Category Archives: Politics

Chicago mayors Daley, Washington and Emanuel, President Obama and the national scene

What’s next after elections

Communities, Politics

The overlook at Galien County River Park
The following is a slight re-working of something I read at “The Word on 103rd,” a local storytelling showcase at Made Artisan Collective in Beverly. If you think some of this sounds familiar, it is. It’s taking ideas from this post and this one and re-contextualizing them around our recent mayoral election. It seemed to strike a nerve with folks so I’m posting it here.

Maybe you voted for Brandon Johnson. Maybe you didn’t.

Either way, you will at some point in his administration find yourself tempted by cynicism. There are many, many people who will benefit from telling you that Brandon Johnson is some kind of fraud. They will want to create a narrative around his actions or his administration that tells you Brandon Johnson the Mayor is not like Brandon Johnson the campaigner. They will want to paint his inevitable need for compromise as a failure or a lie.

But that’s because campaigns are about possibilities. Governing is about limits. Campaigns are about speaking to specific people. Governing is about the best possible solution for everyone. And that means disappointing some people.

Cynicism is comforting, but it poisons you a little. And that poison numbs you just enough to keep you from being disappointed because you never allow yourself to be hopeful. But cynicism also keeps you from trying. Cynicism is a self-created obstacle we put in our own way when we elevate a candidate above ourselves and they turn out to be unworthy of the pedestal we put them on.

We have to stop falling in love with candidates and learn to be their partners.

Ta-Nehisi Coates said this thing I think about all the time:

“We have this idea of elections as this kind of sacred ritual that one is undertaking, that you should be inspired and in love with the candidate. But I often think people need to think about it more like taking out the trash. It’s a thing that you should do. Brushing your teeth is hygiene. So when I think of who to vote for, the question isn’t how much of my own personal politics do I see in this person so much as how much do I think this person can actually be influenced by my politics or the politics of the people around me.”

You can substitute the word “elections” or “vote” with the phrase “doing politics” in the above paragraphs and it still works. And sums up my own philosophy.

Look, I love civic life. But it is neither meant to be a March Madness bracket nor an Aaron Sorkin production. Most days, there is no “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” speech to be heard. It is supposed to be boring in the way your refrigerator should be boring: no scary noises; no rotted food; just a quiet, dependable hum in the background. It’s not inspiring, but it provides comfort, care, and calm.

Are you inspired by brushing your teeth? No, but you do it. Because otherwise a very meaningful part of your life will decay, rot, and die. We have to normalize thinking about voting as brushing our teeth even if we’re not inspired by our toothbrushes.

And just like you brush your teeth every day (and my god if you’re not doing that please start) we have to find ways to do politics every day. Some people call this activism. I prefer to call it the exercise of your individual power. Because to quote the title of a book by Eitan Hersh: “Politics Is For Power.” It is not posting articles on social media that you’re mad about or listening to bros on podcasts or even watching that nerdy guy in the khakis and his big-ass map.

The real work of inspirational politics doesn’t happen in the voting booth or in talking about politics at parties. It takes action that happens long before we step in the voting booth and long after. And on this point – Lord help me – I find myself quoting fucking Noam Chomsky which is not a thing I would expect to be doing:

“The left position has always been: You’re working all the time, and every once in a while there’s an event called an election. This should take you away from real politics for 10 or 15 minutes. Then you go back to work.”

As the saying goes, just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you. So if you’re looking for ways to keep yourself engaged, start with the smallest unit of government in your life.

The smaller the unit of government, the more immediately responsive it can be, both in terms of your ability to exert influence on it and the likelihood of you getting a response to your email, phone call, or letter. This could be your alderman, your local school council, your park supervisor, your County Commissioner, or your state rep.

As you think about where to spend your time, think about those who have it worse than you right now.

Broadly speaking, the answer to this question is pretty simple: Those at risk are the people whose point of view is least represented when decisions are getting made.

Who’s dealing with food insecurity? Who feels the most alone? Whose health is most at risk? Who is least likely to receive a just outcome in the criminal justice system? Who feels the least safe?

We could get overwhelmed by the bigness of some of these questions and the problems they reveal. So let’s reduce this to the smallest unit of assistance you can provide each day.

When you’re in a room where a decision is being made ask yourself some questions: How will this affect those who have less access to money and services than I do? Who’s being left out of this conversation? Are you able to speak from a place of knowledge that can guide this decision to a more equitable outcome for that group? If not, can you bring someone into the room who can? Or ask to defer the decision until that point of view is heard? Then do that.

That’s politics.

When you start thinking about all the trouble in your world there’s a tendency to get overwhelmed or to feel like you need to learn how to do a million new things to make a difference.

Learning new things is great! But more than likely, the thing you can do better than other people might be the skill that a non-profit or community organization needs the most from its volunteers.

Can you write? Can you manage projects? Do you have a technical skill? A certain kind of way with design, spreadsheets, or budgeting? The more niche the skill, the more expensive the hire and the bigger the obstacle it is for most organizations. You’re going to be their favorite volunteer.

When it comes to donating money, think small(er). I love the ACLU, too, but if you Google “immigration legal rights,” “environmental justice” or some other cause plus the name of your city, town, or state you’ll find an organization doing the work that needs the money more than a place with built-in name recognition. And this goes double for the do-gooder no one has heard of running for an elected office in your district. That person needs your money a lot more than someone ten states away who is running for the House of Representatives against Mitch McConnell and on MSNBC three times a week.

Finally, look for the people already doing this work. There is a tendency among…well, white dudes, to imagine they have the solution others lack. But for their brilliant insight, the problem would be solved.

My dudes: do not be the person that offers help that isn’t needed. Instead, amplify what others are already doing. These folks do not need your vision or your strategy. They don’t need leadership, they need followship. Allies are fine, but accomplices are better.
You may feel uncomfortable. Doing this work on behalf of others may bring to light things about you or people you’re close to that you would have preferred to keep in the darkness.

The good news is short-term loss will become long-term gains over time – for you and everyone else.

It’s really easy to slip into cynicism. But hope is a much harder drug, if you’re up for it. See, hope is not a fuzzy, rainbow-covered alternative to the facts on the ground. It is a collection of sparks that need oxygen. Cynicism douses the sparks before they become flames. Hope is a vision of a path that begins in your immediate vicinity.

Hope is the ability to clear the path as it gets harder to see. Cynicism pretends that but for all these excuses and the actions of others, we would be in a better place. It’s an imaginary future that means we never have to compromise or accept disappointment.

