Fear, loathing, anger and rhetoric

I write on three levels. There is my sports writing which I do professionally. It's not much in the grand scheme of things - but I make enough money writing about Oregon football to afford some extras in life. On a second level, I have my own personal thoughts which I frequently share, disjointed as though they may occasionally be.

I also have that artistic side; the writer that wants to tell stories using different techniques, different types of plots and unique characters. Each of these I do to varying degrees of success. But as the political season unfolds in full over the course of the next two months - a reality brought on mostly during Presidential election cycles - the three areas of my writing seem to converge.

It is strange to take sports and wrap it into politics and the art of writing fiction.

As I watched the reaction to the Oregon loss yesterday, meltdowns of nearly epic proportions, some of which lack any perspective, it reminded me that we find ourselves, not as a nation, but as a species; humankind; putting distance between rationality and discourse. So entrenched, it seems, have we become in our own positions, that we cannot have a rational discussion without ridiculing anyone whose opinion might vary. Yes, as Patrick Swayze said in Road House, opinions vary. Does that make someone whose opinion is different a 'libtard' or a 'right wing nut job'?

Why do we feel such a need to insult the opposing views? Why don't we have enough strength in the convictions of our thoughts that we find ourselves devolving into the morass of personal insults? The rhetoric and spitefulness adds nothing and creates a sense of anger and frustration which clogs up the wheels of progress.

We can have strong beliefs while still finding time to listen to others and recognizing that there is a way to move forward without drawing a metaphoric line in the sand.

I think this same attitude infects every passion. It infects us in sports; it infects us in our daily lives; and it infects us in a deeper, more critical manner. Racial injustice.

Yes, this all ties in. You see, we have become so entrenched in our ideological views that we cannot see the world through an empathetic eye. It is not about 'political correctness' it is about recognition of facts.

As I read through some posts both on Facebook and on major news websites following the shootings in Tulsa and Charlotte, I was horrified at the magnitude of anger, racial intolerance, fear, and misinformation that still permeates through our society.

We seem to feel as if admitting there is still pervasive institutional racism in this nation is somehow an indictment on everyone involved in the justice system. It's why any time there is a reaction to shootings, we seem to find ourselves divided along racial lines.

Think about that for a minute. The vast majority of folks saying 'if he had followed orders, he'd still be alive' happen to be Caucasian. Yes, in our world, a world where me driving a new Mercedes Benz in the West Hills of Portland does not generate reports to the police. We do not have the history, a long and destructive history of a target on our backs solely due to our inclusion among a particular race. So, we must find a way to have some level of empathy.

But to say this brings more anger. Do we still tell women they should 'dress less provocatively'  to avoid being raped? Or do we rightfully agree that this is wrong? In order to move forward, we must choose to be less divisive in our conversations. We must choose to have open dialogue that is full of rational and civil discourse. Just because a person is passionate about his beliefs does not mean he is correct; it only means that he is passionate.

As an example, several months ago, I was still of a firm belief that minimum wage raises would do little to help those in poverty, and would have a negative impact on those people slightly about poverty who would not get an equitable similar pay raise. Then I found a study that tracked the employment trends in lower wage fast food jobs in New Jersey and its neighbor Pennsylvania when one state raised its minimum wage and the other did not. Over the course of the rise, many expected the impact on New jersey employment to be negative. Instead real wages went up in both states and employment went up (this is a very generalized summary from my memory). The point, though, is that it challenged many of my beliefs on minimum wage hikes.

The other thing that challenged my belief - a wrongly held belief that the minimum wage was not intended to be a living wage - was to read the original law. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 actually clearly states that the minimum wage IS intended to be a living wage. We can debate whether that policy is good or not, but that does not change the actual law. Too many of us, though, when confronted with a fact that does not fit our beliefs simply jump onto a different focus because we are unwilling to admit to being wrong.


What is required is the willingness to recognize new information that challenges firmly held beliefs and incorporate them into our own personal narrative. We must be willing to change our minds about factual information.

We must stop the divisiveness, the anger, the fear, and the rhetoric. Leave that to the politicians.