatever. Why should that change given the color of someone’s skin or the type of occupation the person holds? Our society is rife with contradiction. We hold ideals of democracy, yet allow corporations and wealthy people to buy candidates through their donations. People claim to hold Christian values and then complain about poor, food insecure people being on assistance. We hold the Constitution as our compass, and then then talk about banning Muslims. We idealize freedom and then want to limit gay and lesbian couples from getting married. All men are created equal, unless you’re black, Hispanic, non-Christian, gay, transgender, or homeless. Why don’t we get back to basics? Disregard a person’s race, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, political party, or occupation. What’s right is right.

I’m sick of the immediate, blind choosing of sides any time some kind of outrage emerges in the media. A black man gets shot by a police officer, and like clockwork, the NAACP calls for the mayor to resign. People start raising hell, assuming that all cops are racist, and then Jesse Jackson shows up to organize a protest. At the same time, others go on the immediate defensive. Backing the Blue! No matter what. These are public servants, they put their lives on the line, any traffic stop can turn fatal, etc. And these groups just yell at each other for a few days until we find something else to distract us or something new to be outraged about. How about this? Sometimes the perp deserves it…and…sometimes the cop fucks up. There is no automatic either/or. Why don’t we hold off on the verdict until we have all the facts in place?

I understand Black Lives Matters. I understand why that phrase holds significance apart from “all lives matter”. Of course all lives matter. What Black Lives Matter should have been called is Black Lives Matter, Too. It’s not a stretch for a person to recognize that murder, addiction, crime, and poverty in poor, black neighborhoods is downplayed in the media and taken as a given by people who don’t grow up in that environment. In fact many people end up just attributing those kinds of problems to the people—that’s what those people do; that’s how they are. They… Those people… Disregard. Get my latte. Binge watch Fuller House on Netflix. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what Black Lives Matter is about. When a black man or woman is murdered in the slums, we don’t give a shit. When they suffer excessive force, profiling, or are shot while unarmed by either a police officer or unofficial neighborhood watchman, we don’t give a shit. We side with the officer. We side with the white guy. Two teenage boys in two different neighborhoods get caught with weed. Guess which one goes to jail and guess which one gets dropped off to his parents for some in-home discipline. There is a real problem. There is such a thing as a racist cop. There is such a thing as police brutality and abuse of power.

But…this doesn’t excuse you from committing crime. Commit crime, and get arrested. Resist arrest, and get your ass whipped. That’s common sense. If you pull a gun on a cop or try to grab his weapon, you might get shot, and the officer is going to be in the right. They have the right to defend their lives and the lives of others. In fact, that’s their duty. Serve and protect. We cannot automatically assume that a black man killed by a white cop is racially motivated. We cannot assume immediately that this is an injustice. Sometimes, the guy deserves it. Sometimes (actually most of the time), the actions of the officer are warranted and justified. When we start making the cop the bad guy, it erodes public faith in our law enforcement. We can’t have that. These officers and their agencies must maintain integrity and authority in the community.

That being said, the officers, have to conduct themselves with integrity to maintain public trust. Respect isn’t a given. It’s earned. Law enforcement agencies must be cognizant of the actions of the people within their employ. Every business in the world fires people who either can’t cut it, mistreat others, or otherwise cause a negative view of that business. Shouldn’t police departments? Misuse of power should not be tolerated. If you’re bad at being a cop, you should go. That includes killing another citizen who is unarmed. Sometimes, when a cop screws up at their job, innocent people lose their lives. That’s not something to take lightly. These are people. Their lives do matter. They have a right to due process before losing life or liberty. Police departments cannot allow corruption, needless brutality, and committing criminal acts. Hold your officers accountable. Show that you strive to make your agency fair and honorable. Show that you are on the side of justice. The vast majority of American police officers are normal people. Law-abiding, decent, people with honorable intentions and values. But it’s ridiculous to automatically assume that about all officers. There are bound to be some bad apples.

My point is this:  we cannot assume that a police officer is always right any more than we can assume that the perpetrator is always in the wrong. When a new story or new video of a black man getting shot by a cop hits Facebook, CNN, and Vice, don’t just automatically choose a side. The victim might be in the wrong. The cop might be wrong. It might even be more complicated than that. Throw aside your bias. If you’re going to pick a side, pick the side of justice, wherever that may fall.