Cancel Culture is Not a Part of Allyship

 So, this is a less political post than it is a social issue post, like the couple I did a few months ago about the BLM movement and implicit bias. I’ve been inspired lately to do a bit of introspection and research about allyship. 

What does it mean to be a true ally?  When do our efforts go in the wrong direction?  When does our allyship become performative?  All things that I started thinking about in the last couple of days due to a situation I saw blowing up on social media. I hope you’re not familiar with the situation, because it’s kind of ridiculous in the bigger scheme of things.  It also exposes me as not being as serious a person as I should be at my advanced age.  However, it started the wheels turning as I pondered what the world is coming to. 

No matter how much influence you have on social media, posting and reposting about social issues is not what makes you an ally.  One of the best quotes I’ve read that defines this for me is from an article by Casey Bond in the Huffington Post, “Social media is a tool that amplifies allyship, not encompasses it.”  Sure, use your platform to educate people, to spread information helpful to others who want to be an ally, but if you have to tell everyone that you’re an ally...you’re slipping over the line to performative allyship. You have to do more...you have to do the work. 

I have certain feelings about cancel culture and the fine line between that and calling people out or holding them accountable for problematic behavior. What I’ve figured out is that the line is not so fine as it is nonexistent. Someone who claims that they’re an ally based mostly on the fact that they are “using their platform” to call out bad behavior are less of a real ally than they think. You aren’t educating anyone by calling out this bad behavior, you’re inviting others to shame and bully them because (another point made by the Huffington Post article) most of the people you are reaching already think like you and have the same opinions you do. 

In my research to educate myself on becoming a better ally, I found a fantastic website called The Guide to Allyship. The information found there really made it clear that being an ally is more about focusing on yourself.  When it comes to holding others accountable...well, it is an aspect, but one that I feel has been blown out of proportion. 

I had to work to find source material for holding others accountable and the best version I saw was in the Harvard Business Review in regards to the workplace.  “See something, say something,” is a good approach.  It is less useful to hear about an account second hand, seek it out, then pile on the public shaming.  

It’s become a commonly held belief that the best way to change someone’s behavior is to publicly shame them.  Call them out on your large public platform, pile on with everyone else until you make them understand how horrible of a person they are.  Problem with this is that, according to an article published in Psychology Today, shaming doesn’t work.  There have been many studies on this specific issue which were also distilled into a well researched article in Scientific American that points out that shaming is traumatic and can cause long lasting psychological issues.  Interestingly enough, this effect is usually dependent on age. 

A far more useful emotion than shame in these situations is its close cousin, guilt. Shame is something someone feels about themselves.  Guilt is something they feel about something they’ve done.  Shaming someone is making someone feel like a terrible person while making someone feel guilty is making them feel terrible about something they’ve done. It’s an important distinction, but how do we engender guilt without shaming?  I stumbled upon a very interesting approach by a very interesting woman who I believe has the answer. 

Professor Loretta J. Ross is someone I think I need to spend time learning more about.  The New York Times describes her as a “A radical Black feminist who has been doing human rights work for four decades.”  From what I found in a quick search of the Internet, she seems to be very focused on fighting cancel culture, a fight I fully support. 

Her approach is to, instead of calling someone out...call them in.  She challenges calling people out, calling it toxic and a missed learning opportunity.  The alternative that she proposes is “calling in,” which is a private conversation done with respect.  She describes it as “a call out done with love” and has used this approach for many years.  I really recommend reading the NY Times article for descriptions of her experiences.

She’s also trying to spread this approach to classroom situations by addressing this in an article to teachers on the website tolerance.org.  Hopefully, educators will stumble upon this and use this lesson in classrooms to combat the continuation of cancel culture. 

While this method isn’t 100% effective, it is less traumatizing for all parties involved and does leave the opportunity for a revisit of the discussion at a later date (once you shame someone, it’s unlikely they’ll come back for more). 

I’ve always personally felt that  a calm, respectful discussion and sharing of information is a much better way to fight ignorance and bigotry than a full frontal attack.  Also, a great deal of the situations that I see people being called out for publicly are honest mistakes or a lack of knowledge or understanding.  How is making them feel like a terrible person doing anything useful?  A calm, respectful explanation of what they did wrong has a better chance of engendering the more constructive emotion of guilt instead of the destructive shame.   

