Readings for a foggy day

In the past week or so, I’ve come across three very different publications, each of which seemed particularly profound to me, so I wanted to pass on the recommendation that you catch them when you can.

The first is an amazing issue of National Geographic, “The Firsts Issue.” They had me with the cover. The lead story is “The First American,” and the cover shows a drawing of a teenage girl based on a 12,000-year-old skull recently discovered in a cave in Mexico. The girl’s DNA confirmed that contemporary Native American populations are descended from a Eurasian/East Asian population that was isolated (between the current continents) for about 10,000 years before making it to this continent—although many of her physical characteristics look very different from contemporary Native peoples. There’s much more to that immigration than I ever knew. I found it fascinating, speaking straight to my curiosity about human evolution and archaeology. 

But there’s more. An associated story explores the “first artists” and the “birth of art”—including evidence of symbolic expression long before the famous caves of Europe. My favorite line: "The beauty whipsaws your sense of time. One moment, you are anchored in the present, observing coolly. The next you are seeing the paintings as if all other art—all civilization—has yet to exist.” It gave me goose bumps. 

Computer simulation of one of the first stars in the universe,
exploding through dark matter to seed the universe with elements

Then there’s the article on a “first glimpse of the hidden cosmos” – which is about another of my favorite topics, the evolution of the universe. Another explores the “first year,” with interesting new findings and a range of stories about the importance of the first year of life. And more – the first city of Nigeria (Lagos), the first artificially conceived penguin (Magellenic), the first continent (called “Pangaea” by Wegener, who, in 1915, first theorized the existence and movement of tectonic plates), the “first bird” (bald eagle, in much less glamorous form than usual), and on it goes. It’s so great!

The second piece was a great column by David Brooks—who so often makes me think, hard, about complex topics (even though I disagree with many aspects of his political leanings). This was an article called “The Child in the Basement,” a commentary on Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (which you can read right here).  Brooks’ brief overview of the story is gripping itself, and his analysis has left me thinking all day. He explores the parable beneath this story—on one level, a cautionary tale about who we are willing to be as a society (a species?). And on another level, one about who we are willing to be to ourselves.

Brooks doesn’t tie this story or his commentary to any particular current event, but the connections seem clear and multiple to me: Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, Paris, Gaza, Syria. Maybe next door. Almost certainly in each of our own lives, the risk of losing the “idealism and moral sensitivity” represented by “the shivering child in the basement.” Be prepared to be stretched.

And the final piece caught me off guard. I was actually set up (unknowingly) for my strong reaction to this column by my recent struggles with orthopedic problems. After weeks (heck, months) of very distressing limitations on my activities, I’m gradually (very gradually) getting way better, and gradually coming to accept that this is the body I’ll have now. It’s actually not going to be fixed up “as good as new.” Nope. “Life miles,” in my orthopedist’s words, will mean that this is how it will be. I realize that my limitations, the consequences of my “life miles” are really quite minor. It’s just that they sometimes feel so demoralizing. So I’ve been in a funky mood about this, but I keep reminding myself that I’m in a funk about this, not in general. Or, as I said to my partner, I keep reminding myself that I’m distressed about this turn of affairs. I’m not depressed. To which she responded: Right, that’s not depression. It’s loss and grief.

So, I got a serious lump in my throat when I read this piece, “Getting Grief Right.” The column, written by a therapist, is actually about dealing with the loss (death) of a loved one—an experience that folks in my generation are becoming increasingly familiar with. This piece challenges the sometimes simplistic models of how grief necessarily happens—in stages, in sequence, with a definable ending to each and a process that brings us to “acceptance.” Preferably soon. I appreciated the openness of this discussion of grief, the space it gives to each individual's path. The story at the heart of the column put my own distress in perspective. At the same time, noticing my strong reaction to that story, I knew it was tapping into my own sorrow—about multiple recent and potential losses, including the loss of robust physical health. The invitation to deal with loss in your own way and at your own pace applies, I realized, to all forms of loss, including to losing the physical well-being that you’ve taken so for granted. Grief is what it is. There’s no “right” way to do it. The process is like a story, not an examination, and you write it yourself. The piece quotes the Danish author Isak Dinesen: “All sorrows can be borne if you tell a story about them.” So I’m now trying to craft a new story of my life that includes the the costs of glorious life miles. Maybe I'll get to acceptance as the story unfolds, but not because it's time to “get over it.” I’ll likely be writing more about it here. Meanwhile, check out this column. Worth the read, whether or not you’re currently dealing with loss.

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2014. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post.

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Amazing race - Part 2

The other day, I posted a quick note encouraging everyone to visit the History Colorado exhibit on “Race: Are We So Different?” I hope some of you saw it—whether with or without that bit of encouragement. Since then, I’ve come across two columns that spoke exactly to some of the points raised in “Race.” The whole experience—the exhibit, the articles—has been eye opening for me. Even though I’ve thought quite a lot about these issues, I keep encountering new ideas that stretch me.

 First, a few comments on the exhibit, then some reflections.

This was a traveling exhibit created by the American Anthropological Society—which helps explain why it’s so remarkably thoughtful and thought provoking. I was especially struck by how well it avoids the easy slippage into focusing on racial categories in favor of challenging the very concept of race itself. That’s a stretch for any of us who were raised in a culture that categorizes people by race at every turn. And to convey this idea, the exhibit has tons of interactive features and cleverly designed, concrete ways to illustrate the point. But it didn’t avoid challenging concepts in the service of simplicity.

