Angry: To Be Seen

Even when you don't see color, you still see race

Things you should stop saying: 

"I don't see you as black"

"I don't care if you are black, white, red, green or purple, I'm going to treat you the same/I love everyone the same"

"I don't see color."

"Aren't we all just one human family? There's just one race--the human race."

Hold on a minute. In your last post, didn't you just say race is societal and cultural construct?  Haven't you opined about the freedom of just being a person while living abroad as opposed to being defined by your race? Aren't all of the statements above just expressions of that very same sentiment.

I get that it can be confusing to say one wants to be judged as a human being and not defined by their race and then object to statements like the ones above.  The key to reconciling that seeming contradiction is by understanding a couple of key things.  

Race is real. Yes, race is a social construct but that doesn't mean it's not real. There are things that occur in nature and there are things that are man-made, but both man-made things like cell phones and cars and race as well as naturally occurring things like trees and elephants and skin tones are real. When you act as if race doesn't exist... well, that's kind of like crossing a highway without looking because cars are "just man-made constructs." It reminds me of one the nastiest responses I got to the first post in this series.  The offended person declared that he just refuses to accept racism, as if in so doing he could make it go away.  My post angered him because it raised an issue that he was determined to believe did not exist.   Race is vitally important to acknowledge because it still determines so much about what the experiences of different people will be like.  

When you say you don't see color, you're lying:  There are no green or purple people.  The no-nonsense race educator Jane Elliot lays it out in this old Oprah Winfrey episode far better than I could.  This statement reduces race to skin color, which as has already been pointed out is not entirely how people view race. It creates a false reality and then dismisses that reality. Pretending we don't see color (and that's what it is--pretending; the same people who said I don't see you as black would sure as hell not let me date their daughter.) allows us to also to turn a blind eye to the injustices meted out on the basis of race. 

These statements are anti-black. They imply that there's something wrong with being black. You disagree? How does the phrase "I don't see you as black" come up in the first place?  Usually it's in the context of something negative about black people.  People would say "I don't see you as black" to reassure me that whatever criticism was being launched at black people in the aggregate didn't apply to me. "We don't you mean you,"  friends would say. "You're not really black anyway, just really tan." The result of this "compliment"  for me was deeper self-hatred and shame for my blackness. As if being black would just be the worst thing ever.

These statements are often used to silence. Here's an example I shared with a friend on Facebook Messenger.  She'd asked me what was wrong with just seeing everyone as part of one human family. Here's what I said:  Think about it this way: Let's say you have a #metoo story and you're telling me about it.  And I say something along the lines of: "Ugh that is so awful. And so upsetting. I wish you wouldn't talk about it. I mean I don't even think of you as a woman. I just think of you as a person. Honestly, I wish we could all just forget about gender and just appreciate each other as humans, ya' know?"  That wouldn't be cool, right?  It would be a way of shutting you down, preventing you from talking about things that make me as a male feel uncomfortable or challenged.  I would imagine women want to be treated as equal, with respect, and to be free of harassment without their identity as women being erased.  It's similar when it comes to race.  Dr. King didn't say "I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be recognized by the color of their skin."  He said he didn't want them to be judged based on the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

I want to be seen. I do not want to be judged based on what you see.

Dispatch from Coronaville: All Quiet on The Classroom Front

The latest news from the White House has me feeling testy tonight.  Apparently, President Trump is insisting that schools open in the fall, threatening to withhold federal funding for those schools that do not comply . Further, he is fussing at the burdensome safety requirements school districts would like to put in place if they do open. Apparently Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is chiming in, demanding that there be no hybrid classrooms, no combination of remote and in-person instruction. Nothing less than full,five days of instruction is acceptable. 

It seems like we are taking a massive gamble as the school year approaches.  The single, most consistent mass gathering of human beings in our society is school.  It's like a church service or crowded bar five days a week, for seven hours a day. We are gambling that the virus will not spread like wildfire through the schools, that even if it does most cases will be so mild we'll barely notice because at least so far children seem to not be hit as hard by COVID-19.  We are gambling that the teachers and staff, many of whom are decidedly not "young and healthy" will somehow emerge unscathed as well. (We  seem to have forgotten that twenty one public school teachers in New York died of the coronavirus this past spring, out of a total of fifty city education personnel. Fifty! But you know that's normal. Having fifty educators die in a month's time in one city is pretty par for the course.  They were probably all old anyway.)

And this gamble is based on what odds? It can't be based on how adeptly we've handled the pandemic. By every measure our nation has failed colossally to contain this virus. We stand alone, as the one country who just never got this thing in hand.  Other countries re-opened their schools, but they also got their case numbers down. Their infection trajectory followed a curve our country has never been able to realize. So the gamble isn't based on our handling of the virus.  Really it's based on one thing and one thing only: The fervently held belief that at the end of the day the coronavirus is really no big deal. It's not really that dangerous. Not that many people have really died. No precautions are really needed. I will grant that that the one thing that has held true is that our death rate has been declining for quite some time now. Part of our gamble is that opening our schools will not affect that trend.

Kevin Baxter of the Los Angeles Times is quoted in The Week talking about the opening of major league sports. Here's what he says: "When the nation awoke on the morning of March 12, 1,323 Americans had been diagnosed with the coronavirus and 38 people had died," he wrote. "The general concern and panic were so great, MLS and every other professional league in the country suspended play." But on the eve of soccer's return, "twice as many Americans test positive for COVID-19 every hour today. And we're averaging nearly 15 times as many deaths per day now as we had total on March 12." As Baxter asks, "if it was too risky to play then, why is it safe to come back now?" I think the same question can be asked of schools as well.

