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Still Pondering Black History Month, 2022
(A White Guy’s Reflections)

A blizzard of thoughts and feelings accompanied this year’s Black History Month – before, during, and ever since. I’ve long had a love/hate relationship with Black History Month, anyway.

What I Love

I love learning of special people I’ve never heard of before and their remarkable ideas, exploits, and inventions.

I love having new heroes from hearing their stories of overcoming immense obstacles of hardship and hate.

In late January, a friend delightedly said he had seen John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and an album by Sam Cooke on display in a Target store. It was, of course, for Black History Month. I love seeing overdue celebration for the deserving, with the chance it brings of enriching more lives.

Far more invitations to speak about the music I have studied and particularly love, Jazz and Blues, have come my way in February over the years. Giving this great music the presentation it deserves is immensely gratifying.

What I Hate

I hate the fact that I’d never before heard of those special people and their remarkable ideas, exploits, and inventions.

I abhor the hardship and the hate these new-to-me heroes had to overcome. Why they faced obstacles of hardship and hate is even worse.

My one visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland was in mid-2017. I did not begrudge the enormous roomfuls of stuff expected for Elvis, the Beatles, and the Stones. (The huge, comprehensive, albeit temporary, display for John Mellencamp was a bit surprising, though.)

What I dreaded was what I’d find for Chuck Berry. Sure enough, the visitor got to see a guitar or two, a jacket or two, some pics, a nice plaque. Easy to miss was one of the best things in the museum: a piece of paper containing the lyrics to “School Days” in Chuck’s handwriting. Berry’s exhibit was lumped in with similarly underplayed tributes to Bo Diddley, Fats Domino and Little Richard in a section for early contributors.

It was infuriating, especially shortly after Chuck Berry’s death, which should have converted the place into a shrine for the music’s most important founder.  

I hate it when I hear a white person sneer, “When’s it gonna be White History Month?” Admittedly, it does make me chuckle thinking of the time I asked my mother on Mother’s Day, “When is Kids’ Day?” Bet you got the same answer if you asked your parents that question: “EVERY day is Kids’ Day.”

In short, I love Black History Month, and hate that it’s still necessary.

The Bad Stuff

At least as unfortunate as leaving significant contributions by African Americans out of American History is hiding so much awful stuff that has happened to them. The result is a number of Whites who seem not to grasp where we really are, and how we got here. Aggrieved they are, to be hearing about all this race stuff. Articulating this can take any number of forms, but it often goes something like this:

Yeah, slavery was bad, but that ended after the Civil War. Segregation was wrong, too, but we got past all that in the Civil Rights era. My people [Irish, Italian, Polish, etc.] weren’t welcomed here either. They called us names, denied us jobs, made us live in tough neighborhoods. We climbed our way out through determination and hard work.

The first two sentences of this are beyond naïve; indeed, they’re essentially false. Sure, they’ve put racial atrocities behind them. (What systemic racism?) The last three sentences present grotesquely false equivalencies.

Most lessons offered in February for Black History Month are remarkably benign, actually, focusing on neglected good stuff. Grasping an accurate, balanced perspective on the truth, however, requires a dive into some very disturbing history with real-world consequences to this day.

The Really Bad Stuff

I am no historian, much less one who devotes life to digging up every negative thing that’s ever happened to anyone. Something’s been hard not to notice, though, even from a very young age: Many have crazy ideas about other people based on skin color. Along the way, a resolve formed to both (a) appreciate cultural contributions on their merits and (b) face the facts as I found them on the bad stuff. This was for my own good.

When subjected to an aggrieved-white-person harangue, I find myself asking if they’ve ever heard of one or more of the following:

Specific Violent Incidents
Memphis  1866
Clinton, Mississippi  1875
History of Ku Klux Klan
The 1898 Coup/Massacre in Wilmington, NC
East St. Louis Massacre of 1917
The Red Summer of 1919
Tulsa 1921
Lynchings – of thousands, over decades

Discrimination by Operation of Law
[For background] The actual thriving, for a while, of many African-Americans working hard and playing by the rules, when given the chance during early days of Reconstruction
The Black Codes
The presidential election of 1876 and how it was resolved by the so-called Compromise of 1877, effectively ending Reconstruction and issuing in a new era of terror for Blacks
Jim Crow laws, era, and way of life
Redlining
Restrictive covenants
The “crime” of Miscegenation
Mississippi’s ratification of the 13th Amendment – in 1995/2013
Neo-slavery/involuntary servitude/forced labor

How I wish this were an exhaustive list! Unfortunately, it comprises mere shavings off the tip of an ugly iceberg. And these are just ones I know about. Here’s a depressing thought: The atrocities known must be far fewer than all that actually happened. Some attempts at covering up horrific racial crimes undoubtedly succeeded.

What is known is horrific enough. Anyone doubting as much is sincerely welcomed to look into any or all of the above with reputable, documented sources. Read them, and weep. (And, as always, if anything in this post is wrong, PLEASE say how and why in an email to KenBossong@gmail.com.)

Short Summary

At the end of the Civil War, there were some genuine attempts, by the Republican-led federal government, to give former slaves some chance at success. These attempts to meaningfully implement the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are collectively referred to as Reconstruction.

Newly freed Blacks were not the only poor people in America. If there was one thing many white people, especially those doing poorly, could not stand, it was seeing formerly-owned black people doing better. Many were.

Early on, freed people eagerly availed themselves of much that had been denied them as slaves, especially education, beneficial work, and the vote. Some immediately excelled in all lines of endeavor. As individuals found success in business, the arts, law, medicine, sciences, education, and public service, the communities in which they lived similarly began to thrive.

Violent reaction by individuals and groups of Whites began immediately in response to Blacks being elected to office, acquiring land, and starting schools, churches, and businesses.

An incalculably important pivot point in history was the resolution of the bitterly contested presidential election of 1876. The short version of this Faustian bargain is that the Republicans got their candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, sworn in as President. In exchange, they essentially agreed to forego Reconstruction. That included withdrawal of federal troops whose presence had helped keep “freedmen” somewhat free.

Predictably, this provided carte blanche for white supremacists. Both the frequency and severity of racial violence grew apace. Although provocation ranged from negligible to non-existent, the truth is that innocent men, women and children were killed, and whole neighborhoods, even towns, were burned to the ground. Groups like the Klan ran amok. Folks brought snacks, and the kids, to public lynchings.

“Legal” Machinations

More insidious than individual acts of violence, however, was the deliberate, carefully orchestrated discrimination institutionalized within legal structures. This is the (also incomplete) second part of the “Really Bad Stuff” list above. Those who scoff at the notion of systemic racism want no part of this information.

Herein lies an extraordinarily important point often missed for being more subtle than murder and mayhem. Practices like redlining and restrictive covenants – enforced as a matter of law – present a whole other aspect of evil, beyond acts of discrimination and violence. When odious statutes are passed, or such contracts enforced in courts, discrimination becomes official public policy. Cloaking hate in law makes a mockery of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of Due Process and Equal Protection of the laws.

Please don’t miss the last item on that list of bad things, by the way: Neoslavery. Like every other concept in this post, the topic deserves its own book. Luckily there is one: the winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction, Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery By Another Name. No brief summary of this convincingly documented book could do it justice, but here’s a teaser: Human beings were no longer bought and sold; they were leased. By the tens of thousands, for decades.

When coal mines, quarries, factories, railroads, lumber camps, brickyards or farm plantations needed workers, officials would swoop into an area, arrest men over the age of around twelve for charges like vagrancy, and convict them. Sentences always included large, unpayable fines, and the men were taken away to work off their “debts” under unspeakable conditions. It was rigged so that the indentured servitude lasted for years, or until death for many. The scope and the details of the system are mind-boggling.

Bottom line: The Jim Crow era, in the century following the Civil War, was as shameful as slavery. (Slavery was an execrable institution for millennia before America existed; Jim Crow, sadly, was very much American.) Admirers included the worst people on earth; proof abounds that Jim Crow America inspired the Third Reich’s architects of the heinous Final Solution to their “Jewish Problem”. Hitler and his henchmen studied and emulated the implementation of race hatred through US legal mechanisms (compare the Nuremberg Race Laws to criminalizing miscegenation in 30 of the 48 states) after slavery’s official abolition. The patina of legal authority helped keep any foes the Nazis might have had at bay until it was too late.

The Sinister Sequences, or Why Cluelessness Matters

The point here is not that all Caucasians are inherently hateful or bad, of course. Those who are, however, have found demagoguery very lucrative. One reason is that too many of us have no idea about the subject matter of this post.

This really matters. Ignorance sets the stage for fear, the demagogue’s favorite tool. Absent the facts, almost anything or anyone can be cast as The Problem. Then, hate can stroll right in. This is not the “I-hate-Brussels-sprouts” kind of hate; this is blinding, irrational hate that is personal. Who benefits? Only the demagogue. This sinister sequence gravely harms everyone but the demagogue, who finds it irresistible because it works.

Race is the ultimate Us vs. Them (see post of 2/19/19), however. Those people are responsible for all problems – theirs and ours. Luckily, one can spot demagogues by their rhetoric. Lately, they’ve seized upon their two greatest threats to our society: being “woke” and “critical race theory”. They can’t stop saying either one. Whether unprompted or in response to any mention of racial justice, demagogues eagerly knock down their two favorite straw men.

The sequence at work for decades regarding race has been especially sinister. It perpetuates itself: Segregate; denigrate; then stigmatize. Repeat. Specifically, when the stigma is believed widely enough to stick, segregation and the rest simply flow. Marginalization ensues, preventing families from attaining financial or personal security for generations.

Less fancy wording makes clear these are the oldest tricks in the book: Deny certain people decent jobs and call them lazy; deny them education and call them stupid; force them to live crammed together in poverty and complain about their bad neighborhoods. And so forth. It’s OK to let some superstars do well; a certain few spectacularly so. Even for them, there can be a price to pay – the sense that you are the exception being used to prove the racist rule.

