A Harvest for the World.....

A nation planted, so concerned with gain

As the seasons come and go, greater grows the pain

And far too many feelin’ the strain

When will there be a harvest for the world

Many years ago, among many more than I was worthy of receiving, my late, beloved mother bestowed a great gift upon me: she urged me to turn to the written word whenever I was wrestling with one of Life’s great challenges. She challenged me to work it out in print, and I’ve been doing so ever since. And to the extent that I’ve achieved some acclaim over the years for my writing, I don’t take it personally as it’s owed to someone who taught me not only how to live but to love. So, at this time when my heart is aching – and breaking for those ensnared in this unfolding tragedy in which we find ourselves – I turn to the page – now electronic pen and ink, as it were – and hope that in sharing I can contribute in some small way to others finding solutions – or at least comfort – as well.…

More than four decades ago, the Isley Brothers from Teaneck, New Jersey – now the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in this state – asked us a melodic and profound question: when will there be a harvest for the world? At the time, perhaps more appreciative of the melody than the message, we sang along without feeling compelled to consider seriously and answer the query ... but Life has a way of bringing things back around. Now the question is ever more urgent amidst the social distancing required in a deadly global pandemic: indeed, aren’t we all “hopin’ life gets better for the world” right now?

All babies together, everyone a seed

Half of us are satisfied, half of us in need

Love’s bountiful in us, tarnished by our greed

when will there be a harvest for the world

At a time like this, when our very humanity is threatened, we’re forced to remember that, indeed, we’re all “a seed,” Children of God trying to manifest the love “bountiful in us” and not to be (overly) “tarnished by our greed.” But since the time of this song’s composing, ever fewer of us are satisfied and ever more of us are in need (at least in this country). We have all been tarnished by the greed of our society in the succeeding decades and now find ourselves struggling to collaborate in ways that are mutually beneficial.

In fact, the Coronavirus is reminding us just how greatly our perverted economics has warped our perspective: amidst calls from some misguided souls for the elderly to sacrifice themselves for our future well-being, we’re being forced to redefine who the truly “essential workers” in our society are … and it turns out that they’re those whom we’ve largely taken for granted and whose well-being has been evermore challenged as we’ve encouraged the concentration of wealth in ever fewer, stronger hands. Sadly, it’s taken a global pandemic to remind us of the importance of everyday folk, from the people who (re-)stock the recently and frantically depleted shelves of our stores to the orderlies in our hospitals who give care in the most thankless of ways to the delivery people who now bring much of what we eat to our door because it’s no longer safe for us to go out. Yet, while we’ve cut taxes for the already wealthy, it’s been a mighty battle – and one yet to be won – for these hard-working fellow citizens to be paid a living wage. What harvest has this brought us?

Dress me up for battle, when all I want is peace

Those of us who pay the price, come home with the least

Nation after nation, turning into beast

When will there be a harvest for the world

Then it’s perhaps more sad than ironic that as our government attempts to stem the fallout from this modern plague that a full quarter of the aid promised by the newly enacted stimulus legislation will be used for the benefit of corporations, the majority of whose taxes were cut significantly just three years ago and who’ve since invested almost 90% of these gains not in building additional capacity or hiring more workers but in repurchasing their shares and further enriching their shareholders and executives. After this great boondoggle, we’re being asked to mortgage our and our children’s futures a good bit more to protect those who already have so much.

By contrast, those in the greatest need, the everyday folk among us, will receive a modest, one-time payout that may partially (and temporarily) stay the negative economic tide that so/too many of us will feel in the coming months. Of course, many of our peer countries around the world are investing far more heavily in their people’s well-being than we are, which is a most damning reflection of our values-in-action (though, most often and even now, we prefer to profess other, more lofty ones).

And while all this is going on, we’ve seemingly lost focus on those even more distressed and dispossessed than us: funny how we hear so little anymore about the children who’re still in cages at our borders, the refugees scattered amongst war-torn regions of the world, many of whom are literally starving to death and facing unimaginable violence every day. What does this harvest tell us about ourselves?

Gather everyman, gather everywoman

Celebrate your lives, give thanks for your children

Gather everyone, gather all together

Overlooking none, hopin’ life gets better for the world

Sadly and ironically – especially because so/too many of us underestimated the ferocity of this global pandemic – we can now only gather virtually: we’ve behaved ourselves into the reality that gathering in person is a potentially deadly choice. Hopefully, this need to distance ourselves socially will ease eventually, but, hopefully, too, our appreciation for the blessing of being able to do so will not ebb (again).

Yes, it’s taken a tragedy to remind us to cherish and celebrate our lives and give thanks for our loved ones. And perhaps, just maybe, we’ll appreciate the gift of forced unity in combating this mortal challenge when its urgency decreases. Or, as the Isley Brothers would put it, perhaps after this, we’ll live “overlooking none, hopin’ life gets better for the world.”

I have to admit that this has been one of the hardest pieces to compose that I’ve ever felt compelled to write, and I’ve cried my way through most of it.

I’m saddened by the unnecessarily large toll that this modern scourge is wreaking and will ultimately wreak on us.

I’m saddened by the impotence of my righteous anger at those who continue to flaunt the urgent social convention to distance. Truth be told, I’m okay with them endangering their own lives – not to be too cynical, but it’s a damning reality that the herd does thin itself, even in the human species – but I ache for the innocents in their lives whom they’ll endanger and possibly extinguish.

I’m saddened by the reality that, amidst a modern plague that literally has the potential to kill millions of us, we’re ‘led’ by a president and his minions who lie to us repeatedly and imperil us all with their cravenly inhumane egocentricity and selfishness. This being said, I’m at least partially heartened that this righteous anger is finding and will find release as I/we organize to ensure the end of this ignominy come November 3rd.

