Chapter One
My wife and I have been reading books together during the pandemic.
Many of them have been James Patterson novels.
The books are time killers with short, punchy sentences, like the ones I’m writing here.
They also are mostly written not by James Patterson, but by his co-authors. Otherwise, he would have to work around the clock to write four books at once while dictating a fifth in his sleep.
Patterson’s co-authors are the people whose names are written in small print on the bottom of the covers. His name goes, really big, on the top.
Chapter Two
Most of these books have very short chapters.
Chapter Three
These short chapters mean you can say, “Just one more before bedtime” for an hour before you actually go to bed.
Because “just one more” is only a page or two, maybe three.
And before you know it, you’ve read another 50 pages.
Chapter Four
The paragraphs are also short, and about every third sentence is a fragment. Like this one.
Chapter Five
The characters follow a certain pattern. The protagonist is usually a loner with a tragic backstory.
A murdered family is a good motivator.
The protagonist swims against the current, career-wise. Maybe she is an FBI profiler who detects crimes nobody else does. Or a police officer fighting terrorists and moonlighting as a celebrity chef. Or a midwife exposing the Russian mafia.
It also helps if the hero has a tortured love life. If these people were happier at home, they wouldn’t be out fighting crime.
Chapter Six
My favorite Patterson novel so far has been “The Summer House.” Holly’s favorite is “Invisible.”
Chapter Seven
It may seem like I’m making fun of these books, but I’m not. They give us something to do besides binge-watch TV.
Plus, they’re the literary equivalent of chocolate donuts with sprinkles. Not healthy, but they go down easy.
About four months and 20 Patterson books into the pandemic, we changed it up.
We’ve now read some Harlan Coben. And some David Baldacci. And some Sandra Brown. By order of author, I’ve preferred “The Stranger,” “One Good Deed,” and “Lethal.”
Chapter Eight
I’ve read all these books aloud because I’m a bad listener. Plus, Holly bakes me cookies while I read.
It has helped me to absorb the sentence patterns and story structures. (The reading aloud, not the cookies. That’s a different type of absorption.)
After such concentrated exposure, I feel like these writers’ styles are part of my DNA. Especially Patterson's style. To the point that I’m contemplating a contemporary thriller of my own.
Maybe one about a high school teacher and his wife, stuck inside during a pandemic, reading and reading and reading. While the former writes shorter and shorter sentences.
Stop me if you’ve read that one before.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Thursday, October 29, 2020
So, What About 'All This'?
O would some Power the gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
— Robert Burns, “To a Louse”
Never in my 20-some years of teaching have so many non-educators asked about the school year.
What they really want to know about is “all this.” Imagine my index finger tracing a circle around my face where a mask perches while I teach.
“All this” also refers to social distancing, the disinfecting of desks after each class and the mental and physical wellness of kids and staff. I’m sure grocery store employees, doctors, nurses, and other workers whose day-to-day routines have undergone massive changes because of the pandemic field similar questions.
Well, “all this” in schools is going about as well as can be expected.
I’m sure it’s a challenge for younger kids, but high schoolers, by and large, have accepted mask-wearing as a way to resume a degree of normalcy. Occasionally I have to give a visual cue — a quick horizontal gesture of my finger beneath my nose — to remind an errant masker to pull it up. And some students take full advantage of the opportunity to slide down the masks and take loooong drinks, as if a Dunkin or Starbucks cup gives them carte blanche to go maskless for longer periods of time.
A song on the loudspeaker two minutes before the end of each period reminds students to stand while I pass among them, distributing paper towels and spraying disinfectant. Three squirts down the back and seat of the chair, three squirts on the desktop, accompanied by my verbal approximation of a Star Wars laser gun — pew! pew! pew! and then pew! pew! pew! again.
Students scrub to a variety of music — country, rap, rock. At first, we had only songs with “wipe” or “scrub” in the lyrics. Not many tunes fit those parameters, however, so the musical palette expanded. Two weeks ago, a few seconds of “Jump” honored late, lamented guitar god Eddie Van Halen, even though the snippet only featured him on keyboards. (Everybody’s a critic, right?)
The social aspects are also challenging. Modifications to extracurriculars, the postponement of dances, friends on the opposite day’s schedule (at least until we get back to all students, five days a week, in November) — all have contributed to student stress.
But kids are resilient and adaptable. They have an abiding belief, shared by their teachers, that normalcy will return, even if we don’t know exactly when or how.
Don’t mistake this for a desire to abandon masks and social distancing before it’s advisable, however. Most teens understand, more than many adults, I’m convinced, the concept of shared sacrifice, how their masks protect others inside and outside the school, including teachers, family members and vulnerable members of the community.
As for how teachers are handling “all this” — well, I can speak only for myself.
Every now and again, I have a moment of clarity, when I realize the enormity of how the world has changed. I had one such incident the first week of school, when I looked out across a room of masked kids and made eye contact with a student I’d had a few years before. His eyes communicated nervousness and uncertainty, maybe because of the new school year, maybe because he was stuck with me for another semester, or maybe because that strip of cloth that covered his usual smile indicated this would be a year unlike any other.
