Words

 

Sticks and Stones

They can injure, they can heal, they can start a movement.

Rash words are like sword thrusts,  but the tongue of the wise brings healing.  Proverbs 12:18 

We must believe in the power and strength of our words. Our words can change the world.

- Malala Yousafzai

I was at a gathering last week where two older white guys were lamenting that they couldn't use humor anymore. What they meant was, they could no longer tell racists or denigrating ethnic jokes, without somebody objecting. This issue comes up all the time with these two. 

What they don't realize is the targets of their comments were pretty much voiceless in the past. The insults hurt as much then as they do now.

Self-Loathing

Psychiatrist Grant Hilary Brenner wrote about the corrosive habits people develop in how they relate to themselves, and others. Some labels, for instance, come from toxic places. (6 hurtful words you should stop using, according to a psychiatrist) The article first appeared as blog post for Psychology Today. These words we often use as self criticism, but then turn them around aimed at others.

Here's Brenner's list:

1. Lazy · 

2. Bored · 

3. Hypocrite · 

4. Spoiled · 

5. Stupid · 

6. Selfish.

When we use words to denigrate others, it might be self-loathing. The bully is often the victim of bullying. The abuser is often the victim of abuse. 

Webster's defines bully as a blustering, browbeating person especially : one who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable. 

Webster's defines an abuser as some one who uses harsh, insulting language an angry and abusive crowd. b : harsh and insulting abusive language. c : using or involving physical violence or emotional cruelty abusive behavior an abusive husband an abusive relationship.

Witnessing 

Hurtful words can be overt or subtle. No matter the intention, they are hurtful. If you discover your words are hurtful, do you continue to use them? If you discover something you said is not ok, do you keep going there? Obviously, these questions are rhetorical, but if you're able to apply the brakes, realize you're headed down the wrong path, realize your mistake, you're at that place where you realize your words have consequences. 

Then you're on a new plane. You've elevated to a higher level of awareness.

So, what should we do when we witness others behaving badly? Silence isn't really an option. Here's some advice from Proverb's:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

Change is incremental.  It can only come about if we are willing to change what we do first. When the time comes, be willing to speak up.

 

Does Social Justice Matter?

 

Photo: David Cain

Crazy Commies

I've heard it before. All my life actually. Those of us who care about what happens to our fellow human beings and think we could be doing so much more are labelled radical, socialists, communists. There's more justification to our argument than you are willing to admit. 

Living in this world creates opportunities for all of us to do so much more. When you are called, will your heart remain cold as you keep it all for yourself? And to what end? What have you gained?

Verse of the day   If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. - 1 Corinthians 12:26

Voice of the day Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection. - Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, SJ ________________________________________________________________ “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”  -Ghandi ________________________________________________________________ “Serve others. The unfailing recipe for happiness and success is to want the good of others. Happiness and success is when I see others happy. Happiness is a shared thing.” – Archbishop Desmond Tutu Sojourners recently shared an article about  "The American Recovery Plan, which lays out a bold and significant investment in the fight against COVID-19 and which has been passed by the House and is now in the Senate, is all three. It addresses the deep inequities of suffering from the pandemic including the racial and wealth disparities, meets immediate and urgent needs of the moment, and is supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans." -Sojourners Let me state something obvious. The act wouldn't be needed if the wealth generated in this country was more fairly and evenly shared. But that isn't the case. Pew research found that just prior to the pandemic, the wealth gap in the United States growing as the economy grew.  "Not all economic indicators appear promising. Household incomes have grown only modestly in this century, and household wealth has not returned to its pre-recession level. Economic inequality, whether measured through the gaps in income or wealth between richer and poorer households, continues to widen." The pandemic has made the situation worse. Can the American Recovery Act swing the pendulum the other way? TIME FOR SOME GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR BY JIM WALLIS Wallis concludes, "Passing the APR would be “good news” to the poor and those facing poverty; it’s also the pragmatic, popular, and, most importantly, principled thing to do. And it could be the beginning of doing much better to help people overcome poverty in America. And that would be good news indeed"

Pandemic Politics

 

Photo credit The Climate Reality Project

Tell Them Anything

Just make sure it's what they want to hear.

The pandemic doesn't care about our politics, but our political leanings are leading to misconceptions about how we perceive the deadly virus. David Leonhardt of the New York times reports that people on the right and the left are misrepresenting the facts.

