Random Blogging – Page 51

Downtown

As regular readers have undoubtedly noticed, I frequently use this blog as a platform to vent–and that’s what I plan to do today. Usually, my rants are political, but despite political overtones, this one is personal.

First, some background.

I use Facebook primarily as a method for “pushing out” this blog–I very rarely post about personal matters, and because I am essentially viewing the site as a marketing tool, I have accepted lots of Facebook “friends” I’ve never met. Recently, one of them posted about the prosecutor’s race in my county, and that led to a string of dismissive (and easily disproven) comments about crime and downtown Indianapolis.

I have lived in downtown’s historic neighborhoods since 1980, and eighteen months ago, my husband and I downsized to an apartment in the heart of downtown’s central business district.

I now live barely two blocks from a Starbucks that the company is closing, a decision accompanied by pious declarations to the effect that closure was impelled by concerns for customer safety. Believing that excuse requires ignoring contemporaneous Starbucks closures in SIXTEEN other cities, and the fact that safety concerns seem not to have affected the other NINE downtown Starbucks locations. (Given the enormous number of competing coffee shops operating in just the Mile Square, my guess is over-saturation…)

Several people commenting on the post used the Starbucks closure to assert that downtown Indianapolis is not only unsafe, but–and I quote– a “shithole.”

Let me describe that “shithole” for those who don’t live in my neighborhood.

Saturday night, I attended an event at the downtown History Center. On my way home (four blocks), I passed restaurants filled to overflowing with diners inside and out (it was still a balmy evening, and downtown is blessed with numerous eateries offering outside dining.) Throngs of young couples were strolling up and down Massachusetts Avenue–a revitalized stretch of street hosting bars, restaurants, retail shops and theaters– all of which my husband and I frequent.

On foot. We also walk two blocks to our preferred grocery, cleaners and hardware store…

Counterintuitively for a “shithole,” downtown Indianapolis attracts ongoing construction of apartment complexes and condominiums. People keep moving downtown to occupy them. (For the past few years, new construction has been so constant my husband and I joke as we pass a new complex: “Gee–that wasn’t there last Tuesday!”) As a recent report from the Indianapolis Star put it, renters and buyers continue to show a “high demand for Downtown living, a trend driven by amenities such as walkable streets, contemporary restaurants and bustling nightlife.”

If there’s a legitimate concern about downtown living, it’s the cost:a lot of people are paying top dollar to enjoy the ambience and amenities of our downtown “shithole.”

Visit the website for Downtown Indy and find lists of residential options (both affordable and “wow, that’s pricey”) along with lists of the dozens of festivals, venues and events enjoyed by the 30,000+ of us who currently live downtown– as well as the thousands who come down to attend them.

Indianapolis does have a crime problem–as most cities do–but it is primarily located in outer, impoverished neighborhoods.

That said, I’m pretty sure I know what accounts for the ignorant accusations about downtown Indy.

When I look at the throngs of people on the streets, most are young, and many are Black, Brown or Asian. A number of couples are interracial. Unfortunately, depressing numbers of Americans continue to equate nonwhite races with crime and decay. I’d be willing to bet good money that the people posting sneering comments about downtown Indianapolis hold stereotypes that equate “downtown” with “ghetto” and “scary.”

Prejudice can work both ways, of course.

For years, when my husband and I would drive past those grim, cookie-cutter, tree-less suburban developments that clearly require long commutes to work or shop, he would observe that “this is the environment people are willing to accept in order to avoid Black neighbors.” I would have to remind him that not every resident of suburbia or exurbia is a bigot–that there are non-racist reasons nice people might want a big yard or a quiet neighborhood.

I’ll end this screed by taking my own advice, and conceding that downtown living isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The vitality, walkability and street life I treasure can be off-putting to others, and those differences are just differences–they don’t necessarily reflect ignorance or prejudice.

On the other hand, when someone describes the center of my city–my neighborhood–in demonstrably inaccurate, pejorative terms, I’m pretty confident I know where that opinion comes from. And it isn’t pretty.

It’s just one more data point demonstrating the prevalence and persistence of American racism.

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If This Doesn’t Terrify You…

Little by little, media outlets have begun reporting on a variety of really horrifying “movements”–most embracing Neo-fascist and/or crypto-Christian beliefs–that have been accumulating large numbers of adherents despite their underground status.

One such movement is the New Apostolic Reformation.

On July 1, 2022, inside a packed Georgia arena, four religious leaders stood on stage as they recited a blood chilling Prayer Declaration called the “Watchman Decree”:

Whereas, we have been given legal power from heaven and now exercise our authority, Whereas, we are God’s ambassadors and spokespeople over the earth. Whereas, through the power of God we are the world influencers. Whereas, because of our covenant with God, we are equipped and delegated by him to destroy every attempted advance of the enemy, we make our declarations: … 3. We decree that our judicial system will issue rulings that are biblical and constitutional. 4. We declare that we stand against wokeness, the occult, and every evil attempt against our nation. 5. We declare that we now take back our God-given freedoms, according to our Constitution. 6. We decree that we take back and permanently control positions of influence and leadership in each of the “Seven Mountains.”

