Do not compare their worst to your best. I do not recall where I first heard that statement; I only recall thinking that it belonged in a Windows and Mirrors piece. As I look forward to the Better Angels workshop in September (see the description on page 2 of the July 2019 Voter), this seems an appropriate time to ponder it further.

On the surface this may not seem like a diversity topic. It is not about race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation,
ability/disability, health, citizenship status, or, well, anything in particular. Except that it is about all of them.

Employer-funded, high deductibles, Obamacare, the ACA, pre-existing conditions, mandates, freedom to choose, high premiums, privacy, single payer, etc., etc. The debate over how to pay for healthcare has been tearing this country apart for years. The topic is a minefield of assumptions, misinformation, fears, and loaded language and seems to defy resolution.

I face a conundrum. My goal here is to think about the challenges our communities face in creating and maintaining equity for all. I want to increase communication, not increase resistance. But am I?

In contemporary Minnesota when the topic of anti-religious bias or discrimination arises it is commonly expected to be in reference to anti-Muslim prejudice, a serious problem which needs to be recognized and addressed. However, there is another type of prejudice which once again is rearing its ugly head—anti-Semitism.

As a non-Jew who grew up after the second World War, I had become complacent, assuming that the exposure of the vile horrors of the Holocaust had taught the world about the dreadful evils possible under intolerance and scapegoating. I believed that anti-Semitism, denounced and exposed so fully, was cleansed from our society. That was naïve.

I attend church regularly. I see myself not so much as a person of faith, but more as one of need, and now and then it offers me a clarification that I find worth sharing. One of those moments occurred last fall when I first heard a hymn by British hymnist Brian Wren, “Spirit of Jesus, If I Love My Neighbor” (find the full text at hymnary.org/text/spirit_of_jesus_if_i_love_my_neighbor). 

It doesn’t feel good to feel helpless. It especially doesn’t feel good if the reason you need help is because systems and groups have put you at an unfair disadvantage. And what do people do when something doesn’t feel good? Sometimes they become angry and resentful and push back.

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. — Marie Curie

My list of what to read next just keeps growing. One book that has recently settled onto my pile is White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, by Robin DiAngelo. The review of this book by Katy Waldman in The New Yorker (July 23, 2018, www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-sociologistexamines-the-white-fragility-that-prevents-white-americans-from-confronting-racism) has me intrigued. Waldman describes DiAngelo as presenting a “methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism.” I need to read this book to get a fuller understanding of her thesis. I hope that I do not misrepresent it.

When does a sound, even music, become noise? Is it the volume, time of day, type of sound, location, relationship of the listener to the sound, personal taste, personal needs, race of the listener, race of the sound maker?

I well recall how the girl across the hall in my freshman dorm put a penny on the tone arm of her record player so that it played Bob Dylan singing “Lay, Lady, Lay” loudly over and over and over and over. And then there was the incident of a resident of a town blaring opera back across the street at a fraternity when disturbed by the loud rock music filling the neighborhood.

These are annoyances, matters of musical preference, and cases where one’s sound of choice spills over into the wider environment without sufficient regard for others. But loud music can uncover much more about how people feel about one another.

The music of others can expose or trigger instances of racism and discrimination and highlight a sensitive issue that has been called the sonic color line. Jennifer Stoever, Associate Professor of English at State University of New York (SUNY) Binghamton and author of a book examining.

What do you call a person who has completed a prison sentence? A felon? An ex-felon? An ex-convict? A neighbor?  How about a returning citizen? At least 95% of those incarcerated in state prisons will return to the community at some point (csgjusticecenter.org/nrrc/facts-and-trends/). We will all benefit from finding a healthy way to reintegrate these individuals into the community and rebuild lives.

An orderly society requires that there be consequences for unlawful actions. There are many issues of (un)fairness in the US criminal justice system. I am considering what happens when persons convicted of a crime complete their time in prison and return to the community.

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples to build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” ― Robert F. Kennedy

It is election season. Active Leaguers are registering voters, staffing candidate forums, talking to friends and neighbors about the value of informed voting, learning about the issues that affect their lives, thinking about how they would like to see them addressed, and seeing where candidates stand on those issues.

The challenges that face our world can seem overwhelming. The momentum built into our political system makes course changes grindingly difficult. It is easy to feel powerless. But while I don’t think that I will be the butterfly who changes history, I still believe that what individuals do for their communities does matter.

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where do you look for insight into tough topics? If one is lucky, every now and then you come across a writer who states things clearly and directly, someone who cuts to the heart of a matter, laying bare human truths. Trevor Noah does that in his memoir of his childhood in South Africa, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.