We rethink the week with Val Endress, professor of political communications, Rhode Island College; Dean Spiliotis, Civic Scholar and Presidential Scholar at Southern New Hampshire University; and Stephen Pimpare, Professor at the University of New Hampshire and a nationally recognized expert on poverty, homelessness, and U.S. social policy.
THE ISSUES ARE INTERTWINED
We have a lively discussion about how the issues we’re facing now are all intertwined: systemic racism; economic inequality; police brutality; a persisting pandemic; the president’s constant lying; political paralysis; growing militarism at home and abroad.
THE UPRISING
We discuss the Black Lives Matter movement; rising awareness about white privilege; rallies and protests led in large part by the younger generation, ally groups of black/brown/indigenous/and white people, LGBTQ and straight, older/ younger/and middle-aged, religious and secular, etc
The overwhelming majority of protesters were peaceful and law-abiding. Opponents of the protesters – usually showing up at different times and locations – consisted of white nationalist groups, agents-provocateur, anarchist (and possibly far-“left”) extremists. The opposition groups and some militarized police were responsible for any violence and damage to property that occurred.
THE MEDIA’S ROLE
We also discuss the media’s inability to cover all that is going on. American media seems to have ADD, flitting from yesterday’s issue to today’s to tomorrow’s without going beyond government press releases and the president’s tweets or some superficial analysis or horse-race coverage. Why are the BBC and Canada’s CBC capable of covering many issues at once, without giving any of them short shrift?
Nor is the media able to contextualize the news, to put events into historical perspective (including looking at possible future repercussions of what people are saying and doing today). Perhaps the American public has devolved to a point where it is incapable – newswise – of walking and chewing gum at the same time. But shouldn’t the media (as well as our educational system) teach folks how to hold a variety of thoughts in their minds simultaneously, to teach us how to think about the relationship among society’s problems and the tools that we all have with which to take back control over our lives and how the government affects them?
WHERE TO, NOW?
Is this a rock the boat moment or a tipping point?
