Call Me Crazy!

One of the great things about science is that the more we learn the more we can do away with superstitions and practices that have no basis in science. For example, we know that aging is not genetically linked. It is linked to the break down of mitochondria in cells that release free radicals. Therefore, I may not need to diet, exercise, and not smoke or drink alcohol. I might actually do better by drinking red wine, getting enough sleep and being lucky. Science tells us that there is a genetic link to some forms of cancer. Certain markers make some people more likely to develop cancer in their lifetimes than other people. Scientists have worked to develop diagnostic tests for those markers and they have worked for better treatments administered earlier in the cancer’s development.

Science has been amazing and still science is just a method, a tool, a process. It should not have god like power in our lives. Quite the contrary. Scientists recently reported that men may not need to get prostate exams and PSA tests as early as previously recommended because prostate cancer is a slow developing disease and it is more likely a man would die of natural causes than from prostate cancer. I am fairly conversant with the scientific method, medical advances, etc. and I have not one iota of faith in scientists telling me to delay prostate exams or PSA tests. The medical profession and its historical relationship to African-Americans is depressing. The medical profession sought to validate the inherent inferiority of African-Americans since colonial times. The medical profession turned a blind eye to the Tuskeegee syphilis experiments that lasted for decades. The medical profession routinely provides disparate medical treatment to African-Americans. Much of this is documented in a book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington. This book was released in paperback earlier this year.

So call me crazy if I don’t listen to a medical establishment that has viewed my ancestors as sub-human test subjects routinely violating the mantra of 'do no harm.' It’s unfortunate that unlike the majority of the male population in this country I have no basis to trust anything I am told by the medical establishment. Maybe once we have the big talk about race in this country I can move beyond my mistrust of virtually every institution in this culture, the medical profession being only one of them.

The Racism Root Kit

My business partner and I created an experiential workshop called Bridges & Boundaries© which gives the participants an opportunity to look at race/racism/privilege and gender issues tied to race. It is partially didactic and has been a good learning laboratory for us to see the behavior of the culture up close and be able to de-construct it. What has been really enlightening has been the discovery and explication of what we call the Racism Root Kit. Essentially a root kit is a computer program that hides its existence from the operating system. In humans it would be be a set of behaviors that whites engage in when confronted with issues of race to avoid admission of complicity, participation or collusion. It operates to keep out of the consciousness the presence of racist thoughts, behaviors or beliefs. We have identified more than a dozen of these behaviors which we categorized as either offensive or defensive. There is also a similar set of behaviors that people of color engage in when forced to confront their internalized oppression. We are very clear with the participants that those behaviors, beliefs or thoughts do not make them bad people. We stress to them that good people can be burdened with the knapsack of privilege and this is simply about telling the truth about race/racism and privilege.

This concept is a really radical approach to looking at why race is such a difficult topic for Americans to confront. After submitting to several academic journals the article was rejected as not being empirical enough. There is no data set that can be statistically analyzed to prove the concept, which is ironic given it is a new theoretical concept. The real irony is that it is likely the Root Kit kicked in with the reviewers as at some level they were challenged to look at their racism or a more pernicious phenomenon, internalized oppression. So I decided that maybe a scientific approach might be better. That way, the empiricist reviewer would have data that would likely create more internal dissonance. I thought building on the work of a Princeton University psychologist Susan Fiske would be a good start. She conducted research on in-group/out-group recognition using a fMRI, (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) procedure to examine whether the part of the brain that recognizes human beings would light up when exposed to images of out-group members like homeless people or drug addicts. She found that the brain structure did in fact not light up when exposed to out-group members. This means that out-group members were not recognized as human beings according to the neuro-imaging. So how might that relate to race? Might whites not recognize people of color as human beings? If so, is there some physiological component to racism? After some discussions with a psychiatrist at Northwestern University who does research in brain imaging we discovered that race was considered a ‘nuisance’ variable in this type of research and it was unlikely that we could get any research funding to exam this phenomenon. So one of the burdens that I live with everyday in a society built on the premise of white supremacy is a nuisance variable in the minds of my fellow academics. Hmmmm. Then I see an episode of Nova scienceNow on public television where some researchers are trying to discover how human beings learn to speak by looking at the vocal patterns of song birds and to my surprise one researcher was able to get funding to use fMRI technology on song birds. Song birds???? It was then I knew that I was not cut out to be in the Academy much longer.