And if they don’t change?  As Dr. Ross said, “You can’t be responsible for someone else’s inability to grow. So take comfort in the fact that you offered a new perspective of information and you did so with love and respect, and then you walk away.”

So, if you want to be an ally, be an ally.  Don’t point out that you are an ally at every opportunity by declaring yourself and calling out people that the masses determine are problematic.  Focus on your own education and growth and stop trying to make sure that everyone sees your allyship.  

It's over...but is it really?

I'm sorry I haven't uploaded in awhile.  What started as a passion project again got buried under a tidal wave of anxiety and despair.  I couldn't focus on this because it required me to think about what was going on.  That was more than I could bear. 

At first, I was going to address specifically a Facebook post done by a relative that repeated so many pieces of misinformation that my head hurt.  I decided not to as I know that she was not doing this maliciously, but out of fear.  She really believed all of the lies spread by the current administration and now I know why so many voted for him...he is a master manipulator.  So, instead of confronting the lies I'm going to just let the cards fall where they may.  Let the current administration speak for itself when all of those lies don't come to fruition. 

All major news outlets have now declared Biden the winner...and it's time for me to share my thoughts. 

By The Circus on SHOWTIME - YouTube, CC BY 3.0

For the first time in four years, I feel able to take a breath.  I still clearly remember waking up the morning after election day in 2016, checking the news, and feeling like I was living in an alternate universe.  A misogynist, hate mongering, shady, reality TV show character was going to be in charge of the nuclear codes, the Executive Branch of the government, the heart and soul of this country.  

I did, and I still do, find it very disheartening that people were able to put aside the indisputable evidence of his misogyny, troubling history of horrendous business practices, racism, and overall hateful rhetoric to be a single issue voter.  What I mean is the “Better this than Socialism,” or “I think Roe v Wade needs to be overturned and I don’t care about anything else” comments I heard and keep hearing.  And the horrible thing is that so many of those single issues are lies.  Nobody wants to make this a socialist country.  Nobody wants to take away your guns.  Nobody wants to raise the taxes of the lower and middle class.   NOBODY.  You’re just believing lies instead of asking questions and checking for yourself. 

The big deal seems to be the Green New Deal that the right spits out with such vitriol.  However, they don’t explain what it is, they just make blanket claims based on what the overall aim of the plan is.  Those who cry and moan about how it will destroy our country...have they actually read it?  It is available for anyone to read online.  I found a pretty good summary of it and what the new administration REALLY wants to do looking at it from a financial standpoint (which is what most of the misinformation is about) on Investopedia .

Honestly, my hatred of this administration (and you know I don’t use the H-word lightly) has less to do with politics and more to do with the tone they set for this country.  The President should think of the overall well being of the country and the people before himself.  It was very apparent that his first thought was always of himself, his feelings and his image, before thinking of his responsibilities as President. When there were riots, instead of calling a press conference urging for calm and unity, he came out with the threats and name-calling.  He did his best to escalate the unrest instead of the opposite. 

This President is a bully.  I heard more than once that we need a bully in charge...which frankly scares me.  Bullies are in charge of countries like Russia, China, and North Korea.  We’re supposed to stand up to bullies, not become them.  Not only did he not stand up to bullies, he admired and shook hands with them.  He bullied our allies...the people who were standing with us against the bullies.   Oh, and the First Lady, her pet project was anti-bullying.  Irony much?

I don’t consider myself to be Republican or Democrat.  My politics do lean left, but there are major issues that I don’t agree with that the left promotes.  The point is, that I don’t blindly follow the rhetoric of the left, despite what I’ve been accused of.  I do my research, make sure I understand all sides, and pick what feels right and good. 