Schools need to open. Believe me, I get it. I understand the economic toll on our country, and the mental health and academic toll on our students.  But what the United States has shown itself too immature to handle is a situation where there are no good solutions.  Faced with two harsh realities, we have not done the adult thing and dealt with that head on. Instead, we have childishly decided that one of the realities, well, isn't real.

Right now it's quiet on the classroom front. We teachers and our pupils have been safely ensconced at home since March. But in a little more than a month, we will be called to the front lines. We will no longer be in safety of the rear echelon.  We will suit up in masks and/or face shields and join grocery workers, medical professionals, and others as essential workers, in the thick of the fight. And we will bring the children with us, shoving them into the very heart of the danger on the assumption that what we've seen so far will hold true--that they won't really be affected, that they won't be felled in droves.

Here's what gets me about all the people hand-wringing over the economy and carrying on about the threats to their liberties: They're getting their way. Aside from the occasional zealous Costco employee, no one is stopping you from doing whatever you like. My gosh, I am so over Americans complaining about the threats to their liberties like they live in Hong Kong or something. We are spoiled. The slightest inconvenience is a violation of our rights. Come on.  Recommendations and mandates alike are routinely ignored. Everything continues to open.  Whatever oppression these people think they are experiencing is way overblown. So what we're going to find out is if they are right. If the virus is no big deal, then I will be quite happy and there will be no need for me to extend any apologies for disagreeing with the virus-deniers and corona-minimizers earlier, because they got what they wanted and it turned out fine.  But if this goes sideways, and we see our children and teachers mowed down like tall grass, you're going to hear wrath from me that will make my Angry posts look tame.  And, I'm deadly serious when I say that if this move to the front leads to serious illness or worse for my wife or children, I will absolutely be re-evaluating some relationships with people I've long held dear unless there is a clear "I'm sorry. I was wrong" coming from them.  We don't need to go there yet, because right now all of us are being forced to go along with this gamble that all your stupid YouTube experts, and questionable graphs from three months ago, and dissenting voices crying peace and safety were right all along.

I just want to be clear who sent us to the front as potential cannon fodder. If we go down, it's on you.

Here's where we stand today. We've had a total of 3,054,069 cases of COVID-19, representing a 5.2% increase over the past three days. This is the third consecutive period of a decline in the percent of increase so that is good news. That said, it wasn't much of a decline. I was only off by about 10,000 in my prediction.  There have been a total of 131,979 deaths, a 1.6% increase, which was more than I projected by about 800. There appears to be just a slight uptick nationally in the deaths.  The next week or so should tell us if that is the beginning of an upward trend or just a blip on the radar. Based on today's percentages, my projection for Saturday, July 11 is 3,212,880 total cases and 134,090 deaths.

Florida continues to ride high with another 23,672 cases in the last three days, it's second highest number of new cases in that space of time. Ohio's numbers dropped some as did Nebraska's.

Total Cases:

Florida: 223,775 total cases, 1% of the population; a milestone for the state.

Ohio: 60,184 total cases, 0.51% of the population.

Nebraska: 20,345 total cases, still about 1% of the population.

In looking at our new deaths, I thought it was worth looking at the overall trajectory since the end of March. I've drawn in in some curves, connecting the dots of the high points of each state to make the path clearer. Since all three states consistently yo-yo between more and fewer new deaths the big picture is crucial to understanding what's happening when it comes to what matters most: life and death. Case numbers are one thing, but far more important is the worst possible outcome for COVID-19.  When we look at the broader pattern, the news for Florida is not good. Overall deaths in that state never really registered a strong decline, and there is clear evidence of upward movement over the past week or so. This calls into the question the prevailing assumption that this latest blast of new cases is not resulting in more deaths. Ohio on the other had peaks in the spring and since then a general decrease in deaths. Note that even Ohio's "up" days have never approached it's April and May peaks, while Florida's "up" days are the third and fourth highest death counts since I began tracking at the end of March.  Nebraska meanwhile has remained remarkably steady.  The most deaths the state ever had in a three day period was 20, and the it's only had more than 15 deaths in a three-day period three times. The state tends to average between 5 and 15 deaths (slighlty more than 1 to 5 deaths a day) and rarely ventures above or below those numbers.

Total Deaths:

Florida: 3,888, a rate of 1.7%. The death rate is much lower for the state than it has been, but given the number of people getting infected, the number of deaths is increasing.

Ohio: 2,991,  a rate of 5%.

Nebraska: 289, a rate of 1.4%

Angry: How I Came to Be Black

What kind of statement is that, you may ask. How you came to be black?  Haven't you always been?  Isn't it obvious?

To you, perhaps.  But take a look at some of my family members:

Grandma

Aunt

Cousin

Uncle

Mom

These are not just distant relatives. They didn't "marry in."  I am not adopted. These are my blood relatives.And it's not just one person, nor was the "race" of my family members immediately obvious. This wasn't the typical biracial, "mom's side of my family is white, my dad's side of the family is black" type of situation. I never thought of my family as white, with the exception of one aunt who married into the family (now two, my younger uncle's wife came into the picture after I was an adult).  But I didn't think of us as black either.  We were--and I stress that this did not seem weird or abnormal to me--just  kind of a melange of everyone and everything.  We were just people. We were family.  We were, in a sense, truly post-racial. (I was quite surprised to learn recently that one of my cousins identifies as white. I don't know why that would surprise me, because she does look white.  I didn't expect her to identify as black either. I just never saw my family in such a binary way. I wonder if she had  journey like mine?)  

