connorsaturday

[connorsaturday]

(You Can’t) Prove It.

[October 10th, 2017]

      One of my favorite comedians is a mixed-race man by the name of Louis C.K. If you aren’t familiar with him, he is a well-known, long-time comedian with several specials on Netflix, and a show on FXX named Louie. While his comedic style can be described as dark, dirty, crass, and possibly even disturbing, his masterful ability to critically and accurately analyze society is, quite simply, profound. There’s one story of his in particular that I quote to people often, where he tells about a time he talked to an atheist about life after death. Upon asking the atheist what he thought it would be like, the atheist responded with this:

           Atheist: “Well, do you remember, like, when you were born and when you             were a baby and stuff?”

           Louis: “W- well, no, not really.”

           Atheist: “Yeah, so, kinda like that.”

      That perspective has always amazed me. I often ask people to imagine this perspective, and they often reply with something along the lines of “that would suck”, but it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t suck, but it wouldn’t be great either. It would be nothing. You would stop existing, stop feeling, stop thinking, stop being anything at all. You wouldn’t experience anymore. You wouldn’t be. But, as a Christian, I don’t believe that will happen to me, or anyone else, for that matter.  But I can’t prove it. Does that mean it’s false?

      Atheists and other religious skeptics often claim that due to the lack of evidence proving God’s existence, that he is therefore not real. This way of thinking is false; a lack of evidence towards one thing doesn’t count as evidence towards it’s disproval, because each side needs its own evidence. It means that it can’t be proven true – but it also can’t be proven false. It means that it is a theory: something that is plausible, but not factual. Even when I say this, people will often misconstrue this, because many people associate the word “fact” with “true”. While this can be accurate in many cases, there are many other cases where things that are not facts can be truths. Universal morals, like how it is bad to murder, is not a fact or law of the universe, but it is a truth. The same goes for religion. Religion is a theory, which means that it is not necessarily factual, but it is true. It took us nearly seventy years to find any evidence towards Einstein’s theory of relativity, and an average atheist would be more likely to support that theory before the discovery of evidence before religion. Funny enough, whether that applies to you or not, we will be using Einstein’s theory of relativity to help explain “my theory” of why science and religion are two parts to one whole: the scientific-religious creation story, and the logical intervention of God in modern times.

      The scientific-religious creation story contains two key concepts that we must tackle, the first of which being the interpretation and wording of the Biblical creation story itself. The Biblical creation story is usually understood as a seven-day genesis of the earth, all life, and essentially the universe – but is it, even according to the Bible itself? The very first verse of the NIV Bible states, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” If you closely analyze the text itself, you can see that it doesn’t actually state that many specifics. Does it explicitly deny the big bang? Or the expansion of the universe? No, it is kept somewhat vague – only stating the necessary info. In addition to this, the text itself is in a paragraph format that is not considered to be prose. I talked about this in my most recent article, but essentially this text is not in prose format, which means that the Bible demands this section to be read metaphorically, whereas later on in Genesis it demands literal interpretation due to its right-justified prose format (the formatting is determined by the original Hebrew text, which contains contextual information in the Hebrew language itself on how to interpret the text).

           The second key concept we must understand to make this creation perspective work is the theory that the scientific estimate that the universe being several billion years old, and the Biblical account of six days of creation, are one in the same. To accomplish this, one must understand Einstein’s theory of relativity (of which we recently found actual hard evidence). This theory basically states that no matter what speed an observer or object is moving, that light always travels at a constant, fixed speed. Therefore, using the theory of basic relativity, one can conclude that the moving object or observer is experiencing time at a slower pace than the stationary observer, because time is the only other variable that can change to accommodate for the difference in speed (and there is evidence of this, as well). If you can understand that time slows down the faster an object is moving, then we can use it to explain, due to Einstein’s theory of relativity, that the six-day account in the Bible is actually equal to the multi-billion-year account of scientists due to the relativity of time itself. For the sake of everyone’s time and energy (including my own), I will not fully explain how Einstein’s theory works and how it relates to the creation of the universe. There are plenty of YouTube videos that can do that.