I had to pause, take it all in and swallow hard with a gulp I hoped wasn’t too audible before proceeding. If he could carry on, so could I.
A similar revelation came earlier this month, after I saw myself on camera, speaking in front of a classroom. I looked and sounded like a gangly robot, my head moving only slightly as I spoke in monotone.
To the casual observer, it would have been hard to tell if I were happy, angry or bored. Facial expressions say a lot. So does the lack of them.
Since then, I’ve made efforts to be more animated, to speak more loudly, to laugh more heartily, to push my intentions through the mask and into the room. I’ve upped the goofiness factor by several degrees.
Maybe it’s overcompensation. Or maybe just a case of fake it until you make it during “all this.”
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
To see ourselves as others see us!
— Robert Burns, “To a Louse”
Never in my 20-some years of teaching have so many non-educators asked about the school year.
What they really want to know about is “all this.” Imagine my index finger tracing a circle around my face where a mask perches while I teach.
“All this” also refers to social distancing, the disinfecting of desks after each class and the mental and physical wellness of kids and staff. I’m sure grocery store employees, doctors, nurses, and other workers whose day-to-day routines have undergone massive changes because of the pandemic field similar questions.
Well, “all this” in schools is going about as well as can be expected.
I’m sure it’s a challenge for younger kids, but high schoolers, by and large, have accepted mask-wearing as a way to resume a degree of normalcy. Occasionally I have to give a visual cue — a quick horizontal gesture of my finger beneath my nose — to remind an errant masker to pull it up. And some students take full advantage of the opportunity to slide down the masks and take loooong drinks, as if a Dunkin or Starbucks cup gives them carte blanche to go maskless for longer periods of time.
A song on the loudspeaker two minutes before the end of each period reminds students to stand while I pass among them, distributing paper towels and spraying disinfectant. Three squirts down the back and seat of the chair, three squirts on the desktop, accompanied by my verbal approximation of a Star Wars laser gun — pew! pew! pew! and then pew! pew! pew! again.
Students scrub to a variety of music — country, rap, rock. At first, we had only songs with “wipe” or “scrub” in the lyrics. Not many tunes fit those parameters, however, so the musical palette expanded. Two weeks ago, a few seconds of “Jump” honored late, lamented guitar god Eddie Van Halen, even though the snippet only featured him on keyboards. (Everybody’s a critic, right?)
The social aspects are also challenging. Modifications to extracurriculars, the postponement of dances, friends on the opposite day’s schedule (at least until we get back to all students, five days a week, in November) — all have contributed to student stress.
But kids are resilient and adaptable. They have an abiding belief, shared by their teachers, that normalcy will return, even if we don’t know exactly when or how.
Don’t mistake this for a desire to abandon masks and social distancing before it’s advisable, however. Most teens understand, more than many adults, I’m convinced, the concept of shared sacrifice, how their masks protect others inside and outside the school, including teachers, family members and vulnerable members of the community.
As for how teachers are handling “all this” — well, I can speak only for myself.
Every now and again, I have a moment of clarity, when I realize the enormity of how the world has changed. I had one such incident the first week of school, when I looked out across a room of masked kids and made eye contact with a student I’d had a few years before. His eyes communicated nervousness and uncertainty, maybe because of the new school year, maybe because he was stuck with me for another semester, or maybe because that strip of cloth that covered his usual smile indicated this would be a year unlike any other.
I had to pause, take it all in and swallow hard with a gulp I hoped wasn’t too audible before proceeding. If he could carry on, so could I.
A similar revelation came earlier this month, after I saw myself on camera, speaking in front of a classroom. I looked and sounded like a gangly robot, my head moving only slightly as I spoke in monotone.
To the casual observer, it would have been hard to tell if I were happy, angry or bored. Facial expressions say a lot. So does the lack of them.
Since then, I’ve made efforts to be more animated, to speak more loudly, to laugh more heartily, to push my intentions through the mask and into the room. I’ve upped the goofiness factor by several degrees.
Maybe it’s overcompensation. Or maybe just a case of fake it until you make it during “all this.”
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Lord of the Flies is breakout debate star
The star of Wednesday night’s debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris was the fly that alighted on the vice president’s head and lodged in his hair for two minutes like a large piece of soot from the wildfires out west.
This intrepid columnist was fortunate to score an exclusive interview with the fly, which hopped an airplane back to Cleveland shortly after his extended cameo.
Below are some highlights, translated from Basic Fly through Google, which may account for inaccuracies in the fly’s responses.
Chris Schillig: So, Mr. Fly …
FLY: Call me Brundle. Everybody does.
CS: Brundle, you’ve had a couple of interesting days. Tell me how you ended up on the vice president’s head.
FLY: To be honest, I thought I was late for practice. It wasn’t until I got onto stage that I realized it was the actual event.
CS: Are you saying YOU were the vice president’s debate-prep partner?
FLY: Yes. The campaign didn’t want to overwhelm the big bzzzz (untranslatable), and I had open dates in my schedule.
CS: What qualified you?
