That's Not the Choice You Think It Is

 A common argument I hear about inequalities in the US is that it's all a matter of choice. If you make good choices, you will be successful in life. If you make bad choices, you won't. There's even a lot of data used to back this up: if you finish high school, don't use drugs, and don't have children young and out of wedlock, your chances of succeeding are really good. It seems like an obvious answer - personal choice determines outcomes - since it's true for most of the people making the argument, and they use it as an argument against programs that help out the poor. Their solution is people should just choose to be successful like they did. But choice is not what you think it is.

First, it ignores the many cases where choice clearly isn't the main determinant of outcome. Even the data shows that a significant portion of people who make all the right choices still end up in bad situations. People who are poor because a cancer diagnosis wiped out their savings. People who can't work because a car accident left them with a traumatic brain injury. Even if these things represent a small percentage, that's still millions of people who need support even if they made good choices. And if you try to set up a program to help those in need, but tie that help to sorting out who is 'deserving' vs. who is not, then you inevitably open a can of worms that leads to less efficiency and less help overall. Helping people without judgment is not only a better moral position but a more effective policy.

But let's get back to those personal choices. People make choices in specific environments under specific circumstances and those are not all equal. For a kid growing up in a white suburb, with a decent school system and middle-class parents, the decision to finish high school is a no-brainer. It's what's expected of them, all their friends are doing it, and it's the path of least resistance. But to a poor kid in a neighborhood filled with gangs, a poorly funded school, a single-parent who never finished high school, and a bunch of older neighborhood kids who don't graduate, finishing high school must seem like an impossible challenge that no one expects them to accomplish. Their choice is simply much different, much more difficult and they shouldn't be judged for it the same way the middle-class kid is.

And it's also very true that the consequences for bad choices are not the same for everyone. Avoiding drugs is a pretty big indicator for success, but I know a ton of successful white guys who smoked a lot of pot in high school and college (and still do to this day). They never faced any consequences for their bad choice. They never even feared consequences. But Black Americans are three times more likely to get arrested for using marijuana. The sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine (used more often by Black Americans) are seven times stiffer than those for powdered cocaine (used more often by white Americans). If the consequences for making bad choices fall unequally on a certain group then using choice as your criteria for judging outcomes is biased.

Making good choices is the best way to find success, but blaming people's failures on their personal choices is not at all an accurate or fair way to pass judgment. And since that is the case, using such judgments to restrict programs meant to help those in need is simply an exercise in bias and an excuse to be cruel. We can pat ourselves on the back for getting where we are without using our other hand to beat down those less fortunate than us.

The Fight for Democracy 2020: Why Should You Care?

Look, I get it. Politics sucks. Especially on social media. We’re all tired of the stupid memes, the clickbait stories, the anger and invective. Talking politics pisses everyone off and it doesn’t seem to accomplish anything. Both sides are awful and none of it matters. We are all struggling with our own problems and working our butts off to keep our heads above water and maybe, just maybe, have a little fun and see what our friends and family are up to. When we talk politics it kills the buzz and puts everyone on edge. And there aren’t nearly as many cool kayaking videos as there used to be. I hear you.

I used to tune out politics too. Used to not bother to vote. Which side controlled which part of the government didn’t affect my life to any large degree so why should I bother? It certainly made life simpler and more pleasant for me. And it didn’t seem to hurt me in any way I noticed. Just ignore it and leave the details to all those ‘activists’. Live my life, be kind to my neighbors, and let the world take care of itself.

Then I started to pay more attention to what those ‘activists’ were saying. I started to listen to the stories from the people who couldn’t afford to ignore politics because it puts their very existence at risk. I studied the facts and figures showing how many people are suffering under conservative policies, and how effective government intervention can be for the most marginalized. And even if I didn’t know those people personally, it became very clear that politics does matter to the material lives of many of my fellow citizens. It can be a force to improve their health and happiness, to recognize their humanity and struggle, and to make our world better; or it can dehumanize people, leave them to suffer or die, and destroy our culture and environment for generations to come. It might not have immediate and obvious costs for me, but politics really does matter and my role in it, however small, is important and necessary. Because to turn away and willfully ignore those who are suffering - that is a political choice in and of itself.