And I’m saddened by the reality that my generation, the rebellious Baby Boomers of the ’60s who were supposed to change the world for the better, has instead mortgaged both its present and our children’s and grandchildren’s future. To be blunt, if we thought our parents in the Greatest Generation messed up our country, look what we’ve wrought.…

So I’m returned, as ever, to the compassionate and affirming wisdom of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who urged us a half-century ago to engage in a “revolution of values” focused on celebrating and elevating our common humanity by creating the Beloved Community. No, it won’t be easy: there are far too many powerful interests whose selfishness and investments in individual (or, at best, narrowly-distributed collective) well-being must be overcome, but I still have faith. I've chosen to focus on those among us whose humanity has been so manifestly and profoundly positively evidenced during this crisis: indeed, this critical and capacious challenge has brought out the best in so many of us. Let's keep this going even when the crisis subsides eventually.

Partially because I’m old and tired now and also because I’m sanguine, I realize that I can’t do much to make this world a better place … but I can, as Mother Teresa directed, do small things with love consistently. So it’s in this grassroots, bottom-up cause that I ask you to join me: we may not be able to remake the world in its entirety, but each of us can create the Beloved Community in our sphere of influence and circle of concern. And who knows, maybe someday, the more plentiful these individual loci of light become, perhaps they can coalesce into a most elevating and illuminating collective outpouring.

I'm beginning to think that the Beloved Community starts first with each of us and then radiates when we extend it to our neighbor(s). Perhaps some good will come from the Coronavirus: I pray that it reminds us never to become so infatuated with our own progress that we leave behind our humanity – and too many of our neighbors – and that it re-centers us on all that is sacred to us so that we live into this, our individual and collective best lives, every day while we also celebrate and support our neighbors in doing the same. Then, perhaps, we’ll reap the blessing of the Isley Brothers’ vision: truly, a harvest for the world.…

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis

that our loyalties must be ecumenical rather than sectional.

Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to

mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their

individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly

concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in

reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional

love for all men. … When I speak of love, I am

speaking of that force which all the great religions

have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life.

Love is the key that unlocks the door

which leads to ultimate reality.

– The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where Do We Go From Here (1968)

A Radical Revolution of Values … or, why I have hope even when I tell myself that I don’t really want to….

I am convinced that if we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Beyond Vietnam” (1967)

We remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s landmark speech on April 4^th, 1967 – exactly one year, to the day, before he was assassinated – for his passionate and principled dissent and excoriation of our country’s misadventures in Vietnam. “Beyond Vietnam” remains one of the most compelling and yet hopeful protests in our country’s history.

But I remember the speech primarily for another reason: because of his prophetic call for a “radical revolution of values” for and in our country, a challenge that we did not take up meaningfully then and that is even more urgent for us today.

I’ve been thinking about this for some time now, but I will acknowledge that the election of Donald J Trump to the highest office in this land and his subsequent and complete demonstration of unfitness for this honor and awesome responsibility have dramatically increased my sense of urgency around exhorting us to consider Dr. King’s challenge and to take it up as our own now and permanently.

We need a radical revolution of values … because what’s happening in our country today shows that we have largely lost our way.…

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

It’s not just that our president is a pathological liar, a boor and inhumane; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens celebrate him for these very reasons. It’s not just that we claim, falsely, to be a Christian nation; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens celebrate elected and societal leaders who demonize the poor in direct contradiction to Christ’s example. It’s not just that we fail to acknowledge the many -isms that continue to plague our country; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens celebrate the disenfranchisement of the similarly situated simply because they consider them The Other. It’s not just that inequality, economic and otherwise, is at an historic high; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens vote against their own economic (et. al.) interests and become dispossessed along with those they think that they’re better than. It’s not just that we’ve become polarized politically, socially and otherwise; it’s that millions of our fellow citizens see this as a good thing even as their own realistic chances at realizing the American Dream evaporate, too.

I want to tell myself that I don’t recognize this bloated, mean-spirited and materially obsessed America, and yet I do. I want to tell myself that it’ll get better if we’re patient, and yet it won’t. I want to tell myself that if I subscribe to the selfishness that has so pervaded our society and just focus on me and mine getting ours we will, and yet we won’t. Don’t get me wrong, all of these things could happen; they are just significantly less likely to as our communal bonds continue to be shredded and our ability to relate to each other and collaborate in mutually beneficial ways ebbs daily.…

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

I want to tell myself that I don’t understand James Baldwin’s famous observation that “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time,” and yet I do. I want to tell myself that as much as the presidency of Barack Obama was a harbinger of hope that it won’t be overshadowed and undone by the studied and purposeful depravity of his successor, and yet it could well be. I want to tell myself that we Baby Boomers will prove to be more faithful and astute stewards of the responsibilities of societal leadership than we considered our parents to be a half-century ago, and yet we won’t.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloodied battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

I want to tell myself that Dr. King was wrong for indicting the US government as “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world,” and yet it is (both internationally and domestically) and therefore he isn’t. I want to tell myself that we are more humane in our approach to the opioid crisis than we were when the crack epidemic was a scourge affecting our society because we’ve evolved, and yet we haven’t. I want to tell myself that our constant war-mongering and continued refusal to address the ongoing needs of those damaged by it will be resolved in time, and yet they won’t.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

I want to tell myself that we will awaken from this fog of being lost and right our course, and yet we may not. I want to tell myself that the America that I and my generation are bequeathing to our children is a better one, and it is in some ways, and yet in many and increasing ways it is decidedly not. I want to tell myself that we will avoid our current and clear pattern of mutually assured degradation if not destruction, and yet we very well may not.