FLY: I have a long history in show biz. I was an extra in that Jeff Goldblum movie in the 1980s.
CS: The ’80s? But surely flies don’t live that …
FLY: BZZZZZZZZZ
CS: OK, since the ’80s, then. Where have you been for the last three decades?
FLY: I fell on hard times. I flew into a brewery in the late ’90s and found myself in the bottom of too many vats, if you know what I mean. (Brundle winks one of its three eyes and attempts to nudge me with what passes for its elbow.) When the economy tanked in the 2000s, I had some lean years where I couldn’t even find any suitable bzzzzzzz (untranslatable) to land on.
CS: The Internet was abuzz (sorry) with your appearance since you were not wearing a mask.
FLY: I wear a mask when I need to. I’ve worn many masks, but they’re too small to see with the naked eye and I take them off as soon as I can. I’m not like Joe Biden. That guy would wear a mask even if he were 20 feet away from you.
CS: Brundle, you’re starting to sound suspiciously like the president.
FLY: Am I?
CS: Have you been tested for COVID? Have you been in close proximity to the president?
FLY: I travel with him, actually. You may have seen me at the rallies if you look closely. I’m the hairy little guy in the MAGA hat.
CS: To be fair, that doesn’t description doesn’t exactly make you stand out.
FLY: Good point. But as for COVID, no, I’m good. Plus, you can’t live your life in fear, you know? I’m already awfully old for a fly, so I guess the way I look at it, I’m willing to die if it means others can be free and the economy can come back.
CS: You’re willing to sacrifice yourself on the altar of economic prosperity?
FLY: Oh bzzzzzzz yeah. I mean, I do have a rather small brain, but still.
CS: Is it true that you were whispering answers to Pence on stage Wednesday?
FLY: Complete falsehood. The only thing I kept repeating was, “Act like you care” and “plausible deniability.” There’s a reason that guy looks like he’s kept in the dark, and it’s because he’s kept in the dark.
CS: What about Senate Republicans’ timeline to confirm Amy Coney Barrett before the Nov. 3 election? Where do you stand on that?
FLY: Look, elections have consequences. The president gets to pick, and the party in charge is the party in charge. I was in the Rose Garden when the president announced her as his nominee.
CS: You mean the super-spreader event?
FLY: It was a fly smorgasbord. I stayed off camera at that one.
CS: Do you worry that Barrett’s confirmation will move the Supreme Court to the right for the next several decades?
FLY: It sounds like you've been poisoned by the left-leaning media.
CS: What about climate change? And the Trump administration’s rolling back of so many environmental regulations.
FLY: If people not being able to breathe and wildfires burning out of control are the price we have to pay for the 1 percent to get richer, then so be it. Plus, it’ll all trickle down to the rest of America. Eventually.
CS: Wow, you are a MAGA fly, aren’t you?
FLY: Trump 2020!
And with that, the fly departed, presumably to prep for his next appearance Oct. 15 in Florida.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
This intrepid columnist was fortunate to score an exclusive interview with the fly, which hopped an airplane back to Cleveland shortly after his extended cameo.
Below are some highlights, translated from Basic Fly through Google, which may account for inaccuracies in the fly’s responses.
Chris Schillig: So, Mr. Fly …
FLY: Call me Brundle. Everybody does.
CS: Brundle, you’ve had a couple of interesting days. Tell me how you ended up on the vice president’s head.
FLY: To be honest, I thought I was late for practice. It wasn’t until I got onto stage that I realized it was the actual event.
CS: Are you saying YOU were the vice president’s debate-prep partner?
FLY: Yes. The campaign didn’t want to overwhelm the big bzzzz (untranslatable), and I had open dates in my schedule.
CS: What qualified you?
FLY: I have a long history in show biz. I was an extra in that Jeff Goldblum movie in the 1980s.
CS: The ’80s? But surely flies don’t live that …
FLY: BZZZZZZZZZ
CS: OK, since the ’80s, then. Where have you been for the last three decades?
FLY: I fell on hard times. I flew into a brewery in the late ’90s and found myself in the bottom of too many vats, if you know what I mean. (Brundle winks one of its three eyes and attempts to nudge me with what passes for its elbow.) When the economy tanked in the 2000s, I had some lean years where I couldn’t even find any suitable bzzzzzzz (untranslatable) to land on.
CS: The Internet was abuzz (sorry) with your appearance since you were not wearing a mask.
FLY: I wear a mask when I need to. I’ve worn many masks, but they’re too small to see with the naked eye and I take them off as soon as I can. I’m not like Joe Biden. That guy would wear a mask even if he were 20 feet away from you.
CS: Brundle, you’re starting to sound suspiciously like the president.
FLY: Am I?
CS: Have you been tested for COVID? Have you been in close proximity to the president?
FLY: I travel with him, actually. You may have seen me at the rallies if you look closely. I’m the hairy little guy in the MAGA hat.
CS: To be fair, that doesn’t description doesn’t exactly make you stand out.
FLY: Good point. But as for COVID, no, I’m good. Plus, you can’t live your life in fear, you know? I’m already awfully old for a fly, so I guess the way I look at it, I’m willing to die if it means others can be free and the economy can come back.
