Bias-Awareness and Our Own Common Prejudices

 I was already feeling less than generous about the world as I pulled in to get gas this morning.  Drivers seemed to not notice others around them and as I turned into the station cars were parked everywhere, making the actual turns into the slip difficult at best.  So when I finally got to the pump I looked up to notice a Jeep in front of me.  It was older and looked well used, maybe a work vehicle.  In the back window was  a Star Wars family sticker.  (you know like the stick figures you see only with Yoda, Luke etc.) and then I saw another one.  It said "My family is different from yours" and it was pictures of guns see here.  Above was an NRA sticker.  So immediately I thought for a second who the person might be who drives this car.  When he came out to pump his gas I was trying to find something I lost in my car.  When my tank was full I took out the nozzle out and proceeded to get ready to go when I heard "Have a great Rosh Hashanah".  I looked up, the driver who had the gun family, casually dressed and likely  the stereotype I had the second I saw the sticker had wished me a happy new year, in Hebrew, a few days before the holiday.   A stranger, seeing my kippah,  made me feel included and in my head I didn't do the same.  I have to say that was an interesting feelings a few days before Rosh Hashanah.  Even after he said it I assumed he wasn't Jewish and just said thank you.  Then as we both returned to our vehicles I said, "Have a great day".  There I was, my soul naked to the world.  My prejudice was out there, in the open, and while no one else saw it, I did.   

It has haunted me all day, especially as I do High Holy Days preparation.  I was reminded of a song from my punk days.  The Offs had a song, Everyone's a Bigot, lamenting that some oppressed groups still harbor bigotry that they call to end against them.  I see that they were talking about me.   We all have biases.  Some more than others, but we all carry a series of prejudices and too often we let them come out.  Even when people are trying to fight that very thing.  Years ago I responded to a book for early childhood teachers, called The Anti-Bias Curriculum, with a workshop called Bias-Awareness Beyond the Anti-Bias Curriculum.  My point was that while trying to eliminate bias you build new ones.  The writer of the curriculum seemed hostile to deeply religious people for example.  In the end however, she felt that she had a way to eliminate bias.  We shouldn't be about eliminating bias, it should be about confronting it.  When we think we have eliminated bias, we become blind to our own. 

Confronting our own biases are difficult. There is some irony about the fact  I went to a production of 12 Angry Men at the Indiana Repertory Theatre yesterday where those 12 men, judging the life of a young man, confronted their biases head-on.  They did it in a crucible of a jury room.  It is amazing to see the bias of others laid out in the open as the play does, but it also is a strange feeling when you can see it in yourself.

Part of the High Holy Days is looking at your missing of the mark for the past year.  We are not looking to be perfect, for in fact we never can be, but addressing the short-falls and acknowledging them is an important part of who we are as Jews and I dare say human beings.  I know I have some strong prejudices. I can't really do T'shuvah for this as I will likely never see this guy again.  But it does make me think more the next time I see this kind of thing.  Perhaps this season I can make a list of where my prejudices focus on them.  For those who celebrate may the New Year bring you joy and the opportunity to see yourself how others see you, embrace the greatness they see and work on the problems we can identify.  Shana Tova. 

Why Can't We Talk about Guns?

Rep Beto O'Rourke touched what might be a new third rail of politics during the recent Democratic debate.  Well he not so much touched it but tongue kissed it on national television:  Gun confiscation.  The idea that the government is going to come an take your legally purchased weapon that you have not used to commit a crime is the nightmare scenario that has been the center of the NRA propaganda for decades.  The last time we, as a nation, banned the import and purchase of certain so-called assault weapons, Dianne Feinstein, the leader of the movement, said she would love to ask all Americans to turn those weapons in but it isn't possible.  As Joe Biden said at the recent debate, "We have a Constitution".  I see no Constitutional mechanism in the current political climate to have a mandatory buy back of any kind of gun that was legally purchased and I don't think I want one.  We can legally ban all future sales, put certain weapons in a category that requires a higher grade of scrutiny for the purchaser and of course pass laws that do take away guns from people deemed by a court they are a danger to self and/or others.  But the notion of a government program to take legally purchased guns away from people is a non-starter with the vast majority of people in Congress, and frankly I believe with the country.  It is too  dangerous for that kind of power to exist inside the government and particularly in the Executive branch.  So O'Rourke's position could have some support but it truly is a fringe and unthinking approach to this important situation.  But there are other extremes.