Hope is the acceptance of our current moment and all its disappointments coupled with the knowledge that we can do better.

Hope is not waiting for someone to save us. Hope is saving ourselves.

The words of Martin Luther King we won’t see on social media this year

Politics, Race, ,
“Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco June 30 1964” by geoconklin2001 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

“Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco June 30 1964” by geoconklin2001 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Originally written in January 2022; updated in January 2023

I’ve been thinking a lot about this Martin Luther King quote today:

And the final thing that I would like to say to you this morning is that the world doesn’t like people like Gandhi. That’s strange, isn’t it? They don’t like people like Christ. They don’t like people like Abraham Lincoln. They kill them.

It’s from his Palm Sunday sermon on Mohandas K. Gandhi, delivered on March 22, 1959.

The world did not like people like Martin Luther King. They killed him.

Here’s a fun game you can play on Martin Luther King’s birthday:

For every politician who posts one of MLK’s quotes on social media — it’s probably going to be the one about his kids being judged by their character, not their skin color — scroll back through their recent social media posts and look for the last still-living Black leader they took a photo with, quoted, or praised.

Award one point for every post that qualifies. Five points awarded if that Black leader has been involved in a recent protest movement. Ten points if he or she said “Black Lives Matter.”

Here’s another one: If a United States senator posts an MLK quote, ask them if they’ll vote for comprehensive voting rights legislation like the Freedom to Vote Act or the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Without saying as much, Heather Cox Richardson points out that those who oppose the expansion or protection of the right to vote would have been the same people who opposed the Voting Rights Act back in 1965, three years before King was killed by an assassin.

To put it another way: it’s very easy to support people and concepts that are in the past, but the real measure of a person’s dedication to justice is whether they support it today.

The river of irony formed by, say, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin using a King quote to defend a ban on the possibility of kids learning about how race and history intersect is so deep and wide that it’s impossible to cross.

Youngkin isn’t alone here. The cuddly, stuffed-animal version of Martin Luther King is now used to sell everything from mattresses to the sincerity of people who say they “don’t see color.”

In this Saturday morning cartoon rendering of the man who was shot for his beliefs, we have sanded off the rough edges of King’s crusades against capitalism, poverty, and war; these are the same edges King used to force America into a state of discomfort over its failure to “be true to what you said on paper.”

The rough-edged King is where we should seek our inspiration. In words written in the final chapter of his final book, Where Do We Go From Here, he said:

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal opposition to poverty, racism, and militarism.”

The following all come from speeches, essays, and articles written by Martin Luther King and collected in The Radical King, edited by Dr. Cornel West.

In the introduction, West quotes King from 1967: “I am nevertheless greatly saddened … that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment, or my calling.”

West compares King’s de-radicalized image to the way Nelson Mandela was painted later in life, describing them both as “Santa Claus-fied…into non-threatening and smiling old men with toys in their bags and forgiveness in their hearts.”

In the collection of pieces in The Radical King, the lie is put to that image and it provides us with timeless wisdom for this moment.

“I had also learned that the inseparable twin of racial injustice was economic injustice.”

— “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence, 1958”

In a chapter of his book “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” King speaks of his experiences as a teen in Atlanta when he had “come perilously close to resenting all white people.”

“I had passed spots where Negroes had been savagely lynched, and had watched the Ku Klux Klan on its rides at night. I had seen police brutality with my own eyes and watched Negroes receive tragic injustice in the courts.”

It’s not hard to read these words and envision khaki-clad, ersatz Nazis marching in Charlottesville or the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers storming the Capitol to hijack democracy. Or the “not guilty” verdicts handed down in the deaths of Trayvon Martin or the lack of charges against those who killed Tamir Rice.

Later, King talks about his work in a factory “that hired both Negroes and whites…and [I] realized that the poor white was exploited just as much as the Negro.”

He critiques capitalism as a failure “to see the truth in collective enterprise” and communism / Marxism as a failure “to see the truth in individual enterprise.”

“Man must never be treated as a means to the end of the state, but always as an end within himself,” King warns as a bulwark against depriving a man of freedom. “Capitalism is always in danger of inspiring men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life.”

Something to think about as we consider the real meanings behind The Great Resignation.

“The nonviolent resister would contend that in the struggle for human dignity, the oppressed people of the world should not succumb to the temptation of becoming bitter or indulging in hate campaigns. To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe.”

— Pilgrimage to Nonviolence, 1958

In the same essay, King reminds us what nonviolent resistance really means. This exploration is a key wedge between the true King and the sepia-toned example he’s often described as.

Non-violence as a tactic was not about asking nicely, staying off the streets, and keeping the status quo. It was about acting as a true societal disrupter and pouring sand in the gears.

It was also about strength.

“True pacifism is not unrealistic submission to evil power…it is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflicter of it.”

A hard value to live up to and not an easy road to walk. Can we meet the challenge of this the next time we are faced with those who want to create a two-tiered system of justice?

“All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming myself.”

“He revealed that far from the tragic era white historians described, it was the only period in which democracy existed in the South.”

— On DuBois’s book Black Reconstruction, from a speech printed in the journal “Black Titan.”

King on DuBois is full of love and praise while embracing our country’s full and unruly history of race. One line seems to foretell the lazy dangers of Twitter-based discourse:

“Above all he did not content himself with hurling invectives for emotional release and then to retire in smug passive satisfaction.”

He goes on to say:

“History had taught [DuBois] that it is not enough for people to be angry — the supreme task is to organize and unite people so that their anger becomes a transforming force.”

King also has some words for those who would remove the history of race from the history of our country:

“When they corrupted Negro history, they corrupted American history because Negroes are too big a part of the building of this nation to be written out of it without destroying scientific history.”

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block is not the White Citizens’ Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to the ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says ‘I agree with the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action; who paternally believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom…”

— “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

The entire unedited “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is still so urgent, relevant, and fiery. It is as much a warning for now as it was then.

“There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.”

— “Where Do We Go From Here,” King’s final speech to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1967

Described by West as “his last and most radical SCLC presidential address,” the speech denounces capitalism as an end, embraces a guaranteed national income, and takes aim at poverty.

Ever the writer, King notes the hypocrisy of Western language.

“There are some 120 synonyms for blackness and at least sixty of them are offensive, such words as blot, soot, grim, devil, and foul. And there are some 134 synonyms for whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness, chastity, and innocence.”

Woven throughout is a reminder of how the power of nonviolence is truly power, a power rooted in love.

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic.”

He goes on to discuss the Watts riots, his equal critiques of capitalism and communism, and provides the compass for the rest of King’s mission had he lived:

“The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.”