For instance, the introductory video dismantles the notion of race as a real “thing,” explaining in straightforward terms how race doesn’t actually exist, how we have come to believe that it does, and what are the underlying dynamics (economics, power, privilege) that generated and still perpetuate the illusion of racial categories. This isn’t necessarily an easy set of concepts to introduce to an audience many of whom may have little experience in thinking deeply about race—except, perhaps, to be well aware that racial bias is problematic.

The central theme that runs through the exhibit is this: the social and economic differences that we observe today are direct results of our belief that racial categories are real. Those beliefs have fueled actions like these: generations of genocide practiced against Native residents of America, theft of their land, and “re-education” efforts to “kill the Indian and save the man”; wartime internment of Japanese citizens that required them to leave behind their businesses, homes, and possessions; “red-lining” that prevented non-white servicemen from using the GI bill to buy houses in the suburbs, when home ownership in those areas would have allowed them entry to the emerging American middle class. Over time, such differential treatment and its material and psychological toll unavoidably resulted in social and economic divisions marked by “race.”

I’ve known about this train of thought for some time, this argument that categories of people are invented rather than discovered. That once created, these categories have real, concrete impacts on people sorted into them. It’s directly related to my own academic work, so I get it, and I am convinced it’s correct. Still, once in a while, someone presents it in a way that’s especially striking. A few of these moments came up at this exhibit:

You could look at an individual from Kenya and an individual from Norway and easily believe that they represent two different races. But if you walked from Kenya to Norway, there would be no point along your route where you could say, “Here it is—the dividing line where people change from one race to another.” There is no dividing line because there are no actual categories.

Imagine sitting on a bus going to, say, Disneyland. Regardless of who the person next to you is, somewhere around 93-97% of your genes are identical to theirs. Regardless of their nationality, racial or ethnic category, or sex/gender.

We know that the human species first emerged in Africa and migrated from there through the Middle East and into Asia, Europe, the Far East, and the Americas. Only a small sample of the African population made the trip—which means that only a small slice of the full human genome made the trip. As a result, despite subsequent mixing, the largest proportion of human variation is found among Africans—which is to say, Africans have virtually all of the genes of other groups, and those other groups have just some of the genes that Africans possess.

Still, illusory though race may be, these categories have huge impacts on our lives. Some of that impact is seen in privilege, some in oppression. Some of it is overt, some more subtle. Some of it is intentional, some is non-conscious. It’s this latter sort that’s tricky: the “stuff” we all carry around that we aren’t even aware of, biases that we would in fact deny if asked our conscious beliefs. One person in a video at the exhibit called it the “smog of racism.” We all breathe it in and are damaged by it, whether or not we acknowledge it. Acknowledging it, he said, is the first step.

This is where those two recent articles come in. The first was a New York Times column, “Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions” by Sendhil Mullainathan, a Harvard economist. It’s a good, brief article—well worth the read, and you’ll find it right here. Mullainathan summarizes several studies that show inadvertent racial bias, and then points out that most people are unaware that they carry these biases. These attitudes are so well learned that they affect our actions even without our knowing it. Here’s a telling line from the column: “Even if, in our slow thinking, we work to avoid discrimination, it can easily creep into our fast thinking. Our snap judgments rely on all the associations we have—from fictional television shows to news reports. They use stereotypes, both the accurate and the inaccurate, both those we would want to use and ones we find repulsive.”

And the second was another NYT column called “Privilege of ‘Arrest without Incident’,” this one by regular columnist Charles Blow—which you can read here. Blow describes an incident that happened just over a week ago in which a white woman drove around a southern city, shooting at people from her car, then leading police on a chase and even aiming her gun at an officer. The news story reports that she was “arrested without incident.” This is a good outcome, Blow agrees. But, he asks, shouldn’t everyone have the right to an “arrest without incident.” Consider the starkly different fate of black men who have done far less in recent months but have not had that right, that privilege. He notes that every case is different, and we cannot know all the relevant circumstances. Still, he writes, “Police officers are human beings making split-second decisions—often informed by fears—about when to use force and the degree of that force.” Those are the split-second decisions, the “fast thinking” that Mullainathan talks about in his column. 

Hanging out in this topic area for a few days has got me thinking about my own responses, the “fast thinking” moments when I realize that I’m not finished with my own work here, not by far. How often I try to wish away the thoughts I don’t want to have, the things I wish I’d thought to say differently, the tiny actions that reveal my unthinking biases. And how often I must miss those things, not realizing that my actions don’t always match my conscious beliefs.

But smog causes lung damage whether or not we admit it, and I’ve been breathing in racial smog for a lot of years. Acknowledging it is just the first step.

© Janis Bohan, 2010-2014. Use of this content is welcome with attribution and a link to the post.

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Amazing race!

I'll follow up soon with a longer discussion of this, but I wanted to pass on a quick heads up. We just returned from the History Colorado exhibit on "Race: Are We So Different?" It's an excellent exhibit, and you really want to go. Quick!

The urgency to get this posted comes from the fact that it only runs through January 4 -- that's this Sunday. So, if you get this in time and can possibly arrange it, GO! Trust me: it's well worth postponing that movie or whatever else you were sort of considering for the weekend.

For more information, visit the History Colorado site by clicking right here.