      In comparison to the first part of my theory, the logical intervention of God in modern times is, luckily, a lot simpler to understand. Essentially, the theory states that, due to the fact that all events can be explained by statistics and human decision making, that these two things are unchanging. The way that God fits into it, however, is in how he chose the distribution of that probability while maintaining the statistical balance. This theory is quite analogous to the law of conservation of energy states that energy is never created nor destroyed, it is simply transferred into different pieces of matter and in different states. Think about it like this: if I flip a penny 1000 times, that the landing result will be half heads and half tails, statistically. According to my theory, however, God controls where and when the heads and the tails results are in the string of events, and can place them wherever so long as he doesn’t change any specific outcome from heads to tails, or visa-versa. By doing this, he essentially chooses and determines the future events while also maintaining the statistical probability that must remain unchanged. If you apply this theory to the entire world and universe, and consider the potentially infinite number of factors and statistical probabilities, it’s pretty reasonable to see how one could assert that God answered their prayer, and that it is simultaneously explainable by random probability and human decision-making.

      So, when put together, my theory offers explanations as to how science and religion co-exist in the creation of the universe and earth, as well as intervention and determination of events in our daily lives. In addition to this theory, however, there are three other key points you need to take away from this article:

1. Think of the science and religion as not separate from each other, but interconnected parts of one world, where science helps explain God’s actions as best as possible.

2. Keep in mind that I do not claim this theory, that I made in a short amount of time and with minimal evidence and research for the second part, to be the best or only plausible theory. I don’t even know if it is truly “my theory”; there very well may be others who have already thought of a part or of all this perspective. I made this for myself, so that I can relieve the cognitive dissonance I had been experiencing due to my inability to sacrifice science for religion, or the other way around. My intention behind sharing this with you is to give you an alternative way of looking at the topic of “science v religion”, as to give you a new option to adopt if you choose to.

3. No matter if you like this theory or not, if you believe in the historical stories or not, it is crucial to know the historical veracity of the Bible is not what an individual’s faith, nor Christianity itself, should be based off. As I have said in previous articles, the morals and metaphors in the Bible are truths – truths that give Christianity and its followers a foundation that is unbreakable and invincible. If tomorrow, the whole of the Biblical stories was proven false by archaeologists, one’s faith in God should not waiver, because as we have covered earlier in this article, the theory of God is one that will never be proven or disproven. It is a theory will always remain plausible, and always remain prevalent in the lives of people everywhere.

      Discussion is healthy. Questioning God is incredibly beneficial to one’s growth in their faith. At some point, however, questions and discussion can only explain so much. We will never truly be able to understand and explain God, philosophically or scientifically. Our views and perspectives on religion are changed and corrected many, many times throughout out our lives, like a hard drive writing over itself. Like religion, science is constantly writing over itself and proving parts of it to be false; is it really that far-fetched to consider the possibility that we simply don’t understand the already existing relationship between science and religion? It can’t be proven true, yes – but it can’t be proven false.

[connorsaturday]

Everyone is Entitled to Their Own Opinion

[September 29th, 2017]

      It takes a skilled presenter to keep my attention. I know this is somewhat hypocritical due to my own lack of presentation experience, but if I don’t find your topic innately interesting, you better make it interesting if you want me to pay attention (or just make it a class I need to pass, and then I’ll be the most invested student you have ever had). While attending a Catalyst on Campus event this past Wednesday, we listened to four guest speakers try to answer the question of “What is good?” I enjoyed learning more about the Alt-Right movement from the first speaker, appreciated the enthusiasm of the second, strongly disliked the third speaker after listening to her bland tone and hatred of memes, and wasn’t sure what to think of the last speaker. Of these four, however, only one actually managed to answer the question: the last speaker, whose name I unfortunately was not able to hear. It was unfortunate that one speaker who made the most compelling and interesting points was also the speaker that, for me, was the hardest to pay attention to, due to the lack in gusto and “pizazz” in his presentation. Like I said, it takes a skilled presenter to keep my attention. This man answered the theme question in what I interpreted as three parts, the first of which telling the audience that there exists a “plurality of comprehensive good”, or in other words, many different types of “good”.

      Generally, when you ask people their definition of good is, they might say it’s the opposite of evil; the morally correct; the right thing to do. The thing that people don’t realize about this term is that it is subjective, meaning that it is not based on universal fact or the laws of science, it is dependent on the interpretation of each individual person. The reason that most people do not see it as such is because most everyone’s individual interpretation of this term is quite similar. What is good to the large majority of the global population? Don’t murder, give to the poor, be kind, follow the golden rule, along with many other basic and fundamental human rights and behavioral expectations. This is what the speaker called an “overlapping consensus”: the shared beliefs in all versions of comprehensive good. The problem with society in the modern era is the exclusion of one belief from this overlapping consensus: don’t discriminate against people based on the color of their skin.