Not only was the arena “packed,” the video of the recitation–which you can see at the link– was viewed more than 3 million times on Twitter alone.

The Watchman Decree is a product of something called the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). The relatively few media outlets that have reported on the movement tell us that it is a rapidly accelerating worldwide Christian authoritarian movement, one that includes practices of faith healing and exorcism. It also promotes dominionism, the belief that Christians must take control of government, business and the culture before Jesus can return to earth.

The men on stage included NAR apostles Dutch Sheets (who wrote the decree) and Lance Wallhau, along with two close colleagues, pastors Mario Murillo and Hank Kunneman. The fifth man, pastor Gene Bailey, hosted the event for his show Flashpoint on Victory TV, a Christian network that platforms the NAR and pro-Trump Make America Great (MAGA) influencers.

Those relatively obscure individuals are joined in NAR by Trump supporters with far more familiar names: former Trump National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, who has appeared on Flashpoint several times, and longtime Trump advisor Roger Stone. Stone, Flynn, and other MAGA influencers were announced as participants in a Pennsylvania tour called the“Reawaken America Tour” (RAT). That tour was founded by a far right podcast host from Oklahoma, and was sponsored by an NAR apostle through something called Charisma News.

Leading NAR apostles are blatantly pro-Trump, and claim their view is supported by God, whereas opposition to Trump is satanic. “Fighting with Trump is fighting God,” Wallnau declared in October 2020. “God does not want” Joe Biden to be president, Sheets claimed in December 2020. “All those witchcraft curses that did not land on Donald Trump are trying to take out his kids,” Wallnau raged in a 2017 video. In a 2017 tweet, he wrote, “Praying for the President-elect at Press Club in D.C. with Lou Engle. Prophetic location. Trump must keep wrecking media witchcraft.”

The NAR also opposes freedom of religion, teaching instead that Christians must exert dominion over all aspects of our society. The NAR isn’t the only movement that espouses dominionism, but it may be the most influential. As explained by Wagner, who fathered the NAR:

“Dominion has to do with control. Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing. And it relates to society. In other words, what the values are in Heaven need to be made manifest on earth. Dominion means being the head and not the tail. Dominion means ruling as kings.”

The specific pillars of society over which the NAR plans to “rule as kings” are seven-fold: 1. business, 2. government, 3. family, 4. religion, 5. media, 6. education, and 7. entertainment. NAR leaders call this the “Seven Mountains” mandate.

I find it hard to get my head around the fact that thousands–perhaps millions–of Americans can hold and act upon such beliefs in the 21st Century. I can only speculate about the fears and/or resentments that might account for a person’s embrace of such a worldview. The fact that the NAR and its ilk have largely flown under the radar adds to the danger. These are people who believe they are privy to the will of a deity they have created out of their own inadequacies, and that they are entitled to exert “dominion” over the rest of us.

We live in very scary times.

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Messaging

As the midterms get closer, the punditry gets more predictable. For the past several weeks, not a day has gone by without at least one column–usually more– bemoaning the Democratic Party’s lack of effective messaging.

To which I say bull-feathers.

The problem with “messaging” isn’t that candidates aren’t choosing to emphasize arguments likely to move voters; the problem is the civic ignorance of those voters and the siloed information environments they inhabit.

Take inflation. Republicans are convinced that an emphasis on inflation is a winner for the GOP, and they may well be right. If they are, it will be because the average voter has absolutely no understanding of economics–and is totally unaware that inflation is currently a global phenomenon (much worse elsewhere, actually) with multiple causes.

Progressives have been pointing to several of those causes–“messaging” about the effect of the war in Ukraine, the Saudi’s outrageous decision to cut production so as to raise gas prices (a transparent effort to help Putin by helping Trump’s MAGA base), the persistence of pandemic supply chain problems, and a healthy dose of corporate greed.

That last item has led to calls by some economists for a one-time windfall profits tax–but again, how many American voters understand how price gouging occurs, or what a windfall tax is or does?

American voters have historically blamed the President–no matter who is in office and no matter what his party–for economic conditions a President cannot and does not control. Those voters have historically gone to the polls in midterm elections and ousted members of the President’s party–despite the fact that the opposing party is generally offering zero credible policies to address the economic problem of the moment.

Right now, the GOP’s proposal to “fix” inflation is to cut spending on Social Security and Medicare, and stop supplying arms and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. How many voters know that, or are aware of the various statements to that effect made by Republican members of the House and Senate?