So, what is happening is something we all expected.  The current administration set this up perfectly.  It has been clear for quite some time that the majority of the population is fed up with the tone of this President’s administration and the handling of the current health crisis. There was always the very real chance that there would not be a second term based on the approval ratings all along.  So, they started by dismantling the post office in order to try to disrupt voting by mail.  They then encouraged their  supporters to avoid vote by mail and claimed that it is rife with fraud (despite there being no proof).  This set it up  for original results to be Republican, but the slower to count mail in ballots to be Democrat.  This was entirely predictable...any moron could foresee this.  We were even told ahead of time that they would claim fraud.  How can you claim fraud before a fraud is committed?  And THIS is why he filled that empty Supreme Court seat so quickly. I'm not the only one who remembers the election of 2000.

We pride ourselves as the shining beacon of the best version of democracy.  However, we are losing that claim due to what is going on with this current election.  Any small time dictator in a third world country who actually fraudulently claims the win in an election will just laugh at us when we point out what they are doing is wrong and corrupt.  “Look at your elections,” they will scoff, “claims of fraud everywhere and you accuse me?”  What the current leader of the free world is doing is undercutting our democracy.  He is tarnishing our shiny past of free and transparent elections.  Now, I’m not saying they’ve always been perfect, as voter suppression is always an issue, but the votes cast have been honestly cast and fairly counted. 

This country has been divided for quite some time. However, this latest administration has actually encouraged the division, and discouraged the bi-partisanship necessary to keep this country together and on course.  And I’m not saying that the Democratic party is perfect, I’m not saying that Joe Biden will be the perfect president, but it does seem that he is trying to bring us together and stop the fear mongering and hate dividing us.  He has his job cut out for him.

And we still have to deal with the current administration for a couple more months. I fear that lawsuits and lies are only the tip of the iceberg of the damage that he will do.

The First Amendment: Part 1, Freedom of the Press

 Posts are going to be a bit less frequent as I find myself doing this thing called "research." Also, as this isn't college and this isn't a term paper I'm not going to footnote every fact I find.  I will link all of the sources I used at the bottom of the post for further reading if you are interested.  Ready for it?

I’ve decided I’m going to jump around based on my personal feelings of the most egregious abuses/attacks of/on the Constitution.  So, one of the biggest issues I have with the current Presidency is the attacks on the free press. The First Amendment, included in the Bill of Rights, does not just focus on the press:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

There is a lot to unpack there, so I’m going to divide this up into 3 parts, and not in order.  I will speak on freedom of the press first.  Probably, freedom of speech will be next and then religion.   I find it interesting that these were all lumped together, assumedly because these rights were all determined to be the most important.  Honestly, freedom of the press and freedom of speech are very intertwined, but I think there are points to be made about them separately.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Freedom of the press was very important to the founding fathers. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” Under the rule of Britain, the press was constrained against printing anything about The Crown.  Anything anti-government was considered seditious. Our Congress recognized that the press was an important watchdog over government so it was made part of the First Amendment.   

There were efforts to subvert it shortly after the Bill of Rights was ratified in the form of The Sedition Act of 1798, which allowed for the criminal prosecution of those who brought the president or the government into disrepute and ridicule.  Today, it is considered to be one of the most egregious violations of the First Amendment to date. Written and passed by the Federalists under President John Adams, it targeted dissent by the Democratic-Republicans and its leader Thomas Jefferson, who admitted to being afraid to “write what I think.” Ten people were convicted under this act (not all journalists) and later pardoned by Jefferson when he became President. 

Times were different then and it was widely known and accepted that newspapers, pamphlets, and other writings were aligned with one party or the other.  Nobody expected or assumed that the press would be non-partisan.

Today, there are some similarities with the situation back in the late 18th/early 19th Centuries.  Two parties, bitterly opposed to each other and the party in power trying to quell dissent.  However, the approach is much sneakier and makes use of two words...Fake News. 

Fake news is not a new concept, although the use of the actual phrase is relatively new. Reporting rumors and made up stories as news had long been the purview of the tabloid press and yellow journalism.  However, it wasn’t until “Pizzagate” and Hillary Clinton referring to the story as “Fake News” that her opponent picked up the term and ran with it.  

