For Whom?

My wife shared with me last night that our neighbors are in a panic because their grandson is at risk of not graduating high school for academic reasons. I didn’t think too much about it.

Fast forward a couple hours and my youngest starts yelling in the middle of the night so I head downstairs in the dark and when I get to his room, he just says I want to lie down. So I cover him up and zombie back up the stairs to try to get back to sleep.

But I can’t.

I start thinking about the kid at risk of not graduating and start thinking about how I will stress the importance of academics and studying and critical thinking to my children.

And I envision working with my oldest on reading his history books in high school and I envision talking about: breaking down the chapters, writing down key words, knowing definitions, and making connections between ideas, dates, and important figures.

I have no idea what time this was: it could have been midnight it could have been 3am.

And I envision talking to him about the humanity in our history and not shying away from the ugly facts but addressing them and trying to think about ultimate and proximate causes.

And I remembered reading Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of The U.S.

 

And I envision talking to him about how they rolled slaves into the bottom of the ships like they were logs and that many of them died in the bottom of the ship during the voyage from the sheer madness, the claustrophobic madness of being on their backs unable to move or get up, all the way from Africa to the United States…on a sailing ship -6 to 8 weeks.

I couldn’t get back to sleep.

EPILOGUE

I recently reviewed yet another student loan bill of mine and will wince and feel my stomach drop every time I have the gumption to even look at one.

However, as the culture wars rage and as I view from afar and sit quietly as a certain ilk refuses to look at our country’s history with unbiased, honest, authentic eyes, I value, supremely, such a small thing I learned raking up student loan debt.

When someone is telling you this or that is great and even better, this or that is the greatest. Like: This is the greatest country on earth.

You, yes you, are always permitted to ask: For whom?

As Powerful As We Make Them

Thinking about gestures and symbols and upbringing.

Colin Kaepernick not standing for the National Anthem has some people upset. Really upset.

Consider Dale Arnold from WEEI hoping that Colin never has another good day in his life because as he put it, he was raised to respect veterans.

Question: How does not gesturing during a song disrespect veterans?

Also consider this: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military-jan-june13-suicides_01-15/

“Suicides by active duty U.S. troops last year exceeded the number of servicemen and women killed in combat in Afghanistan.”

Gestures and symbols are powerful. Dale Arnold wishes ill to another man because he opts not to gesture.

Question: Are gestures and symbols only as powerful as we choose to make them?

Shouldn’t there be some cognitive dissonance when the suicide statistic isn’t met with as much disdain and incredulity as a jock kneeling during a song?

Can’t we begin to question our so-called values when suicide kills more veterans than warring enemies without public uproar or even public acknowledgement? Yet some soon-to-be-unimportant athlete chews up the news media for hours on end and draws out the ire faster than a speeding bullet when he doesn’t gesture like the masses.

Question: Isn’t it all backwards?

We’ll send you to war and honor you with platitudes and gestures galore when you die but we won’t think critically, at all, about sending you to die or even take care of you should you survive war as you die waiting in line for treatment. You, yes you.

Isn’t Dale Arnold putting the cart before the horse, blindly obeying, thinking uncritically, unquestioningly about what mommy and daddy told him to believe, and in essence flipping epistemology on its head all in one fell swoop of wishing life-long ill on Colin Kaepernick?

It doesn’t matter if Plato referred to justified, true, belief; what matters is what mom and dad told you.

Question: Who told Colin Kaepernick what to believe?

Who is right? Which set of parents? By what measure?

Ah, questions, questions, questions.

Again, gestures and symbols are powerful and used to great effect to influence thoughts and behaviors.

Maybe I’m just saying that the suicides of veterans should matter to the likes of Dale Arnold and Kate Upton just as much as upright gestures.