HineSight

Sinful Envy

2023-06-17T10:47:00.001-04:00

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most popular stories in the New Testament. In fact, I have written about it in this space before. The story of the young man who takes his inheritance and wastes it is a standard part of the collective Christian conscience. We love to hear about the grace of the Father as he welcomes home is wayward child. When I first wrote on HineSight about the Prodigal Son (11 year ago!) it was to remind Christians that we can also be the older brother in that story, and we should look at the story as a cautionary tale about how to treat our brothers and sisters who come home after spending their resources in “riotous living.”

This parable came to my mind again as I was trying to figure out why the American Christian evangelical church takes the positions that it does. I spent some time meditating on why the church seems so caught up with rules and regulations as opposed to introducing people to a kind and loving Savior. Why is it that we seem so ready to condemn the world, when the Bible tells us clearly that even God would not send His Son into the world for the purpose of condemnation? Across the New Testament the authors are clear that the foundation of a relationship with Christ and salvation is belief. In a church based on the faith of the adherents, it seems so counterintuitive that we lead so often with works. The answer is certainly nuanced and complex. Some of the answer is certainly genuine. Many Christians believe that certain behaviors are sinful and the people who partake in them will go to hell and so they want to shout a warning because they are concerned for the well-being of the individual or the society.

At the same time I think there is also a part of that answer that is selfish. Let us again consider the prodigal son’s older brother. He is certainly mad at the father for taking the son back, and he is also envious that the brother is getting a celebration he never had, but it feels like there’s something else going on here. I think the older brother also feels stupid. In other words, he is not getting a good return on his investment. If the younger brother can go out and live the way he was living and come back and get more than what the brother ever had, what is the point? It feels like the son wants to ask why he stayed to help. He felt he had to live this way because it was what he thought the father wanted. Now the older brother finds out that he could throw away his inheritance and get more than he has now. How envious the brother must have been, and how stupid he must’ve felt for following the rules all that time. How envious we must be and how stupid we must feel. Why are we struggling to follow these rules and live the way we believe God wants only to see these sinners swoop in at the last minute to get all the same things I have (or even better)?

I think there are two things for older brothers to remember. First, remember that the younger brother went through a lot to come home. The older brother is already in the safety of his home. He already has the position that his brother is longing to find again. Instead of focusing on the money and the wild living and being envious of that, we should focus on the tattered clothes, the dirty feet and the pig pen. Second, older brothers should remember that every person’s walk is their own. Everyone has their own story and there is value in that story for the community. The challenges of the older brother are important to experience and control. The challenges of the prodigal son are important as well as a testimony of why living for Christ has value. We exist in community with each other not because we have the same journey. We exist as a community to share the faith of Jesus with others. If we would cherish and respect everyone’s journey and focus on the mission God established us to fulfill, we might see the change in society that so many churches think is only possible through politics and legislation.

Not Smart

2023-06-16T17:47:00.001-04:00

It’s been hard for me to figure out a coherent way to talk about Trump’s indictment. There are just so many directions someone can go. I admit I find the whole case intellectually fascinating in the same way you can be fascinated when you meet someone who doesn’t know something that is blatantly obvious to everyone else. Having read the indictment and had some time to reflect, I think there are two main things that I walk away with –

First, Donald Trump has got to be the epitome of some kind of privilege. Maybe it’s white privilege. Maybe it’s the privilege of being rich, but it’s got to be something because no one doing things this stupidly should’ve gotten away with anything for this long. I find we make two very bad assumptions when it comes to determining someone’s intelligence. First, we assume that if someone is successful (especially in business) then that person is smart. Second, we assume that because someone is smart in one area, then that person will be smart in almost every other area. I thought of both of these assumptions as I read the indictment filed against Trump regarding the mishandling of classified documents. Many people assume that Trump is smart. And maybe he is in some way. But whatever intelligence he has (if any) does not carry over to the actions under investigation in this indictment. This criminal conspiracy was handled with all the skill and tact of a toddler using a crayon for the first time. Of course, if you have been paying any level of objective attention to Trump over the last seven years, you would know this is par for the course. Trump, especially in the realm of government, is a man cosplaying as someone who knows what he’s doing. I cannot figure out why this man thought he could fool the United States government by just shifting boxes around his property. That was his genius plan to outwit an organization whose entire job it is to make sure they have the documents they’re looking for. It seems so clear that Trump was counting on whatever privilege he knows he has. He executed his master plan as if he had never heard of a search warrant before. Now clearly he has, but he also was confident that such a warrant would never be executed against him. How wrong he was.

Second, this whole situation is just further evidence that no one insults the intelligence of their supporters like the Republican Party. I’ll admit that I pity them a little in this situation. There isn’t much wiggle room in the indictment for someone to make the argument that Trump is innocent. Even so, Trump’s defenders landed on the most ridiculous misleading argument as their exhibit A – selective prosecution. Trump’s defenders talk about selective prosecution so much that you can sometimes forget that the issue is whether he attempted to illegally possess classified documents. Which of course is the point. Trump’s defenders treat the issue of selective prosecution as if it has bearing on the issue of whether Trump is guilty. The reason the defense is ridiculous is because it is a defense that you can completely concede and it has no effect on your argument. In others words, you can believe that the government uniquely singled him out for punishment and he is also guilty. Furthermore, the “other people did it and didn’t get in trouble” defense is the silliest defense there is. For example, there are tons of things you can say to try to get out of a speeding ticket, but you can’t say to the officer that everyone else is speeding but you didn’t stop them. The only issue is whether you were speeding or not. If you were speeding you get a ticket – simple as that. Trump can argue that everybody was doing what he did. He’d be wrong, and on top of that it won’t matter. If Trump did the crime (which he obviously did) then he should be found guilty. The thing that is most embarrassing to me, however, is that the people making these arguments expect their supporters to just accept it without question. But they know their supporters either are not smart enough to figure it out or will just play along. I guess as the leader goes so do the supporters.

Finding Grace

2023-06-09T23:33:00.003-04:00

Pat Robertson, the famous conservative evangelical and political leader, died this week. Much of the liberal world celebrated, and I was among them. I would be hard-pressed to say two nice words about the man. If you ask me who ruined late 20^th Century American Christianity, I wouldn’t go far before getting to his name (For those of you who I wondering the list in no particular order is Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed, and Francis Schaeffer, though I give Schaeffer a little slack because I don’t ascribe the same level of intentionality to him as I do to the others.) Robertson was every social ill in the book. He helped to make Christianity more racist, more homophobic, more transphobic, more xenophobic. I largely exist the way I do in response to Robertson and people like him. When I was travelling for seven years giving seminars on religious freedom in churches across the country, I often spoke of how Christians had given Jesus a bad reputation in the public square. One of those Christians was Pat Robertson. I went and got a PhD in Religion, Politics, and Society from a church-state institute because I wanted to use my academic career to combat people like Pat Robertson. Three other posts on this site mention his name, and none of those posts are positive. In short, no one could ever call me a fan of this man, and while his influence waned over the years, you’re going to have a hard time convincing me that him not being here to sully Christianity with his hateful theology is a bad thing.

And yet…

My own theology challenges me. If I believe that God loves everyone, then that means God loves Pat Robertson. If I know that I can’t know the heart of any person and so I cannot judge them, it means I cannot be the ultimate judge of Robertson in his death. If I don’t have a Heaven or a hell to send gay people too, it means I also don’t have one for Pat either. If I believe that we all are sinners who will be judged by a righteous God but that our ways are not Their ways, then I can make no predictions on how They will judge him. Can I really be this cavalier about his death in the same ways that he was cavalier about the deaths of so many who did not live the way he thought they should? I don’t think that I can. Furthermore, none of what I just said now takes away anything I have said in this post so far. It would be foolish of me not to speak out against the horrible things Robertson said over the years. None of my concern for Robertson’s ultimate fate has anything to do with my criticism of his words and actions. But I think there is a real problem when we see our enemies as enemies for so long that we lose our ability to see them as people that God loves. That’s something that Robertson and his ilk did often, and I don’t want to be anything like them. If I want to be a Christian, a disciple of Christ, then I have to at least try to see him the way God does - as a sinner that God loves and for whom Jesus died. I don’t like Pat Robertson. But I want to love him the way Jesus does, and so I find myself hoping that he found the grace that he was so unwilling to give others when he was alive.

The Inevitable Outcome

2023-06-08T12:27:00.000-04:00

I have been traveling to Ocala for over 30 years. My aunt retired there in the early 90s and gave us a nice place to travel to in the summer. Our summers during those years were wonderful. My Dad and I would plan the trip on maps and we would take almost 3 days to get down there, stopping at places along the way. So I felt twinge when I read the story of the murder of Ajike Owens in Ocala late last week. Unfortunately Owens joins the list of Black people shot by “neighbors” for unjustified reasons (think of people like Botham Jean, Trayvon Martin, and Ralph Yarl).

There are so many places you could go with this story. We could talk about how gun violence has turned us in less of a community and how the spectre of violence inexorably leads to the reality thereof. We could talk about how white defendants are often given the benefit of the doubt by our legal system. How a person could shoot another person in cold blood and be allowed to go home while the police try to figure out her own defense for her. (Of course this part loses some of its sting now that the shooter has been arrested.) Or we could talk about how the central element of the Karen is a desire to police areas over which they have no legitimate control (in this case, playing near her home is enough to trigger an outsized response).

But the overarching thought I had while reading an article about the shooter’s arrest was at once something very small but also very large. So many times when we see these murders happen, we focus on the individual, and rightly so to a certain extent. We immediately designate that person as a racist and bemoan the lingering scourge of racism in society that makes these types of shootings a fairly regular occurrence. I don’t object to any of that, but I think sometimes we forget that racism is learned and taught. Racism is not inherent. And yes, there may be people in this lady’s background that taught her racism. I would also suggest, however, that even if that were not the case, all she would have to do is look at society around her and she would still have very good teachers. When we pull back to look at society at large, incidents like this murder in Ocala are the inevitable outcome of a society that constantly communicates (and not that subtly) that Black people are people to be feared. This is the outcome when you try to paint Black criminality like some unique and particularly dangerous phenomenon. This is the outcome when every conversation about racism leads to someone asking about the murder rate in Chicago. This is the outcome when the angry Black man/woman are tropes used to signal fear. All around us, and all around this woman, are signs that say a Black person is a threat. Depending on what news she watches she is inundated with these ideas. The reasonableness of her fear cannot be found in the circumstances that were occurring right in front of her. The argument for her reasonableness actually stems from this inception that teaches you that Black people are violent and out of control, so you need to come to the door with a gun. My heart is saddened by Jones’ death. My heart is even more saddened by her four children lost their mother for such an incomprehensible reason. And the worst of it is that I can’t think of the way to prevent it from happening again.