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now adopt an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies.

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. …

History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.”

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. …

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. … The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. …

And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace. If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. If we will but make the right choice, we will be able to speed up the day, all over America and all over the world, when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I would like to tell myself that I don’t have hope, because it’s so/too costly, and yet I do. I would like to tell myself that this is a battle for the next generation because I’ve done my fighting, and yet it’s not. I’d like to tell myself that hope isn’t a strategy, and yet in its active form it can be.

I’d like to tell myself that I’m tired and too old to fight the good fight anymore, and yet I’m not. I’d like to tell myself that every time I reflect on the incisive wisdom of Dr. King’s words and the passionate inspiration of his actions I’m not moved and spurred again to action, and yet I am. I’d like to tell myself that this new world, this better world, will be made by a new generation, and yet it doesn’t have to be. I’d like to tell myself that at this stage of my life I should just focus on the relatively short road ahead of me and not worry about the big picture, and yet I can’t. I’d like to tell myself that the remaking of this world is beyond my scope, and yet it isn’t.

It all starts with the revolution of values: first mine, and then yours, and then ours, and then, hopefully, all of ours, too….

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;

and the greatest of these is love.

 - 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NRSV)

The Fire Is Within Us, Too....

It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7,

to discover that the flag to which you have pledged

allegiance, along with everybody else, has not

pledged allegiance to you. ... It comes as a great shock

to discover that the country which is your birthplace and

to which you owe your life and your identity, has not, in its

whole system of reality, evolved a place for you.

- James Baldwin (1965)

It’s raining … and I’m seething, even though I’m in my happy place. I just can’t shake an historical legacy about which I’m learning anew. So, though I’m enthralled, engrossed and enlightened by Nicholas Buccola’s new book The Fire Is Upon Us, I’m also appalled and infuriated: in setting a full and revealing context for the book’s central focus, the 1965 debate between James Baldwin and William Buckley at the Cambridge Union, the author rightly reviews the history of each of these protagonists … and being reminded of the Buckley’s record and legacy of insouciant, sophist racism is, in a word, enraging, especially because it presages and echoes the themes of its modern day complement.

It’s not just that Buckley was Privileged and pompous, it’s also that, for the most part until that day in February, 1965, and since, his racism has largely gone both unacknowledged and unchallenged. So reading of his life and work before this fateful encounter exposes one to a person ultimately utterly unworthy of the renown that he earned in his lifetime as well as that accorded to him still by (too) many today. While there is no question that he was a genius at wrapping inhumanity in eloquence, it’s nonetheless dispiriting to review it in all of its inglorious depth and profundity.

Simply put, William F. Buckley, Jr., was a racist (and a chauvinist, a bigot, a religiocentrist, etc.) a$$hole and that his legacy continues to bedevil the lives of The Other in our society to this day is a damning indictment of us. But it’s also an opportunity: if we expose ourselves to the evil that this singularly loquacious and influential inhuman fomented, we can learn from it, especially how to address and eradicate it in the future. This will be a real challenge, because, every day, we regular folk-cum-social justice warriors will have to inoculate ourselves from this evil in order for us and others to transcend it.

Even now, as I write these words, they come slowly and painfully: Mr. Buckley is such a horrible figure that it’s hard to refrain from spewing one’s own invective while reviewing his. It pains me greatly that though he is dead, his ideas, so damaging to so many, are not, and therefore they continue to provide cover to the powerful in our own time to demean so many of those whom they’re supposed to serve.

I’ll admit that, in the spirit of ‘opposition research’ and largely in the ’80s, I used to read his primary publication, the journal The National Review, from time to time, so exploring its roots in greater detail is not an entirely unfamiliar endeavor … but is a most challenging one: to make it plain, I find myself having to remind myself constantly not to engage in the profanity that this exploration engenders involuntarily. (In fact, the only person about whom I find myself saying “This MF!?!” as much or even more is 45, another inhuman who, unfortunately, has proven himself utterly unworthy and is harming us even more greatly at present.)

To study Buckley’s firm embrace of White Supremacy – which he justified as being, in Mr. Buccola’s words, “contingent and temporary” rather than “absolute and permanent” – is, for any compassionate and empathetic human being – but especially for a Person of Color – an exercise in forbearance and forcible self-restraint. His (sense of) Privilege is profound, especially in its misguided, insulting and demeaning paternalism.

As the author points out, he was possessed of a “long-held belief in the inferiority of black people” which led him to seek “to form a philosophy of racial hierarchy that he hoped might be deemed more respectable than what was being peddled by the ‘coarse’ demagogues in the Ku Klux Klan.” Hence, he crafted a racially elitist position in which though “he rejected the idea that blacks were biologically inferior,” nonetheless he deemed that theirs was of a type “‘cultural and educational,’ and as a result, the superior white community had the right and duty to uphold the standards of civilization until blacks could show themselves capable of casting ‘a thoughtful vote.’”

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, as I read this passage, I literally exclaimed out loud “Who the f@#k are you, Bill Buckley (to make such a determination)?!?” Thankfully, there was no one else within earshot at the time, although I did find myself apologizing silently to my late and beloved (and very southern and proper) mother, who raised me better than this.…

To return to the book, it is a story perhaps too well told, as, while it informs, it infuriates due to its clearly exhaustive research and generally well-written prose. That we don’t come to the full story of the event that precipitates it until well past its halfway point is a testament to this. But it’s a hard read for anyone of a moderate (let alone progressive) bent and especially so for a liberal Baldwin fan like myself. While I understand that in order to tell the full (and a good) story one has to examine a reality from multiple perspectives, it takes a formidable amount of self-control to parse the passages on Buckley and to be exposed to his Privileged inhumanity in painstaking (though appropriate) detail.

