Category: Commentary

Reach For the Moon With a Plan

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I no doubt have too much time on my hands to really think about the state of the  world, particularly the state of my nation. We are quite troubled these days, not just with Covid-19 but with the issues that have surfaced and bubbled over after the horrific death of George Floyd. In the annals of history this will no doubt be a defining moment along with Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Perhaps because of, rather than in spite of the pandemic a cry of historic pain has risen from our Black Americans from sea to shining sea. Like Rosa Parks they are too tired to simply move to the back of the bus one more time, but unlike with Rosa Parks there does not appear to be a carefully crafted plan associated with the protests. As a result the reactions and the demands are fueled by pure emotion that is so all over the place that I fear that the things that need to be done will be pushed aside by minuscule victories like making Juneteenth a national holiday or rebranding Aunt Jemima products.

I am not Black and cannot even pretend to fathom the racism and associated injustices that they continue to endure. I can only empathize with my Black friends and neighbors and former students and interpret what they are telling us needs to happen. In my thinking the biggest issues should be restructuring and perhaps redefining the criminal justice system, strengthening the educational system for minorities, ensuring that quality healthcare is available to all, and making the effort to really hear and understand the voices and the needs of our Black citizens.

Sadly I sense that because there is little coherent national leadership in the Black Lives Matter movement the organic movement is all over the map concerning with regard to what is most important to accomplish. The deeds of those who loot and destroy do little for the cause as well. While I understand the depth of frustration and anger that leads to such behavior, the actions tend to divert attention from the true needs and place the entire movement in a negative light with those who are looking for a rationale for ignoring them or even shutting them down. There was a reason that Dr. King and the leaders of the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties insisted on nonviolent, passive resistance. They knew that they needed to win the hearts and minds of enough of a majority to bring about concrete and meaningful change. Those who lead this most important movement must do their best to disassociate themselves from theft and vandalism because even though such happenings are not representative they are being used to justify ignoring the real issues. 

What began as a move to rid our country of Confederate flags and monuments to leaders of the Confederacy has unraveled as well. Now almost any American historical figure is fair game. When things go too far, as they are doing in some cases, people lose patience with the cause. Burning the flag and spitting on soldiers returning from Vietnam did little to help the anti-war movement of the 1960s. It only gave ammunition to those who were already unwilling to consider the earnest perspectives of young people who wanted the unpopular war to stop. So too it is with BLM. Someone in charge needs to put out the word that it is best to keep the focus on the systemic changes rather than to get carried away with taking down inanimate objects. Already President Trump is giddily using such things to turn a segment of the American population against the BLM movement and to shore up his own chances for reelection. A wise group would not provide him with the ammunition to do so. Ignoring him quietly and totally would be a far more powerful tactic. The focus has to return to the kinds of changes that are most important and only strategic planning and leadership will accomplish what must be done. There is the very real threat that the president will rally enough support to dash the hopes of the entire Black Lives Matter movement just at the moment when their is worldwide support for the cause.

At the beginning of all of this one of my Black former students messaged me and said that he needed some of my understanding and gift for calming him because he was so very angry. I do indeed believe that our Black citizens have many reasons for being extremely mad. It is so apparent that their cause is being distorted by those who would rather not have to think about  the issues that have risen once again. It is truly tough to be honest enough to see that many of our nation’s ideals are tarnished by the history of slavery and racism. Too often we have tamped down the injustice toward Black in America with minimal stop gap changes and then hoped that the unrest would vanish. In many ways this time feels quite different and I believe that it can be if there is a real plan for making the much needed changes without upending even those aspects of our history that are in fact good. It is important for all Americans to think of how it feels to be viewed through a narrow lens. If nothing else we need to remember what it felt like to be punished by a teacher too lazy to differentiate between recalcitrant students and those who were attempting to do the right thing.