       To my surprise, the biggest factor in my life that currently contributes to my understanding of race is not my class, Race: The Power of an Illusion. No, instead of a class specifically designed to tackle the topics directly and indirectly relating to racial relations in America, it is my science class, Intro to Human Anatomy, that takes the pedestal. Let me explain this clearly illogical statement. When I learn about human anatomy, about the different organ systems and tissue types, about the cell makeup and process of mitosis, I tend to apply it to my everyday life by means of using people as a cognitive map of the human body. What I mean by this is that before when I looked at someone, all I saw was what I could physically see: their hair, skin color, facial structure, eye color, etc. Now, when I look at someone, sometimes I begin a process of starting at their epithelium and working my way deeper into their body, to their muscles, then bones, all the way to the very cells that make up everything in a person. It’s a little strange, I know, but there is something very humanizing and humbling about it. It makes me remember that underneath our epidermis, we are all almost identical in every way. You wouldn’t be able to tell one person from another. It reminds me of how hung-up people get on dividing and categorizing everyone based on their superficial features; it just makes the whole notion of being a racist so utterly ridiculous to me. Doing this strange mental imaging is a form of perspective, something I regularly preach to others about seeking and obtaining. When you gain perspective, you gain empathy and understanding. When you have those, you have nothing left driving you to be racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or Islamophobic, or any other form of discriminatory behavior.

       So, we know about the plurality of comprehensive good and the overlapping consensus of it that exists amongst the global population, but how do we solve it? How do we, as a society, obtain peace and cooperation of the plurality of good that so often causes conflict? The answer, according to the speaker, is tolerance. Simple, uncontroversial tolerance of all people and of all types of comprehensive good. You see, to the speaker, it doesn’t matter what our definitions of good are. It doesn’t matter how big our overlapping consensus is. So long as we can all just suck it up and deal with each other in a civil manner, that’s all that is needed to achieve the demise of the issues that currently plague our society.

       My initial reaction to this was of slight disagreement. The optimistic side of me wanted to stand up and say, “Why stop at tolerance? Tolerance means that people are merely suppressing their personal beliefs and values that conflict with the overlapping consensus. Why not strive for acceptance, where the overlapping consensus simply becomes the consensus in general?” I didn’t stand up and say this, in fact I didn’t say anything at all. After this thought, the realistic (or pessimistic, more accurately) side of me analyzed just how difficult and statistical improbable acceptance would be. To acquire a universal, liberal, fully-inclusive moral code amongst all people on Earth would take so much time and effort, and even then, it wouldn’t be a guaranteed outcome. It’s too ambitious. While I think that we should have an ultimate end goal of universal moral acceptance, we must remember that you cannot learn how to ride a bike without first using training wheels, and you cannot achieve acceptance without first reaching tolerance. Sometimes the most plausible solution isn’t the most popular solution.

       At times, the number of problems and issues our society faces can be overwhelming, and even frightening at times. We face the first real threat of nuclear war since the 1960s. We have institutional racism hiding in the shadows of society, taking lives every day. We are standing idly by as entire species of animals and crops integral to the global food supply are endangered, and it seems that nobody realizes. But amid strife and struggle, we must remember that large-scale change is the result of small-scale efforts. Make small changes each day, and know that you are doing your part to creating a better world.

[connorsaturday]

“Prove it.”

[September 28th-29th, 2017]

      The drive home from my hometown movie theater that night was really nothing out of the ordinary for me, but for my friend it was a different story. A whimsical child at heart, Andrew was shook after seeing Annabelle at the 10:15 showing – I mean, really shook. He wasn’t hyperventilating quite yet, but he was getting there. In the spirit of light conversation, we started talking about the movie, which (for those of you who don’t know) is essentially about a band of catholic orphans fending off the devil himself who is manifested into the soul of deceased young girl. So naturally, the topic of ghosts, demons, and everything paranormal comes up. Personally, I don’t see the validity in the claim that paranormal forces are real, to any extent and in any manner. Andrew, on the other hand, didn’t only just believe in demons, he was adamant that he had personally experienced paranormal forces in his lifetime, and how the memory still haunts him at night and keeps him from sleeping at times. I’m somewhat of an asshole, so I had a good chuckle and dismissed his unfounded claims and gave him my usual kneejerk response when it comes to these matters: if you can’t measure it, it isn’t real.

