Social Justice

1. The U.S. is near the bottom of the developed world in children’s health and safety. Yes, that is a fact. In things like infant mortality, immunization, and death from accidents, we’re ranked 21 in the OECD nations (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).

2.The U.S. betrays the young people we’ve told to stay in school, go to college. College debt is crippling our youth. The U.S. Congress won’t reduce the interest rates, and colleges increase tuition.

3. Home ownership – the main source of middle-class wealth – has mostly been destroyed.

4. Our prisons are more full than any other country. And prisons are there for smoking marijuana. But the robber barons of Wall Street…they keep getting their big pay packages and no prison time.

5. And healthcare isn’t a basic human right in the U.S. Healthcare is in every other civilized country. Here, you get what you pay for. Sometimes it feels like that’s the way the U.S. works: If you can pay for it, you get it. But if you can’t pay for it, you’re screwed.

Read the details in Pal Buchheit’s column, “Common Dreams,” May 19, 2012. “Five Facts That Put America to Shame.” Subscribe to Reader-Supported News.

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“The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

And that atttitude produces such extreme dysfunction that the U.S. political system cannot “deal constructively” with the challenges that face our country.

So say Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, political scientists. The two have been studying Washington politics and the U.S. Congress for more than 40 years. Generally, their writings criticize both parties. But in a Washington Post article of April 28, 2012, they write a very compelling article that, quite simply, is pretty darn scary.

How have we gotten here as a country? What happened within the Republican Party that has moved it beyond any sense of reason to work collaboratively to confront the problems we face as a country?

Mann and Ornstein explain the situation like this:

— The realignment of the South, moving away from the Democrats after the civil rights revolution.

— Mobilization of social conservatives after the 1973 Roe versus Wade decision by the Supreme Court.

— Anti-tax movement launched in California – Proposition 13 – in 1978

— Media changes like the rise of conservative talk radio in 1989, Fox News, and right-wing blogs.

But…and this is a very interesting “but.” Mann and Ornstein note that the most powerful push to the right comes from Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.

When Gingrich entered Congress in 1979, he initiated a strategy to convince voters that anyone would be better than the incumbents. Within 16 years – both a short and long time, I think – he got people to run against Washington, Democrats, and Congress.

Norquist, of course, founded Americans for Tax Reform. His Taxpayer Protection Pledge “binds signers to never support a tax increase.” Norquist’s pledge doesn’t even allow the closing of tax loopholes. And Republicans sign it. Those running for office sign it in order to get elected. Those in office sign it to stay in office.

Norquist is just a citizen, like you and me. He isn’t an elected official. He isn’t giving mega bucks to campaigns. He’s just soooo powerful.

Is there hope for change? Mann and Ornstein think things will get work after the 2012 elections. Mann and Ornstein observe: “If our democracy is to regain its health and vitality, the culture and ideological center of the Republican Party must change.”

That means that you and I have the power. We the voters.

It’s not okay for Congress to be dysfunctional. It’s not okay for elected officials to despise one party so much that you simply put a stop to governing. It’s not okay for voters to get so frustrated that they don’t vote.

This is not the way to run a country.

I read this article because I subscribe to Reader Supported News. It’s free. It’s informative. Check it out yourself.

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I subscribe to Reader Supported News. Clippings from all over the world – but pretty much all about the U.S. Liberal. Progressive. Free but it solicits gifts and I give.

— On 04-04-12, Robert Reich asked if I wanted social Darwinism or a decent society. I want a decent society. I don’t believe in survival of the fittest. Our society is only as good as the rights and basic human needs we ensure for all. The U.S. doesn’t do that so well and too many elected officials and those running for office want to continue doing it poorly.

— On 04-06-12, Naomi Wolf from the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper described sexual humiliation as a “tool to control the masses.” We have lots of sexual humiliation in the U.S. From poor sex education to limitations on a woman’s right to choose…. And now we have the sexual humiliation of body searches without any justification. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court.

— On 04-04-12, David R. Dow of The Daily Beast suggested we might want to impeach our Supreme Court Justices. Did you know that every democractic country in the world – except the U.S. – has term limits or age limits for its supreme judges? And in the NYT of 04-09-12, Paul Carrington suggested that we “bring our justices back to earth.”

— Another time, there was an article about the focus on private enterprise in the U.S. We privatize war. We private hospitals. We privatize prisons.

We claim that private enterprise does stuff cheaper and better. That’s just bullshit. Instead, what we get is worse for more.

Remember BP and its Gulf Oil spill? And Halliburton and and? You think that’s quality?

The privatization of wars and rebuilding had huge huge huge cost overruns. And still we sent reserves and military over for repeat tours. Prisons, hospitals and education all privatized. Mostly that hasn’t turned out as well as nonprofit enterprise. And we’re still talking about privatizing social security. Oh please!

Private enterprise does not do stuff cheaper or better.

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A wonderful and beautiful, sad and inspiring column by Providence Journal writer Bob Kerr. I called to thank him and we talked.