CS: You’re willing to sacrifice yourself on the altar of economic prosperity?
FLY: Oh bzzzzzzz yeah. I mean, I do have a rather small brain, but still.
CS: Is it true that you were whispering answers to Pence on stage Wednesday?
FLY: Complete falsehood. The only thing I kept repeating was, “Act like you care” and “plausible deniability.” There’s a reason that guy looks like he’s kept in the dark, and it’s because he’s kept in the dark.
CS: What about Senate Republicans’ timeline to confirm Amy Coney Barrett before the Nov. 3 election? Where do you stand on that?
FLY: Look, elections have consequences. The president gets to pick, and the party in charge is the party in charge. I was in the Rose Garden when the president announced her as his nominee.
CS: You mean the super-spreader event?
FLY: It was a fly smorgasbord. I stayed off camera at that one.
CS: Do you worry that Barrett’s confirmation will move the Supreme Court to the right for the next several decades?
FLY: It sounds like you've been poisoned by the left-leaning media.
CS: What about climate change? And the Trump administration’s rolling back of so many environmental regulations.
FLY: If people not being able to breathe and wildfires burning out of control are the price we have to pay for the 1 percent to get richer, then so be it. Plus, it’ll all trickle down to the rest of America. Eventually.
CS: Wow, you are a MAGA fly, aren’t you?
FLY: Trump 2020!
And with that, the fly departed, presumably to prep for his next appearance Oct. 15 in Florida.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Trump's COVID test could change the coronavirus equation
President Trump’s positive COVID test could affect far-right math on the coronavirus pandemic.
Up to this point, the equations have not been difficult to solve. With every problem, the economy is valued more than human lives.
This “economy first” mindset was on full display in this week’s presidential debate.
Trump did note 204,000 Americans have died so far of coronavirus and related conditions, saying “even one person [dying] is too much.” But then he pivoted back to the economy, asserting “people want their schools open” and “they want their restaurants” and “their places open. They want to get back to their lives.”
Of course they do. But the majority of them want to do so safely, something made more difficult by the president’s uneven endorsement of mask-wearing and social-distancing guidelines.
When pressed, the president will say he supports both. But in reality, his campaign stops have often violated local and state health authorities, to the glee of many Trump supporters.
Ohioans saw this firsthand last month. When Trump appeared in Vandalia, crowds booed Lt. Gov. Jon Husted for suggesting they should wear masks. They similarly decried Gov. Mike DeWine, calling him “RINO” — Republican In Name Only — presumably because his policies, especially in the early days of the pandemic, put people ahead of profits.
During Tuesday’s debate, Trump also mocked Biden for wearing a mask too frequently.
Given the president’s positive COVID test, this mockery is tinged with irony, not to mention concern. Friday’s diagnosis carries an existential danger to the president. He is in the high-risk demographic for the virus and its most serious effects because of his age. His weight, too, is a factor.
Maybe the next few days — weeks? — will give him only more opportunities to tweet half-lies, to cast more doubt, largely without evidence, on the integrity of mail-in balloting, the peaceful transfer of power after the Nov. 3 election, and his ongoing grievances with a press he feels has been unfair to him.
But imagine a scenario where he admits he has been wrong and urges his followers to don masks, to stay away from large gatherings, to stay home when sick.
Imagine a scenario where these followers do exactly that, realizing their decision not to wear a mask affects more than them, that it impacts their families, co-workers and friends. Where they decide going into a place of business without a mask is not an example of don’t-tread-on-me patriotism but callow insensitivity.
Imagine a scenario where this single positive COVID diagnosis has a ripple effect throughout the country, where it allows us to change the calculation and do what many health experts say we could have done last spring and summer with a more unified governmental response: beat the virus.
Hey, I’m an eternal optimist, or maybe just hopelessly naive. In any event, I harbor no personal ill-will toward the president. He has been a liability for this nation, without a doubt, but I hope he and the first lady make a quick and full recovery.
I just hope that with it comes a new appreciation for the stakes. An empathy he has so far seldom exhibited would also be welcomed.
However, given the president’s track record of learning from his mistakes instead of doubling down on them, I’d say the odds are not in the public’s favor.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Up to this point, the equations have not been difficult to solve. With every problem, the economy is valued more than human lives.
This “economy first” mindset was on full display in this week’s presidential debate.
Trump did note 204,000 Americans have died so far of coronavirus and related conditions, saying “even one person [dying] is too much.” But then he pivoted back to the economy, asserting “people want their schools open” and “they want their restaurants” and “their places open. They want to get back to their lives.”
Of course they do. But the majority of them want to do so safely, something made more difficult by the president’s uneven endorsement of mask-wearing and social-distancing guidelines.
When pressed, the president will say he supports both. But in reality, his campaign stops have often violated local and state health authorities, to the glee of many Trump supporters.
Ohioans saw this firsthand last month. When Trump appeared in Vandalia, crowds booed Lt. Gov. Jon Husted for suggesting they should wear masks. They similarly decried Gov. Mike DeWine, calling him “RINO” — Republican In Name Only — presumably because his policies, especially in the early days of the pandemic, put people ahead of profits.