“When there is massive unemployment in the Black community, it’s called a social problem. But when there is massive unemployment in the white community, it’s called a depression. With the Black man, it’s ‘welfare,’ with the whites it’s called ‘subsidies.’ This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.

— “The Other America”

King would later put an even finer point on this critique of inequality.

In a March 1968 speech, King spoke to Local 1199 in New York City, which West describes as “a union consisting largely of African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and other people of color.”

“People are always talking about menial labor. But if you’re getting a good wage…that isn’t menial labor. What makes it menial, is the income, the wages.”

“The riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has not heard? … It has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, humanity, and equality, and it is still true.”

“If they are America’s angry children today, the anger is not congenital. It is a response to the feeling that a real solution is hopelessly distant, because of the inconsistencies, resistance, and faintheartedness, of those in power.”

— Black Power, “Where Do We Go From Here,” 1967

If there’s anything in King’s final book that speaks to what he would think of the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s this chapter that reflects on the Black Power movement of the late 1960s.

So often we hear disingenuous concern trolling about the current young Black leaders in America and how they ought to be more like the false, sanitized King. Yet King notes “many of the young people proclaiming Black Power today were but yesterday the devotees of Black-white cooperation and nonviolent direct action.”

Still, while he understood their rage, he also returned to his themes of power and love and how they should be a means to a political end.

“Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose.”

“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”

“In his struggle for racial justice, the Negro must seek to transform his condition of powerlessness into creative and positive power. One of the most obvious sources of this power is political.”

“When they look around and see that the only people who do not share in the abundance of Western technology are colored people, it is an almost inescapable conclusion that their condition and their exploitation are somehow related to their color and the racism of the white Western world.”

— “Where Do We Go From Here,” 1967

In the final chapter of his last book, King speaks of apartheid around the world, in economic and cultural terms, throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He cautions against prejudice turned into institutional racism, warning that:

“One cannot hope to keep people locked out of the earthly kingdom of wealth, health, and happiness. Either they share in the blessings of the world or they organize to break down and overthrow the structures or governments which stand in the way of their goals.”

As we face the inequity of everything from food to vaccines across the world, it’s worth noting this chapter is in the section of The Radical King titled “Prophetic Vision.”

“Money devoid of genuine empathy is like salt devoid of savor, good for nothing except to be trodden under the foot of men.”

Yet hope is never far from King’s mind as in this line…

“One of the best proofs that reality hinges on moral foundations is the fact that when men and women and governments work devotedly for the good of others, they achieve their own enrichment in the process.”

And in this brief summation of an almost Buddhist philosophy…

“‘I’ cannot reach fulfillment without ‘thou.’ The self cannot be self without other selves. Self-concern without other-concern is like a tributary that has no outward flow to the ocean.”

Another relevant passage to our current moment — especially the opposition to a new voting rights act — is King’s tweaking of “right-wing slogans on ‘government control’ and ‘creeping socialism’” which he says are “as meaningless as the Chinese Red Guard slogans against ‘bourgeois revisionism.’”

King also returns to the strength of nonviolence:

“True nonviolence is more than the absence of violence. It is the persistent and determined application of peaceable power to offenses against the community — in this case, the world community.”

“Peaceable power” could be read many ways, but it’s hard not to read it as the power of voting rights. A ringing endorsement of his own legacy, carried on by John Lewis, and in the words of a bill bearing his name.

If the leaders quoting Martin Luther King truly believe in his words today, they’ll propose new legislation that brings them into the present.

Reading, listening, liking: NYE ’22 edition

Internet, Music, Politics, , , , ,
Lydia Loveless at Golden Dagger in Chicago on January 30, 2022
Lydia Loveless at Golden Dagger in Chicago on December 30, 2022

A selection of things I enjoyed this month:

This paragraph from Grey Horse’s newsletter, written by fellow OG Chicago Twitter person Kate Gardiner:

It’s easy to look away from potential wrongdoing when you want to believe an optimistic story. The temptation is even greater if you want to emulate the protagonist. “I could be like him,” the thinking goes — and that thinking gets complicated when you take into account that getting to be like him might take some dirty work.

Yes, it’s about SBF but it’s also about why knowing your values can keep you from making mistakes.

Rachel Maddow Presents Ultra: I’ve been enjoying this for months, but it recently wrapped in a satisfying, if cautionary, way. It poses the question “how do you fight fascism in America when it’s supported by a professional PR campaign and reaches the highest levels of government?” It’s a complicated answer best summed up as “it takes all of us doing our part.” I found comfort in the idea that we have been here before and we know the way out, but also discomfort from knowing it’s a cycle. Our form of government allows fascism to rest beneath the surface. We are threatened by an invasive species we can’t ever truly kill because the roots are impossible to dig out of the soil. We can stop its growth if we have the resolve.

This 2012 oral history of Rainbo Club: A ten-year-old profile from Eater Chicago of the legendary Wicker Park bar told through stories from some of the artists who lived, worked, and created there in the 1990s (Dmitry Samarov, Tim Kinsella, Liz Phair, and others).

Nikki Morgan at Golden Dagger in Chicago on December 30, 2022

Lydia Loveless and Nikki Morgan: Last night, I saw both of these women perform at a sold-out show at Golden Dagger (fka Tonic Room), a tiny, warm room with good beer, great cocktails, and a stage just barely big enough to hold the flames coming off Loveless and Morgan (who opened). Lydia Loveless is from Columbus, Ohio with some Chicago DNA due to her complicated, former time spent on Bloodshot Records. Straddling the lines between alt-country, indie punk, and wry humor, she sets fire to sadness, death, and danger. Nikki Morgan describes herself as a girl from North Carolina, but says Chicago made her the woman and artist she is today – someone who mixes soulful vocals and Southern swamp. Lately, something new has often signaled heartache. But in last night’s show, both artists felt comfortable enough in the intimate venue to share new songs, which portended something more hopeful for 2023.

NASA’s Mars InSight probe goes quiet: Do you like to feel sad about anthropomorphized space vehicles? Well then this story (and the related Twitter account) is for you.

A thread of life advice from former Chicago Tribune writer/editor Kevin Williams: Unlike most “what I’ve learned” threads like this, which are often about showing how wise, clever, and interesting the poster is, Kevin’s is about how to improve the lives of others, starting with yours. He’s apparently moving to Portugal, which is good for him but bad for Chicago.

The intersection of the Dan Ryan and Chicago segregation

Chicago, Communities, Politics

When I think about racism, segregation and the systems put in place to reinforce them, the Dan Ryan Expressway comes to mind. In part because of the complexity of it.

