The Golden Rule

When I heard about the shootings in Atlanta on Tuesday, I soon began playing in my head a song from childhood.  It became an earworm, which I still can't get out of my mind.  Called "Wun Long Pan," from The Blue Book of the John W. Schaum Piano Course series, it introduces students to sixteenth notes through the following lyrics:

"Wun Long Pan, Is famous Chinese Detective,
Wun Long Pan, He gives the crooks a chase.
Wun Long Pan, Is famous Chinese Detective,
Wun Long Pan, He always solves the case."

Here's the picture that accompanies this simple, clunky tune:

The year before I started piano lessons and learned to play "Wun Long Pan," my second-grade teacher taught us about Mao Zedong, whose name at the time was spelled in English as Mao Tse-tung.  He had most likely appeared in an issue of My Weekly Reader.  All I remember about this lesson is the way my teacher pronounced his name: Mayo Tease Tongue.

Wun Long Pan and Mayo Tease Tongue were my introductions to Chinese culture in the early 1960s.  The sad thing is I don't think much has changed since then.  Too many Americans wouldn't object to the illustration of Detective Pan, the absurdity of his name, or the disturbing syntax of the lyrics.  Moreover, newscasters and politicians continue to mispronounce Asian names, either as deliberate insults or as insensitive slights.  As one student said in response to a survey at the University of Alberta, "It is important for me to have my heritage name pronounced correctly because it makes me feel like I belong."

Exactly.  That's one of our main problems today.  Too many fellow citizens feel unwelcome and unworthy, as if they don't belong.  We can fix this, and it begins with respect: treating others as we would have them treat us.  Sound familiar? 

From a Knee to a Strike: NBA Players Lead a Movement

You might think that the Republican National Convention clouded the week for those of us who support Joe Biden.  But despite the showmanship, the lies, and the flouting of the law, you could find good news elsewhere if you looked for it.  The highlight for me?  

The NBA players' strike on Wednesday.

In response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play basketball.  They were followed in protest by the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Houston Rockets, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Portland Trail Blazers.  Other athletes also stood up: Major League Baseball canceled games, and the WNBA and Major League Soccer suspended events.

Why does this matter?  After all, by Friday NBA players had agreed to return to the court.

Three reasons:

The players secured concessions from coaches and league officials: a plan to convert some arenas into polling sites, an agreement to run ads promoting voting rights and accessibility, and a commitment to a new social justice coalition designed to tackle issues of inequality.

The players acted together, reminding us of the power of collective protest.  With Republican legislatures having weakened unions over the last several years, athletes have become a new force.  Moreover, the ripple effect that occurred from one sport to another compounded their impact, making clearer their protest against racial injustice.

The players commanded our attention amidst other events including Hurricane Laura, the 2020 March on Washington, and the RNC convention.  They did so, I believe, because sports is arguably our biggest pastime.  Whether it's basketball or tennis or football, US athletes are national figures, more vocal than they were before.

By taking a knee four years ago, Colin Kaepernick initiated the movement we see today.

We the People

The Democratic National Convention begins tomorrow, and I'm glad that it's taking place virtually.  While the coronavirus renders this format necessary, traditional conventions have also become outmoded.  Throngs of impassioned delegates filled with adulation for one man feels out of sync with the democracy we profess to cherish.

Though Donald Trump's political rallies epitomize this idolatry, so do Democratic ones.  I'll never forget the thrill of seeing Barack Obama at a huge rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, in September 2008.  The excitement and energy of the crowd electrified the event in a way that I'd never experienced.  It was great.  And yet I wonder . . .

Every four years, it seems, we cast about for that one candidate--usually male, usually white--who will singlehandedly save us.  In fact, George Washington's inaugural journey from Mount Vernon to New York in 1789, as described by Ron Chernow in his book Washington: A Life, began this American tradition.  Despite the new president's wish to keep celebrations simple, "Before long," Chernow writes, "it was apparent that Washington's journey would form the republican equivalent of the procession to a royal coronation."

A royal coronation indeed.  It's not what our Constitution prescribes, but it's what our conventions and inaugurations have become.

Moreover, we hold unrealistic expectations for the presidents we've elevated.  Washington captures this sentiment in words written over 230 years ago:  "I greatly apprehend that my countrymen will expect too much from me."  He's right.  Those of us who revered Barack Obama expected societal change that never materialized.  Those who worship Donald Trump don't live in an America made great again.

We've lost the "We" in "We the People," though it seems we never had it in the first place.  But it's the goal, it's the idea.  It's all of us participating in democracy.  It's scrapping the Electoral College.  It's getting money out of government.  It's overturning Citizens United.  It's eliminating voter suppression.  It's rethinking presidential power.