My New Why (Part I)

2023-06-06T11:44:00.003-04:00

“The first key to writing is to write.” William Forrester said that to Jamal Wallace in the movie Finding Forrester, this little largely forgotten movie from the year 2000 that I love. I’ve given that advice to my students often, and here I am, trying to take it. I sit here with no real purpose, except to prime the pump. To relearn to ride the bike. To rekindle the love. I don’t know when I started to consider myself a writer, but I know it was sometime between 2010 and 2014 when I had to begrudgingly admit to myself that writing was a part of my identity. It was Lilly’s fault. She was the one who suggested I start the blog in 2010. When I’m not feeling the most confident I tell myself it was because she didn’t want to have to listen to me talk her ear off anymore. On my better days it’s because she believed in what I was saying and my ability to communicate it.

I’m not quite sure when I decided to leave the habit. That’s not true – I left it when it got crowded out by writing a dissertation. What I don’t remember is when I made the decision not to really return. So I have blogged from time to time, but never as consistently as those days in graduate school, when I was posting twice a week. Here’s the problem - writing can be a weird and fickle friend. It can give you a joy that you can’t really feel anywhere else. The sense of discovery when your writing tells you what you believe. The pride at a particular turn of phrase or a reference that goes off without a hitch or the feeling when a sentence just seems to fall together. (I still remember fondly the close of a paragraph that I wrote during a writers’ workshop in 2014.) The sense of peace that can come when someone comments or writes to you or stops you to say that something that you wrote meant something to them. On the other hand, there’s the trepidation when you have to write something and the mood hasn’t hit or the words don’t come. Or the pain when something that felt so sure in your brain doesn’t seem to hang together on the screen. Or the annoyance when you kick yourself for falling into the trap of the comments section when you already knew the ignorance you would find.

There’s a fear that still exists every time I sit down to write. It isn’t the same every time and sometimes it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what the fear is. On a day like today it’s the vulnerability that scares me. On some days it’s that I won’t be very good at it. On other days it’s the fear that no one will care what I have to say. Then on others it’s that what I say won’t make a difference. I think deep down I know those things aren’t true. I’ve written long enough and waded through enough comment sections to know that there are people who like what I do, there are people who don’t like what I do, and those groups are almost always who I want them to be. But the imposter syndrome is still very real.

So I guess the analysis begs the question – why do I keep coming back. The answers are almost as varied as the fears. On some days I sit down because there is some obligation I have to fulfill. On other days because there is something I just gotta say. Some days it’s because getting something out of my head and onto the screen can sometimes be a relief. But the ultimate truth is this – writing is the best way for me to have an affect on the world around me. There’s nothing for me that can’t be accomplished in the space from my fingertips to the screen. Writing helps me to comprehend. It helps me to process. It helps me to influence. This world often doesn’t make any sense. Writing helps me to make sense out of it. And I hope that if it helps me, it’ll help somebody else too.

The Struggle Continues - Again

2020-11-09T17:04:00.010-05:00

There are so many things running through my mind in the aftermath of the presidential election that there would be no way for me to create a coherent post about them. So here are some of my all over the place thoughts –

· I was right but for the wrong reason – I was bullish on the Left even before the pandemic. But it is clear to me in the aftermath that without the pandemic Trump probably wins in a walk. And that just seems crazy to me. Trumpism is a minority position that is truly outnumbered, and it is only the system itself that gives them any power or influence. But to think about the fact that he got 7 million more votes than he got in 2016 is flabbergasting to me. I am not surprised that people were willing to sign up for Trump’s brand (I was slightly surprised in 2016), but it is still amazing to me that some people only saw the light because of a record amount of death. It really shouldn’t be this hard.

· One thing I hope changes – Let me join the chorus of others who are thanking Stacy Abrams and other Black (and especially Black women) organizers who created victories for the Biden campaign in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. It was refreshing to hear both the Vice-President and President Elect give specific credit to the African-American community for their victory. I hope this means that this administration will be looking to enact policies that are targeted towards solving the unique issues that plague our communities. At the same time, it will be up to us to continue to put political pressure on them to come through on what they have promised.

· Speaking of coming through – The new administration will be hamstrung if they don’t have a willing Senate. That makes the two runoff elections in Georgia extremely important. If the Democrats can win both elections (on January 5) then they will achieve a 50-50 split in the Senate and will be able to push through much more legislation that will be of benefit to the American people. I encourage you to donate to the campaigns, and to text or phone bank to get out the vote if you can. Please go to fairfight.com to donate and to learn more.

· One funny thing – We really haven’t spent enough time laughing at the Trump campaign for holding a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons Hotel in Philadelphia. Now they say they meant to hold their press conference there because they wanted to be in a more friendly area. Lies. I lived in Philly and I am well familiar with where they would’ve been holding the press conference. When I went to Philly to interview for my first job after law school I stayed in the Four Seasons. Both law firms I worked at in Philadelphia are on the same block as the Four Seasons. Here’s how I know they’re lying. If you were going to be at the Four Seasons you would be either be inside (where you wouldn’t be worried about noise or anything else) or you’d be outside on the side of the hotel away from the main street where there is very little traffic. You can’t tell me that a campaign that started by coming down a gold escalator wanted to be at a landscaping company next to an adult store and across from a crematorium. Miss me with that.

· Last but not least – I can’t tell you how happy I am that Kamala Harris will be our next Vice President. I am proud that after the long dark night of the Trump administration the American people decided to elect a team that was also moving us forward in this unique way. But what moves me to tears is thinking about my own family. My grandmother was an East Indian woman, living in Jamaica, who was disowned by her family for falling in love with a Black man. I can’t really explain what it means to me that this important glass ceiling was broken by someone who has the same lineage as my two daughters.

It is truly a shame. I appreciate the exuberance of everyone who celebrated the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this weekend. I experienced some of that feeling too. However, for me this felt more like a sigh of relief than a cause for celebration. This did not feel like a victory to me as much as it felt like a reprieve. I think I waited a couple of days to write this post because I didn’t want to step on anybody’s good time. But at the end of the day the election of Joe Biden is not the end of the war. It is simply a victory in a small skirmish that allows us to stay in the fight. I wish I could say that the war was over. I wish I could say that this election was the bellwether of a permanent bend in the arc of moral justice that would set us on the right course to freedom and justice for all. But I can’t. The battles get tougher from here, the opponents more recalcitrant. Buckle up folks – the struggle continues.

An Affirmative Case

2020-11-03T00:55:00.000-05:00

I did more than I did in 2016, but if Biden/Harris lose today, I will feel like I haven’t done enough. Oddly enough, at the same time I will feel like nothing more could be done. The feeling that washed over me in the last two weeks of this election season is that it shouldn’t be this hard. Incumbents shouldn’t win elections after they failed the public during a public health crisis to such staggering proportions that now over 230,000 people are dead. The specter of that failure makes it difficult to do what I am aim to do in this piece – tell you why you should vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris without mentioning he who shall not be named.

· Vote for Both – There has been a dangerous mode of thought running through this election season and the debate around a national response to the pandemic. Somehow there is this belief that we either must ignore the disease and live life in a relatively normal way or we have to lockdown the country for several months in order to get the pandemic under control. The argument there of course is about how best to recover economically. However these are not the only option. What Biden is suggesting is that we can do both. We can recover in a way that presents new economic opportunities while also keeping people safe. We that require some businesses to close. Absolutely, and it should. Does that mean those businesses would close indefinitely with no hope of reopening. Absolutely not. Those business would be getting assistance to do the things necessary to reopen safely. And they would have the time to reopen because government will be helping citizens keep themselves afloat until jobs return and businesses reopen. Moreover, as a nation we can create a silver lining from this terrible pandemic by using this time as an opportunity to improve things such that several industries come back better than they were before. We can be safe, we can thrive, and we can do it better. Who wouldn’t want that?

· Vote for a Party – Now I said I wouldn’t mention he who shall not be named, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t mention the party to which he belongs. If this pandemic showed us anything, it showed us which of the two political parties actual cares about the citizens of this nation. At a time when people all over this nation were struggling, either with health issues or with economic issues, one party was trying to get more money into the hands of citizens so that they could at least subsist during this crisis. The other party was trying to spend less on its citizens while also continuing its attack on the healthcare that many people need to survive and also using deceit to confirm a Supreme Court justice who will take away hard won rights for minorities of all types and cement their power even after they’ve been voted out of office. Think about that for a second – at a time when the Republican Senate could’ve been helping ordinary citizens, they couldn’t even reach a compromise or find the temerity to bring a COVID relief bill to the floor. But they found all the time in the world to rush through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Ask me again if that party cares about you and deserves your vote. I’m not going to argue with you that the Democratic Party does everything correctly. That would be foolish of me. But I can say that they care more about you than Republicans do. They try to do the right thing more often. They deserve your vote from the Presidential line down to your local officials.

· The Safer Choice – This may not be the sexiest way to close this argument, but it is true. A vote for the Biden ticket is a vote for you even if you don’t agree with him. Biden’s plans will benefit you even if because his plans seek to raise the standard of living for all Americans. You may disagree with him on how to solve the student loan crisis, but if you have student loans you will be able to take advantage of his plans anyway. You may disagree with his plans on how to solve racial inequities in our policing and criminal justice system. But you will benefit from the strides he will make. You may disagree with his environmental policy. But we will all benefit from cleaner air and water. You may disagree with his tax policy. But even if you stand to be taxed more, you will benefit from all the good things that the government will do with that money. This point goes out to even some people who are planning to vote for Biden. So of you may think he goes too far. Some of you (and I am more in this camp) may think in some places he doesn’t go far enough. That does not matter now. What does matter is that a vote for him is a vote for policies that will make the lives of all Americans better, even the people who would wish it not to be so.