You should care that 200,000 Americans, disproportionately People of Color, have died unnecessarily from a virus our current Administration has done little to prevent or remedy. You should care that Black Americans are twice as likely to be killed by police and face racial bias in every aspect of our criminal justice system (not to mention in healthcare, housing, employment, etc).  You should care that 84 million Americans are uninsured or under-insured and our current administration is actively fighting to make it worse, including a legal battle to let insurers ban people for pre-existing conditions. You should care that gay couples only recently got the right to marry and one of our political parties wants to rescind that right. That same party wants to ban Transgender Americans from military service, they support banning people of certain religions from entering our country, and they have no moral qualms locking up brown-skinned kids in cages and permanently separating them from their parents. You should care that the world is hotter, storms are bigger, and our climate is changing in dangerous ways which we CAN stop if our government takes a lead and makes changes. Maybe none of these things affect you directly and immediately, but they will affect us all sooner or later. If you don’t care for yourself you should still care for the others, for those who suffer now and future generations who will suffer later. And you can do something simple to help. Vote. Vote for Democrats. Vote for an imperfect party that won’t solve all the problems but will help many of those in need. It takes so little of you to do that but it means so much to many. Show you care because you can. Because I believe you do.

My Journey on Race

[1970’s] I grew up a white boy in a white farm town in Minnesota. There was literally one Black kid in school. The only other Black people I saw were on TV. Race wasn’t an issue because it didn’t seem to exist. Racism was an abstract concept, like an alligator, or monsoon. I was happy in a selfish way like all children should be. That isn’t to say it was ideal. Far from it. My lack of personal interactions with People of Color made them something foreign. Not to be feared or looked down upon - my parents made it clear everyone was inherently worthy of my respect and friendship regardless of their skin color - but simply something unknown. And if you don’t know something it’s hard to care about it. [1980’s] When I got to a larger high school which was slightly more diverse, I was still surrounded by whiteness. I took AP classes and played on the tennis team - no People of Color so no racism to be found (I’ve later learned how absence can be the best proof of existence). By this point I realized some people were racist, but it seemed like an isolated, individual thing. Not my concern. My social studies and history classes taught us the evils of slavery and segregation, but they were clearly THINGS IN THE PAST. So much real history and current events which would have revealed a darker, less flattering picture of my country and peers was left out without comment. I’m not sure how much the lack of color in the student body directly related to the slant of the curriculum. I’m sure some, but I also think the historical failings of America are always taught as someone else’s fault - for us we were the good northern whites, for others they were the noble southerners who opposed slavery but revered states’ rights. Whatever the excuse, nothing and no one ever really opened me up to the perspective of the marginalized and oppressed. All my education came from white people and was geared to assuage White Guilt. At the time it seemed simple truth. Only a sheltered high school kid would think truth was simple. [1990’s] After growing up in a small town, I moved to the big city of St. Paul for college. A liberal school with a large international population nestled in among old mansions and a growing Hmong community. Much more diverse than where I grew up, but not in a representative way. My dorm neighbor freshman year was a Black guy from Chicago. He was also wealthy, came from an elite private academy, a hell of a sharp dresser and made the ladies swoon. He seemed better off than me. I studied physics and continued playing tennis and was mostly surrounded by white people much like myself. The one Black kid on the tennis team had grown up around the world with diplomat parents. He had attended famous tennis academies, had private coaches, and was the #1 player on the team whereas I was a scrub on the bench. He wasn’t my equal - he was my better. Racism didn’t seem to have had much effect on those around me. Of course, this wasn’t true. I never really bothered to learn the whole stories of those two gentlemen, or any of the other People of Color at my school, but in retrospect I’m sure they faced all kinds of challenges which would have stopped me cold. I failed to grasp that perhaps the reason why those Black students seemed so exceptional was because it took exceptional circumstances and character for them to make it to the same place where my generic, middle-class, white-ass education had brought me. A same result isn’t proof of similar ability if the testing conditions aren’t equal. Graduate school brought me to Los Angeles, a more diverse city overall but not necessarily where I landed. My physics program had no Black students or instructors and campus was across the street from Bel Air. While the neighborhood had many more shades of brown, it didn’t have much Black. For the most part everyone I knew seemed colorblind and accepting of others and there just wasn’t any pressing need for me to look beyond my own experience. After graduate school I eventually landed in middle management in a private education company in the same neighborhood. I was in charge of hiring instructors and part time staff and I never once considered race when interviewing. I made decisions based on experience and credentials - and gut instinct. Let’s not forget that every hiring manager knows they have to trust their gut when considering candidates. I didn’t really consider how my ‘gut’ always seemed to favor people who looked like me and came from similar circumstances. Those with a shared community and vocabulary. But I wasn’t racist, so that was fine, right? Implicit bias is a hell of a drug. Looking back I think my track record on dealing with the people who showed up for jobs was fine. But I never really questioned exactly how those people made it in the door and why so few Black people even applied. I certainly never did anything to expand our pool of applicants. I never did any outreach to the Black community or sought to make our company’s services more readily available to the disadvantaged. We helped people get into schools, but only if they could afford us. That’s capitalism and I was there