Why This Black History Month?

Getting back to the present, why did all these things especially resonate this year when so much of this is nothing new?

Indeed, for years, I’ve wondered whether folks who feel the wrong side won the Civil War, yet piously sing “Amazing Grace” on Sunday morning, have any idea what had made the hymn’s author a “wretch”.

This February’s musings, though, involved fellow Caucasians who know the right side won the Civil War, but seem oblivious to much of what has occurred from then to now.

Thoughts turned to conversations had with white friends and acquaintances.  For example, with the sight of officer Derek Chauvin snuffing out the life of George Floyd (with that smirk on his face, no less) emblazoned in my brain, I recalled people saying how disgusted they were by the images on screen. Not the images of the cold-blooded murder, you understand, but of knuckleheads skipping out of K-marts with televisions and sneakers.

Outraged they were, and frightened by the (overwhelmingly peaceful) protests that erupted in the wake of Floyd’s death – which they seemed to confuse with the looting. My brain juxtaposed these sentiments with an unforgettable brief exchange during coverage of the protests: Reporter: “What do you say to all the people worried about this unrest?” Protester: [incredulous] “Well, white people are doing the worrying, and we black people are doing the dying. What else is new?”

A Brief Aside

Is it necessary to say that, of course, vandalism and theft are not OK and should also be prosecuted? If so, then it’s also worth mentioning this: A much higher percentage of the few who tossed Molotov cocktails under police cars are being brought to justice than all those whose brazen criminal conduct caused the devastating financial carnage of 2008’s Great Recession.

For a nation so sensitive to property damage, it should be a national scandal that precisely one banker received jail time in the US. Then there are the individuals trusted to rate securities who knowingly slapped AAA grades on junk. But, I digress.

Back to Why This Black History Month?

Do a quick word association with the phrase “race riot” and the majority of responses will be Watts in 1965, or Detroit or Newark in 1967. Not a glimmer of recognition is likely to be found of the unrelenting racial terror and violence aimed at Blacks by Whites that preceded (and undoubtedly had a cumulative role in provoking) Watts, Detroit, and Newark.  Or that, to this day, white people are doing the worrying and black people are doing the dying. Cluelessness precludes the context and perspective needed.

That’s nothing new. What seems kind of new in 2022, though, beyond the usual passive acceptance of history’s whitewashing, is a dogged, active, almost desperate pursuit of ignorance. Ignorance is the stated goal, and knowledge is the enemy. Lately, we have the specter of teachers, school board members, librarians, election officials and other public servants fearing for their lives for doing their jobs and speaking plain truth.

It’s bad to not know. It’s worse to not try to know. It’s worse yet to not want to know. This, however, is active, proud, explicit advocacy for ignorance. It’s lying, and wanting to be lied to. Unsurprisingly, the “advocacy” bears little resemblance to rational debate. They can’t prove that facts are false, so they just attack those presenting the facts.

That’s not to say falsehood advocates can’t be clever. It’s strategic genius to cast the fight as being whether parents can have any say over what’s taught in school, for example. Of course, parents have a role in curriculum, but that role can’t be to insist their children be shielded from knowledge. Yet, this was the difference in Virginia’s last race for governor. “Parents’ Rights!” is a much more appealing rally cry than “Keep our Kids Dopey like Us!” or “Teach ‘em the Lies We Need!”

With startling clarity, the last thing these parents want is for their children to be taught the truth in school. Nope, slaves were treated like family. The Civil War was really the War of Northern Aggression. It was fought over states’ rights, you see, not slavery. All these minorities have to do is work hard, but they won’t do it. All this affirmative action crap is unfair. In fact, we’re the victims here. Oh, how I long for a color-blind society!

Calling All Patriots

Here’s one more reflection that ran through this white guy’s brain during and since Black History Month. It was the iconic scene from the movie A Few Good Men. Tom Cruise’s JAG officer, Lt. Kaffee, cross-examining Jack Nicholson’s Col. Jessup, has asked whether he ordered the Code Red.

Jessup: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled to them.
Jessup: You want answers?!
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessup: You can’t handle the truth!

Actually, we can handle the truth; we must. Averting our eyes from the truth does not alter reality; it just hampers our ability to cope with it.

Our choice is not between being ”woke”, or patriotic. It’s between loving America enough to consider all of its history (including the painful parts), in order to unleash all of its incredible potential – or not. Real patriots categorically reject what keeps America from attaining its full promise.  They repudiate the sinister sequence of Ignorance>Fear>Hate.

Ignorance is not bliss; it’s misery. Centuries of needless misery aren’t over just yet. The FBI is hot on the trail of those responsible for a wave of bomb threats at more than one-third of the nation’s 101 historically Black colleges and universities throughout this Black History Month. (And why did America need HBCUs? Oh…) How’d you enjoy those Senate confirmation hearings for soon-to-be Justice Jackson? Black lives mattering is a controversial notion?

This is not a call for white people to wallow in guilt or self-loathing. Rather, the suggestion is actually to mean what we say when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance:
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: One Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Then behave like we mean it. Imagine what we could achieve together if we simply ensured that every American family knew they had a real, reasonable shot at success.

Time To Unshackle Ourselves

America’s true greatness lies in the liberty, justice, and opportunity it offers. (No wonder we have immigration challenges.) Yet, utterly at odds with such lofty core values, there’s been this tragic, senseless interweaving of white supremacy. Why not rid ourselves of the latter by discarding what has never belonged? Could there be a better way to celebrate our 250th birthday on July 4, 2026?

Pipe dream? Maybe not. A quarter-page ad in the real estate section of a recent Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer led with “This Ad Won’t End Discrimination In Real Estate. People Will.” Continuing:
“If recent events have taught us anything, it’s this: we have more work to do. Racism is real, tragically so. Discrimination in all its forms still casts a long shadow in this country, and too many are being denied the opportunities that all Americans deserve.” There follows a description of the group’s code of ethics, and then:
“As the Bucks County [PA] Association of Realtors we believe that fairness is worth fighting for, and we won’t stop until the fight is won.” Then, in bold, there’s an urging that any discrimination be reported to hud.gov/fairhousing. From a segment of an industry once in the middle of restrictive covenants and redlining, it’s a step.

Is a quarter millennium long enough to wait before fulfilling the promise of our American Experiment and its truths, self-evident since 1776? It’s certainly long past time to undo completely the horrendous mistakes flowing from that deal with the Devil in 1877.

Ken Bossong

© 2022 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Integrity

For painfully obvious reasons, Other Aspects has addressed the topic of Dishonesty often and in some depth. Entering the New Year called for a more aspirational theme.

A reader recently brought to my attention the commencement address of legendary physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard P. Feynman to the Cal Tech class of 1974. I am indebted to both the reader and to Feynman (5/11/18 – 2/15/88).

Crazy Ideas

Feynman starts by mentioning “crazy ideas” from the Middle Ages, then describes history’s gradual discovery of a method for separating ideas: to “try one to see if it worked, and if it didn’t work, to eliminate it.  This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age.”

Despite such progress, Feynman notes, they were still awash in crazy ideas, so many in fact that he finds them overwhelming to contemplate. The speech is fun reading for the wacky examples he gives, ranging from quiet little interactions with strangers to then-famous people and schools of thought. When such movements find many adherents and are said to be scientific, however, Feynman feels the need to “look into theories that don’t work, and science that isn’t science.” These he dubs Cargo Cult Science.

Cargo Cult Science

Feynman’s name for junk science came from the behavior of certain people in the South Seas. Having seen airplanes land during the War loaded with desired provisions, they sought to have that happen again. So they build runways, and burn fires along them for illumination, with a man stationed in a hut wearing a wooden contraption resembling headphones. And they wait for airplanes that never land.

“They’re doing everything right,” Feynman explains. “The form is perfect.  It looks exactly the way it looked before.  But it doesn’t work.  No airplanes land.  So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.”

The Utter Honesty of Scientific Integrity

So what’s missing? Well, it’s not something like making the supposed headphones look more realistic. What’s missing is the central point he has for the graduates:

“[T]here is one feature I notice that is generally missing in Cargo Cult Science.  It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards.
For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.”

What’s Required

Feynman elaborates on what scientific integrity, his “utter honesty” requires: “Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.  You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it.  If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it.”

Also, one who decides to test a theory must publish the results “whichever way it comes out.  If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good.  We must publish both kinds of result.” If you do not publish results considered unexpected by yourself, or unfavorable to someone’s commercial interests, “you’re not giving scientific advice.  You’re being used.”

Finally, “In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.” This is our best shot at getting things right.

An example given of how we tend to fool ourselves is how long it took to discover that Millikan had under-measured the charge on an electron. At least for a while, subsequent studies simply dismissed measurements “too much” higher than Millikan’s, while favoring results closer to his.

Takeaways of Lasting Value

Feynman’s advice to these new scientists: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.  So you have to be very careful about that.  After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.”

The responsibility is not only to other scientists, by the way. Indeed this “extra type of integrity”, this “bending over backwards” to point out potential weak spots in one’s own approach, is at least as important elsewhere. One’s scientific expertise is not to be abused to fool others less equipped to fend for themselves.

Not Limited to Science

Notwithstanding any number of lawyer jokes, Law is another field that values, in fact insists upon, this sort of integrity. Following the Rules of Professional Conduct (“RPCs”) requires of lawyers conduct well beyond merely not lying.

Thus, RPC 3.3 not only forbids a lawyer from making a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal, but also from:

  1. Failing to correct a false statement of fact or law the lawyer previously made before grasping the falsity
  2. Failing to disclose legal authority known to be directly adverse to that lawyer’s client’s position, even if, and especially when, not cited by the opposition and
  3. Offering evidence (testimony by witnesses or documents) known by the lawyer to be false.

Points 2 and 3 might surprise those unfamiliar with Legal Ethics, given the lawyer’s near-absolute duty of loyalty to the client. While very few considerations outweigh fealty to the client, the integrity of the judicial process is one of them.