The mistakes people make

More than one-third of Republican voters, for example, said that people without Covid symptoms could not spread the virus. Similar shares said that Covid was killing fewer people than either the seasonal flu or vehicle crashes. All of those beliefs are wrong, and badly so. Asymptomatic spread is a major source of transmission, and Covid has killed about 15 times more Americans than either the flu or vehicle crashes do in a typical year.

Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to exaggerate the severity of Covid. When asked how often Covid patients had to be hospitalized, a very large share of Democratic voters said that at least 20 percent did. The actual hospitalization rate is about 1 percent.

By The New York Times | Source: Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study

Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.

What's The Point? 

Having the information in this article is helpful, but to make a real impact, to start changing minds, people have to receive the message. Think about the rule of seven which suggests consumers need to hear a message seven times before they will consider taking action. Then it might be another three repetitions before someone will actually act on that message.

We're going up against echo chambers and algorithms. People have become insulated from outside opinions. Algorithms reinforce the bubble by only feeding information that supports predispositions. Republicans and the Russians used this system well. They targeted information to groups based on algorithms to reinforce beliefs already in place. The divide, the partisanship, becomes deeper as politicians repeat the same lies over and over.

Repetition

Countering false information with fact based journalism, is it possible? According to the Gallup Poll, there is hope.

Perhaps the best news from the Gallup survey was that some people were willing to revisit their beliefs when given new information. Republicans took the pandemic more seriously after being told that the number of new cases was rising, and Democrats were more favorable to in-person schooling after hearing that the American Academy of Pediatrics supports it.

“That’s very encouraging,” Jonathan Rothwell told me. “It’s discouraging that people didn’t already know it.” Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup’s principal economist. Leonhardt/NY Times

Covering something once is not a guarantee that the issue is going to be heard. Since repetition is used so often and so well, covering the issue again from a fresh perspective should not be a problem for any news organization. Don't fall into the deep well of self congratulation, "We've already covered that." Your news consumers may not have heard you the first time.

Words Matter

Power of Words

I'm a firm believer that language and how we use language determines how we act, and how we act then determines our lives and other people's lives.

-Ntozake Shange

What you say can motivate, be life affirming, build people up and inspire. Or it can tear people down, spread fear and hate, and divide us into hostile camps.

The former makes a more sense. After the past five years it would be a refreshing change.

In the face of the shootings in Georgia, I'm hoping that more people get the point. Words matter! Hate crimes against Asian Americans are on  the rise, fueled by the hate filled rhetoric of our former president. Six of the eight victims were Asian women. Violence against Asian Americans grew 150 percent in 2020, even as the number of overall hate crimes fell. -pbs

The following is from an interview on NPR between Ari Shapiro and Bettina Makalintal  who wrote about these events for VICE.

SHAPIRO: I mentioned the way that former President Trump contributed to anti-Chinese rhetoric by using phrases like the Wuhan virus. President Biden has directed federal agencies to combat racism against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders specifically. Do you think that's likely to make a difference?

MAKALINTAL: I think that at the very least, it is helpful to have a public denouncement from the president of this anti-Asian racism. I'm not sure personally that it does anything specifically. However, I think it is very important to have a president who is not actively fueling the fire on this Chinese virus, Wuhan virus rhetoric, which has no doubt caused a lot of people who are racist against Asian Americans to associate the ill effects of the pandemic with Asian people in the United States in general.

Words have power. They can destroy and create. ... We can choose to use this force constructively with words of encouragement, or destructively use words of despair. Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate and to humble.”  compassion.com

Be Yourself

mohamed nohassi

If you're always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” –
Maya Angelou

Be Amazing

I spent most of my youth trying to be someone else. After all, I thought, there had to be something better than this. In reality, I was holding myself back. It came down to self-worth (self-esteem). Once I valued who I am, I became more aware of those around me. I was no longer focused on myself. According to Mentalhelp.net, Self-esteem refers to a person's beliefs about their own worth and value. It also has to do with the feelings people experience that follow from their sense of worthiness or unworthiness. Self-esteem is important because it heavily influences people's choices and decisions.

I have to come to believe in something greater than myself. 

A person with a high sense of self-worth is neither full of themselves, nor thinks that the world revolves around them. Instead, this person remembers and is humbled by their small but important role in the grand scheme of things. Like a singular wave in a great big ocean, they know they are part of something greater, and as such are never truly “alone.” -By Michael Stanwyck , The Ten Thought Habits of People with High Self-Worth.

