-
Real Anti-Racism:
Posted in Thoughts
Shaking the hand of someone you disagree with isn’t as much fun as shouting them down, but it is far more effective.
When you live in small groups on the savanna, as our ancestors did for most of our evolutionary history, it pays to be suspicious of strangers. Other groups were competition. Strangers didn’t drop by for a cup of tea and a friendly chat about our emotional well being. We couldn’t afford to see a stranger as a real person at all. It was an “us versus them” world. Fear and aggression were the only rational responses. People who did well in that world (AKA our ancestors, the people from whom we get our DNA), knew that the only safe thing was to beat strangers with a club first and ask questions later.
Fear of “The Other” is hardwired, and talking about it doesn’t help.
We may not live in small groups on the savanna any more, but our brains don’t know that. For better or worse we are stuck with our evolutionary baggage. Nothing is going to change that. When you encounter someone who your brain perceives as “other”– and by this I mean you personally, dear reader, as well as myself and every other human on the planet — all of that machinery jumps to life in milliseconds. Long before we are consciously aware of anything, our brains are screaming “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”
Call this tribalism. Call it racism. Call it in-group/out-group dynamics. Call it identity politics. Call it polarization. Call it whatever you like. It all comes down to the same thing. When we perceive someone as other our reactions are hard wired, preconscious, and impossible to turn off.
Good intentions don’t matter. Get high and sing Kumbaya all night. Talk about it until the cows come home. Hold workshops. Post platitudes or scream about it on the internet. If you want to judge the effectiveness of those strategies all you have to do is pick up the paper. The louder the mob screams, the more ground they lose. We’ve tried those approaches. They make things worse, not better.
Quoting Einstein’s famous parable, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
There is only one solution: Humanize yourself by embracing the humanity of others.
If you perceive someone as other you will respond to them as a threat. There’s nothing we can do about that. Or is there? Take a step back and the answer is obvious. We can’t change how we react to other, but we can change who we perceive as other.
There is going on 70 years of really fascinating sociological, psychological, political and even neurological research that all supports the same conclusion: If you know and respect someone, it’s hard not to care about them. Break bread together, laugh together, talk deeply, listen, show respect (even when it’s difficult), build bridges, find common purpose and work arm in arm.
I could dig into that research, but mercifully for you I won’t. Instead I am going to share an uplifting and illustrative story of what effective anti-racism really looks like.
How did a Black musician change the hearts of hundreds of Klansmen?
Daryl Davis is a Black blues and jazz musician with a very strange hobby. He goes to events like KKK rallies not to shout or protest, but to listen, shake hands, talk, and befriend. Literally hundreds of the Klan members who Daryl Davis has become friends with have renounced the Klan. He has a large collection of their robes, including the robe of a man who, when they met, was the Grand Wizard himself.
Read that last sentence again. Then if you honestly care about fighting racism you owe it to yourself to invest 18 minutes and listen to Daryl Davis’s story in his own words.
This is not your Woke friend’s Anti-Racism.
It feels good to gang up and shout at people. The difference between the shouters and the shoutees makes it really easy to tell who is “us” and who is “them.” Our brains love that. The dopamine flows like a river.
But that is not what Daryl Davis did. There was no shouting about racism. Terms like “White privilege” and “White fragility” were never used. Daryl Davis never complained about microaggressions or political correctness. DEI workshops were not part of the program. Mr. Davis did not wear his feelings on his sleeve. Quite the contrary, Daryl Davis listened even to open hatred and tried to understand where it was coming from. There was no talk of victims and oppressors. There were no social media attacks or calls for deplatforming. There was no virtue signaling about Wokeness.
Instead, Daryl Davis treated those who were predisposed to hate him with dignity and respect. He listened. He questioned. He befriended. He humanized himself by seeing and acknowledging the humanity of others, including those with whom he deeply disagreed. In the process he did what few have ever accomplished. Daryl Davis changed the hearts of hundreds of the most committed racists in the nation.
This is what real, effective anti-racism looks like. And as Davis mentions at the end of his talk, if he can do it, so can we.
-
Watching Rome Burn & Hell Freeze
Posted in For Your Consideration
What do record fire seasons in the West, record hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, record winter storms in the South and the hottest years in history have to do with each other? Everything.