There’s More

So, actually, there’s more. Lawyers must:
a) take “reasonable remedial measures” if their witnesses’ testimony is known to be false or if a person is engaging in fraudulent or criminal conduct in the case and
b) withdraw from representing a client who demands illegal or unethical behavior by the lawyer (RPC 1.16).

Meanwhile, under other Rules, lawyers must not:
a) bring a case unless it has some basis in law and fact that is not frivolous
b) obstruct another party’s access to evidence
c) alter, destroy or conceal potential evidence
d) falsify evidence or assist a witness to testify falsely
e) take frivolous positions in the information-sharing process known as “discovery” or
f) make reference in trial to matters that are either irrelevant or not admissible under the law.

Note that these and many other rules require balancing with a host of duties toward the client. Less than honorable clients often place their lawyers in positions of tremendous stress sorting out the right thing to do in difficult circumstances. Unsurprisingly, practicing lawyers suffer depression and substance abuse at rates well above average.

Attention, Cynics

Can scientists keep both the grant money and some of their integrity? Will lawyers retain their clients while doing just enough to avoid disbarment? No, the point here is not to identify the poorest conduct one can employ and nevertheless continue practicing the profession.

Feynman is clearly correct in pointing out the jeopardy. In cutting ethical corners, indeed in any conduct short of scientific integrity, wrongdoers “are destroying—possibly—the value of the experiments themselves, which is the whole purpose of the thing.”

New Jersey’s landmark legal ethics case, In Re Wilson, gets at similar concerns. In disbarring the lawyer, Chief Justice Wilentz considered clients’ willingness to allow lawyers to handle their money in transactions: “[T]he client permits it because he trusts the lawyer. It is a trust built on centuries of honesty and faithfulness. Sometimes it is reinforced by personal knowledge of a particular lawyer’s integrity or a firm’s reputation. The underlying faith, however, is in the legal profession, the bar as an institution. No other explanation can account for clients’ customary willingness to entrust their funds to relative strangers simply because they are lawyers.”

The fundamental building block of our freedoms and democracy is the rule of law, and resulting trust in the independent system of justice. AND much of the progress we’ve made emerging from the primordial ooze has been owing to the utter honesty of science. In each of these realms, all we cherish collapses and disappears if not for the integrity of the practitioners and the processes.

It’s hard not to notice that those who peddle lies for fun and enormous profit despise and fear both real science and the courts. Nothing new, there.

This is no anti-theism rant, by the way. The Eighth Commandment came down on the tablet for a reason. The God to whom I pray in my better moments is pleased when we stumble into shards of comprehension about His creation, and very displeased when phonies foment ignorance, idiocy, and harm in His name.

These Days

If Feynman thought his times, or even the Middle Ages, were fraught with crazy ideas, he should have seen the last several years. Would we have some cults for him! At least people back then had the excuse that they were living in the Middle Ages, even if they had no way of realizing it. What excuse have we?

Well, for one thing, it is no less tempting than ever to fool ourselves. We want, need, to be proven right. When the evidence is to the contrary, there must be something wrong with the evidence. It can’t be we, or our beliefs, that are wrong.

Still. One would expect thinking persons to be not only resistant to, but offended by and furious with, attempts to fool them. Yet, the contrary seems more like what’s happening with astonishing numbers of fellow citizens. They want, sometimes desperately, to be fooled in ways that bring them comfort.

For them, sustaining and promoting error is preferable to “losing” an argument. This is so even where the error does terrible damage. No amount of harm can outweigh the unbearable shame of admitting one was simply wrong about something. I must win; you must lose. My numbers cannot suffer.

Individual Resolve – Shared Benefit

As a people, we’ve been doing the Limbo (“How LOW can you GO?!” See post of 1/25/19) far too long. The result is real, substantial harm. Can we do the hard work of raising the bar back up from near the ground, where the current crazy ideas have placed it?

Poking through various choices to be among this New Year’s resolutions, we could do a lot worse, and could scarcely do better, than this:

Double down on integrity – the kind Feynman was addressing years ago: utter honesty, that bending over backwards – in living our lives. Resist the ever-present temptation to fool ourselves, or to submit to being fooled.

Stopping the outright lying in its tracks is a start; it’s necessary, but not enough. What Feynman championed to young scientists – full disclosure, candid consideration of ideas on the merits, relentless pursuit of truth and discernment – that’s the ticket. Consider again his sentence: “After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists.” He means avoiding the inadvertent misleading of others. It assumes no intent to deceive. This is a world-view, a way of life.

We’ll find that just as dishonesty’s harm begins with the self and always spreads, so does integrity ennoble first from within.

There will always be crazy ideas available, and no one easier to fool than ourselves with lazy or corrupt acceptance of self-serving falsehoods. What we demand of ourselves – and then of each other – determines who we are and what we become.

Happy New Year.

Ken Bossong

© 2022 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Why And When

[ A good friend recently reminded me that I had written this almost exactly twenty years ago, in October, 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11. Given the thoughts and emotions evoked upon re-reading, it seemed worthwhile to reprint here, unchanged.]

Why did it take this to bring us together?

Why did it take this to have us care about strangers;
– see value in all human life;
– proudly proclaim what we believe;
– publicly renounce evil;
– pray?

Recall that African American woman we wept with at a prayer service;
– that Italian teenager and Asian man at the donation center;
– that elderly Hispanic during a moment of silence;
– that Irish girl with the poster of her missing father;
– that Jew, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Hindu, Presbyterian, Buddhist, Lutheran, and, yes, Muslim we hugged at the interfaith gathering.

Not one of them was any less our brother or sister before September 11 than now.

Why did it take this to bring us together?

Who knows? Who cares?

It just did.

The real question is when.

When – two weeks, two months, two years from now –
do we go back to being self-centered, bigoted, short sighted, disdainful,
and too busy to care, to help, and to pray?

Here’s an idea:
Let’s not.

Ken Bossong

© 2001 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Personal Choice

When asked why they have not been vaccinated against COVID, many people, in all walks of life, from the famous to the person in the street, have been answering “It’s a personal choice.”

The notion that this explains anything is peculiar, to put it nicely.

No Kidding

Everything we do, or don’t do, results from a personal choice.

The choices we make in big decisions and small define who we are and determine the impact we have on all around us. The accumulation of countless personal choices forms the society we become.

Judgment

One implicit argument in the “personal choice” explanation is that a course of action being my choice somehow precludes others from assessing or evaluating my conduct.

Well, no. Given human nature, actually, we can’t help it. We observe, we consider, we judge. If I am such a tough guy that I refuse to wear a seat belt in a car, you are free to consider me foolish.

Not only do we judge our own behavior and each other’s, we should. It’s the only way to learn and to improve. To the extent human beings are at the top of the order of things on the planet, it is largely due to our abilities to observe, to discern what matters, to analyze, to solve problems, and to communicate.

The benefit  of judging depends on doing so properly, however. The judging of others that deserves condemnation is the kind that is flawed in numerous ways: invalid assumptions, baseless “facts”, flawed reasoning, missing context. Among the worst assumptions, of course, is not judging at all, but pre-judging: prejudice based on any of the various, odious “isms”. Our insatiable need for Us vs. Them (post of 2/19/19) so often leads us astray.

There’s another big mistake that gives judging a bad name. Attempting to judge a person’s worth, which is incalculable, is simply beyond us. Contrast that with sound judgment of a person’s behavior (including our own), which is advantageous, and sometimes necessary.

Consequences

Similarly, those invoking “personal choice” as a defense of their behavior are seeking refuge from the consequences of choices they’ve made.

Anyone choosing to sky dive without a parachute has made a disastrous personal decision; once outside the plane, the laws of physics determine the consequences.

Stop signs and red lights are impingements on our freedom. Running them is a personal choice. The consequences of doing so are too often tragic. Trying to prevent those tragedies by enforcing stop signs and red lights is a public policy choice.

Whether to order chocolate, vanilla or mocha chip ice cream is a personal choice with consequences that are benign and limited to the person doing the choosing.

Those refusing to be vaccinated (a) put themselves at much greater risk of catching COVID; (b) make severe illness, hospitalization and even death much more likely if they do catch it; (c) put everyone they contact, from strangers to loved ones, at greater risk; and (d) do their part to keep the virus going, and make the desired herd immunity ever more elusive.

As bad choices go, better someone run a red light than refuse the vaccine. Sky diving without a parachute is worse than skipping the vaccine – at least for them, maybe not so much for the rest of us.

As hospital beds and critical care units fill yet again, this time with obviously preventable cases, exhausted health care workers are beside themselves with the most justifiable fury imaginable. Here we go again, and for what? How many patients must they see suffer and die, victims of a supposed hoax? When we finally get out of this, our next health crisis will be PTSD for our health care workers.

Talk about “unfair”.

“Freedom” Only to the Misguided

If vaccine hostility seems reminiscent of people refusing to socially distance themselves or wear face coverings as resisting infringement of personal freedoms, that’s because it is.

So, let me get this straight: The signers of the Declaration of Independence mostly died young so you could have the freedom to deliberately spread a pandemic? You have a Constitutional right to keep a deadly virus going while it develops variants – perhaps one day, a strain for which we have no answer and no defense whatever? Note that former CDC Director Robert Redfield is predicting a worse variant by the fall.

So, yeah, we can do it; we can exercise our freedoms to make things even worse. Too many are. But why?

The Delta is more than bad enough, by the way. Critically ill unvaccinated adults are joined in this new wave of patients by children, lots of them, who have no vaccine to take yet and are getting very sick. Not only is Delta the most contagious virus in memory; it picks on our kids. It’s also producing more severe illness than prior variants.

Leave it to freedom-loving legislators and governors like those in Florida, to pass and sign statutes telling cruise companies that they may not conduct their business in a way that protects their customers. No word on whether sky-dive operators are allowed to require parachutes in Florida. US District Court Judge Kathleen Williams recently issued a preliminary ruling allowing Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings to enforce vaccination requirements when they resume port operations in Miami on August 15.