For all of its contributions to humanity, the Academy is probably the largest concentration of dissociated narcissists in the country. Race, the enduring pathology in our culture is a nuisance variable, and how song birds sing warrants the use of fMRI technology. I believe we will continue to do Bridges & Boundaries© and work with people on race, racism and privilege and not expect the ‘great minds’ of our era to understand, appreciate of even care about such nuisances.

More policing????

So I have a police scanner that I listen to for background noise and musical entertainment. It is interesting having a window on the world of law enforcement that is unedited, humorous, sad, exasperating and surprisingly human. Listening has given me insights into the people that do jobs that I wouldn’t want to do. You know, man with a gun at 2 AM or Rottweiler attacking people in an alley or a deceased person who hadn’t been seen in several days. I wouldn’t want to be involved in foot pursuits through yards or writing parking tickets because the local alderman has her knickers in a twist. I wouldn’t want to direct traffic at 7AM on a frosty January morning nor would I want to take a violent 14 year old who is off his meds to the hospital. It seems that we expect much from the police. Somehow they should be the human refuse department, picking up the debris of lives shattered by any number of pathologies. Drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, unemployment, domestic violence all seem to show up on the ‘routine’ calls that go out everyday. In our collective fatigue around what plagues us as a society we have abdicated our responsibility to oversee and hold accountable public officials. We allow our politicians to tell us anything year after year. We allow our law enforcers to behave without any shred of oversight until the most egregious are finally arrested and incarcerated for the same crimes they were meant to prevent. We won’t admit that policing will not solve our drug problem, our gun problem, our domestic violence problem or any of our problems any more than the fire department can prevent fires. What will it take for us to shed this delusion that more policing, more aggression, more oppression will solve centuries old problems in this society? Will it be the complete collapse of law and order that is necessary to see that policing isn’t the answer? With 7 million of our citizens incarcerated, on probation or parole, more policing does not seem to have worked. Can we admit we have been wrong and move on to a different solution?

Daniel Quinn wrote a book entitled The End of Civilization in which he stated, “ Old Minds Think: If it didn’t work last year, let’s do more of it this year. New Minds Think: If it didn’t work last year, let’s do something ELSE this year.” Is that such a hard concept to understand or are we just not smart enough to figure it out. Or are we just insane, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Sure the police have a tough job. We are the one who make it tough. We can’t communicate with each other and we can’t work out our own conflicts and we certainly can’t level the playing field that leads to economic crime like drug selling, burglary, and armed robbery. And neither can the police. So we will continue and watch more people get incarcerated and more lives damaged and expect the police to fix our problems.

Ae we going to stop talking about it???

Anyone who participates in the economy has felt the impact of the increasing oil prices. From gas in our cars to food on our tables, everything has increased except wages. Our oil dependence which has been a campaign issue since the 1976 presidential campaign has never been adequately addressed. There is no comprehensive energy policy that serves consumers, only a policy that benefits the oil industry, constructed in secret by the Prince of Darkness himself, Dick Cheney. Americans seem to be looking for the silver bullet that will allow them to be the largest consumer of energy per capita in the world. The problem with continuing to depend on oil, even with its energy output is that once it is exhausted, it is gone. It doesn’t really matter how less efficient ethanol is if there is no oil to substitute for it because we used it all. With car sales slumping and fuel costs rising it’s no wonder that the American auto industry is in trouble. It continues to produce vehicles that have poor fuel efficiency and industry executives seem to believe that oil prices will somehow miraculously fall. And we can’t blame ‘greedy’ oil executives either. They are simply fulfilling their legal obligation to their shareholders to produce profits. In a market system they could be allowed to operated unfettered or politicians could show some political and moral courage by providing direct competition to oil companies that are reporting all time record profits.