The Dan Ryan runs eleven miles, from 95th Street on the Far South Side to what’s now known as the Jane Byrne Interchange – the point where the Dan Ryan, the Eisenhower and the Kennedy meet.

As you drive north on the Dan Ryan, you see the skyscrapers of downtown rising up like Oz at the end of the yellow brick road. Fourteen lanes of traffic serve 300,000 people a day by one count. It’s either packed with cars during rush hour or, in off-peak times, Mario Kart come to life.

The Dan Ryan is not for the faint of heart or student drivers.

Growing up, the Dan Ryan was Chicago for me. A fearsome, muscular roadway that also sported a 75-foot-long, 40-foot high set of flashing red lips. Schools, businesses, and culture lined it. The Dan Ryan’s road signs tantalized with exciting places to visit if you took this exit or that one. Two versions of Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox, have towered over it at 35th Street.

American Pharoah notes the Dan Ryan Expressway was one of three expressway systems built under Mayor Richard J. Daley – the Stevenson and the Kennedy are the other two. Its construction was made possible through the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.

The book also argues that it reinforced what had up until then had been a historical dividing line between Black and white Chicago neighborhoods.

The original plans for the Dan Ryan called for it to cross the Chicago River almost directly north of Lowe Avenue, Daley’s own street, and then to jag several blocks, at which point it would turn again and proceed south. But when the final plans were announced the Dan Ryan had been “realigned” several blocks eastward so it would instead head south along Wentworth Avenue. It was a less direct route, and it required the road to make two sharp curves in a short space, but the new route turned the Dan Ryan into a classic barrier between the black and white south sides.

Langston Hughes was beaten up for crossing Wentworth Avenue, an unofficial dividing line between Chicago’s Black Belt and the white neighborhoods of the South Side. This included Bridgeport where Daley grew up. It was a line defended with violence by the Hamburg Athletic Club, of which Daley was a member in his youth, during the period of the 1919 race riots. “Athletic clubs” or “youth clubs” in this time were often covers for white gang activity or political power – or both.

The Dan Ryan’s 14 lanes of traffic would make it much harder to cross Wentworth Avenue by creating a significant obstacle in access to it from the east.

Pharoah also notes the construction of the Dan Ryan was announced less than a month after the City Council approved the building of the Robert Taylor Homes. The Robert Taylor project would be built in the State Street Corridor where other large public housing was already located: the Harold Ickes Homes, Dearborn Homes, and Stateway Gardens.

The overwhelming majority of the people in these communities were Black and lacked access to higher-income jobs, in large part because of the warehousing approach Chicago and other large cities used to provide housing that clustered Black people in parts of the city that separated them from white people.

The State Street housing projects, almost all of which are now long gone, were located just east of the Dan Ryan, which was just east of Wentworth Avenue. The violence that occurred in the 1919 riots, often from whites going into Black neighborhoods, was concentrated in a few places, particularly along State Street, decades before the Dan Ryan was contemplated.

The construction of the Dan Ryan in close proximity to the housing projects of the South Side did not increase the access of their residents to the opportunities of jobs, commerce, and attractions. If anything, it reinforced the lack of access. A 1998 New York Times article quotes one resident of the Robert Taylor Homes describing the projects as a “public aid penitentiary.”

It’s hard to find a more obvious metaphor for Chicago segregation. But the way the story plays out is more complicated than it would seem.

The racial makeup of many South Side neighborhoods changed significantly in the years following the construction of the Dan Ryan with many previously white neighborhoods becoming majority Black. According to a June 2020 report from the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, Bridgeport itself is now 39% Asian, 33% white, 23% Latino, and 2% Black.

As a WBEZ Curious City segment points out, the Dan Ryan didn’t create the segregation in this part of the city. The story notes author Dominic Pacyga’s Chicago: A Biography says that “political power, street gangs, railroad viaducts, and railyards — posed greater obstacles to blacks’ expansion into white neighborhoods.”

Another source in this piece says the Dan Ryan “helped expedite the exodus of the white community from the Southwest Side.”

It’s an inescapable fact that Chicago’s built environment often reinforced or exacerbated segregation. And that’s before you get into the history of redlining and other ways in which racism and real estate intersected.

For instance, in the map for the WBEZ segment, the proposed and final routes of the Dan Ryan are shown. The final route meant more Black-owned homes that white homes would be eliminated to make way for the expressway.

When you consider how Black families have more of their assets and wealth concentrated in their homes than white families you see the institutional effects of racism are often complex and indirect.

—

Now, none of us built the Dan Ryan Expressway; it opened in 1961 – years before many of us were born. We weren’t consulted about the route. But the 300,00 people who use it each day benefit from its convenience and speed. We can’t ignore that.

Should we tear up the Dan Ryan Expressway and rebuild it completely? No. Nobody’s arguing that.

We should still recognize that the construction of it reinforced a desire on the part of those who built it to keep Black people and white people separated.

Besides, it’s not like the use of the Dan Ryan Expressway is killing black motorists at a higher rate than white motorists.

Or the tools and training given to the staff of the Illinois Department of Transportation put them in a position where they have to choose between their lives or the people using the road.

Or we have to hold fundraisers because we aren’t equipping them with enough fluorescent vests to wear when they are in harm’s way.

Or the people who work at IDOT are committing suicide at a higher rate than the national average.

If that were happening, we’d definitely need to think about a complete rebuild because it’s harming everyone involved.

All of it

Politics

It’s Daunte Wright.

It’s Adam Toledo.

It’s George Floyd.

It’s more than just them and how they died.

It’s about how a Black female police officer in Buffalo, NY tried to stop a fellow officer from putting someone in a chokehold and was fired for it. And how it took until yesterday – 15 years later – for a judge to finally say she shouldn’t have been.

It’s Ahmaud Arbery who was just trying to go for a jog.

It’s not about cops, it’s about policing and power and who gets to exercise it and what the consequences are and whether those consequences include death.

It’s eight Asian women who were at work in Atlanta, and an elderly Asian woman kicked on the ground in New York, after a year of escalating, targeted harassment and violence against people who share Asian-American / Pacific Islander backgrounds.

It’s about how someone could think “he had a bad day” was a reasonable explanation and it had nothing to do with race or misogyny.

It’s about an insurrection and a coup based on a Big Lie, fueled by mostly white men brazenly feeding it and groping at power. It’s about how that insurrection can kill a cop, but the people who powered it went back to work in the House and Senate.