A Special Case of Hesitance

There is a particular source of vaccine hesitance worth mentioning. Black Americans harkening back to awful healthcare betrayals in the past – the most infamous being the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis – may well have lingering mistrust of any initiative in the realm of health.

At this point – with hundreds of millions successfully protected and virtually everyone in ICU unvaccinated – one can only hope sufficient evidence is in. It’s neither the federal government nor the doctors or health officials doing all the current lying. They’re busy trying to save lives. This post mourns people quoting the current lies with their dying breaths. There’s no need to be among them.

A Moment of Clarity

We can and should have robust discussions, including disagreements, about which personal choices are good ones and bad, and what public policy to adopt in response to various behaviors.

Amid current debate on what should be mandated for our own good, however, certain facts are clear:

This is the deadliest pandemic in a century. It spreads by people breathing on each other.

The outrage here is that we seemingly do need government officials to tell us to keep a safe distance, wear a face covering, and take the vaccine. Why? How is that possible? It should be insulting to our intelligence that they even have to mention such measures. Doing them should be a given for nearly everyone. Yet leaders who “get it” must beg, plead, and bribe, often to no avail? What the hell is wrong with us?

A good friend (who happens to be a staunch conservative) told me a disheartening story about a friend of his. This fellow flatly refused to wear a mask when he learned its main purpose was to protect others, rather than himself. “I don’t care about others,” he said matter-of-factly.

It was a stunning revelation from someone my friend thought he knew fairly well. This man had manifested symptoms of the one ailment ravaging us that is more dangerous than the coronavirus. His self-diagnosis was spot-on.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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March 11, and Since (We Abide)

Emerging With Perspective and Resolve

Reflection seems a natural reaction to the process of emerging, however fitfully, from the pandemic. Two areas of reflection persist because they produce sheer wonder – the appalling and the cherished. The first shouldn’t matter, but unfortunately does; the second is what matters most, but can be elusive.

I thought closing the country was a bit of an over-reaction to my 68th birthday. It is fair to say, though, that no one will ever forget my 69th year. I certainly won’t.

Yes, the country shut down on March 11, 2020. That’s the date the NBA halted operations – in at least one instance, in the middle of a game. When billionaire owners tell millionaire employees (players) to stop generating income, the response is “Whoa! This has to be serious.” In that sense, the NBA did us all a favor.

What a Year!

As crazy as the last few years leading up to my 68th birthday were, I still did not foresee some of what I saw, heard, and experienced between then and my 69th this past March 11. Among the dozens of things I may never get over are these sentiments, in no particular order, some COVID-related and some not, whether actually articulated or inherent in behavior:

COVID-19 is just another flu, if it exists at all.

I don’t care what anyone says; I’m going to do whatever I want, however I want, whenever I want. The whole thing is a hoax and an excuse to take away our freedoms. I won’t keep my distance and it’s un-American to wear a mask.

Hang Mike Pence!

[At times when infection rates and deaths were down] Distancing, delaying large gatherings, and mask wearing seem to be working. Let’s stop doing them.

The election was stolen.

COVID doesn’t worry me at all – but the vaccine, now that scares the hell out of me.

Black lives matter?! How dare you!

The “Chinese virus”, etc.

Wait. What?

Let’s pause for a moment on that last one. Isn’t “Kung flu” just a lame attempt at humor? Wish it were so, but the problem is where racist tropes inevitably lead. (And, by the way, we all know where they lead. As is well documented, it’s nothing new.) Consider: Because COVID 19 is believed (but not definitively known, mind you) to have originated in Wuhan, China, neighbors of Asian descent – any Asian descent – deserve to be not just vilified but physically attacked, even murdered? Yeah, it’s a shame people just can’t take a joke when they’re pummeled senseless, or bleeding out in the street or the ER.

Meanwhile, for all the attackers know, the attackees’ families have been making positive contributions to America far longer than their own families have even been here.

The big picture is a seemingly insatiable need for Us vs. Them (see post of 2/19/19). Any excuse to divide people will do. But no divider works as well as race.

When the UK variant was established as the most contagious and the most deadly strain, did random, vicious attacks start on people of Anglo descent? (“Are you Geoffrey Smythe?” “Yes I am. Why?” POW!)

Then There’s the Scope and Scale of It All

It’s bad enough to contemplate the sheer idiocy of what some believe. I’ve always consoled myself with the thought that the truly crazy, or genuinely evil, stuff is confined to relatively small lunatic fringes. The worst part of my 69th year – what I really can’t get over – is the dawning realization that I’ve been deluding myself.

The stunning, undeniable truth is that various groupings of millions of people believe all of the above, and more. No matter how far-fetched the story, how despicable the lie, or how obvious the falsehood, millions are willing, indeed eager, to embrace it.

The tossing aside of common sense, basic principles and core values this readily and on this scale reveals something ugly and leaves us in dangerous territory. It’s not a majority of us, but it is well beyond satirically amusing. What are people lacking in their lives? Do they need a twenty-first century “Il Duce” to tell them what to think and feel? To create, and then “solve” their problems?

Harmful lunacy wasn’t confined to the year between my birthdays, of course. Recently, an Ohio physician testified to the effect that (a) people receiving vaccine shots have been “magnetized”; (b) “there is some sort of interface…between what’s being injected and all of the 5G towers”; and (c) the vaccines have caused thousands of deaths. Rather than suggesting the doctor get the help she needs and apologizing for the hearing, an Ohio state representative gushingly thanked this Dr. Tenpenny for such expert testimony before the Ohio House Health Committee.

And Yet, Even Amid Infuriating Insanity…

I abide. We abide, as does the precious legacy of everyone we’ve lost. And we have all lost people who matter a lot. (It hasn’t all been COVID, of course. The pandemic did not supplant the normal hazards and perils of life; it piled on. Heart disease, cancer, mental illness, and accidents did not get the memo that only coronavirus could take our loved ones.)

Amid the heartbreak and pain of loss, it dawns on us: the more the person lost meant to us, the more we miss them – and the luckier we were to have had them in the first place. This is one of the inevitable, inescapable ironies of life. It may not be that the good always die young, but they do always die too young.

Perspective

A card from a good friend this year included a reprint of “For Your Birthday” by John O’Donohue. While recommended in its entirety, these lines particularly resonate:

Praised be your father and mother,
Who loved you before you were,
And trusted to call you here
With no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you
Into becoming who you were meant to be,
Blessed be those who have crossed your life
With dark gifts of hurt and loss
That have helped to school your mind
In the art of disappointment.

When desolation surrounded you,
Blessed be those who looked for you
And found you, their kind hands
Urgent to open a blue window
In the grey wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice…

Consider how we love a great view. It’s as humbling as it is thrilling to gaze out upon an ocean, the Grand Canyon, a snow-capped mountain, or a shimmering lake. Awe at such beauty, the forces of nature, and the scope of it all provides the gift of perspective. We are but a speck in the world; our earth a speck in the galaxy; and our galaxy a speck in the universe. Inflated self-importance quickly fades in that context.

Then consider: Empathy, selflessness, courage, understanding, relentless effort despite adversity, a kind word or gesture – to experience these is to have one’s breath taken away as surely as by the most spectacular view. These too provide perspective – of our true significance. To care, to serve, to cherish, to love and be loved: this is to matter, to be truly human.

In this crazy year-plus, the goodness within us also surged to the surface in countless examples large and small.

Happy Birthday, Baby

Yes, we abide, but we’ve been pounded with constant reminders of our frailty and mortality. The impossible-to-comprehend number of atoms that comprise our body, along with whatever the “stuff” that forms our mind, character, conscience and soul, remain magically intertwined. It’s hard not to notice, though, that a fair amount of the hodge-podge called me doesn’t work quite as efficiently or crisply as it once did. A quick, mundane story illustrates.

Not long ago I was shooting baskets on an outdoor neighborhood court I hadn’t used before. Apparently someone had installed new nets that were still tight. After a shot actually went in, the ball got caught in the bottom of the net. Unbelievably, two or three jumps to retrieve the ball were unsuccessful. Understand that the ball was caught not between the rim and the backboard, but in the bottom of the net. Ruefully recalling a time when I could grab the rim any time I pleased, I fetched a stick. I’d love to tell you it was a short stick.

Looking Back, Assessing, Resolving, Pursuing

On March 14, 2020, three days after the country shut down on my 68th birthday, I published the post “Opening Up While Shutting Down”. So, did I take my own advice and use the time afforded by the shut down for introspection and self-improvement? Well, [clearing my throat] – let’s call it a mixed bag.

One of my frustrating quirks/faults is inefficiency with time, ironically enough. I underestimate the time required to do things, I lavish time on items unworthy of the attention, and so forth. (This is where anyone knowing me gets to smirk at the understatement employed here.) I am too slow doing things, like publishing posts.

Thinking about wonderful people gone too young and too soon, though, it’s finally occurring to me: I have a hell of a nerve. As one blessed to still be here and capable of doing some good, I owe it to them and to myself to do the best I can with what I can control, in whatever time is allotted me. We’ll see how that goes.

One of my favorite law professors, David J. K. Granfield, O.S.B., liked to say that every person has a dignity and a destiny. His point was that the Rule of Law, wisely used, both recognizes such dignity and fosters each person’s quest to fulfill their destiny. His wisdom applies to not just how we govern ourselves, but how we live.

Yes there are lies to confront, but while we’re at it, there are truth and beauty to embrace. The trick is not merely to survive the year in question. The trick’s in remaining truly alive. Genuine thriving is in the striving, even after mistakes. Especially after mistakes, lapses and failings.

If I have any sense at all, I will take none of the good for granted, seek chances to contribute, and resist temptations to do harm. Love and be grateful to be loved – by all I’ve been blessed to have and to have known in my life.