And, yet, if you’re a believer in social justice, you must, for in it lies not only the enemy’s territory to be mapped but a like-minded genius and trailblazer’s approach to doing so … especially so that we can carry forward this continuing fight grounded both in historical and present realities. In the Age of 45, we’ve been reminded just how much more work remains in this regard – admittedly, often appallingly and invariably damagingly so – which means that we need to prepare ourselves to play the long game successfully … especially as regressive efforts increase in the face of the continuing and accelerating Blackening and Browning of America. Is it not reasonable to expect this dying, racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc., regime to fight even more fiercely as minority status inexorably approaches for those who’ve historically held the reins of power in this country?

So I continue to explore the depths of the depravity and inhumanity as embodied in Mr. Buckley’s life and work, as it prepares me to deal with his successors in this present day. And I am mindful that, though costly, this battle isn’t voluntary … at least not if one truly aspires to live the American Dream and bequeath it to our progeny. Thus, I invite you to join me on this bracing journey of exploration and share that it really is OK to drop as many “This MF!?!”s as necessary along the way….

This is not an act of God. We're dealing with a society

made and ruled by men. ... It is a terrible thing for an

entire people to surrender to the notion that one-

ninth of its population is beneath them.

- James Baldwin (1965)

We, the fortunate few....

With you my love we're going to raid the future

With you my love we're going to stick up the past

We'll hold today to ransom 'til our quartz clock stop until yesterday.

- Vivian Stanshall and Steve Winwood

Arc of a Diver

As another college reunion approaches - and I've taken a vacation which affords me some time to drop off the grid and reflect - I'm perusing the Report to catch up with the lives of my classmates in the past five years, which is a pursuit that's alternatively gladdening and saddening, as I find that life is at middle age. I look forward to seeing some of them again when we gather in a month's time, but I'll also perceive some noticeable absences, including both folks who can't make it back to our alma mater that weekend and peers who've gone on to glory long before what we'll always believe should have been their time....

I consider it one of the great privileges of my life to have gone through such a rich, transformative and crucible period with such an incredible group of people. When we met, we were all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, naïvely ambitious and convinced that we would change the world someday soon. Now, for the most part, we've become those future pillars of the community that we envisioned ourselves to be, albeit a little heavier, with a little less and/or greyer hair and decidedly less style than that to which we aspired in our youth. (Hey, it was the 80's after all....)

And though we attended one of the world's most elite universities, the proverbial golden ticket if there ever was one, the reality is that life has affected us just as much as everyone who hasn't been so lucky, either then or now. Yes, some of our classmates have founded companies, made millions (while donating a generous portion to our alma mater) and otherwise triumphed in business. Or they've become renowned professors and experts to whom others turn for wisdom and guidance. Or they've become among the most trailblazing and innovative professionals, especially doctors, lawyers and consultants. Or, in one case, a US Representative and, in another, a US Senator. Of course, many have lived less glamorous but nonetheless accomplished lives, about which we'll hear when we gather again in person at our reunion … or if we read the Class Report beforehand.

In fact, we've reached that stage in life where some of us have kids who have themselves graduated from college (including our alma mater) or are in it at present, while others' progeny are at tender ages that those of us with older children remember fondly and yet don't want to revisit. It's a point along our paths at which virtually all of us have garnered a realistic sense of our capacity to contribute to this world and yet age leads us to wonder about what lies ahead with a mix of tamped expectation and just a touch of concern. This is, in reality, a reasonable perspective: after all, statistics tell us that we likely have more of our journey in the rearview mirror than on the open road before us.

And while most everyone has experienced the vagaries of fate that inevitably attach themselves to adult life, on the whole, we've had good lives and, virtually to a person, can count ourselves among the fortunate few. Which is what makes the premature demises of an appreciable number of our peers so sad.…

For example, among my friends, Jacquie Cook died in a moped accident in France between our freshman and sophomore years; Roland Heacock, on his way to medical school after a graduation that was just a week or two away, was permanently injured in a car accident and passed away little more than a decade later never having had the chance to fulfill the promise that was so evidently his; and other friends - like Desiree and Craig and my track buddy John O'Brien (known as "Obie" to his friends) and the incredible and accomplished Bill Patterson, to name but a few - are no longer here to celebrate with us and to enrich our lives as they did during that glorious gauntlet of multi-faceted growth. Fortunate though they may have been in their youth, a long life was not one of their endowments, a reality for which we who survive are meaningfully poorer, especially their families (including the ones that some of them didn't live long enough to have).

Many assumed - including, I suspect, most of us - that because our lives were charmed in our youth, so, too, would be the rest of our journey. But for far too many of those we knew and loved, this was not to be.…

This, I have learned, is one of life's greatest lessons: no matter how gilded the path, into each and every life triumph and tragedy will enter, the primary differences between us reflecting the balance of these two that fate ensures none of us can ever anticipate.…

