american culture

Looking for bridges in views about the second Trump administration. I'm currently aware of four views:

• This is the worst thing ever, I'm terrified
• This is the best thing ever, I'm thrilled
• I don't pay attention to politics, so far my life feels exactly the same
• Some of the changes seem pretty cool so far, but we'll see

Where are the middle grounds? I want to know how to build bridges in my personal connections when politics comes up these days.

Disasters as Political Fodder. Recently, a family member asked me if I knew about the LA fires.  I said "yes, it's terrible".  And they said "and they've proven that the fires were started by immigrants."  I burst out laughing derisively and said "yes, if they'd just shoot all the immigrants, everything would be fine."  It was not one of my finer moments, as sarcasm does't invite connection or understanding.  It invites the opposite, actually. 

When the plane and helicopter collided over the Potomac River a couple weeks ago, killing everyone, immediately the news was about the incompetence of air traffic controllers and the increasing treachery of flying brought on by lowering standards and selecting unqualified minorities and women for air traffic controller jobs.  This was without any data, any analysis, that indicated air traffic control was at fault. There was a dumb, affirmative action policy put in place years ago, that was then abandoned years ago.  That's what the news highighted.   

The Left uses disasters as fodder for their purposes as well.  They aren't in controll of the narative right now, so I'm writing about what's here.  Politics are wicked.  I remember that, after the election, I was going to sit back and watch the political theatre unfolding while eating a metaphorical bowl of popcorn.  I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do, as what's happening is distressing, but I can't find any political action that would be effective.  

What I do know is that the investment of our time in people, through Relatefulness and Uptrust, is real, powerful, joyful work for something good and true.  I am resting on that. 

Building bridges and bursting bubbles.

Anytime we address new interlocutors, we engage in a constant recalibration of our common assumptions. And, why deny it: preaching to the choir feels better than talking to a wall. Yet, we don't want to be preachy, at least not admittedly. 
This takes me back to @blake's humility and pride dialectic... My question is:

I'm all in for building bridges and bursting bubbles, and I it's almost a mantra for a lifetime project of mine. But I have to constantly remind myself: who's 'in charge' of designing the bridges? What's the most gentle way to burst someone else's bubble, if we deem it necessary?

An example: this very morning I brought up Gandhi to my 17-18 year old highschool students. No one knew who he was. For a moment I had the urge to find a scream booth somewhere near, but after discarding the possibility, I proceeded to introduce the guy and his works to a new audience.

By now you can see I am assuming you know who Gandhi was, but how can I possibly tell, this is a new audience to all of us! What common grounds are we relying on? Are we aware of them? For instance, most of you are English native speakers, while I'm not, so now I'm sort of bracketing other idiosyncratic and linguistic stuff I carry around, in my attempt to (co)build a bridge with you... Or burst a bubble in an almost gentle way...

I sincerely hope you are looking up and/or not looking up Gandhi on Wikipedia right now (yes, both at the same time, mixed feeling or what have you...) Let me know what you think and feel (which can't be separated) about this...#DeepTakes

Significance of Kendrick Lamar's Superbowl performance. Here's what I've learned so far, would love to hear everything others find!

The Drake Stuff

• As the lights in the audience at the end said, this is Kendrick's "Game Over" in his ever-increasing beef with Drake. They teased the song "Not Like Us," in which Kendrik calls Drake a pedophile, nodding to the immense talk over whether he would perform the song there. When they did do that song, they added insult to injury by panning the camera over a cameo of Drake's ex, Serena Williams, dancing.

Black Culture

• Every human in the entire halftime show was black, including the prime old-school representative of the USA, Uncle Sam, portrayed by Samuel Jackson.
• When the dancers were in the american flag formation made only of men, there was a potent dance move of them all simultaneously did the Black Power fist.
• One youtuber referenced the significance of the colors, when Kendrick was wearing mostly blue and the only other color on stage was dancers wearing red, that it was a powerful reference to last year's "Pop Out" concert in LA which was a groundbreaking moment in music creating unity because the stage was filled with members of both the Bloods and the Crips, two gangs that have had decades of violence between them, going so far as to gather for a group photo at the end of the concert. During the photo, Kendrick said "This is unity at its finest... this shit makes me prouder than a motherfucker..."
• The choreography was jam packed with black culture, all the way to one of the most successful tennis players in history Crip Walking.
• Black culture is also celebrated with the souped up Grand National car, streetlights, and clothing styles.

Things I want to know more about:

• There had to have been a lot of commentaries on America with how blatant that theme was. I'd love to learn what all people find, beyond what I've heard about the boldness of doing that while Trump was also there.
• Symbolism, including the colors and all other things I missed.
• Significance throughout the lyrics and phrases that were added in during transitions, etc.