For that matter, how many voters understand how the filibuster works, and how its deployment by the GOP has doomed popular legislation?

Until the most recent session of the U.S. Supreme Court, few voters understood the connection between the politics of the Senate majority and the placement of qualified jurists on that Court. (Most still don’t understand how we got the current, highly politicized and retrograde Court majority.)

A number of the pundits decrying the inadequacy of Democratic messaging are convinced that the upcoming election is about saving American democracy–a point with which I agree–and that effective messaging should focus on that threat. They never seem to explain just how they would address the loss of American democracy in those 30-second TV ads or glossy mailed flyers.

If American voters understood how our government is supposed to work–if they all knew, for example, that we have three branches of government (a fact that was evidently a revelation to Tommy Tuberville, elected to the U.S. Senate from Alabama presumably because he was a good athlete), and how those branches are supposed to operate, perhaps it would be possible to make the case in a way that would resonate with those voters. Without that public understanding, Democrats (and disaffected Republicans like Liz Cheney) are reduced to making the accusation–and an accusation is not an explanation.

For that matter, even excellent messaging must be heard to be effective.

If American voters all tuned in to the same media outlets, it might be possible to educate them about these matters, but of course, they don’t. Democratic messaging–no matter how brilliant–isn’t likely to reach the legions of voters glued to Fox News and its clones.

What do American voters know?

Most know that an illegitimate Supreme Court has–for the first time in American history–withdrawn a constitutional right. Most know that the right to reproductive autonomy is critical to women’s health and equality, and a significant number know that Republicans are very likely to continue to chip away at other rights previously protected by the constitutional right to privacy.

Some portion of the electorate knows that the President doesn’t control gas prices, and that Republicans will continue their assault on the social safety net. Growing numbers recognize that the MAGA movement is dangerous; they may not be able to define fascism but–like pornography– they know it when they see it.

Will what American voters do know be enough to upend the history of midterm elections–a history that favors the party not currently in control of the White House? Will what they do understand motivate sufficient numbers to turn out to VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO?

I guess we’ll find out.

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Boys And Girls…

Richard Reeves is a widely respected researcher at the Brookings Institution. He has most recently been exploring the status of American males, and written a book about his troubling conclusions.

Reeves isn’t the only person calling attention to the perceived problems faced by contemporary boys and men–over the past few weeks, I’ve seen several op-eds and essays addressing issues confronting American males. (It is difficult to escape the irony of that sudden concern, given the wholesale assault on women’s equality that was unleashed with the Dobbs decision–after all, there is substantial evidence that control of her own reproduction was the single most important element liberating women from centuries of subordinate status.)

Irony or no, some of the data about American men is concerning. As Reeves notes in a Brookings essay

In every U.S. state, young women are more likely than their male counterparts to have a bachelor’s degree. The education gender gap emerges well before college, however: girls are more likely to graduate high school on time and perform substantially better on standardized reading tests than boys (and about as well in math).

The numbers are revealing.

In 1970, just 12 percent of young women (ages 25 to 34) had a bachelor’s degree, compared to 20 percent of men — a gap of eight percentage points. By 2020, that number had risen to 41 percent for women but only to 32 percent for men — a nine percentage–point gap, now going the other way. That means there are currently 1.6 million more young women with a bachelor’s degree than men. To put it into perspective, that’s just less than the population of West Virginia.

Reeves provides a state-by-state breakdown, and I noted that, in Indiana, women between the ages of 25 and 34 are 24% more likely to hold a bachelor’s degree than men. (If Indana’s draconian anti-abortion bill is ultimately upheld, that will undoubtedly change–women with college degrees and career options will avoid the Hoosier state like the plague…)

It isn’t simply college. Reeves provides charts and numbers documenting the fact that girls are more likely to graduate high school and to do so on time, and even to do better in grade school.

Girls outperform boys in reading by more than 40 percent of a grade level in every state. In ten states (the ones in dark blue on the map), girls are more than a full grade level ahead of boys. In math, by contrast, boys have a slight advantage in some states, though the gender gap in either direction is less than a quarter of a grade level in most states.

In response to this data, Brookings has announced a new Boys and Men Project, that will explore the differences, the possible reasons for them and the effects of various state policies intended to address them.

I have absolutely no data bearing on the education gender gap–but like many Americans (too many of us, actually), I have my own (admittedly unsubstantiated) suspicions. In my case, those speculations are grounded in my personal long-ago educational experiences– in grade school, high school and to a somewhat lesser extent, college.

With the exception of math classes, girls have always done better in school.

We did better because we were expected to do better–just as boys were expected to outshine us in math. Academic performance was very much a consequence of social expectations, and many of those expectations were grounded in gender stereotypes.