Maybe the solution to our energy problems is comprised of many smaller solutions. For example, ethanol may be the best hope for vehicle fuel once an enzyme can be discovered or created that will break down saw grass, wood chips and yard waste into a usable fuel. The reality is that corn based ethanol is a dead end. Sugar based ethanol, like what is used in Brazil, might be the future if we can get along with our Caribbean and Central American neighbors to produce enough sugar to power some percentage of our vehicles.. What would happen if a large city or county decided to invest in the type of technology to produce ethanol just for its municipal fleet? Would that be enough incentive for auto companies to produce more ethanol powered vehicles and enough incentive to oil companies to transition to energy companies in order to stay profitable. What a political statement it would be to have the second or third largest city or county in the country not dependent on oil companies to fuel its fleet of vehicles.

What if cities that have long periods of sunlight invested in solar technology for municipal buildings or required solar power for new residential or commercial construction. What if those cities provided incentives for community energy efficiency like a windmill or two on blocks where the residents wanted them to supplement electricity provided from the grid? What would happen if windmill farms were built to support the electrical grid in high demand areas that were owned and operated by a municipal corporation? What if public transportation systems converted their bus fleets to electric or natural gas vehicles or created a system that converted used cooking oil to bio-diesel for use in its existing fleets. Used cooking oil is disposed of at no cost to restaurants, air quality is improved by reduced petroleum based exhaust and fuel costs for public transportation systems is reduced increasing their operating profit. What if airlines invested in their own fuel system, using aviation fuel created from coal? The United States Air Force is already moving in the direction of using synthetic fuels for its fleet to eliminate dependence on foreign sources of oil. What if all new residential construction moved away from using fiberglass insulation and used cellulose insulation which lowers heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. Of course it is more expensive but it has the potential of taking homeowners off the electrical grid because their houses could be constructed to be energy independent. Of course large electric utilities would find themselves with an energy surplus and the cost of electricity would be pennies a day. The lobbyists for the oil industry, the electrical utilities and the auto industry would be working feverishly to prevent the country from moving in this direction as their corporate profits would be sliced significantly. Why average citizens would be concerned that oil company profits would be reduced is beyond me. Being the self-interested consumers we are, there would probably be celebrations in the streets when fuel costs for a gallon of fuel are .80¢ instead of $4.60.

In and of themselves none of these policies would have a significant impact on our oil dependency. In concert, the United States could lower its dependency on foreign petroleum, spur economic development in those industries and have the impact of being a leader in environmental politics and energy efficiency. With India and China needing ever increasing amounts of oil, American energy independence could re-establish our economic dominance for the next half century. It is pretty clear that government does have a role in energy policy but it’s first step is clean its own house first before expecting other industries to change.

Another way to stop gun violence

I don’t think anyone would disagree with the statement that the Framers of the American Constitution did a remarkable job beginning the great experiment in democracy. The Bill of Rights, which lays out protections for Americans from governmental oppression, is a model for emerging democracies. However, the Framers could have been a bit clearer on their intentions around the 2nd Amendment. Of course they couldn’t have imagined criminals having access to assault weapons but their lack of clarity left interpretation of the law to the Supreme Court. At any other time in our country’s history leaving that task to them might be ok but the current Supreme Court lacks the intellectual capacity to make intelligent decisions that serve the majority of the American population.

So if we cannot rely on the Supreme Court to protect the safety of citizens in large metropolitan areas where the majority of handgun violence occurs, what might be a better alternative? First, let’s not look at this as a politico-legal question. Let’s look at it through the eyes of an economist. If the goal of the bans imposed in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington DC is to reduce gun violence those bans have clearly been failures. They seem to work like sanctions against countries that don’t work and play well with others. Those that the sanctions are directed against are never impacted. Only those who have no power in the system are impacted. Therefore, sanctions or bans will not work in reducing gun violence. In a country that has a history of gun ownership, the United States is home to about 250-300 million firearms. Banning them in five cities will never address the presence of 250m guns nationwide. This idea seems to make the gun the problem. What if the gun is not the problem? What if it is the irresponsibility of the gun owner? What if government said that gun ownership is ok as long as there are mechanisms that encourage responsible ownership? For example, what if a citizen needed a license to own a firearm, insurance on the firearm and completion of a firearms safety course with range qualification to own each and every firearm he or she wanted? What if citizens could only purchase firearms from licensed gun dealers operating from a fixed location? What if crimes committed with firearms carried enhanced penalties while non-violent drug offenses carried reduced penalties? What if the ownership of a gun carried legal responsibility and an increased economic burden? Might law abiding gun owners take the responsibility of firearm ownership more seriously? I believe the answer is yes.

