We Have All Been Here Before

Bill,


With the demise of Late Night With Charlie Rose, I'd been casting about for something else to watch while I ride the exercise bike before work. Good leftie that I am, I looked to other shows on PBS as possibilities. One has to be careful about that. There is a an unmistakable sky-is-falling quality to shows such as Frontline; even the opening drums and trumpet theme lets you know there's trouble ahead. If all you ever watched was Frontline you'd never believe that for most of the people in the country and the world, as you've recently pointed out, things are better than they've ever been.


Still I had to find something, so I settled on The American Experience, a cultural history show that runs every few weeks or so. I'm working my way through an episode called The Eugenics Crusade. As its title suggests, the show details the long and sordid history of the Eugenics movement in the United States, from its misinterpretation of Mendel's laws of inheritance at the turn of the 1890s to its capture of the public imagination at its height in the 20s, and on to its ignominious end in disgrace, as the logical implications of the movement were so capably demonstrated by the Nazis in the 30s and early 40s.


There's no question of the sincerity of the founders and promulgators of the movement, and their unshakable certainty that they were engaged in the use of science for the public good. This was not some fringe idea supported by a bunch of racist crackpots. The notion that one could improve the human race through selective breeding of favorable traits in the white Protestant individuals who displayed them, and eliminate unfavorable traits by reducing breeding in the foreign, criminal, or poor individuals who displayed them, was a broadly held cultural meme that affected public policy. Fear of foreign contamination was a major impetus for the Johnson Reed Act of 1924, which dramatically reduced incoming numbers of inferior races such as Slavs Italians and Jews, and excluded Japanese immigrants altogether. More than 30 states passed forced sterilization laws. Before the practice ended more than 60,000 American went under the knife.


Parts of this are hard to watch. I try, mostly without success, to withhold judgment about the vile nature of such a movement, and the nativism and xenophobia that fueled it. At least that's how I see it. Not so for a minority of our countrymen, for whom not much as changed when it comes to anxiety about those who are different from themselves, and the ability of  a leader with just the right talent to stoke those fears for his own advantage. The irony that most of our ancestor immigrants were treated with the same degree of scorn  is apparently lost upon them.


Its easy to predict what the historical and popular judgment will be about the current anti immigrant craze We have been here before, alas and we will undoubtedly be here again.


Eli           

My Brother Is Dead

Bill,


They found him in Sheepshead Bay. A pleasure boat cruising by bumped into him. The key to his room at the local assisted living facility where he was living  was in his pocket, so he was readily identified. He had gone out for a walk. One can surmise with a good deal of certainty that he jumped from somewhere. News of most deaths comes to us from a doctor or family member. This death was a police matter, and so my sister received a phone call from a New York City detective. I was out to lunch with an old friend when the phone rang with my sisters name and I knew, in that terrible and certain way that one knows, what she had called to tell me. 


He had been mentally ill for very long time, at least since his teenage years and possibly even longer. He was blessed with a superior intelligence, and cursed with an uncanny capacity for alienating almost everyone who might have cared about him. He graduated from an elite, albeit eccentric college and seven years later washed out of graduate school in clinical psychology when his supervisors realized he was unfit to treat patients. He never married. He spent the remaining 40 years  living in a rent controlled apartment in Brooklyn, working occasionally, living more or less in poverty, borrowing money from all of our relatives until they grew tired of him. From time to time my sister would get a phone call  telling her he was hospitalized. She did what she could for him, although he wore her out too.


He was 7 1/2 years older than me, and he was very kind and protective of me when we were young. As adults however, we became estranged. I hadn't spoken to him in years until I called him at the psych ward some months ago after he slit his wrists. We shared a few polite words of conversation. He remembered that I have 2 children but didn't remember their names. He thanked me for calling but asked me not call again, and that is the last I ever spoke to him. From my sister's account it is not clear how much he knew reality at the end, but the suffering of a 71 year man so utterly alone without even the barest memories of some happier time is reality enough for the choice he made.    


