Twitter for Longer Thoughts

The ongoing debate between public health and economic stability is incredibly perplexing, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhere stuck in the middle, with a constantly shifting perspective. 

Each day, more people lose their lives to COVID-19 complications, and countless others are rendered jobless or unable to make rent payments in the economic fallout.  As family members grieve loss of their loved ones over Zoom funerals, small businesses begin to permanently close their doors.  It’s heartbreaking from so many angles, and varying opinions matter here.  I imagine someone who has lost a loved one to COVID-19 complications will have different views on a reopening strategy than someone who is healthy but recently unemployed.

There’s a legitimate argument that the cure cannot exceed the problem; that a prolonged quarantine, while saving lives by slowing infection rates, will lead to death related to depression, anxiety, poverty, and homelessness.  There’s no denying the salience of this argument.  What I once viewed as a “lives versus economic stability” very well could be a “lives versus lives” conversation.  With no clear-cut solution, and it feels like even the best political intentions could end up devastating millions of people.

But here’s my objection. I’ve seen many peers and Facebook strangers alike argue for the need for swift reopening, in order to improve mental health and keep people out of poverty.  On the surface, it appears a noble fight. But just as these arguments are convenient and timely, they are often overwhelmingly hollow. It’s beyond frustrating to see issues so severe as mental health and income inequality politicized and then tabled, used only as leverage to make a point.  I see it when Second Amendment warriors proselytize mental health awareness, as if the millions of Americans battling depression and anxiety want to be bucketed with a mass shooter. I see it when politicians tout the stock market, unemployment rate or the rising middle class, as if those struggling to feed their families wouldn’t trade a Dow Jones gain for affordable housing. As soon as the gun control or economic debate subsides, the ‘champions’ of these causes often vanish to fight the next Twitter opponent. While I understand the concerns with extending a lockdown, it pains me to yet again see the vulnerable thrust into the spotlight of goodwill, only to be shoved backstage when a sense of normalcy is restored.

These issues aren’t just painfully real – they’re within arm’s reach.  As someone who has struggled with mental health to this day, I’m acutely aware of its depth and scale. I saw a figure that calls to mental health crisis hotlines increased 600% over the course of the pandemic.  This is profoundly upsetting but should also call to attention the mental health crisis that has existed long before the novel coronavirus.  According to the American Foundation for Suicide prevention, America lost over 48,000 people to suicide in 2018 alone.  And while it often goes undetected to the untrained eye, this shouldn’t inhibit advocacy.  Helping to erase the negative stigma, donating to mental health causes, participating in awareness campaigns, and becoming better educated to serve your loved ones are all tangible practices available to every able-bodied American.  It’s foolish to think disparaging our anemic president or your tyrannical governor for contributing to the mental health crisis will change anything and rebuking them doesn’t make you a hero. This issue requires so much more than the occasional impression that you give a shit. Mental health is a subject that deserves, and always has deserved, to be treated with empathy, respect, and, equally importantly, action.

Poverty, joblessness, homelessness and food insecurity are matters which I’ve been fortunate not to face, but about which I care deeply.  And to see the impact of poverty, just take my city of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as an example. Though it is positioned as strongly middle class, 2017 data pins Carlisle at a poverty rate of 17.1%, which would be a disturbingly high rate for a pandemic, let alone ordinary time.  While the local food pantry has seen a devastating 30% increase in clientele, we cannot simply pretend that there was no need before.  While I’ve seen many community leaders step up in crisis, wearing masks while prepacking boxes, loading vehicles to minimize contact, and adapting to an entirely new method of safe food distribution, I’m reminded that our food pantry had quite a population to serve before pandemic struck.  This is not a new problem.