I sincerely suggest that the Black Lives Matter movement enlist the help of leaders, lawmakers, educators, doctors, ministers, students and ordinary citizens to become the voices of the change they wish to see in our country. They need to develop a plan and seek support from everyone in maintaining focus on what is most important. I fear that without such guidelines the forces against them will run as rampant as Covid-19 and they will lose the momentum that has garnered so many new insights in people who heretofore did not understand. Our Black citizens all too often must endure treatment that none of the rest of us would find acceptable only because of the color of their skin. I pray that this is indeed the moment when meaningful and long overdue change will occur but I also fear that without coherence and leadership it will only end in the reelection of a man who has no compassion for the cause and a citizenry that forces us to just go back to what they see as normal. Our Black citizens should reach for the moon this time, but remember that they must first begin with a plan.

A Good Thing About Covid-19

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I have attempted to keep in touch with people that I know during these crazy days of Covid-19. Sometimes I text. Other times I send emails. Now and again I FaceTime or join a Zoom conference. I also make phone calls just to make sure that the people who have been in my life are doing okay.

On a recent day I decided to phone a friend that I have known since I was six years old. We have had long stretches of time during which we got so busy with living that we lost track. Somehow we nonetheless keep circling back to one another. I first met Lynda when my family moved across the street from where she lived. I was not particularly happy to be leaving our old home because I had friends there that I thought I might never see again. I had been pouting on the drive to our new place and seeing the loving house that would be our new digs did nothing to improve my mood. That’s when the Barry family crossed the street to welcome us to Northdale Street.

They were a friendly crew who made us feel immediately welcome to the neighborhood. Lynda, who was my age, was peeking at me from behind her mother and I immediately became curious about her. Mrs. Barry noticed our preoccupation with one another and suggested that we go get acquainted. Somehow it was as though Lynda and I had known each other forever. We began talking and our conversation never really stopped from then on.

We spent every single day together, often laughing and singing on our bikes. We roamed the neighborhood seeking adventure and planning our futures which we assumed would always include being together. We tuned in to the Mickey Mouse Club each afternoon and practiced cartwheels in Lynda’s enormous backyard. I adored everything about her and her family including the nickname that her father gave her, Lindy Lou.

We we two silly little girls who were as happy as can be, so when my parents suddenly announced that we would be moving to California only a little over a year later I was angry and devastated. Somehow I thought they surely should have consulted me before making such an important decision. I cried at the thought of leaving Lynda behind because she seemed to understand me better than anyone ever had.

I missed Lynda every day that we were apart but my family eventually returned to Houston and shortly thereafter my father died. We moved into a house in the same neighborhood as Lynda’s but it was many blocks away from where she resided. We attempted to keep the friendship as wonderful as it had been before but we ended up in different schools and as we grew older we became more and more involved in activities that ate up our time. We always seemed to click right back into our old closeness whenever we had occasion to get together but life just kept insinuating itself into our relationship.

She got married and so did she. We purchased homes in different parts of the city and began our families. From time to time Lynda would invite me to visit for the day and we would have so much fun watching our children play while we gabbed just like we were still those six year old girls. Neither of us were working back then so we had all the time in the world. On some of those charming visits I would stay for hours before reluctantly heading home.

Eventually we both became working women and with that added responsibility we had less and less time for meeting up. Mostly our friendship became confined to occasional phone calls and as the years passed our children grew, our parents died, and we became grandparents. We were more likely to see each other at wakes or funerals but our love for each other never wavered.

Now Lynda lives in another town. We speak of getting together but those plans never seem to materialize. At the moment we are both staying in our homes. Lynda has autoimmune issues that prompt her to be as careful with Covid-19 as possible and I hope to keep the virus from coming into my house and infecting my husband who seems to be a poster boy for those who suffer most from it. Suddenly those long phone calls where we never seem to run out of things to say feel like a lifeline for both of us.

There is something spiritual about the friendships that we forge as children. They are so pure and guileless. Growing up together means that we know all of the good and bad things that have happened to each other. We have shared a journey through all of life’s ups and downs. We know each other without filters and we still like what we see.

