Yes, Virginia. Racism and Sexism Do Still Exist

I wrote the following letter today because someone on my Assembly rep's page (Scott E. Allen) said no one reads these bills. And they were sort of right. So I challenged myself to print them off and REALLY read them.

Rep Allen stands by the wording of the bills as passed by the Assembly. He had an interesting response in a WISN UPFRONT piece last week that he shared in his weekly newsletter this weekend. I agreed with some of the counterpoints Rep. LaKeshia Myers made.

Senator Chris Kapenga

15 South

State Capitol

P.O. Box 7882

Madison, WI 53707-7882

RE: Please vote against SB 468, 410, and 411

Senator Kapenga,

I am writing as one of your constituents to voice my opposition to these faulty bills. I have read all three and have a number of concerns.

• SB 463 places an extremely heavy financial and resource burden of documentation on already stretched IT capabilities in districts. There already are rules about transparency in curricula that should suffice. How are these extra costs and infrastructure needs to be covered?

• SB 463 creates additional rules for assemblies, guest speakers, and other events that enrich the education of students. Will those experiences be denied students because of fears that something will be said by a speaker that goes against rules such as those being proposed in SB 411? I recall being moved as a child when a Holocaust survivor spoke at my school. That sort of thing may become a relic of the past with the passage of these new bills.

• Why are these bills being proposed? I heard Rep Allen’s call that AB 411 is simply a means to establish what should not be taught in the classrooms. Has any school, district, or teacher been convicted of doing any of the things described in AB/SB 411?

• SB 411 turns the very definition and understanding of “anti-racism” and “anti-sexism” on their heads. It reads as a call for people who have been in power to not be blamed for anything past, present, or future. 

• I would ask all Senators to run the teaching of 1845’s Manifest Destiny, the ADA, or Title IX through SB 411. How could a teacher teach these history lessons without teaching about racism and sexism? Were there women and Black people in the federal government in 1845? What led to needing the ADA and Title IX?

• I agree 100% that teachers should not ADVOCATE racism or sexism of any kind. But they have to TEACH it. SB 411 does not clearly state that and leaves the door open to being able to discuss, examine, and make decisions about our modern and historical issues of race, sex, rape, objectification, civil rights, reparations, and bias. 

• In SB 411, I would ask that if modern students should not feel bad about people in their past, should we also teach them they can’t be proud of people in their past, either? True equity would mean embracing the goodness of all people through time and acknowledging the bad choices as warnings so we can move forward together.

• My issues with SB 410 run along the same lines as SB 411. It reads like a cut/paste with edits to reflect the same ideas applied to all city, county, and state employees. It appears to be an attempt for those who have been in charge to avoid any sense of responsibility for what we exist in today instead of embracing an honest review and working with all of our citizens to build a better tomorrow. 

Wisconsin has rebuilt before- we were at the forefront of the mid 20th-century environmental movement. We have great thinkers and doers today in every corner of the state and from all walks of life. Our laws can and should reflect supporting them all as they work to bring us all forward into the future. 

Sincerely,

Susan Baumgartner

6 Choices to Improve our Speech Game

As I’m always going on about how we need each other, and how I insist that we’re stronger together, I thought it was time that I examine 6 specific choices we can make that will allow this to happen. I’m interested in physical and mental health care, education and k-pop. I believe this actions can help in all these arenas- and beyond.

 PLEASE NOTE: If you want to just skip the reading, scroll down to the awesome video from Teaching Tolerance on Countering Online Hate Speech.

1. Believe everyone deserves space to speak.

Whatever your size, shape, skin tone, sex, sexual orientation or preferences, religion, political opinions, ethnicity- you name it: you deserve a space to speak. We may not agree with each other, but we both deserve the opportunity to state our cases. If we follow the other ideas I list below, we should be able to coexist. We may get along life BFFs. We may choose to disagree and have little to do with each other. Or, we may choose to see where we can work together despite our differences. Whatever the case, neither of us should try to silence the other.

2. Acknowledge everyone deserves space to be.

Ever want to just run away from it all and hide? Believe that you deserve the space you’re in. Breathe in that fact and exhale the fear and/or anger talking. Ever feel like that other person should just go and die? Believe that they deserve the space they’re in just as much. Breathe in that truth and exhale the fear and/or anger talking. You and that “other” person are both human beings. As bystanders, if we see someone trying to silence another, we should calmly and directly say, “I think __ has the right to their opinion and I think what you’re saying is hurtful/sexist/etc.”. If we see someone run in fear, we should calmly and directly say, “I think you have the right to your opinion. I told them I think what they said was hurtful/racist/etc.”.

3. Think and speak with “we” in mind.

No one likes to be looked down upon. We should talk in ways that keep us looking at each other eye-to-eye. You may not believe it, but the way we say things affects how others take in what we say. Choices like “You people need to…” and “You women should just…” kill respect, light fuses and try to place the speaker as someone high up in a fortress, looking down on those they are addressing. Switching it around to “I think we could…” or “I disagree with that opinion…” will still get our point across. I used both “you” and “I/we” in this paragraph. Which sentences made you feel more more relaxed or more defensive?

4. Choose to meet face-to-face.

 I’m really tired of the phrase “keyboard warrior”. As I’m exploring in my book for those with type 1 diabetes, the term “warrior” does not need to mean a vicious, cut-throat and cloaked vigilant. It’s true that we can do/say things behind the anonymity of a screen that we might not do in public. That’s why meeting with and talking with people directly is vital to our humanity. The students behind the March for Our Lives are doing this over the summer, with their cross-country bus tour Road to Change. Coffee shops, concerts, conventions- even video conferencing like VLive or on our phones- anywhere were we see and hear each other in real-time can build our connections with others, helping us see the other points I’ve outlined so far. The keyboard time can be turned toward building those relationships, too, so we become warriors standing in solidarity against hardships and things, not each other.