My grandparents as I remember them growing up

I grew up in a house with a Chinese grandmother, a half-black, half-Scottish grandfather, one of the daughter's of that union (my mom), her brothers living nearby, and cousins that I guess were white or white-adjacent. The culture was solidly Caribbean since my mother's family hails from Trinidad and Tobago, so while my grandmother didn't know a lick of Chinese she spoke in a strong Trinidadian patois. One summer I drew a picture book and an added an additional, imaginary member to our family, a girl about my age.  In my pictures she looked like all of us--racially indistinct, impossible to categorize with her tanned skin like my moms and her straight hair (I wasn't good enough of an artist to get down details of lip thickness and nose broadness). So while I knew what I looked like, I didn't feel black. I didn't feel white either. I just felt like me. 

 You may wonder about my father's side of the family. They are definitely black. But because my parents divorced when I was seven and I didn't have contact with his side of my family until I was an adult, my mothers side was the family I grew up with. (You can read my account of finally connecting with my dad's side, the definitively black side, in this post from three years ago).

I don't remember when it was that I first knew that other people identified me as black. I'm sure it must have been in school.  People outside of my family had no such confusions.  They looked at me and they knew.  I didn't fight it. I didn't try to correct people; I'm not sure I would have known how.  But I don't think I internalized the identification either.  I didn't feel a strong connection to my black classmates, yet I also knew I didn't belong with the white kids either.  But I never felt a sense of loss or that I "didn't know who I was."  I wasn't traumatized or  "confused" about my identity as the anti-race mixers always warned would be the case with kids like me. I knew who I was. I just didn't know how to explain it to anyone. When it came to time to identify myself in the standardized testing forms, no designation seemed quite right.  Everybody else seemed to know I was black, so I supposed I should put that. Was a I "Other"?  Was I "mixed" (they didn't have that choice on the forms, but I'd heard the term before. I felt it applied to someone like my mom, but it didn't seem right for me).  In a sense, it was more baffling because I looked more black than anyone else on my mom's side of the family (except for my sister).  My brother had straight to wavy hair and one look at him and you knew there was something going on with his family. In some ways, I would have preferred that. I would have preferred people being unsure how to categorize me because that's how I felt. But people looked at me and they knew.

So eventually, I just decided that I knew too. I fully embraced my identity as a black man. I have come to realize that's what race really is anyway for everyone. People look at you, decide "what" you are and that's it.  And when they can't decide, they try to figure it out. "What are you?" they might ask.  And it's not just skin color. I always have felt that using skin-color as shorthand for discussing race fails to fully describe how we categorize people.  There are blonde, blue eyed people who are definitely black (if that hair is tightly curled and the lips and nose are broad there is no confusion).  And there are dark-skinned people who are definitely not black.  Race is ascribed to people based on a combination of hair texture, lip fullness, and nose width in addition to skin color. 

This woman is definitely white.  Right? 

 

In the old days people used to talk about the one-drop rule. If you had a black parent, a black grandparent, if you had just one drop of "black blood" you were black.  I still hear that formula sometimes, these days, mostly from fellow black people.  Make sure your kids know who they are.  Don't let them forget they're black. I don't particularly like that sentiment, not least because it stinks of old white ideas about race. But I get it.  African-American culture has been stained by colorism--the anti-blackness within black people--since the days of slavery.  There have been more than a few people who have tried to deny their blackness, to run away from it, to "pass" and escape the burdens of being black (that's the story of the mother of Gail Lukasik, the woman in the picture above).  But that whole way of looking at race only works when you know family history.  And in the old days, especially in the agricultural communities of the South where everyone knew everyone and it was in white people's interest to know who everyone's kin was, this was very much possible. But today, it's different.  Most people know my kids are black because they know me.  But if you ran into my sons as strangers on the street would you automatically know they were black?  Or would you think they were Latino?  Arabic? Vaguely Mediterranean? 

 I don't even know the answer to that question (though we personally think our older son looks like he could be Chamorro--the indigenous people of the Marianas Islands where he was born).  The answer is not that important to me (though not entirely unimportant. Could my sons be profiled? Probably, even if not specifically as black).

Our oldest son with his godmother and her kids back when he was toddler. Some of the kids are half Filipino, half Chamorro. Others are half Filipino-half white. Good luck sorting them out. Our son fits right in though, doesn't he.

It's not so much about self-identification, as it is about what others decide you are.  Race, absolutely, is a social construct.

I'm not ashamed to be black. I don't see it as a misfortune. I don't wish to be anything else.  I am black and I am proud. I am not, nor do I endorse being, color-blind (more on that in my next post).

But I also know, with equal certainty, that this part of my identity was given to me by my society and culture.  I know that when I watch a movie like The Farewell, I will feel a kinship with Asian people. I will know that sense of connection is authentic and real even as I know that neither they nor anyone else will recognize my claim that these too, are my people.

My grandmother and her sister, my great-aunt Yvonne

  Beneath the badge of blackness that I wear with pride and honor is the deep realization that I contain multitudes; that everyone is my people.

Last photo of Grandma with her living children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren at Christmas 2012, two years before Grandma died.

Dispatch from Coronaville: O Virus Where is Thy Sting

The month of June has come and gone. It's time to take a look back and make predictions for the month ahead. On June 5, I asked if the virus was done with us. It turns out the virus is not done with us, but its also proving--at least so far--to not be as rough as we might have feared.  Here's how it turned out.

I had expected that by tomorrow we'd have 2,981,853 total cases of COVID-19. I was very close. As of today we are at 2,902,359 total cases. That's an increase of 52% over the course of the month, and four percentage points lower than the rate of increase between May 6 and June 6. I was significantly off on the deaths. We have had a total of 129,889 deaths so far, an increase of 19%. That's 15% less than the previous month. I will use these rates of increase to predict our case numbers and deaths by August 5. I'm not sure how long this surge will continue or whether deaths will start to rise in the coming weeks, but I think using these percentages should be fairly safe. So by Wednesday, August 5, I expect we'll see 4,411,585 total cases, which will be over 1% of the population, and 154,568 total deaths.

