Moral Injury

 Moral Injury is an epidemic.  

Moral Injury Is an Invisible Epidemic That Affects Millions - Scientific American

How do we deal with it?  My thoughts.

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Martin Luther King's Legacy

 

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

January 15, 2022 is Martin Luther King’s 93rd birthday.  It is remarkable that in recent history we have replaced Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and George Washington’s birthday on our calendar with celebration of President’s Day and a celebration of a civil rights leader.  As the holidays we celebrate change very infrequently, this signifies that MLK is extremely important to America.   

I am interested in how our view of race is evolving.  When my daughter is 85 years old in the year 2100, how will our country think?  I am also asking myself what Martin Luther King has to say to us as individual Americans celebrating his holiday outside of a civil rights or social justice context. 

There are three questions I would like us to ponder.

1)      What does history and biology and law tell us about race? 

2)      What are contemporary minority voices telling us?

3)      Is there specific advice Martin Luther King offers all of us?

Race is a fraught topic.  I have emotional responses when a relative brings up the subject of race in passing.  Why is it necessary for an aunt to tell me that Beetle Bailey was replaced in the comics page by Curtis, which she points out is a strip with Black characters?  I am less interested in the loss of Beetle Bailey than suspicious about the motivation of an 80 year old bringing up the race of new comics characters.  Race is a topic that sets off alarms inside me.

Today, I report what I have learned and am discovering relating to the three questions I asked you to ponder.

1)      First, What does history and biology and law tell us about race?

I look to Will and Ariel Duran for their analysis of race and history:

I look to Stephen J. Gould for his analysis of race and biology.

I look to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for the law as it pertains to race. We shall not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

All men are created equal, women too.  We grow up knowing this, intellectually, anyway.  I want to make this point first.  Regardless of race, we are all humans, all the same, some of us with different traditions.  I’m providing reference material to make a scholarly case for getting beyond racism. (1)   Experts have spoken.  I think it is important to make this point first.

2)      Next, what are contemporary minority voices telling us?

I’m a father now and I read to my child.  Books get recommended to me by Red Balloon bookstore.  I often find myself reading books to my child that represent diverse views and positive role models.  (2) Let me summarize a few of these minority authors:

a)       Coretta Scott King award winning author, Renee Watson, wrote “Ways to Make Sunshine” about a Black girl who moves to a smaller house and wants to fit in with relatively wealthy popular White girls.  The girl is named Ryan, which translates to king, and signifies leadership.  Grandma is a beautician who once per year straightens Ryan’s hair for Easter.  Ryan gets invited to a pool party and is teased that she is afraid of the water.  So, Ryan jumps in and her hair immediately curls to its natural state.  Ryan learns from her mistakes and tries hard to be leader.  All can relate to her.  This is a really well written book.

b)      Susan Tan wrote Cilla Lee Jenkins, Future Author Extraordinaire.  The Cilla character is a fun and imaginative little girl.   We learn about her schoolmates and her grandparents and her favorite Chinese food.  We learn that her mother’s parents and father’s parents are not in any photographs together.  This gets rectified once her little sister, The Blob, is born.  This is another great book, not preachy in the least.

 

Why did Susan Tan write these stories?  As a young child, a teacher had the class divide themselves up by identity.  The Asians sat on one side of the room and the White kids sat on the other side.  Susan sat midway between the two groups.  The teacher got upset by this nonconformism and called her parents.  The parents told the teacher that their child was a “Susan.”  An unnecessarily divisive teacher inspired Susan Tan to write the Cilla Lee-Jenkins series of books with relatable and entertaining stories about a mixed-race child. 

 

c)       Kelly Yang wrote “Front Desk”.  This is a series of books about Mia, who attends middle school.  She experiences harsh conditions and racism.   Her family of Chinese immigrants works at a motel.  Mia works at the motel, too and calls herself the manager.  Her school aged friend, Lupe, a Mexican immigrant, faces possible deportation as California laws are in flux.   This is another book with positive role models, but far more political as the main character starts petitions, fundraises, writes letters to the editor and gets herself on the news toward achieving social action for her friends, family and community.

These three authors show us that the majority of life’s challenges are very similar for all of us. 

Kelly Yang’s books go a step farther by addressing more blatant forms of racism and delving into activism, letting us know how to make change.

We regularly get ourselves in trouble when we address the subject of race.  I served on Union Park District Council.  What minority populations want was often the subject of our discussion.  Often times, some of us in the white majority would argue about what minority populations wanted.  We’d even sometime argue with the minority representation at our meetings about what they want! 