So I hope that Willy chooses to return to the site of our youthful hijinks so that we can reminisce about our shared affinity for Stevie Winwood, one of the many prized gifts from him that also include an improptu wardrobe consulting session before his first college date. And I hope that Lance will choose to come this time so that we can relive some of the many great times that we shared (the majority of which, of necessity, will have to be sanitized if family is near). It would be great to catch up with Rondo, a pleasure I've had too infrequently in the intervening years. Hopefully, my beloved track buddy Mark Henry and I can reminisce about our exploits (but not replicate them, as sprinting is not a good idea for either of us now). And I hope that I get to spend some quality time with Eric Steven, with whom I was cool but not that close during our youth but to whom social media has bound me, thankfully, in the past half-decade; and John Tormey, whom I couldn't pick out of a lineup but whose online persona is invariably mirth-inducing and often profound. And (now) Dr. Alan Jackson, with whom I shared my first Uno's pizza so long ago, and (now) Dr. Stephen Taylor, the first 18-year-old I ever met who didn't have a driver's license (because he was a New York City [read = subway] kid). And Curtis and Errol and Fred, whose fertile minds stretched mine beneficially so long ago. So, too, with Jamie and Bruce and Keith and the two Terrys - and Frank and/or Jon? - and many other brothers in time with whom I spent long hours envisioning our futures and thoroughly enjoying our then-present moments. And Susan and Paola and Sarah and Glenda and Jennifer and Erica and Eva and Julie and all of the other fierce classmates who convinced me a generation ago that the future was indeed female. And if I don't see them, I will wish them well telepathically as I so often do now, the memories of our shared developmental experiences and escapades ever-emblazoned upon my soul.

And yet another bit of fun: I'll get to introduce my wife to many of the legends about whom she's been regaled, since she and the kids and I were only able to make a single event at my previous reunion (though I did manage to keep my streak of attending all of them intact by doing so).

As I prepare to rejoin these incredible people, I am ever more thankful for the influences that they've had in my life, both large and small. I treasure who they used to be and am excited to learn more about who they've become. And I pray that whatever the future holds, each of us will find profound meaning in the moments that lie ahead of us, however many they will be. What I can say unequivocally now is that each of these experiences of the eternal now with which we're gifted will enhance the blessings that we've been in each other's lives in and remind us just how fortunate we've been to make our journeys together, both then and now.…

When we were young, we couldn't wait to grow up.

As we got older, how we wish time would slow down just a little.

 - Anonymous

The 'Quiet Costs' of White Supremacy

Privilege is when you think that
something's not a problem
because it's not a problem
for you personally.

- David Gaider

I am an Affirmative Action baby, and a proud and unapologetic one at that. The college cheating scandal that came to light this week illustrates why: funny how we didn't hear but one of the traditional twin narratives that typically accompany - and purport to summarize the criticism of - Affirmative Action, that it displaces more qualified people and that it creates a sense of inferiority in its recipients. I'll let you guess which one of these has been left out of the ensuing, (supposedly) mortified (and, in reality, mortifying) conversation.…

No, Lori Laughlin's daughters aren't the least bit perturbed by how they were admitted to a college for which they did not otherwise qualify. Given that one of them was a budding YouTube sensation, I think it's fair to conclude that she doesn't feel stigmatized by her unearned good fortune. And now that the scandal has broken, we haven't heard a peep about her feeling apologetic, have we? Don't get me wrong, I realize that it's hard to be as connected from a billionaire's yacht, but still.…

Maybe it's just me, but I wasn't the least bit shocked by this week's revelations. They were simply the latest confirmation for me of an ugly reality about our beloved country that we refuse to acknowledge: America has always treated the rich and powerful - who, it must be noted, are disproportionately white - far better and, in fact, provided them with a different set of rules by which they could live and prosper more easily than the rest of us.

In fact, the greatest sense of entitlement in the history of this country does not attach to the poor and deserving who need our social safety net in order to survive, but to the denizens of the other end of the spectrum in our society who've always been accustomed to virtually unfettered and unlimited access and opportunity, irrespective of their qualifications. And, in a cruel but revealing twist, it is they who have claimed the mantle of meritocracy and enforced it so brutally against others who would presume to rise above their station. That the rest of us have had to make our way in this world and our climb up the rungs of our society by facing questions as to our qualifications and by forging ahead into the strong prevailing headwind of supposed meritocracy - how cynical, hypocritical and utterly false this pretense has been proven to be yet again this week! - is one of these 'quiet costs' of White Supremacy. I've never heard of George W. Bush being asked to apologize for his Yale and Harvard educations, but I and so/too many of my friends have been challenged in this way over the years. I wonder why?

(We all know - but far fewer acknowledge - that the reason is one word: Privilege.)

And, truth be told, I've never bought into the inferiority thing, even though my belief in myself was challenged constantly when I was younger. It wasn't about being Black or unqualified. For me, it was about competing at the very highest levels in our society. After all, I'm 'just' a bus mechanic's and librarian's son from inner-city Detroit, right? When I doubted myself at Harvard, it wasn't because of my African-American heritage, but because, in the parlance of the place, so many of my classmates were so 'wicked smart.' As were so many of my colleagues on Wall Street.

But, then again, so am I: Lord knows it takes a whole lot of smarts - in both book and street forms - and moxie to make it out of the Murder Capital of the World in the 1970s to the Ivy League, Wall Street and beyond. And I found the same to be true of so many of my fellow first-generation mainstreamers (whether they were Black like me or brown or white or of any other shade ... or gender or sexual orientation or religion or national origin or...). Actually, it turns out that our race/difference was, has been and is irrelevant; what has always mattered most is the level of cultural fluency that one is able to evidence in the most elite settings. In other words, can you fit in and then flourish?

Which brings us back to the reality that the biggest challenge is access … to educational and professional opportunity, to a better life, etc. So while I condemn their methods, I understand the motivations of the wealthy and powerful parents who've been exposed - and, indeed, charged - this week: they want what everyone wants, a great/better life for their children. That they would have to bend the rules illegally for their progeny was simply an inconvenience to the Privilege (read = Entitlement) that they've felt and to which they've become accustomed. And, again, funny how no one has raised the cost of the undue pressure that having this access has had on their children. Hmmm....