      You see, the only problem with an otherwise airtight methodology of determining reality from a psychological attribution error is that I currently consider myself a somewhat religious Presbyterian. The clear contradiction of have an undying belief in the scientific mindset approach to the world, while also believing in something that cannot be measured or observed in any manner whatsoever, should give most everyone a good bit of cognitive dissonance (myself included). At this point most might say “ignorance is bliss”, but I believe that ignorance is the fool’s heroin: this mindset gets you by in the short term, but ultimately will destroy you in the end. Running away from your problems will never solve them, and ignorance will never give you true happiness, only momentary bliss.

       This isn’t the first time I’ve been confronted with this internal dilemma, either. I recently shared some healthy conversation with a fellow North Parker here who told me about the time that God spoke to him. Now go back and re-read that. He told me that God spoke to him. I was immediately filled with so many doubts. How do you know it was God? How do you know that it wasn’t just another one of the many errors in the human psyche? Why is it that if God is speaking to you, that he doesn’t just speak to us all and convert everyone? What kind of logic is that, God?  I asked him these questions (politely), and he answered all of them… technically. The thing about someone experiencing divine intervention is that only that person experiences it. You can’t recreate it, observe any lasting effects, or prove in any way that this person did indeed hear the voice of God, and wasn’t just fooled by their own subconscious (even though this is entirely more plausible).

      No matter how many stories I hear, or how many “miracles of god” I witness, I can’t seem to ever just hop on the bandwagon and believe like others do. And how could I? I don’t believe in superstitions. I walk on the North Park seal usually once a day (sometimes more from doing it on purpose). I don’t believe in fate. The popular tweet in my feed right now is some guy who says, “Always pay attention. You don't meet people by accident and things don’t happen just by coincidence.” Don’t they? Does nothing happen by coincidence? Does purely random Brownian Motion not lead to diffusion in your cells, which allows you to live? I mean, seriously people. You meet people by accident ALL THE TIME. That person you bumped into on the elevator and became friends with? Formed via the most basic rules of the universe: random probability and human behavior (both purposeful and accidental). How, with an approach to life as literal and scientific as mine, can I believe in something that is against most everything I believe in?

      Often times when I watch TV shows or movies that I really like, I find myself assimilating or at least relating to the personalities of the characters at times. When I watched The Office exclusively for three months, I began incorporating small, unique quips and quirks from John Krasinski’s character, “Jim”, into my everyday behavior for a day or two after I had finished the show. I have found this happen to me with a 1997 film called Contact, in which a young scientist named Dr. Ellie Arroway discovers the first tangible evidence of extraterrestrial life, but nobody believes except the president’s personal religious advisor, Palmer Joss. There is a scene in the film I’m quite fond of, when Ellie and Palmer talk about whether God is real or just a figment of the human imagination. Ellie, a lifelong religious skeptic, quotes a line to Palmer from his own book, saying, “Ironically, the thing that people are most hungry for (meaning), is the one thing that science hasn’t been able to give them.” She then claims that he is essentially saying “science killed God”. Palmer then takes Ellie out onto the balcony, where she backs up her atheist argument by explaining Occam’s Razor to him. She explains that it is the scientific principle that states that the simplest explanation is often the most likely explanation, and that between an infinite and all-powerful God who created the universe and left no evidence, or the idea that there simply is no God, that the latter is simpler (and therefore more likely). She ends her argument by saying that, like me, she needs proof. There is a brief silence as Palmer seems to collect his thoughts. He then asks her, knowing that her father had passed away when she was six, “Did you love your father?” Taken back, she responds, “What?”

“Your dad, did you love him?”

“Yes… very much.”

After a pregnant pause, Palmer turns to Ellie, and says,

“Prove it.”

