Be still and listen

 After reading accounts of the Fox interview, I was struck by the interviewer's inability to set aside preconceived notions and actually listen. Why would a journalist use the platform to attack? He could have a meaningful conversation and gained insights if he has been willing to listen.

The Fundraiser Anxiety Dream

I had that dream again. It's the fundraiser dream. We're on the air making great case arguments, followed by inspiring closes.

Nobody is calling. Nobody is pledging on-line. In a moment of clarity, I understand the audience has gone elsewhere. The CUME is down 50 percent. Time spent listening among the core has dropped from 10 hours a week to four hours a week.

I shared my concern, and got ignored. "I was too focused on the numbers."

I pointed out we couldn't be considered a community service if we aren't serving anybody. The response was cool. I don't know how it turned out. My mind moved on. The dream ended.

Then I thought, "I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore."

Must We Fear the Other?

Making a Difference

 

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out; judge righteously; defend the rights of the poor and needy.

- Proverbs 31:8-9

To be an activist is to speak. To be an advocate is to listen. Society can’t move forward without both.

- Eva Marie Lewis

Public Broadcasting was set up in 1967 to serve its communities with emphasis on serving the underserved. I still believe in this. I consider this to be one of my core values, and why I was drawn to public broadcasting.

Three Evils

Some Things Will Never Change

The triple evils are racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. MLK, jr.

And he went on to say, "The great problem and the great challenge facing mankind today is to get rid of war … We have left ourselves as a nation morally and politically isolated in the world."

Has anything changed?

Racism

It is still with us. FBI data released in October 2023, showed there were 11,643 reported hate crimes in 2022. Other datasets show the numbers are likely much higher. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, for example, reported U.S. residents experienced about 246,900 hate crime victimizations each year between 2005 and 2019. (USA today) Statistics show most hate crimes are based on bias against people of color.

Economic Exploitation

The wealth gap continues to grow. This is from the Federal Reserve:

Black Families’ Wealth

• Black families’ median wealth was $45,000 in 2022, growing 66% from 2019.
• As a group, Black families owned 2% of total household wealth despite making up 11% of households.
• Black families had 16 cents per dollar of white median wealth.
• The Black-white gap grew to $242,000—up $47,000 from 2019

Income inequality is a global issue with several causes, including historical racism, unequal land distribution, high inflation, and stagnant wages. As gaps increase thanks to crises like COVID-19, the world needs to take action in education, labor market policies, tax reforms, and higher wages. (various online sources)

War

Of immediate concern to Dr. King was the percentage of African Americans fighting in the Vietnam War. According to the Library of Congress, African Americans made up 31% of the ground combat troops in Vietnam, while African Americans made up 12% of the population. Most of those fighting on the ground in Vietnam were draftees. Today's army is all volunteer.  

Big picture, there was concern funding for the war took funding away from social programs. In the 60's, the government spent on both the war and domestic projects. The economy over-heated and inflation went up. The increases in the cost of living affects the poor more.

Internationally, war affects women and children the most. It also displaces people, drives immigration,  increases poverty and suffering, and causes famine.

There are more conflicts now than at any time since the Second World War. "Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed, stating that peace — the United Nations’ raison d’être — “is now under grave threat”, observed that people’s sense of safety and security is at an all-time low in almost every country.  Six out of seven worldwide are plagued by feelings of insecurity, the world is facing the highest number of violent conflicts since the Second World War and 2 billion people — a quarter of humanity — live in places affected by such conflict.  Recalling the Secretary-General’s words that “the world is at a key inflection point in history,” she underscored the need to rethink efforts to achieve sustainable peace." (United Nations)

Can things change? Yes! Will it be easy? No! Change I'll come about if we address the root causes of war. What? King would refer you back to the first two Evils on his list. West Point offers more perspective: Bumbling leaders, ancient hatreds, intransigent ideologies, dire poverty, historic injustices, and a huge supply of weapons and impressionable young men.

The Harvard Business Review (Ross Kanter) came up with ten reasons people resist change. The application was for business change, but I think the same reasons apply to social change.

Loss of control

Excess uncertainty

Surprise! surprise!

Everything seems different

Loss of face

Concerns about competence

More work

Ripple effects

Past resentments

Sometimes the threat is real 

Without change, there can be no progress. If there is no change, the number affected will climb beyond two billion. The world will be at war.

