One more black kid has committed a crime of attacking a police officer - or so they say. The officer had shot and killed him. According to the Grand Jury, the police officer was within his rights. Once again, the riots, violent protests and a bunch of not so peaceful demonstrations erupted.
Is it about judicial system not giving blacks a fair shake? Maybe. maybe not. Opinions are mostly divided by the race lines...
No matter what it is. we require a solution. What exactly do we need to do as a society to solve the apparent perception of someone who is not like us??
I think I may have one suggestion. Let's call it "Befriend a Member of Other Group".
Here is what I recommend. In every ethnic community, which are so many. In each and every town. In each and every religious group. In each and every place of worship, be it a Christian church of any denomination (in some cases diverse, pretty often serving the needs of only whites, or blacks, or Asians), every synagogue, every mosque, every Hindu or Buddhist temple, let start "Befriend a Member of Other Group" program. Let's try to encourage 3, 5 or 10 members of a given communal or religious organization to befriend someone from the other group. As anyone else, I know interracial, inter-religious and inter-ethnic friendships exists, as well as intermarriages, and we observe more and more of those. Great! But let's kick off a specific campaign. Here I am not going to get into practical details. It's none of my business. It's up to the communities to be proactive and creative. Maybe some places will elect committees on the matter. Some will call for volunteers. Some others will do it unofficially. Some may reject the idea. But let's start the process. Let''s acknowledge, accept and befriend The Other.
Let every place of worship allocate at least one day a month and invite members of another religious group to attend their service as guests of honor.
I call on white Catholics to specifically befriend a black Baptist. I call on Lutherans to explicitly befriend Mormons. I call on Muslims to indicatively befriend a Jew and a Hindu. I call on Jews to befriend a Muslim and a Christian. And I most definitely encourage White Catholics, or Presbyterians or Lutherans or Jews to befriend a Black person, and Latino, and Asian now matter what their religious affiliation is.
Atheists could do this through their own organizations. Or without any organization at all. All of us could do it.
Let us run "Befriend a Member of Other Group" campaign in every city and town. Let's go for it as individuals. Let's go for it as men and women of every race, ethnic group, origin, religious affiliation and political stance. Let's go for it as Americans!
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Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Monday, September 8, 2014
Freedom to Critisize
Do we, American citizens, have the right to criticize our public officials, community leaders or anyone else for this matter? That is, if they make mistakes, allow gaffes to slip into their statements, do unethical things, take wrong decisions or if we simply disagree with what they are doing or saying? The answer seems to be very simple: its equivocal "yes". As to the public officials, I say we have an obligation to scrutinize and judge their moves (Biblical "don't judge" is not applicable here!). And to express our honest - and hopefully unbiased - stance in this regard.
Do they - the officials and the leaders - have the right to defend themselves and comment on our critique in return? Hell yes! They are American citizen too. They most definitely have their own rights the same as we do, both the public and the media (and they do have the right to make mistakes - provided the number of those is rather limited). Besides, lets keep in mind they have more responsibilities, more authority, more power. This includes the responsibility for a balanced - and hopefully unbiased - response to the public (or media) criticism, They are open to the public eyes - not an easy job and not a trivial responsibility. But it comes with the territory. If one could not deal with that - there are quite a few options available. Don't go into politics in the first place. Resign if you are already there and the pressure is too high. Be in control of the situation (seems easy enough since you have more information, more authority and more power). Use humor, including self-directed one (a very good example of properly handling his mistake was President Obama's reaction to his inappropriate wording regarding Cambridge police in 2009 when he invited both parties for a beer). The opportunities are endless. The public figures just should not fall as low as tagging their critics with nasty stickers.
Jen Psaki from State Department is not without certain number of gaffes in her press conferences. I am not going to list them here - anyone could find some on their own. What angers me is that when Bill O'Reilly from Fox News criticized her for avoiding to provide an answer to a question by James Rosen, he was immediately labeled sexist by Psaki's second-in-command Marie Hart - based not on the meaning of O'Reilly's remark but on a sole fact that Psaki is a female. Mr. O'Reilly is definitely not the last authority on merits but his remarks as a Cable News host should not be answered with tagging a one-dimensional sticker.