Our expectations of the free press have changed too.  Gone are the times that we expected news outlets to be non-partisan. Back in the heyday of widespread trust in journalism, when Watergate was the story on everyone’s minds, almost three quarters of Americans said that they trusted the mainstream media.  News outlets were considered to be unbiased and imbued with journalistic integrity, not identified as “Liberal” or “Conservative.” they were just the news.  

Image Source: PressThink

Today, most media outlets are identified as liberal/progressive and conservatives feel attacked by them.  The media alienated a good chunk of their audience   This made it too easy for the current administration to create a new weapon...Fake News.

All of us remember the infamous occurrence shortly before the 2017 swearing in of the new President.  During a press conference, many mainstream media outlets were denigrated, the most stand out being that CNN was called out as “Fake News” and Jim Acosta, the CNN reporter present, was not allowed to ask questions.   At the time, it was an unheard of situation and stunned many of the press.

Giving credit where credit is due, this was a genius move.  If it was claimed that these news outlets were biased, it would have left them some credulity.  Regardless of your politics, you could accept that underneath the bias of any news reporting, there was likely a grain of truth.  However, by labeling the majority of the big names in mainstream media as “fake” any assumption of credibility was immediately cut off at the knees.  

The first victim of this approach was the anonymous source.  Today, “Deep Throat” would have been dismissed as a made up source and any information attributed to him as “Fake News.”   Right now, there is a report that the President refused to visit the graves of American servicemen killed in the line of duty and described them as “losers.”  This story is being dismissed as “Fake News” because the sources of this story remain anonymous.  This is despite the fact that there are documented situations where the current President has disparaged veterans and those killed in the line of duty before out in the plain view of the public eye.  

This attack on the First Amendment is much craftier and more insidious as it is not directly “prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom” of the press.   It is making the press toothless, untrustworthy, and impotent.  The watchdog has been caged in a maze of buzzwords and insults. Citizens are confused and don’t know where to turn.  What is fake news and what is not?

As if that wasn’t enough, the President made the assertion that we need “to take a strong look at our country’s libel laws, so that when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts.”  This slyly implies that there is too much lying about him going on and he wants to be able to sue over it. 

However, on the bright side, some print media, such as the New York Times, has actually seen an upsurge in subscriptions and donations.  Part of it is because people appear to be looking for more reliable sources of legitimate news, but it’s also because these news outlets have created and/or tightened paywalls.  So while people are becoming more and more distrustful of broadcast news, they are looking for more trustworthy news online. 

The downside of this is that many haven't differentiated between actual journalism and social media and now use Facebook posts and Tweets as news sources.  This becomes concerning when the source of the Tweets is the President who keeps professional fact-checkers very busy.   

What changes should journalism take to combat this attack on their credibility and fight against this insidious indirect violation of the First Amendment?  I wish I had the answer.  Comment below if you have ideas or suggestions. 

Sources for further reading:

American Bar Association: Freedom of the Press: Challenges to this Pillar of Democracy

HistoryNet: Passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts

Boston University College of Communication: President Trump claims the media peddles fake news. Has it made itself an easy target?

THE FIRST AMENDMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA: Sedition Act of 1798 (1798)

The Guardian: Before Trump: the real history of fake news

USA Today: Trump to CNN: ‘You are fake news’

PressThink: Rosen’s Trust Puzzler: What Explains Falling Confidence in the Press?

Niemenlab: More Americans are paying for online news — and those who do say they’re unlikely to stop

Insurrection Act of 1807

This is by no means an expert or in-depth analysis of the laws, but my understanding of what they mean and how they apply to the current state of this country.  This is long, and I apologize, but I feel it's important. 

While I think of what I want to write about the Constitution and how it’s pretty obvious that the current President has no idea what it is or what is in it, I keep getting distracted by other things.  One of these things is the Insurrection Act of 1805.  

This is a piece of legislation that can give certain powers to the President that could be abused if said President is not the kind of person to put the needs of the people he serves above his own interests.  

Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

Why this is currently important and why it distracted me is that this is the excuse the President is threatening to use to intervene in the current civil unrest in cities like Portland, Oregon and other areas where protests against systematic police racism tipped over into violence.   I was curious, as I am sure many are, as to whether he actually has the power to do this. 

