One voice

I've been doing a lot of listening lately.  At our dental office, our assistant and hygienist came into the office and said to me, "You have to watch The Social Dilemma, the documentary on social media."  I did.  I went home and watched it within three days and I had my children watch it.  Then the other day I was digging a little bit on what Coleman Hughes has been saying (Coleman Hughes is an upcoming brave young black man who is participating in our national dialogue whose thoughts I appreciate) and he linked me to a podcast by Sam Harris and John McWhorter entitled, The New Religion of Anti-Racism.  Days after I finished that podcast I listened to another podcast Sam Harris had put out with Tristan Harris entitled Welcome to the Cult Factory.  All of these podcasts caused me to reflect deeply.  What is it that I believe?  Do I take in media/social media that only confirm my biases?  Am I prone to being influenced by false conspiracy theories like The Flat earth Theory?  Can we come to a universal truth in our nation?  Am I speaking out?  Those are all hard questions to answer.

Everyone knows that America's hot button today deals with race and interracial relations and has been the subject of controversy since May when the George Floyd case occurred.  Because it is such a hot button it has created what John McWhorter and Sam call a "religious" following of people who call themselves anti-racists.  Everyone has been virtue signaling and joining this "religion" white or black to prove that they, themselves, are not racist.  They confirm their biases through youtube videos and facebook posts (watch the social dilemma and listen to the Cult Factory) digging themselves further and further into their ideology.  Voices that have spoken up saying that the group Black Lives Matter has a political agenda or just reaffirming that black lives matter but also all lives matter have been harangued, harrassed and in some cases fired from employment.  Because of this many are afraid to speak their opinions and we are looking to people like Sam Harris and John McWhorter to be our voice.  I have been afraid to speak out.  Something that John McWhorter said struck me deeply.  He said,  "...we've got to learn how to stand up to these people and say no and it can't only be the occasional weird person like you or me (referring to he and Sam Harris) who doesn't mind an argument and for some reason doesn't mind when people yell at them.  Everybody's going to have to learn that you stand up to this sort of person. You tell them that you are not going to agree with them and that includes that you do not think of yourself, as for example a racist.  And then, this is something that is going to be a major adjustment...which is that they are going to get called a white supremacist, for example.  You're going to get called a dirty name by a person who is usually educated and/or very articulate and they're going to call it to you loudly.  They are going to say it again and they are going to spread it on twitter.  We have to realize that that can happen without the sky falling in, and I'm gathering examples of people who actually have the nerve to stand up to it, who keep their jobs, who watch progressivism continuing to happen because if we don't do this we're going to see our institutions taken over by this perversion of what progressivism is by people who genuinely think of themselves as doing good.  But we can't be scared of being called a racist to such an extent that we let all this utterly misguided, underthought out, manipulative nonsense shape what we thought of as intellection, the arts and moral philosophy."  He is right.  

I've been sitting and chewing on this conversation.  I've been asking myself what I can do.  I've wondered how my voice can be heard.  When Jake started attending school this year he had a teacher who hung a poster/sticker of Black Lives Matter in the classroom.  I thought that was inappropriate and thought I could just have several discussions with Jake about why this was inappropriate and decided that further action, at this time, when things can be so wrongly interpreted, was not needed.  However, after listening to these podcasts I decided it was time for my voice to be heard.  I wrote an email to the principal.  The bulk of the letter is below:

    I do not know whether you are aware or not, but there are some teachers that have posted Black Lives Matter posters in the classroom.  While I appreciate their intent, to make the children more aware of the racial tensions and injustices that exist, Black Lives Matter is a  political organization, one that chose an excellent slogan, and should not be promoted in the classroom.  I would feel the same about a Trump/Pence poster, a Biden/Harris poster or a Blue lives matter poster.  Right now, all those things are incredibly divisive in our society and we need more unity, not more polarization.  I am constantly trying to tell and teach my children that most liberals and conservatives can agree on 90% of the issues we face, it's the method of addressing those issues that we disagree on.  I also am trying to teach them that we as a society, can survive four years of whichever president they are for whether it is Trump or Biden, that our democracy has checks and balances and that the constitution really is genius.  We really don't want one party or the other in complete control because then not all have a voice and there is no give and take.  We need both voices and sides to create ethical practices and systems to help all achieve what they are capable of achieving because we should truly believe that all mankind is created equal and has unalienable rights.  So I am okay with teaching about Black Lives matter as a political force but not posting a poster which shows complete support for that political party.  There are appropriate places where they can express their political affiliations, their cars, their social media or their homes.  Critical thinking is the most important thing educators teach and we can not teach that if our biases overflow into the classroom.  I believe your teachers are wonderful and want what is best for the children and what is best for the children is political neutrality.

I have let my voice be heard.  What other way can I let my voice be heard?  I believe action is one way that we can let our voices be heard.  As the old adage says, "Actions speak louder than words."  John McWhorter spoke about how we can address the challenges that enter all lower income communities, but especially black communities, by problem solving three main issues:  

1. Learning to read and learning to read correctly
2. Making long term birth control accessible so young women can plan their families
3. Ending the War on Drugs.

I thought about which of these I feel most passionately about and wondered how I can help.  I don't know enough to know how to begin to end the war on drugs.  I feel very strongly that women should plan families, but I feel passionate about reading.  When I was a teacher, and I had just had Jordan, I took a continuing education class on phonetically learning to read and one of the research points that the instructor gave us was that children who are read to 15 min/day end up in the 90th percentile of students academically.  At that time I thought, if 15 minutes makes that much of a difference what will 30 minutes do?  I made it a goal from that day forward to take the time to read at least 15 minutes a day to my children and most often it turned into an hour.  Those are moments I cherished with my young children.  I didn't worry about anything else during that time.  I didn't worry about math.  I didn't worry about pre-school.  I didn't worry about athletics or music.  The rest of the day they were free to play.  Academically, my children have thrived.  I give credit to the one fact I learned in that education class.  How can I get that to the general populace?  Through a website with suggestions and links to good books?  Also on that website can we advocate for media free children until high school, maybe beyond?  Would anyone like to join me or give me good ideas?  I'm seriously asking.  I have the knowledge.  Help me get it to the people that need it.

Let's leave behind our political affiliations.  Let's work on unity and solving the problems.  While we may not agree on all points, we agree on more than social media allows us to think we agree on.  And, oh, as a side note, social media is run by Artificial Intelligence which has no conscience.  Tristan Harris states in Welcome to the Cult Factory (and also, although perhaps not exactly like this, in The Social Dilemma, "...what is most concerning...is the breakdown of a shared reality and the breakdown therefore of our capacity to have conversations...if we don't have conversation we have violence."  Again, as he said, "We need a new shared reality."  Let's work on that by raising our voices.