While it’s difficult to measure apathy, I evaluate participation among my colleagues and friends in community service activity, or lack thereof. There’s a significant gap between the amount of time I see peers and colleagues in social settings like bars and rec leagues than at the food pantry and other civic organizations.  While several people do give time and resources to the community, it seems most attitudes towards these institutions range from disinterested to wholly insensitive. Fallacies like pure meritocracy prevail in many arguments – I worked hard to get where I’m at, and others have the same ability to do so. Time constraints handcuff people from simple volunteer efforts.  In stable and unstable times alike, this is not acceptable.  The ability to serve is abundant, it is needed, and it always has been needed, in the form of resources, time and talents.  And unless you are and have been a real advocate, I find the manufactured grief over poverty to be morally reprehensible, so long as it serves as means to your own end.

I do realize I cast a wide net in the assessments of those who are, in my opinion, weaponizing issues in the war over reopening.  There are many people who devote their time and talents to these causes, whose contributions indefinitely outweigh my own. I look up to them. I respect them.  This also isn’t to say I don’t have blind spots.  I do, and I understand that there are myriad issues in which I’ve over promised and under delivered. To admonish the abundant apathy is only half the equation; my purpose, our purpose, should be championing issues to the greatest extent possible.  I hope not to chastise but to provoke; not to belittle but to inspire.  At this time more than ever, those of us who are privileged in health, safety, and economic stability have a tremendous opportunity to help alleviate the impact of this disaster. Just just as the world was never made better by political props and message boards, now, more than ever, we need to get involved to bring our communities back to normal.  Or perhaps this time, with impassioned, sustained care and action – we can create a better normal.    

Note: This subject is intended to serve as an opposition to the article “Reverse Discrimination is the Real Racism,” published by blogger BetteroffwithTrump.  To read the original article, click HERE.  I strongly disagree with the entire sentiment and tone of the article, but I think it’s imperative to read it in addition to this to gain perspective.

 

I recently read an article by a white person which insisted, “We’ve all felt it” with regards to being passed up for a job or losing a spot on a sports team to a less-qualified person of color. I’ve never “felt it.”  And it’s possible that I’ve just been lucky enough to escape the crosshairs of the oppression of the overlooked white race.  But what’s far more likely – I’ll even venture to say definitive – is that I’ve avoided any racial self-realization because I, along with my predominantly white friends, relatives, and effectively all white people, have never been the target of discrimination.  In fact, were I not to be so myopic I might realize the great disparity around me: the racism (yes, the real racism) that has afforded me opportunity and freedom from consequence, sometimes at the expense of others.

The original article pulls at the heartstrings of the perpetually oppressed white American.  Following the “we’ve all felt it” relatability pitch, the author fades into a Rube Goldberg-esque maze of unrelated and hyper exaggerated claims that seek pity for white people who are overlooked due to Affirmative Action and reverse discrimination.  The author pinballs from the plight of white, qualified families to the unfair treatment of our president because of his whiteness to the bias of teachers and authority figures to believe black students over white students.  If, as Trump said, it’s a dangerous time to be a young man in America, it must be an extremely dangerous time for white men.

Only it isn’t.

It isn’t lost on me that Affirmative Action policies might seem unfair in certain light and may have influenced decisions which knock certain white people down a rung or two.  But Affirmative Action isn’t just for legislative optics.  Post-slavery, post-Jim Crow era laws, white people are still disproportionately afforded luxuries that minorities aren’t.  Statistics indicate that the United States’ prison population is around 2.3 million, and that black males are six times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts (https://www.openinvest.co/blog/statistics-prison-america/).  Considering something like drug crimes, which make up a large proportion of the incarcerated population, black and brown people are disproportionately arrested and tried even though the usage rates is about the same among their white counterparts. Regarding education, geography and wealth have a tremendous impact on the opportunity afforded a child.  Statistics notwithstanding, look no further than my personal experience.  There isn’t the slightest shred of evidence that Affirmative action (or “reverse discrimination”) impacted my upbringing and education.  My parents were never incarcerated.  Their parents were never incarcerated.  And affluence assisted my educational endeavors.  By the standards my parents set, I underperformed in high school.  I failed to live up to my academic potential, dropping most honors classes and hoping to ride my cross-country accolades into a prestigious school.  And it worked.  I was accepted by all but one of the schools to which I applied.  My eventual school of choice, Saint Vincent College, was 83% white. Surrounded by like-minded, similarly dressed, teammates in the same income bracket sealed one certainty: I’d never need to think about race.  How was reverse discrimination to hold me back when there wasn’t a trace of its existence in my education, let alone my life?