“Civil unions are a fraud. They are a low-rent, out-the-back-door way of saying ‘Yeah, we care but not all that much.’ Civil unions attempt to confer the impossible status of being a little bit equal. They tell gays and lesbians they can have some of the rights but not all of the rights of other citizens.”

How can we do this to people – this separate but equal absurdity? Embarrassingly, immorally, the U.S. tried that with race. And the U.S. is trying separate but equal again with marraige.

If your religion or beliefs are anti marriage equality, fine. I don’t agree but you can live your life your way. Just don’t impose your personal beliefs – your religion – on the rest of us.

The right to marriage equality is a secular issue, a public issue, a basic human right. Marriage equality is a civil right.

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I read the Nation magazine, a wake-up call to the false slogans and ignorant exceptionalism of the U.S.A. In a recent issue, I learned that fifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. warned us against false slogans.

What are false slogans? Things like “tax relief” and “pro-life.” As if taxes are always bad so we need tax relief. As if abortions and birth control mean that one is anti life.

Dr. King warned against the false slogan “right to work.” He warned us that the purpose of “right to work” is to “destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone.”

Thank you, Dr. King. I regret that we are not paying adequate attention to you…yet again.

Read the great and marvelous and wonderful and happy article “Teaching Good Sex,” by Laurie Abraham, November 16, 2011, New York Times. Abraham writes about this amazing teacher, Al Vernacchio, who teaches human sexuality at the Friends’ Central School in Philadelphia. What an admirable teacher. What an admirable school. Every youth – every human being – deserves to learn about sexuality and sex in this way. To understand. To feel secure. To be sensitive. Read the article. That’s the world I want. That’s what I want in my schools and in my community. Sadly, this is all too rare.

In October 1991, Anita Hill made women’s rights infamous again. Check out October 24, 2011 issue of The Nation magazine and read the articles about Ms. Hill’s struggle…and the struggle that continues today. If you don’t have an Anita Hill story yourself – which too many women do – then read about Anita. And read her new book, Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race, and Finding Home.

And if you think we’ve come far enough, read The Chronicle of Philanthropy‘s 09-22-11 article about CEO pay. The pay of female CEOs still lags that of men, according to the 2011 GuideStar compensation report.

I was 9 years old in 1957. I lived in France part of that year. I was going to l’Ecole des Baumettes in Nice, my father’s hometown.

On September 25, in Little Rock, Arkansas, 300 U.S. Army troops stood guard as 9 black children were escorted to Central High School. Why the Army troops? Because just a few days before, unruly white crowds had forced the children to withdraw. But on September 25, those kids went to school. Finally, the white people couldn’t stop them.

(Thanks to the New York Times for reminding us every day what happened.)

Remember all my blogs about emotional triggers? Remember neuroscience and psychological research that proves that emotions trigger all human decisions? And there are 133 emotions. But who can remember that many? So I always remember the 7 emotional triggers identified by the direct marketing industry: anger, fear, greed, guilt, flattery, exclusivity, and salvation.

Here’s my story, why I founded the Women’s Fund of Rhode Island.

I’m a white, heterosexual, well-educated, affluent woman. I win – except for gender. I’m advantaged, privileged because I’m white, heterosexual, well-educated, and affluent. And by the way, I was born white and born heterosexual. And my parents paid for my education. And my advantages help me get jobs.

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Why are we so uncomfortable talking about gender issues, issues of race / ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class?

Wait a minute. Who is uncomfortable talking about these issues? I suspect the disenfranchised and marginalized are not that uncomfortable. I think it’s the “dominant” or “privileged” that find these conversations so uncomfortable.

I’m not uncomfortable talking about gender bias. I’m a woman. I’m part of the marginalized group. I’m ready, willing and want to talk with men about their mostly unearned and invisible privilege. I don’t want to be impolite or attack. But we have to talk about this stuff. And men don’t need to feel threatened. We’re socialized into these norms. And we won’t make change unless we talk about them. But men often are uncomfortable in these discussions.

Barack Obama chose to talk about race / ethnicity in public. But too many white people are uncomfortable talking about race / ethnicity. Too many heterosexuals are discomforted if the talk turns to sexual orientation.

How unfair that we make the disenfranchised raise the issues and lead the dialogue. Just another example of privilege and power trumping the marginalized.

Years ago, I was presenting a workshop to a full room at the AFP International Conference. I was talking about unearned and invisible privilege, and social injustice. I asked the audience: “What does privilege look like?” I didn’t have a chance to start my next sentence and say “Privilege looks like me, Simone Joyaux.” (And then I have this whole spiel I recite.)

Because as soon as I asked what privilege looks like, one of the audience members stood. I thought he had a question so I invited him to speak. His response: “You asked what privilege looks like and it looks like me. I’m a white man.”

He said it first. He had the courage to stand up and show what privilege looks like. And then I joined him. I said: “I’m a white, heterosexual, well-educated, affluent woman. I win, except for my gender.”

You know who you are, sir. We spoke at the end of the session. Thank you again and again for standing up in the room – with all the privilege – and owning your own. Thank you.

If we the privileged don’t have the self-awareness and courage to stand up and speak out, shame on us. How dare we expect the marginalized to do this work.

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