       After all is said and done, after all the evidence is presented and all the cases have been made, I am still stuck with the same problem of trying to reconcile my religion with my prominent scientific worldview. I have to believe that if God truly created everything, then he created science too. As we evolve as a species and as a society, we continue to make technological and scientific advances that we wouldn’t have dreamed of twenty years prior. A few years back, a rumor about Bill Gates spread that he once claimed that “640 kilobytes is enough”, in the sense that people would never need more than that much data space. For those of you who are not technological professionals like myself, 640 kb is around six one-millionths of a gigabyte - 0.00064 gigabytes. While this rumor was later proven to be false, the lesson we can learn from it is very much true. We are always the most scientifically advanced we have ever been, but we have not yet reached the pinnacle of science as a whole, and there is still a possibility that we simply do not have the tools, concepts, and understanding of science to prove God – but I believe that one day we will. It took over a hundred years for us to confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity, but we did confirm it. Even if I’m not alive to see it happen, I stand firm in the belief that science and God can and do co-exist; we just don’t understand how yet.

[connorsaturday]

I Swear I’m Not Some Kind of “Wizard of Oz” Fanatic

[September 25th, 2017]

      There are certain moments in my life when I feel like a detective. Yes, as dorky and childish as it sounds, there are times where one of my many inner pipe dreams overrides my conscious objectivity and critical thinking, and I begin sleuthing a case from the ground up. The only thing is that I usually operate on a hunch not based on actual concrete evidence, rather someone probably said something to me, and one thing led to another and then I’m collecting “eye-witness” accounts on something that never happened. The reason I bring this up is because of the feeling I get from doing it: the feeling of discovering a major conspiracy, finding the pieces of the puzzle and putting it together to expose what will inevitably be a multi-million-dollar drug ring run out of my boss’s basement… or something along those lines. The feeling of exploring a new conspiracy is like the feeling of a general revelation, like when a child puts on glasses for the first time and discovers that the leaves aren’t supposed to be blurry. That is the feeling I got reading the original article, Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex. While my amateur detective work may be funny and lighthearted, the fact that the feeling I got from this article was the same I get from a conspiracy, a theory that is usually unfounded and not credible, is frighteningly serious.

       I often tell people that because I respect honesty so highly, I do not get mad at hypocrites so long as they acknowledge that they are hypocrite. This was true up until about ten minutes ago when I introspectively looked at myself, my life, and my actions. I had just read three articles all talking about how America is absolutely entrenched with these white liberal fakes that preach and advocate for equality, but are simply cowards who either prey on the oppressed out of ignorance, selfishness, or both, and I stopped. And I thought, “Where do I fit into this?” I realized that I, Connor Satterlee, the same person who was praised by his parents, friends, and colleagues for his insightful reflection on Colin Kaepernick, am a hypocrite. I am partially corrupted. I preach for racial equality, and sit during the national anthem, but who am I doing that for? The oppressed, or my self-image? When’s the last time I actually did something to further the progress of the racial agenda that was risky, scary, or even dangerous? When is the last time I actually did anything besides participate in the same bullshit conversation and discussion that I ALWAYS do?

       I may not be as ignorant or selfish as some – at least I’d like to think I’m not – but can I truly know? I insert myself into minority environments, and try to educate myself on cultures unfamiliar to me, but have I tried to enact any real change? Even as I write this reflection, I feel such guilt and shame in myself as I realize just how little I’ve done in terms of being an accomplice, and just how many times I’ve been the liberal American standing in Starbucks watching the execution of another African-American feeling disappointed in our country. But what grandiose plan do I hatch up to enact change? Oh, I’ll just sit during the national anthem. That’ll bring Eric Garner back. That’ll stop the government-mandated murders of minorities by the radical military force we call “police”.

       I believe now that the reason I got the feeling of a conspiracy from reading this article was not because I genuinely believed that this notion of the Ally Industrial Complex is a conspiracy; this concept is very much real and alive in our society. I believe the reason I had that feeling is because the conspiracy lies not in the article itself, but rather in me. Up to this point I believed – or made myself believe – that I was doing enough to fight this war, that I was an accomplice. But in the end, this conspiracy (unlike all the others in my detective career) was real, and the perp that I busted? It was myself.

