Forgive my lack of memos these last couple Mondays. I am in the midst of the end of the semester, school stress, grade-apalooza chaos. I have a brief window this weekend before finals where I can write a little memo and come back to this medium I really enjoy. And to answer the question you didn’t ask: yes, I am looking forward to this summer, I am taking time off to regroup, reorganize, and retrench. I have a bunch of summer projects and books and well-earned relaxing on the agenda. If you are looking for me, I will be deep in a book, drinking a glass of something fizzy, and eating some snackies on the back patio. Come over!
But the pressure of finals is still on for the moment. I am coaching my students through their final essays and seeing which students listened to me all semester and which students were blissfully unaware of my presence. I had a great chat with one of my students last Friday. She is from Switzerland and has a direct, straightforward European sensibility that might seem harsh and abrupt, but ultimately is necessary for useful communication. She was telling me what she liked about my class and what she wished had been different about my class. I was all ears, I don’t shy away from constructive criticism. I was in high school speech and debate and every weekend I would perform humorous routines with full fanfare only to be judged harshly by total strangers. I can handle a little feedback. And this conversation I had with my Swiss student was very helpful. She wished I had assigned a few more short essays throughout the semester. She didn’t like being in a hybrid (online and in-person) class. She did like the study of rhetorical devices that we did but wished we had more practices. It was good to hear what worked for her and what didn’t. It gives me a chance to reflect and think about what I can do differently for next semester. But I know there are teachers who might not want to hear any criticism, especially if there isn’t anything we can do about it, or if we just love teaching Shane (sorry Mom, but no one is teaching Shane anymore). We can get our hackles up when faced with even constructive criticism. We just don’t want to hear the truth, we’d rather be blissfully ignorant of anything that dampens our delusion. But we are built to deal with the facts, however difficult they may be. We can handle the harsh reality, the blunt facts, the awful truth.
We are living in a world built on powerful delusions. Delusions that are established and put in place in order to benefit the powerful and allow them to keep their power. For a long time now, I have been interested in how we can speak truth to these powerful delusions and deconstruct them. For example, I wrote a while back about my reticence to vote for Biden in the upcoming election, and people have not responded well to that news. I have been criticized and questioned and belittled, but no one has come up with an argument against it other than “he’s better than Trump”. I have been lectured about project 2025, I have been told I will be sorry, that I will be put in a concentration camp, or I will be killed in the impending civil war. Y’ALL. Let us take a deep, damn breath and pause for a few mins. First of all, I don’t intend to vote for Trump, and I FULLY understand how dangerous it is for Trump to become president. I have read about project 2025 and I think Trump is a puppet for the extremist factions of our population to exert control over the rest of us (which, girl, I would love to see them try to exert control over the passionate Taylor Swift fans, pass the popcorn for that match up). But here’s my hot take, if Trump is so dangerous and Biden is LOSING to Trump in the polls, then why aren’t we solving for x. Biden is not going to win any votes by threatening people with a worse possible outcome, NOR by banning TikTok (a bill which he just signed last week) and alienating the youth, NOR by continuing to send aid to the Israeli government as they bomb Gaza to ruins. We have a pretty narrow window to course correct. Let’s demand better now, not wait. This is the time to object.
Sigh. I know you are disappointed with me. I understand.
Which leads me to this: I have felt a little ostracized lately. It is entirely my own fault. I know I have been saying and writing polarizing things and people don’t want to start conversations with me in social settings for fear that I might call them a fascist to their face (to be clear, I have NEVER called anyone a fascist…to their face). My worldview and understanding has shifted so much in the last four years and I know I will blurt out harsh things that people don’t want to hear. Sometimes I get it right and sometimes I put my foot in it. Last year at a neighborhood party I managed to offend the only militant, gun-toting lesbians I had ever met by talking about transgender health care. Whoopsie! At another party I went off about the racist structure of public education to a brand new, wide-eyed teacher. Yikes! A few weeks ago, I popped off about Biden at book club and those ladies looked at me like I had just announced my lifelong goal of kicking puppies. Eeesh! These instances of foot in mouth disease filled me with remorse and concerns that I would be chased to the edge of town by people with sticks. I need to read my audience. I suppose I have always been a little forthright politically and socially. I have always shared my opinions. But as a teacher, I have to be very neutral and blank slate-ish. I need to reflect more of my students back to them than project more of myself onto them. I guess I have always believed that by being a reflector in relationships, people can see themselves more clearly through talking with me, and subsequently they can reflect on what they think and consider their ideas. You don’t need me to tell you, that you’re wrong, let me hold up this mirror so you can see it yourself! But I haven’t found a lot of people who want to hear the awful truth about our political leadership these days. There is a swift recoil when I talk about my certainly unpopular opinions with people who have certainly made up their minds. The problem is that my opinions aren’t so unpopular. My intention is to get people to see what I see, and I do that as nicely and calmly and passively as I can, but also HOLY CRAP PEOPLE THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!
Here’s the thing, I know that people fear the dystopian reality that is promised by the awful people, but right now in America, people are experiencing a dystopian reality. There are people in America who don’t have access to clean water, there are people who cannot afford health care, there are people who live in climate zones where powerful storms could make them homeless, there are people who have been stripped of their voting rights, there are people who are afraid of what the police will do to them if they get pulled over. Me? I don’t live with those fears. I have access to clean water, healthcare, mail-in ballots, and I’m white, cis-gendered, heterosexual, middle-class, and beyond the reproductive age. I’m good. But if I don’t stand up and object to the current system and how it isn’t working, then who will object when my privileges are stripped away? I am not out here stripping away delusions for funsies. I am not trying to harsh anyone’s vibe. I am simply unwilling to let the delusion cloud my judgment just because I have it easy for now. I held my nose to vote in 2020. I even held my nose to vote in 2016. We have to stop holding our noses and voting, we have to object to this broken system, we have to advocate for big change, we have to challenge the status quo, we have to strip away the powers of delusion to face the bitter truth. That’s what democracy is all about, Charlie Brown.