I hope to make calling Lynda more of a habit during these days. Talking with her makes me feel young again and seems to be the one good thing about Covid-19. It has slowed us down enough to create time for just being ourselves once again. In those moments I see us as two skinny girls with a whole lifetime of possibilities ahead, finding adventure at every turn. We are quieter now but the joy of being together, even by phone, never seems to dim.

Becoming Profiles In Courage

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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To the members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States of  America:

Dear Sir or Madame:

I recently penned a letter to President Trump offering some unsolicited advice regarding  the kind of behavior that we need from our nation’s chief executive during this unprecedented time of pandemic, social unrest and economic difficulty. It has occurred to me since I offered my views to him that in reality his duty as the president is to be an administrator, not someone enacting rules and laws. Sadly during the tenure of the last several presidents there have been far too many executive actions taken in the absence of actual lawmaking from your chambers. As a result it all too often feels as though we have one person deciding how to approach the nation’s many problems much like a monarch might do while all of you act more like presidential lackeys or critics than actual lawmakers. The phrase “do nothing Congress” seems quite apt in describing the nature of the standoff between republicans and democrats in the legislative branch of government. The result is that most of the country’s pressing problems are being mostly ignored by the men and women elected to represent us. Instead for years now we have endured a patchwork of temporary directives announced by our presidents to repair the damage done by the inactivity on your part.

It has been far too long since I have observed any efforts in Congress to work together for the good of the nation. A while back you attempted to pass a law to reform immigration and you even came close to a compromise that would have created a pathway to citizenship for immigrants and the dreamers but in the end you froze under pressure from your more vocal so called bases and ended up doing nothing. Somehow it seemed better to you to just let the problem fester and grow while President Obama decided to protect the dreamers by executive action and President Trump used his power to divert taxpayer money to building a wall. Years after the moment when a bipartisan immigration bill was on the brink of passing, we still await a permanent solution and waste precious time and money on stop gap measures.

We have watched time after time as you have battled with one another over the budget with ridiculous scenes of a Senator reading from a children’s book to filibuster rather than to work out a deal good for the people. You have special investigative panels seeking information over and over again but in the final analysis they seemingly accomplish nothing. Even in the midst of a pandemic you only seem capable of sending out one time checks to some of the citizens without regard as to who might actually need the assistance at the moment.

You have witnessed the social unrest that has bubbled over in cities and towns and the best you seem to be able to do is sponsor bills declaring Junteenth to be a national holiday. Rival legislation offered in the democrat controlled House and the republican controlled Senate is not even allowed to see the light of day. Efforts to actually do something are ignored without so much as an open discussion that might demonstrate a real intent to create meaningful and systematic change. Instead you appear to compete with one another for the most righteous indignation and pontification. None among you seem to have the courage to actually cross the aisle to insist that everyone work together to legislate the badly needed changes. As usual you talk and talk and talk but get nothing of substance done. Then you complain and worry about presidential overreach depending on which party holds the executive reins at the time. With your abdication of the responsibilities of legislation you have turned the role of the president into a monarchy.

I know that there are fringe groups that exert great control over each of you with the threat of taking away your office if you do not follow their dictates. I would like to suggest, however, that your duty is not to be herded like lambs to the slaughter but to have enough courage and character to do what is necessary for the American people. You should be less beholden to the current thinking of a party or the president and more concerned with passing laws that repair the flawed and broken institutions that are demanding your attention. If you were working in any other capacity you would all be fired for dereliction of duty. When the members of any organization cannot get past the stage of norming and storming that group is doomed to failure.

I respectfully suggest that each and everyone of you read the duties of each branch of government as outlined in the Constitution. Then I recommend that you take back the powers invested in you and begin a process of repairing the ridiculous divisions that have left you unable to address the pressing problems that now face us. There are real people who feel forgotten and ignored who need your help. They can no longer accept your antics as an excuse for inaction. The grandstanding and partisanship and executive ordering needs to stop and that will only happen if you decide to finally do your jobs.