Naturally, let’s switch to Donald Trump.  While I realize this might appear to be a non-sequitur, it attempts to follow the far-from-seamless transitions of the original article.  Trump, the article whines, is the “first president to be a victim of reverse discrimination.” First off, no.  The president is many things; he is not, however, a victim.  The “support” behind this claim is the fact that Donald Trump was born into wealth and that he has been a successful businessman, and therefore, because he does not come from humble beginnings, he is discriminated against.  I want to put everything in quotations, so my readers understand these spectacularly absurd claims are not my own.  As a white male, I can assure you that the president’s upbringing has so little to do with why I cannot stand him.  His successful businesses do not horrify me.  His open racism, blatant disrespect for others, oppressive and damning legislation, and many other characteristics, do.  It’s important to be nuanced here; many politicians are scorned because they are viewed as “elites;” they come into power and retain power by raising money and keeping lobbyists in their pockets.  President Obama faced the same criticism, and justifiably so.  Buy we don’t see Donald Trump as a bully because he is a well-established building developer (tallest building in New York City after 9/11!), but because of the way he openly mocks colleagues, reporters, and immigrants, many of whom are suffering in the wake of severe crises.  As it’s been written, “They also accuse him of being racist for saying words that others say; but when Trump says them, it’s always racist.”  While this is incredibly hard to decipher, I think it’s symbolic of the author’s subconscious awareness that the president is racist.  When he insults people because of their color or country of origin or passes legislation that seeks to ban Muslims because of their religion, that, not his business acumen or his millions of dollars, make him a terrible human being.

Although nearly every sentence in the original blog post made me cringe, one of the biggest offenders was this: “(P)rincipals and teachers will take the word of a Black student over the word of a White student for fear of backlash from their parents.”   A pitiful blanket statement, this seems to be a common argument – not formed from evidence – but generally by an email chain your racist uncle forwards to the family.  In fact, considering who teachers – and, in the grander scheme, authority figures – believe, I’m tempted to consider who, between a black and white student, is offered the opportunity to state their case.

When I was nineteen years old, I threw a house party because my parents were out of town.  A crew of Abercrombie-clad, underage white teens flocked my parents’ house, toting beverages and, for some, weed and paraphernalia. Singing along to Biz Markee and playing beer pong, our group was suddenly rattled when two police officers showed up to shut the party down.  Soberingly, we faced the officers, handing over our identification cards with full knowledge that everything we were doing was illegal.  But as the cops scanned our IDs, they had one simple command.  “Nobody drives home,” they demanded, and then drove off.  They didn’t need our word.  Without speaking, our affluent, white, college-aged group had unconsciously convinced these authority figures to “take our word.”

In February of 2012, a young black boy named Trayvon Martin was walking through his neighborhood legally, unarmed, and carrying a bag of Skittles and a bottle of soda.  According to Wikipedia (the preferred source of the original article), Skittles and soda are legal in all fifty states and Puerto Rico. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, approached Martin even after his superiors had directed him not to pursue.  Zimmerman, for reasons unknown, defied his orders and, though what happened in between is not perfectly clear, shot and killed Trayvon Martin.  This story, to me, is emblematic of the disparity that exists.  Do authority figures really “take the word of a Black student over the word of a White student?”  How are we to take Trayvon Martin’s word?  Trayvon is like us partygoers in that we never spoke to tell our side of the story.  But then our stories differ.  Authorities saw us, trusted us, and gave us an inexplicable pass for breaking the law.  The same authorities never offered Trayvon, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, or Eric Garner the same luxury.  Most of them had not broken the law.  We had.  But we turned the music back up in the garage as they were hauled away in body bags.