Ask - Then Listen Some More

 Ask - Listen - Find Credibility - Report

Somebody shared  a speech from Marjorie Taylor Greene with me this morning.  

All of these ideas below in just one day, in just one speech, can make for a pretty rough day. There was a lot to unpack. A lot of the following was in that speech. The primary motivator seems to be discrimination, the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.

prejudice - bias - bigotry - intolerance - narrow-mindedness - unfairness - inequity - favoritism - one-sidedness - partisanship - sexism - chauvinism - racism - racialism - anti-Semitism - heterosexism - ageism - classism - ableism

As journalist, what can be done? Stop giving credence to those who continue to speak falsely. The last five years we saw the culmination of extremist views supported by hatred and falsehoods and lies.

No Basis in Fact

Journalist and Columnist James Rosen put it this way:

Here’s the truth: Trump merely stated more loudly and more boldly what Republicans have believed for years. He pushed more brazenly policies they’d pursued for years. He unleashed ugly currents of hatred and racism that Republicans had, if not condoned, failed to condemn.

What’s left is a Republican Party that has finally arrived at the destination to which it’s long been headed: a party with no substantive policy agenda and no real positive beliefs.

Hatred of government is not a policy. Hostility to taxes is not a belief. A mélange of grievances real and imagined is not a political platform.

If the current Republican Party has anything else to offer, anything other than its years-long slide into a full embrace of nihilism, now is the time to show it.

If you're wondering who James Rosen is, he left Fox News after allegations of sexual harassment, although Fox News did not offer those allegations as a reason for his departure. He now works for Sinclair Media Group. Yes, a flawed individual, but that doesn't lessen his credentials as a journalist.

James Rosen isn't the only journalist speaking out about lessons from the past five years. Perry Bacon, Jr. wrote in FiveThirtyeEight:

What I learned and will carry forward is that journalism can’t really come from “the view from nowhere,” a term New York University professor Jay Rosen uses for the posture of neutrality that had become a norm in political journalism. As Rosen has said, that view, among other things, “places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position ‘impartial.’”

But journalism is a reality-based, evidence-based profession — it comes from somewhere! — so of course a person like Trump, who lies constantly, will be covered more negatively than Obama or Biden, who don’t lie as often. Journalism would be severely constrained without the First Amendment being protected by the government, so American journalists inevitably will be pro-democracy and wary of people who exhibit antidemocratic tendencies like Trump. What I am suggesting for myself and other journalists is not to be left wing (or right wing) but to prioritize accuracy, evidence and truth over appearing neutral and centrist.

“Strategy coverage, both sides do it, who’s up and who’s down, winners and losers, controversy of the day, access journalism …. all these forms were spectacularly ill-matched to Donald Trump when he emerged as a threat to American democracy,” Rosen wrote on his personal blog in mid-November.

As a journalist, we're the ones who should be asking the questions, but are the answers worth passing along? Perhaps we should take some advice from Fred Rogers.

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for our children (and for each other) is to listen with our ears and hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.
- Fred Rogers, You Are Special (1995)

Why People Give

 "Because Mom Told Me To!"

That attitude won't work. Neither will, "Because I will get punished if I don't." 

The Network for Good has come up with seven reasons why donors give and one reason they don't. To motivate donations, messaging should resonate with potential donors through these points.

1. They’re mission-driven.

Donors say: “I know there is a need for the nonprofit’s mission in my community and I know it does good work.”

Donating to charity feels good. Scientific studies have proven that generosity stimulates dopamine, which creates similar brain activity in the regions connected to the experience of pleasure and reward. 

2. They trust your organization.

Donors say: “I believe the nonprofit will use my gift to stabilize or expand programming.”

Donors come to your nonprofit because they believe in your mission. They stay with you because you prove yourself worthy of their trust and commitment. Transparency and dependability are key. When you say you’re going to do something, be true to your word.

3. They get to see the impact.

Donors say: “The nonprofit communicates about the impact of giving by sharing program outcomes.”

When donors feel their gift has a direct impact on improving a situation, they feel empowered. Share specifics with your donors about what their gifts support. Detailed information about what you’re accomplishing as a direct result of donations gives donors confidence.

4. They have a personal connection to your cause.

Donors say: “I know someone who benefitted from the nonprofit’s work.”