I don’t know where you find yourself on this Election Day. You may have already voted (if so thank you). You may have decided to vote for that other guy (if so I hope this made you think). You may have decided not to vote (if so I hope this made you change your mind). You may not even know whether you can vote. If you find yourself in any of those last two categories it may not be too late - go to vote.org to find out about voting and registering to vote in your state.

Link of the Day - The Only Option

2020-10-16T09:04:00.001-04:00

Now that the traveshamockery of the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearing is over, I think it is time to talk about where we should go from here. As always I turn to a writer better than myself, Elie Mystal, to lay out the argument. You should read his piece as someone who has been yelling about reform on the Supreme Court for a long time before this debacle or even the seat stolen from President Obama. As I look at the landscape there are just a few points that I want to make to broaden out this issue.

Who’s court packing? – Senator Harris made this point in her debate and I think I have seen others make it, but it needs to be said. If anyone wants to talk about court-packing, what the Republicans have done during the Trump administration is as much court-packing as anything the Democrats might try if they get the presidency and the Senate. In this last administration, the Senate has been ramming through lower court nominations that they held over from the Obama administration (this was what Senator Harris mentioned in the debate). But I would also argue that the 2 seats that they have stolen over the last 4 years are also a prime example of court-packing. As Elie said I his piece, the conservative movement has been after these seats for decades because they know that this is how they can maintain political influence despite their waning numbers. My hope is that the Democrats in the House and Senate realize this and take this influence away if they should have both the legislative and executive power to do so.

About blowback – I believe (as does Elie and many others) that if the Democrats do this right, they won’t have to worry about political blowback. One of the main arguments against court reform is that if/when the Republicans get in power they will just add seats to swing the balance back. But there are thing Democrats can do to forestall that potential outcome. If Biden wins the presidency and they get control of the Senate, the first thing they should do is expand the Supreme Court. Elie thinks they should go to 19, I was thinking 17 myself, but 19 is fine with me. The beauty of court reform is that you only need legislation to do it, and such an act is almost immune from judicial review. The reason you need to do this first is because you need to immediately change the balance of the court to protect the rest of the agenda from being overturned by a conservative Supreme Court. After you add the justices, then you do things that expand the ability to vote because if you do that you are almost guaranteeing Democratic victories into the future. Grant statehood to DC. Grant it to Puerto Rico as well if they want it. Expand voting rights. Outlaw things that make it difficult for people to vote in federal elections. If you do these types of things, you might be able to exist in a world where Republicans never have the political power to be able to change the composition of the Court.

More than revenge – The main thrust of Elie’s article (which I support) is that while the timing of this may be about vengeance, the need for court reform has nothing to do with vengeance. This reform is sorely needed and the crises we find ourselves in whenever a justice dies is justification enough for court reform. The more justices on the Court, less important any one justice is. We should want to love in a world where the power of the Supreme Court is diffused. I know Elie talks about this in places other than this particular article, but it would be nice if the Supreme Court were ridiculously huge and then there was random rotating set of justices who heard a particular case. The 9^th Circuit already operates this way so it isn’t like this is terribly foreign. What I love about this system is not only will it diffuse the power of the Supreme Court because no individual justice can upset the balance, it also diffuses the power of the Court because litigants will be more cautious in what cases they bring to the Court. For example, if there are 35 justice on the Court and only 5 justices here any particular case, even if there are more liberal justices than conservative justices (or vice versa) litigants would still not be as willing to have their cases heard at this level. Simply because you wouldn’t know which five justices you would get. This would also mean that the court would have to give more fair and balanced rulings and we may not have the type of wild constitutional pendulum swings we are setting ourselves up for now.

But the truth of the matter is that we can’t put the cart before the horse. This means nothing if Democrats don’t win back the Senate and the White House in November. The real shame is that we find ourselves in this position in the first place.

Maybe This One?

2020-09-28T15:52:00.002-04:00

When something of significance happens in the world, I like to do something I call, “Hi-jacking my syllabus.” It means that if I am teaching a live class, I will throw out my syllabus and talk about what is happening in society, so long as I can connect it to the themes of my course. (Lucky for me, I teach courses in law, politics, religion, and ethics so almost anything happening in society will dovetail into my courses.) So there I found myself, in early November of 2016, talking about how a nation that believes in the rhetoric of freedom, justice, equality, etc. could not elect someone like Donald Trump. I have already forgotten many things from that discussion with those students who just wanted to get a Master’s degree in Healthcare Administration, but a few things stuck. One was the student who emailed me after the class to say that the discussion we had was not what she was paying for. (My response: Actually that type of discussion is exactly what you’re paying for.) Another was our discussion of the reasons why people supported Trump. I remember a student saying something to the effect of, “Well Trump is a successful businessman and so he must know what he’s doing at least in that realm right?”

Now I realize that I am more politically attuned than the average person (something that I have to remind myself regularly), but it always stuck with me that this is the public perception of Trump. Between his reputation as a New York tycoon in the 80s to his run as the host of The Apprentice in the early 2000s, Trump gave off the impression that he is a businessman who knows how to make smart deals. Now I knew that to be a falsehood for several years, but the reputation endures with the general public. And that is why I wonder if the latest revelations by the New York Times might be the thing that starts to peel away at some of his stalwart support. Trump’s reputation as a shrewd businessman is the cornerstone of his qualifications to the office. If Trump is not a shrewd businessman, than what is he? If the decision-making that led you to think he was qualified turns out to be suspect, will it cause some to question the decision-making he engaged in while in office? Did some of his supporters give him the benefit of the doubt, now only to find that the benefit was unfairly gained?

The answer is probably no, for a number of reasons. Trump has a record as President that can be judged. Regardless of what you think of his bona fides, you can now judge him on his record of the past 4 years. I also don’t think it will mean much because some people will see it as his shrewd business sense that he got over on the government for so long, putting aside the questions of how that affects you or whether that is illegal. So I think it will have an effect on some, it is probably not enough to move the needle in any significant way. The main short term benefit is probably how much it will upset Trump and how much he may end up keeping it in the news cycle because of that.

However, I think the cumulative effect is something that may be a positive for those who are looking forward to Trump defeat in November. In an election where neither party seems to be focusing on expanding the electorate, every voter you get to switch sides matters. And while, Trump seems not to take any heavy hits from any of these revelations, I am cautiously optimistic that his defeat could be death from a thousand paper cuts. So no, this tax thing is not a big deal – maybe a seemingly insignificant number decides not to vote for him because of this. No big deal. But when you add it to the seemingly insignificant number who switched because of the Supreme Court thing, and the number who switched because of the statements about the military, and the number who switched because the COVID response, and the number who switched because of his equivocation on a peaceful transfer of power, and the number who switched because of his response to the protests, and the number, and the number, and the number of people who already were planning to switch before any of these things happened. At the end of the day, I don’t really care why people decide to switch or when, I just care that they do. And this is just another thing that I think helps in that regard.

What Will Mitch Do?

2020-09-22T09:02:00.005-04:00

What follows was actually a part of my post yesterday, but that post was too long and this chunk felt long enough for its own post. So here it is. Now the title is a little facetious – we all know what Mitch is going to do. He’s going to push through the Supreme Court nomination. And to be fair, I totally understand that position. I saw an article in Salon today that made this very point. McConnell probably thinks there’s no way he can lose here. On the one hand he gets a Supreme Court nominee and a 6-3 conservative majority on the court for a generation. Even if he doesn’t get the nominee, he gets a ready-made issue for his base, and while that may not be enough to save Trump, it might save the GOP majority in the Senate.

He may be right. However, despite my inability to predict the future, I am beginning to think pushing this nominee through won’t work out well for Republicans ultimately. The problem is that there are too many “ifs.” If Trump puts forward a nominee and they manage to get the nominee confirmed before the election, I think there will be a sweep by the Democrats. I just have to believe that there are only so many times the bully can kick sand in your face before you fight back. So if the GOP tries to rush this nominee, I think that Democrats and others on the left use this as fuel to motivate their base. There are still Democrats who are smarting from the Supreme Court shenanigans in 2016. I don’t think they’ll let it happen again without any repercussions. So I think you will see what so many have been calling for – the end of the filibuster and a court packing plan within the first year of the Biden term. I agree with Elie Mystal and others who believe that the reform of the Court is long overdue anyway. If this is what gets us there then so be it.

Here’s the other thing that is also true. Every day that passes it will be harder for the GOP to justify confirming a nominee. And the pressure actually ramps up against the GOP in a lame duck session (all of this dependent on the GOP losing the Senate as well as the White House). If the GOP lose both the White House and the Senate, the arguments start to cut both ways. While it is true that the outgoing GOP senators would have no accountability (and thus may be more willing to confirm a justice), as my wife says you should never underestimate someone’s ability to be petty. Therefore, you could just as easily make the argument that these Senators, many of whom will have lost their seats because of Trump, will be in no mood to give him a Supreme Court appointment on their way out the door. While it is true that the GOP will get a short term win if they get their nominee in before the election (or in a lame duck session), that victory may be short-lived. And it also may be the last time we ever have a nominee to a nine-member Supreme Court.

As I said, even though I disagree with him, McConnell is going to go through with the nomination. I understand why he would. All we have to go on when we make decisions is people’s previous behavior. And if I were McConnell, I would have no reason to think the Democrats are going to do anything more than what they’ve always done. They’ll talk about how unfair it is, and how the Republicans are hypocrites who are breaking government. But they won’t actually do anything about it. Why would now be any different? I don’t have any evidence that it would be, other than my instinct and the truth that a bully never knows the bullying’s done until he gets punched in the mouth.

Notorious Thoughts

2020-09-21T09:39:00.003-04:00

If you’re reading this you would be the type of person who knows that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on Friday. You also already know that the major predicament that now exists as the GOP looks to fill this seat in contravention of their own made up rules. There is a lot that is swirling in my head, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it in between. I thought this would be a good time to just lay out my incoherent thoughts on where we are politically as another monkey wrench has been thrown into the 2020 election season.