The reality is that we are all the same.  Saint Paul Councilmember, Dai Thao, a Hmong immigrant, communicates that the different races and cultures in Ward 1 want the same types of things for the same types of reasons. 

What are contemporary minority voices telling you?

3)      Finally, Let's see if there is there specific advice Martin Luther King offers all of us?

I found a speech King made to an audience of middle schoolers October 26, 1967.  What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?  Though there are many references to race by the civil rights leader, this is a message to all of us, geared more to the youngest among us.  It has a standard three point Toastmaster’s format:

1)      We must have significance and worth

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life’s blueprint. Number one in your life’s blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don’t allow anybody to make you fell that you’re nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.

2)      Determine your field of endeavor 

Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

3)      Set out to do such a good job that the living the dead or the unborn couldn’t do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Is there other specific advice Martin Luther King offers us all?  If you watch Youtube videos of a King speech, I suggest you will find it an inspired use of your time!

Martin Luther King spoke of civil rights in the time when the very last Black Americans born into slavery were still alive.  He inspired Black Americans, White Americans and the World with his dignity and passion.  We celebrate his birth each January. 

Current books young children read engage and enlighten on the topic of race.  This is how progress is made. 

I wonder how many years it will be before bringing up the race of a comic strip character stops raising our emotions?  My lifetime?  My daughter’s lifetime?  How soon will it be before we are truly colorblind and judge by the content of character?  Who will do the work to accomplish this task?  As we consider this question, we must remind ourselves that it is up to us.

“Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to work to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”

― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

 Reference Material:

                                  1)     Biology, History and Law

RACE AND BIOLOGY

Humans are one species with pervasive cross-breeding among all races.  There are much larger genetic differences within races than between races.  Racists and proponents of eugenics wrongly assume (implicitly) that Darwinism and survival of the fittest are continuous processes-- that homo sapiens evolve from generation to generation.

Instead, the evidence with human evolution shows “punctuated equilibrium”.   Bones of Lucy’s species of 3.4 million years ago (A. afarensis), per hard anatomical evidence of non-change, remained indistinguishable based on measurements over a period of almost a million years.   

Humans are not evolving.  If humans are to evolve, isolation from the main group is required, such as perhaps could happen if a small group of humans moved to a distant planet.

Reference: Stephen J. Gould, Dinosaur in A Haystack, 1995

 

RACE AND HISTORY

A Chinese scholar would remind us that his people created the most enduring civilization in history—statesmen, inventors, artists, poets, scientists, philosophers, saints—from 2000 B.C. to our own time.  A Mexican scholar could point to the lordly structures of Mayan, Aztec, and Incan cultures in pre-Columbian America.  A Hindu scholar, while acknowledging “Aryan” infiltration into north India some 1600 years before Christ, would recall that the black Dravidic peoples of south India produced great builders and poets of their own, the temples of Madras, Madura, and Trichinopoly are among the most impressive structures on Earth.  Even more startling is the towering shrine of the Khmers at Angkor Wat.  History is color-blind, and can develop a civilization (in any favorable environment) under almost any skin.

Reference: Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History, pages 18-19, 1968

 

RACE AND LAW

To enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes, this Act may be cited as the "Civil Rights Act of 1964.

It shall be an unlawful to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

 

Reference: US Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

 

2)      DIVERSITY REPRESENTATIONS OF CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Renee Watson, Ways to Make Sunshine, 2020

Parents need to know that in Ways to Make Sunshine, by Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Medal winner Renée Watson (Piecing Me Together), 11-year-old Ryan, an African American girl, adjusts to changes in her family life and her last year of middle school. The landlord sold the place where she lives and her dad has lost his job as a postal carrier. The family moves into a smaller house and has to live on a budget, but they make themselves at home there. Ryan still gets to cook with her mom, the extended family still gathers for Easter, and Ryan now lives closer to her friend KiKi. Ryan faces some challenges like getting over her stage fright and bickering with her older brother, Raymond. There's a scene where Ryan is embarrassed when her straightened hair reverts to its natural state while she's at a pool party with White friends.   Sequel: Ways to Grow Love (A Ryan Hart Story, 2)  (2021)

Source: CommonSenseMedia.org

 

Susan Tan, Cilla Lee-Jenkins, Future Author Extraordinaire, 2017

Cilla Lee-Jenkins is 50% Chinese, 50% Caucasian, and 100% destined for literary greatness! In this middle grade novel, she shares stories about a new sibling, being biracial, and her destiny as a future author extraordinaire.