Here is another frequent example of pinning an unfair label. Some of President Obama's supporters give him a disservice by naming a "racist" anyone who comes up with a negative comment about the man.
We all know how much time all kind of cards are being played in media articles and broadcasts, twits, Facebook entries and the like when there is no real counter-argument to some critique - maybe not always valid but deserving a decent conversation nevertheless. Race card. Gender card. Sexual orientation card. The list goes on and on. Amazingly, these cards are most frequently used by the same people who supposedly push for political correctness. Come on, guys and gals!
Can we, the American public, be able and feel free to express some negative comment about a public official or another noticeable figure who happens to be a woman, an African American, gay, Muslim or Asian - and not being slammed with a vile label of sexist, racist, homophobic, islamophobic or anti-Asian?
Can we please concentrate on what public officials and other prominent figures of whatever origin and sexual orientation do or say (or maybe don't do when we think they should) and not simply write-off and dismiss as biased any critical remark about them if these figures belong to one of the aforementioned groups - or any other group for that matter? Like WASPS, who don't want to play the whipping boys (or girls) either.
Do they - the officials and the leaders - have the right to defend themselves and comment on our critique in return? Hell yes! They are American citizen too. They most definitely have their own rights the same as we do, both the public and the media (and they do have the right to make mistakes - provided the number of those is rather limited). Besides, lets keep in mind they have more responsibilities, more authority, more power. This includes the responsibility for a balanced - and hopefully unbiased - response to the public (or media) criticism, They are open to the public eyes - not an easy job and not a trivial responsibility. But it comes with the territory. If one could not deal with that - there are quite a few options available. Don't go into politics in the first place. Resign if you are already there and the pressure is too high. Be in control of the situation (seems easy enough since you have more information, more authority and more power). Use humor, including self-directed one (a very good example of properly handling his mistake was President Obama's reaction to his inappropriate wording regarding Cambridge police in 2009 when he invited both parties for a beer). The opportunities are endless. The public figures just should not fall as low as tagging their critics with nasty stickers.
Jen Psaki from State Department is not without certain number of gaffes in her press conferences. I am not going to list them here - anyone could find some on their own. What angers me is that when Bill O'Reilly from Fox News criticized her for avoiding to provide an answer to a question by James Rosen, he was immediately labeled sexist by Psaki's second-in-command Marie Hart - based not on the meaning of O'Reilly's remark but on a sole fact that Psaki is a female. Mr. O'Reilly is definitely not the last authority on merits but his remarks as a Cable News host should not be answered with tagging a one-dimensional sticker.
Here is another frequent example of pinning an unfair label. Some of President Obama's supporters give him a disservice by naming a "racist" anyone who comes up with a negative comment about the man.
We all know how much time all kind of cards are being played in media articles and broadcasts, twits, Facebook entries and the like when there is no real counter-argument to some critique - maybe not always valid but deserving a decent conversation nevertheless. Race card. Gender card. Sexual orientation card. The list goes on and on. Amazingly, these cards are most frequently used by the same people who supposedly push for political correctness. Come on, guys and gals!
Can we, the American public, be able and feel free to express some negative comment about a public official or another noticeable figure who happens to be a woman, an African American, gay, Muslim or Asian - and not being slammed with a vile label of sexist, racist, homophobic, islamophobic or anti-Asian?
Can we please concentrate on what public officials and other prominent figures of whatever origin and sexual orientation do or say (or maybe don't do when we think they should) and not simply write-off and dismiss as biased any critical remark about them if these figures belong to one of the aforementioned groups - or any other group for that matter? Like WASPS, who don't want to play the whipping boys (or girls) either.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Students Go Porn Stars or College Education Problems?
