“Da Island Guy”
Sounding Off Social
The holiday line-up is in full swing! Things started to roll out before Thanksgiving with promos for Black Friday. It seems we’ve already shattered shopping records with more cash registers left to ring. Online sales continue to skyrocket as folks do more clicks than trips to the mall. Even in sports the line-up is set with twelve teams named for the new College Football Playoff (CFP) series. And of course, holiday lights are twinkling everywhere.
Meanwhile, others are gearing-up for a changing of the guard in Washington. With the final count of election results being just about done, some wanna regroup. As with sports, it helps to ‘review the film’ to see what led to the loss at the party level. But another way to understanding the ‘L’ is in whether we’ve lost or way as a nation. For starters, we get to see the full picture by comparing America over the past 20 years, with the first 20 years of America’s founding and rollout.
Interestingly, the first line in the Constitution is a statement of civics (“We the people in order to form a more perfect Union”). The rest of the Constitution comes with statements of politics. Similarly, the most quoted line at the beginning of the Declaration of Independence is a statement of civics (“We hold these truths…). The 27 grievances listed afterwards help us see how things can get caught up in politics. Maybe it’s not an accident that the motto E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) happened in the first 20 years, when compared to America’s recent journey of ‘election whiplash’ over the last 20 years.
You’ve heard it said that we live life forward but understand it backward. From our ongoing deep dive in American history, the ‘Black to America’ story and #HometownStrong comebacks, we’ve made the following notes that might serve as a wake-up call on the reality of our times, based on the last 20 years of presidential campaigns:
- When politics get put in the driver’s seat, civics get put in the backseat (or even the trunk).
- History and its lessons are often overlooked or dismissed, so unproductive things repeat themselves like a memory-loss patient.
- There’re times when roots & culture get the side-eye from those in politics, biz/admin or pop culture, which can leave regular folks in the dark.
- When people or public officials miss the mark, it takes a ‘We the People’ view to bounce back. When politics is used as a wedge, those folks are working with a ‘We the Privileged’ view.
What you’ll see from looking at the first 20 years is that America has two ideological threads rooted in its political DNA: one based on enlightenment, the other tied to disenfranchisement. Taken a step further (or deeper), America’s journey has followed two threads: “Life Liberty & Happiness; Grievance, Hate and Divisiveness”. Moreover, whatever thread a campaign runs on, that’s likely how it will govern. With a closer look, you’ll discover three aspects in American history that help explain how these threads came to be. So as America tries to explain itself (to itself and the world), these threads shed light on who we say we are (ideals) versus who we show we are (identity).
In the next chapter in America’s story it’s important to connect the dots across history, civics and culture. Why? Well, we’d never allow in school, biz, sports or even family what we let happen in politics/civics. With the former arenas there’s some department that will sanction folks when they step out of line. In public affairs ‘We the People’ are the oversight body by how we vote. But we can’t sanction when we don’t understand the ideological threads of contradictions versus convictions. Like we saw in the first 20 years of America’s existence, it’s gonna take putting civics in the driver’s seat. This way we’ll know when the media finds its legs between reporting vs marketing, informing vs idolizing, and better understand the:
1. Stakes
Our body does hundreds of operations each day to stay alive. We make lots of decisions to keep our lives on track. Not all decisions are high stakes. Some are just run-of-the-mill. Every so often, we get an alert or info that requires a high stakes decision. The first 20 years of America’s existence had high stakes decisions producing our founding documents. The last 20 years of our existence have been on a razor’s edge. We gotta pay attention to social alerts and historical info for better high stakes decision making. We gotta better balance screen time and learn time, not just making decisions as ‘reality entertainment’.
2. Stars
Every industry has stars recognized at various awards. In culture, star-factor shifts and evolves with the times. What we’ve seen throughout history are folks who only want to celebrate others whose light shines white, versus folks who wanna celebrate others whose light shines in a multi-colored, multi-cultural way. In other words, there’re those who see ‘Whiteness as their wokeness, and otherness as your weakness”. The light folks shine on the inside, is the light they project on the outside. A black & white TV projects white light, but a smart TV’s beautiful picture projects colored light. That’s what SAIC brings to the party.
3. Stats
Every sport has its stats where analytics has become its own commodity. But so has happened in politics where lies, disinformation and distrust have become their own commodity that gets sold to the public. But Dr. King wanted us to avoid being sidetracked by bad stats. His hope during the civil rights movement was that it would help our nation achieve a higher destiny of citizenship. It’s not about one side trying to fool the other side or control the other side or turning culture wars into battles that fool the public. It’s about how we fulfill the ideals of America’s spirit and get back our ‘civic mojo’ to make our journeys one.
4. Story
Sometimes elections are like ‘baptism’. We get preached the ‘gospel of the parties’ then are all-in with the policy/programming. However, whether at graduation, a wedding day or baptism, that’s not a one-time thing but a lifetime journey of learning and growing. America, we got to do a better job after elections where it’s not just a one-time thing, but a lifetime journey of being informed, engaged and inspired citizens. After graduation we get to grow in skillset. After the wedding day we get to grow in marriage. After baptism we get to grow in faith. After elections, we gotta grow in the story of perfecting America.
Throughout history ‘We the People’ used civics to become more informed, engaged and empowered around the stakes, stars, stats and story. We’re at that moment where we need to not just be about ‘the show’ but also about ‘the know’. We must remind ourselves of what it means to be a democratic constitutional republic, not just a hodgepodge tribe of citizens. We’ve got to deploy a new world view, with history as a mirror to help us see who we are; civics as a map to see our way around; and culture as a motor to drive our way through to an America we desire and expect in our hearts and homes.
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Tracks: Bob Marley – Wake Up and Live – https://youtu.be/dq-_js08tU0?si=911h24tdDvfUQI6t
John Legend – Wake Up Everybody – https://youtu.be/iJgxJ6JrPkc?si=Rr7Y7mIFeXKzs9zn
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