Priscilla "Cilla" Lee-Jenkins is on a tight deadline. Her baby sister is about to be born, and Cilla needs to become a bestselling author before her family forgets all about her. So she writes about what she knows best—herself! And Cilla has a lot to write about: How did she deal with being bald until the age of five? How did she overcome her struggles with reading? How do family traditions with Grandma and Granpa Jenkins differ from family traditions with her Chinese grandparents, Nai Nai and Ye Ye?

Sequels: Cilla Lee-Jenkins: This Book Is a Classic (2018), Cilla Lee-Jenkins: The Epic Story (2019)

Source: Macmillan.com

 

Kelly Yang, Front Desk, 2018

Parents need to know that Kelly Yang's Front Desk is a powerful, moving tale about 10-year-old Mia Tang and her parents, who live and work at the Calivista Motel in California during the early 1990s. The novel, which is the first in a series, is loosely based on the author's experience as an immigrant growing up in America, and she doesn't shy away from tough, real-world topics such as immigration, poverty, racism, fraud, and bullying. Characters arrive at the motel after being beaten up by loan sharks or fleeing an ICE raid. Another character is beaten up by robbers. Insults include "Chinese doughboy," "ugly-nese," "idiot," "moron," "loser," and "Mr. Tightwad." There's also one use each of "bull" and "bastard." Although there are many heartbreaking stories in the book, there are plenty of positive messages for kids about fighting for what's right, treating people with kindness and respect, and never judging someone by the color of their skin.  Sequels:  Three Keys (2020).  Room to Dream (2021).

Source: CommonSenseMedia.org

My Brother / Dealing With Death

 

 Obituary | Rolland Eugene Rasmussen of West Des Moines | Overton Funeral Home (overtonfunerals.com)

One of my first memories is walking around with a sling.  "I have a broken arm.  Don't people with broken arms need a cast?"  I had been pushed off the back step by my older brother.  I was so young that I didn't need a cast.

Another of my early memories is waking up in the morning to find a wastebasket on fire in the kitchen.  I woke up my parents.  As I recall, the fire department came.  It was a relatively serious fire as part of the floor in the kitchen burned.

Rolland was high energy.  He would throw shoes out the car window as we drove down the road.  He would run away from home and go for miles in the cold.  My aunt remembers him pulling down the curtains.  She was dealing with putting the curtains back up as Rolland was emptying cannisters of flour and sugar.  At about the time I started kindergarten, Rolland was placed in a foster home as his need for constant care was beyond the capacity of any ordinary family.  

Mrs. Hanson, an elderly woman in Pleasant Hill, became foster parent for Rolland. Several older boys lived with her.  The older boys would watch Rolland 24/7 and keep him out of trouble.  Mrs. Hanson kept calm and was always in control.  I would see Rolland regularly.   

After I finished second grade, my parents divorced.  My sister and I lived with my father.   There was a regular schedule for Donna and me to visit our mother.  Very often, we would have an outing by the lake with Rolland or go swimming with Rolland during this time.  Rolland was still challenging.  One was issue was that Rolland would regularly remove his swimming trunks when we were swimming at public pools.  We just expected things like that would happen.  No big deal.  

My mother visited every week.  I don't think I ever missed a birthday party.  He would color in coloring books or put together jigsaw puzzles.  Those types of items were good gifts for him even as an older man.  When "American Pie" was a hit song, I imagined Rolland was singing this to me by the car at Mrs. Hanson's.  This was a subject of conversation for decades.  He might have sung and hummed a little bit of it.  My mother always imagined him as someone who might speak one day.  My parents felt responsibility for him not being "like everyone else."  At this point in time, my parents would individually brainstorm possible reasons for Rolland not talking and sometimes blame each other.

Rolland was afraid of dogs.  I think that went back to before Mrs. Hansen.  If there was an unguarded bottle or can of soda pop, Rolland would guzzle it.  If there was food in front of him, Rolland would eat it.  These things never changed.

Upon the death of Mrs. Hanson, Rolland moved to Woodward State Hospital School.  This was the low point for Rolland's care.  Though Rolland was non-verbal and autistic, Rolland was a discerning person.  Rolland's cohorts were more aggressive than him and lower functioning than him.  Rolland's behavior declined based on the role models around him.  

What were Rolland's skills?  He had a strong sense of order.  If something was mis-shelved in the grocery store, Rolland would move the item to where it belonged.  Rolland was good at jigsaw puzzles.  Michelle, Link Associates, told me how Rolland was the only person she ever saw who would put jigsaw puzzles together upside-down.