Oh, and revel in the pleasure of shooting baskets, rather than bemoan the missing vertical leap.

We matter, alright; every one of us, all the time. What we believe, what we think, what we say, what we do.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Reflections on a JAM – and the Jam We’re In

Art tends to both reflect and affect the cultural milieu in which it’s created. That seems especially so in the case of Jazz music.

April is designated Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM). Reflecting on that during this April revealed few aspects of Jazz history more worthy of appreciation than its significant role in Civil Rights. This is in homage to just a few of the most notable highlights – out of countless works worthy of mention.

Billie Holiday – “Strange Fruit”

It has been argued that the recording on April 30, 1939 and subsequent release of this song was the first act of America’s Civil Rights movement. Indeed, an entire book was written to make the point – Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Biography of a Song by David Margolick. (Echo Press, 2001. It is also found as Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Running Press, 2000.)

The details vary with who’s telling the story, but one account of the song’s creation is that the incomparable Lady Day was accompanied by Frankie Newton’s band at Café Society in Greenwich Village when a fan approached her with a poem he had written excoriating lynchings. The song is credited to a “Lewis Allan”; his real name was Abel Meeropol, an English teacher from the Bronx. Holiday and Newton’s pianist, Sonny White, worked out a melody and the rest is history.

It’s better, though, to read the book. It presents as more likely that Meeropol created the melody as well, and had it performed publicly a few times before it found its way to Billie. Sonny White did create the recording’s piano intro. Milt Gabler’s Commodore recorded the song when Columbia found it too hot to handle.

If you have ever heard Billie Holiday’s original rendition, you’ve likely never forgotten it. If you haven’t, as with any piece mentioned here, you owe it to yourself. She uses understatement (soft, even tones and precise diction) for one of the most effective presentations of smoldering rage ever captured. One can only imagine experiencing it live. Most accounts speak of stunned, total silence following the song’s harrowing conclusion – giving way eventually to a groundswell of applause.  It was Time Magazine’s Song of the Century.

Yusef Lateef – “Juba Juba”

The album The Blue Yusef Lateef (Atlantic 1508) contains this striking piece that manages to capture a vast swath of American music in 4:20. Based on the field holler/work song format and inspired by a prison song, the performance features wailing blues harmonica and Lateef’s masterful jazz flute. Cissy Houston’s Sweet Inspirations frame the proceedings with a gorgeous spiritual-infused vocal background. The only actual word they sing is “freedom”.

Lateef’s liner notes dedicate the piece to nineteenth-century dancer William Henry Lane, known as Juba. The art of Pattin’ Juba (also called Hambone) involved clapping hands or slapping them on thighs, knees, or ribs for complex rhythmic patterns to accompany dance. Juba was an ingenious African-American form utilizing the human body as percussive instrument.

For the listener, though, the piece needs no explanation.

Duke Ellington – “Come Sunday”

The centerpiece of Ellington’s momentous suite Black, Brown and Beige is this beloved hymn-like ballad that was the forerunner to Duke’s celebrated “sacred concerts”. Apart from rehearsal performance, the premiere was in Carnegie Hall on January 23, 1943. While words weren’t necessary to convey the meaning, Duke added lyrics later. The refrain: “Ooh Lord, dear Lord above/ God almighty, God of love/ Please look down, and see my people through.”  

The February 1958 version featuring Mahalia Jackson on Columbia (CK65566) is especially recommended.

Nina Simone – “Mississippi Goddam”

For the gifted, classically-trained pianist Eunice Kathleen Waymon, a career as a concert pianist was foreclosed before having a chance to commence. (Need we say why?) This gave the world the one-and-only singer/pianist Nina Simone. Any number of her recordings could be mentioned here, of course, but no such list would be complete without “Mississippi Goddam”. (The song’s title is usually spelled without the “n”.)

Simone recorded it often and was incapable of a poor performance. A special treat is available, however: you can watch her perform it live in Holland in 1965 on her Jazz Icons DVD. Whatever version is available, though, the most striking aspect is one of contrast.

If one were to listen casually, paying no attention to the lyrics, the impression would be of an irresistibly jaunty, even catchy, pop tune. Just reading the lyrics, however, leaves the unmistakable impression of exasperated fury. Paying attention to the integrated performance rewards the careful listener with the compelling experience of art.

Charles Mingus – “Fables of Faubus” and “Meditations on Integration”

Composer, arranger and bassist extraordinaire, Mingus is another artist for whom many brilliant works could be cited. Let’s do two.

The trauma surrounding the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957 inspired “Fables of Faubus”. It is available as an instrumental, as on the Columbia album Mingus, Ah, Um. The version you definitely want to hear, however, is from 1960 on Barnaby Candid Series Z 30561, Charles Mingus Presents the Charles Mingus Quartet. Here you get the benefit of the “vocals” between Mingus and drummer Danny Richmond as they heap invective on Arkansas governor Orval Faubus and other deserving targets. Eric Dolphy’s scathing alto sax puts finishing touches on a classic satirical put-down.

It is said Mingus considered the band he took on tour to Europe in 1964 his greatest ever. You’ll get no argument here. Even considering the formidable competition other groups present, Eric Dolphy (as, bc, and f), Clifford Jordan (ts), Jaki Byard (p), and the ever-present Dannie Richmond (d) created astounding fireworks with Mingus’s bass, apparently every night. (Johnny Coles (t) was sidelined by illness not long into the tour.) Luckily, this group was both recorded (Prestige 34001) and filmed (Jazz Icons DVD).

From this tour emerged one of Mingus’s masterpieces, the complex and beautiful “Meditations on Integration”. The DVD has three different versions. With improvisers of this caliber, each version has much to commend it. The tour-de-force recorded in Belgium, however, is astounding. Dolphy is at his incomparable best on both bass clarinet and flute; Byard takes us on a tour of 20th Century piano form Harlem stride to swing to bebop and beyond; and Jordan does some serious testifying on tenor. The band is telepathic in response to each other’s inventions; seeing creativity on this level with such skill and passion is a thrill.

John Coltrane – “Alabama” (Live at Birdland and Jazz Casual)

Musicians and fans alike eagerly awaited each recording of Coltrane’s Classic Quartet (McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, Elvin Jones); Live At Birdland (Impulse A-50) was no different. The incendiary “Afro-Blue” was thrilling, but the haunting “Alabama” was the perfect example of no-lyrics-necessary.

One of the most heinous acts of the 1960s was the bombing by Klan cowards of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on September 15, 1963. Set to maximize harm on a Sunday morning, the bomb injured many and killed four little girls – Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley.

Even on first listening, there can be no doubt what “Alabama” is, and what it means.

Luckily, this too has a version to be viewed. On December 7, 1963, ‘Trane’s Quartet appeared on Jazz critic Ralph Gleason’s TV show, Jazz Casual. The DVD features “Afro-Blue”, “Alabama”, and “Impressions”.

Max Roach – “The Dream/It’s Time”, “Mendacity”; and We Insist! Freedom Now Suite (entire album)

Chattahoochee Red (Columbia FC 37376) is not one of master drummer Max Roach’s most famous albums, but it features the two-part “The Dream/It’s Time”. The piece opens with an amazing duet of sorts: Max drumming accompaniment to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It then morphs into “It’s Time”, the title track from a marvelous Roach record on Impulse (A-16).

Another Impulse album (A-8), and one of his best, Percussion Bitter Sweet, gives us Max’s celebrated tribute to Marcus Garvey, “Garvey’s Ghost” and “Mendacity”, a send-up of the dishonesty that is inevitably built into systemic racism. Each cut highlights the remarkable vocalist Abbey Lincoln, who had rejected record producers’ attempts to rely on her physical beauty to sell comfortably popular music.

Then there is We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, originally recorded on Candid in 1960 and re-released by Columbia (JC 36390) twenty years later. Abbey Lincoln is featured throughout an album that took all-in commitment from the leader and each musician to achieve.

Start with “Driva’ Man” as it invokes history’s harsh realities, then the elegant and hopeful “Freedom Day”, before proceeding (if you dare) to “Tryptich: Prayer/Protest/Peace”. On the latter’s challenging journey, Lincoln’s wordless vocals pair with Roach’s drums. How challenging is it? The middle section is the primal scream of these works; it’s hard to imagine Abbey did not harm her vocal chords conveying such rage. She is back to chant the names of African tribes in “All Africa”, which transitions into “Tears for Johannesburg”, and the close.

Conclusion: What a JAM!

About a century after passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, it took real courage in addition to unmatched skill to record the works mentioned here. Such music (and much else like it) clearly made inroads. Thus the unforgivable Jim Crow era was interrupted by occasional, sporadic events encompassing or resembling progress, like Brown v. Board of Education, and passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

I have marked anniversaries of the Supreme Court decision in Brown with presentations that use these and other musical triumphs. The presentation is called “With All Deliberate Speed”, which was how the Court directed that Brown be implemented in the 1955 follow-up case Brown II. Since there is still de facto segregation in many areas’ schools, despite some progress, we can see how that’s gone. It’s been deliberate, alright.

Yet, another half century has passed and we are relieved (!) that a murder committed in plain view, and recorded for all to see, actually results in a conviction. A political party loses the Presidency and the Senate, and concludes the lesson to be learned is not the need to earn back the voters’ trust and support, but the need to suppress votes.

We’ve been in a major “jam” of our own making for decades, indeed for centuries. It is the sheer, destructive insanity of racism.