During Tuesday’s debate, Trump also mocked Biden for wearing a mask too frequently.
Given the president’s positive COVID test, this mockery is tinged with irony, not to mention concern. Friday’s diagnosis carries an existential danger to the president. He is in the high-risk demographic for the virus and its most serious effects because of his age. His weight, too, is a factor.
Maybe the next few days — weeks? — will give him only more opportunities to tweet half-lies, to cast more doubt, largely without evidence, on the integrity of mail-in balloting, the peaceful transfer of power after the Nov. 3 election, and his ongoing grievances with a press he feels has been unfair to him.
But imagine a scenario where he admits he has been wrong and urges his followers to don masks, to stay away from large gatherings, to stay home when sick.
Imagine a scenario where these followers do exactly that, realizing their decision not to wear a mask affects more than them, that it impacts their families, co-workers and friends. Where they decide going into a place of business without a mask is not an example of don’t-tread-on-me patriotism but callow insensitivity.
Imagine a scenario where this single positive COVID diagnosis has a ripple effect throughout the country, where it allows us to change the calculation and do what many health experts say we could have done last spring and summer with a more unified governmental response: beat the virus.
Hey, I’m an eternal optimist, or maybe just hopelessly naive. In any event, I harbor no personal ill-will toward the president. He has been a liability for this nation, without a doubt, but I hope he and the first lady make a quick and full recovery.
I just hope that with it comes a new appreciation for the stakes. An empathy he has so far seldom exhibited would also be welcomed.
However, given the president’s track record of learning from his mistakes instead of doubling down on them, I’d say the odds are not in the public’s favor.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Sunday, September 27, 2020
White privilege is real and must be acknowledged
How refreshing to hear Joe Biden say he has benefitted from white privilege.
The Democratic presidential contender told a CNN town hall earlier this month he hadn’t had to “go through what my Black brothers and sisters have had to go through.”
Contrast Biden’s response to Donald Trump’s. The president apparently finds even the discussion of white privilege offensive. He told Bob Woodward earlier this summer that the renowned journalist “drank the Kool-Aid” when Woodward asked about the isolating effects of white privilege and how it blinded recipients to the challenges facing minorities.
The differences in the responses speak volumes about how each man views the advantages typically bestowed on European Americans in this country. One candidate acknowledges such benefits exist, which presupposes he will work to even the playing field, if only by talking about it openly.
The other won’t even entertain the notion.
For those in the cheap seats, which usually means white men — and some women, although most women have seen how bias, intended and unintended, affects them — let me repeat: White privilege is real.
As a result, institutional racism is real, lurking beneath the bylaws and regulations of many organizations and groups that believe they deal fairly with all people.
Racism affects even those people who say they don’t “see” color and “don’t have a racist bone” in their bodies. Maybe it especially affects these people, as they have used their certainty to bar the door on further debate.
It also bears repeating that white privilege does not mean white Americans have not worked hard for what they have or do not deserve what they have earned. They have, and they do.
But white privilege does mean certain aspects of society are stacked against minorities, so when they work equally hard, they encounter additional roadblocks that often do not trouble whites in this country.
Take job searches, for example.
A 2017 article in “Administrative Science Quarterly” presented the results of a study where minority applicants removed references to their race on résumés to see if the change garnered more calls for interviews. The process is called “whitening” résumés.
It worked. Only 11.5% of non-whitened résumés submitted by Asians received calls, compared to 21% of the whitened résumés. Among Black candidates, 10% received calls off the non-whitened résumés, vs. 25% for the whitened versions.
Sadly, the results were the same for businesses that identified as “pro-diversity” and encouraged minorities to apply.
The study is not meant to suggest some chortling gatekeeper is separating applications based on race and intentionally slighting minority candidates. But it does indicate, perhaps at some subconscious level, people are reacting to ethnic-sounding names or activities like black-student unions, or perhaps selecting individuals whose résumés look more similar to their own experiences.
This is why it is so important to have better representation by minorities in the upper echelons of business administration, on various boards of directors, in government, policing, clergy, everywhere.
Again, not because whites are explicitly racist, but because the systems and institutions that have served white America so well over the decades and centuries are still doing so today.
Change starts with acknowledging a problem exists, and one of the best places to start is the highest office in the land.
But when we have a president who refuses such acknowledgement, the chances dwindle for honest dialogue, let alone substantive change.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
The Democratic presidential contender told a CNN town hall earlier this month he hadn’t had to “go through what my Black brothers and sisters have had to go through.”
Contrast Biden’s response to Donald Trump’s. The president apparently finds even the discussion of white privilege offensive. He told Bob Woodward earlier this summer that the renowned journalist “drank the Kool-Aid” when Woodward asked about the isolating effects of white privilege and how it blinded recipients to the challenges facing minorities.
The differences in the responses speak volumes about how each man views the advantages typically bestowed on European Americans in this country. One candidate acknowledges such benefits exist, which presupposes he will work to even the playing field, if only by talking about it openly.
The other won’t even entertain the notion.