I am weary of knowing what you are going to say and do before you even show up for legislative sessions. You have only two minds, democrat and republican. You are puppets being animated by Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump. Cut those strings and think for yourself, think about this country and its people. Take back your role and begin the work of providing us with the common sense laws that we need. Remind the president that his duty is to enforce the legislation, not to create it through sleight of hand. Let’s see who loves this country enough to become a profile in courage.

This Is What Keeps Me Awake At Night

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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In the beginning we were mostly very nice to one another. We came together not just as a nation, but as a worldwide community. We worried as much for the people of Italy as we did for ourselves. We applauded our healthcare workers at the end of their daily shifts. We found ways to do good things for people that we didn’t even know. We followed the rules and the precautions for staving off the virus with great care. We marveled at the flights of the Blue Angels as they flew over our city to thank those on the front lines of the battle with Covid-19. We grieved over every death and felt great compassion for those who became ill. We were willing to extend financial help for those who lost their jobs. Our sense of empathy was great and it felt good to be part of a human community that was so loving and caring.

Then some of us began to lose patience. The Lieutenant Governor of Texas suggested that we needed to go back to normal quickly. He blithely announced that he and other older Americans would be willing to die to help the young to reclaim their lives. The President of the United States appeared to grow weary of the daily briefings on the virus and the lack of a miracle disappearance of Covid-19 as he had so hopefully predicted. Armed groups asserted their right to freedoms including not being forced to wear masks in public. States began to reopen even as they ignored the guidelines of health professionals for doing so. Life seemingly resumed and then a Black man attempted to spend a twenty dollar bill that looked suspicious. The police were called and before an hour had passed that man lay dead as a result of overt brutality. Riots broke out first across the nation and eventually across the world. Our community spirit was finally rent in two.

As I sit in my home I number the days that I have been isolated. It is now well over 100 revolutions of the sun that have kept me inside save for a delightful three day interlude in which I drove around the Texas hill country and sat eight feet away from my daughter and her family for some much needed family connection. I have taught remote classes with my tiny band of students and I have enjoyed Zoom conferences with family and friends. Mostly though I have had to find ways to make my days meaningful as I do my best to help in the effort to eliminate the virus as much as possible.

At first I marveled at the kindness of humans but of late I have been deeply saddened by the selfishness and lack of compassion that I witness. I wonder why those who have pensions and savings and jobs that provide them with financial security have so little concern for those who are unemployed. Why are they not urging our president and Congress to continue to provide the jobless with the help they so desperately need during this time? Why does anyone think that it is a good idea to simply abandon thirteen percent of the American people who want to work but can’t find employment no matter how hard they try?

Our Black and Hispanic citizens are literally bearing the brunt of Covid-19. They are getting sick and dying in numbers far greater than the white population. So why would so many among us not even attempt to understand the frustrations that they are feeling? Does this really seem to be a time for accusing them of being responsible for the rise in cases of the virus when we know that people went to crowded bars and beaches? Does it make sense to smear the attempts of our Black citizens to demonstrate their frustrations and only see the small number of dissidents who have made the cause sometimes violent? Should all of those peacefully gathering for justice be viewed as a group of thugs? What is the reasoning for favoring hunks of metal or stone fashioned into icons glorifying people who fought to keep the ancestors of our Black neighbors enslaved over living breathing humans who are in great pain? Does this actually seem like a time to threaten dreamers with a reattempt at ridding our country of DACA so that they might once and for all be deported? What kind of people would celebrate a threat to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic? How has our society become so cruel that a wealthy old white man rides in his golf cart shouting “White Power” and our president applauds him? How can we continue to ignore our elderly who are virtual prisoners in their rooms in nursing homes because some of us refuse to do what is needed to end the rise of Covid-19 cases? What are we doing to help the mentally ill and addicted who have had an interruption of their therapies? These are the things that sadden me.