It’s Jim Crow. It’s internment camps.

It’s the three-fifths compromise. It’s the 13th amendment.

It’s how we talk about “earning” the right to vote and not “losing” the right to vote.

It’s a system, linked together through chains visible and invisible, and written down on parchment.

It’s how it infects everything, including the way Black and Latino hospitalizations and death are 2-3 times higher from COVID-19.

It’s about how we created a system meant to enforce a set of values. It’s about how the values were more important than what happened to the person the gun was pointed at or even the person holding the gun. It’s about fear used to preserve power for some at the expense of many.

It’s about grappling with the fundamental truth about who we have been as a country. It’s about how the phrase “this is not who we are” is so often an unwitting lie because of how our failures have outpaced our ideals. And how all of that prevents us from stopping the higher rate of Black death.

It’s watching certain political leaders in this country double down on disenfranchising Black and Latino voters even as the results of that centuries-old strategy are played out as murder in video after video, month after month. And how that’s a trauma on top of a trauma.

It’s about not being able to sort out which injustice you’re angry about today.

It’s about barely having time to mourn and grieve the mass murder of South Asian women at the hands of a misogynist fueled by his own supremacy before we’re plunged into another exercise in shared trauma.

It’s an endless parade of garbage excuses and narratives that try to tell us that unless you are middle class and white and working the right sort of job and usually a man then you deserve what you got because you didn’t act / look / raise yourself right.

It’s poverty, it’s white supremacy, it’s misogyny, and it’s violence as a means of allowing all of it.

It’s to preserve power over others, those whom our founding documents called less than.

It’s being tired of (as a Black woman I know put it yesterday) “performative sadness.”

It’s about finally acknowledging that anything less than a complete overhaul is a failure.

It’s about being already exhausted and not knowing where to start.

Repairing the cracks in our democratic foundations

Politics

What a year this week has been.

Our lives have been shaped by an almost daily shattering of norms. So much so that we can barely comprehend or contextualize what happened this week. The never-ending cycle of justifiable shock and outrage conditions us to set aside the physical and mental stress as quickly as we can, as a means of self-preservation.

As such, we have little reserve for facing an event of such consequence. We’re so relieved to see the storm has passed we can’t fully appreciate the damage it’s left in its wake or how it formed.

To put it another way, the foundations are still in place. We see the cracks but we’re content to note their existence for now because it’s all we can do. Fixing them seems like a task for another day.

I think about the people who say they support America, but co-signed, attended, or dog-whistled their support for a ground strike at its very heart: keyboard warriors in Facebook groups, local business leaders, even the very people we elected to uphold our democracy.

If you claim to love your country’s flag, how can you cheer (or raise your first in a salute!) for those who wish to disrupt the peaceful transition of power? Cherish the symbol, yes, but it means nothing if you don’t preserve the ideals for which it stands. There is no patriotism when your supposed defense of liberty and justice is carried out under a flag that stands for one man, not one nation.

Where is the support for “Blue Lives” when those men and women put their lives on the line to protect democracy? The silence of those who expressed anger at the broken windows of a shopping mall is conspicuous right now as the windows of the Capitol are shattered. Opposing the defunding of police, but supporting violence against them is merely support for extremism and disorder.

One lie follows another as so many try to cover their tracks with cries of “leftists!” or “Antifa!” as the “real” cause of this insurrection. So is it a true uprising in defense of a stolen election or is it a false flag operation? It can’t be both.

The chasm between their beliefs and their actions is wide and I wonder what bridge can be built to cross it.

I think about the number of people who’ve genuinely felt lost this past year, who have felt so helpless that they found comfort in convenient, but false narratives. It’s unimaginable that our federal government abdicated its role as protector, leaving it to states and cities to fight a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Yet it’s shaken our faith in leadership so much that we’ll believe anything that explains it. We want to feel better about our own yearning for escape or uncertainty.

“Ah ha! See? Our governor is…and our mayor is…how do I know? Well I saw this tweet…”

Lies now travel around the world three times and are made into memes before the truth gets its pants on.

All because our country has never lived up to the ideals of our sacred texts. Or that the power to decide how those ideals would live in the world was held within the powerful fists of a few as they crushed optimism and the franchise under their polished heels.

Real, meaningful change in people’s lives that they can see, feel, and experience only comes with power. It’s how we get past surface prejudice and polarization.

That’s the bridge.

I know we’re tired. We want things to be less fraught and frenzied. You deserve several days of a good night’s rest, a glass of ice water, and a healthy meal.

Because the cracks remain and we’re going to need your help to repair them when your reserves are replenished.

As I said last month:

We have to acknowledge that Trump was not the cause of our polarization and division. Like COVID-19, he took advantage of an environment starved for answers—one filled with mistrust, and prejudice. A divided society lacking a shared set of facts, beliefs, resources and goals. No common project.

The cracks were there, but Trump made them wider and deeper. He’ll soon be gone from the White House, but the cracks will remain.

Here’s the thing about cracks: the worst ones don’t start where you can see them. They start underground and weaken the foundations beneath us. Once we can see them, it’s too late.

What we saw this week were the cracks bursting through the ground. In a time when our national politics seems impossible to reconcile, our local politics goes on.

Real, meaningful change starts locally. Right now, there are people gearing up for local races in 2022 and 2023. They want to run against those who would turn a blind eye to power grabs. They want to fix the leaks that pour water in the cracks of our foundations.

Look no further than the question of who will be Speaker of the Illinois statehouse for an example of why we need to pay attention to state reps and senators, township boards, aldermen, and village mayoral races. All this consolidated power affects the redrawing of legislative districts, the effects of which ripple up and down the ballot. In Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County, those down-ballot races lead to a centralization of power for those who decide whether we get years of a status quo built on corruption or a new day.

Despite the efforts of some this week, we’ve given the Presidency, the House, and the Senate to people who want to fix the cracks in the foundation. Strengthening the norms in our local institutions builds support for these national efforts.

Get some sleep. Then take the energy you’ve spent paying attention to races happening on the other side of the country and bring it home. You may find it restores your faith in the power of government to help people. And your neighbors’ faith, too.

Image: “Cracked wall” by árticotropical is licensed under CC BY 2.0

 

Want to make things better in 2021? Ask these four questions

Communities, Politics, ,

Chicago under the El

In the wake of president-elect Joe Biden’s victory, there’s been a question of what will happen to all of the activism of the past four years.

Specifically, we’re talking about the people who, for the first time, found themselves marching in the streets, joining a political organization, or organizing for change during the Trump administration. We might also count those who, this summer, felt called into the fight for racial justice in a way they hadn’t before.