For those in the cheap seats, which usually means white men — and some women, although most women have seen how bias, intended and unintended, affects them — let me repeat: White privilege is real.
As a result, institutional racism is real, lurking beneath the bylaws and regulations of many organizations and groups that believe they deal fairly with all people.
Racism affects even those people who say they don’t “see” color and “don’t have a racist bone” in their bodies. Maybe it especially affects these people, as they have used their certainty to bar the door on further debate.
It also bears repeating that white privilege does not mean white Americans have not worked hard for what they have or do not deserve what they have earned. They have, and they do.
But white privilege does mean certain aspects of society are stacked against minorities, so when they work equally hard, they encounter additional roadblocks that often do not trouble whites in this country.
Take job searches, for example.
A 2017 article in “Administrative Science Quarterly” presented the results of a study where minority applicants removed references to their race on résumés to see if the change garnered more calls for interviews. The process is called “whitening” résumés.
It worked. Only 11.5% of non-whitened résumés submitted by Asians received calls, compared to 21% of the whitened résumés. Among Black candidates, 10% received calls off the non-whitened résumés, vs. 25% for the whitened versions.
Sadly, the results were the same for businesses that identified as “pro-diversity” and encouraged minorities to apply.
The study is not meant to suggest some chortling gatekeeper is separating applications based on race and intentionally slighting minority candidates. But it does indicate, perhaps at some subconscious level, people are reacting to ethnic-sounding names or activities like black-student unions, or perhaps selecting individuals whose résumés look more similar to their own experiences.
This is why it is so important to have better representation by minorities in the upper echelons of business administration, on various boards of directors, in government, policing, clergy, everywhere.
Again, not because whites are explicitly racist, but because the systems and institutions that have served white America so well over the decades and centuries are still doing so today.
Change starts with acknowledging a problem exists, and one of the best places to start is the highest office in the land.
But when we have a president who refuses such acknowledgement, the chances dwindle for honest dialogue, let alone substantive change.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Assessing the cost of failure
I wasn’t surprised by my students’ reaction to advice about failure.
Late journalist and teacher Donald Murray — and I dislike “late” in this context because Murray was alive when he shared the suggestion and presumably arrived on time for his funeral — urged writers to “seek instructive failure.”
“You try to say what you cannot say,” Murray wrote, “but in the attempt you discover — draft by draft — what you have to say and how you can say it. Failure is essential.”
Most of my students were having none of it. When I polled them recently, the vast majority disagreed with Murray.
Cue the refrain of “kids these days” who cannot process defeat. They have all been given participation ribbons and ice cream even when they lose and are sheltered from the Darwinian dog-eat-dog nature of the world. Tiny helicopter parents perpetually hover around their heads, ready to drop napalm on anybody who comes bearing hardships.
I can picture the stereotypical grandpa, parked in the corner of a wedding reception or wake, grousing about how we’ve created a softer generation, a lesser generation.
Yeah, maybe. But I don’t think so.
I believe, instead, that today’s children and young adults are keenly aware of failure. They have experienced it often and will thus go to great lengths to avoid it, not because their supposedly delicate psyches cannot handle it, but because they know all too well its cost.
Failure means moving off the established track that propels them through grade school to middle school, high school to college, a great job to a family, a big house to a secure retirement.
These kids have internalized a message adults send, perhaps unwittingly, that missteps are tolerated, but the bill for them will nevertheless come due. The payment could be fewer scholarships, a lower-tier college or a dead-end job.
Are students going to take a chance on failing to communicate a message in an essay, to “discover — draft by draft — what [they] have to say and how [they] can say it” when a grade waits at the end of the process? Or are they instead going to demonstrate audience awareness by writing what the teacher wants the first time, dotting all the compositional i’s and crossing all the rhetorical t’s?
No wonder students beg for rubrics. Just tell me what you want so I can do it right the first time, they think. Cut to the chase.
I teach in a building with a progressive policy about grading. We award formative grades, which are about practice, and summative grades, which are about performance. Many of the summative grades can be redone, giving the students a chance to fix what they did wrong and learn from their mistakes. Yes, this means they can take many tests more than once.
It’s a great philosophy for students who embrace the spirit of the policy. Schools should be places where learning is prized above grades. (Despite what grandpa thinks, learning and grades are not interchangeable.)
But one policy is not enough to change how society at large deals with failure. One misstep, one wrong answer in a college interview, one stupid mistake — each is enough for a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion, creating consequences that last for decades.
Or so kids believe, and perception is reality.
So when the economy takes a pandemic-inspired downturn, when thousands of students return home from college or university and begin learning from home, when sports seasons that could make or break athletes’ future chances are canceled, when twenty-somethings are forced to move back in with parents because their recession-proof careers wither … how do we expect they will respond?
Kids and young adults are resilient. They will bounce back. But it won’t be easy — emotionally, socially or financially — especially for those who view the world as a perpetual hamster wheel where one misstep sends them topsy-turvy.