No, only the Black and brown (etc.) recipients of formal Affirmative Action - and to an appreciably lesser extent, female ones - have been subjected to the 'inferiority tax,' yet another pernicious 'quiet cost' of White Supremacy (in its most dominant form, that of [Patriarchal] White Male Hegemony). Hey, guess what, America? It turns out the rest of you are figuring out what we Affirmative Action babies have always known: not only are we not less qualified, but, in fact, we're far more qualified than many of the covert beneficiaries of access … except we're the only ones who've and been made to feel bad and/or be questioned about it.…

So where does this leave us? With yet another social proof of a reality that we have long denied/downplayed and with which we must grapple: the (increasing) class- and race-based inequality in our society (and, indeed, world). Simply put, despite the flowery words of our founding documents, this country was designed to be and has been fundamentally inequitable, especially with respect to the allocation of assets and opportunity, throughout its history. It has always favored the rich and powerful - who, again, it must be noted, are virtually exclusively white - over the rest of us.

In fact, it's a cruel irony indeed that the rights ascribed to American citizens in those founding documents were actually conceived to apply only to white male landowners. Since then, of course, white men of all stations have garnered and enjoyed more of these rights than any other group, so ours remains a fundamentally unequal - and, in many cases, largely separate - society. This reality has propelled two opposing trends in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement a half-century ago: increasing access afforded to People of Color (including via Affirmative Action for small portion of them) and a backlash against their progress from whites who've felt threatened by it.

How else can we explain the frightening and damning paradox that after our country elected its first African-American president, it then elected one of its most profoundly bigoted? And while the cynical and politically powerful (and, again, virtually exclusively white) would have you focus on terrorism by brown people of a different religion, the reality is that virtually all terrorism that we've experienced in our country in the last decade has been perpetrated by alienated white males, in no small part emboldened by our current abhorrent president (and in reaction to our previous one who was markedly different in a very obvious way), though there is a deafening silence about the latter reality in our national discourse (at least from the members of one group within our political leadership).

What's sad is that this is all so very simple. The truth is that we need to accept and address three realities about our situation in order to make ours a better country for us all:

First, we must acknowledge that we all want the American Dream, and especially want it to be true and attainable for our children.

Second, we must acknowledge the profound inequality in our society that has made that American Dream but a cruel fantasy for all but the very few at present.

Third, we must provide more equitable access to opportunity in all its forms - educational, professional, social, etc. - which has to mean that we will offer opportunities to the historically disadvantaged for a period of time until it can be proven that the they are no longer excluded by virtue of some immutable characteristic.

Oh, yeah: we also need to acknowledge and address a fourth reality about our society: the time for more equitable access has in no way, shape or form passed. As this college cheating scandal has reminded us, the rich, white and powerful continue to play by a very different set of rules than that available to the rest of us. And despite the cynical tropes propagated in the right wing media, Chris Rock's wry observation is still true: even though he's rich, because he's Black, there are very few whites who would actually trade places with him. So, too, with respect to Richard Pryor's incisive social commentary-cum-comedy of almost a half-century ago to the effect that whites and People of Color tend to have very different - if not polar opposite - experiences of and relationships with the police in far too many communities across this country. And the 'debate' we are having about whether we should honor or disassociate ourselves from the secessionist, treasonous leaders of the Lost Cause who are memorialized in marble and iron in places of honor across our country? And the appalling and immoral exclusion of transgender citizens from equality in serving in our military. And the immoral treatment of the asylum seekers - and especially the youngest, most vulnerable ones - at our borders. And.... These (and so/too many more) are the 'quiet costs' of White Supremacy that must be eradicated before we can be and are all equal heirs to our professed creeds.…

And despite all evidence to the contrary, I must admit a fundamental hope and confidence that I cannot shake: I believe ours will become a far more equitable society in the decades ahead. I know that it will be challenging and fraught with both great progress and troubling regressions, but the trend is so clear to me. When I look at the social engagement of our youth, our most diverse generation yet, I am heartened and inspired to hope that they will make good on the promise of a better world that they represent. And I am comforted by the demographic reality that ours will be a 'majority minority' country in a generation or so: I can't help but believe that the growing numbers of People of Color will virtually force the much-needed if challenging dialogue about how we allocate opportunity in our society. Don't get me wrong, I'm well aware of the myriad issues and developments that could derail us, but I'm even more persuaded by the trajectory of our recent history: the America in which I have lived is a far better one than that experienced by my parents and grandparents, which gives me faith that, in meaningful part but not likely totally, my children and grandchildren - and yours, too! - will experience an even better country in their lifetimes. A perfect one? By no means. But a more equitable and just one? Almost certainly ... if they vote, that is....

I would like to be known as a person

who is concerned about freedom and

equality and justice and prosperity

for all people.

 - Rosa Parks

The cost of passivity....

One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics

is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

- Attributed to Plato (The Republic, 1:347)

Among his myriad contributions to the development of the discipline of psychology was Sigmund Freud's identification of the id as a fundamental component of human personality. Many of us may have first learned about this construct - of ego, super-ego and id - in a high school psychology course long ago, during which time it was quite popular to regarded ironically, but, in hindsight, that is truly an error in judgment. Why? Because today we see the id run amok in the person of someone who is supposed to be our leader - which, heretofore, has meant that he should embody the best in us - but whose actual behavior seems largely ungoverned by any humane restraint of the ego or super-ego. In sum, we have elected our id to be president and the impacts of this lapse in judgment are as horrifying as they are far-reaching.