Jazz Appreciation Month 2021 provided a perfect opportunity to reflect on all this. I kept coming back to perhaps my favorite song of all from this period, “Retribution “, from one of Abbey Lincoln’s two greatest albums as a leader, Straight Ahead. (The title track is almost as good, by the way: “Straight ahead, the road keeps winding…”)

Nothing replaces hearing it, of course – “Give me…NOTHING” – but Abbey’s “Retribution” lyrics perfectly capture the proper perspective:

Never was a child
Living life since I was ten
Heard every story told
Been everywhere but in
And I ain’t disillusioned
Always knew confusion’s story

Don’t want no silver spoon
Ain’t asking for the moon
Give me nothing
Don’t want no favors done
Just let the retribution
Match the contribution, baby

No street that’s paved with gold
Don’t need no hand to hold
Hand me nothing
Don’t want no sad song sung
Just let the retribution
Match the contribution, baby

Suggesting “It’s Time!” branded Max Roach a daring radical in 1962. In truth, it was ridiculously, appallingly past time even then – and that was 59 years ago.

For God’s sake.

Ken Bossong

© 2021 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Post Scripts #3: Of False Dichotomies, the Police, Whose Lives Matter – and a Correction

Thanks to contributions by readers (greatly appreciated), this post became a Post Scripts. That is, comments to Other Aspects spur revisits or supplementation of past posts.

I. “Good News About Lawyers: Client Protection Funds” (April 21, 2020)

With reference to this post – and after the killing of George Floyd – a reader wrote:

How about a policeman’s fund for innocent victims of police violence, paid out of dues or if necessary the police pension fund?

The reader was taking me up on my suggestion that professions besides law also consider creating remedies to protect victims of their bad actors. This got me thinking not only about that intriguing specific suggestion but also a much broader aspect: false dichotomies created in confronting wrongdoing. The amount of time and effort we waste fighting over foolish fallacies boggles the mind.

A. The Specific Suggestion: A Police Misconduct Fund?

It is intriguing. Any opportunity to right a wrong has appeal. While not saying it couldn’t be done, there are reasons a fund for victims of police misconduct would be more difficult to do well than a lawyers’ fund for client protection. Among them:

Relief anticipated from a fund: Lawyers’ funds replace clients’ money taken by a dishonest lawyer. The amount is usually clear. For police, would it be money damages? Who would decide and how would they arrive at a figure?

Threshold jurisdiction: A lawyer must be suspended, disbarred, or convicted of a crime for most funds to have jurisdiction. Requiring the equivalent for police officers would preclude many potential claims, including valid ones. This is one of the main reasons for protest, and what most needs to be fixed.

Contributory behavior: Where a lawyer steals, the client’s conduct seldom gives pause. While the victim’s innocence will be equally clear in some police tragedies, many cases will have difficult, contentious issues regarding facts and fault. The kind of fact finding done in litigation, including cross-examination, seems better equipped to deal with such issues than more informal claims.

The need for a fund: Civil suits against broke, disbarred lawyers are throwing good money after bad; without the fund, no remedy exists for victims. Not so against police departments.

In sum: where they exist, the problems with police misconduct – the need for prevention, accountability and consequences – require fixing before you even get to damages for victims. While state and federal law may need tweaking, civil remedies exist, if you can get to them. In both law and law enforcement, prevention of misconduct must be of paramount concern. Failing that, accountability must reign.

B. The Broader Issue – the Trap of False Dichotomies – When Members of Good Professions Go Bad

When either lawyers or cops go bad, the good ones must decide how to react. In both professions, generally, the good ones vastly outnumber the bad and abhor their serious misconduct. It doesn’t follow that the repercussions of such misconduct are always appropriate.

Lawyers

All the honest lawyers make the lawyers’ fund possible, but every now and then, there’s a bar leader who doesn’t get it. Invariably, this is a good lawyer who just HATES to admit there are bad lawyers. It would be nice if denial erased misdeeds, but if the denier is, say, a prosecutor disinterested in white collar crime, public outrage is justified.

Police Officers

The stakes are even higher – often life-or-death – in tragic encounters with police. Also different from lawyers is the layer of protection, and spirit of solidarity, afforded officers by unionization. As with any individual in our system, accused cops (and lawyers) are entitled to constitutional protections, like due process and the presumption of innocence. Sometimes, however, despite clear facts that are very bad, crimes are undercharged, aren’t brought at all, or are prosecuted indifferently. It doesn’t help at all when the following message emerges:

“You either support the Police, no matter what, or you don’t support the Police.”

This is a false dichotomy, a common tactic of those arguing a flawed or weak position. According to them, you have only two choices: agree with them or take a position you completely reject.

Beyond just support, one can respect and admire the police, of course, without endorsing rare instances of horrendous acts. Their job is hard, requiring much skill and courage to do well, and very important. That is why accountability is essential. Like lawyers, most cops are good to very good, but there are some really bad actors. Also like lawyers, no one should be more passionate about bringing bad officers to justice than the good ones.

Lumping all officers together and saying you’re either with them or against them in the context of horrendous misconduct is a terrible disservice to those whose dedication, hard work, and scruples make them above reproach. Taking the false dichotomy bait is a mistake for anyone, whether to countenance criminal behavior or to condemn all cops.

Ancient History

Two slogans from the 60s and 70s make clear that these foolish, false dichotomy arguments are nothing new: “America – Love it or leave it!” and “My Country, Right or Wrong!”

“Love it” meant unquestioning acceptance of what current governmental leaders did, it being said by someone who liked what the leaders were doing. Which, if you didn’t like, you had to leave. Expressing a contrary opinion wasn’t an option. Even as a young guy, I rejected this out of hand. Sez who, I gotta leave?

The second saying was clearer about the unfortunate message intended. Either you support a position espoused by your country’s current leaders, even when wrong, or you’re a traitor. But what if an elected official is the traitor? The more that true patriots love their country, the more they want it to be right – and the more they’re willing to do to help their beloved country get it right. The false dichotomies in use now may be slightly more subtle or disguised, but they’re the same old ridiculous attempts at intellectual bullying.

Another Current Example: Response to BLM

The common reply to “Black Lives Matter” never ceases to amaze me. It’s reflexive, almost automatic: “ALL lives matter!” And there’s indignation, at least – often outright anger, even rage.  

I’ve never seen a sign that says “Only Black Lives Matter” or “Black Lives Matter More Than White Lives”. Never. Nor is it implied. The clear meaning is more like “Black Lives Matter, Too” or “Black Lives Matter As Much As Anyone Else’s”.

As a matter of pure, simple logic, of course, it cannot be that All Lives Matter, unless and until Black Lives Matter. After centuries of we Caucasians – not every one of us, but as a group – seldom missing an opportunity to make clear that lives of color matter less, if at all, the response to “Black Lives Matter” is “How dare you!”?

The indignation and anger comes from two pernicious fallacies: (1) Lives mattering is a zero-sum game (see post of 4/2/19); (2) therefore, for Black lives to matter, Blue (or White) lives can’t, or must matter less – as false a dichotomy as there is.

Some people are earnest and sincere in saying “All lives matter.” More importantly, they live like they mean it, the anger and resentment missing. Indeed, for them, the saying BLM is a truism.

After John Lewis passed recently, a nun recalled how he’d been brought to Samaritan Hospital with a broken skull on Bloody Sunday in 1965. Run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, Samaritan was the only hospital in nine counties that would take Black patients. In the 8/7 piece for New England Public Media, Sr. Patricia Byrne closed with this: “All the questions of Selma are with us again. Sisters, much older and fewer, are asking ourselves just how we can be there now.”

That BLM needs to be said at all in 2020 is mortifying. That it is controversial is disgraceful, unfathomable. Has there been any progress? Yes, there has been glacial, begrudging progress. Once we behave as if All Lives really do Matter, though, genuine problem solving can begin. It’s a better use of our time, effort and energy to actually implement the “self evident truths” of 1776 than argue over false dichotomies.

Others

Here are a couple other false dichotomies that have been around a long time:

Sacred music vs. the Devil’s music – “If you love God, you can’t sing secular music.” It’s hardly surprising that some listeners find aspects of popular music off-putting, but strict adherence to this one can be tragic. One of the greatest singers of the Blues (or any genre, really) Chester Burnett, the Howlin’ Wolf, was disowned by his mother for singing the Devil’s music. Wolf didn’t write “Goin’ Down Slow” but he sang it with more conviction than anyone: Please write my mother/Tell her the shape I’m in/Tell her to pray for me/ Forgive me for my sins. (It’s said the Wolf’s mother declined to come to his deathbed.)

Science vs. Religion – This one is a double-header: (1) “Real scientists don’t, or even can’t, believe in God; (2) meanwhile, “if you believe in God, you can’t accept the findings of science.” As to the latter, God doesn’t want us to learn the details of His creation, and live accordingly? Sez who? Why? Regarding (1), science explains everything that matters? So, the beginning was the Big Bang – Nothingness exploded and then there was something: energy, which evolved into matter, and so forth. This is the intellectual explanation – nothingness exploded – but Thomas Aquinas’s God as the Uncaused Cause is foolish superstition? There can’t be a God who chose to utilize the Big Bang? Or evolution, or countless wonders we haven’t discovered yet?

If readers have false dichotomies they’d like to share, please do. There are also false equivalencies that can be equally galling, but that’s a topic for another day.

II. A Correction on “Senate Republicans, I Know What You Did Last Summer” (June 23, 2020)

Speaking of the police, thanks to the reader who wrote:

It was not the “police” (in the sense that we commonly use the term) that cleared Lafayette Square; rather, it was the federal forces over which Trump had authority–the DC National Guard (which he federalized), US Marshal’s Service, National Park Service Police, and several other agency “troops.” The DC police were not involved. Neither were [the] Arlington PD, which had been there in response to a request from DC Mayor Bowser, then abruptly came back home when Trump launched his assault.

Correct, of course. I should have caught my sloppy, incorrect use of the term ”police”. The fact that those clearing the square of peaceful protesters were unmarked, unidentified federal agents was one of the episode’s most troubling aspects.

While we’re at it, the federal statute mentioned in the post that could have and should have been effectively utilized in response to the pandemic is the Defense Production Act, not the Defense Procurement Act, as originally indicated.