He did not have good parents, and he blamed them throughout his life for his misfortune. I of course had the same parents. By the time I came along his relentless resistance had diminished their  virulence, and I owe him for that. He first ran away from home at 16. My mother read the note he wrote to her sisters over the telephone. I wish I still had it. He told them what he thought of them. It felt awful to hear at the age of nine but now it feels like an extraordinary act of courage. The state cops found him hitchhiking 4 days later on the thruway in Buffalo. My parents went out to fetch him, but he never stopped running after that for long. After a while they just him go. That was easier than trying to fix him. He had this weird romantic notion about the West, and being a cowboy, and would regularly wire for money from some Western Union in Laredo, or Santa Fe, or some such place.


Why I had the ability/fortune to forge ahead in life and he did not is a mystery to me. Mostly I feel grateful and undeserving. I've had a lot of time in the last few weeks to think about whether I could have a made a difference, whether I could have altered the arc of his terribly sad and unbearably lonely time on this planet. Maybe its an excuse to let myself off the hook, but I don't think so. He was inept at most things, but singularly skilled at pushing away anyone who ever loved him.


Right now the medical examiner is dithering over what to do with his body. This being New York, the bizarre, remote possibility of foul play is probably on the ME's mind. Drowning will surely be listed as the cause of death but my sister and I know better. Something essential in him died long ago. Once he's cremated his ashes will be returned to me. I'll hold onto them until this all settles inside me. That will take a while.


Eli

Of Course You Can Watch Football

Bill,

Have you noticed just how much the New York Times is channeling us with its dueling columnist conversations?

Of course you can just watch football! That's not the time or place to worry about the social ills,  so don't. But why do I get the sense that you are asking yourself that question as much as you are asking me?

Everything in America does not boil down to race or gender. You and are not culture warriors. We get up in the morning put on our clothes, go to work, come home to our families, live our lives, and try to do the right thing as we see it. But we are engaged citizens, with a sense of responsibility toward our country, which has given both of us so much. Otherwise we wouldn't write this blog. We see a lot of things differently, but we don't look away (at least when not watching football).   

The country has made real progress toward accepting its African American citizens as equal members of society; so says the nation’s first African American President. But discrimination on the basis of race has not been erased from the American landscape. That's a belief shared by a majority of Americans (although not by most Republicans).

 We can't erase prejudice from person’s heart. Only they can do that for themselves. But we can honor, in ways large and small, the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court.

Eli

Can't I Just Watch Football

Eli,

I largely agreed with your "The American Experience Depends on How You Got Here." So I read it again. Then again. And after reading it again, I thought to myself, Does everything have to come down to race? Easy for me to say since I'm the stereotypical privileged white male.

Still, is everything about race, or gender?  Can't I just watch football?

Bill

Of Polls and Policy

Bill

I read with interest your post on the Gallup Poll report the increasing popularity of the Republican Party over the last decade, and I share you caution about the meaning of such a sampling device. After all, think about what America might look like if the following popular opinions were translated into public policy:

1) Percentage of Americans who believe Justice Kavanaugh should not have been confirmed-51 (CNN)

2) Percentage  of Americans who favor federally sponsored healthcare for all Americans-56 (Gallup)

3) Percentage of Americans who believe laws regulating guns should be more strict than they are now-67 ((Gallup).

4) Percentage of Americans who believe that global warming is caused by human activity-67 (Gallup)

5) Percentage of Americans who believe that DACA immigrants should be allowed to become citizens 83 (Gallup)


I could go on, but I'm sure you get my point by now. Somewhere, perhaps, James Madison is smiling.

Eli

The American Experience Depends on How You Got Here

Bill,


Forgive my lack of response to you recent string of impressive posts. I've been on service seeing patients and then traveling. Let me take a minute to try and respond some of your insightful, and occasionally provocative observations.


First the easiest. Serena William's outburst at the during the Open Championship was inexcusable, as several of her peers in the tennis world have pointed out. It had nothing to do with sexism, and everything to do with the difficulty of a great champion accepting her own inevitable decline. Like most champions she found it impossible to accept  that she was losing. It was a classless moment that robbed her gifted and compelling opponent, Naomi Osaka, of what should have been the moment of a lifetime.