       The silver lining of my philosophical/psychological crisis is that I believe that my trajectory is towards the right direction. While I have discovered that I am further back from where I had thought I was in terms of social activism, I believe that I am not starting there and regressing, rather I am starting from a place of blindness and naïve cognition and moving towards where I should be, as a full-fledged, non-badge-wearing, consequence-taking accomplice. I only hope that my revelation and realization of my status in the racial war against the institution of America will impact me the way I want it to, yet also impact those who are in the same boat as me. Because we are in a boat, after all; how else would we avoid being melted by the water that surrounds us witches? We’re safe in the boat; we don’t actually know if we’re witches, because we’ve never touched the water… but there’s a storm coming, and we’ve got nowhere to run to, no house to hide in, no blood to put over our doors. The shit has hit the fan before; it hits the fan nearly every week now. But there is no amount of allyship that will protect us when the shit hits the fan so hard that the fan falls of the counter and breaks.

       So, as you and I sit in this boat, awaiting - perhaps even fearing -  the impending storm, I begin to wonder If I actually am a witch. I mean, if the storm is coming, I guess I’ll find out soon anyway. The thing is, witches aren’t just determined by whether or not the water hurts them. Witches are mean. Witches are selfish. Witches hurt others, without remorse, to further their own goals and agendas. Witches believed that African-Americans were 3/5 of a person. Witches believed that schools could be “separate, but equal”. Witches marched in Charlottesville promoting white supremacy to such a violent extent that the governor of Virginia had to declare a state of emergency and summon the National Guard. So am I a witch? Or am I just someone who needs to respond to the call of duty set by our lord long ago: to treat others how you would like to be treated. As I draw to a close, there is only one question that resounds within my mind:

Will the water melt me, or will I let the storm hit me in me in full force?

---

Works Cited:

Admin at Indigenous Action Media (indigenousaction@gmail.com). (2014, May 4). Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex. Retrieved from http://www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex/

[connorsaturday]

A Flashlight in the Dark

[October 15th, 2017]

Why is it so difficult to accurately self-analyze? Well, Why do you stub your toe navigating your house in the dark? 

Because it’s really hard to see everything that’s there without a having a flashlight there to reveal it to you. 

Because it’s really hard to know something that you haven’t learned yet. 

Because it’s really hard to see the world objectively when you only have one lens to see it through. 

Because it’s really hard to extrapolate from your own understanding when you don’t have all the data.

Because it’s really hard to behave in accordance with all the information when you are only operating from a singular perspective.

Because we think we don’t need an external source, like a flashlight, to navigate terrain we think we know, and because it’s really hard to open yourself up to the possibility that you may have made a mistake. 

And I have made a mistake.

[connorsaturday]

White Liberal America: The Ultimate Hypocrite

[SEPTEMBER 18, 2017]

             I often tell people that I am always looking for perspective. I tell them that I work in these underprivileged neighborhoods, and that I enjoy putting myself into environments where I am not the majority. The thing is, that statement is flawed at a meta-level. Let me explain: Physically I can be in situations where I am racially the minority. That is true. Socially and psychologically, however, this environment doesn’t exist. In this nation, in this culture, in this current sociopolitical state of the union, I can never be in a place where I am a minority. When you have a skin color like mine and an ethnic background that is whiter than whipped cream itself, you will always be on top of the socio-racial hierarchy. So long as I have my white privilege, I will always, unfortunately, be the majority.

      Of the two articles my professor, Ms. Calamari gave us – a news article on Michael Bennett’s encounter with the LVPD, and a much longer article on Colin Kaepernick - I started with the news article on Michael Bennett. It is MUCH shorter, and when faced with multiple tasks – and ample hours to complete them – my ADD will always force me to choose the easiest task first. So, as I drew the concentration from deep within my mind to read this, I was left with a feeling of neutrality, like I was in the same place that I started. It’s easy to feel this way when the news cycle flip-flops between racist police shootings one day and President Trump passively supporting racist motions the next day; the stories of oppressive, systemic racism blur together after a while. America wakes up day after day to see a tweet from our President saying that there is “blame on both sides” during the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, or that the man brutally shot by a white policeman at a traffic stop, who then bled to death next to his girlfriend and child in their car, was reaching for the gun that he warned the officer about in advance. Ironically, the group in our country with arguably the most influence and power in society – liberal white Americans – see this and think, “Jesus, look what’s happened now. How can something like this happen? I can’t believe this, I am appalled.” We go on and on about how awful the news is, but eventually the dust settles. The chatter ceases. We go back to the quiet before the storm, waiting on the next terrible thing to happen. But in the middle of all the chaos, the shootings and the government instability, in the middle of the habitual action-reaction response of White Liberal America, do we ever stop and think to ourselves about the next step?