It’s comfortable to make blanket remarks about “the left” and “the right,” about people who leech off the system and ride “reverse discrimination” to the top while hardworking Americans suffer.  It’s convenient to recycle lines from a forward of a forward of a forward of an email from your uncle about how the left “rewards children of color, migrants, or presumed disadvantage over those who played by the rules.” (grammatical errors not my own).  Be born white.  I played by that rule. My awareness of my own privilege is but a drop in the bucket when likened to the experiences of millions of people oppressed on basis of their race, gender, orientation, country of origin, among many others.  My knowledge of “reverse discrimination” is even less than that.  Not only have I not experienced it, I’m not entirely sure it exists.  The original article included a call to action, an insistence that we call out reverse discrimination wherever we see it.  I’ll agree to my due diligence there.  But let’s also call out areas in which privileged white people bemoan their bad luck due to socialist policies that discriminate against law abiding, white citizens in favor of lazy people of color who take advantage of the system.  Or, to put it bluntly: let’s call out racism.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”  ~ Maya Angelou

At a rally in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, I watch intently as impassioned speakers speak out against a local distribution of KKK fliers around the city.  My blood boils as community leaders denounce the gross and rapid spread of hatred around the community and, more broadly, across the nation.  I reflect on the despicable rally in Charlottesville in 2016 and the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.  I think about movements which reflected decades of injustice and abuse of power, initiatives like Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement. I even consider verbal ignorance like professional pitcher Josh Hader’s racist tweets or anything that comes out of the president’s mouth. Mostly, though, I’m thinking about myself.  What a beacon of hope I am.  How passionate I am about social justice.  Why the self-appropriated title of “hero” once seemed so fitting.

Throughout these passing events, I’m working to enhance my education. I’m reading biographies by Malcolm X and Michelle Obama.  My podcast queue includes NPR’s TED radio hour and prominent news outlets.  I have yet to realize how deeply this education will impact me – for better and for worse. I’ll challenge my beliefs, explore new horizons, and develop a better understanding of history.  Conversely, reflection and regret will hit me like a freight train.  Being ‘woke’ will bring me a stronger worldview, but it will also help me realize I’m not the hero I’d so honorably made myself out to be.

It started with a podcast.  On an episode of the TED Radio Hour, a black woman recounted instances of being the victim of racism. The speaker explained how at school the predominantly white teachers and students would repeatedly correct her grammar.  When she used certain slang, they – with overwhelming ignorance – taught her how to speak “correctly.” When she did speak correctly, they would say she was acting “white.” Invariably, this woman didn’t just talk about what was said to her or how people acted towards her. She discussed how the actions of the majority made her feel.  Somewhere, I’m reminded of the Maya Angelou quote that people will forget what you say and do, but “will never forget how you made them feel.”  Subtle or blatant, these offhanded remarks hurt, leaving her feeling defenseless, isolated, humiliated.

If you know me well, you know that I’m energized by a spotlight.  My attention-craving personality has introduced me to a variety of people and has helped me make and entertain friends in many circles.  But there’s a downside. My hunger for attention is satisfied only by getting a rise out of people.  Countless times my mouth has landed me in serious trouble – often for an ignorant, lewd, even harmful remark or gesture. My intentions may rarely be malicious, but the TED speaker’s words shook me.  What had I said to others that was disrespectful?  Further – and more importantly – how did I, the friendly, shameless, outgoing, insensitive hero make others feel?

Cue the heroism giving way to a darker, truer reality, one marred by stories I painfully recounted one by one.  These best capture the tone-deaf lengths my teenage and early 20-year-old persona would go towards commandeering attention. The belly laughs, the raised eyebrows, the retweets, these were the vindicating factors that drove my insatiable need to be liked and appreciated.  But at what cost?