This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Schools in the Time of COVID
Posted in Thoughts
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Yes, schools are desperately important to kids. No, COVID-19 doesn’t care, and COVID is making the rules right now. Attempts to open schools this fall will fail of their own accord. The relevant question is how to meet the needs of children, families and the community in the face of that reality.
COVID-19 Arrives
Posted in Thoughts
Currently new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona are doubling every 7 days. ICU beds in the state are already full. The rest of the country isn’t that far behind us. You do the math.
Correctly Predicting Failure
Posted in Thoughts
Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels
Posted in Thoughts
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
Pine Boxes
Posted in Success & FailureThoughts
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Scientists Stuck Inside
Posted in For Your ConsiderationThoughts
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
After COVID’s First Wave
Posted in Success & FailureThoughts
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
COVID-19
Posted in Success & FailureThoughts
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
Great Deceiverism 101
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
One Step at a Time
Posted in For Your ConsiderationUnreasonable Faith
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Click on thumbnail to select post:
-
Shaking the hand of someone you disagree with isn’t as much fun as shouting them down, but it is far more effective.
When you live in small groups on the savanna, as our ancestors did for most of our evolutionary history, it pays to be suspicious of strangers. Other groups were competition. Strangers didn’t drop by for a cup of tea and a friendly chat about our emotional well being. We couldn’t afford to see a stranger as a real person at all. It was an “us versus them” world. Fear and aggression were the only rational responses. People who did well in that world (AKA our ancestors, the people from whom we get our DNA), knew that the only safe thing was to beat strangers with a club first and ask questions later.
Fear of “The Other” is hardwired, and talking about it doesn’t help.
We may not live in small groups on the savanna any more, but our brains don’t know that. For better or worse we are stuck with our evolutionary baggage. Nothing is going to change that. When you encounter someone who your brain perceives as “other”– and by this I mean you personally, dear reader, as well as myself and every other human on the planet — all of that machinery jumps to life in milliseconds. Long before we are consciously aware of anything, our brains are screaming “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”
Call this tribalism. Call it racism. Call it in-group/out-group dynamics. Call it identity politics. Call it polarization. Call it whatever you like. It all comes down to the same thing. When we perceive someone as other our reactions are hard wired, preconscious, and impossible to turn off.
Good intentions don’t matter. Get high and sing Kumbaya all night. Talk about it until the cows come home. Hold workshops. Post platitudes or scream about it on the internet. If you want to judge the effectiveness of those strategies all you have to do is pick up the paper. The louder the mob screams, the more ground they lose. We’ve tried those approaches. They make things worse, not better.
Quoting Einstein’s famous parable, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
There is only one solution: Humanize yourself by embracing the humanity of others.
If you perceive someone as other you will respond to them as a threat. There’s nothing we can do about that. Or is there? Take a step back and the answer is obvious. We can’t change how we react to other, but we can change who we perceive as other.
There is going on 70 years of really fascinating sociological, psychological, political and even neurological research that all supports the same conclusion: If you know and respect someone, it’s hard not to care about them. Break bread together, laugh together, talk deeply, listen, show respect (even when it’s difficult), build bridges, find common purpose and work arm in arm.
I could dig into that research, but mercifully for you I won’t. Instead I am going to share an uplifting and illustrative story of what effective anti-racism really looks like.
How did a Black musician change the hearts of hundreds of Klansmen?
Daryl Davis is a Black blues and jazz musician with a very strange hobby. He goes to events like KKK rallies not to shout or protest, but to listen, shake hands, talk, and befriend. Literally hundreds of the Klan members who Daryl Davis has become friends with have renounced the Klan. He has a large collection of their robes, including the robe of a man who, when they met, was the Grand Wizard himself.
Read that last sentence again. Then if you honestly care about fighting racism you owe it to yourself to invest 18 minutes and listen to Daryl Davis’s story in his own words.
This is not your Woke friend’s Anti-Racism.
It feels good to gang up and shout at people. The difference between the shouters and the shoutees makes it really easy to tell who is “us” and who is “them.” Our brains love that. The dopamine flows like a river.