Because this is the world we adults have created for them, one where life’s biggest essays don’t come with redos.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Late journalist and teacher Donald Murray — and I dislike “late” in this context because Murray was alive when he shared the suggestion and presumably arrived on time for his funeral — urged writers to “seek instructive failure.”
“You try to say what you cannot say,” Murray wrote, “but in the attempt you discover — draft by draft — what you have to say and how you can say it. Failure is essential.”
Most of my students were having none of it. When I polled them recently, the vast majority disagreed with Murray.
Cue the refrain of “kids these days” who cannot process defeat. They have all been given participation ribbons and ice cream even when they lose and are sheltered from the Darwinian dog-eat-dog nature of the world. Tiny helicopter parents perpetually hover around their heads, ready to drop napalm on anybody who comes bearing hardships.
I can picture the stereotypical grandpa, parked in the corner of a wedding reception or wake, grousing about how we’ve created a softer generation, a lesser generation.
Yeah, maybe. But I don’t think so.
I believe, instead, that today’s children and young adults are keenly aware of failure. They have experienced it often and will thus go to great lengths to avoid it, not because their supposedly delicate psyches cannot handle it, but because they know all too well its cost.
Failure means moving off the established track that propels them through grade school to middle school, high school to college, a great job to a family, a big house to a secure retirement.
These kids have internalized a message adults send, perhaps unwittingly, that missteps are tolerated, but the bill for them will nevertheless come due. The payment could be fewer scholarships, a lower-tier college or a dead-end job.
Are students going to take a chance on failing to communicate a message in an essay, to “discover — draft by draft — what [they] have to say and how [they] can say it” when a grade waits at the end of the process? Or are they instead going to demonstrate audience awareness by writing what the teacher wants the first time, dotting all the compositional i’s and crossing all the rhetorical t’s?
No wonder students beg for rubrics. Just tell me what you want so I can do it right the first time, they think. Cut to the chase.
I teach in a building with a progressive policy about grading. We award formative grades, which are about practice, and summative grades, which are about performance. Many of the summative grades can be redone, giving the students a chance to fix what they did wrong and learn from their mistakes. Yes, this means they can take many tests more than once.
It’s a great philosophy for students who embrace the spirit of the policy. Schools should be places where learning is prized above grades. (Despite what grandpa thinks, learning and grades are not interchangeable.)
But one policy is not enough to change how society at large deals with failure. One misstep, one wrong answer in a college interview, one stupid mistake — each is enough for a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion, creating consequences that last for decades.
Or so kids believe, and perception is reality.
So when the economy takes a pandemic-inspired downturn, when thousands of students return home from college or university and begin learning from home, when sports seasons that could make or break athletes’ future chances are canceled, when twenty-somethings are forced to move back in with parents because their recession-proof careers wither … how do we expect they will respond?
Kids and young adults are resilient. They will bounce back. But it won’t be easy — emotionally, socially or financially — especially for those who view the world as a perpetual hamster wheel where one misstep sends them topsy-turvy.
Because this is the world we adults have created for them, one where life’s biggest essays don’t come with redos.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Sturgis numbers are extreme on both ends
A recent editorial cartoon by Jeff Koterba of the Omaha World-Herald shows a bearded motorcyclist and his hog, labeled Sturgis, riding across a map of the United States, spewing Covid clouds in place of exhaust fumes.
The drawing predates a study by the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University. It suggests the South Dakota motorcycle rally in August may have spawned more than 260,000 positive coronavirus tests.
Those numbers are at odds with other tallies of the rally’s impact on the Covid pandemic. South Dakota’s own count is that 124 residents became sick with the virus after the event in Sturgis, which had an estimated attendance of 365,979 people over ten days. (Some sources put attendees at over 400,000.)
As a story from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, a USA Today Network paper, made clear, the discrepancy in the two counts comes from the different methodologies used for each.
The San Diego State study examined areas of the country where the most people traveled to the rally. Statisticians then compared positive test results after those visitors returned home. Cell-phone data was used, in part, to determine who went to Sturgis.
The South Dakota Department of Health reached its much more conservative numbers — pun intended, I suppose — via contact tracing.
The truth likely resides somewhere between 124 and 260,000. It beggars the imagination to think that so many attendees, many of whom appeared to be tooling around sans masks and without social distancing, could generate only ten dozen cases.
But it’s also unfair to suggest that the jump in Covid cases across parts of the Midwest is due exclusively, or even primarily, to one motorcycle rally, no matter the size.
Medical experts quoted in a Washington Post story from Sept. 2 note the Midwest’s apathy for mask-wearing in general, along with residents’ resumption of wedding, funeral and party attendance. Everybody wants to get back to “ordinary,” which is an entirely ordinary reaction, even in extraordinary times.
The same Washington Post story reports one death and 260 cases in 11 states with connections to the Sturgis rally, which health officials dubbed an undercount.
No matter how carefully one discusses such figures, remembering that behind each is a real person with an affected family and livelihood, it is easy to grow numb to the sheer profusion of numbers and the various ways that people spin them.
Covid deniers will split hairs over the CDC’s recent release of the number of Americans who have died solely of Covid, a figure below 10,000, arguing that the other 180,000 (and counting) fatalities are people who have died “with” Covid, not “of” Covid.
