Fairness - The Commentary

When Michelle Obama was asked on her recent tour for her new book, Becoming , how it felt to be seen as a "symbol of hope," she told a room of students: "I still have a little impostor syndrome….It doesn't go away, that feeling that you shouldn't take me that seriously. What do I know?” By openly raising the issue in her book and on tour, she’s again unmasking the common, nagging, dogged sense of doubt felt by anyone who was raised as member of a non-dominant, victimized group in a stratified society that raises its ugly head when that member rises “above” the limits that a culture teaches are inherent in their group. Though they thereby should be an example of the fact that those limits are artificially constructed and down-right discriminatory, the culturally-taught role lingers within. Two psychologists labeled this phenomenon “imposter syndrome” in a 1978 paper that identified it in women who are expected to take on a victim role in a mal...

There’s no doubt about it now: November 6 th gave us a blue wave. And the more the votes are counted, the bluer it gets. From local races to state legislatures, to gubernatorial and state-wide office flips, to unprecedented gains in the US House, to progressive ballot initiatives around the nation, the increased voter turnout reminds us again that what has been called “leftist” by an influential right-wing machine is actually centrist American with overwhelming popular support. So much of mainstream corporate media prefers not to analyze it that way because it wants to play up some sort of viewer-attention-getting battle between extremes. The media has accepted as given what playwright Tony Kushner observed years ago: "The terms of the national debate have subtly, insidiously shifted. What used to be called liberal is now called radical; what used to be called radical is now called insane. What used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what use...

An old piece of relationship advice begins this way: “If your brother sins, go and show him privately his fault. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’” Even though that’s from the eighteenth chapter of the Christian Gospel of Matthew, I’ve known Christian clergy who don’t follow that wise advice. Instead they practice what many do in a variety of human relationships – triangulate. As a concept, triangulation originated in research and discussions about dysfunctional families. Parents might often complain to a child about their spouse, for example, bringing the child into the adults’ problem. But it applies quite often within numerous friendly, romantic, social, and business relationships. And it has helped bring down some very good organizations from churches to non-profits. Someone has something against...

The human race has a long history of guilt and shaming. People and institutions have become experts at spreading guilt. It’s been a successful tool for getting people to do what the powerful want, maybe even as successful as fear. And what makes it so easy is that people can be made to feel guilty in very passive-aggressive ways. Think of those old bumper stickers that bragged: “I break for animals.” The implication for those following that car was: “What’s wrong with you that you don’t, and that you don’t have the moral righteousness to display the same bumper sticker?” Or take that fish symbol brandied about on the back of vehicles testifying: “I’m a Christian.” Ironically, the original fish symbol was meant as secret insider code in times of Roman persecution to disguise that a location was a place where Christians meant. Whether wielded passively or self-righteously, guilt is seldom purely a moral idea. It’s mixed with the power plays of people and...

The whole discussion these days of the need to return to civility in political discourse is a nice idea. Civility is better than incivility – going high when they go low is a really, really, really nice thought. And it’s a discussion tied to privilege. The meanness of the Trump cult and the Republican politicians who can’t quit the guy demeans, damages, and destroys those without the privilege of the “civil” talking people, and the open, disgusting talk and actions of those right-wingers who prefer to win economically and socially means nothing is off their table. From the top down, racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, able-bodyism are public. From tee shirts to TV, it’s all there in the open, displayed shamelessly as if proud of ones bigotry and meanness. Certainly, I’d rather have nice. I’d pick nice people as friends any day. But media and popular expectations, sadly, have changed. The right wing itself has seen to that. The words “civility” and ...