Maybe you were in that number. Maybe your friends and family were. (Or maybe you’d been there for years and helped those folks find a place in the fight. If so, thank you. Also, you could probably use a nap.)

We have to acknowledge that Trump was not the cause of our polarization and division. Like COVID-19, he took advantage of an environment starved for answers—one filled with mistrust, and prejudice. A divided society lacking a shared set of facts, beliefs, resources and goals. No common project.

The cracks were there, but Trump made them wider and deeper. He’ll soon be gone from the White House, but the cracks will remain.

Some groups of people will have the privilege of not feeling the intensity of these divisions every day. But white supremacist nationalism, climate threats, and the ongoing fight against the spread of COVID-19 (which will evolve into a larger question of how to prepare for and fight the next pandemic) will remain as global and national menaces. The list of local problems could fill a couple of pages.

When you’re not plagued by existential threats with a clear villain, where do you place your focus and how do you spend your time? How do you unite people who have similar interests but disparate backgrounds?

My goal here is to try and answer some of those questions. This isn’t intended to be prescriptive. It’s a template or framework on which to layer your own interests and apply it to your own community. These things work best when you take from them what works for you, discard what doesn’t, and add in what you need. Think of it like a civic quiche.

With that, here’s what you can ask yourself as you think about how to help make life better for those close to you. I’ll start with what I think is the most important question because everything else flows from it.

What is the smallest and nearest form of governance in my life?

I say this with love: If you know the names of the Democratic candidates running in the Georgia Senate runoff, but don’t know the name of your alderman, county commissioner, or statehouse rep then you have some work to do.

Just using the examples above, we can see huge community impacts: who can or can’t open a business in your neighborhood (alderman), how money is allocated toward health and policing (county commissioner), and how legislative maps are drawn (statehouse rep), which is a building block of fair elections locally and nationally.

The smaller the unit of government, the more immediately responsive it can be, both in terms of your ability to exert influence on it and the likelihood of you getting a response to your email, phone call, or letter.

It’s important to consider this in terms of government and governance, both elected and unelected.

For example, how do decisions get made about how your community gets educated? If you live in Chicago, your public school has an elected local school council. LSCs have the power to, among other things, decide how to spend money and choose the principal. (If you live elsewhere, your school district board has similar powers.)

Did you know that as a member of your community you can vote in your LSC’s election or run for a spot on the LSC as a community representative even if your kid doesn’t go to school there? Did you know we just had those elections in November?

If you don’t have a kid in your neighborhood public school, what happens at the school still matters to you. Good public schools mean good real estate values, business development, and public safety.

Who is the supervisor of your local park? They decide how often the equipment gets maintained which can affect whether a kid gets hurt or not – or the access they have to ways to stay active. Healthy kids mean less money spent on health care which means more money to spend on restaurants, shops, etc. which means more of that gets built in your community. All of which contributes to safe, welcoming neighborhoods.

Then there’s the unelected governance that comes in a variety of forms.

Who sits on your library board? The board makes decisions about what your community can read for free, another form of public education. This board is likely appointed. It’s important to know by whom. Is there a neighborhood association in your area? They’re probably volunteers and make decisions about public safety, tree plantings, or block parties.

As the saying goes, just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.

Some forms of governance are invisible unless you take the time to look for them. They definitely don’t get covered on that political podcast you listen to every week. In Chicago, we have City Bureau’s Documenters who are bringing some transparency to these smaller units of government. Your property tax bill is a good place to start getting familiar with some of them.

That’s the what. Then there’s the who.

Who is most at risk right now?

If you’re trying to decide how to make things better, think about those who have it worse than you right now.

Broadly speaking, the answer to this question is pretty simple: Those at risk are the people whose point of view is least represented when decisions are getting made.

Who’s dealing with food insecurity? Who feels the most alone? Whose health is most at risk? Who is least likely to receive a just outcome in the criminal justice system? Whose schools lack the most funding? Who feels the least safe?

We could get overwhelmed by the bigness of some of these questions and the problems they reveal. So let’s reduce this to the smallest unit of assistance you can provide each day.

When you’re in a room where a decision is being made ask yourself this question: How will this affect those who don’t look like me or have less access to money and services than I do? Are you able to speak from a place of knowledge that can guide this decision to a more equitable outcome for that group? If not, can you bring someone into the room who can? Or ask to defer the decision until that point of view is heard? Then do that.

As you think about the moments when things happen, ask yourself the next question.

What skills and resources do I have?

When you start thinking about all the trouble in your world there’s a tendency to get overwhelmed or to feel like you need to learn how to do a million new things to make a difference.

Learning new things is great! Educating yourself on issues is important! But more than likely, you already know something or can do something better than other people. Think about what that is and who could be helped by it. The thing you can do better than other people might be the skill that a non-profit or community organization needs the most from its volunteers.

Can you write? You can amplify your impact by writing an outline of a script that empowers others to use their voices.

Do you have a technical skill? A certain kind of way with design, spreadsheets, or budgeting? The more niche the skill, the more expensive the hire and the bigger the obstacle it is for most organizations. You’re going to be their favorite volunteer.

Can you manage projects? The path between idea and execution is often fraught. You might make the difference here.

Are you someone who knows people who can do the above? Some of the most powerful people are those who connect those with a need to those with a solution.

Finally, can you spare 20 dollars a week (or more)? Give it to an organization making a difference somewhere. Ask others to do the same. If you feel comfortable asking people for money, start a fundraiser.

Again, think small(er). I love places like the ACLU, too, but if you Google “immigration legal rights,” “environmental justice” or some other cause plus the name of your city, town, or state you’ll find an organization doing the work that needs the money more than a place with built-in name recognition.

This leads us to the last question.

Who is already doing this work?

There is a tendency among those with power and abilities – usually white people and usually men – to imagine they have the solution others lack. But for their insight, the problem would be solved.

No.

Do not be the person that offers help they don’t need. Instead, amplify what others are already doing.

Those already doing this work do not need not our vision, our strategy. They need the tactical benefit that comes with numbers. They don’t need leadership, they need followship. Allies are fine, but accomplices are better. They need our hands, our muscle, our toil. Ask for direction, then put yourself in the way. They may need your status or skin color as a shield, not a sword.

It’s also important to remember that those doing this work are not looking to make their cause or tactics more palatable to a broader group of people. They’ve had the “what if” or “what about” discussions before you got there. Dilution of a solution might create more volume, but it reduces the substance.