The virus continues to surge all across the United States, but our death counts remain stubbornly low. We've dropped back to just about a 1% rate of increase in deaths, with 1339 fewer deaths than I had predicted. And while case numbers continue to surge, the rate of increase dropped to 5.6% meaning that we had almost 50,000 fewer cases than I thought we'd have as well. Based on these numbers I'd predict that by Wednesday, July 8 we will cross the three million mark with 3,064,891 total cases and 131,188 deaths.

I didn't bother showing the top two panels today. Florida is so far off those panels, that showing them wouldn't actually give you any new information.

Florida's surge began a month ago and it has not slowed at all. With 31,500 new cases in just three days the sky is limit it seems. Florida now has the the third highest number of cases in the nation, behind only California and New York. Ohio has also clearly ended it's decline and today posted numbers off the first panel for the first time since I began keeping records. Only Nebraska continues to plod along, possibly establishing a plateau of cases. Both Ohio and Nebraska ended up with significantly lower case counts than I had predicted a month ago. Meanwhile Florida had about twice the number of cases I had predicted.

Total Cases

Florida: 200,103 total cases, 0.91% of the population.  Florida's cases increased by a whopping 225% in the past month.  If Florida doesn't slow down--and I do expect it will at some point--the state will have 650,335 cases by August 5, about 3% of the state's population.

Ohio: 57,151 total cases, 0.49% of the population.  Ohio's cases increased by 51% in the last month, about 24% less than the previous month. I would expect Ohio to have 86,298 cases by August 5.

Nebraska: 19,938 total cases, 1% of the population. Nebraska's cases increased by 30% over the past month. I predict that Nebraska will have 25,919 cases by the end of the month. 

Of course the good news in all of this continues to be that there just doesn't seem to be an accompanying surge in deaths.  As I predicted Florida's new deaths did dip and they did dip higher up on the chart than they used to, but they still don't keep pace by a long shot with the continuing surge in cases (though it is important to point out that Florida is registering a higher number of deaths than it has since April). Ohio and Nebraska saw death dips as well, though these states seemed to stick to their generally lower pattern of deaths.  It's too soon to say that virus deaths have been swallowed up in victory, but it is good that these numbers don't appear to be rising.

Total Deaths

Florida: 3,730 total deaths, a rate of 1.9%. Florida's new deaths increased by 40%, significantly less than in the previous month. Based on this rate of increase I'd expect 5,222 deaths by August 5.

Ohio: 2,911 total deaths,  a rate of 5%. Ohio's new deaths increased by 24%, quite a bit less than in May. I predict 3,609 total deaths in Ohio by August 5.

Nebraska: 285 total deaths, a rate of 1.4% Nebraska's new deaths increased by 48% also significantly less than in May.  I project 421 total deaths in Nebraska by August 5.

Angry: The Ugly Truth About America the Beautiful

So let's get this out of the way.  This post doesn't "disrespect the troops."  If anything, pointing out the less than savory truth about this country honors the sacrifices these soldiers made. 

The Tuskegee Airmen. Fought for their country in World War II while their nation was still segregated and treated blacks as second class citizens.  Virtually all black soldiers who served in World War II were locked out of receiving the benefits of the G.I. Bill after the war.

Black soldiers in the Union Army during the Civil War. They fought for their country and for their freedom, even though many of those in the North didn't support emancipation and the vast majority did not see black people as social equals.

Doris Miller, fought with honor and distinction during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  He later gave his life for his country.

James Anderson Jr. sacrificed his life for his fellow soldiers during the Vietnam War even while the struggle for civil rights for him and others like him continued back home.

Members of the 442nd Infantry Regiment in World War II. This regiment was composed entirely of Japanese-American soldiers who fought bravely for their country while that same country kept their families in internment camps.

The Navajo "code talkers" in World War II who served their country with distinction even though that same country had robbed their people of their land, wiped out many of them, and pushed those that remained onto reservations.

 

Kenneth Chamberlain Sr, served in the United States Marine Corps. He would later receive the thanks of a grateful nation when he lost his life at the age of 68 in 2011. His Medicare alert bracelet accidentally went off. When police and paramedics arrived he informed them that he was okay and did not require assistance. The police insisted that he open the door anyway.  When he refused they broke in and shot him.

I can't imagine that these soldiers would expect us to just turn a blind eye to truth out of  "respect" for them.  Don't talk to me about sacrifice.  Don't talk to me about patriotism.  Do you believe so much in this country, this flag and what it stands for that you'd be willing die for it even as this country mistreated you? That's what these men did.  Others, understandably, fought for a country that did right by them.  But these men fought in the hopes that one day their country would do right by their children. I salute them. It's the difference between those who love America for what she is, and those who love her for what she can become.

 

I love America the way I love my family.   I love her mainly because she is mine, not because she is the best. This is where I was born and where I grew up. I have benefited greatly from what the United States offers. I deeply believe in the ideals this nation put forth in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.  A child thinks their parents are the best parents in the whole world. Objectively that may not be the case. An adult understands their parents are deeply flawed human beings. In some cases their parents have left them with lasting scars from the damage they've inflicted. But the an adult child loves them anyway.  Or maybe, they don't. Today I'm calling for my fellow Americans to move from a childish love of country to a grown-up patriotism.

The American geography is indeed beautiful (more beautiful than anywhere else in the world? Maybe, maybe not).  The American ideals of liberty and equality are about the best thing sinful human kind has managed to drum up. But pragmatic America, America in practice has been pretty ugly, frankly.  Sure every nation since the beginning of time has stolen, conquered, enslaved--it just makes it worse when the nation postures to be something else.  It's even worse, especially in the last century, when America has indeed led the world against tyranny and hate elsewhere even while abusing it's own citizens at home. It's the hypocrisy that's especially hard to take.  

