3rd Reflective Essay
This Social Justice class has left me with many mixed feelings. On the one hand it is not fair to judge the class while I am undergoing what I feel to be one of the most unjust of injustices myself. On the other, it is directly applicable. What the class delivers on so well is coming at issues from different, often new, perspectives. That said, I felt my viewpoint was not often seen or heard.
I very much appreciate the new perspectives from our film viewings in this class. This is not to say the readings and Elluminate discussions were not engaging and thought provoking. They made equally good points. I am a visual learner so the more senses that are stimulated, the better I learn. I suspect that this is true for most and it might make a good argument for having movies in the cafeteria – all five senses stimulated!
Back to the point, though; in the absence of experiencing the plight of the films’ protagonists first hand, the sights and sounds served to bridge the gap of empathy quite well. After viewing Life and Debt (2001), I will forever be skeptical of the motives of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and developed countries who seek to “save” the developing countries like Jamaica. The film inspired me to do more research where I learned that representation in the IMF is based not on population, but on wealth. This is enraging. To me this feels like extreme oppression of the poor by the wealthy and it is embarrassing to be party to the largest representative of the IMF. Similarly, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived the Peak Oil (2006) was an enlightening story of what this mysterious wonderful country that we are supposed to hate, Cuba, went through as a result of our embargo. It provided me with an awakening of what I subconsciously knew: People are our greatest natural resource and, in the absence of other resources, people will band together in communities to not only survive, but solve their problems together and thrive. With a lack of petroleum based fertilizers and energy the Cuban people revitalized their soil, grew more healthy food, and lost weight to become generally healthier despite a 66% loss of their gross domestic product. They also focused on education, producing twice as many medical doctors per capita than the US and the highest proportion of scientists in all of Latin America. This will help me talk intelligently and raise awareness among others in my private and professional spheres of influence.
The injustice of The Corporation (2003) hit a lot closer to home for me. I had already written an article in 2003 that warned of the perils of embracing “corporatocracy.” Looking at the corporation through the lens of a psychiatrist was heartening and almost sadly enlightening at the same time. That the diagnosis would come out as a psychopath was revealing. Class discussion of John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hitman echoed and reinforced my ambivalent sentiments.
Of the readings, those on globalization stuck out the most for me. The notion that growth is the key to thriving economies is inherently wrong in a finite world. With the exception of sunlight, we are basically living in a closed system. The earth’s resources are in extreme competition. As Alan Durning pointed out in How Much is Enough?, the 20% of “overconsumers” hold 83% of the income compared to only 1.4% for the 20% of “marginals”. The overconsumers are externalizing the costs of products and services so they are cheap for themselves. Meanwhile, the marginals incur the brunt of the externalized costs in the form of low wages, dangerous work environments, dangerous living environments, and food and essentials they cannot afford. I feel proud to be part of the BGI charter to help the business world understand and address these inconvenient truths.
On the other hand, I really, really struggle with some of the victim attitudes some BGI community members hold. I have written about this in my blog and The Channel, talked about it in class, and discussed it privately with BGI community members. Two instances stand out. The first was the experiential exercise we did in class with different rules for card games at different tables. Not being able to communicate easily, it took me a couple rounds to figure out that the rules were different. When I moved to a new table I observed and tried to learn the rules at the table out of respect before trying to change things. Conversely, I tried to communicate and enforce the rules to newcomers to our table. In the discussion afterwards I learned that another woman did the exact same thing when coming to a new table, but it was because she felt she should succumb. Because I am a white man and she is a white woman, I was told that I was an oppressor because I chose to be respectful rather than succumbing. Similarly, a thread went around The Channel calling out whites for not befriending minorities. I showed mathematically that whites were actually much more likely to accept minorities than the opposite, but the thread went on about white privilege without even acknowledging the original article’s fallacious claim. Finally, I just lost my daughter. Men have virtually no rights when it comes to family law. Despite my ex spending more than $100K in legal fees to try to prove that I was a bad dad, she couldn’t. Not one of a half dozen parenting evaluators, counselors, care providers, family, and friends said I was anything less than a great dad, yet current interpretation of law is such that it is more important for an adult mom to be close to her mom than an 18mo toddler be close to her dad, even when the former takes the daughter 3,000 miles away from her dad, her only cousins, her paternal grandparents, all her paternal friends, and all but two of the maternal friends and family. Further, current interpretation of law also says it is better for a child to have a dad pay a complete stranger $1,000 a month (on top of child support) to watch his child ten hours a day in lieu of him despite the fact that he is willing and able to do such, just because the mother wants it that way. In this case the nanny was, according to her Friendster and myspace pages, a twenty-something “woman of acomidation (sic)” who “did more substance than most of you weigh.” In terms of support, it is calculated based on “ability to pay” rather than how the ability to pay came to be. I served my country and then worked for 20 years. By contrast, she spent six years doing nothing and a ten more collecting degrees, switching careers, and collecting debt. I get punished for my responsibility and she gets rewarded for her irresponsibility. The worst part about it is she made all the choices with regards to our wonderful daughter and I made none, even though I was bankrolling virtually all of it. I just can’t see how there will be anything close to gender equality when women hold on to this unfathomable injustice. I try to see how others feel oppressed and I am an ally for anyone who does not get their fair shake, but to not have any allies in the area of family rights divests me of hope.
References
Achbar, Mark & Simpson, Bart (Producers), Abbot, Jennifer & Achbar, Mark (Directors). (2003). The Corporation, Canada: Canadian Broadcasting Company.
Black, Stephanie (Producer and Director). (2001). Life and Debt, United States: Tuff Gong Pictures.
Blessing, Tom (Producer), Morgan, Faith (Director). (2006). The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, United States: AlchemyHouse Productions Inc.
Cavanaugh, John and Mander, Jerry, eds. (2004, second edition). Alternatives to Globalization: A Better World is Possible, Chapters 2, 3, and 4. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Korten, David (2009). Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to New Wealth, Chapter 4. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.
Perkins, John (2004). Confessions of an Economic Hitman (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