Unfortunately, it looks like he may well have that ability, but there are some things that can limit that power. 

Let’s do some history here.  The background of this act is actually really interesting.  Do you know who is responsible for the creation of this act?  Aaron Burr...yes, that guy...the guy who killed Alexander Hamilton. 

In a nutshell, a disgraced Aaron Burr decided that since his political career was over in the newly formed United States of America, he’d grab his own piece of the continent to make a country of his own.  The Insurrection Act was passed by Congress to give Jefferson the power to thwart him with Federal troops.  He ended up not needing to do so, but he had the power just in case. You can read the entire story on the History.com website.  

The Act has been amended a few times since then, and has been invoked 22 times in total.  Out of those, only 6 times were not at the request of the state where there was some sort of unrest or violence.  So, a vast majority of those times were the governors of that state reaching out to the President asking for the assistance of federal troops.  And of the 6 that were not requested, most of those were race related and were to protect black citizens against things like the KKK and segregationists.  The last time it was invoked was in 1992 by George H.W. Bush, by request of the state of California because of the Los Angeles Riots that happened after the police who used excessive force on Rodney King were acquitted.  

So, could Trump possibly use it to quell rioting in places like Portland right now? It’s possible, but it won’t be easy for him.  

There is another law, the Posse Comitatus (the ability of an officer of the law to conscript any able bodied man to assist him) Act which puts limits on the Insurrection Act.  It states that

Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Interestingly enough, The Heritage Foundation, a Conservative think tank provided me with the best explanation of how these two laws intersect and why the Use of 1807 Insurrection Act Should Be Last Resort for Quelling Out-of-Control Protests.

Some other interesting asides I stumbled upon while doing this research.  You may know I am a bit of a data geek.  I took a data analytics boot camp program at the University of Texas and, while I did struggle a bit (as I’m not a developer) I was fascinated by how data can be used to make sense of our world.  Despite my troubled history with numbers...they never lie.  

I found a website where data concerning political upheaval and other similar crises is aggregated and analyzed.  This is a non-profit group called The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).  According to their website  “ACLED collects the dates, actors, locations, fatalities, and types of all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia and the Caucasus, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeastern and Eastern Europe and the Balkans’”

However with recent events, they’ve got a special project going tracking the civil unrest here in the United States.  The interesting things that their analysis shows is that first, the majority of protests have been peaceful:

Click on the image to expand

And that in Seattle, Washington, when police backed off and left the protesters to assemble peacefully, there were no riots.  The shaded part of this graph shows that period of time when police withdrew and protesters were left to assemble peacefully.

Click on the image to expand

Their overall research did show some concerning information showing that riots were not quelled, but caused by law enforcement clashing with peaceful protests.  I may do a separate blog post on this if I get a chance to analyze the data myself. 

They are constantly monitoring the situation, but did publish a report at the end of August, which you can download as well. 


So, that’s why it should be a last resort and why both governors and Congress will likely try to block the President using this power to deploy federal troops on American citizens. 

The Preamble to the Constitution

I'll try to do some research and reading this weekend on the Constitution, but there is one part it that I know well.  In fact, I have it memorized, as do so many of my fellow Gen X-ers, thanks to a great thing called "Schoolhouse Rock."

Back in the heyday day of Saturday morning cartoons, one of the best things ever was a series called "Schoolhouse Rock."   In short, animated music videos, we'd get truly educational content compressed into 3 minutes of entertainment and catchy songs.  There was "Lucky 7" where you learned about math, "Conjunction Junction" where you learned about grammar, and then there were my favorites where you learned about our government.  My generation knows all about bills and how they become laws from this amazing series.

As for me, I clearly remember getting a bonus 10 points on an exam in college because I could write down the entire Preamble to the Constitution thanks to this gem:





"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

This brief statement sets the tone of the document that is the cornerstone of our country.  While the Declaration of Independence is more celebrated in the folklore of the formation of this country, it was really just a good start.  The actual blueprint of our government is set down in the Constitution.

The Preamble tells us exactly what the Framers of the Constitution wanted to accomplish here.  They wanted to create a Utopian government...a more "Perfect Union."  The intent was good, but can any government be absolutely just, make sure that the lives of its citizens are untroubled, safe, successful and that their right to self-determination is guaranteed for all future generations?   