For one, in college, I remember a black friend of mine telling a story and using slang.  Condescendingly, I laughingly explained to him his flawed syntax.  I did to him exactly as the TED speaker had experienced.  But his reaction played second fiddle to that of all my other white, male, similar-minded counterparts.  They laughed.

During the summer of one of my college years, I remember verbatim a spur-of-the-moment tweet I’d posted regarding some of the girls on campus.  I’d tweeted some insensitive content in the past, but this one was so derogatory, so sexist, and, quite frankly, so harmful.  It was unnerving to the point which a graduate student confronted me sternly about the tweet.  I took it down on his recommendation, not because I felt remorse but because I respected him.  But from my friends?  Only laughter.

On numerous occasions in college and even after, my affinity for homophobic humour got me into serious dilemmas.  On one occasion, I half-shouted an anti-gay remark in the dorm hallway, only to turn the corner and see a fellow student, who was gay.  But shame quickly faded to vindication when my friend patted me on the back after having fled the scene.  We shared a hearty laugh.

There are many more examples I’m not proud to share. I’ve made homophobic, racist, Anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and many other horrendous statements in my younger years.  My youth was not shaped by this timeline alone, but my infractions have not been victimless. Often, I’m left wondering if there aren’t some friends from my past and even present who would recoil at my self-perception as a warrior for social justice. I wonder how I, the hero, the activist, has made those around me feel.

Back at the rally, I’m applauding enthusiastically as another speaker talks about the power of love and strength in the community.  But in my head rings a different message, a personal call to action.  It’s not a solution to our nation’s problems, and only really addresses my own guilt.  But I want to apologize.  I apologize for the ignorance, the insensitivity, that has undoubtedly stained the way I’ve made others feel. I apologize to those whom I have hurt. And as I recognize past iniquities, I’m confident in a few things.  I’m not the same person that I was in high school and college.  I am growing.  And I’m learning.

We can use our voice to get cheap laughs, to devalue and to isolate others.  Or, we can use that voice to build others up, to fight for them, and to stand up to injustice and evil.  If we take the time, not just to think about the shock value of our words, but to consider their power, we can focus on how our words and actions make others feel. If we can model this behaviour, and treat others like this, we can come that much closer to being true heroes.

Every year in the youth ministry at my church, I am tasked with delivering a presentation at the eighth-grade weekend retreat.  The theme of the presentation is “modesty” and how dying to ourselves can bring us closer to Christ.  In short, the concept is that modest behaviour forces us to focus less on ourselves and allows more space for service to others and to God.  Using the ministry’s prepared speaker notes, I quickly created a presentation, hitting the key points and infusing some personal examples as the outline suggested.  I always did my best to deliver an emphatic presentation, one which explained my understanding of modesty in concise terms for my eight-grade audience.  But although I spoke about modesty for four years, it took me that long to truly understand it.

My speech started off with a softball question; I asked the group what word came to mind when they heard “modesty.”  I perpetually smiled and affirmed the first response of “humility.”  Yes!  Humility!  To me, modesty was humility, and just that.  I decorated the speech with my failures to be humble, and how these failures separated me from Christ.  Sometimes I acted arrogant, sometimes I placed too much emphasis on the way I dressed and whether I was perceived as cool.  These talking points were easy.  But there was one element which never resonated with me.  The speaker notes, which I took seriously, mentioned the need to be modest in speech – aware of the way we talk.  I taught it although I didn’t fully understand the tie to modesty.  “We avoid telling the truth,” I would recite dryly, “because we are afraid people cannot handle the truth when spoken in love.” I wasn’t sure how this pillar of modesty fit into the equation, but when the room echoed with applause at the end of the speech, my mind quickly erased the dissonance and I set my notes aside for another year.