The United States as it is today exists specifically because it stole and enslaved.  The land of the free and the home of the brave was once the land belonging to other free people and was home to others equally brave (just not as well armed or used to the new diseases).  We took this land. Just took it.  We liked what we saw and took it. We can gloss it over all we want, but those are the facts. And when the need arises--(and it's always a need, you know)--we'll take it still.  Once that land was taken a slave economy that benefited both North and South helped build the foundation of a economic powerhouse. You can argue that this country could have been built without slave labor, but the fact is that it wasn't.  After slavery, the economy continued to grow on the subjugation and extraction of wealth from people of color.  God shed His grace on thee, we sing. The definition of grace is to be given what we don't deserve, so that phrase is quite apt. If God has blessed this nation (and that's a big if since it feels sometimes like we are blessed in the way that a wealthy and powerful Mafia family is blessed), it's in spite of our actions, not because of them.

It's like an ugly family secret about a beloved patriarch who has done so much for the community. Who could criticize such a wonderful person?  This uncritical love, this obsession with wrapping ourselves in the flag, (which is disrespectful--see the U.S. Flag code, section 8 on respect for the flag, but I guess it's okay if your feelings are positive), weepily singing the anthem and then going apoplectic if anyone so much as bends a knee in complaint is deeply unhealthy. It's in this arena that the same people that are supposedly so thick-skinned and unconcerned with political correctness became deeply, deeply politically correct and fragile. It's bizarre when you take a step back and look at it. 

 If you hate it so much here, why don't you leave! they say. But I never said I "hate it so much here" (though frankly, with this absolute bungling of the COVID situation, I am feeling a little jealous of New Zealanders. But that's a first. Even when living abroad, I appreciated having an American passport, knowing I could always go home).  Why is pushing for our country to face it's ugly past and demand that it live up to it's lofty ideals considered hatred? I think if we all calmed down a little bit and didn't get so hysterical about love of country we might be able to work together to help keep America moving in the right direction, towards righting the wrongs of the past and present and living up to the high standard set in our founding documents.

And I do believe we are moving in the right direction.  Those ideals, bit by bit are being fulfilled.  This is exactly the time not to leave this country because we are making progress. Those who would have us "love it or leave it" feel that way because they want to leave the nation the way it is.  Some of us feel we have already arrived while others feel we are still on the journey. That's the only difference.  Remember the outcry when Michelle Obama said that for the first time in her adult life, she felt proud of her country and right-wing America just about lost their minds?  What kind of person is only now proud of America?  I find that there's a kind of hypocrisy that says it's okay for me to lament the state of the nation (we've got to make America great again) but not okay for you to lament the state of the nation (how dare you not have always been proud of our country). It's kind of like saying "I can criticize my family all I want, but let someone else come after my family and it's on."  The implication is that the country belongs to one group (thus they get permission to criticize) whereas the other group should just be grateful to be here. 

So tomorrow I'll go out and sing happy birthday with everyone else.  I won't ruin the party.  But I hope that like me, your love of country will maybe be a little less shallow this year. May your patriotism mature and deepen in light of the truth. America has been less than lovely. Let's keep working on giving her a makeover. She's looking more beautiful every day.

"My girl America, stop, can't you see
It's not the circumstances that determine who you're gonna be
But how you deal with these problems and pains that come your way
It's for you that I pray with hope for a brighter day
So I say, your deliverance is comin'"

                  --Mat Kearney, "Girl America"

"Land of the free, home of the brave
But Lord knows that we need plenty change
'Cause plenty chains in the past leaving deep scars
But when the sun come down we gonna be stars

The doors are locked where they once stood open
A wound of fear where we once stood hoping
The shattered glass where the bullets broke in
I'm looking for the place that I was born
I'm looking for a way to fix what's torn
I'm looking for America

I'm looking for America

Yeah, you know
Beaten red white and blue for the green we pursue
I'm still looking for you

America who are you?
Underneath the red blue and white?
America who are you?
I wonder who you are tonight
America who are you?
Is God still on your side?
I want to see a nation rise above the fear and fight that haunts these streets tonight

....

I'm looking for your honesty in skeletons
Do away with your ignorance and arrogance
America the land of immigrants
Check the green card and pedigree
Bless the Choctaw and the Cherokee
That we'll never see

I'm looking for America
I'm looking for a place to breathe in
A place I could call my home
I'm looking for America
I'm looking for the land of freedom
A place I can call my own"

--Switchfoot (Feat. Lecrae) "Looking for America"

Dispatch from Coronaville: Uncovering the Past

Pictured here is my great-grandfather, William Thomson III (standing on the left with the mustache), my great great-grandfather, William Thomson II (seated), and my great-great uncles David Couper Thomson and Frederick Thomson. I look at this group of Scotsmen and can't quite believe that we are directly related! (But then I look at Great Great-Grandpa and he looks a lot like Grandpa to me)

One of the blessings that has come to me out of this pandemic is the opportunity to learn more about my family history. During our Zoom chats after our weekly online family church service my mom, aunts, uncles and cousins have been unpacking precious stories of their parents and grandparents. I love every minute of it.  My sister has been doing a deep dive into our family history, mostly on my mom's side. She's been scouring geneaolgy records, making connections and remarkable discovery.  It's been amazing to learn that we are related to a successful Chinese actress, Jacquelyn Chan, who in her eighties is still making movies. We are also related to a former president of Trinidad and Tobago. Most fascinating has been learning about my great grandfather William Thomson III, a successful shipping magnate from Scotland. His brother David, my great-great uncle, began, DC Thomson a publishing company that is still a major media presence in the UK today. It's so surreal to know that these people are not just distantly, but directly related to me. It's been pretty cool!