The rest of the document goes on to establish the framework of the government and was amended not long after it was ratified to include the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments.  Most people are familiar with the the first few.  

Even the Framers of the Constitution were aware that the document that they all contributed to and argued over was flawed.  Ben Franklin stated, 

“I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such, because I think a central government is necessary for us… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution.”

I wonder if The Constitution were written now, instead of almost 250 years ago, if the people creating it would have taken a more pragmatic approach.   The idea of a Utopian anything seems to have fallen by the wayside, "you can't make all of the people happy all of the time."  However, maybe it is best to set lofty goals just to be able to say you tried your best. 

And I think that there were times that our country, as a whole, did try its best.  The problem I'm having now is that so many people aren't even trying anymore.  The success has finally gotten to the heads of the people in power to the point where they are pitting against each other those who still want that Utopian society and those who want to focus on their own personal Utopia.  

There is no domestic tranquility; we are as far from tranquil as I've ever seen.  The focus has moved on from defending our country from other countries to suppressing the populace.  Our country is troubled and unsafe, success and self-determination are reserved for the privileged.  How did we get here and how can we fix it for future generations?   

All Lives Matter...What Does it *Really* Mean

Me (obviously frustrated, but a middle aged white woman): "There are just people who refuse to understand that when they hear "Black Lives Matter" it has nothing to do with them.  They refuse to understand that it's not a statement that their life doesn't matter because they're not black.  It's not an attack on them.  It's just that it's obvious in our society that black lives don't matter to everyone and to make a point that they actually do.  They always preface the statement that they don't support Black Lives matter and that they support all lives matter with 'I'm not racist but.'  They just don't get that they are inherently demonstrating that they ARE racist."

My boss (being more patient than I deserve and very helpful): "It's just so hurtful."  (pause) "It's like if...God forbid something like this would happen...but it's like if I told you my mom died and you responded with 'yeah, my mom died last week and, Bill over there, his mom died a couple of months ago.'  You're not even acknowledging that something painful happened to me and just started talking about yourself."

Which illustrates the situation so succinctly and clearly.   Something I could never do on my own because I'm not black.  My boss is. 

Anyone here coming from a link from my Facebook post, probably saw a pretty tense interaction on one of my political posts where the subject Black Lives Matter came up.  Frankly, it really threw me that someone who I always refer to as a "favorite" relative would think to use Black Lives Matter as an insult like he did.  Then, when I responded with my very strong belief that anyone who is a decent human being supports BLM, I got the response I described to my boss in the scenario above from another family member.  They were very offended that I implied that they are not a decent human being.  That resulted in my failed attempt to explain.

As a white person, it's inevitable that someone we are related to does not really understand the true meaning of the Black Lives Matter movement and takes it, and anyone calling out that all decent human beings *should* be supporting it, as a personal attack.   Instead of stepping back and wondering, or asking, why someone would say that, they have a knee-jerk reaction and feel attacked.

My initial response, stating that responding to someone saying "Black Lives Matter" with an automatic "all lives matter" and treating All Lives Matter as a movement, is actually racist may seen a little harsh.  Still, a lot of black people believe that it is...so I have to go with that.  At the very, VERY least it is incredibly tone deaf and hurtful, as my boss confirmed.

I don't know if my response actually made any difference in how anyone feels.  I am a political outcast in my family and all of them are pretty used to dismissing anything I say without actually listening.  I think, at the very least, I'm about to be the newest person never invited to any family gathering.

Bless my boss...my amazing boss.  Not only is he a good boss, but he's patient and non-judgmental of my middle aged white woman whining about shit like this.  Yes, I totally acknowledge that I, like so many "woke" white people, can be annoying and reek of possible virtue signaling.  I don't mean to, but I can totally see that even bringing this up to a black friend can come off as my bragging about trying to be a white knight (pun semi-intended), but that is completely in retrospect.  I really just wanted to get his take on what I was doing wrong...or right.  I'm going to really try to quit doing this (retrospect again) as I may be doing this too much.