So one pretty-faced Duke coed bravely revealed her work as a porn star to meet the demands of high tuition. She even went as far as saying her parents support their daughter in this job pick. And a friendly bunch of the "View" hostesses were "open-minded" enough to entertain their auditorium with inviting and interviewing the brave and cute Ms. Belle Knox. Please don't misunderstand me at this point. I don't want any misconception here. Personally, I am very sympathetic to Ms. Knox. Firstly, in her interview she shared that she enjoys sex and loves watching porn. Hypocrisy aside, let's be honest - a lot of people do. Who is going to challenge me on the notion that sexuality is an integral part of a human nature? How to express it is everyone's call. That's why our democratic societies are becoming more and more LGBT friendly. Secondly, she experienced minimum-wage jobs and found them "more degrading than doing porn". As a young adult, she does what she thinks is right to support herself - and to pay for her education, a very steep price as it is. And last but not least: later on, after acquiring a law degree, she has an intention to help the sex workers. This is commendable from any angle although the porn star work itself apparently wouldn't be approved by too many. Ms. Knox - which is her professional name - received some violent threats. Her complaints to the police were met with "disrespect to her welfare and safety". Now this, and not her selection of work, is really atrocious. Outraged feminists labeled Ms. Knox a troubled girl and blame our culture of "degrading". Some took this as an opportunity to talk about ever rising college cost.
We may discuss ad nauseum various reactions to Ms. Knox's way of making money for the noble purpose of acquiring high education. But the real problem here is much deeper. I see it as two-sided, and these sides are very much interrelated. Let me explain. On the one hand, there is an extremely easy access to college loans. Practically everyone can get them without too much efforts. Colleges and universities eagerly assist their applicants and students to acquire some. They jump out of their skin to deliver this seemingly well-intended help. Of course they do, as money goes directly to their huge coffers, while our young people, fresh out of college, are getting hit with enormous monthly bills. Millions of young and not so young college grads are inescapably stuck with tremendous payments for practically half of their professional lives. Someone will opine that the educational loans, costly as they are, nevertheless provide an opportunity to get an education and hopefully a high-paying job in the future. Right here we have a problem. Why to do it at such an appalling cost to a person desiring a college degree? Why our government, rather than spending billions on helping other countries - one of too many examples is giving this billion dollars in loan guarantees to Ukraine - won't rather invest in our own future by taking up some of these college cost killing our families?
And here we come to the second part of the problem. Does our government, and by extension all of us as taxpayers, need to help young people paying for every major they've chosen? Do we as a country require legions of specialists in so many fields energetically manufactured non-stop by our college system?
Many remember a recent President Obama's apology to an art history professor regarding his comments about the job prospects for history majors. In my humble opinion as a citizen, apology was not necessary. This time the President was right in his remarks. Together, let's take a look at the jobs most demanded by our economy. According to the Forbes and based on the study by CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl., the top jobs for 2014, requiring college education, are financial analyst, software developer, physical therapist and petroleum engineer. I refer you back to this study, it mentions 12 jobs in total.
And since we started this piece with Duke student, let's take a close look at the majors offered by the esteemed institution. There are about 50 of those and here are some of them in alphabetical order: African and African American Studies, Art History, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Canadian Studies, Dance, English, Evolutionary Anthropology, French and Francophone Studies, Religion, Romance Studies, Russian Language and Culture etc. Being of humanitarian nature myself and at the risk of enraging lots of folks, how many aforementioned majors would provide their holders with great odds of finding a real employment? How many new immigrants from all over the world do we have to invite to this country in order to fill high demand jobs? How many our own American kids, disoriented by our cash-hungry but not exactly helpful educational system, are taking these majors and subsequently forking over $1000 a month for 15 years to repay their loans while working any available second job to meet their end?
In all fairness to Duke, they do offer lots of majors leading to high demand jobs in engineering, computer science and human health. But do we as a country have to make college loans equally easy accessible in these fields of high demand and in liberal arts? What are we trying to do? Benefit our kids and respectively the future of all of us or benefit the educational and banking system?
