Back before America one-upped the Brexit vote for most insane political move, I wrote an essay on how things aren't as horrible as we thought they were. Though I was fairly confident at the time that our society wouldn't jump off the cliff, I was proven wrong--which will happen again, I'm sure, and again and again.
One of the things that my essay didn't address, but has been on my mind, is the idea of why we feel as though everything is unraveling. A long time ago (read: Whenever you were a kid and life was easy...because you were a kid), we didn't have problems with [fill in the blank]: LGBTQA+ rights, or people of color leveling accusations of police brutality, or women demanding that they get equal payment for the work they do. Right? Right?
Now, there is some context to this that is actually my point: There are a lot more Americans in America than there are in Afghanistan. I know that sounds obvious, but stick with me. Because of the prevalence of Americans in this area, the likelihood of a police officer killing an American is high--in the 90th percentile, I would venture to say. When we look only at the deaths--nearly 1,000 people by cops, about a dozen in a war-zone*--then it's pretty shocking. When we zoom in at the context, we understand why there's a disparity.
But what about the idea that it's people of color bearing the brunt of this? The Washington Post clearly shows that the majority cop-related deaths happened on white people--though almost all of them were male. Walking away with these statistics could be really problematic for the same reason my Afghanistan comparison needed context. In a country where the majority of citizens are white, it makes sense that white citizens would be involved more often with the criminal behavior and, therefore, with police response. No shocker there. What is shocking is the proportion of Black lives lost in comparison to the overall quantity of Black men (specifically) in the country. Black men comprise about 13% of the population (roughly 40 million human beings), but they are killed at a rate of twice their population. In other words, Black men were killed more often, despite being less prevalent in society, than others. And, in 2015, only ten women were killed by police--all of whom were Black women (one was a lady accidentally shot in front of witnesses in response to a domestic disturbance). Much like the prison community, which is over 35% Black--again, despite the fact that they make up 13% of the population as a whole. This isn't new information, either. It's a consequence for generations of choices--generations from which we all spring.
There's a problem in how income is distributed through a labor force. And it definitely skews in favor of men for a host of reasons, not the least of which is tradition, expectation, availability of schooling and education, and persistent sexism. Whether or not you believe that a government's role is (or isn't) being involved in the regulation of this sort of thing, the problem is real and it's damaging. Particularly for single-parent families (which comprise over a third of American households), which are predominantly run by single mothers, not having that extra, statistical quarter on every dollar earned quickly adds up to crushing poverty, perpetuation of ignorance, and the demolition of the human spirit.
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* Yes, I know that we "finished" our war in Afghanistan and Iraq and Mission: Accomplished or whatever, but there's still military presence and objectives happening in those countries. Additionally, if we had "finished" in Afghanistan, why would there be any casualties or deaths?
One of the things that my essay didn't address, but has been on my mind, is the idea of why we feel as though everything is unraveling. A long time ago (read: Whenever you were a kid and life was easy...because you were a kid), we didn't have problems with [fill in the blank]: LGBTQA+ rights, or people of color leveling accusations of police brutality, or women demanding that they get equal payment for the work they do. Right? Right?
History and the Gay Community
Kind of, but not really. There were problems with LGBTQA+ rights in the past, but they weren't covered in the public sphere. Harvey Milk, for example, was fined for being gay and not wearing a shirt in public, but that's not the sort of thing you learn about when you're discussing the proper role of government. In fact, the entire history of LGBTQA+ rights is tightly suppressed: There's an entire raft of legislation called "no promo homo" that tamps down on discussing homosexuality in schools. Utah has a law that disallows advocacy for homosexuality, with verbiage vague enough that even my earlier comment about Harvey Milk could be construed as advocating homosexuality. Because of the way that LGBTQA+ rights are discussed--or not discussed--there is an effacing of that segment of American history. The result of this is that what we don't remember eventually turns into what never happened.Blacks and the Police
What about people of color and police brutality? Are we seeing an uptick in this? Well, kind of. According to the Washington Post, there are nearly 1,000 police-related killings in 2015. In 2016, we're close (with only a week and a half left in the year) to the same numbers. However you parse the data, that's a lot of Americans killed--nearly as many in two years as died in Afghanistan since the war there started in 2001. This year, a dozen soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan--we lose almost ten times that many civilians to police-related incidents.Now, there is some context to this that is actually my point: There are a lot more Americans in America than there are in Afghanistan. I know that sounds obvious, but stick with me. Because of the prevalence of Americans in this area, the likelihood of a police officer killing an American is high--in the 90th percentile, I would venture to say. When we look only at the deaths--nearly 1,000 people by cops, about a dozen in a war-zone*--then it's pretty shocking. When we zoom in at the context, we understand why there's a disparity.