     In Rembert Browne’s article for the Bleacher Report, Colin Kaepernick Has a Job, Browne quotes a line from Michael Bennett during a conversation they had in relation to the article. Bennett tells Browne, “Boycotting is a form of protest. I think if there is a boycott, it kind of shows that the consumer has power. But then it’s like: What’s the next step?” And that’s the question: what is the next step for White Liberal America? When’s the last time you checked in on the conclusion to a cop killing an innocent minority? Do you know what happened to Michael Brown’s killer? Eric Garner’s? Philando Castile’s? Trayvon Martin’s? My guess is you probably don’t. For no other reason than you probably just don’t know any of those people personally, and therefore (as awful as it may sound), just don’t care enough to check in and see what happened; that’s just basic psychology.

      Human psychology is one of the most complex and intricate topics in science to have ever existed. Not only does it explain so much of the most basic and advanced human behaviors, it is also at the same time something that we know so little about. New discoveries and hypotheses are made every day, stacked on top of each other like software updates on an iPhone. The psychology behind Rembert Browne’s article really left me in a different state than the much shorter news article did. While I still cannot see the full picture of the intricacies of racism in America today, I feel that I have gained a broader and deeper understanding of where we are, where we need to be, and why we aren’t there yet. It is truly amazing how all of this – the backlash, the criticism, the discussion made in this article – all stemmed from a simple act of passive resistance from one man.

       A common term thrown around the race topic today is institutional racism. However, this term – like GMOs – is something people tend to speak very much of, yet unfortunately know very little about (my rant on GMOs is a topic for another time, though). White Liberal America thinks they know institutional racism, but they don’t. They think they’ve seen the dirty and disgusting, but watching footage of a black man being shot by cops on CNN does not count as exposure to the repulsive reality of our country. White Liberal America has a set of beliefs about racism and equality, but abides by none of them. The second anyone’s wallet starts to feel light or anyone’s circle of comfort gets to thin, they all drop the façade and scatter like rats at the first sign of trouble. Why? Because they can. Because they’re not on the chopping block. They’re not the ones being held against the ground at gunpoint being told not to move or “I will blow your head off”, like Michael Bennett was. No, White Liberal America would rather just watch and support from a Starbucks, far, far away from the danger and the battle. White Liberal America would rather just stay inside and lock the door during a protest, but put a Black Lives Matter sign in the window to tell the world they aren’t racist, like a streak of blood above their doors so that the angel of death passes by their homes.

      White Liberal Americans are superficial; their beliefs and opinions on race only go skin-deep. They preach for change and progress, but give up and retreat as soon as faced with the guillotine. To advocate for change means that White Liberal America must not run from adversity and use their fellow African-Americans as a metaphorical meat-shield once people start taking jabs at them. To represent equality means that White Liberal America must put on the gloves and do the dirty work, even if it’s scary. Even if you feel uncomfortable. Even if you feel endangered and unsafe. African-Americans and minorities all over the nation have been feeling this way not because they’re choosing to take a stand, but because they have to take a stand. They are trapped in their battle, and they need our help. Only once we, White Liberal Americans, stop letting others fight these battles for us, will we be able to achieve a post-racial society. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one; this, we have achieved a long time ago. It is time that we realize the next step and take action to achieve it. But what is the next step? How can we figure that out?

      Racism is a fire that is fueled by two things: ignorance and a lack of the truth. Like how water defeats fire, perspective and objectivity are the tools to unlock the passageway to the door – the door that Langston Hughes speaks of when talking with Nina Simone before her death:

One of these days

When you made it

And the doors are open wide

Make sure you tell them exactly where it’s at

So they have no place to hide

      And so, while I continue seeking to inject perspective and objectivity into my own life, I invite White Liberal America to do the same. Don’t just let the police shootings and the passive racism of our government become the status quo. Override your human tendency to act in self-preservation. Learn and be woke, and once you have seen the truth, do not run in fear. Stand in the rain and let the storm hit you in full force. Only witches melt from water, after all.