Moving on to the numbers today: The U.S. is definitely seeing a case surge and that there are hints that a death surge may be on the horizon, like a distance wave beginning to swell. Today the U.S. case total stands at 2,748,775, a 7.4% increase over the past three days, the largest rate of increase we've had since.  That's 22,375 more cases than I predicted. Likewise the total deaths are 128,655,  a 2% increase and the second highest rate of increase since. That's about 1400 more deaths than I anticipated.  With these rates in mind I project there will be 2,952,187 total cases in the U.S. by Sunday, July 5, and 131,228 tragic deaths.

Florida's new case total over a three-day period has dropped to it's second highest number, 22,765 new cases. The state is still way off my chart. Their new cases will have to drop below 14,900 before I can chart Florida again. Ohio on the other hand has posted it's second decrease in a row, and Nebraska has dropped as well

Total Cases:

Florida: 169,098 total cases, 0.77% of the population. At this rate Florida will soon have had 1% of it's total population infected.

Ohio: 52,865 total cases, 0.45% of the population.

Nebraska: 19,390 total cases, 0.99% of the population. It looks like Nebraska will beat Florida to the 1% milestone.

The mortality situation has been a bright spot in this latest surge, but I sense a shadow falling across the land, for Florida for sure. Ohio seems to be maintaining a larger overall downward trend and Nebraska remains steady. But Florida just posted 170 deaths, it's third largest number over a three-day period since I began tracking these stats. It only stands to reason, even with those catching the virus being younger and healthier, that many cases has to have impact on the number of deaths. If the pattern continues I'd expect a drop in deaths on Sunday in Florida and then another large spike three days after that, with the overall pattern being an increase in deaths in the Sunshine State.

Total Deaths:

Florida: 3,616, a rate of 2.1%

Ohio: 2,876, a rate of 5.4%

Nebraska: 282, a rate of 1.5%

Angry: The Table (Another Parable)

Imagine a table, filled with delicious food. A holiday feast of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, all the usual fixing and pies for dessert.  Seated around the table is the White family.

Back in the kitchen, a smaller family, the Black family prepares the food.  They also serve at the table, and clean up when the meal is over.

The years pass, and eventually the Black Family is given a table in the corner of the dining room--kind of like the kid's table if you will. They still do most of meal prep and clean up work, and most of the serving at the White Table, but they also have a table of their own where they enjoy the food that is leftover after the White Family is served.

More years pass, and eventually there is only one Table, and members of the Black Family are allowed to sit at there. Both family members are involved in the service, meal prep, and clean up (though still more of the Black Family even though there are fewer of them). It seems more fair. The Black Family sits at the same table, eats the same food, shares in the same communal gratitude.

But.

It's still the White Family's table. The White Family still decides the menu and determines the background music that plays. They dominate the conversation topics. It's one thing to be able to sit at the table. It's quite another for the table to belong to you. The way things are now, everybody is comfortable (or so it is assumed). But the White family would be uncomfortable if the Black family started picking the menu. They would feel very uncomfortable if they became outnumbered by the Black family, if the Black family started insisting on telling a lot of the stories and choosing the music.  The Blacks are more than welcome. . .as long the Whites still call the shots.

He who has ears, let him hear.

I originally wanted to call this post: "What the White Supremacists Get Right."  But that title was just too inflammatory and I didn't have the guts.  But the thing is, that tiny minority of out-and-out, loud and proud racists understands something that most white people sidestep: The White family is losing control of the table. Most white people just pretend not to notice that they hold the reigns of American society, hoping that they can keep that grip without admitting they have it. But the KKK types speak aloud what this country has long believed:  This is our table. If you sit at it, you sit as our guests (and frankly, they would have preferred that those that are not members of the family not sit at the table, because they correctly guessed that sooner or later they're going to want to change up the menu).  They understand that this nation wasn't created for anyone else but them. Black people were brought here as slaves and if they aren't going to serve in that capacity then they shouldn't be here.

It's pretty awful. It's repugnant to even write it. But, if you take a hard-nosed look you have to concede that the intention of the founding fathers was not to create a nation of different races all equal to each other. 

But. .. thank God, that's not what the founders said.  Blinded by their own prejudice it never occurred to them to specify what they meant when they said "All Men are Created Equal."  They didn't articulate who exactly "We the People of these United States" were. They thought it was well, self-evident.  Without intending to, they stumbled on to a deeper self-evident truth--one that others in this nation: women and people of color would soon latch on to.  That a black man is a Man.  That Men can mean women too.  And ever since then, this country has been waged in an epic struggle to realize the truer, transcendent meaning of those words, to claim the promise of America as their own. The idea of America, not so much the actual place, captured the imagination of the world. I'll just say it: America the nation is kind of a mess. America the idea is amazing (I will unpack this dichotomy further in my next post)

Of course that means sharing the table.  The white supremacists don't want that.  Their mentality is tribal, zero sum. They believe our gain must be their loss.  That's where they are wrong--deeply wrong.  They believe that loss of control of the table, the inability to dictate the flavors and the stories that get passed around will be a catastrophe. A table where others call the shots, must surely be worse.  They picture the dining room in shambles, food on the wall and what's on the plate, unpalatable. They fear a table where you can't be sure who is Black and who is White.  The way things are--the way things were back then, is better they believe. (Forgetting whose been making that food all along whose been keeping the table organized, who originally wrote some of that background music).   But they are wrong.  In time (and it's still a ways off I think--white people still make up more than 60% of the U.S. population) the United States will no longer be a "white country."  And we'll be okay.  We'll learn to like new foods, new music, and we will learn new stories. 

Oh, and for those who say, yeah, when we all get to heaven. Isn't it interesting that we just kind of assume whose table that will look like?  