Who among us believed just a few short years ago that an admitted sexual predator could be elected to our nation's highest office? Who among us believed that a man so thoroughly and utterly committed to the perpetuation of the -isms that continue to plague our society would be given the largest platform in the world in order to do so? Who among us believed that we could choose to elevate someone whose behavior is so thoroughly unworthy of emulation? And yet all of this has occurred and so much more….

According to Wikipedia,

The id (Latin for "it", German: Es) is the disorganized part of the personality structure that contains a human's basic instinctual drives. ... The id contains the libido which is the primary source of its eventual force that is unresponsive to the demands of reality.

The id 'knows no judgments of value: no good or evil, no morality. ... (It contains) the death instinct, (which) would thus seem to express itself - though probably only in part - as an instinct of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms' through aggression.

One can't but help notice the parallels between 45's behavior and this description of the id. For example, we can debate whether he is immoral or amoral, but there's no question that he demonstrates "an instinct of destruction directed against the external world and other organisms through aggression." Further, there is no arguing that he often appears to be "unresponsive to the demands of reality."

"So what?," you may be tempted to ask … which is actually a fair question, so let's address it:

Our very society and the rules by which we've negotiated it in this country for centuries are under siege. Our government, which was ostensibly to be drained of the swamp creatures who steered its focus to narrow and private benefits, has instead been morphed into a platform for corruption and for repression on an unparalleled scale: how else can one describe the self-serving policy prescriptions of so many Cabinet members and the president himself, as well as the abject inhumanity that has been consistently on display, especially relative to People of Color, be they citizens, immigrants, asylum-seekers or simply neighbors from other parts of the world?

Also in, our financial well-being is being rent asunder as massive tax cuts for the few who have the most will be paid for by the children and grandchildren of the many who have increasingly less. In less than two years' time, this administration has made our society measurably more unequal and less democratic, and its judicial appointments will likely serve to maintain if not expand this for quite some time.

And our standing in the world has been greatly eroded, in no small part due to the horrifying and morally indefensible embrace of autocratic leaders around the world, coupled, ironically, with the creation of testy and thus frayed relations with historical allies. As if we believe that in a completely globalized world we can engage in a sort of isolationism that will allow us to reap the benefits of progress without paying any of its costs.…

I could go on, but what's the point?

Just this: that when you take democracy for granted and assume that progress is inevitable, you end up learning the hard way that the forces of regression may ebb but they never disappear. Further, you learn that ignorance is hideously costly, as the enthusiastic embrace of 45 and his policies that denigrate the very quality of life of his supporters demonstrates: perhaps we would be OK watching this train wreck if it weren't so palpably clear that it affects virtually all of us as well. Unless you're among the elite, the impacts of the strategic choices will diminish your quality of life in the present and that of your children and grandchildren in the future. After all, they're going to be paying for our deficits for decades to come.…

So if we choose to learn this lesson in real time, among many things, it means that we cannot and will not take democracy for granted, especially by failing to exercise our franchise consistently. The recent midterm elections highlighted several things that are of import to our more effective embrace of the entirety of our rights, including that our system has flaws that we need to address and that despite these flaws a more significant exercise of our right to vote can result in meaningful, positive change.

This is not a partisan statement, but a democratic one: I urge everyone to vote, especially so that whatever the results we can rest assured that they reflect the true will of the people ... which is not the case when a minority of us choose to cast our ballots.

So, in this spirit, let's put an end to a self-harming fiction to which too many of us have subscribed over the years: every vote does indeed count. In fact, there have been few periods of history that demonstrate this more clearly than the 21st century: from the "hanging chad" debacle in Florida in 2000, to the election of President Obama driven by an historic number of newly registered voters in 2008, to the failure to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016 because many of the more recently enfranchised did not return to the polls as powerfully and consistently (which, when combined with the flaw of the Electoral College, resulted in the election of yet another [Republican] president who lost the popular vote).  In this latest instance, 70,000 additional votes in three battleground states would have ushered in a very different result (which, given the realities of the current administration, is virtually impossible to argue that it would be worse...).

And let's stay mindful of the proof that occurred earlier this month: the midterm elections, featuring a much higher participation rate by eligible voters (many of whom were new registrants) - sound familiar? - resulted in a very distinct curb - if not rebuke - of the current administration and its inhumanity.  It is absolutely critical that we continue to build on this momentum, especially as we work to repair the damage that the Id-in-Chief and his minions have so joyfully inflicted upon us.  Don't get me wrong, we can still argue over policy, but we cannot support the active disenfranchisement of the many by the few, as this is, ultimately, self-harming and -defeating.

In sum, it's up us to be the ego that curtails the actions of the cadre of id-enabling sycophants who've infested our government ... until such time that we learn from our mistakes and hold aspirants to our highest offices to standards of character and competence that inure to the benefit of the many, too.  Will the few always have an outsized influence in our society?  Yes, in all likelihood.  But it is very much possible to effect a far better and more sustainable balance than we have now, which is our collective charge: to restore the small "d" democracy in our large "D" one ... and thereby to live out the promise of our founding creeds for all of our fellow citizens and those who aspire to be alike....

Human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.  We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

A new 'normal' that's not....

If the American people will only keep their temper,

on both sides of the line, the troubles will come to an end,

and the question which now distracts the country will be settled

just as surely as all other difficulties of like character

which have originated in this government have been adjusted.

- President(-Elect) Abraham Lincoln

What did you see this past week during the hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee? No doubt, your interpretation will reflect your politics, at least to a meaningful degree. In the spirit of full disclosure, so do my observations … but, truth be told, there was far more than we anticipated on display. It involuntarily occasioned in me the resort to two questions that I have asked myself a lot during the past two years or so: who are we and what have we become?