It's Make the United States Better for All.

Education 101

Saturday's editorial in The New York Times, "Reopening Schools Will Be a Huge Undertaking. It Must Be Done," elicited almost 2,000 largely oppositional comments.  In it, the editorial staff argued that public schools should open this fall with unprecedented federal funding and with imaginative use of outdoor space.  As one reader noted, the word "teachers" appeared only once, in the second-to-last paragraph.

This says it all to me and, at the same time, doesn't surprise me.  "What do our teachers think about re-opening?" seems like an obvious question.  Yet for too long our society has discounted the role and expertise of its teachers.  We don't pay them enough, we don't support them enough, and we don't consult them enough. . . but we ask them to solve society's problems that society fails to solve.

Consider for starters poverty, hunger, racial disparities, and economic inequality.  We expect our teachers to overcome these challenges and ensure that all of their students achieve at a defined level-- despite low salaries, marginal benefits, and often poor working conditions.   At a most basic level, the schools that my kids attended lacked soap in the bathroom dispensers, doors on stalls, sufficient cleaning supplies, working windows, and mold- and asbestos-free classrooms.  Even when there's no coronavirus circulating, many Durham schools are neither safe nor clean.

Just as the pandemic has exposed the failure of public health and elder care in the United States, so it exposes public education.  How did we get to the point where teachers buy their own paper?  Need subsidized housing?  Work second jobs?  Crowdfund surgeries and new equipment?  Why do we tolerate dilapidated buildings and aging school buses?  Why do we short-change our children and their teachers?

It's past time to ask these questions.  Covid-19 will eventually resolve, but the ills that plague our schools will not unless we demand something different.  As fellow citizens protest policing and racism, let's add public education to the conversation.  It's related, after all, and it serves our future and our national treasure: our children.

Baby Steps

So now that the mass protests have largely ended, where are we in our evolution of civil rights?  Here are some good signs:

Confederate statues and other offensive public works are coming down.

Black Lives Matter signs are popping up; I've seen several in my neighborhood, where few people broadcast their political views.

The U S. House of Representatives passed the D. C. statehood bill for the first time ever.

Mississippi's House voted to remove the Confederate flag from the state flag.  Republican Governor Tate Reeves said that he would sign such a bill if it comes his way.

Players in the National Women's Soccer League knelt during the national anthem on Saturday.  In a joint statement, they said they were protesting "racial injustice, police brutality and systemic racism against Black people and people of color" in the United States.

Baby steps, perhaps--and way too long in coming.  Much harder work awaits.  Yet baby steps need not be dismissed.

They're often the first signs of a movement on the rise.

Rebuilding

When I restarted this blog four months ago, I was excited to think that I'd be writing about the coming presidential election, starting with the Democratic primaries and moving into the general election.  I love national politics; I'm fascinated by the two parties, the candidates who emerge, the winnowing that takes place, the roll of pollsters and pundits, and the final call on a Tuesday night in November.

But this time it's different.  The Democratic primary yielded no single candidate who ever captured my whole-hearted enthusiasm, and the Republican party has tied itself to a president whose values upend the country I love.  Donald Trump's rally last night in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was so offensive and destructive that it's hard to see how we'll recover.

Still, Donald Trump didn't come out of nowhere.  He tapped into a hatred that has long haunted us, one that surrounds us every day but one that we choose not to see.  George Floyd's murder made it impossible for us to look away, finally, but the hard work ahead feels equally impossible.  I don't know where to begin.  I feel weary, not up to the challenge.

I know that it's time for younger voices, for younger leadership.  Kids and young adults are wiser than the rest of us, certainly when it comes to sensitivity surrounding race, gender, and culture.  Many in my generation grew up with Dick and Jane readers and Father Knows Best television shows.  Our worlds were white through and through and often still are.  How do we change?

All kinds of ways. . . books we must read, voices we must hear, organizations we must support, ideas we must consider. . . and votes we must take.  Here's what must happen as elections move forward:

Joe Biden hires and hears consultants much younger than he.

Donald Trump's supporters face their hatred; if and when they don't, the rest of us call them out.

Elections officials do everything they can to ensure a fair vote.

Candidates at every level make clear where they stand on institutional redesign--from police departments to prisons to public schools to health care to immigration to climate change to banking--and we elect those who will follow through.

We, the people, start to rebuild our country.

