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May 29, 2017  

Right?

I am not claiming that nobody has else noticed this phenomenon. A quick perfunctory Google search brought forth nothing.

I think I noticed it first a year or so ago. It was among fellow academics. And then, journalists and pundits, on CNN, and pretty much everywhere on television. A statement would be made, a pause, and then the question:  “right?” But, it was less of a question and more of a check-in. Typically, what follows the “right?” is a continuation of the original statement. What is the “right?” all about?

I have two theories:

  1. As a society, we have deep insecurities. We are less certain of what we know and of who we are. This could very well be a collective acknowledgement of that. We want to be right but we are really not certain. Traditions are being thrown out the window. Institutions, families, etc.
  2. The second more sinister explanation is that this “right?” is an enforcement of a certain narrative. I have interpreted many of these “right?”s as a subtle way to check if the other people on set or in the room are on the same page, if they have voted the same way.

I have noticed this a ton…it has become the defining word of our time, from my perch. I do not begrudge its use too much, since, after a while, I caught myself doing it from time to time as well.

So, my concern is not to draw attention to coerce people to not say it. Rather, I ask if this phenomenon means either of the two things I think it may, what does that say about our society?

  1. If this reveals a broader insecurity, then we are in trouble. We expose ourselves more and more for the world to see on social media, but we are less and less sure of what who we are, what we stand for, and if what we are saying is true. In other words, President Trump may be the symptom of our problem, not the problem itself. [It is so easy to bash him; I wish I would feel as free to bash President Obama, but that’s another blog post.]
  2. If this “right?” is about ideological conformity, it is just as troubling but less surprising. No, we do not all agree with the presuppositions of most academics and most journalists. We should have discussions and debates without having to appeal to the prevailing narrative about something.

Or, maybe, I’m just imaging so many people saying this…right?

 

 

 

November 8, 2016  

Baltimore and Charlotte

In every profession, there are a few bad apples. I teach; many in my profession care about teaching students. Some don’t. People in a given profession can also change. I am a more passionate teacher than I was a decade ago. We should not be surprised that not all police officers are angels but neither should we expect anything less.

Furthermore, only the naive can ponder an America that has transcended racism. I was so naive. Living in academia, a politically correct bubble, I really thought racism had been mostly expunged from America. Then, last December (2015), I went on Twitter and did a search for “Trump alt right…” Wow — that was a quite a wake-up call. Racism is alive and well in the United States and we need to contend with that.

But, the recent narrative surrounding white police officers shooting unarmed black men has troubled me some. Although some incidents such as the Eric Garner case in New York City are clear examples of where the police went too far, some of the incidents leave many unresolved questions.

In two cities, the responses to a police shooting of an African-American man have been strongest:  Baltimore in the spring of 2015 and Charlotte, this past summer. Something so obvious seems virtually ignored by the entire media and our politicians. In both of these instances, it was not a simple case of a white cop shooting a black man. In Baltimore, three of the six cops transporting Freddie Gray were African-Americans; the police officer in question in Charlotte was African-American.

Why were the reactions most combustible when the police officers were African-American? That really does not make sense. Is this a movement about race, or is it simply an anti-police movement? I remained puzzled about the protests, particularly in Charlotte, where there was not even a white police officer involved in the case. And if this is about the police and not about race, please let’s say that.

Large sections of the African-American community have serious problems; muddying the water in police shootings of African-American men will not help resolve those problems and may even delay possible solutions. Judging individual police officers based on the particular evidence of their performance seems like a great place to start.