Hate

 Lack of Love is Indifference

"paradise is a world where everything / is sanctuary & nothing is a gun."

- Danez Smith, "summer, somewhere"

I looked at postings from the supporters of Donald Trump, and I understand they will never find sanctuary as long as they hold onto hate. Is it hyperbole, sometimes.

At other times, the hate and rage easily lapses into violence.

At a Trump rally in 2022, a Trump supporter explained that in the coming civil war he would murder his Sister, a Democrat, without hesitation. In 2020 there was the incident when a Trump caravan intentionally harassed a Biden/Harris campaign bus. Tailgating with the intent to harass is a crime. Ramming is overt, and involves reckless endangerment.  The January 6th attack on the Capitol demonstrates how easily hate can result in violence. Trump called them patriots.

Going Deeper

Strong emotions can make it impossible to think, reason and make decisions. And the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. Hate is not about indifference. Hate is intense and unremitting and can easily motivate violence. Hate usually stems from fear, insecurity, or mistrust. (MedicineNet)

Hate has a very strong pull. Psychology today provided insight. Aristotle says, “hate rises without previous offense, is remorseless for the person experiencing it, incurable by time, and strives for the annihilation of its target.”

Darwin, in 1872, described hate as a feeling that lacks a distinct facial expression and manifests itself as rage.

Typically, hate is viewed as an extreme form of dislike, an amplified version of anger, disgust, or contempt and a readiness to do harm.

Psychologists believe that hate is most likely to emerge in the presence of moral violations particularly when the targets of hatred are perceived as bad, immoral, and dangerous. It is not surprising, therefore, that politicians frequently vilify their opponents using negative terms.

If you are consumed with hate it will make you crazy and old before your time. (cs&n)

According to the Psych Matters website, It’s important to note that all these reactions affect only the hater, and not the hated, breaking down your nervous – immune – and endocrine system, and your mental well-being.

Manipulated by an algorithm

Letting go of hate takes a realization that you are consumed by hate and a willingness to change. The fires that feed hate and rage on social media are unremitting. Stepping back, taking a breath is hard when all you see and hear reinforces the hatred. It is evil and it could consume all of us.

"Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath! Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil." "But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness." "Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly." (Psalm 37)

Stand - In the end, you'll still be you

 

By fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute–the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor in other words, we can to a certain extent change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world.
- Dorothy Day

So, who would you classify as unworthy?

• The working poor? Despite increases in the minimum wage, millions in this country cannot make ends meet.
• The single mother living on food stamps because her paycheck won't stretch beyond day care and diapers.
• The man begging on the street who lost his family, leading to an avalanche of depression that he could not afford to treat.
• The immigrant working the fields or the meatpacking plant? Immigrants were on the front line during the pandemic.
• Women?
• People of color? According to Oxfam, Millions of people today work in jobs that pay shockingly low wages, provide scant benefits, impose irregular schedules, offer unsafe conditions, and abuse their rights to stand up and speak out. In essence, these workers are denied the basic right to “decent work."

When we undervalue people, we undervalue ourselves.

Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
- James 5:4

Discrimination is holding us back

According to an article in Forbes, race-based discrimination is estimated to have set America back over $50 trillion since 1990 alone. Other estimates forecast that eliminating race-based discrimination would generate 6 million jobs and $5 trillion in American economic power in just five years. -Jan 15, 2024

CNBC reports the wage gap costs women in the U.S. about $1.6 trillion a year, a new report finds. Women earned 78 cents for every dollar that men made in 2022, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.

Immigrants increase the supply of labor, which increases the supply of goods and services that people need; their consumption, entrepreneurship, and investment also increases the demand for labor, creating better‐​paying jobs for Americans elsewhere in the economy. -CATO Institute

12.4% of Americans now live in poverty according to new 2022 data from the U.S. census, an increase from 7.4% in 2021.

Changing the Way We Think

Together, we should be looking for solutions. We should focus on the problems. Instead of demonizing the poor, immigrants, hunger, the homeless, women, and people of color, we should be working for ways to allow them to grow and prosper. We should be listening to them. We should make sure we treat people with respect and make sure they are allowed their dignity. The United Nations agrees that poverty is not only deprivation of economic or material resources but a violation of human dignity too. The concept of human dignity is based on a particular pattern of perception: of perceiving humans as beings rather than things. -church-poverty.org