Overwhelmed

It was enough to deal with Donald Trump.  Day after day, since his inauguration in 2017, many of us have feared what he'd do next--who he would insult, what dangerous position he'd take, what ignorance he'd reveal.  The lies, the nastiness, and the stupidity all at our expense.  We wondered what catastrophe would develop under his watch.

We found out.

First, the coronavirus--scary and unknown--still out of control in much of the country.  Alarming in itself, the disease also strained our economy and put millions out of work.  We're still reeling and have no idea what lies ahead.

Next came George Floyd, murdered by Minneapolis police on May 25. The same story of white police officers killing black people, the blight that rots America every day.  When will it end, we ask, only to learn of the death of Rayshard Brooks on Friday night in Atlanta.

Finally, the protests.  All across the country, understandably angry protesters have generated a movement and a voice for change.  Rioting and violence, yes, but mostly huge, peaceful crowds weekend after weekend, all in the midst of a pernicious pandemic that feeds on people massed together.

All of this, and no leadership in Washington.  No wonder we're on edge.

But now is not the time to retreat from the tension.  We can't afford to slide into complacency.  We're called upon, each of us, to take our part in creating a more just and fair America.  Whether it's through our vote, our advocacy, our faith, or all of these combined, we need to act.

The fate of America rests with all of us.

Protests That Matter

Watching people march this weekend across the country and around the world brought to mind the protests in April against coronavirus restrictions.  Remember those?  Angry, white, gun-toting Americans descended on state capitols carrying signs that read "End the Tyranny" and "Land of the Free," wearing MAGA hats and waving Confederate flags.  Their macho display sought to intimidate as they demanded their rights to work, to get a haircut, and to buy grass seed as the country reeled from a dangerous pandemic.

Now, barely a month later, a tidal wave of revolt has unmasked those feeble protesters--for theirs were the protests of white privilege, of people who stroll through city streets with AK47s and know they won't be arrested.  Theirs were the protests of men long accustomed to swagger and violence, met with little or no consequence.  And theirs were the protests of people who know police officers won't step on their necks until they die.

The protests sparked by George Floyd's murder are the protests of voices long denied, of injustice and inequality.  Theirs are the protests of people demanding an America that fulfills its promise.  Theirs are the protests of fundamental human rights and not of temporary inconveniences.

I take heart in the fact that one of these protests has swelled into an international movement and that the other has petered out, its impotence clear for everyone to see.

Another Wish List

Last week I posted a list of my personal wishes during this time of coronavirus.  In light of the murder of George Floyd last Monday, I post a new list.  Here's what I wish for America:

1. A dinner table where everyone is fed.

2. A neighborhood where everyone can jog.

3. A school where everyone is educated.

4. A hospital where everyone has the same chance.

5. A police department where everyone is safe.

6.  A government that works for everyone.

7.  A people that confronts its racist past.

8. A nation that's willing to force change.

9. A United States that gets it: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

10. An America that redefines "We, the People," to include everyone.

Bumbling Mitt

What a week for Mitt Romney!  Sing to the tune of "Both Sides Now" by Judy Collins:

Olympic games, the Middle East,
I spoke my mind, I made my peace.
But no one thought I made much sense,
They said I made things tense.
And now old friends have turned away,
"You're losing ground" is what they say,
But something's lost and not much gained
In speaking every day.
I've tried to lead from both sides now
As corporate man and governor,
It's talking big that I recall,
I don't know how to lead at all.

Slouches, slugs, they don't work hard,
I told it straight to the old guard.
I said exactly what I meant
About the forty-seven percent.
But Mother Jones unearthed the clip,
And now I'm getting lots of lip
From folks on both the right and left
They all think I'm tone deaf.
I've looked at life from both sides now
From rich and rich and still somehow
It's life as privilege I recall
I really don't know life at all.

Honor Thy Blue-Collar Parents

For all of you working-class parents out there, it's your time to shine.  And the poorer you are, the better.  At least this is the message I take from both parties' political conventions.  Speakers are knocking themselves out to boast the humblest, most self-sacrificing parent on earth:

Ann Romney's father started working at 6 years old cleaning bottles in a small village in Wales.

Mitt Romney's father, born in Mexico, began as a carpenter.

Marco Rubio's father was a bartender, and his mother worked the overnight shift at K-Mart.

Paul Ryan's mother rode 40 miles on a bus each morning to earn a college degree.

Chris Christie's father grew up in poverty and worked at the Breyer's Ice Cream factory.

Michelle Obama's father was a pump operator at the city water plant.

Elizabeth Warren's father was a maintenance man, and her mother answered phones for Sears.