You may feel uncomfortable. You may feel a loss of status or prestige because doing the right thing doesn’t always feel good. Doing this work on behalf of others may bring to light things about you or people you’re close to that you would have preferred to keep in the darkness.

The good news is short-term loss will become long-term gains over time – for you and everyone else.

If after looking high and low you discover what needs to be created doesn’t exist, bring it into the world. Otherwise, line up with those who are already standing there.

None of this is easy. You’ll make mistakes. Mine usually come from a tendency to want to fix things as quickly as possible, to want to speak first so as to fill a vacuum of uncertainty rather than listen and sit with the discomfort of not knowing. Or to emphasize the theoretical over the lived experience of someone else. When this happens, it helps to be quick with an apology and a description of how you’ll act differently next time.

Right now, we’re rightly obsessed with getting “back to normal.” But what if we thought about “the unusual” instead? It might look like something that’s more well-balanced than what we had before.

That’s how we make things better.

Our inspiration to vote should come from a cause, not a candidate

Politics

Ta-Nehisi Coates said this thing on Ezra Klein’s podcast back in June that I haven’t stopped thinking about as it relates to the 2020 election:

I say this as somebody who’s been very openly critical of Biden. We have this idea of elections as this kind of sacred ritual that one is undertaking, that you should be inspired and in love with the candidate.

But I often think people need to think about it more like taking out the trash. It’s a thing that you should do. Brushing your teeth is hygiene.

So when I think of who to vote for, the question isn’t how much of my own personal politics do I see in this person so much as how much do I think this person can actually be influenced by my politics or the politics of the people around me. So I can loudly say all the things Joe Biden was wrong on and not feel guilt about voting for him. Me casting a presidential vote is not the totality of my political action within a society.

I’m not sure how the “sacred ritual” emerged. You could argue it got its start in the idolatry of the Kennedy era then inflamed by the rough-and-tumble politics of 1968 when what should have been a boring matter of intra-party business became a literal Democratic street fight.

Perhaps it was borne from the way media coverage of presidential campaigns evolved since 1984. Start with a base of What It Takes hero worship; add in Gary Hart’s Monkey Business for a little spice; mix in the hope, optimism, and outsize personalities of 2008 then turn up the heat on a 24/7, Twitter-fueled news cycle and the primaries become a breathless, countdown-driven, American Idol-esque spectacle.

Either way, here we are. Politics as the art of the inexhaustible instead of the art of the possible.

Look, I love civic life. In sixth grade, I petitioned and spoke to my local library board about expanded access to resources. One of these days I’m going to find the time to figure out how the mosquito abatement district works. I’m fascinated by the inner workings of government. I want other people to be interested in it, too.

It is not, however, meant to be an Aaron Sorkin production. Most days, there is no “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” speech to be heard. It should be boring in the way your refrigerator should be boring: no scary noises; no rotted food; just a quiet, dependable hum in the background. It’s not inspiring, but it provides comfort, care, and calm.

Are you inspired by brushing your teeth? No, but you do it. Because otherwise a very meaningful part of your life will decay, rot, and die. We have to normalize thinking about voting as brushing our teeth even if we’re not inspired by our toothbrush.

I was plenty inspired by another candidate – inspired enough to knock doors and send texts. It didn’t work out. I was sad about that for a while. But I moved on because there was work to do.

Should we want inspiration? Yes, because it leads to aspiration. Primaries should be about who we are and what we stand for today. It’s about creating stretch goals and moving us forward. It’s about making sure the person who emerges at the end bears our standards, not merely their own.

I’d argue this year’s primary was that for all the reasons Coates cites above. Now it’s time to get to work.

We have to stop thinking of voting as a self-centered act and think of it as a society-centered act.

Once the general election rolls around – and this is true for the presidential election through all the down-ballot races – we have to look for our inspiration from the issues, not the candidate.

If you need inspiration in the presidential election, seek it in the issues that affect the daily lives of people:

This is a year when voter suppression is active in a way it hasn’t been since the 1960s. It’s more important than ever to vote if you’re mobile, white, healthy, or can generally move through the world unencumbered. If you lack inspiration, consider that it is your job is to protect the rights of those whose rights are most under threat. Your job is to reduce harm. If it helps, consider yourself a super hero whose wields the ballot the way Captain America and Wonder Woman wields a sword and a shield.

Voting isn’t about idealism, it’s about pragmatism. If you want idealism, consider activism. With activism, the real work of inspirational politics doesn’t happen in the voting booth. It happens long before that. And on this point, here’s noted moderate pushover and compromiser* Noam Chomsky on 2020:

Well, there is a traditional left position, which has been pretty much forgotten, unfortunately, but it’s the one I think we should adhere to. That’s the position that real politics is constant activism. It’s quite different from the establishment position, which says politics means focus, laser-like, on the quadrennial extravaganza, then go home and let your superiors take over.

The left position has always been: You’re working all the time, and every once in a while there’s an event called an election. This should take you away from real politics for 10 or 15 minutes. Then you go back to work.

At this moment, the difference between the candidates is a chasm. There has never been a greater difference. It should be obvious to anyone who’s not living under a rock. So the traditional left position says, “Take the 15 minutes, push the lever, go back to work.”

Now, the activist left has not been making the choice that you mentioned. It’s been doing both.

Take Biden’s campaign positions. Farther to the left than any Democratic candidate in memory on things like climate. It’s far better than anything that preceded it. Not because Biden had a personal conversion or the DNC had some great insight, but because they’re being hammered on by activists coming out of the Sanders movement and others. The climate program, a $2 trillion commitment to dealing with the extreme threat of environmental catastrophe, was largely written by the Sunrise Movement and strongly endorsed by the leading activists on climate change, the ones who managed to get the Green New Deal on the legislative agenda. That’s real politics.

I sure didn’t expect to ever be quoting Noam Chomsky, but here we are.

Vote. Then get back to work.

* In case it’s not obvious, my tongue is buried six layers deep in my cheek here.

Image: “2008 Presidential election early Voting Lines, Charlotte” by James Willamor is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

There’s no comparison

Politics

Last night was a travesty, but there is no comparison between what Trump and Biden did in the debate last night.

In moments like this, we’ll look to establish parity between the two men. We’ll be so disgusted with the process that rather than tax our pandemic-drained brains with the work of sorting one from the other, we’ll lump them both together, curse our two-party system, and toss it all in the bin.

Yes, Biden called Trump a fool, a clown, and told him to shut up. That’s not great if you prefer your politics polite enough to discuss while drinking tea and nibbling biscuits. But we’ve been out of tea and biscuits for a while now.