Females of my generation were expected to be more submissive, quieter and more docile than our male peers. (A problem for yours truly…) We were expected to be obedient–which included doing our homework and applying ourselves, especially in the “appropriate” classes. Boys were given much more latitude (“boys will be boys”) in education as well as in other behaviors.

I can’t help wondering if this sudden concern–which I hasten to say is entirely appropriate–isn’t a consequence of changing gender expectations, rather than changing educational “facts on the ground.” Until very recently, men were able to be socially and professionally dominant whether or not they’d made good grades or graduated from college. Gradually, however, large numbers of “uppity” women have entered a workforce that has also changed–a workforce rewarding intellectual skills rather than physical strength.

Suddenly, that longstanding educational gap has consequences.

The growing equality of women has generated substantial pushback from insecure men–everything from legislative efforts to return women to the status of forced breeders to the incels (an online community of young men unable to attract women sexually, who show considerable hostility toward women.) Among less insecure, more reasonable people, male and female, women’s emancipation has prompted belated attention to the education gap.

That’s my theory, and I’m sticking with it until there’s credible data to the contrary…

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(Positive) Signs Of The Times

One of the multiple newsletters that hit my inbox comes from Religion News Service. (Given the influence of religion–especially Christianity–on American policy, it has always seemed prudent for this very irreligious observer to keep tabs on what’s happening to and among the purportedly pious…)

Recent reports have signaled a welcome–if belated–effort by those I consider to be genuinely religious to respond to the ugly perversions that excuse bigotries of various kinds as exercises in “sincere” religious belief. I’ve previously shared statements from “Christians Against Christian Nationalism.” Here are a couple of other examples:

Within the last two years, students at religious schools across the country have made headlines pushing back against university policies regarding LGBTQ students or staff.

They’ve staged a monthlong sit-in at Seattle Pacific University, a private school associated with the Free Methodist Church, against a policy that forbids the hiring of LGBTQ people. They’ve called on Baylor University, that affirms marriage between a man and a woman as the “biblical norm,” to officially recognize an LGBTQ student advocacy group. They’ve protested at Brigham Young University after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which operates the school, said same-sex romantic behavior was “not compatible” with university rules, despite the removal of the “homosexual behavior” section from its Honor Code, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

The article reports that students at more than 100 campuses staged a walk out on Oct. 11–coming out day– to protest religious exemptions to Title IX, “carve-outs” that allow discrimination against LGBTQ students by the presumably devout.

One university observer was quoted as saying that students “are done being told that in order to be a good Christian, that means you must be a white, straight Christian, or embrace white, straight Christian values.”

An equally intriguing story involved a massive ad campaign. Dubbed the “He Gets Us” campaign, it is a $100 million effort to “redeem Jesus’ brand from the damage done by his followers, especially those who say one thing and then do another.”

The campaign, funded by the Signatry, a Christian foundation based in Kansas, will expand in the next few months, with an updated website, an online store where people can get free gear if they forgive someone or welcome a stranger, and an outreach program for churches, all leading up to a Super Bowl ad.

Lee said organizers also want to start a movement of people who want to tell a better story about Jesus and act like him.

Our goal is to give voice to the pent-up energy of like-minded Jesus followers, those who are in the pews and the ones that aren’t, who are ready to reclaim the name of Jesus from those who abuse it to judge, harm and divide people,” Lee said.

Jason Vanderground, president of Haven, a branding firm based in Grand Haven, Michigan, said the movement hopes to bridge the gap between the story of Jesus and the public perception of his followers. The campaign has done extensive market research and found that, while many Americans like Jesus, they are skeptical of his followers.

That last observation reminded me of a bumper sticker I’ve seen a couple of times, proclaiming something along the lines of “Jesus–Protect Me From Your Followers.” It also reminded me of that quote from Mahatma Gandhi–“I like your Christ, but not your Christianity.”

The president of the marketing firm handling the campaign said Christians see their faith as a great love story, while increasing numbers of others see Christians as a hate group.

“Jesus said people are going to know my followers by the way they love each other and the way they interact with each other,” he said. “I think when we look at American Christianity now, we don’t see nearly as much of that — and that concerns a lot of people.”

We certainly haven’t been seeing much loving-kindness from the loudest, ostentatiously pious, self-identified Christians–or for that matter, from the fundamentalists of most religions.

Religion and philosophy can assist people in finding meaning, in dealing with the complexities of life and wrestling with its inevitable moral ambiguities. To appropriate another observation, religion can be used as a shield or a sword. When people find comfort in their beliefs, using those beliefs to shield them from life’s “arrows,” it serves a defensible purpose. When it becomes a sword with which to label and attack unbelievers, dissenters, and various “others,” it is no longer defensible.

Apparently, a lot of genuinely religious folks are fed up with the hypocrisy and hatefulness of their sword-brandishing brethren. I’d call that a positive sign.

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