Yes, I believe her. No, I don't believe him. Is it possible that Dr. Ford is an exceptionally practiced liar and that Judge Kavanaugh is an exceptionally undisciplined man of integrity? Yes, that's possible, but far from likely....

Frankly, I don't feel the need to wade into an evaluation of the substance of their respective testimonies because I'm pretty sure that everyone's already formed their opinions, but I do think it worthwhile to reflect on what we witnessed, especially to discern what it tells us about what we've come to accept from our legislative 'leaders.'

The first thing that I'll note is that I doubt very seriously that any testimony would have changed the outcome of the Committee's ultimate vote. Seriously, how much better could it have gone for the witness alleging misconduct and how much worse could it have gone for the nominee?

Though clearly nervous and dealing with very painful memories, Dr. Ford was more composed and illuminating than we had a right to expect: I don't think that anyone doubts that she suffered trauma whether or not you agree that it was due to the nominee's indiscretion. Judge Kavanaugh, by contrast, was frantic, arrogant, hostile and uncooperative to say the least. Hardly the picture of a neutral, self-possessed professional capable of incisive discernment in situations of great import.

That Dr. Ford was vilified by so many who've never met or can in no way claim to know her reveals something of long-standing about us that's also quite ugly: simply put, we have a problem accepting and believing women who allege abuse and tend to default to defending the men who've been accused.

Given the prevalence of sexual assault in our society, this is as repugnant a habit as it is self-harming: more than half of us are female and an egregious number of our female fellow citizens have experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault. Let's amplify and clarify this horrific reality: recent studies have indicated that as many as 81% of our mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, nieces, etc., have been sexually harassed and that one in six (17%+) of them have been sexually assaulted. Let that sink in: four in five of them have been harassed and one in six of them have been violated. This is who we really are.…

[Don't believe me?  See for yourself (among many, many, many such possible citations): https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587671849/a-new-survey-finds-eighty-percent-of-women-have-experienced-sexual-harassment and https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence]

That we reflexively tend to blame the victim is the clearest possible indication that we need to change virtually completely. I suspect that as women become better represented in the leadership ranks of our society, especially relative to their proportion as more than half of us, this will change, but we shouldn't have to wait until that significant amount of progress is made. This. Must. End. Now.

Now let's take a closer look at the behavior that the SCOTUS nominee exhibited: he exhibited righteous anger, which would be expected from someone whose very character had been questioned completely; but more than this he exhibited an inability to manage his emotions in a way that conveyed his qualification to be the supreme arbiter that he has been recommended to be.

According to Rule 1.2 of the American Bar Association's (ABA's) "Model Code of Judicial Conduct":

A judge shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence

in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall

avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.

Does blaming your need to address the allegations against you on political opponents suggest that Judge Kavanaugh meets this standard? Or being snarkily oppositional when being questioned by a female senator? Or choosing not to answer many if not most of the direct questions - especially about matters of case law - posed to you?

Leaving aside this clear failure from a professional standpoint, I pose this question for us to consider in evaluating a person seeking a lifetime appointment to the most influential judicial body in our country: if a female nominee were to have displayed such a range of powerful emotion and seeming inability to maintain her composure, would her performance garner the plaudits that the Judge's has from many quarters? Pardon my French, but NFW.

I could go on, but what's the point? You may not like the last-minute nature of Dr. Ford's appearance before the committee, but you can't deny her courage and patriotism in doing so. By contrast, you may like Judge Kavanaugh's case record, but you can't deny that you learned a little if anything about his judicial perspective during this process but did witness him melt down and often appear to be, at a minimum, lacking in composure (if not undisciplined and a good bit unhinged).

That a one-week FBI investigation has been agreed to now that the Judge's nomination has been approved along partisan lines and sent to the full Senate for a vote is of little solace given the seeming depths to be plumbed in understanding more about his actual conduct, especially as it contrasts with his testimony. If we truly wanted to get to the bottom of the multiple swirling allegations now attached to Judge Kavanaugh, why would we choose such an abbreviated period within which to accomplish it? The answer, I suspect, is that virtually regardless of the findings, most minds on both sides of the aisle are already made up, so what remains is just flawed spectacle as political theater: I don't care what your politics are, but you have to agree that this is no way to govern our society.…

No, I don't think Judge Kavanaugh should be approved for a seat on the United States Supreme Court: I didn't like his judicial record before and I am completely mortified by the display of his character to which we've all been treated in the past week. But more important than this, two things absolutely must change as a result of this latest quite avoidable fiasco:

First, and most importantly, we have to take women's assertions of sexual assault seriously and respond to them compassionately, both from a social and legal perspective. Second, we have to require full FBI background check investigations of all SCOTUS (and/or Appellate Court) nominees. Were we to have observed these two commonsense behaviors, in all likelihood, this abomination of a nomination process would likely not have occurred, both because we would have known about the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh long before he was presented to the Judiciary Committee and they also would've had a fact-based record to evaluate them by and then to make the decision about whether his candidacy was appropriate. In the absence of this reasonable approach, we've managed to maim a brave woman, discount the experiences of millions of other sexual harassment and assault victims, expose the arrogance and naked will-to-power of a scion of East Coast bastions of power and privilege and reveal once again that our politics is irredeemably partisan, at least under a Republican hegemony.

This. Must. End. Or America will.…

Nearly all men can stand adversity,

but if you want to test a man's character,

give him power.

- Attributed to President Abraham Lincoln

(but more likely said by Robert G. Ingersoll)