I honestly care little about myself. My days on this earth have not always been easy, but mostly they have been good. I am happy with my life and the people who have shared it with me. I have been most fortunate. I worry most about those who are truly suffering and feeling so alone. I grieve that my country is lost in a morass of ugliness and selfishness and unwillingness to spread both the wealth and the sacrifice in such a dire time. I see such difficult weeks ahead for our young whose lives are so upended and so uncertain. Their educations and their hopes and dreams and plans are on hold. Nothing is as it once was save for the lucky ones who have the gift of health and economic security that allows them to carry on as though the pandemic is little more than an inconvenient hoax created by forces that want to frighten us. For so many this moment is all too real, and it is for them that I worry. It is about them that I write. It is impossible for me to ignore them as though they do not matter.

I am weary because I feel as though I am shouting into the wind. I do not think that I have changed a single mind with the essays that I hoped would enlighten people to at least think a bit differently than usual. I see the divisiveness of beliefs growing harder and more immovable than ever before and that frightens me more than the possibility of becoming sick. Perhaps this moment in time is only the beginning of a series of events that will ultimately change the world. It may be that we will all have to endure much hardship to reach the other side. This is what keeps me awake at night because I do not believe that it had to be this way.

A Nation of Many Nations

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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Ours is an enormous country. Little wonder that it is often so difficult to hold all of the disparate regions and states together. We call ourselves the United States but in reality there has always been division based on geography, economics, demographics and other aspects of sociology and psychology. Even those who share common beliefs often have different interpretations of how to reach particular goals or create shared laws. Within a single state there will be cities and towns and neighborhoods with wildly varying political philosophies. We used to call ourselves a melting pot of diversity all blended together, but if truth be told there have always been lumps in that mixture that asked us to accept a single set of views. We’ve almost always known that there were exceptions to virtually every rule that we made. It’s rather difficult to be a country that purports to be a bastion of individualism while also insisting that we march in lockstep to certain tunes. Perhaps the very nature of our nation is to attract people who do not wish to be ruled by the whims of whoever happens to be in charge at any given moment.

Our land was stumbled upon by explorers who saw opportunity in its vast open spaces. They presumed that it was theirs for the taking because the original inhabitants did not appear to be as advanced as they were. Of course we can see in retrospect that it was faulty thinking to assume that nothing actually belonged to anyone person or group when there were no contracts or written compacts. Those original settlers were indeed the invaders even though we do not like to use that kind of language when speaking of them. Thus came hordes of people seeking relief from religious persecution, economic hardship, troubles with the law, the hopelessness of being second or third sons without the chance of inheritance, those with entrepreneurial spirit.  Here they saw a way to leave their troubles behind and live without the limitations placed on them in the old world. Over time they and their descendants reached all the way across the country from Atlantic to Pacific Ocean sometimes moving the original inhabitants who stood in their way.

Mistakes were made all the way around. Someone thought it was a good idea to use slave labor to work the fertile land. That was an abominable decision that was often cloaked in uncomfortable attempts to argue that the people forcefully brought from their homelands were actually better off than they would have otherwise been. There were presumptions that they were uncivilized and perhaps even too ignorant to even have the same feelings as the people who bought them and kept them as property by means of brute force. Even back at the beginning there were people who understood that such rationalizations were false and flew in the face of logic and Christian beliefs. Queen Isabella herself told Christopher Columbus that slavery was sinful when he offered to bring her a shipload of native people from the Indies as free labor. That was in the fifteenth century and yet people looked away when slavery became so ensconced in the economy that it was overlooked until the nineteenth century and the country that was barely one hundred years old broke out in civil war.

After the slaves were freed and the warring ended the country was wounded, broken, divided but the people did their best to patch things up. The freedom that the former slaves had gained  was only partially honored in some places. There were still those who viewed them as lesser beings. They were more often than not segregated from the rest of society, subjugated by laws that prohibited their freedoms and their rights. At the same time the country was growing. The Industrial Revolution created a need for more workers and so word was sent across Europe that America was the place to be. A flood of immigrants game from Germany, Sweden, Austria Hungary, Britain, Ireland, and Italy, a new wave of people who had lost hope of having a chance to prosper in their homelands. They sailed across the ocean in steamships with dreams of being free but their early days were often punctuated by hard work in dreary conditions while they were taunted by those who had been here before them.