But that is not what Daryl Davis did. There was no shouting about racism. Terms like “White privilege” and “White fragility” were never used. Daryl Davis never complained about microaggressions or political correctness. DEI workshops were not part of the program. Mr. Davis did not wear his feelings on his sleeve. Quite the contrary, Daryl Davis listened even to open hatred and tried to understand where it was coming from. There was no talk of victims and oppressors. There were no social media attacks or calls for deplatforming. There was no virtue signaling about Wokeness.
Instead, Daryl Davis treated those who were predisposed to hate him with dignity and respect. He listened. He questioned. He befriended. He humanized himself by seeing and acknowledging the humanity of others, including those with whom he deeply disagreed. In the process he did what few have ever accomplished. Daryl Davis changed the hearts of hundreds of the most committed racists in the nation.
This is what real, effective anti-racism looks like. And as Davis mentions at the end of his talk, if he can do it, so can we.
-
What do record fire seasons in the West, record hurricane seasons in the Atlantic, record winter storms in the South and the hottest years in history have to do with each other? Everything.
This article originally appeared in the December 2019 issue of my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. Yes, schools are desperately important to kids. No, COVID-19 doesn’t care, and COVID is making the rules right now. Attempts to open schools this fall will fail of their own accord. The relevant question is how to meet the needs of children, families and the community in the face of that reality.
Currently new cases of COVID-19 in Arizona are doubling every 7 days. ICU beds in the state are already full. The rest of the country isn’t that far behind us. You do the math.
Now is not the time for scientists to be circumspect and silent. We are on the short end of a battle over whether truth even matters. If scientists do not stand up for what is real, who will?
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
You know those nice charts and graphs that make it look like we are over the hump of COVID-19 and that things are about to get better? Those predictions are dead wrong, with an unfortunate emphasis on “dead.”
Imagine three gregarious scientists, each with the gift of the gab, all coping with stay-at-home orders. Of course we started a livestream/podcast talk show! What else would we do? Welcome to the kickoff episode of Scientists Stuck Inside.
Even after COVID-19 kills hundreds of thousands in the U.S. over the coming weeks, we will still be almost as vulnerable to the pandemic as we are today. We’d all love to “get back to normal” after that, but the price could be a second wave, worse than the first. Some see us facing either economic Depression or allowing vast numbers of preventable deaths, but that is a fool’s choice. There are better options if we have the will to find them.
There is a lot of information about COVID-19 out there, much of it misleading. When looking at the future, start with what the science really says.
If someone can’t tell you how they would know that they are wrong, they don’t have a clue whether they are right.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Once seemingly incomprehensible, the origin of life no longer seems such a mystery. Most of what once appeared as roadblocks are turning out to be superhighways.
This article originally appeared in my Astronomy Magazine column, For Your Consideration.
Over his 30 year career as an internationally known astrophysicist, Dr. Jeff Hester was a key member of the team that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope. With one foot always on the frontiers of knowledge, he has been mentor, coach, team leader, award-winning teacher, administrator and speaker, to name a few of the hats he has worn. His Hubble image, the Pillars of Creation, was chosen by Time Magazine as among the 100 most influential photographs in history.
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels
Spreading COVID one lap at a time
The morning cyclist in my neighborhood may not be standing in the Michigan Statehouse carrying a gun and demanding her right to spread contagion far and wide, but she may as well be.
My wife’s professional day starts at 7:00 AM, so she gets up around 6:00 and heads out the door for a couple of mile walk. Despite the fact that it’s only May 1, it’s hitting 100 F in the afternoons here, so early morning is the time for such things. That’s also before our 10 year old daughter gets up, so Vicki gets a rare half an hour of relative solitude. She is as thankful for that as for the exercise itself.
I take my walk when she gets back, usually heading out the door around 7:00. This is a relatively new routine. We I let myself go for a couple of weeks during the COVID lockdown I rediscovered that exercise is important for sleep, and both are important for mental well being. And let’s face it, if you are following what is going on, mental well being doesn’t necessarily look after itself.
The lady on her bicycle takes aim for her attack.
I take my walk down a pleasant road through the desert, and every morning I see the same woman on her bicycle, perhaps two or three times as she goes up and down the same stretch. She is probably about my age, and is always done up in proper biking clothes, looking like she is ready for the Tour d’France. This is bluster on her part. She certainly does not ride like she cycles seriously.