Instead of operating in an own/don’t own paradigm, let’s change the paradigm. As long as the question creates winners and losers, there will always be conflict. And the conflict will be the central issue, not what the policy is intended to address. Those from Handgun Control Inc. and their opponents at the NRA continue to make the issue about guns or no guns and not responsible gun ownership. This means the issue will be fought out in courts around the country. With more than 30,000 firearms deaths reported in 2005 (CDC report), continued conflict won't save lives but making a legal item available with increased responsibility can't do any more damage than lives lost to gun violence. Additionally, what is not discussed is the levels of non-fatal firearms injuries. The CDC estimates about a 2:1 ratio of injuries to fatalities meaning more than 60,000 people per year are injured by guns. Many of these injuries result in loss of productivity, need for physical rehabilitation and the social impact of violent victimization. The economic costs of gun violence are significant and taxpayers are not immune from paying this cost. Families of victims pay the emotional cost and the rest of us pick up the health care, criminal justice and economic burden of not having an intelligent conversation about guns.

Our challenge as citizens is to let our elected officials know we are watching and want them to change how they think about problems. The average elected official tries to find the path of least resistance when dealing with the tough issues. Gun violence is a tough issue. The old approaches haven’t worked, the Supreme Court lacks the intellectual capacity to address the issue and it is left to our politicians to use good sense to address the problem. Without us the good sense never enters the conversation, only platitudes and sound bytes from those we elect.

A different look at immigration

John McCain faced opposition within the Republican party during the primaries because of his positions and voting records on immigration. Like gun issues immigration seemingly breaks down around a dichotomous argument between legal and illegal immigration. So what if we change the questions a bit by asking some fundamental questions.

First, why do people from other countries come to the United States? There appears to be two major reasons; economic and political. They are fleeing economic deprivation or fleeing political persecution. Americans welcome immigrants from both groups as long as they come to the country legally and assimilate in a manner to American culture. One of the ways assimilation occurs is through citizenship, a right and responsibility earned through naturalization. So why don’t all immigrants enter legally? Some are felons who wouldn’t be admitted, some are from countries where the quota for immigration has been met and a very small number want to do the country harm in some way. Some are so desperate to leave their situations that adhering to the laws of this country are less important than surviving. We have unfortunately created a situation that the children of those who enter illegally who are born in the United States become citizens. Maybe this is part of the problem.

What would happen if that incentive to break the law was removed? What would happen if those who entered illegally could remain here but would have to register, pay taxes, be gainfully employed and have no option for citizenship unless they left the country for a period of time and re-entered legally and completed the naturalization process? What would happen if we got the best of both worlds, people motivated to work and pay taxes, who wouldn’t be a drain on the government or the economy and we didn’t continue to give them an incentive to break the law by holding citizenship for the lawbreakers’ children? Might we not end the divisive, xenophobic debate with a win/win for immigrants and the descendants of immigrants?

A New Day In Politics

So the unthinkable is happening. A man of African descent is poised to compete for the Presidency of the United States. This election should say much about the progress of this country. But don't expect too much. First, change usually comes incrementally not radically. Second, the election of a Black president does not erase the four hundred year history of Africans in this country. All will not be forgiven and forgotten especially when the reality of the Black experience in America is still troubling. Incarceration rates, foreclosure rates, education completion rates, poverty rates and unemployment rates paint a picture that all is not possible for African Americans. Rather, they tend to be mired in the despair of being in a country that has never resolved its relationship with them. It would be a mistake for Barack Obama to take on the burden of creating a dialog around race so that whites will feel comfortable talking about how well off Black folks are. He didn't create the situation and does not have the power to fix it. Let's not have great expectations of a single man who has already accomplished something remarkable. Let's look at ourselves to see what role we play and how we can move from here.