I lived within the scope of that definition of modesty.  Personally, there was no reason for me to really make any changes in my life, because I was modest enough.  But my narcissism somewhat blinded my ability to see true modesty revealed around me, and, equally important, where I lacked.  I considered myself to be modest because I did just enough.  I volunteered – occasionally.  I didn’t brag about my career accomplishments – that much.  I gave time and energy to others – when it was convenient.

The moment I was hit with the reality of modesty came in the most inconspicuous setting.  Over Chinese food with my family one night over the Christmas holiday, my mom, dad, sister, and brother engaged in a discussion about New Year’s goals.  Expressing my desire to lose weight, I anticipated an encouraging nod or two and nothing more.  But my family pressed me.  What was I willing to do to lose weight?  Was I willing to change my diet?  Was I willing to give up drinking?  Was I willing to focus on exercise and my mental health more than I’d been doing so?  Did I think I had a problem with drinking too much?

Through my nods, I passionately dissented in my head.  My irate and emotional reaction was masked with my ignorant humility.  They were berating me with the right intentions, I reasoned, and would impress them with my submission.  I thought about my accomplishments and the great control I had on my life, but answered politely and, as I viewed it, modestly.  The intent was to get past the dinner on good terms, not so much to implement any life changes.  As far as I was concerned, I didn’t drink too much, and I had a grasp on my health.  I could take a beating to humor my family.

But my family was dead right.  Long-overlooked issues were slowly eroding my mental and physical health.  Not that I was perpetually depressed or anxious, but I was doing nothing to combat my mental health issues (an ongoing struggle which I address in depth in an earlier post).  My diet was unjustifiably poor.  I drank too much, too often, and ignored its contributions to my weight and health issues.  But I had never been challenged on any of my lifestyle choices – only reinforced by making jokes on Twitter and laughing off colleagues’ remarks about my expanded waistline.

I left the dinner smiling and hugging my relatives but still fuming about my unfair treatment. My infuriation on my drive home slowly gave way to a subtle pride in my poised reaction.  Thinking I was the only person still dissecting the discussion, I was a bit alarmed to see an incoming call from my father.  It was an hour since I’d left, maybe two.  Curious about the nature of the call, I listened as he offered a sincere and heartfelt apology for holding that conversation on my last night in town.  He feared I felt that everyone had ganged up on me, and he wanted to fully assure me of my family’s love for me and pride in my accomplishments.  When my father explained that he couldn’t stop feeling badly about our conversation in the hours that had passed since dinner, something hit me.  A line flashed in my head.  “Sometimes we avoid telling the truth because we are afraid people cannot handle the truth when spoken in love.”  Was I humble in my acceptance of their words? Perhaps.  But my family was more than humble.  They were vulnerable.  They spoke truth, out of love, and put themselves on the line.  Being on the receiving end of the conversation was tough, but I started to realize it had to be ten times harder to be on the delivering end.

Humility certainly plays a large role in the scope of modesty.  But there is an additional element to modesty, to dying to oneself, one which I didn’t realize until I was staring it down.  To be modest is to be vulnerable.  To die to self is to risk certain repercussions to speak necessary truths.  To be modest is to love in action.

I haven’t yet thoroughly thanked my family for their words, but I have been working towards better health and better habits.  I’m drinking less, I’m running more, I’m taking deliberate steps to improve my mental and physical health.  Like any process, I have good and bad days still.  But after meeting a few of my fitness goals, I started realizing the need to appreciate the sacrifices each of my family members made at the dinner table that night.  Thank you, Mom, Dad, Maura, Trey.  Thank you for being willing to put yourselves in a position of vulnerability because of your love and care.  And thank you for giving me some better content for next year’s presentation.  Because I intend to accept “humility” as an answer to a modesty synonym, but I fully intend to add the word “vulnerability.”  And instead of blandly reciting a passage about fear of speaking the truth, I can provide one of the clearest and most powerful examples in my own experience.  I can speak about a moment in which I listened to hard truths, truths which doubtlessly took courage to express.  Truths which took modesty to express.  And that, I can confidently tell the audience, is spoken out of love.