The first time our paths crossed, the expression was all but literal. She was riding toward me on the shoulder, and it would have been easy for her to cross the street to give us plenty of space. Six feet of separation is not the right answer when riding a bicycle; air flow matters. But instead she barreled on. Had I not jumped off the road at the last minute she was on track to blast past me about as closely as she could. She seemed intent on me feeling her wind in my face. That impression grew stronger when she called out, “What’s the matter, are you afraid of me?”
“Are you afraid of me?” she asks. “I’d be an idiot not to be,” I answer.
That first morning pretty much set the now predictable course of our daily interactions. I see her coming a few hundred feet up, and cross to the other side of the street. I smile and wave, and she asks, “Are you scared of me?” To be fair, sometimes she mixes it up. “I won’t run you over!” It seems kind of pointless to engage, so I just smile, laugh, and perhaps say something like, “Just being careful.”
Until this morning, that is. This time when she called out, “What’s the matter, are you scared of me?” I finally snapped and said what I was thinking. “Yes, I’m scared of you. I’m scared of you because you are irresponsible and inconsiderate, and think it’s a joke. I’m scared of you because you are the kind of person that makes it so hard to actually contain this thing. I’m scared of you because if you behave like this with me, I’m guessing that you behave like this with everyone. You are among the more dangerous people I share physical space with these days.”
“Yes, I’m afraid of you because you are the problem!”
I’d bet a six pack of good beer that she voted for Trump, and another six pack that she will again.
So that’s what I finally did this morning! I finally told her just what I thought of her not so passive aggression!
Well, OK. That’s what I did in my head. What I did with my mouth was say, “These days I’m afraid of everybody.” I was trying to convey, “It’s not just you; I’m not in a hurry to share respiration with random people right now.” But that’s not right, because it is her.
We don’t need social distancing. We need physical distancing.
I’m not really the “embrace fear” type, and most people don’t scare me. I stop and chat with different people most mornings, but those people are responsible and respectful. They are content to be social from a good 15 or 20 feet. Someone, I forget who, noted that “social distancing” is a lousy term. What we need is physical distancing. Failing to be social, on the other hand, deprives us of what we need most.
But the lady on the bike terrifies me. What she represents terrifies me. The number of new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. isn’t falling, and there are many places where the infection and death rates are climbing rapidly. As we better understand how COVID-19 can kill, the recognized fatality rate is also climbing. Deaths in New York City during the worst of their outbreak soared to six times the normal rate.
Some of those deaths were due to people who failed to receive medical care, or when the ambulance didn’t get there on time. Others were directly caused by COVID-19, although without routine testing we’ll never know for certain. We are discovering that COVID-19 kills in lots of ways that do not involve classical symptoms. That includes, for example, relatively young people who were asymptomatic experiencing sudden massive strokes because COVID-19 had attacked cells with ACE-2 receptors in the linings of their blood vessels. And let’s face it. When bodies are piling up in the backs of refrigerated trucks, careful autopsies are few and far between.
But these are all victims of COVID-19 nonetheless. They are deaths that would not have happened were it not for COVID-19. Six times as many people have died in New York City than would have were it not for COVID-19. Every one of those lives lost before their time counts.
Russian Roulette with a Twelve-Shooter
The same thing is happening throughout the U.S. and around the world, albeit at lower levels in most places. More people are dying due to COVID-19 than are showing up in the official numbers. But even the official numbers are bad enough.
As of May 1, there are just over a million known cases in the U.S., with a death count of over 63,000. Since deaths lag cases by a week, and 2,000 people are known to be dying daily from COVID-19 with no sign of a downturn, that means today’s million known cases will result in something approaching 80,000 deaths.
In other words, if you show strong enough symptoms to be counted (and are around 60-ish), there is a 8% chance you will die of the disease. And anyone who claims that things are going to be better by such and such a date is selling snake oil. We don’t know what will happen next, but we do know the answer depends on how people behave. With the number of politicians out there actively encouraging bad behavior, that’s going to get worse before it gets better.
That brings me back to my neighbor on a bicycle. Maybe tomorrow I’ll stop and try to explain to her why I cross the street and why it matters. Or not. Odds are it won’t do any good, and I enjoy my walks. I choose not to let her ruin that.
Typhoid Mary on Two Wheels ^ Spreading COVID one lap at a time ©
Dr. Jeff Hester
Content may not be copied to other sites. All Rights Reserved.