A note about RBG – Her status as a judicial legend is well-assured. There is so much that we could say about that which has already been said. There has been some criticism of her decision to not leave the bench when she would’ve been assured that President Obama could fill the seat. While I get the point, I am really not here for that type of commentary. If we are going to blame her for that, then we should at least equally (and in my opinion more so) blame ourselves for putting her in that position in the first place. Democrats lost control of the Senate in 2014, that’s on us as an electorate. The Democrats lost the White House and did not gain in the Senate in 2016. That’s on us as an electorate again. And even though I made the argument that there was not much for Democrats to gain in 2018, knowing the composition of the court I will admit that I was wrong and we should’ve made more of an effort. Even if you didn’t get to a majority, cutting into their advantage might’ve meant that you didn’t need four votes now to stymie McConnell’s plans. Speaking of four votes….

Maybe not a fait accompli? – I begrudge no one the assumption that the Republicans will be able to push through a new justice before the election. But it does look more precarious than one might think. Already Senators Murkowski and Collins made public statements that they would not support a nominee before the election. While Mitt Romney has not made a public statement, it is definitely possible that he wouldn’t want to give Trump another justice or that he would want the GOP to look like hypocrites. At that point you would only need one more. Senator Grassley made comments in the past about this, but you don’t know if he can be trusted. Senator Graham made statements in the past and he has already come out saying he’ll support a nominee. The point is as of tonight you only need two more and there are a slew of Republicans in tight races who could be convinced that a vote against this might help their reelection chances. Most of those Senators are losing because they’re tied to Trump. Tying yourself to him even tighter by ramming through a justice in contravention of your own principles doesn’t seem like the type of thing you want to do if you want to give yourself a chance at coming back to Congress.

I still can’t believe it – I know I shouldn’t be surprised by anything the GOP does anymore, and I am not shocked that they’re trying to fast track a nominee in violation of their own made up rule. What I am shocked about is that they’re actually trying to wrap it in some sort of principle. McConnell’s statement, as transparent as it was, still didn’t say, “Hey we’re doing this because we’re in charge and we can.” Graham tried to tie his hypocrisy to how the Democrat’s handled the Kavanaugh nomination, as if one thing had anything to do with the other. (Also, it has to be among one of the most childish things to argue that you felt mistreated about one thing so now I’m going to mistreat you in a totally unrelated thing.) The principle is simple. According to the 2016 versions of all these same people, if the American people have a chance to decide whether they want the sitting chief executive to choose this next justice, they should have their say. I would extend that principle to say that the American people having a say may not only be about the President’s ability to name a nominee, but the American people may also be deciding whether they want that particular Senate to be the ones who confirm.

I can’t call the election on this – But I am still pretty bullish on the Democratic Party and I will be even more if McConnell manages to push this nomination through. Those on the left are already motivated to not repeat the mistakes of 2016. McConnell getting a justice nominated will already add more fuel to the fire. The very suspicion that he will has done that. Donations for Democratic Senate campaigns in close races skyrocketed over the weekend. The calls already went out over the weekend for supporters of the Democratic Party to become even more involved than they were before. Furthermore, with a seat now guaranteed to whoever wins the election, I think Democrats will have more reasons to come out and vote for Biden and down ticket Democrats as well. On the other hand, my original thought was that conservatives would be motivated as well, but I’ve had some time to rethink that position. If anyone has been politically savvy about court appointments it’s been conservatives. And while they weren’t expecting a seat to open up this close to the election, my bet is that they already factored in Ginsburg’s seat if Trump is reelected, and they’re probably figuring on Justice Breyer’s seat as well. I actually don’t think they’ll be any more motivated than they already were. This election is still going to be a referendum on Trump and I doubt that the conservatives and independents who are switching their vote will switch back to Trump because of a Supreme Court seat. Many of those people see Trump as an existential threat – I don’t know if they’d now be willing to put up with that threat just for a chair at the high court.

All that aside, our playbook doesn’t change – vote, get your friends to register and vote, donate your time if you can, donate your money to close Senate races first (especially Mark Kelly in AZ, as he will be seated before the end of November if he wins). I’m going to do my best to make sure the GOP regrets their hypocrisy, and I hope you’ll join me.

Unbelievable

2020-09-16T09:06:00.000-04:00

I recently became fascinated with the concept of misinformation. I always knew it existed, but in a post I wrote about Trump and the pandemic recently, I got a chance to see that misinformation in real time. A similar thing happened to be yesterday when I saw a snippet of an article in the September 12^th edition of The Economist. Apparently they went to some construction workers in Ohio and asked their opinions on the election. I will admit that I didn’t get to see the entire article (it’s behind a pay wall). But the section that was attached to the tweet I saw was fascinating.

“He’s done a great job, he’s got everyone back to work. I’m pretty much 100% for him,” said Kyle, a 30-year-old electrician. “He shoots his mouth off but at least that shows he’s honest,” said Jason [and yes I’m embarrassed we have the same name], a pipe-fitter, who said he especially like Mr. Trump’s commitment to reducing the national debt. “He’s done more for our country than the past ten presidents put together,” said an older builder, Jeff, skimming wet concrete on a new road. “He’s made – who is it, China or Japan? – pay our farmers billions of dollars. He got health care done, which the Democrats could never do. He built the wall.”

There are nine statements that are presented as fact. I would like to go through them all.

1. He’s got everyone back to work – Now this was never true in fact, because we’ve always had unemployment in this country. But even if we take this as reasonable hyperbole it isn‘t accurate. It certainly isn’t accurate in our current pandemic reality. But it wasn’t even true prior to the pandemic. While unemployment did continue to fall during the Trump administration, most of that can be attributed to policies enacted during the Obama presidency, where the real work was done in turning our economy around after The Great Recession. African-American unemployment is actually a good example of this distinction. Prior to the pandemic, African-American unemployment was at the lowest rate ever. However, if we’re attempting to isolate whether Trump did anything particularly for the African-American community we discover an interesting fact. While unemployment in the Black community continued to fall, the rate fell more slowly than it did during the Obama presidency. From this we can conclude that whatever Trump did (or didn’t do) actually slowed the progress of the Obama presidency, even if it didn’t full arrest it. One could make the argument that for certain segments of our economy Trump has done very little if anything to get everyone back to work.

2. I’m pretty much 100% for him – I guess this is true because that person is talking about himself.

3. He shoots his mouth off… - In reference to Trump this is also true.

4. … but at least it shows that he’s honest – This isn’t true. As of July, Trump told 20,000 false or misleading claims in office. Even the fact checkers at the Washington Post were surprised that the number got that big. I think it’s fair to say that Trump might be the most dishonest person to ever hold that office.

5. … he especially like Mr. Trump’s commitment to reducing the national debt – These numbers are a little old, but through roughly three years Trump added $3 trillion dollars to the national debt. That is in line with the presidency of George W. Bush. While it is true that the Obama presidency added more to the national debt, the difference is that the Obama administration increased federal spending to stem the tide of The Great Recession. Trump’s adding to the deficit is strange considering the strength of the economy he inherited from the Obama administration.

6. He’s done more for our country than the past ten presidents put together – There is no way this is true, especially in the middle of a still raging pandemic. There is no positive metric where we are doing better than 4 years ago, except maybe the stock market. We have more unemployment, our standing internationally is worse, we’re in the middle of a pandemic that the rest of the world seems to be able to handle while we look woefully inadequate. I guess we sound tougher when Trump speaks though?

7. He’s made – who is it China or Japan? – pay our farmers billions of dollars – This isn’t true. Actually what had happened was we the taxpayers paid our farmers billions of dollars. We are continuing to pay them billions of dollars. Now some groups are worried that we won’t be able to stop paying them billions of dollars now that we’ve started.

8. He got health care done, which the Democrats could never do – I calling this one untruth but it’s actually two. Trump didn’t get healthcare done – the Democrats did. (Though I will admit I’m not even sure what he means by “got health care done.” If he means dismantling it piece by piece than he’s not right on both points.)

9. He built the wall – I’m calling this an untruth because I don’t think when he says Trump built the wall he know that only 5 new miles of wall have been built during the Trump administration. But I will add on this extra point – Trump actually got the money for the 5 miles (and 90 miles of repairs) by taking it from soldiers. So much for Mexico paying for it.

This is the effect of a man who is willing to tell any lie, and media apparatuses that are willing to spread those lies as truth. The thing that saddens me and perplexes me is that I don’t know how you stop it. Trump as inoculated his base from reality. There were 9 statements here, only two of them were true, and the two that were true were the two most inconsequential statements in the bunch. Nothing they said that required any outside knowledge was true. They’ve been lied to and don’t even know it. And there’s no information you can tell them that will get them to believe it. It would be unbelievable, except we know that almost 40% of the country believes it.

What's the Matter?

2020-09-14T09:07:00.006-04:00

I saw a post or two within some of my own communities a few months ago. Pat Robertson brought the conversation into the Christian mainstream with his statements within the last week. (There was a time when something Pat Robertson said would become part of the actual mainstream, but that hasn’t been true for at least the last 15 years, and maybe longer.) And so the question is clear – Is there something about the group Black Lives Matter that makes them unworthy of our support as Black people, Christians, or both?

I won’t hide the ball – I think the answer is no, and I think the question is often asked in bad faith. In my social media travels, I find many people are trying to address this issue by asking, “Is there a problem with supporting an organization in the places where you agree if they have other elements where you disagree?” I guess that’s one way to phrase the question, and I guess I am glad to see that the answer for many people has been no. But I want to ask the more fundamental question – “Where exactly is the element of the Black Lives Matter platform where we should disagree?” I have read the BLM statement of belief before, but I went back to it again to make sure it was what I thought it was. I think it is important to go to the source. To find out what you believe second or third-hand is problematic, even if you trust your sources. I think an examination of the parts of the statement that may make some people uncomfortable is worthwhile here.

“We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others.”

- I certainly don’t think this would make Black people uncomfortable, but I can see how it would make White Christians uncomfortable. I find that White Christians work really hard to forget their historical and cultural connections to the elements and modes of Christianity that explicitly oppressed Black people. Anything that specifically and explicitly centers Black people is something I find many White Christians want to avoid. It is the flaw of any movement for equality. Those who are members of the oppressor group usually don’t want to be reminded of that fact if they have deluded themselves into believing that membership does not have any privileges.