Are we sure about that? What if heaven looked more like this:

Would you still want to eat at that Welcome Table?  I hope so.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

           --Langston Hughes, "I, Too"

Angry: The Little Brother: A Parable and Reflections on Reparations

*The siblings described below may or may not describe actual children

Imagine two brothers. They love each other but they also fight a lot.

Older Brother is bigger and stronger.  In the room they share, probably 75% of the toys belong to him. He has an an entire shelf devoted to his collectibles, a desk of his own, and lots of storage space. Even some of the toys Little Brother has are toys that Older Brother once owned (okay, okay, still owns. He's quick to clarify that if Little Brother gets too possessive: Remember, that's mine!)  He always gets new clothes, while most of what his brother wears are hand me downs from him.  When they play together it is always the Older Brother who decides what they will play. He is the one who sets the rules of the game, and more often than  not the rules give the Older Brother advantages that will almost certainly lead to victory for him. This frustrates Little Brother sometimes and he cries and says he doesn't want to play anymore. Older Brother will then complain to his parents about how Little Brother refuses to play with him, demanding that they force Little Brother to play.  He clearly has the upper hand. But Older Brother doesn't see it that way.

 When a fight breaks out between the two you might hear howls of pain and anguish from the younger brother.  You come running in to find the Older Brother has manhandled the little one in some manner. When you begin to reprimand the older one, he quickly begins to make the case that is he, not his weeping little brother here, that is the real victim.  He will recount the multitude of injustices that his brother inflicted on him--how he was truly suffering--until he had no choice but to take drastic action. The absurdity that Little Brother is crying but Older Brother was the one wronged is lost on him.  If things get really bad, he will bring up dubious memories from years ago when his little brother threw an object at him, threatening his very life and nothing was done. 

Any attempt by the parents to try to make things more equitable between the two is met with fierce resistance from the older one. The parents might say we're going to buy Little Brother a toy.  Older Brother is appalled. 

 "That's not fair," he protests. "If he gets a new toy, I should get one too."

  "Yes, my son, but you already have so many more toys than your brother does. You've had quite a head start from the years before Little Brother was born."

  But the older brother is adamant. If Little Brother has purchased a toy it is a grave injustice, unless he gets one too.  The older brother feels his parents favor the younger one, and is happy to recount the many ways in which his parents have showed preference to his little brother over himself.

And heaven forbid that you even bring up the disparity in the brothers' experience.  Older Brother would be deeply wounded by even the description of their situation. He would view it as an attack and proof of the parents' preference for Little Brother.

Of course the parents love both their boys very much. But they would like to see Little Brother treated a little bit more fairly.  From their vantage point they can see the inequity and their desire is for that inequity to be addressed.

He who has ears, let him hear.

I believe, in principal, in reparations. It only makes sense.  Granted it would have been better if they'd been administered as promised in the years immediately after the Civil War. But they weren't. And it's not unreasonable to suggest that the debt this nation owes its slaves and their still-uncompensated descendants needs to be paid. You're going to need to put aside some significant time but it's gripping reading:  Ta-Nehisi Coates laid out the case for reparations in a lengthy piece for The Atlantic six years ago (David Brooks makes a shorter case for why he came around to Coates view after initially disagreeing). One thing Coates masterpiece on reparations makes clear is that slavery was not the end the story. The robbery of black people's wealth and property continued through segregation well into the 20th century--even up to as recently as the 2008 housing crisis when it came to light that lenders were deliberately directing black homeowners into subprime loans. After reading his article it's hard to argue that reparations are unnecessary.

It's far easier to argue that reparations while theoretically the "right thing to do" are practically speaking, a political and bureaucratic nightmare (not to mention extremely expensive). But just because something is difficult doesn't mean it shouldn't or can't be done. Developing the reparations package could be straightforward. My opinion is that it should consist of a monthly direct payment (similar to what we did this past spring), free college tuition, a grant to purchase land and/or a home, and interest free loans for small businesses. It should be a one-time, single generation payment. It would not continue in perpetuity. The complicated part would be who gets it. In this New York Times article on what reparations might look like, William A. Darity, an economist at Duke University suggests two  criteria: First the recipients must have at least one ancestor who was a slave. It shouldn't go to just anyone who is black--black immigrants from other countries for example shouldn't be eligible.  Second recipients would have to have identified themselves as black or African American on legal documents for at least ten years prior to the implementation of the reparations plan. This would weed out newly "black" opportunists. 

As for the expense, it's disingenuous of the nation to fuss about the exorbitant expense when the same country build itself on the backs of free labor. Most times when people complain about "how we're going to pay for that" it's really a statement on what you think is worth paying for.  Many of the same people who object to big government expenditures on social programs often have no issue with big government expenditures on the military. 

Coates made his case for reparations not believing that it would ever happen, at least in his lifetime.  But he argued that simply studying the issue, as the bill that Michigan Representative John Conyers proposed year after year in Congress would itself be a step in absolving the nation of it's racial sin. It begins with acknowledging there is a need. That reparations are, in fact, owed.  Two groups of people frankly deserve to be compensated. The Native Americans whose land was stolen and the black Americans who built this nation on the stolen land. When we as a nation, at the very least, acknowledge what we have stolen, and consider how it might be repaid, we will be on the road to healing, on the road to life.

But even if you could navigate that morass of challenges, you'd still have many Older Brothers in this country howling with rage at the "unfairness" of it. 

"If a wicked man restores a pledge, pays back what he has taken by robbery, walks by the statutes which ensure life without committing iniquity, he will surely live and not die."