But what about the idea that it's people of color bearing the brunt of this? The Washington Post clearly shows that the majority cop-related deaths happened on white people--though almost all of them were male. Walking away with these statistics could be really problematic for the same reason my Afghanistan comparison needed context. In a country where the majority of citizens are white, it makes sense that white citizens would be involved more often with the criminal behavior and, therefore, with police response. No shocker there. What is shocking is the proportion of Black lives lost in comparison to the overall quantity of Black men (specifically) in the country. Black men comprise about 13% of the population (roughly 40 million human beings), but they are killed at a rate of twice their population. In other words, Black men were killed more often, despite being less prevalent in society, than others. And, in 2015, only ten women were killed by police--all of whom were Black women (one was a lady accidentally shot in front of witnesses in response to a domestic disturbance). Much like the prison community, which is over 35% Black--again, despite the fact that they make up 13% of the population as a whole. This isn't new information, either. It's a consequence for generations of choices--generations from which we all spring.
Equal Pay for Equal Work
The statistics about equal pay are tricky, and the way you describe it matters. But there is a discrepancy between what men and women are paid in America. Sexism is definitely one of the issues: Anecdotally, a friend of mine mentioned that she accidentally found out she was being paid less than a male coworker--one of her subordinates, as it turned out--and, when she confronted her boss about it, he said that it was true. "I pay him more," her boss said, "because he's providing for his family." This was insulting to my friend, who was a single mother, raising her only child without child support.There's a problem in how income is distributed through a labor force. And it definitely skews in favor of men for a host of reasons, not the least of which is tradition, expectation, availability of schooling and education, and persistent sexism. Whether or not you believe that a government's role is (or isn't) being involved in the regulation of this sort of thing, the problem is real and it's damaging. Particularly for single-parent families (which comprise over a third of American households), which are predominantly run by single mothers, not having that extra, statistical quarter on every dollar earned quickly adds up to crushing poverty, perpetuation of ignorance, and the demolition of the human spirit.
Seeing Again
What does any of what I've talked about have to do with "seeing again"? Despite the fact that much of this essay is circulating information that's easily available online (obviously, since that's where all my sources come from), the criticism that I'm actually focusing on is one of perception. If you reread (or, let's be honest, have already memorized the beautiful writing of) my second paragraph, you'll see I started off with a fill-in-the-blank proposition: We didn't have problems with ________.
My point is that we actually did have a problem with all of these things. Gay rights, Black oppression, and patriarchal traditions that damaged women all have parallels in our history. I already mentioned Harvey Milk, and hardly anyone needs to think hard to remember that Jim Crow laws were not only abundant, but consistently defended as Constitutional (see: Plessy v. Ferguson). As for the exploitation of working women, the forced double standard of enhanced consumerism and traditional gender roles of keeping the woman in the house clashed. The mixed message led to many unsettling analyses of why women worked, including the idea that they were "unlovely" or "lost".
The idea that these ills are somehow new is demonstrably false--and that they are ills that denigrate our society is also, I think, fairly clear. Additionally, the idea that these weren't a problem when you were [fill in the blank] are also likely false. You just didn't see them.
There has been a lot of talk about the increase in autism in the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the CDC claiming that there's a 119% increase in cases, and some people stating that there are even more. But a massive contributor to these increases is not necessarily that more people are somehow having autism: It's that it's being recognized. It isn't that there's a huge leap in autism, it's that we've only now begun to understand that what we thought was one thing fits in better within another category. Autism isn't "on the rise"; we're now understanding them.
And that's what I'm trying to say here: Thanks to the internet, social media, and an increasingly connected world, we know about each other more quickly, deeply, and painfully than we have in the past. Before, we would have books, plays, and poetry to help connect us. Indeed, that's one of the amazing things about the classics--they continue to be pertinent because they're still talking about the same stuff with which we're struggling now. Shakespeare likely struggled with depression (see: The whole play of Hamlet, basically); Homer plumbed the depths of grief. Milton wrestled with the correct role of government; Ovid sought to understand the natural world around him, telling stories to best explore that. We don't necessarily have more problems--we're finally seeing them for the first time.
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* Yes, I know that we "finished" our war in Afghanistan and Iraq and Mission: Accomplished or whatever, but there's still military presence and objectives happening in those countries. Additionally, if we had "finished" in Afghanistan, why would there be any casualties or deaths?