Would these people, with comorbidities such as diabetes, asthma and obesity, have died anyway in the last six months, even without contracting coronavirus? Some, undoubtedly. But if not for Covid, many — indeed most — could still be with us, as people with these conditions can live quality lives for decades.
Deniers will also break out arguments similar to the South Dakota ones — people who comply with mask mandates and social-distancing requirements are “sheeples” who should just stay home and let everybody else go about their business, this is a “plandemic” with a Nov. 3 expiration date, etc. etc.
It doesn’t help that the nation is led by a man who, on one hand, mocks masks and does not encourage their use during his rallies, and who, on the other, promises an expedited vaccine on a timeline that even the most optimistic researchers say is unlikely.
Covid believers, meanwhile, will cite ever-higher estimates of 300,000 dead by Dec. 1, fears over the upcoming flu season, and arguments about how putting kids and young adults back in school and on college campuses exacerbates the problem.
Between the no-problem and Grand Canyon-sized problem people — just as between the Sturgis counts of 124 and 260,000 — exists a middle ground of health experts who say that we can mostly rejoin our previous lives, already in progress (as the old TV disclaimer goes), as long as we wear masks, wash our hands often, limit large gatherings and stay home when sick.
This means compromise — life back to mostly normal, yet with changes that pinch a little socially and financially. But we don't compromise very well in this country these days, unfortunately.
Instead, we all like to be on our metaphorical hogs, tearing around and making a lot of noise about either ignoring all precautions or shutting it all down again.
Both extremes are roads that lead to failure.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
The drawing predates a study by the Center for Health Economics and Policy Studies at San Diego State University. It suggests the South Dakota motorcycle rally in August may have spawned more than 260,000 positive coronavirus tests.
Those numbers are at odds with other tallies of the rally’s impact on the Covid pandemic. South Dakota’s own count is that 124 residents became sick with the virus after the event in Sturgis, which had an estimated attendance of 365,979 people over ten days. (Some sources put attendees at over 400,000.)
As a story from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, a USA Today Network paper, made clear, the discrepancy in the two counts comes from the different methodologies used for each.
The San Diego State study examined areas of the country where the most people traveled to the rally. Statisticians then compared positive test results after those visitors returned home. Cell-phone data was used, in part, to determine who went to Sturgis.
The South Dakota Department of Health reached its much more conservative numbers — pun intended, I suppose — via contact tracing.
The truth likely resides somewhere between 124 and 260,000. It beggars the imagination to think that so many attendees, many of whom appeared to be tooling around sans masks and without social distancing, could generate only ten dozen cases.
But it’s also unfair to suggest that the jump in Covid cases across parts of the Midwest is due exclusively, or even primarily, to one motorcycle rally, no matter the size.
Medical experts quoted in a Washington Post story from Sept. 2 note the Midwest’s apathy for mask-wearing in general, along with residents’ resumption of wedding, funeral and party attendance. Everybody wants to get back to “ordinary,” which is an entirely ordinary reaction, even in extraordinary times.
The same Washington Post story reports one death and 260 cases in 11 states with connections to the Sturgis rally, which health officials dubbed an undercount.
No matter how carefully one discusses such figures, remembering that behind each is a real person with an affected family and livelihood, it is easy to grow numb to the sheer profusion of numbers and the various ways that people spin them.
Covid deniers will split hairs over the CDC’s recent release of the number of Americans who have died solely of Covid, a figure below 10,000, arguing that the other 180,000 (and counting) fatalities are people who have died “with” Covid, not “of” Covid.
Would these people, with comorbidities such as diabetes, asthma and obesity, have died anyway in the last six months, even without contracting coronavirus? Some, undoubtedly. But if not for Covid, many — indeed most — could still be with us, as people with these conditions can live quality lives for decades.
Deniers will also break out arguments similar to the South Dakota ones — people who comply with mask mandates and social-distancing requirements are “sheeples” who should just stay home and let everybody else go about their business, this is a “plandemic” with a Nov. 3 expiration date, etc. etc.
It doesn’t help that the nation is led by a man who, on one hand, mocks masks and does not encourage their use during his rallies, and who, on the other, promises an expedited vaccine on a timeline that even the most optimistic researchers say is unlikely.
Covid believers, meanwhile, will cite ever-higher estimates of 300,000 dead by Dec. 1, fears over the upcoming flu season, and arguments about how putting kids and young adults back in school and on college campuses exacerbates the problem.
Between the no-problem and Grand Canyon-sized problem people — just as between the Sturgis counts of 124 and 260,000 — exists a middle ground of health experts who say that we can mostly rejoin our previous lives, already in progress (as the old TV disclaimer goes), as long as we wear masks, wash our hands often, limit large gatherings and stay home when sick.
This means compromise — life back to mostly normal, yet with changes that pinch a little socially and financially. But we don't compromise very well in this country these days, unfortunately.
Instead, we all like to be on our metaphorical hogs, tearing around and making a lot of noise about either ignoring all precautions or shutting it all down again.
Both extremes are roads that lead to failure.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)