The United States of America was a sleepy country with a vast expanse until World War I when the Yanks went to Europe to help in the war that was supposed to end all wars. Suddenly the whole world took notice of the ingenuity of the country that many had believed would never make it. The country finally decided to give women the right to vote even though John Adams’ wife Abigail had pleaded with him to fight to include the female half of the country when the ink was still wet on the Constitution signed by him and the other founding fathers. It seemed as though the United States was finally earning the respect it had so often desired.

The USA was now a power player and so a newspaper editor came up with the idea of finding a national anthem for a nation that had heretofore been just fine without one. He hosted a contest in which readers might suggest possibilities and then take a final vote on the candidates. That small group of Americans might have chosen America the Beautiful, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, God Bless America, or My Country Tis of Thee but by a narrow margin The Star Spangled Banner won. When a Congressman heard of the novel idea he sponsored a bill to make The Star Spangled Banner the national anthem. Finally in the 1920’s the United States had an official song to use at gatherings. It would eventually be played at ballgames, high school graduations and all kinds of events but few people actually knew how it had come about and what the words to it actually meant.

It was shortly after World War I and in the 1920’s that racism grew across the globe and at the same time monuments of Confederate generals were erected all across the south. With Jim Crow laws restricting Black citizens more than ever the statues served the twofold purpose of whitewashing the treasonous acts of the men they represented and intimidating Blacks who were still being shut out from full inclusion in the most basic rights of citizens. The Ku Klux Klan was flourishing and fear was once again being used as a weapon to keep Blacks from being fully embraced into society.

World War II and its aftermath brought the United States of America to its highest level of worldwide respect . While the rest of the world was repairing the damage from the battles of the war America was booming. It had the infrastructures and the money to invest in progress,  At the same time, almost a hundred years after being freed Black Americans still had not achieved that same rights as even the most recent immigrants from other countries enjoyed. After a years long struggle and much violence perpetrated against them a civil rights bill was finally passed in a divided Congress with pressure from a democrat President from Texas and the help of republicans from the north and midwest who would probably not recognize either the democrats or republicans of today.

Anyone who is paying attention knows the rest of the story. The immigrants continue to come from Asia and the Middle East and from Mexico and South America. The diversity of our nation has grown and grown and as it has many have become less and less inclined to appreciate or understand how much the new members of our country are just like the people who first came to the shores of this nation at its very beginnings and through the ensuing years with similar hopes and dreams. Our Black citizens continue to struggle from inequities that we too often refuse to see perhaps because admitting how much they have been wronged is a fate too painful to endure. It would mean looking at our history with an honesty that shatters so many of our pretty visions. 

We are once again divided. This time it is between those who would build walls or send children brought here illegally back to places they have never seen and those who believe that we should welcome the people and cultures that seem to enrich our nation. We argue over whether or not Black citizens are being treated unfairly and discuss their protests abstractly as either lawless or peaceful. Some see confederate monuments and place names as history and others view them as an offense to human decency. There are those who would drop the Affordable Care Act in the midst of a pandemic and those who want to end such discussions once and for all with a national health insurance program that assures good health for all. We even quibble over whether or not we should have to wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus that is exerting its power over us. We question whether a national anthem that was selected on a whim is more representative of our country than the freedom of people to use it to shed light on a problem that they believe we all must face. We think that fixing our wounded nation is a matter of this or that, a simple dichotomy of rights and wrongs that pits us against each other.

Perhaps if we all took the time to move beyond the noise and the chatter and to simply concentrate on the issues at hand we might finally find a way to get things right. Perhaps a beginning might be to admit that we are not a melting pot at all and we really should not be. Instead we are a beautiful salad of individuals each of whom add flavor and beauty to the glorious mix. We are a nation built from many nations. If we begin to honor that idea and strive to value each and every person we will all share in the wealth of the ideas set out in our Declaration of Independence. July Fourth will belong to every American when we provide its ideals with compassion and equity.