In the 1990s, Woodward closed, or at least his program closed.  He moved to group homes, residential homes and finally a host home in Des Moines.  Rolland's behavior quickly improved as peer role models were now typically higher functioning than him.   My mother and my father continued to regularly visit and take him for outings,  separately of course.  

Medications slowed Rolland down.  He had always been very thin.  At some point in time, Rolland became over-weight.  As an adult Rolland was childlike in how he hugged and wanted his feet rubbed, but he was almost always in control.  He became very good about fastening seatbelts and not exiting the car until he was told to.  He followed instructions well.

His routine for the last 20 or 30 years of his life involved a home setting and a work setting with other vulnerable adults.  Mosaic was the non-profit in charge of Rolland's home placement. Link Associates was his work setting.  While at work, Rolland would perform tasks such as putting items in little plastic bags.  Imagine a table with four workers and a supervisor.  There would be a van in the driveway of his home (17th Street in Des Moines, for most of this time).  Residents would go to Link on East 14th Street as a group in the van.

My mother declined in health starting around the year 2000.  Still Rolland would regularly visit and be visited.  In 2003, a doctor told us her end was near and she was placed in a large hospital room.  A large family group, maybe 13 people, visited.  Rolland had been extensive coached by his staff.  He told her "I love you."  All of us hearing this were impressed by Rolland's words. We only heard him say that then.  The next day, as I was visiting my mother in this same room, I held her hand as the radio played and baseball scores scrolled on a TV. Our mother died.  Rolland's staff was called and Rolland visited and entered her room fifteen minutes later. He spent 30 minutes with her to take in her death. At her funeral, the Mosaic director told us it was unusual for family to remain close to people like Rolland.  He pointed out how exceptional our mother was and explained that this was why he was at her funeral.

My father lost his second wife is 1999.  Rolland was especially appreciated as a reliable presence in his life starting this period.  On a Saturday, I would visit my father in West Des Moines.  Rolland would be there.  On a Saturday, I would visit my father at the condo in Des Moines.  Rolland would be there.  On a Saturday, I would visit my father in Urbandale.  Rolland would be there watching TV.   This routine continued until his death in 2016.  

Donna took over guardianship responsibilities and I started to regularly go to evaluations.  We visited Rolland when we went to Iowa.  Visits to the park continued.  Birthday parties continued.  Rolland very much appreciated this.  Rolland liked Monica.  Rolland liked Rose.  There was a family Thanksgiving at the condo.  There were trips to Indianola.  He got along with everyone in the family. 

Jean-Marie noticed how well Rolland and Robert got along while he was working for Mosaic at 17th Street.  He took over within Mosaic as Rolland's host (and Robert's) in a host home in West Des Moines.  Robert was Rolland's friend for the last twenty years.    Jean-Marie as host was the best situation Rolland ever had.  It was the right time for change given lower functioning, higher energy men had moved in with Rolland and Robert causing conflict. Rolland, Robert and Jean-Marie had many smiles together.

Covid-19 closed the  Link work group.  There were issues anyway.  We were told that Rolland had "retired" and had chosen to stop doing his tasks.  But, he was still going to work before covid-19 caused the facility to close.  Without this routine, Rolland lost his days and nights.  He became sedentary.  His health declined. We were not allowed to visit.

With vaccination, we visited again.  We had a hard time keeping him out of bed that Summer.  In the Fall, Rolland had lost a lot of weight and did not look healthy.  She the photo (below).   He fell as we walked through Hy Vee.  But, he remained good natured and loving to the end.

I miss Rolland.  He is involved in my earliest memories.  I always got along with him. It was a unique relationship.  As his younger brother, he looked to me as his older brother pretty much once I could walk.

Sonia Sotomayor writes about grief.  Is grief from guilt, a feeling of not being there when we feel we could or should have been there?  Or is grief from loss, a feeling that Rolland should have had opportunities that we somehow prevented?

Either way, I don't feel family has a lot of reason for grief.  We were there for him from the beginning to the end.  Rolland wasn't going to have many unique experiences with us that he hadn't already had.  Though his mother was very devoted and though his father was very devoted, some of his most loving times were in West Des Moines toward the end of his life.  Though those at his host home in West Des Moines do not deserve to feel guilt, they feel loss and suffer most.

The Last Frontier

The final frontier is space, according to Star Trek.  The last frontier is Alaska, the 49th state.  What is developing in the final frontier?

Ten years ago, I visited Alaska and met dreamers, self-promoters and the operators of single family businesses.  There was still a greatest generation vibe.