---

Works Cited:

Browne, R. (2017, September 12). Colin Kaepernick Has a Job. Retrieved from http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2732670-colin-kaepernick-anthem-race-in-america

CBS Crimesider Staff. (2017, September 6). Seahawks' Michael Bennett says police officer held gun to his head. Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seahawks-michael-bennett-says-police-officer-held-gun-to-his-head/

[connorsaturday]

Because We’re All Probably Getting Nuked Soon:

[October 13th, 2017]

      Alright. Nice time is over. There’s no room here for reserved behavior. If you give the slightest shit about our once great country, then read:

      I swear to God I'm the only person who is angry with the government and our president and our country right now. Oh, am I wrong? Then why the fuck does it feel like I am the only one actually saying something among the people in my twitter feed?

      Political wars aren't won by objective truth and accuracy anymore, they're won by being the loudest and most aggressive. Simply believing in the right thing isn't enough. Fucking do something about it. Say something, protest something, do something. Anything. Even a goddamn retweet is way better than sitting idly by and acting like someone else is going to come along fix the mess we're all in. Act on your values and do your part to fight for what's right and make some ACTUAL change. Or just sit back and watch our country continue to fall apart, continue to be invaded by Russians on the internet, continue to watch the very threads the American flag that are supposed to unify us unravel and fall apart.

      I don't like to judge people, but here's an exception: you are a son of a bitch if your biggest concern right now is the national anthem controversy. That's what you're worried about? Entertain me for a sec and remember this: FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE were GUNNED DOWN in fear, panic, and terror last week. They're dead. The hundreds of families affected are in pain that most of you could NEVER imagine. In Puerto Rico, people are suffering, cold, homeless, and starving right now. People, in a part of our country, have lost EVERYTHING. They have nothing left. No house, no belongings, nothing.

      And some of you are still hung up on Colin Kaepernick, and the "awful" and "disrespectful" things he's done? Really?

      You say I disrespect the military by sitting down for the anthem? Yeah? Why is that? Have you ever stopped to think that there is NOTHING stating that the two are connected AT ALL. The only reason this belief persists is because we pass it on. That's actually it. The anthem and flag stand for more than the soldiers I respect and love. The flag and anthem (even the third, racist verse of it) stands for the racial, religious, sexual equality and freedom that America represents... or at least it used to.

      Tell me that Eric Garner should've been reciting every last word, instead of saying “I can’t breathe” when he was being choked to death in the street by a police officer. Tell me.

      Tell me. Really, go ahead and tell me that Philando Castile should've stood up for the great National Anthem as he was bleeding out from being wrongfully shot by a cop in front of his fucking wife and kids. Tell me. I wish you would.

      Tell. Me. Tell me that the black soldiers should put their hand over their heart when they come back from active duty to find out that they protected people who are metaphorically spitting racial oppression in their face and figuratively beating them with the whip of racism. Tell me- no, tell THEM that they should stand up for the flag of a country that cannot, and will not stand up for them.

      When will those of you who side with Trump on this issue understand that sitting for the national anthem is NOT disrespecting the military?

      Do you want to know what disrespecting the military is? It’s ignoring and denying the benefits and help that millions of war vets in our country desperately need, like our president, Donald Trump has. I don't have to stand for a goddamn flag to love and respect the people who allow me to have that very right in the first place. How else am I supposed to actively show support for the military, you ask? Why do I have to actively show support at all? I support women's right to vote, you don't see me getting down on my hands and knees and bowing every time a woman walks by.

      Donald Trump: we have all of these actually awful and frightening tragedies and problems facing our country right now. And you'd rather focus all your energy putting down minority NFL players for trying to call attention to the immense racial oppression that takes place in our country every day? Fuck that. And on behalf of the good that once presided in this nation, fuck you, Donald Trump. This is no longer the land of the free because of you. This is no longer the nation I was born and raised in because of you. I don’t feel safe in this country anymore because of you. I don’t even fucking recognize this country anymore because of you. Donald Trump, YOU made me lose the love I once had for this country. So long as you are in power, we are not America. You are the least American person I have ever seen, and you are a fucking disgrace to the founding fathers, you disgusting tyrant. You have embarrassed this country on a global scale one too many times, and I've given up all hope of you being able to keep yourself pissing all over the flag you hold so fucking dear, and shitting into the mouths of the people you "represent", “protect”, and “serve”, you fascist, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, anti-humanitarian, ignorant, cheating, untrustworthy, lying, fucking moron.

       Oh, and credit to Rex Tillerson, your Secretary of State, for the “fucking moron” line – that was a good one, Rex. Your cronyism couldn’t stop even your closest officials from seeing through the wool you pulled over America’s eyes.