I don't even want to get into it when people respond to the Black Lives Matter movement but bringing up Blue Lives Matter.  Well, maybe just a little...

You do realize that Black Lives Matter is a movement that is specifically calling out the systemic racism is the law enforcement community?  We have documented proof of law enforcement kneeling on black men until they suffocate, shooting black men in the back, shooting black women in their own home, shooting black children when they mistake a toy for a gun...the list goes on.  If you do find a similar example of this happening with a white person, it's a much rarer occurrence.   Support your local police if you want to, that's fine.  But doing it in a way that slaps the Black Lives Matter movement in the face can only be described as racist.  No excuses.

Also, you are being disingenuous when you say "all lives matter" because, in today's society and climate, they actually don't.  The Black Lives Matter movement will be around until *everyone* actually believes that black lives REALLY do matter.  So, until then

Image stolen from the CBS News article Why saying "all lives matter" communicates to Black people that their lives don't.

Implicit Bias

While I'm trying to find time to read up on The Constitution and prepare my thoughts on why I feel that it is being attacked, I thought we could try something different...

Well peeps, if you're not aware of what implicit bias is, prepare for a shock.  While this is mostly directed to a white audience, you don't have to be white to have implicit bias.

So, if you are have absolutely convinced yourself that you are 100% color blind and have not a drop of racism or colorism in your mental makeup, I invite you to take this test:

Race IAT test

If you're not comfortable just clicking on a link to enter info into a website you can go to the Project Implicit website, read about their data privacy policy and other information about Project Implicit.  When you're comfortable, click on the "Take a Test" link on the top menu bar and choose the "Race IAT" button.   There are more bias tests that you can come back to and try out later as well.

Once you are done, read the Understanding Implicit Bias short publication from the Kirwan Institute of the Ohio State University

While having bias does not mean you are a racist, it can mean that you are unconsciously taking someone's race into account when interacting with them, which does pretty much say that you are not 100% color blind.  Even if it is not a conscious thing.

I think it is important to use this as a starting point before having any conversation about racism.   As a white person, I have to acknowledge that my upbringing and perspective of the world does impact how I relate to people of other races.  Is it possible for me to really understand their experience?   Or is it more important to listen and do my best to empathize?

If you're interested in having a conversation about the results of your test and what you plan to do now that you are aware of the results, please comment below.

Trolls and others that do show evidence of having a calm and balanced conversation will be blocked.

Trying to Make a Difference This Time

 Yep, it's been years and much of what I feared has come to pass.  With about a month until the next Presidential election, this country is incredibly divided and just a scary mess.  I find it interesting that the current administration is running on the platform of rescuing us from what is currently going on in this country when what is going on is the direct result of the current administration.

This president has a history of promoting violence. From the beginning...meaning his campaign rallies back when he first ran for president, he encouraged the beating of anyone protesting at his rally.  

He also has a history of racism that continues to this day.  His existence as the leader of this country has only encouraged citizens to comfortably exhibit their racism openly.   The existing systemic racism in our country's law enforcement was only more openly exhibited proving to many that black lives didn't actually matter to them.   The image of George Floyd pleading for his life, not struggling, not resisting, while one white cop knelt on his neck long enough to murder him while other officers looked on dispassionately will be forever burned in the minds of all of us.  His crime...alleged forgery.  Not any kind of violent crime at all. 

 While this sort of murderous abuse of power has been happening for years, it just seems to have escalated in the last 4 years.  Maybe it's because of social media...or maybe because this is the straw... too much has been happening and it was time to just blow up.

Another thing that has been incredibly disturbing is the number of times that it seems that this administration seems to be ignoring the Constitution.  Maybe willfully...maybe out of ignorance.  

My plan is to study up a bit on the Constitution and try to identify times when this document has been ignored or tossed out the window during this last 4 years.  I will be referring to this website and trying to focus on individual parts of this cornerstone of our country and how it relates to events of the last 4 years.  

Will I change anyone's mind?  Possibly not...but I feel that I need to say SOMETHING or I'm guilty of standing by silently while fascism takes over another country.  My recent ancestors were guilty of this...I refuse to be.