• George Brown was still talking aviation at the Lucky Wishbone in 2011.
• The promoters who started the Iditarod dogsled race were still promoting as we listened from a distance while visiting their museum.
• The Museum of Transportation and Industry in Wasilla, AK still feels like a family-run operation, though  one of its proponents is no longer around.

The generation who viewed Alaska as the last frontier may be reaching an end.  What kind of dreamers do we see in Alaska now?  

• Our conductor on the train was a woman.
• Our captain on our Major Marine 3 1/2 tour of Resurrection Bay was a woman.
• The Park Rangers at Kenai Wildlife Refuge were women.
• Our tour leader at Spencer glacier was a female Park Ranger.

People are dreaming.  The male World War II veterans of old are no longer around and in charge, though.  Women are in charge in the last frontier.

More: NPR: Miss America makes history, as a Korean American from Alaska wins the title.

More : https://www.npr.org/2021/12/17/1065378452/miss-america-makes-history-as-a-korean-american-from-alaska-wins-the-title

The Great Resignation

 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/03/us-jobs-report-june-trend

One effect of the pandemic that was predictable is that people had time to rethink their situations.  In many cases, people decided not to return to their jobs.  The current jobs report reflects this.  

What are people's aspirations?  Does my job match my life goals?  In many cases, people are concluding that they can do more.  Perhaps, people have decided to go back to school.  Perhaps, people get more satisfaction out of volunteer opportunities.  Perhaps, people with lives turned upside down have different priorities than they did before.

This is what happens when people have some time away from the grind and finally reflect a bit.

BLM and other social justice causes will be even more prominent than they were last year.

I predict this is also what happens when people have some time away from the grind and finally reflect a bit.

More:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/big-tech-is-suffering-from-a-great-resignation-of-workers-who-say-its-a-good-time-to-leave-11628267291

Identity Crisis

 

I just had a birthday.  Now my age ends in zero though I don't feel any older.  Do I have sudden urges to buy sports cars or electric scooters?  Might it be time for an identity crisis?

The neighbor just sold their house.  They will rent elsewhere starting a month from now.  It seems sudden.  There was never even a "for sale" sign.  What's the rush?

It is a prime moment for identity crises, as covid-19 starts to wind down.  We've had some time to reflect.  Are we living congruently with our true selves?

I've had various identities through my life.  In high school, there were the standard identities that are still around per the above.  Following that, "what's your major?" led to an answer that was my identity.  Career aspirations tend to define college aged people.  Last month, my alma mater sponsored a Facebook event with actor, Dan Levy.  There were few questions about Dan, himself.  An hour of student questions related to how to get entertainment industry jobs matching the dreams of students.

In my late twenties and early thirties, I had an identity defined by job title.  I was officially a product development engineer. My job title reflected myself better than any previous identity.  I DID actually live my dream.  The job title was distinct from my identity though.  It wasn't so much what people called me.  It was the job activity itself, in support of a company that prioritized product development.  I idealized the product development role as a way to broadly improve the living conditions of the world.

Was I imagining that the focus of the company was changing from year to year?  It took me a year to prove to myself whether what I hoped was still real actually was not real.  My hardest week was when after concluding the company talked about (and no longer actually cared about) product development,  I walked away.  

What changed wasn't me.  Nonetheless, this change led me to an identity crisis.  Was I the person I identified as?  Was I the same as the person others saw?  How can I be a product developer without products to develop?

What do I do after leaving the job title that defines my identity?

This is what I did.  I still do the majority of this.

My Transition Approach:

n  Writers Group
n  Networking
n  Volunteering
n  Travel
n  Season tickets, not TV

A high point of the coping I needed to do was a party I held in 2003 or 2004 for liberated workers.  This casual and fun daytime event with friends outside the 9-5 grind helped me over the stigma that I felt about no longer "earning a living" through a relationship with an employer.  

(Throughout all this time, I have purposefully stayed career adjacent in case, like the college students, I become motivated by dreams about writing for others.)

Intermittently, while in my "liberated worker" days, some saw me and sometimes I saw myself as a traveler, radio host and board member.  

Presently, I define myself by my family and my role as a parent. 

We create our identity by identifying along different axes:

• Geographical (Locality/ neighborhood)
• Religion
• Ethnic
• Cultural  (Race, origin, Disability)
• Political  
• Family
• Sexual 
• Career/Work

My place along these axes is well defined.  

Having just hit a zero birthday, will I reassess who I am?  Will I decide I need to retire to Waimea tomorrow or next year? 

I feel healthy and good.  There is lots of time to assess.  There is no impetus to sell the house.  There is no crisis.