“We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”

- I took these three together (although they are far apart in the actual document) because I think this is the first place where conservative Christians (regardless of color) will struggle. But I would challenge any Christian – What exactly is the problem here? Why can’t LGBTQ Black people participate and lead in this movement for Black lives? Are they not Black? Do they not have lives? Do they not face the same oppression that we do because of the color of their skin? Do they not face more oppression because of their sexuality/gender? Do we believe that these children of God are somehow less than us because of their difference? And finally, do we think that the difference makes them somehow less worthy of the protections that we are seeking to claim? If we are not willing to dismantle our own privilege, and if we’re not willing to mean it by giving LGBTQ Black people a real voice and say in this movement, then we are saying that they are less than us, no matter what we actually say.

“We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered.”

- I want to make sure that I’m right here, but I am fairly confident. I keep reading this sentence and I am sure that it doesn’t say that BLM is anti-men, or hates men. It doesn’t say men can’t work with them, or for them, or that men can’t even be leaders in this movement. I want to check that I’m right here because it seems a lot of people I know think that’s what this says, but I really don’t see it.

“We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.”

- Every now and again I think it is important that we engage in some reading comprehension. It’s an interesting phrase – “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure…” Reading that phrase you might get the impression that BLM is anti-family. And you would be correct, except that the word right after that phrase is “requirement.” BLM is not anti-family. Instead they want to do away with the idea that your family has to look a certain way in order for you to be a part or to lead in this movement. They want to expand the notion of family to something that we know has existed in the Black community since there was a Black community to speak of. The “family” in our communities has always been a network extended family and family that wasn’t family by blood. BLM is making a call to become family to the people who become a part of their movement, while still realizing that the ultimate decision for this element comes down to the families themselves, including the children. This feels beautiful and actually really Christian to me. What a wonderful idea to try to build a community that loves and cares for one another regardless of who we are and where we model a mode of friendship that could be even tighter than family. Maybe if our churches were doing this we wouldn’t need BLM.

I think the problem is that up until this moment the work for the equality of Black people in this country has been largely male, heterosexual, and Christian. What makes BLM different as an organization is that they explicitly say that they will not be centering those groups in their social justice work. Not that they those people cannot join them, or take part in their cause. They certainly show up and protest when a male/heterosexual/Christian man get shot by the police. The problem is that we are so used to being the center of attention, the engine of this work, that when a group comes along and says we won’t be catering you, it feels strange to us. To not be the focal point of the work of this major organization feels like an attack. It isn’t. It is an expansion of the idea that Black people from all walks of life matter. Caring and mattering is limitless. It is not a zero-sum game. To care for these communities who have been marginalized even within our community does not mean that BLM cares about me any less or that I matter any less to them. I have the privilege (word choice intended) of being in all three of those groups and it never occurred to me to feel slighted or offended. Probably because when BLM says they want to protect all Black lives from state-sanctioned violence and racial vigilantism I believe them.

Strong Delusion

2020-09-11T09:12:00.002-04:00

So I wasn’t planning on writing about Trump and the mishandling of the pandemic again, but I stumbled onto an interesting FB thread yesterday. A friend of mine, while asking people to be respectful, asked his Trump supporting friends whether their support was as strong today in light of the revelations or whether they were wavering. I guess I expected that most of the responses would be supportive of Trump, but I guess it was still fascinating to watch them justify Trump’s actions in real time. So I wanted to share with you some thoughts that came to be as I was working my way through the thread. (I won’t be sharing the actual quotes with you like I did last week because this conversation did not happen on my page. Also, I made one comment on the thread and was planning to make an even longer one when I eventually decided it wasn’t worth my time.)

The first thing that jumped out at me is that conservatives and liberals are really working with two different sets of information. More than once one of the responders mentioned that Democrats were armchair quarterbacking, or that the Dems couldn’t have done any better. One person even said that he hadn’t heard any Democrat talk in detail about what they would’ve done that Trump didn’t do. I found it amazing because everyone I talk with about the pandemic knows that the Obama administration left behind a pandemic playbook for future administrations. We also know that of all the scenarios the Obama administration ran with Trump’s transition team, they made sure they took them through how to handle a pandemic. Also, Biden has at almost every opportunity since the convention talked about the things he would do on day one to try and get the pandemic under control. These are things that liberals who are following the events just know. And it didn’t seemed like these people weren’t following the news. They had all kinds of knowledge about what Trump had done and what the Obama administration had not done. If there was ever a time when I saw the effect of having slanted media in real time it was this. My only contribution to the conversation was informing them that there was information about what Democrats would’ve done and how it would’ve helped. No one responded to that point though.

The second thing that jumped out at me was how willing they were to accept the idea that the only way to not cause a panic was for Trump to blatantly lie to them. As I argued yesterday the whole point of being the person in charge is to figure out how to give people the information they need without causing a panic. The fact that the only way Trump knows to do that is by lying I think disqualifies him from the office on its own. But there are two other things to note. One, it didn’t work. Remember when you couldn’t find toilet paper? That seems like people panicking to me. Two, let’s not act like Trump is the paragon of calm here. He is more than willing to cause a panic when it suits him. He began his campaign with fear-mongering about Mexican rapists and criminals. In the run up to the 2018 midterm elections there was this mysterious migrant caravan that was coming to flood America with Mexican criminals in the guise of immigrants. That caravan mysteriously disappeared after the election. Now he has turned the panic inward, trying to make us afraid of ourselves. This year Trump is running on the idea that if Biden wins, America will be overrun with protests in the cities and those bad Black people moving into the suburbs. I guess it’s possible that he legitimately decided panic was not the way to go in this instance, but if that’s the case then his radar is off. This was the time when he had to find a way to give people the information they need to be safe, while reassuring the American people that with shared sacrifice we could stem the tide against the virus.

Instead Trump decided that the better way was to not take control of the matter but leave it to states to figure out what to do and then be selective in how they helped those states. He thought it was better to undercut the experts who were doing their best to give us the information we need. And he thought it was better to lie to us so that the people who trust him the most would be the people least protected from danger. Ultimately this is the thing that I can’t support. Through his lies, Trump set up people to die. It was always true that people were going to die from this virus. I am not asking for perfection. However, it is the job of our leader to minimize our losses, not exacerbate them by withholding the information people needed to make their own decisions about the seriousness of the problem. It continues to amaze me that so many of these people, who would say that they believe in the sanctity of all life, are so willing to give Trump a pass for decision that caused so much death.

What We Thought

2020-09-10T08:59:00.011-04:00

October 16, 2006. I don’t know if anyone remembers the exact date (I sure didn’t), but football fans of a certain age remember what happened that night. Not even so much the game – a Monday Night Football contest between the Chicago Bears and the Arizona Cardinals. Outside of Chicago fans, I don’t know that too many people remember that the Bears went to the Super Bowl that year. We remember that the Cardinals were up by a lot at the half, and we were all shocked by that. And then the Bears, led mostly by their defense, came back in dramatic fashion and won the game on a missed field goal. But we really only remember the general details of the game because they are the context for what happened afterwards. The coach of the Cardinals, Denny Green, frustrated by the loss, went on about a 40 second tirade after the game. It was the blowup that became the stuff of legend. That is the thing that football fans remember. Denny Green yelling, “…[T]hey are who we thought they were! And we let 'em off the hook!”[1]

When the quotes and tapes came out from Bob Woodward’s new book on Trump, I thought of Denny Green. While we can clutch our pearls and express our outrage (and trust me I’ve done a little bit of that myself too today), what have we learned that we didn’t already know? The only people who should be shocked today are the people who biased their way into believing him in the first place. (That really was the nicest way I could think of to make that point.) And I am sure that many of those people will find the thing that they can tell themselves to get through the day, sleep at night, and pull the lever for Trump in November. But seriously – Is it really a shock that Trump willfully deceived people as to the seriousness of the virus? Anyone who had been following the reports about COVID 19 and were willing to assume that the Trump would have access to more thorough information than the general public came to that conclusion long ago. (By the way, it should bother us even more if he says he did it because he didn't want to cause a panic. It's your job to find a way to inform and bring a sense of calm. The fact that he's not mature enough to be able to do that is damning.) Is anyone shocked that the very people who work with him think he is dangerous and unfit to lead? Anyone with two eyes and the ability to read should’ve come to that conclusion long ago. Is anyone actually surprised that Trump is at best woefully ignorant on the issue of race and at worst a sociopath? I said much worse about him before he was elected. We learned nothing truly new today. I guess it is worth it to the last few who can be swayed that you get to hear Trump admitting these things in his own voice. But part of wanted to spend today yelling and banging the podium like Denny Green – “Trump is who we thought he was!!!”

I’m wondering now if this will be strike three for many conservatives and independents out there. I know this much – come November, I’ll be doing all I can to make sure that we don’t let Trump off the hook.

[1] By the way, I think Green was right here. The Bears were good but they had really obvious flaws. Somehow that season they go on a roll, going 13-3 and making it to the Super Bowl where they were just overmatched by the Colts.

Keep Going

2020-09-09T08:24:00.004-04:00

I sat at my computer for a long time, trying to figure out something profound to say about the first day of the Scholar Strike. I wanted to write something that would mean something about this particular moment. We’re in a new set of circumstances and it feels like this strike is trying to take advantage of a particular moment before it passes. There must be something that I can say here that will help to bring this all together right?

I am writing now having not found that magic idea. The thing that struck me is how little of this work is profound, or earth-shattering. It’s a professor sending a tweet and people taking it seriously. It’s other people, some whose names we’ll never know, pitching in to help out when and how they can. It’s Johnny-come-latelies like myself, almost missing the opportunity to be a part of something special, but coming in to put their hand to the plow when and where they can. I realize everybody isn’t like this (because if they were a lot less would get done), but I am someone who often blames himself for not making more of an impact. For not figuring out the thing that someone someday will say helped end the scourge of racism in our time. And while I guess there is still time to do that J, the people who we revere in this freedom struggle also never figured that out either. What they did do was persevere. They took advantage of the moments that were given to them, tried to make something out of those moments, and then kept working until the next moment came around. They experienced success and failure, and changed the world because they believed in their hearts that they needed to keep going.

As I was sitting here tonight I felt a wave of discouragement wash over me. All this work had been done by so many – what if it fails? Of course that question begs the question of what would constitute failure. This movement can’t be a failure just because it doesn’t end racism in our day. The truth of the matter (that I have to keep reminding myself) is that success in so many of the things that matter is not about crossing the finish line. It’s about running as best you can and passing the baton to someone else so they can run the next leg. The Scholar Strike is about academics doing what they do best – informing, educating, and changing lives through that process. I believe with all my heart that those goals will be accomplished – hopefully by me in the classes I teach and in my circle of influence. But even if I fail I know someone somewhere (and in truth many someones in many somewheres) will learn something over these two days and be forever changed by this experience. And we will smile, and say well done. Maybe we’ll take a night off. Then we’ll wake up the next morning and try to do it again.