III. “(Y)Our [Expletive]” (August 8, 2020)

In recommending A Warning by Anonymous, I meant to make this point: Isn’t it remarkable that the author right there in the White House is still anonymous? The desire of the president to identify this person and use the phrase that made him famous (YOU’RE FIRED!) must be extraordinary. Considering the detail in the book and the perspective of the devastating content, how can the author not be obvious?

There’s a simple reason – anyone could have written it. Let that sink in. Anyone in the administration could have written how shockingly and disastrously unprincipled and unhinged Donald Trump is. It’s the simple truth and everyone there knows it. Accounts from those departing the White House (the scene of last week’s spectacular RNC Hatch Act violations) continue to be clear, consistent and ever more disturbing.

According to recent escapee Miles Taylor, the great majority of professionals in the administration are beyond appalled and trying to decide what to do. If he’s correct, there might come a point before November 3 when Anonymous and dozens of colleagues resign together and hold a press conference no one will ever forget.

Again, thank you for reading – and writing to me at KenBossong@gmail.com.

Ken Bossong

© 2020 Kenneth J. Bossong


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Superior Forces

Lawyers all over the country are brushing up on a legal doctrine called Force Majeure. Why? Because it is the key lens for viewing deals disrupted by the pandemic. Since COVID-19 is disrupting almost all human interactions, Force Majeure and related doctrines are well worth examining. If you haven’t already, you’ll be hearing the phrase soon – and often.

When the Law names a concept or a doctrine, it usually resorts to Latin. You may have heard phrases like quid pro quo (“this for that”) or res ipsa loquitur (“the thing speaks for itself”) bandied about recently, for example. Force Majeure is French (“superior force”). So, there’s that.

What really makes Force Majeure interesting and not only for lawyers, though, is how aspects of the doctrine relate to our every-day approach in facing adversity. There are lessons for life in considering what matters here. (No, it’s not that hordes of readers are combing the Internet for posts on the law of Contracts. And no, what follows is not legal advice, obviously.) So, what is it?

The Concept

In ordering our affairs, we seek to hold each other, and ourselves, to doing what we promise to do. Courts are not pleased with those who breach contracts, and assess money damages for doing so. We value promise-keeping.

What happens, though, when an abnormal, outside event prevents one or both sides of an agreement from doing what they promised? That is, if a force superior to the parties’ intent intervenes? (Note: we’ll refer to this simply as the “event”. Also, to do what was promised is to “perform”.)

If someone has a contract with a town or a county to fix a road’s potholes (don’t we wish!) and an earthquake destroys the road, what happens to each side’s obligations? Or if one is hired to paint a barn that burns to the ground? The possibilities of events beyond the parties’ control (whether the cause be nature – floods, earthquakes – or mankind – terror attacks, war) are endless. The potential for complexity far exceeding these plain examples is limited only by the scope of our entanglements.

Sophisticated written contracts often contain Force Majeure clauses. In them, a parade of catastrophes is listed with some attempt to agree in advance who gets to skip, change, or delay performance – and under what circumstances. Some clauses include a catch-all provision to deal with events not mentioned.

After The Event

After the event occurs, if everyone agrees what should happen next, there’s no legal problem. (There are always the hardships and heartaches involved in picking up the pieces, unfortunately.) When the parties disagree, however, even after trying mediation, the courts ultimately must decide.  Was the event a Force Majeure? If so, how does it affect what the parties promised to do?

If there is a contract with a Force Majeure clause, the court will interpret and enforce that language. As in many areas of law, state law will govern. While that means the law will vary some, certain kinds of issues generally will matter:

  • If not completely unforeseen, the extent to which the event was unavoidable or not within the control of the parties  
  • Whether the event directly caused the inability to perform
  • To what extent there was a true inability to perform
  • Whether there were any attempts to perform
  • If the doctrine applies, what the appropriate remedy should be

The burden of proof is on any party seeking to invoke Force Majeure. Obviously the cases will depend on their facts, but there’s no doubt that COVID-19 will present numerous, daunting legal problems.

When There Is No Force Majeure Clause

It is possible to have either (a) an enforceable contract that is verbal rather than written, or (b) a written contract that does not contain a Force Majeure clause. Either way, there may still be a remedy. To address this very briefly, two similar doctrines of law have evolved in our so-called “common law”, on a case-by-case basis.

Impracticability is not just impracticality with an extra syllable, so lawyers can have another word nobody else says. It means something is beyond simply not practical to do, even if not quite impossible. If impracticable, it can’t be put into practice under the circumstances. So, parties invoking the doctrine must show the event to have been beyond their control and destructive to one or more of the contract’s essential assumptions.

Then there is Frustration. This is not exactly what Muddy Waters was singing about in “I Can’t Be Satisfied”, later inspiring the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. It is frustration of purpose. So, again, if parties reach an agreement based on assuming certain things will or won’t happen, and an event not their fault later shatters their assumption(s), relief may be available. Was the purpose of the contract frustrated?

[For anyone wanting more detail on the three doctrines, a quick search will provide scads of information. Continuing Legal Education is going berserk with courses on all this – all webinars, to be sure.]

Digging Deeper Into What Matters

In the flood of litigation expected in the wake of COVID-19, courts will have much to consider. Whether there are Force Majeure clauses to interpret, or doctrines like impracticability or frustration to apply, judges will find themselves asking similar questions:

Was performance impossible, or so difficult that it might as well have been impossible? Or was it just annoying, inconvenient, or somewhat more difficult or costly than anticipated? How difficult is too difficult?  Did the pandemic cause the impossibility in this case? Was it even relevant?

Did the parties act honestly and in good faith? Try to perform? Seek to limit the harm or avoid the negative consequences? Seek alternative solutions? Communicate?

Is there a way out of the situation that makes sense? Can justice be done? Is one side trying to take advantage? Is the event just an excuse to renege, or an attempt to renegotiate a deal one regrets? Should the contract simply be void? What if some sort of under-performance is possible, and better than nothing?

Equity and the Truly Superior Forces

Like anything else, the Law is not perfect. Limitations and imperfections exist, whether in statutes, common law, rules, or regulations. Inflexibility is therefore problematic. Up steps Equity, the conscience of the Law. Equity does not oppose the Law, but supplements it with an overriding concern for fairness and good sense. By the way, “Equity” (or “Chancery”) sometimes denotes a division in the court system where remedies other than money damages are sought. Equity’s principles or “maxims” are generally available to interweave with the Law, however.

Of all the old Equity maxims, my favorite is this: He who seeks Equity must do Equity. Wise words, those.

Honesty, fair dealing, good faith, reasonableness, decency, concern for the big picture – these are the kinds of things courts will be looking for in deciding Force Majeure (and related) cases. They’re also what we demand of ourselves and each other when we are at our best.

These are the truly superior forces.

The wise among us don’t wait for the courts to tell us so on a case-by-case basis. What the courts decide to do always carries tremendous significance, but is not as important as what we decide to do – every day, in matters large and small.

The current saying is “We’re all in this together.” In a sense that’s always true, not only during a pandemic and not just with respect to health.  Behavior, good and bad, matters. Bad behavior harms not just the victim but the perpetrator as well, and then ripples through the community. The same is true for the benefits of the good.

Our system and our way of life depend upon our embrace of truly superior forces – among them honesty, fair dealing, good faith, reasonableness, decency, and concern for the big picture. Whether our being “all in this together” ends up a blessing or a curse depends on us.

Ken Bossong

© 2020 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Opening Up While Shutting Down

The noise of everyday life is the noise of being perpetually busy. The shutdown imposed by the coronavirus pandemic provides a chance to open ourselves up.

Too Busy – Usually Real, Sometimes Less So

The frenetic pace of our lives is something we all bemoan at times, often with good reason. There is no time to think, or to reflect, plan, organize, or to reach out to neglected friends or family. We know the drill: job(s) leaving us exhausted; clutter that begs to be cleared; sleep deficits; the good book we’ve wanted to read, but don’t start because it’s “too long”; food wolfed down without really sharing a meal. How many marriages or other relationships suffer from inadequate time to really listen and share unvarnished thoughts and feelings?

Being “too busy” isn’t even limited to the employed. Since retiring, one of my pursuits has been to seek a new excuse for being less effective than I should be. That one’s not going well.

Now Comes the Pandemic

It looks like our bluff is being called. For many of us, lack of time will not be a problem for a while.

As one enterprise after another (sports, theaters, museums, businesses, schools) shuts down, all events (games, tournaments, conventions, concerts, cruises, flights, meetings) are cancelled or postponed. For fans who wait all year for March Madness, as an example, no basketball is indeed madness. The list of what’s not happening is mind-numbing. The announcements should be for what still is happening.

This virus is taking away all the good distractions that give us relief from the bad stuff in life – you know, like illness.

That’s not the only irony. It feels unsettling that our normal reaction to adversity – to gather together for support and camaraderie – is the very thing we can’t do in this crisis. Meanwhile, all this shutting down is happening amid weather (in Jersey, at least) that announces Spring’s rebirth.

Here’s a weird thought: What will the nightly news or the newspapers have left to cover? [“And now for the Sports, with Bob Skiffle. Bob?” “Thank you, Allison. Nobody’s playing. Back to you.”] A news broadcast will consist of the three C’s: Commercials , Crime, and Coronavirus, with a bit of weather thrown in at the end.

What Will We Do?

Forget what the reporting will be, though. What will we actually do with our time? How will Americans spend their time in a shut-down country? Even people whose jobs continue unabated during the shut-down will find most normal free-time activities unavailable. Imagine those whose jobs go away temporarily or (please, no) permanently. We sometimes say there’s nothing to do even when there’s everything to do. We know what we really mean at those times; what happens when it’s true?

We can read that good, too-long book or catch up on TV programming that we usually regret missing. Of course, we can also binge watch re-runs and endless drivel. There are other possibilities, some of them good.

