Category: Social Issues - trish hermanson

Why a Different Point of View Matters

7/31/2020

Meet my neighbor Joe Razes, who’s willing to get up close and personal to catch the best perspective for a photo, even when it means the risk of becoming a floor mat for a stampeding steer. Joe’s audacity pays off. He captured an award-winning portrait of longhorns that displays both their strength and their vulnerability. It turned out they were more frightened of him than he was of them. The only damage Joe incurred during several photo sessions was when a bull named Shoot ’Em Up eyed him, pawed the ground, then lumbered over and nibbled on his fallen hat.
     Which is how our biggest fears are sometimes, aren’t they? From a distance, they stare at us like raging bulls ready to charge. But when we dare to face them and work through them, they aren’t so frightening after all. Sometimes what we need is to view our problems from a different angle.
     So during this time of Covid, what’s the big fear staring you in the eyes?

Joe Razes's award winning photo

Do We Have a Defective Gene in Our Nation's DNA?

7/10/2020

We’re proud of our American heritage of “don’t tread on me,” but has this attitude become a defective gene in our nation’s DNA today?
     What I mean is this: Some nations quickly and easily adapted to wearing masks and social distancing because of their ingrained value of community. But not us. The knee-jerk reaction from some has been “nobody’s gonna tell me what to do. Don’t mess with my rights and my convenience.”
     The result? We have less than five percent of the world’s population, but we’ve suffered a quarter of the COVID-19 cases. Our rugged individualism - what we usually consider a strength - has rendered us selfish - sometimes stupid - as we endanger ourselves and others.
     I’m grateful for our liberties. For the right to practice religion, but what a travesty if I abuse that liberty by gathering at the peril of others. For the right to protest, but what a travesty if I abuse it by destroying property. For the right to free speech, but what a travesty if I abuse it by belittling others.
     Liberty is an upside-down concept: I’m not really free unless I’m willing to set aside my rights for the good of others. Otherwise, I’m in bondage to my freedom.
  Then I may as well sing the refrain from “Me and Bobby McGee”: “Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.”    Am I willing to bridle my rights for the good of others?
***
     Photo: 2019 winner of Texas Sand Sculpture Festival, text added.

The Whack Heard 'Round the World

6/27/2020

Danuta Danielsson had nothing but passion and a purse when Neo-Nazis marched through her Swedish town in 1985. She was infuriated because her mother had been imprisoned in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, so she took what she had and acted.
     The whack of this ordinary woman was seen around the world and was eventually recognized with a statue.
     Is Danuta the kind of person we should memorialize? I don’t condone violence during protests, not even with a handbag, but isn’t it better to honor bravery like this rather than that of Confederates who enslaved people for their profit?
     We can laud ordinary heroes even if we don’t raise a memorial to them. We can revere people like Patrick Hutchinson, a black grandfather who carried an injured white man in London over his shoulder during a protest to get him out of harm. What he had was strength, and with that he crossed cultural lines to do what was right.
     I’m as unremarkable as Danuta Danielsson or Patrick Hutchinson, and I sometimes wonder whether anything I do could make any difference. But perhaps the real question is whether I’m willing to step out of my comfort zone to do what is right when I hear of or see wrongdoing. I could at least speak up.
     Would I dare?
     Or am I afraid to be an ordinary hero?    ***
Photos: top, Hans Runesson; middle, Romea.cz; bottom, Dylan Martinez, Reuters.

Let Confederate Myths Be 'Gone with the Wind'

6/10/2020

I’ll be honest, the first time I read “Gone with the Wind” as a youth, I was overcome by the pageantry of Southern plantations with their knights and ladies served by contented “darkies.” I was angered by those mean-spirited Yankees who destroyed this idyllic way of life.
     My myopia grew worse when, as a reporter, I interviewed the woman who played the photographic double for Scarlett O’Hara in the movie version. She stood in for leading lady Vivien Leigh for long-distance shots. I reveled in her memories of Leigh and Clark Gable.
     But my misconceptions vanished when I read “Lies My Teacher Told Me.” In it, author James Loewen describes how “Gone with the Wind” propagandized the myths of the Confederacy. He says the novel, written by Southerner Margaret Mitchell during the Jim Crow era, sweeps under the carpet the oppression of African Americans and demonizes Yankees for their “Northern aggression.”
     Yet that myth continues today, bolstered by Confederate flags and monuments. It’s easy to call out these overt racist symbols, but it’s harder to recognize when I unfurl my own banner of discrimination or memorialize prejudiced thoughts. For instance, what about when I secretly think I’m smarter or better than others because of their race or ethnicity? That’s cultural racism.
     It’s time to take down Confederate flags and remove Confederate monuments from the landscape of our nation and the landscape of our hearts. And as for “Gone with the Wind,” perhaps we should view it with more levity like comedienne Carol Burnett did here.
     ***
   Artwork: screenshot from “Gone with the Wind” movie trailer.

Racial Wisdom from 'To Kill a Mockingbird' for Today

6/4/2020

That’s me at the Monroe, Alabama, courthouse that served as the inspiration for the setting of an appalling scene in the book and movie “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It’s where white lawyer Atticus Finch defended an innocent black man in 1930s Alabama. In that prejudiced culture, the man was found guilty of rape.
     As we search our hearts about race these days, I’m drawn back to the wisdom of Atticus. When his young daughter wrestled with discrimination, he said, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
     That fits with the recent advice of African American pastor Marcus Doe from Providence Bible Church in Denver, Colorado. He says that the solution to eradicating systemic injustice is not found in gathering more voters in either major political party. “These avenues will NOT solve racism and systems of injustice in America. Political leaders are way too dull a scalpel to cut out systemic racism from the American body.”
     It takes something much harder, Doe says. “Let me urge you to find friendships with African Americans.… I urge you to pursue knowledge through reading. Read authors who are black, both male and female.”
  That’s a challenge. No matter what our race, are we willing to reach beyond our cultural comfort zone into someone else’s? As Atticus Finch said, are we willing to “climb inside of his skin and walk around in it?”