All of these people have in common the gift of unconditional love for their children, a good thing of course.  But you gotta wonder.  When did parents become so fashionable?  You didn't used to acknowledge even having parents, let alone brag about them--especially if they toiled away in low-paying jobs.

Blue-collar parents are cool, I guess, especially if you turned out OK.  If you didn't, well never mind, you won't make it to a speaker's podium anyway.  Besides, with all of the money flowing through these two campaigns' coffers, you won't matter a whole heck of a lot. 

Talk is cheap, after all.  Isn't that what Paul Ryan's father used to say?*

(*Actually he used to say, "You can be part of the problem, or you can be part of the solution"--but who cares about facts?)

In the Botanical Gardens, as in Life. . .

The Republican Party keeps getting kookier and kookier

Dominated by old, angry white men

Their misogyny is breathtaking.

The rest of us watch their antics puzzled, in disbelief

As these creatures--with tough shells and thick skin--trudge ever onward.

Taking the Heat

Now that we've had a week of gay marriage hysteria, I wonder what cultural war we'll fight next.  We've lurched from one controversy to another these last several months.  Contraception, mommy wars, Planned Parenthood and the Komen Foundation, even American nuns have found themselves under an unfortunate spotlight.  Interesting, isn't it, that women and "women's issues" lie at the heart of so many of these storms.

I can't help but think that our financial crisis, largely managed by men, fuels this female feeding frenzy.  It reminds me of a family where the dad is having a hard time and takes out his anger on his wife or daughter or the sissy younger son.  Marginalized figures take the heat every time.

If our financial leaders--whether they're in Congress or at the White House or on Wall Street--would lead in a responsible way, perhaps we wouldn't descend into these debates with such ferocity.  The way they're fought becomes diversionary, taking everyone's eye off the central economic crisis before us.  And more often than not, they deteriorate into attacks on women.

But we don't get leadership.  Even President Obama reacted this week to the debacle at JPMorgan Chase by praising Jamie Dimon as "one of the smartest bankers we got."  (See Robert Reich, "The Dog That Didn't Bark: Obama on JPMorgan.")  One man winking at another man is what we got.

And when this happens, women get screwed.

The Amendment, Part 2

What do you get when you cross Last Gaspers with Bible Bigots?  The passage of a repressive constitutional amendment.

Let's clarify the terms.  Last Gaspers are people who can't stand the idea of

a black president
a gay teacher
a Latino mayor
a female boss
and
an Asian doctor.

Bible Bigots are people who can't stand homosexuality.

These 2 groups joined forces on Tuesday in North Carolina to deny civil rights to fellow citizens.  They are precisely the people who Barack Obama accurately decried 4 years ago as voters who "cling to guns or religion or"--and this part isn't often quoted--"antipathy to people who aren't like them."

They're a dangerous combination, these Last Gaspers and Bible Bigots, and they'll leave destruction in their wake as they go down.  For go down they will, for they stand in the way of justice.

"The Scream"

That "The Scream" sold for nearly $120 million last night at Sotheby's seems fitting.  It is the symbol of our time, after all, and only increases in relevance as life grows more bizarre.  All you need to do is read the front page of any American newspaper or listen to the evening news, and you'll feel exactly like the figure in Edvard Munch's pastel.

The Amendment

The race in our neighborhood is close: 4 signs against the amendment and 3 signs for.  We tipped the balance yesterday afternoon by adding the 4th.

The amendment, which will appear on our ballot on May 8, provides that "marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized" in North Carolina.  Because most of the people I know are appalled by such an amendment, it's hard to imagine that this could pass.  But as the signs reveal in our neighborhood, the race is closer than we'd like.

Others more passionate than I have articulated many arguments against this repressive amendment.  For me, it comes down to this: Life is hard enough as it is, why make it harder?  If two people love each other so much that they want to get married--one of life's most difficult challenges--let's support them.

Efforts to thwart love, as we're reminded of in both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story, end up destroying everyone.  North Carolina Amendment 1 hurts all of us and deserves defeat.

3 Ring Circus

So now the health care bill has moved to Ring #3, our august Supreme Court, which may overturn the work of Rings #1 and #2. Meanwhile, medical costs keep rising and more people lose health insurance. It's as if Washington fiddles while America burns. Here's a revised version of "Send in the Clowns" (with apologies to Judy Collins):

Isn't it rich?
Aren't we screwed?
Us here all the time paying bills
You in your robes. . .
Where are the clowns?