You know the other reason I couldn’t figure out what to say? Going back through the log here at HineSight (can you believe I’ve been blogging on and off for a decade?) I realized almost every thought I was having was a thought I had before in writing about race in America. I don’t have any academic responsibilities today, but I do have academic responsibilities for my 4-yr-old daughter. I am thinking what I will do today is post some of my writing on racism on social media for the Scholar Strike while making sure to publicize the great lectures and content that so many academics around the country are doing during this time.

On the Picket Line

2020-09-08T10:20:00.000-04:00

I was going to start this with a more personal note, but oddly enough this is so personal that I don’t want to talk about myself. Today is the beginning of the Scholar Strike. It will last two days and it is a time when academics will be striking in order to call attention racial injustice in America, particularly in the wake of another rash of police shootings. Dr. Anthea Butler mentioned the idea offhandedly on Twitter recently and it blossomed into a movement. I will be taking part in the strike and wanted to talk a little about what I’ll be doing and why.

Now the strike is meant to be a proper strike in that professors and administrators are to be refraining from teaching and administrative duties for these two days. I am sure there will be those who will cancel class and not attend meetings in conjunction with the effort. But the beauty of this strike is that it is somewhat of a choose-your-own-adventure. Because academics find themselves in various levels and positions within the academy, everybody does not have the comfort and job security to fully refrain from their duties.

Which leads me to what I will be doing to take part in the strike. I find myself in somewhat of a strange position in my role in academia. I am a non-tenured professor working under contract. It does mean that my options are limited. Furthermore, at this point I am teaching online asynchronous courses, which means I have very little real time student contact. So how does someone like me participate in something like this? I have a few options open to me. First, I usually do weekly check-in videos with my online courses. This week those check-in videos will mention the scholar strike and talk about racism, police brutality, and the effect of racism in healthcare (topics that are at least tangentially related to the subjects I teach). Second, although I will be answering at least important emails, I will still put up the away message so that everyone who contacts me over the next two days will hear about the strike and be plugged into the resources that are available on the issue. Finally, while I won’t be avoiding any meetings, one of those meetings is of the Diversity/Inclusion Committee, a committee I helped start at my university which I think is in line with the goals of the strike.

So the last thing I want to address is why I’m doing this. I am involved in this conversation in so many different ways that I could certainly let this pass and not necessarily feel like I’m letting anyone down. In truth I almost didn’t hear about the strike because I am not as engaged on Twitter as I used to be. Beyond the several obvious reasons there are two that jump out at me and made me sign on as soon as I saw this was happening. The first is that I am currently in a place and mode where I want to do all that I possibly and feasibly can to make a difference in my corner of the world on the issues I care about. At some point soon I will talk about why I largely shuffled off the scene for a while, but that moment is over and I am back to some of the principles that guided me to start this blog in the first place. I believe that you have to make a difference in the places where you have reach and influence, no matter how big or small those places or your reach may be. And so if anyone comes by here and sees what is happening and learns something, or is motivated to make a difference, then it is worth putting in my time and effort. Second, while I work at a full fledge university, it is a university strictly related to one field of study – healthcare. That means that students don’t often get the opportunity in the classroom setting to discuss or even hear about these types of issues. My work at my university prior to the creation of this new committee was about providing spaces outside the classroom. This will be my first opportunity to provide a space within the framework of my classes (at least as they exist online). I cannot assume that everyone has heard about George Floyd or Jacob Blake, of if they have, that they have heard anyone speak intelligently on the subject. Once again, if any one of my students sees these videos and learns something it will be an effort well spent.

Strike Two

2020-09-06T13:49:00.002-04:00

There was a time when the Republican Party promoted themselves as the party of family values. This principle was not only about what they felt were the proper values for American families to have (read: LGBTQ+ community need not apply), but it also pertained to what they believed about the personal morality of their leaders. For example, when the Democratic Party nominated Bill Clinton in 1992, his political opponents jumped all over him when word of his sexual harassment allegations became major news. That drumbeat got louder and turned into impeachment hearings when President Clinton took advantage of a young intern and then lied about it under oath. For the Republican Party, it wasn’t so much the lying under oath, but the thought that the President consummated an extramarital affair in the Oval Office was a mark upon the office that had to be removed. The next Republican nominee, George W. Bush, had the exact type of story the Republican/Evangelical base loves – a ne’er-do-well who found Jesus and turned his life around, including a stable marriage with the love of his life. The Republican Party and its Evangelical base touted this principle so much that you would’ve thought that they meant it. That is, until Donald Trump. Donald Trump is not only a man who has been married three times, but he dated each of his subsequent wives while he was still married. (Now one could argue that he and Marla Maples separated before he met Melania Knauss, but evangelicals know two things. One you shouldn’t really ever get divorced, and two, you’re married until you’re divorced.) Republicans and Evangelicals still supported Trump’s candidacy even after it was revealed that he paid off at least two people with whom he had affairs to keep their stories from going public. So much for believing that their leaders should be upstanding moral leaders as well. Strike one.

If there is one thing that we know the Republican Party cares about, it’s the military. Any time any Democrat even whispers about cutting the defense budget you can hear the screams from a mile away. “You don’t support the troops!” “You don’t love our men and women in uniform!” They make the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms and you want them to starve in the dirt!” “Support our troops,” they say. Conservatives know this mantra works so well that they took Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest that was meant to show respect for our men and women in uniform and smeared him by saying he was trying to demean our military. This narrative held so much force that New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees still believed it 4 years after the protest, despite the fact that Kaepernick and others in several places said that he intended no disrespect to the military. Republicans love the military. They believe that those who serve our country in the military and those who make the ultimate sacrifice are the best our country has to offer. Then we found out that Trump believes those people are “suckers” and “losers.” It may be too soon to say (we could wait for polling to come out that was taken after the article came out), but I find the silence of Republican leaders on this story to be speaking very loudly. This might be it, but it doesn’t seem to be so yet. So much for the Republican Party supporting our troops. Strike two.

I wonder what the Republican response will be if (when?) it became known that Trump didn’t believe in 2^nd Amendment rights… or tax cuts. Maybe the hypocrisy would end then – but I doubt it.

Going to the Mat Part II - Jesus is Not Enough

2020-09-05T15:01:00.003-04:00

In the first part of this post we looked at some of the comments from my latest post on the Spectrum Magazine blog and what I heard from those comments. I didn’t think it was enough to just leave it there so I wanted to offer some analysis of what was said as well. Here are just a few of my thoughts after a week of going to the mat in comments section –

Stop with the Black on Black crime thing – I have figured out my calling in life people. It took me 40 years but I got it. Not seriously, but this is something that I will do until my last day. I believe it is my duty to tell every person who does it how dumb it is to raise the issue of Black on Black crime as a response to the issue of police brutality. There are many reasons why it’s dumb but here are the two that I think are most important. First, you are showing your ignorance. Guess what? Black people know that there is crime in their communities being committed by Black people. They know it so well that there are usually several organizations in every community who are working on the problem. You (normally White commenter) would know that if you bothered to think about it. But you’re not bringing up Black on Black crime (or abortion or single parenting) because you actually care or work on these issues. You’re bringing it to deflect and demean. Second, you’re showing how little you think of Black people. As I said in Part I, you have to think Black people are stupid (or you think I the author are stupid) if you think you need to tell me that there’s crime that needs to be addressed. Maybe that’s not it though, Maybe you just think that those issues are more important. Well then the question is why do you think so little of Black people that you think we can’t address all those issues at the same time?

The problem is the culture – The thing that jumped out at me from so many of these responses is how toxic and engrained police culture is amongst White people. I saw this in two ways. The first is how many people just saw Blake getting shot as a fait accompli. Basically for many White people, once someone resists arrest we are not allowed to be upset if they get shot. The one thing I kept saying in the comment thread was that we have to get out of seeing the use of lethal force as just one of a number of acceptable options as opposed to the last resort once we have tried everything. So it never occurs to these people that if the cop is already pulling on his shirt than the other cops can pull with him to get him away from a potential weapon. Or that they could’ve let him get in his car and captured him later. Or they could’ve come in with a mindset of de-escalation in the first place instead of the mindset of capturing a dangerous criminal. There were so many options but for most of these folk it was, “wrestle with a cop, you deserve whatever you get.” The second way was this idea that cops “have a duty to go home at the end of the day.” This is not the first time I’ve heard this, and I actually think this mantra is close to the root of the problem. Police are civil servants. Their duty is not themselves first, it is to the public. Once we let the culture sink in that the duty of police officer is to go home, they will begin to see citizens as impediments to their duty. Which means when the judgment is up in the air, you’ll shoot me if you think I might keep you from going home. What fi the culture was that everyone be safe and sound and that the safety of the person you’re interacting with comes first, even above yourself? I believe the police failed in their duty to protect and serve Jacob Blake. But these commenters want be to ok with that because at least the cops got to go home. Sorry, I’ll never be OK with that.

The thing that hurt – For me this was the saddest quote. “He was not like you…Why go to the carpet for such a one? You want the church to take a stand on police brutality, but a guy like Blake was a brutal guy, with multiple offenses. He resisted arrest, and appeared to be going for a weapon, even after being tased twice! He is a dangerous man!” I don’t even know if this person is telling the truth about Jacob Blake’s record. His record is probably the most irrelevant aspect of this tragedy for me. I simply said to this commenter, “I stand up for these people because Jesus died for them - sins and all.” As much as I disagree, I can at least get it if you think that the cops did something that was justified here. What I will never understand as a Christian is you thinking no one should be standing up for Jacob Blake because his sins makes him unworthy of a defense. I’ll never understand how for these people the standard is whether Blake reaches our standard of filthy righteousness. I’ll never understand why for these people Jesus is not enough. One of the most beautiful passages of scripture to me is Romans 5:6-8

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (NASB)

If Jacob Blake is as ungodly as they say he is, all the more reason for me to defend him. If he is as ungodly as they say, it just puts him more squarely in the group for whom Christ sacrificed his divinity and his life. And it was in this way that God showed his love for Jacob Blake. If Christ was willing to die for an ungodly Jacob Blake, it’s the least I can do to defend his right not to be shot in the back for no reason. How far we have fallen if we our righteousness elevates us to a point where we would condone the shooting of someone else because of their sins. We have lost our way as the people of God if we think that Jacob Blake’s sins require no mercy from us, while our sins should require God’s mercy to us.