                                                                                              --Ezekiel 33:15

"America you so pretty
But you not perfect
Confession of guilt is worth it
These people hurting deserve it
Blood on your hands I saw
When there's blood on this nations floor
But it's blood on the upper post of your door
If you need to know"

--Switchfoot (feat. Lecrae) "Looking for America"

Dispatch from Coronaville: My Theory on Conspiracies

I hear a lot of conspiracy talk these days. I mean not, many people actually use that word.  No one really want to claim the title of conspiracy theorist.  Instead, they'll say things like "When you dig a little deeper and understand what's really going on. . ." Or  "The media wants you to believe. .." Or they'll just toss off something like it's a given. "Because the numbers are inflated on we're not really getting an accurate picture. .. "

The root of our distrust of government, science, and the press is often our belief in what essentially boil down to conspiracy theories. Beliefs that some nefarious group is working behind the scenes,invisible masters manipulating the puppets we see towards destructive ends.  Whether its the Marxists, the globalists, Soros or Gates, the deep state, or even the Illuminati, dark forces with sweeping power are at working behind the scenes.

I generally don't believe in conspiracy theories. Here's two reasons why: 

• First, I find that most actors in a conspiracies don't seem to act in ways that are consistent with human nature.  I'm always looking at what someone would have to gain. And in conspiracies generally that's power-broad, sweeping power--world domination even. This is what movie villains typically want, and a lot of conspiracies and conspiracy-adjacent ideas have that flavor. But in general,real life human beings don't function that way.  Lets consider the idea being floated that the COVID-19 numbers are being "inflated."  Who benefits from inflated numbers? Who would want to crash the economy and scare people into believing that a mere flu is this horrible, deadly disease? No one. Unless, of course their goal was to bring the United States to its knees so that they can establish a new global order and rule the world! (Cue maniacal laughter). Yeah, I don't think so.

• Second, vast, far-reaching conspiracies require vast numbers of people to cooperate. The bigger the conspiracy the more foot soldiers you need.  And all these people need to stay quiet and stay on plan. It doesn't make sense. Let's look again at those "inflated"  COVID numbers. For our virus counts to be way overstated (or the impact of the virus to be exaggerated) you would need the organized, consistent cooperation of hundreds of thousands of people in media, medicine, and government, not just in the United States but all over the world (Note the U.S. is not the only country, nor even only one of a few that are struggling with this virus).  The problem is, the more foot soldiers you need, the more likely you are to have people who won't or can't toe the party line.  Human beings are just too emotional, irrational, and undisciplined to keep up with uniform secrecy required of conspiracies.  Some one is going to talk, some one is going to speak up.  Our free press is privately run. It makes it's money from consumers not from shadowy billionaires so if they can find and verify something that will "shock the world" they will absolutely run with it because it means more money in their pockets. If there was a global conspiracy, multiple hungry reporters (not just some lone wolf  YouTuber) would have already uncovered it. No way would they miss a scoop like that.

Much more credible is the banality of evil--what is done in broad daylight, that we choose to look away from.  This is more consistent with human nature: greed, selfishness, pride these are the prime movers of sinful human nature. Like those old backward masking stories (which I don't believe either), there was so much emphasis on the hidden evil messages in "rock music" when a lot of the time what was plainly said in the music was plenty evil enough.  

The problem with conspiracy theories is they let us off the hook. They allow us to look away from realities we'd rather not see (like an actual global pandemic). If the real enemy is a shadowy network of powerful globalist billionaires then we are freed from having to take action.  The best we can do is be "knowledgeable" about "what's really going on" but what does that knowledge translate into? Nothing.

So on to the numbers for today: The U.S. total number of cases now stands at 2,559,047, a 4.9% rate of increase which is higher than the average has been until this weekend but not as a high as Friday's 6% increase. Now is a good time to point out that the percent of increase has to slow due to sheer volume as the numbers rise.  For example if we were to go from 2 cases to 100 cases in three days that would be a 5000% increase. That's a huge jump, but it's only 98 cases.  Compare that to today's 4.9% increase which is a much lower rate, but represents 120,352 new cases over the past three days. A 5000% increase on Friday's total would have brought us to 126,413,445, more than a third of the U.S. population, out pacing the world total by far. Which would be insane. So a slowing rate of increase should absolutely be expected, and indeed that the rate of increase was stable for so long and has now even gone up is quite significant given the size of the numbers involved.

On that note it is good news that the rate of increase for deaths has now dropped below 1% after the brief spike on Friday.  There have been a total of 126,105 deaths, an increase of 0.9% over Friday. Presuming the rates of increase remain steady (which they shouldn't) we would have 2,726,400 total cases by Thursday, July 2 and 127,239 deaths.

Florida's numbers continue to spiral far off the charts. It wasn't possible for me to graph the 23,381 new cases the state registered over the weekend.  Ohio's new cases dropped though, and while Nebraska continued to increase in new cases it's still far from its peak numbers at the beginning of May.

Total Cases:

Florida: 146,333 total cases, 0.67% of the population. Florida is now among the top five states with the coronavirus.

Ohio: 51,046 total cases, 0.44% of the population.

Nebraska: 18,988 total cases, 0.97% of the population.

To me it's clear that, at least so far, the spike in cases is not leading to a spike in deaths. Florida's case surge began around June 17 (really, one could argue as early as June 5). It's been almost two weeks, and the Grim Reaper's heartbeat of deaths in Florida and Nebraska remains more or less steady. In Ohio's case there actually seems to be an overall downward trend in the number of deaths. It may well be that the case increase is not due to testing but increased spread, but it does appear that the spread is proving less deadly, perhaps because it's mostly younger people being infected now.

Total Deaths

Florida: 3,446 total deaths, a rate of 2.4% (Compare to a rate of 4.4% a month ago)

Ohio: 2,818 total deaths, a rate of 5.5% (Compare to a rate of 6.1% a month ago)

Nebraska: 271 total deaths, a rate of 1.45 (Compare to a rate of 1.3% a month ago)