5. Understand that opinions are biases, not facts.

I’ve emphasized “opinion” here, because what we think and feel cause most of our wild behaviors. What about facts? Facts can be used as weapons to stoke opinions. I’m reminded of the amazing reply that Adam Savage gave to the question, “What’s your biggest science no-no?”. His reply: “Bias.”. Facts shouldn’t be affected our attitudes; at their root, they simply are what they are. It’s vital to look at facts calmly and ask ourselves what is the exact truth involved, and what is what we feel or wish. I can say, “---- are kings!” and cite data to support. The data are facts proving some relative influence in the world, but my original statement is purely biased opinion. I can say, “Politicians are killing people with T1D” and cite data on insulin prices. The prices are facts but my original statement is simply my opinion to get my point across that we as a country need to look at health care. We should clearly label each other’s and our own biased opinions.

6. Instead of seeking a victory, practice forgiving. Or at least, forgetting.

When we feel attacked, our instinct can be to retaliate or run. When we read something that ticks us off, our knee jerk reaction might be to “put that person in their place”. Even when we reach out to defend someone in need, we need to remember these other points I’ve outlined and not seek another’s annihilation. Hurting others keeps that destructive cycle going and should not be an used- even if we feel justified and tempted to use it in the defense of someone else.

Forgiveness. If we can’t manage that, let’s choose forgetting and calmly walking away. Those options remind us that we all make mistakes and there’s hope for eventual change. They remind that we all have baggage. That none of us is superior to another. That no one is a lost cause and we can all someday, somewhere, help someone out and do something good.

We’re never going to eliminate all the negatives in humanity. But we can reduce their influence by the choices we make every day. As in parenting, kickback from those soaked in these destructive behaviors will occur when we begin. However, if we persist, support and work together, we can make positive changes.

Helpful links from Teaching Tolerance:

Teaching Tolerance Countering Online Hate Speech This is a great video with specific examples and sample responses to use when we encounter hate speech online.

How Does "Fake" News Become News? This is a light-hearted but informational video detailing how confirmation bias and filter bubbles affect what information we tend to believe and spread. If your social media are negative, you have built it that way. With help from this video, you can change it, too!

Wonder v. Bias

The one where I combine holidays, science, and Hedy Lamarr, using Adam Savage.

I’m excited to be able to finally reference Adam Savage in one of my essays. My family enjoyed, as many have, the fun experiments he, Jamie Hyneman and the whole Mythbusters crew performed through the years.

Mr. Savage has taken his interest in science education and exploration back on the stage, this time with Michael Stevens, more commonly known as the YouTuber, VSauce. We saw Brain Candy Live! at the Riverside Theatre in Milwaukee and it was a fantastic experience.

It was fantastic on several levels. First, the science itself. They cover things that, as my kids pointed out, you might just never think about, but are cool if you do. Second, there were unscripted mistakes: things failed to work the first time. Or even second. Adam and VSauce handled them with humor and determination- both of which were GREAT teaching moments for us parents to see and bring up later. And perhaps reminders to ourselves, too?

Lastly, I fell in love with one of Mr. Savage’s responses to audience questions. An audience member asked (I’m paraphrasing): What’s your biggest science no-no?. His reply?

Bias.

As he explained, we all have biases. We tend to believe certain things or people. The key, he explained, is to realize that and work hard every day to remove yourself from your experiments. For me, that also applies to our overall lives. The fewer biases we have, or the more we can be aware of them, the more clear and true our lives become.

When we’re soaked in bias, we can become cynical.

Synonyms for cynical include “skeptical”, “sarcastic”, and “suspicious”. One develops a response to the world that assumes the worst. Ideas that control a cynic: “See, I told you.”, “I bet you it won’t work.”, and “What’s the point.”. Basing your thoughts and life like this, it becomes hard to embrace some pretty powerful and uplifting concepts, ones that the Brain Candy Live! show seeks to cultivate. Why cultivate them? Because these ideas allow us to explore and grow as both individuals and as a species.

Exploration and growth come from having a sense of wonder.

The excited “Aha!” moment of discovery. The wide smile that slowly creeps across your face when an understanding comes to you for the first time. That sense of awe when you arrive at an overlook after a difficult climb and you come face-to-face with a gorgeous panorama.

Without a sense of wonder, you may never seek to combine old things into novel new concepts. The new movie, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, explores the life of 20th century Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr. Leslie Camhi contributed an article this week in The New Yorker on her life, entitled Hedy Lamarr’s Forgotten, Frustrated Career as a Wartime Inventor. Sexual bias was part of the reason for the US military not using Hedy Lamarr’s system to guide torpedos. That discovery eventually led to today’s GPS, Bluetooth and WiFi, as more wondering minds expanded our technology and finally used her work.

Children can usually feel wonder. We can, too.

It’s the end of the year and time for many around the globe to celebrate joyous occasions. In January, I wrote a short piece called Slainte! Health to You!!, on a historic celebration in the UK, that does a little comparison of cynicism and wonder during the holidays. Wonder is not a fantasy. It can be destroyed, certainly. However, a sense of it can be restored.

Brain Candy Live! gave examples of the incredible beauty in our world. Reality can inspire wonder if we have the eyes, hearts and minds to see it.

Best wishes to you- may you experience a sense of wonder this festive season and beyond!

Inspired? My book, Dear Teachers, offers inspirational photos and thought-provoking essays for anyone in education- with space to record your own thoughts, too! Order now for yourself or someone you love.