Going to the Mat, Part I

2020-09-04T09:04:00.023-04:00

You learn early in your time as a writer that if there is a comment section under your post, it is the place where you should never be. It is a waste of your time and effort the vast majority of the time. The rare times when someone might actually learn something are not worth all the other times when you just wade through stupidity until you can’t take it anymore. So I’m not sure why I decided to do it this time. I guess I was just fed up. Spectrum, the magazine I write a regular column for, only leaves the comment section up for a week. When my post went up last week Thursday, I decided that I would devote the next seven days to defending Jacob Blake. (My post wasn’t really about Jacob Blake, but I also knew that the comment section wouldn’t address the actual point of the piece because who wants to wrestle with a legitimate point when you can just argue?)

The seven days ended yesterday morning. I don’t feel any better about some of the ideas running through Adventist pews in particular (for those who don’t know Spectrum is an unofficial Adventist print journal and blog). I definitely think many of the people I conversed with in the comment section are racists, whether they know enough about racism to admit that to themselves. (Sorry, I know they don’t know enough about racism to admit that to themselves.) But I thought it might be useful or illuminating to some of you to see what I responded to over the last week. I wrestled with whether I would use these people’s names or screennames. I decided not to use either. Not because I’m protecting their privacy – after all they said this on a public website and the comment thread remains visible even though you can’t add to it. You could go to the site after you read this and match the quotes if you want. Although there are over 100 comments you won’t have to go far to find these quotes. I just thought the format would be more interesting if I lay it out in terms of what they say, and what I hear in response. One other note before we begin – I will be focusing on four quotes, but they come from 3 different people. The first and last quotes come from the same person.

What They Said – “Blake’s (black) girlfriend/family called 911 on him, warning the operator that he was violent… The suspect was wanted for a felony. When confronted by police, Blake resisted arrest violently. The police attempted to non-violently restrain Blake with a Taser. It was ineffective. He moved toward the car and was reaching for something on the floorboard…Last I’ve known, a knife is a deadly weapon. In such an event, the police must be given the benefit of judgment that a violent suspect was escalating his resistance to a lethal level. Now you have the temerity to jump to the conclusion that the police response was an “injustice” and an act of racism for which community outrage is justified. Yet there is no evidence that this was the case…”

What I Heard – “There are so many reasons this can’t be racist! The cops were called by Black people! Blake was a bad person! Blake might have reached for a weapon! And once you cross the line, the cops can shoot you in the back and it’s totally fine. No racism here because there is nothing that jumps out to me as obviously racist, even though I never deal with racism and know very little about it.

What They Said – “I can understand exactly what you mean, because it is the same perhaps more arduous task to try to get people to care about the far more prevalent risk of being killed by black on black (or black on cop) crime. Let’s not even consider that in NY city, for the first time, more black babies were aborted than were allowed live birth. Shall we also entertain examination of absent fathers? Could that contribute to the larger view of the problem? How about if we consider the enabling aspects of this “social guerilla war” being waged against whites, conservatives, and cops?”

What I Heard – “You Black people are so dumb. You don’t even know the most important issues in your own communities. You should thank me for coming on here to tell you about yourselves. You animals kill each other, why are you focused on the cops? (Also, the fact that so many of you kill each other is the reason why cops are afraid you’ll kill them.) Also you kill your own babies!?! And the ones you do keep the men in your communities don’t even want to take care of them! Deal with your own problems before you say that you have issue with White cops shooting you. Also, I hope this has distracted you enough so that we can talk about all the problems you have (that I actually don’t care about while also not planning to life finger to help with) instead of dealing with something where I might have to admit that Whiteness is still a problem for Black people.”

What They Said – “Jason, the list [of unarmed Black people killed by police] is not that long, in fact, really short, and often the one killed is not exactly a paragon of virtue…I really want to know why this disturbs you so. Most of the ones killed, are really bad poeple. Blake was a bad guy, with multiple offenses. He was a sex abuser, and his girlfriend called the police on him, etc. He was not like you…Why go to the carpet for such a one? You want the church to take a stand on police brutality, but a guy like Blake was a brutal guy, with multiple offenses. He resisted arrest, and appeared to be going for a weapon, even after being tased twice! He is a dangerous man!... It is just problematic to try to stand up for police brutality when, if I were in the same situation as they, I might do the same thing. You just can’t ignore that and make your point.”

What I Heard – “I am totally ignorant of history and think that the use of lethal force by the police against Black people is a recent phenomenon, and not part of a history of policing that goes back to the literal creation of the police. And I don’t understand why a good Negro like yourself would take up for one of these niggers. They’re the ones dragging down your race! You should hate him as much as I do. Truth be told if I were the cops I would’ve shot that nigger too.”

What They Said – “Remember, the police have the absolute right to self defense. They have a duty to go home at the end of the day.”

What I Heard – “The lives of cops are definitely more important than the lives of civilians, especially if those civilians are Black.”

I wasn’t expecting this to be this long. I think I’ll need to come back later today with a wrap-up that talks about what I think this all means.

Biden's Catch-22

2020-09-03T09:06:00.004-04:00

I’m not saying that I necessarily agree with the strategy of the Biden campaign – but I understand. The dilemma sets up this way – how do you make sure that you get the votes you need to not only win the popular vote in the 2020 election (that almost assuredly will be in the bag) but also the electoral college (where you face a decided disadvantage)? This is a gross oversimplification but there are two options. You can either get people who voted for Trump in 2016 (just to note – Trump is still a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, narcissist. I have to figure out a word that will cover the fact that he is responsible for 100,000 deaths due to his inaction during the pandemic. Maybe sociopath?) to vote for you. Or you can convince 1^st time voters and liberals who were disaffected in 2016 to get back up off the couch and vote for you. Now of course the obvious answer is to do both (and I think the Biden campaign is), but you don’t have unlimited resources so you do have to choose a primary strategy.

Like I said, I don’t know if I agree with Biden campaign, but they decided to go with the former option and I at least can understand the logic of it. Which seems the easiest or most sure path to you? Getting a group of people who you know will vote to vote for you, even though they are not stable voters? Or convincing people to vote for you who may be committed to some of your ideas but have either never done it before, don’t particularly have a desire to vote, or have been turned off of voting for your party? I can see why the Biden campaign decided that the first option was the better one.

But I don’t think the Biden campaign is just running off of their abstract opinion about which group would be easier to persuade. I think they also have the evidence of the Democratic primary to buttress that abstract conclusion. Biden’s primary challenger, Bernie Sanders, has been running for the 2020 election since the end of the 2016 election. His campaign chose as its primary option being able to motivate younger voters, first time voters and Democrats disaffected with the establishment wing of the party to come out and vote for him. It had a reasonable chance of success. You could argue that after 2016 there was no one in the Democratic Party better suited to assume the nomination than Sanders. He had a motivated, committed segment of the voting base, and looked primed to add more as more people showed support for the policy initiatives he championed and as young voters took the polls after years of political activism. He believed so much in his strategy that he did not make any concerted consistent effort to make his case to the strongest constituency in the party – older African Americans and Black women in particular. And what did he get for his trouble? One vote, just like the rest of us, hoping that we can band together to get Trump out of office. (OK, he got more than that, but that’s for another post.) His wave of young voters did what the waves of young voters did before them and stayed home. Those who believed in his policies either didn’t show up or felt other issues were more important. And those disaffected with the party at least at a cursory glance still seem to be so. Now if you are Biden’s campaign, and you see how your primary opponent lost to you, why would you assume the same vote-getting strategy that sent Sanders back to the bench? Add to that this further question – If Sanders can’t bring those people out to the polls, why would Biden’s campaign think their candidate would be able to do so?

Now here’s the problem with the track Biden’s campaign chose. He is choosing to make his case with the message that he thinks will work for the most reliable voters (and I think he’s right about the message that will work for that group). If he succeeds all’s well that ends well. However, he better be right because he has left himself no margin for error. Also, he better be guarding for the unforeseen because while the group he’s chosen is a reliable voting group, their voting behavior is highly unpredictable. If he were spending more of his capital on bringing new people into the electorate then he’d be protecting himself from any last minute issues. And it might be better for him to do that. While Biden is leading in most of the battleground states, he is not leading by as much as Clinton was at this time in 2016. To be fair, something is coming up that would knock the Clinton campaign off track, but does the Biden campaign have a plan for what to do is vaccine comes out before the election? Do they know that the voters, who are with him because he seems more stable and able to handle an emergency, won’t get pandemic amnesia and decide Trump is better to rebuild the economy?

I’m not saying I know the answer. In the days and weeks after the 2016 election I swore off any voter who would even consider a vote for Donald Trump as a thing worth doing. Only talk to your side and motivate them to the polls, I said. Now with the election on the horizon there is only one goal – winning. And I’m not sure I care what conglomerate of the electorate gets Biden across the electoral finish line. I don’t envy Biden’s choice – he could win either way or lose either way quite frankly. But for all our sakes, let’s hope they’ve chosen the right path.

Link of the Day - George Floyd was Unique

2020-09-02T08:52:00.003-04:00

Elie Mystal’s latest piece for The Nation talks about the inevitable Whitelash to the protests for racial justice that were sparked again by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and have continued and mingled with protests now over the shooting of Jacob Blake. I hope Elie (a former classmate of mine in Law School) is wrong. But I have the horrible feeling that he may be right.

The murder of George Floyd was unique at least in how it go to the public. I made the argument in a recent post for Spectrum Magazine that the way he died, combined with the effects of the quarantine, caused mainstream (read: White) America to stand up pay attention, and look in the mirror. I don’t think I was wrong about that. They did do that and many of them took to the streets in protest. A good beginning. But now it seems everything has changed with Jacob Blake. The shooting isn’t the same. It is more like the instances we’ve seen in the past – if you blinked you’d miss it. The victim isn’t as docile. There aren’t a crowd of witnessing begging for the scene to end while it’s happening. Our outward circumstances are different too – the pandemic is the new way of life. Many folk have already gone back to work or to school. Not as many of us are cooped up in our homes with nothing to do. Even those of us who still find ourselves working from home have settled into the uncomfortable but stressful routine COVID-19 imposes. When given the excuses of apparent gray areas and familiar routine, the outcry from mainstream America disappeared. The world did not stop for Jacob Blake the way it did for George Floyd.