But her performance does not justify the obscene photograph that one of my colleagues decided was appropriate to slyly show me while on rounds in the intensive care unit. The photoshopped image of a donkey's genitals attached to Serena's bottom is far too disgusting to duplicate here even if I could find it. Such an image follows a century's old meme that portrays African Americans as less than human. Think about this for minute Bill. This man, a senior distinguished doctor, thinks it's appropriate to carry this picture around on his phone and show it to people. I was ashamed that I lacked the courage to confront him. But I forget: racism is dead in America.


The NFL protesters are intentionally using their celebrity and privilege to point out social and political behavior that they consider to be unjust. Lots of viewers find this annoying. The viewer-in-chief, who values no one's opinion but his own, deems it unpatriotic. Others find it heroic. Either way, such protest honors a core American value, and is likely to be effective in achieving its goals. Our history is full of examples too numerous to mention.


Our ancestors, yours and mine, came from two distinct ethnic/religious groups who eventually earned an honored and privileged place in our country. We left behind appalling political and economic persecution to encounter scorn, bigotry, discrimination and eventually, legal exclusion. Still, we came from great cultures, with century's' old traditions of scholarship and achievement. We came from intact families. When we built families of our own no one periodically separated us. When the dominant institutions excluded us we built our own hospitals, places of worship, charities and universities. Today, 5 Supreme Court justices are descended from our 2 groups.


We came voluntarily. Our journey in America was mostly free of violence. But violence has been the central feature of the African American experience. As our guide on the recent slave tour of Monticello pointed out, violence underpinned every aspect of an enslaved persons life from the moment they were kidnapped and transported in chains. Even after slavery ended, African Americans in the South and elsewhere lived in what essentially was a terror state. The last lynching in America took place in 1981. Unlike the Germans, who spent several generations atoning in front of the world for their Nazi past, Americans don't seem to feel we owe our Black citizens anything, not even a fair shake. Indeed we seem to be heading in the opposite direction. Still, they are succeeding.


I like football too as you know. I certainly will be watching my beloved Patriots take on the Chiefs on Sunday. If a player or 2 takes a knee and pisses off Trump's buddy Bob Kraft, it will be fine with me.       
  
Eli

A global tipping point: Half the world is now middle class or wealthier

Eli,

Every night I ask the Mrs. if she would like to watch the latest edition of, "Trump is Awful and He's Ruining the World," aka, The PBS NewsHour. I suppose it should be uplifting to get re-educated every night, with teachable moments on how people feel, but I must admit it does bring me down to hear about the descent into chaos, facism and authoritarianism we have brought on ourselves. So it's always nice to see some counter-programming.

I was surprised to see this from Brookings, which I regard as a center-left publication, "A global tipping point: Half the world is now middle class or wealthier."

For the first time since agriculture-based civilization began 10,000 years ago, the majority of humankind is no longer poor or vulnerable to falling into poverty. By our calculations, as of this month, just over 50 percent of the world’s population, or some 3.8 billion people, live in households with enough discretionary expenditure to be considered “middle class” or “rich.”

The authors predict it will get even better in the next 10 years. In 2020 half the world was either "poor" or "vulnerable," while in 2030 that falls to 32% of the total world population. Even more impressive, in 2020 the authors estimate 3.8 billion people are poor or vulnerable. By 2030 they estimate 2.7 billion are in those categories. That is an astounding result.

 

At times I read (and hear) from the younger generation criticism of "the mess" we are leaving them. I beg to differ. We are leaving them an extraordinary world, drowning in riches.

I couldn't get data on these classifications for the US, which is unfortunate. Because I'd like to know how many of the 200 million "rich" reside in the US. I can't imagine less than half of the 200 million rich in the world are in the US, or 100 million. Since there are 300 million people in the US, that's about 1/3. Another (made-up) data point suggesting the 1% rhetoric is pure bullshit.

Bill

Republican Party Favorability Highest in Seven Years

Eli,

"Republican Party Favorability Highest in Seven Years," is the title of a September 24 news release from Gallup. It was a strange headline to see since the failing NY Times keeps telling me the only supporters of Republicans are racists, homophobes and sexists.

The release has this graph showing favorability ratings going back to 2008.

Polls, like scientific papers, can be fabrications of the author's imagination, so I don't want to make too much of this. That said, it's a curious result.

Bill

PS. This poll was before the Kavanaugh smearing, which NPR thinks helped Republicans also.