Recently major retailers from Wal-Mart, Kroger, Giant Eagle, CVS and Walgreens among others have asked to not open carry weapons into their stores.  The initial reacts of some is that they will boycott said stores.  Worse, some have decided to ignore that policy.  Again, one argument is that it violates their 2nd amendment rights.  Clearly it doesn't.  These stores are private property and can make the rules they want when weapons in their stores.  They aren't even asking people not to carry, just not to openly carry.  Open carry causes more concerns than it solves problems.  People, especially with rifles, walking into a grocery store usually does not make people feel safer.  In fact it brings a sense of anxiety because we don't know the intent of someone carrying it.  It also is less likely to stop any bad actors who might show up to do harm with a weapon.  First they would become the first target and secondly there is no evidence that an untrained person would be able to respond in a way that is beneficial to the situation.  Nearly anytime a civilian is seen as stopping a shooter in a public environment we learn that the person has some expertise in weapons.  So what is the benefit of open carrying?   Experts I know would rather their weapon be concealed and frankly have a weapon that is easier to pull out to respond. 

So there is a huge divide in how we see guns, gun ownership and rights.  Let's be clear, the founders enshrined a right to weapons in our Constitution.  In part because the states had to have the ability to respond to any attack on the new Republic, even if it came from our own Federal government.  The Heller decision made the right an individual right, so states can't overly regulate gun ownership.  But it also allowed for, in the decision, that, like all rights, there are limits to it.  So there is a role for government to limit who can own and what kind of weapons can be owned.  But even members of Congress don't seem to understand that.  That is where we are. 

We can have an honest conversation about weapons, but it needs to start with facts.  Too often facts are the first casualty of the emotional reactions to both views of people like Beto and that of the NRA, who, to be clear, is not about gun owners but gun makers.  We can't solve problems on the extreme.  We can't solve problems without knowing the legal protections and guard rails.  It is time to ignore that nonsense and focus on what actually can be done.  The first call should never be to groups like the NRA and shouldn't be to someone who wants to ban all guns.  They will not build the future.  That is not what we need.  We need true statesmen and stateswomen to take legal steps.  If you know one give them a call. 

He Isn't Alone

So the latest story about the President is his tripling down on a mistake that Hurricane Dorian would threaten Alabama after it was clear that the storm would turn north eliminating the potential of crossing of Florida into the Gulf of Mexico.  Over the last several days President Trump has tried to make it sound like he was right about Alabama, up to and including alerting a chart with the cone of uncertainty with a sharpie.  I mean it is on brand for him to make something phallic appear to be bigger than it is but this is a dangerous thing.  When the President tweeted that Alabama was in the path of the storm when it wasn't that could have caused confusion in that state as no local or national forecasts were suggesting a concern.  The National Weather Service has to send out a message refuting the President's tweet.  This is clearly not the first time the President was wrong about something.  He lies regularly on many issues.  He lied about Chinese trade envoys calling him during the G-7, they didn't.  He lied about changing policy on separation of children and parents at the border.  Now he is lying about the weather. 

President Trump's inability to live in a world not of his making is troubling.  That is true.  His words change markets world-wide, focus policy and of course challenge democratic principles.  Everyone knows this.  But there are those who allow it to continue.

In an interview with Stuart Varney of Fox Business, Joe Walsh was being pushed for calling the President a liar.  Joe, a conservative former member of Congress who has tons of baggage, is challenging the President because he feels he has gone too far.  He finally asked Varney if Trump has ever lied to the American people, Varney said no.  That is false on its face, but that is how so many on the right react to this President.

While some have stepped up from the outside of power in the Republican party most are allowing the President to simply create a fantasy world where his statements are seen as truth when they are objectively not at all.   Some seem to do as part of their job, Rear Admiral Peter Brown, a homeland security adviser, suggested that it was he who told the President Alabama was in danger.  If he did then he should be fired because his information was not based on the science we understand, if he didn't and is lying to cover the President he should face a court martial. 

What is even more amazing are the everyday people defend this President in the face of facts.  It is not an opinion that the storm was not headed for Alabama on September 1.  It certainly was never going to be bad.  There was never a 95% chance that Dorian would hit Alabama as the President also said.  But there are people on social media, interviewed by TV and radio shows and in the right wing noise machine who are trying to square the circle of that simple mistake the President made.  That is what is dangerous.  We can dismiss the President on many things he says and probably should.  Especially when there is a reputable organization that can follow up.  But when people ignore the truth, repeat the nonsense and try to make it look like everyone is wrong but the President that is the start of a dictatorship.  I never believed and still don't that this President and the array of sycophants around him could pull off destroying democracy on their own.  He isn't Darth Sidious or Adolph Hitler, he is Esposito from Bananas.  But even a mad dictator can do things if the people are willing to turn away from reality and support him or her.  I hope that with the latest crazy that we see from the White House there are some in the GOP leadership to stand up and that people who support this man will see that it is not good for the party or the country in the long run.  But my hope is all but gone.