I am not providing any practical solutions worked out to any level of details. I am just saying that by encouraging kids to take majors leading to a high demand jobs will bring real tangible benefits to our country, including it's people and it's infrastructure. We need to provide these kids with highly subsidized loans and pay at least for a significant part of their educational costs. And for the guys and girls who want to stay in the fields of liberal arts, getting loans needs to be much tougher. Do you want to major in Marsian studies? Be my guest and pay yourself for it. As a side benefit, this measure may even lower the college cost.
Rephrasing JFK, let's ask ourselves: do we want to do what is good for our lending system and educational guild, or do we want to do what is good for our kids and our country?
We may discuss ad nauseum various reactions to Ms. Knox's way of making money for the noble purpose of acquiring high education. But the real problem here is much deeper. I see it as two-sided, and these sides are very much interrelated. Let me explain. On the one hand, there is an extremely easy access to college loans. Practically everyone can get them without too much efforts. Colleges and universities eagerly assist their applicants and students to acquire some. They jump out of their skin to deliver this seemingly well-intended help. Of course they do, as money goes directly to their huge coffers, while our young people, fresh out of college, are getting hit with enormous monthly bills. Millions of young and not so young college grads are inescapably stuck with tremendous payments for practically half of their professional lives. Someone will opine that the educational loans, costly as they are, nevertheless provide an opportunity to get an education and hopefully a high-paying job in the future. Right here we have a problem. Why to do it at such an appalling cost to a person desiring a college degree? Why our government, rather than spending billions on helping other countries - one of too many examples is giving this billion dollars in loan guarantees to Ukraine - won't rather invest in our own future by taking up some of these college cost killing our families?
And here we come to the second part of the problem. Does our government, and by extension all of us as taxpayers, need to help young people paying for every major they've chosen? Do we as a country require legions of specialists in so many fields energetically manufactured non-stop by our college system?
Many remember a recent President Obama's apology to an art history professor regarding his comments about the job prospects for history majors. In my humble opinion as a citizen, apology was not necessary. This time the President was right in his remarks. Together, let's take a look at the jobs most demanded by our economy. According to the Forbes and based on the study by CareerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists Intl., the top jobs for 2014, requiring college education, are financial analyst, software developer, physical therapist and petroleum engineer. I refer you back to this study, it mentions 12 jobs in total.
And since we started this piece with Duke student, let's take a close look at the majors offered by the esteemed institution. There are about 50 of those and here are some of them in alphabetical order: African and African American Studies, Art History, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Canadian Studies, Dance, English, Evolutionary Anthropology, French and Francophone Studies, Religion, Romance Studies, Russian Language and Culture etc. Being of humanitarian nature myself and at the risk of enraging lots of folks, how many aforementioned majors would provide their holders with great odds of finding a real employment? How many new immigrants from all over the world do we have to invite to this country in order to fill high demand jobs? How many our own American kids, disoriented by our cash-hungry but not exactly helpful educational system, are taking these majors and subsequently forking over $1000 a month for 15 years to repay their loans while working any available second job to meet their end?
In all fairness to Duke, they do offer lots of majors leading to high demand jobs in engineering, computer science and human health. But do we as a country have to make college loans equally easy accessible in these fields of high demand and in liberal arts? What are we trying to do? Benefit our kids and respectively the future of all of us or benefit the educational and banking system?
I am not providing any practical solutions worked out to any level of details. I am just saying that by encouraging kids to take majors leading to a high demand jobs will bring real tangible benefits to our country, including it's people and it's infrastructure. We need to provide these kids with highly subsidized loans and pay at least for a significant part of their educational costs. And for the guys and girls who want to stay in the fields of liberal arts, getting loans needs to be much tougher. Do you want to major in Marsian studies? Be my guest and pay yourself for it. As a side benefit, this measure may even lower the college cost.
Rephrasing JFK, let's ask ourselves: do we want to do what is good for our lending system and educational guild, or do we want to do what is good for our kids and our country?
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