I wrote a short version of this when I linked to Elie’s most on Facebook. A friend of mine asked two questions – was it inevitable that the support of most White people would go away? And how would it look or White allyship to remain strong in response to the regression to the mean as it were? Both great questions. Forgive me my pessimism, but I am probably of the belief (now) that it was inevitable. At the end of the day, police brutality is largely not a White problem (it is a White issue though). And so there is always the comfort of walking away and pretending it doesn’t exist. Or worse, convincing yourself that this new one is not cut from the same cloth as the old one that you can claim you’re still upset about. It’s a hard thing to think about the oppression of others all the time. It can be hard to function when you always have to remind yourself that the life you lead, on a deeply personal, emotional, and psychological level, is just not available to others and there is nothing inherent about those others that makes them unworthy of your sense of peace and safety. Truth be told, if I wasn’t living it myself I don’t know that I’d want to face it too often either. Add to that the fact that the changes demanded of society strike at the very heart of beliefs that are at the core of the nation’s lived experience. We aren’t all equal. We haven’t overcome racism. The police are not everybody’s friend. It must have been traumatic for many White people to find out that the reality they knew doesn’t really exist. I can understand how it would be easier to crawl back into your shell and pretend like we solved it all with a couple marches and some social media posts.

I think the beginning to the answer of the second question is this – be here when it’s not happening. Because Black people have to be here whether we like it or not. The sign of White privilege, as I stated above, is that you can leave this discussion and it doesn’t matter. So if White allies want to know what to do, the beginning is simple. Continue to speak out in your sphere of influence even when police brutality isn’t national news. Don’t let one opportunity slip to correct someone’s thinking amongst your peer group. Continue to monetarily support the organizations who do this work on a daily basis. Or better yet – join one. Pick up the mantle as if it were your own, but remain humble enough to know that it is not and that you remain in submission to those whose pain is real.

The death of George Floyd was unique, but not in the way I thought. I thought we were seeing a sea change, a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of race and racism. Instead, the murder of George Floyd was unique in that it caused White people to look in the mirror at all. That’s all it seems his death could accomplish. I certainly don’t fault him – that he got this society to even to that is a herculean feat. And if you’re a White person who wants to argue the point, then go out into this world and prove me wrong.

Doing More

2020-09-01T11:10:00.001-04:00

Like many of you, I was shaken to the core at the passing of Chadwick Boseman this past Friday. I can say all of the things that everyone else has been saying. Black Panther is my favorite MCU movie, and there is a pretty good distance between first and second. I saw someone else say and I instantly agreed that while I am not sure I have seen every one of Boseman’s performances, there is not one that I have not liked. Recently my wife and I got around to watching both Marshall and 21 Bridges and loved them both. We watched Da 5 Bloods shortly after it premiered on Netflix and loved his performance in that too. His death is a loss and a pain that is felt intimately by the community he loved and worked for.

But the thing that amazed me the most, as it did many of you, was how much work he put in after he knew he had cancer. Watching him fight in Black Panther or run through the streets of New York in 21 Bridges hits different when you know that while he was doing that his body was betraying him. It makes you step back and reconsider whether you are doing all you can with the time and good health that God has given. I certainly shame no one who decided, as I did at one point, that the responsibilities heaped upon us in the age of COVID-19 was enough for the time we’re living in. I understand it and encourage everyone to do what they think is best. But watching the way Chadwick lived his last 4 years on this earth made me decide to get my brain and my body metaphorically off the couch and give more.

To that end I resolve two things. The first is that HineSight is back. I will not commit to a schedule now, but I do commit to writing every time I have a thought worthy of a post. So I wrote about my friend Tracey’s post and that went up yesterday. I have some thoughts that jumped out at me after reading Elie Mystal’s piece in The Nation that I want to express that will probably go up tomorrow. That may get mixed in with some thoughts coming off of wading through the comment section on my latest piece for Spectrum, or those thoughts may get their own post. I will write the Hamilton post that’s been rattling around in my brain for the last 5 weeks or so. And I may write one of the most personal posts I’ve ever done, where I explain why I stopped writing in the first place.

The second is that I will be taking a more active hand in the run up to the election in November. In my reticence there are a number of pieces I passed over too. I may decide to go back and talk about why I understand the logic of what the DNC did at their convention and why it just might work. I’m thinking about a series where I run through the Democratic agenda so that we know what we’re voting for and not just what we’re voting against. Of course there will be the fair share of screeds against the harm Trump will do to this country, and while I’m at it, I think it might be time for a new round of daily reminders. I don’t know whether I will break out of my own bubble and pitch ideas to more mainstream publications, but I know my voice will get louder over the next 2 months. Under this is one more crazy idea – I’ll be going through my phone and contacting virtually everyone I know to make sure they’re voting and having the tough conversations about why they should support the Biden-Harris ticket. If anything interesting happens I’ll be writing about it here.

Melodrama aside, this is a really important time. In truth all times are in one way or another. And while I certainly won’t say that I’ve been completely on the sidelines, and haven’t been doing enough. The truth is that Chadwick Boseman’s death broke me in ways I still haven’t fully processed. 2020 has been a beast and I know this much – come November, I want to say I did all I can to prevent another loss.

Link of the Day - The List is Long

2020-08-31T12:38:00.000-04:00

For Spectrum Magazine last week I wrote a piece related to the shooting of Jacob Blake. For whatever reason I decided that for this police shooting of an unarmed Black man, I had the time to debate with people in the comments. You’d be amazed at how much some White folk are willing to tell on themselves in the comment section without even knowing it. One such commenter asked me why I cared about something that happened to so few people. “The list isn’t that long,” he said. I snapped back that the list is long at one. I pointed him to the list I had given in another Spectrum article that would stand at 29 if we included Jacob Blake. I asked him that was long enough. And then I asked if he cared to know how long the list was if we stretched it back into time, back through the 80s, the 60s, back into Jim Crow. He had never even heard of most of the names from the last 5-10 years. So I know he’s never heard of Ernie Gainor.

I met Ernie’s sister Tracey in Fall of 2002 when I interviewed at Dechert LLP for an associate’s position. I left a bad impression by unconsciously ignoring her during the lunch I had with her and a partner who I knew because he was also a Harvard Law graduate. (I chalked it up to nerves and dealing with the person I was comfortable with, but I have always wondered if that was some unconscious sexism on my part.) I was eventually hired and Tracey became my associate mentor. We spent many an afternoon in her office listening to and laughing about Sean Paul and 50 Cent and laughed even harder when we billed that time as "mentorship." Coincidentally we also lived in the same apartment complex, and so we remained friends even after she moved on to another firm. I didn’t hear about Ernie until a few years after we met, when Tracey was going through a rough time. I came over to visit and along the way in our conversation she said, “I’ve been through a lot. The police shot my brother when I was in high school.” I knew he was shot in the back while face down. I don’t remember if Tracey ever said more about it than that, and I never pried. I just figured some wounds are too raw.

The link for today is an article written by Tracey for the alumni magazine for her alma mater, Dartmouth. In it she goes into detail about what happened to her brother, how it affected her then, and how these recent police shootings affect her now. When you read it, I want you think of and say a prayer for my friend. But not just for her, but for all the untold stories. I can’t say we forget about them – so many of them are never publicly remembered for us to forget. If not for my friend, I would’ve never known about Ernie (despite the fact that when the cops shot Ernie, I was growing up about an hour and fifteen minutes away in the same state). I want us in this moment to take a moment for all the young men and women who were injured, maimed, and killed who didn’t even get hashtags or protests in the street. And for all the people who have been suffering silently the loss of a loved one for so long, who have to experience their pain anew every time another Black body is gunned down.

Heaven

2020-06-20T10:33:00.003-04:00

“I’ve got Heaven right here on Earth”

There is a concept in the Bible that principally relates to the Kingdom of God – “here but not yet.” There are verses in the Bible where Jesus implies that the Kingdom of God is already here.[1] That idea is juxtaposed with the clear fact that the Kingdom of God is also something that is coming in the future.[2] I thought of this concept when I began to consider what it means to feel like you have Heaven on Earth. What is Heaven exactly? Is it the absence of conflict or disagreement? Is it perfection? And what do we mean by that? One of my favorite things to note in Bible translation is that the word that is often translated as “perfect” can also be translated as “complete.”

I think what I’m really trying to say is that the essence of Heaven is not the materialistic things we primarily associate with it – gold, jewels, mansions, cool sights, etc. Instead I think Heaven is a place where we feel God’s love for us as an ever present force, a place where we feel whole, where we feel complete.[3] If I’m right about that, then I don’t see why the last ten years of my marriage can’t be a little bit of Heaven right here on Earth. It’s not all of Heaven, and it hasn’t been Heaven every second, but these last ten years have had all of the things that I think Heaven will have. I feel loved every time my wife and I find commonality on some issue. Every time we smile at each other in a way that only lovers who know each other can. I feel the love of God when JoJo asks me to tickle her (again!?!) and when LoLo shows off her newfound walking ability. I feel loved even when I make a dumb mistake for what must be the hundredth time. There’s love in this house as an ever present force, and if God is love, then I know God is always here.

You know they say that you shouldn’t be looking for a husband or a wife to complete you as a person. I certainly didn’t do that I don’t think Lil was looking for that either. I tried to bring myself to my marriage as fully formed a person as I could accomplish on my own, and I think Lil did the same. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that we make each other better. The whole of us is greater than the sum of our parts, even as great as those parts are on their own. In short, we make each other more complete. And the best thing about the here and not yet is that although it’s great now, it can get better. We can find more to give, more to share, do better in all the roles we have within our relationship. Ten years in and it still can get better. If that’s not Heaven, I don’t know what is.

[1] See Luke 17:20-21 and Matt 12:28.

[2] See Luke 19:11-12 and your local news.

[3] Despite the fact that all that cool stuff is going to be there as well.