I can’t say I’m disciplined enough to act differently when faced with a similar barrage. I know I’m not.

Make no mistake, Trump wanted to push Biden to a place where the Vice-President’s actions might be compared with his own. If you know you’re not better than your opponent, try to make him look like he’s as bad as you.

But this obscures three very striking things that happened last night:

1.

Donald Trump – a man who was elected to represent the best of us – told the Proud Boys, who stand for violent white supremacy as the Klan once did, to “stand down and stand by.”

When asked to denounce white supremacy by the moderator, and specifically asked by Biden to denounce the Proud Boys, he basically told them to Netflix and chill until their help was required.

The President of the United States gave an order to a group of white supremacists to be ready when he needs them.

You might be unhappy with Biden’s debate performance but he didn’t attempt command and control of a group of terrorists.

Would you associate yourself with people like that? Trump did. If you vote for him, you’re associating with them, too. Maybe in 2016 you could convince yourself that he was someone else, but you can’t now.

2.

Donald Trump – a man who was elected to represent the best of us – asked his supporters to go down to the polls and watch over people voting. The very actions he decried in 2016.

Trump would like us to believe this is normal during elections: For supporters of a particular candidate to mosey over to election sites and hover over the proceedings. He wants you to think this is pollwatching.

It’s not. I know you know pollwatching involves training and careful attention, not using your physical body as an obstacle. In light of the above, it’s clear this was another attempt at voter intimidation and suppression. (I’m not even getting into all the lies he said about mail-in ballots. As Biden learned last night, you’ll wear yourself out by trying to refute everything Trump says as he says it.)

With everything else last night, this moment seems not to be given the attention it deserves.

Trump wants to steal the election through physical violence and suppression. He wants to sow doubt and suspicion of the whole process and foment disgust among the electorate. He wants you to believe the lie that there’s no difference between him and Biden. If the above wasn’t enough to convince you though:

3.

Donald Trump – a man who was elected to represent the best of us – tried to shame a father for his son’s drug addiction.

We should want a President who has compassion for the illness experienced by another person’s family. Or, at least, not to mention it. Trump can’t do that. It’s not in his nature. He’s so uncomfortable with sadness as an emotion that he can’t bear to understand or accept sorrow or weakness. He has to shame you for it.

Would you ever do that? Why would we want a President who does?

—

If you don’t vote for Biden, you’re voting for, and affirming, the above. In a different world that doesn’t have the dominance of a two-party system that might not be the case.

We have to vote within the world as it exists if we’re ever going to get the world as we’d like it to be.

If you’d like our country to be different, your choice is clear.
If you abhor violence, your choice is clear.
If you care about free and fair elections, your choice is clear.
If when your friends and family are hurting, your instinct is to pull them close, rather than shame them for their weakness, your choice is clear.

Because there’s no comparison.

In a single moment between Klobuchar and Kavanaugh are all the things we do to women

Politics, , ,

It’s the moment with Senator Amy Klobuchar that sticks with me.

The testimony and questioning of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh was a microcosm of what women have to deal with every single day.

The need for women to “manage their emotions” to be “taken seriously.” The way men giving full vent to their anger and passion is a measure of just how serious they are.

The questions about whether a woman’s story should be believed if it is told publicly after a certain period of time – even if it’s already been told before to others in private because of the perilous stakes and consequences for women to report assault to any authority.

The dismissal of womens’ expertise, no matter how much education and experience they have or titles or degrees they earn. The way a woman feels she has to call upon all that education – at a level beyond the men to whom she’s speaking – to provide a scientific basis for her memory recall as part of her plea to be believed.

All this in the face of male entitlement and anger. Their gaslighting and attempts to flip a basic level of inquiry back on the questioner. A demand for her to prove either her right to participate in the discussion and confirm she is above reproach in the matter before he will acquiesce to a response.

Not to mention the way men let a woman be in the room to represent them as long as they can shove her to the side at any moment and say what they’re really thinking.

The way men will circle the wagons to protect their privilege and right to be wherever they feel they should be in whatever manner they feel.

(And, sadly, the way some women will do the same to protect the system they hope will protect them, even though that system wasn’t built for them.)

There were a lot of examples of the above in Dr. Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony.

But it was Kavanaugh’s moment with Klobuchar that sticks with me.

Klobuchar: “Was there ever a time that you couldn’t remember what happened or part of what happened the night before?”
Kavanaugh: “No. I remember what happened. And I think you’ve probably had beers, Senator.” [Kavanaugh smiles and gestures toward Senator Klobuchar.]
Klobuchar: “So you’re saying there’s never been a case where you drank so much that you didn’t happen the night before or part of what happened?”
Kavanaugh: “You’re asking about blackout…I don’t know. [Gestures toward Senator Klobuchar again.] Have you?” [Kavanaugh smiles, exhales, pauses.]
Klobuchar: “Could you answer the question, Judge? [Kavanaugh leans back in his chair, looks up and scowls.] “That’s not happened? Is that your answer?”
Kavanaugh: “Yeah, and I’m curious if you have.” [Kavanaugh gestures at Senator Klobuchar again.]
Klobuchar: “I have no drinking problem, Judge.”
Kavanaugh: “Yeah, nor do I.”

There it is.

The smarmy grin. The way he turns the question back on her to leave himself blameless. Dismissing the seriousness of the question while at the same time indicting her of the same offense. The gestures toward her. His effort to force her to answer the question before he will. The way she finally gives in and accepts his terms of the argument just so they can move on and she can get what she needs to do her job. Failing to get an acquittal through guilt by association, he offers his half-answer in response (“Nor do I”) which seems to run counter to his half-answer in the midst of his obfuscation (“I don’t know”).

It doesn’t matter at all that the reason Senator Klobuchar hasn’t blacked out from drinking is because she’s the daughter of an alcoholic and is “pretty careful about drinking,” in her words. It doesn’t matter than Judge Kavanaugh apologizes for the way he tried to dismiss the senator, particularly because it’s clear he did it after someone pulled him aside and told him exactly why that kind of pushback was going to spectacularly backfire on him.

Because none of this should have happened in the first place. But it did. And it does.

Senator Klobuchar’s expertise at navigating the exchange is evident. Because it’s no doubt happened to her many times.

It happens to every woman. It’s the minefield she walks through every day. It’s what women in secret Facebook groups and text threads and hushed conversations call the emotional labor of their lives.

Maybe it’s impossible for most men to conceptualize all the reasons why women don’t report assault.

But this moment between Senator Klobuchar and Judge Kavanaugh is a pretty good example of why.