Isn't it strange?
Don't you agree?
One who keeps losing ground
One who won't budge. . .
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Just when we'd hoped for a change
Finally thinking Americans would be insured.
Hoping for fairness for all in our usual way,
Sure of our rights. . .
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
Your fault, we fear.
We thought that you'd want what we want. . .
Sorry, D.C.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns
Don't bother, they're here.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Not having insurance after all these years.
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns. . .
Well, maybe next year.

If I Only Had a Maid

What will we do on Sunday nights at 9:00 now that Downton Abbey is concluding its second series? Order up a household staff? Get a footman to brush off our lint?

It's been fun, this romp through British aristocracy, and I look forward to Series 3 this fall. Nonetheless, I ask myself why--like so many people--I'm hooked. Lots of reasons, I've concluded. It's an excellent plot. It has the same elements that made Victorian readers await Charles Dickens' next installment of The Pickwick Papers and, more recently, children (and often their parents) await Harry Potter's next adventure. In all our pseudo-sophistication we forget sometimes the power of a well-told story.

Downton Abbey is also great theater. The acting is excellent. Watching Maggie Smith skewer an opponent or Hugh Bonneville dispatch a threat satisfies at the deepest level, while period costumes and views of the British countryside create a visual delight.

At the same time, it's interesting that this show arrives in America just as we're learning that we're not the Horatio Alger society that we thought we were. As Paul Krugman writes recently in The New York Times, "Among rich countries, America stands out as the place where economic and social status is most likely to be inherited." Hmm, we thought that's what England was all about.

So it turns out that in watching Downton Abbey we're watching a version of ourselves, albeit from the comfortable distance of time and space. In this spirit, I've composed a piece that kept bouncing around in my head, based on "If I Only Had a Brain," from The Wizard of Oz:

I could be a one-percenter
And pay a tax rate lower
Than all the folks downstairs.
I could be a hedge fund owner
All those loopholes, all the better
If I only had a maid.

I could be just like Lord Grantham
And live inside a mansion
Commanding everyone.
But the British do it better
Here I'm only a jet setter
Oh, I wish I had a maid.

Yes, I could be a Lord
I'm sure I'd not be bored
I could think of things like capital gains
And then I'd sit and earn some more.

I'd make all that unearned income
That guarantees a big sum
I'd be a lot like Mitt.
Here I come, oh Downton Abbey
With my tax-exempted plenty
Yes, I found myself a maid.

Pining for the Past

Though I often find columnist David Brooks' cultural observations compelling, I rarely agree with his political arguments. Imagine my surprise, then, to read in this week's column, "I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return."

He couldn't be more right in my view, though I sympathize sometimes with those howling Republicans--particularly when I compare the homogeneous, white classrooms of my childhood with the racially and economically diverse classrooms of my children. There's no doubt which of these settings is more challenging.

Yet on the same day that I read David Brooks, I skimmed through pages of John Hope Franklin's autobiography Mirror to America, and learned that while I was a child in one of those classrooms in the early 1960s, he--with his Harvard Ph.D. and professorship at Brooklyn College--was being denied bank loans in New York solely because of his race.

The America of the past may call to us, appealing to our wish for what's comfortable. But what's comfortable isn't necessarily better. Nor is it realistic or just.

Let the Republican Party roar and pine all it wants, applauding Newt and his racially charged innuendos. Theirs is a bitter and stingy America, one rooted in mist and mythology. The America of the present--and that of the future--demands more from us, and we must meet the challenge.

Wanted Desperately: Leadership on All Fronts

It feels like the calm before the storm. These last weeks before Labor Day have everyone hunkered down, quiet, recovering from the fury of Irene. Ten years ago we learned in horror what could happen after Labor Day, when airplanes flew as they pleased and took down a nation unaccustomed to such assault.

Our troubles now seem more far-reaching than they did then and cry out for leaders to lead. Will President Obama stand up boldly for jobs creation in his speech next week (see Eugene Robinson, Washington Post) or will he cave to his instinct for compromise? Will Democrats, reasonable Republicans, and Independents stand up for balanced approaches to our financial woes, or will they continue to let extremists set an extreme agenda?

The times call for those who don't normally view themselves as leaders to lead as well. Will scientists remain in their labs while Governor Perry and his ilk make false statements about climate change and evolution, or will someone stand up? Will ministers hide behind their pulpits while politicians turn their backs on the poor and disadvantaged, or will someone stand up?

And will our press and our people do their jobs as well? A media that constantly inflames rather than educates does a disservice to all, and a population of apathy where so few people vote emboldens demagogues.

A nation where no one leads is a sorry nation indeed. The resulting vacuum leaves opportunities for the worst sorts to exercise power. We need only to read history--or to observe the behavior of ourselves and colleagues at work--to understand this simple lesson.