To be clear, this is not to downplay the harm. There will be plenty. The worst harm, obviously, is to individuals who contract Covid-19. Beyond that, however, will be damage to people’s confidence and finances. There is no shortage of pundits telling us what all this means for the stock market, jobs, and the economy. The layoffs have already begun. State and federal tax revenues will plummet, even as the need for government assistance spikes. Yet…

Once we’ve cleaned all the stores out of disinfectant and secured more French-toast ingredients (bread, milk, eggs) than we could ever consume, there is opportunity here as well. If we can pause and take a deep breath, it might occur to us that we have time to think. The first thing to think about is Time itself.

Time Not Always On Our Side

Time is an artificial construct invented as a way to order our lives. Generally, it works. Time facilitates coordination of activity in a way similar to money facilitating commerce. It’s “midnight” at midnight because we agree to call it that.

Consider:  The next credit card payment is due (let’s say) April 1, with a ten-day grace period, because that’s the agreement. Investors in the lender expect profits from payment of loans and collection of extra fees when late. All of which is fine, as far as it goes. None of this is cosmically ordained, however.

If furloughed borrowers do their best to make payment but come up short, how could lenders justify waiving late fees to their investors? Well, by saying, “We all know what happened here. Profits will be a bit down this quarter, but we’ll all be fine.” If the investors’ creditors in turn take a similar tack with them, and so forth, we smooth out the path to recovery.

In choosing to share the pain, within reason, we can lessen it to the benefit of all. (Being the creditor to a  debtor in trouble is no fun, either.) This assumes, of course, that those able to meet their obligations will do so, rather than take advantage. Our system always depends on overall good faith. Also, when the economy comes back, we can make a point of hiring those who lost their jobs blamelessly.

All of this is to illustrate the bigger point: We can all give each other a break for a month, or longer if needed, and not just financially.

Wouldn’t it be great if, after this unwanted hiatus, we re-engaged with each other as a better people?

Becoming Better

Which brings us to the second, more important, thing to think about: we, ourselves, as individuals.

Whatever makes us better – introspection, honest self-assessment, meditation, study, prayer – this might be the chance to re-establish some good habits. Perhaps we can open ourselves up to new possibilities, or to abandoned aspirations, while the noise is shut down.

Maybe we acknowledge the good in each other that we take for granted. Say the things that “go without saying”. Learn something new. Bury a stupid grudge. Do some good where it’s needed. Gain insight. Rededicate ourselves to something worthwhile.

Maybe we find ourselves knowing, and liking, who we see in the mirror a little better next month than last.

Ken Bossong

© 2020 Kenneth J. Bossong

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Thoughts on Choosing a College

High school seniors and those who care for and about them are in the midst of a process right now that is equal parts exciting and trying. Colleges are announcing their decisions on admissions and financial aid, and families are left to cope with the information arriving daily. Juniors are a year away.

In the course of giving students tips about taking the SAT over the years, I’ve given some thought to what comes after the test scores are in. There is a lot to consider, of course, but having an approach attacking it one issue at a time can make it all less daunting. 

An Approach

What follows can serve as something of a substantive checklist. For those inclined toward a quantitative approach, one could assign a numeric value to each factor that matters. The challenge is to work in a weighing of factors that are most/least important versus high/low scores in the factors. That is, how do you reflect a good but not great score in an important factor as opposed to a great score in a less important factor? 

One approach would be to make a broader range of scores (10 to -10) available for more important factors, and a smaller range (5 to -5) for less important ones. Note the flexibility: the student, (or parent or trusted adviser) gets to decide which factors are most heavily weighted in any analysis. The approach should be flexible; no two students are the same.

Location

Let’s start with one that seems easy: How far is the college from home and how much does that matter to you? Just look up the mileage and we’re done here, right? Maybe not. Consider a student in the Philadelphia metro area evaluating two good schools, one in upstate New York and the other in Chicago. The latter is hundreds of miles further away, but there are dozens of direct flights a day between O’Hare (or Midway) and Philadelphia, and they tend to be relatively inexpensive. Which school is “closer to home”? In short, don’t forget to factor in the ease and expense of getting home.

Is the campus setting urban, suburban or rural? I’ve seen this be a deal-breaker. If you’re a city kid, for example, how do you feel about the college town having exactly one traffic light – and it’s blinking? What if there is one pizzeria and you don’t like the pizza?

Attractiveness of the setting – Does beauty inspire or distract? Does drab depress? Same for weather/climate.

Safety and security – ah, the parents perk up with this one. Every college tour ever points with pride to the Blue Light Phones throughout the campus and how safe it all is. Unless there is reason to believe otherwise (statistical or reliable anecdotal evidence that danger lurks), it is probably reasonable to assume that student safety depends most on the company kept and behavioral decisions made.

Academics

Reputation/Prestige – Is the college renowned overall? Would their degree bolster your resume?

Reality – Does the college deserve to be renowned? Does it deliver the goods? Do its graduates find jobs in their field or get into the grad school of choice? Some schools live on past glories; others are underrated and rising. 

Which departments are strong? Some schools are world-leaders in a few fields and so-so in others. The surer a student is about what the major will be, the more this may matter. Keep in mind that many students change majors, though. When that happens, strength across the board becomes very reassuring.

Obvious areas are class size and student teacher ratios. Will you be taking Bio 101 with 350, or more, of your closest friends?

More subtle, however, is who teaches what. There are prestige schools where superstars who have never met an undergrad roam the halls. Their job is to attract grant money, not teach 18-to-22-year-olds. It’s nice to have Pulitzer Prize winners around, but will most or all of the courses be taught by TAs (teaching assistants)? Is there a commitment to undergrads?

Is there any sort of core curriculum, or may students take literally anything they please? Can a student emerge from four years of time and expense with little coherent education? Are the courses you want and need actually available? What must a student do to enroll in them?

How are mentoring, guidance and placement?  Are there research and internship opportunities? How about special programs – double majors, 5-year masters, relationships with professional or graduate schools?

Amenities

If you’re going to live somewhere four or more years, what’s the living like? How’s the housing; how’s the food?

Dorms – Are they guaranteed and available? This can range from no issue for four years to freshmen being on their own. Their functionality and appeal vary widely from really nice to more suited to Board of Health review.

If you and your friends want to rent a place, does the town feature good, plentiful, reasonably priced housing stock, or is it slumlord city?

Food – Most college students will say most food is uninspired at best, but there are exceptions. If you find one, it’s a plus. Quantity is usually not the issue; you’ll want to hear about quality, variety and healthfulness. Are food plans required or simply available?

Intangibles

Campus Size

Another factor that can make a real difference is size. Some students would not consider going to a college smaller than their high school. Others feel like they went to a factory for 9th through 12th grade and would like nothing better than an intimate, family-like atmosphere. As with everything else here, there is no one correct answer. There are also some subtleties. Being part of a team, club, or other activity with built-in friendships can make a huge campus manageable.

Social Life

People – Are these your kind of people? Is there some fun going on? Are alcohol and other substances essential to the fun?

Fraternities and sororities can dominate social life or not exist at all. Is Greek life desirable?

Facilities – How are the student center, the gym, fields, and other venues? Are there good places to gather, throw a Frisbee or a ball, get a workout, or attend an event?

Speaking of events, are concerts and speakers of renown drawn to campus? Some schools devote resources to get the best; others don’t see the value.

Sports and extra-curriculars – If you play a sport, you know better than I all that is involved in taking it to the next level. Division 1 recruits will have a full-time job awaiting them. Whatever level is appropriate, balancing and integrating any activity into one’s life is worth the effort it takes to get it right. If you’ve always wanted your own radio show in college, make sure the station puts undergrads on the air.

Spiritual life – If it’s a factor in your life, make sure it’s available in the campus community to the extent desired.

Politics – Campuses range from the Far Left to the Far Right. I’d like to think some of them remain more interested in open minds, objective inquiry, and intellectual rigor than indoctrination. If it matters to you, check it out. At least, attend with your eyes and ears open.

Cost

Nothing like saving the best for last, eh? That college is usually outrageously expensive almost goes without saying. This brings the financial aid package up in importance to equal that of the admissions decision. Like admissions decisions, the financial aid offers can be irrational and inexplicable. As I recall it, the process produced an EFC, the expected family contribution, and ours bordered on the preposterous.

In looking at the cost factor, try to include everything in the budget: tuition, room and board, fees, “books” and supplies; travel, and miscellaneous personal stuff. Compare apples to apples among the colleges as best you can.

All financial aid is not created equal. Grants, scholarships, and fellowships are the real deal. While lower interest rates are better than higher ones, loans are not financial aid at all. Loans are debt. Folks have finally begun noticing that bearing a burden equivalent to a mortgage without the benefit of owning a home is a very bad idea. It’s a lousy way for a young adult to launch a career and an even worse way for their parents to approach retirement.

If a financial aid package is particularly disappointing because the school would otherwise be the top choice, consider contacting the school. A sincere, well-reasoned and amicable appeal is sometimes well received. One reason is that colleges and universities like to attain the highest “yield” possible. Yield is the percentage of candidates offered admission who enroll and attend. It is considered one of the most telling indicators of a school’s desirability.

Summing Up

The approach here was to include more rather than fewer considerations. Please tailor to your needs. If, as I hope, you find this helpful, please pass it along to interested others, including next year’s seniors to be.

Resist the urge to believe that there is out there one, and only one, perfect place for every student, and that all others would be markedly inferior. The truth is more likely to be that there are a number of very good placements for most or all students, with varying strengths that make the choice a really close call. If you narrow it down to a few excellent places, you have done your job and cannot make a mistake.

And even if you do make a “mistake”, nobody holds it against anyone for transferring anymore. Indeed, if you buckle down and do well where you are, you may gain entry somewhere that foolishly rejected or wait-listed you the first go-round.

Finally, sometimes this just comes down to chemistry. How do you feel when you step onto campus? If something inside tells you “This is the place”, it may well be.

I used to wish students only thick envelopes, but that’s just showing my age. Now notifications are mostly electronic. But you get the drift. Good luck with all this.

Ken Bossong

© 2020 Kenneth J. Bossong