For many donors, charitable giving is highly personal. Donors who give because they’ve seen your impact firsthand are incredible advocates for your cause. If you aren’t asking donors why they give, you might miss out on these stories and opportunities to spread the word about your mission.

5. They want to be part of something.

Donors say: “I want to be associated with the organization and its brand.”

Donating is an emotional act, and people connect more to personal stories than statistics or broad statements. Put a human face on your facts and statistics, and get to the heart of the matter. Share that with your donors so they can connect with your work on a personal level.

6. You’ve caught their attention.

Donors say: “I see the organization online and on social media.”

The power of social media combined with the ease of online giving has contributed to the rise in popularity of peer-to-peer giving. The more people see their peers involved in a cause, the more likely they are to participate and donate. Plus, participating in social campaigns is fun.

7. They want tax benefits.

Donors say: “I want the tax deduction.”

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) will impact every individual and organization. Nonprofits are watching how the standard deduction increase and elimination of personal exemptions will affect charitable giving. Although we won’t know for a few years the lasting impact these changes will have, we know that altruism is a driving factor for why people donate. Continue to make your case for change to keep donors inspired by your work.

What Won't Work

And the #1 reason why donors stop giving…

They don’t know how their gift is being used.

Keep your donors in the loop! Vary your communications so that you’re engaging donors more than simply when you ask for money. Send an update on a campaign that congratulates them on helping you reach your goal. Make sure they know you couldn’t do it without them.

I have other tactics that won't work, threatening, desperation, impending doom, self-centered messaging. "We need, we need, we need!" "Give now, or we'll have to change how we do this." "Time is running out."

When asking for support, don't think about reinventing the wheel. Build on things that already work. Make them your own. Ask for help. It really works.

Making a Change

markus spiske

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead

Inertia

A property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.

"the power required to overcome friction and the inertia of the moving parts"

I talk about inertia when I teach people how to drive. There are only three things that you can control to change inertia when driving. You can steer, you can use your brakes, or you can use your accelerator. Sometimes it's a combination of all three. A small change can make a huge difference. Yet, there are a substantial number of collisions (around 30%) where drivers took no action.

But I digress. Back to Margaret Mead. Looking her up in Britannica, Margaret Mead was an American anthropologist best known for her studies of the peoples of Oceania. She also commented on a wide array of societal issues, such as women's rights, nuclear proliferation, race relations, environmental pollution, and world hunger. Her thoughts on social change made her a target of conservatives.

An essay in Scientific American by John Horgan posits that her bashers owe her an apology. Most attacks on Mead focus on her ethnographic writings, notably her classic Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilization. 

"Her book nonetheless posed a challenge to Western sexual mores, which according to Mead inflicted needless suffering on young men and women. The metatheme of Coming of Age and all Mead's subsequent work was that the way things are is not the way they must or should be; we can choose to live in ways that make us happier and healthier. Her writings helped inspire feminism, the sexual revolution, the human potential movement and other countercultural trends during the 1960s."

Margaret Mead was a political progressive. Horgan points out that mead was  an outspoken critic of social Darwinism and eugenics, which in this pre-Nazi era were still intellectually fashionable. As a result of these influences, Mead opposed genetic determinism, racism, sexism, militarism and stultifying religious morality. She was biased—and she was right.

But was she right about change? Does a movement begin with an idea and end with a small group of committed individuals? There needs to be a point where the commitment of a few  becomes something larger.

Pettus Bridge

The first protest on March 7th was small. Led by Hosea Williams, one of Martin Luther King's SCLC lieutenants, and John Lewis, some 600 demonstrators walked, two by two, the six blocks to the Edmund Pettus Bridge that crossed the Alabama River and led out of Selma. They were literally beaten back. Press coverage changed that dynamic. Lewis spoke of how the civil rights music was able to change the dynamics through press coverage. “Without the press, the Civil Rights movement would have been a bird without wings.” 

There were actually three marches. The second march had two thousand participants. Martin Luther King turned the marchers back fearing the same outcome. By the third march, there ended up being 25 thousand when they reached Montgomery. Those who crossed the bridge were protected by 1,000 military policemen and 2,000 military troops.

The march was a pivotal point in the civil rights movement. As the numbers grew, the momentum, the inertia of the movement, became a force to strong to turn aside.

There have been times that I thought I couldn't last for long
But now I think I'm able to carry on
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come, oh yes it will. -Sam Cooke