Fairness - The Commentary

No one is sure about who first claimed: "History is just one damned thing after another." But Henry Ford agreed: "History is bunk." Not true. In a time like this, we need to know our history to see how much is possible and to be aware of all that’s been accomplished by our predecessors. History tells us how we came to this place, for better or worse, and whether we're stuck here or not (usually not). And knowing how things have changed inspires hope that other things can too in spite of any current darkness. But in what sense does history somehow provide us with norms, tell us how things should be, or model what must be done? And are we victims of our past? Those are questions we need to ask when we hear someone use that loaded word: "tradition." That's because the basic issue is: just because something is labeled traditional, does that make it good, moral, humane, just, caring, or even valuable enough to preserve? Now, a lot of things ...

Teachers around the country, often in the reddest states, are organizing to fight the ongoing destruction of public education. For generations, politicians have targeted public schools, with major funding from the school privatization movement, to help create a two-tiered class-based system by crippling public schools and demonizing teachers. Past advocacy by educators as part of their professionalism has contributed to the conservative criticism of public education in the US and its scapegoating of teachers’ unions for any problems conservatives want to lay on the public school system. Back in 1970, for example, the AFL-CIO-affiliated American Federation of Teachers became the first major union to stand against discrimination against lesbians and gay men. In 1974, its larger national rival, the National Education Association, added sexual orientation to its anti-discrimination policy. Both unions have struggled with right-wing forces from within and witho...

For many grown kids, standing in front of the Mother’s Day cards at the store this month is an exercise in mixed feelings – hope, sadness, love, guilt, fear, denial, and confusion. Finding that one card that says exactly how you feel without giving in to Hallmark-induced fantasies about the perfect mother is a challenge as difficult as any we might face. An English professor friend claims that there are, in fact, no good poems about mothers in all of English literature. They all end up like those sentimental greeting card rhymes. Yet, our mothers have generally done the best they could with what they’ve been given about motherhood from a culture that’s filled with messages that extol motherhood while taking away as much from mothers as possible. And all the conservatives’ high-minded blather about valuing motherhood is suspiciously empty to mothers who suspect that something else is really going on around them, but are supposed to blame themselves for whatever i...

There are fundamental differences between being an American citizen and being a politician. As citizens, we’re to make sure that those we elect to represent us know exactly what our positions are on the issues that affect our lives. As citizens, it’s not our job to present to the politician a position that’s not fully our own or is a pre-compromised version of it because we think that the compromise is more likely to be turned into legislation. When we do that, we’re ensuring that politicians do not know what we really think while communicating that we aren’t convinced that our position should matter that much. We’re implying that politicians need not consider our actual stand in the process. When I pre-compromise, I’m moving toward a position that isn’t mine and actually affirming the opposite of my own view by that very move. I’m communicating that I believe the opposing position is just as worthwhile, so politicians should feel free to move in that direc...

White Evangelicals are the largest demographic group voting for and sticking with Donald Trump no matter what he does. Trump won 81% of their votes and 72% still aren’t ashamed to say that they support him . Trump’s “Religious Advisory Council,” made up mostly of leaders of this same demographic, has held firm even while members of other councils abandoned ship. So the question many keep asking is: with Evangelicals’ constant insistence on sexual purity for others and their so-called “family values” trope, why do these Evangelicals cling to Trump when he blatantly embodies almost everything that a person could say and do that flaunts those values? On top of that, he displays a clear ignorance of, and past hostility to, Evangelical beliefs themselves. Those Evangelicals respond with denial and ignorance and remain willing to be used for whatever Trump’s con is. Meanwhile, liberals act astonished at what seems to be the hypocrisy of these Evangelicals for what they usuall...