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.

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.

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?)

"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 Language of War

How we love to wage war in America. In addition to our war on terrorism, we've initiated wars on cancer, drugs, and poverty. Another war, the one that rages every 4 years, has already begun: our presidential campaign. Consider the language: Which candidate has the bigger war chest? How will the battleground states vote? Who has more field offices established? Have the campaigns enlisted their armies of volunteers?

In one sense the outcome of this war will be clear: either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will win. But in another sense, the outcome will be fuzzy. For in modern America the winners of wars are those with the most money. Defense contractors, for example, reap victory in Afghanistan and Iraq; drug companies, hospitals, and high-tech medical manufacturers triumph in the war on cancer; drug cartels and weapons manufacturers continue to win the war on drugs; and all of us but the poor sweep the war on poverty.

The winners in 2012? The big donors, the super PACS, the people we don't know and don't elect who dictate how the rest of us live. For in this war corporate America--especially energy, finance, and health care interests--brings out its big guns and mows everybody else down.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see who's left standing when the air clears.

Belize Part III: The Poverty

I don't have any pictures of the poverty we saw in Belize: the tiny shacks dotting the landscape as we drove to Mayan ruins or the pitted roads leading into Belize City. Nor do I have a recording of the voices of our tour guides, the desperation below the surface, pleading with us to return some day and to tell our friends of the "Unbelizable" time that we had in their country.

What I do have is a renewed sense of my place in the world. For while I simmer angrily with the rest of the 99% in my country, I realize--with a sense of deep unease--that I sit comfortably with the 1% that holds the world's wealth.