to make money for the company. I never looked at how centuries of systemic racism, redlining, school segregation, and just plain racist people have greatly limited wealth and economic opportunity in the Black community. I looked at what was in front of me and tried to treat everyone equally without stepping back to see the inequality which starts at the beginning of every Black life and which I perpetuated. Making society better, more fair, was extra work and no one paid me to do it so I didn’t even think of the option. It’s so easy to be a good guy in a bad system as long as you aren’t the one being harmed. [2000’s] Nearing my thirties, working in middle management for a company focused on helping mostly the privileged, and with lots of opportunities for advancement - I bailed on my career. Capitalism wasn’t my thing so I pursued my new sport: kayaking. If anything, kayaking is whiter than the tennis I had played in high school and college. Kayaking became my job (instructor), my hobby, and my source of friends and acquaintances. All white. My holdover connections from the past were overly educated white people or tenuous connections to my childhood white farming community. I didn’t have any personal connections to the Black community or any compelling reason to learn about it. A solid decade of pursuing my self interest led to very little interest in the rest of society. But it’s not like I wasn’t aware. The internet really changed how information came in, and even before our current overload of social media it was impossible for me not to soak up what was happening in the rest of the world. It was impossible to live in society, interacting with others, catching snippets of the news, having small talk with random people, and not see the truth. In politics, social justice, economic welfare, racial equality - they were all a hot mess where those with advantage used it to take more advantage. Inequality, discrimination, and injustice were everywhere and obvious and I no longer wanted to be a part of such a stupid and cruel system. I bailed on society. Of course, that’s perhaps the greatest example of privilege there is. I had the resources to do nothing but eke by a meager living and spend only on myself. The freedom to ignore the evils of society because they weren’t visited upon me. Some years I technically lived in poverty, but I never felt poor. I was a well-educated white guy and if I wanted to make money I could always get a job. If I really needed something I had family and friends who would help me (and could afford to). It wasn’t that I had done anything special to have such resources available. Just by who I was born to and how my skin color had smoothed my way through life, flowing around obstacles and intermingling with other like-colored individuals, I accumulated a vast wealth of social capital that allowed me to step away from any responsibility to anyone outside my insular bubble. I could afford to be selfish. The world doesn’t give that same opportunity to everyone and eventually I’d have to confront that fact. [2010’s] My life changed in many ways when I hit my forties and decided to turn my hobby of writing into a new career. I studied the craft of writing, and that included reading widely and listening to different voices. In the past, the stories I read were often centered on straight, white, male heroes. People like me. And the authors who wrote those stories were usually the same. As I branched out, I discovered so many new stories and perspectives. So much wonderful talent and humanity. And if I wanted to write more than self-insert hero fantasies, I needed to understand and appreciate the full diversity of real-world people in order to bring it to my characters and books. But what started as an effort to improve my work became a chance to improve myself. Fiction tends to hold the truth up in a way that makes it clearer than reality. It also led me to many great people who happened to be authors of color. I became aware of marginalized communities as individual people, and once you start to see people it’s hard not to listen to them. And I heard the same stories of discrimination and prejudice over and over again. Black kids who had no access to decent textbooks, much less AP courses. Black authors who continually get praised for speaking so well, as if it’s a surprise someone with their skin color can be eloquent. Black physicists who still get mistaken for waiters when they show up at a fancy dinner in a tuxedo. In a myriad of ways, in every aspect of life, the experience of being Black in America was so much different from my own, with so many more obstacles that no one should have to overcome. But those were just stories. Still a scientist at heart, I wanted data. I read articles and books, both scholarly and journalistic. I followed modern Black activists and learned more about their predecessors. I paid attention to the details. What I found didn’t just confirm the stories but expanded on the injustice in deeper ways. From the implicit bias which makes white educators look at Black children as more responsible for their actions compared to white kids, and white doctors believe Black patients are more pain tolerant so they under-prescribe painkillers. To the explicit bias of racial profiling in everything from traffic stops to mortgage loans. I learned about redlining and how our capitalistic system allowed the white people with money to force segregation upon Blacks while making a profit from it (segregation which is actually getting worse today). I learned about the Tulsa massacre, the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, and the Jon Burge scandal in the Chicago PD. I learned how the Black Panthers started the idea of free breakfasts for school children while the FBI worked hard to get them killed. Through it all I found statistic after statistic that showed Black Americans were behind in nearly every measure of success, from wealth to health, from crime to education, and even in simple human respect. And if Black Americans are behind, the obvious question is why? What could explain such discrepancies? I could only come up with two general answers: 1. Systemic racism. If our society has a racial bias that exists in the majority group, the ones who currently hold, and have always held, wealth, power, and influence, then it would create an uneven playing field which would result in unequal results. 2. Black people are somehow inferior. Whether it’s genetics or culture, it would take some across-the-board fundamental deficiency in Black people to explain why they are behind in so many areas of life. When looking for an answer, my training has taught me to go for the simplest theory which explains all the data. That led me to number one. Because there are all kinds of problems and deficiencies with number two. Aside from being the basic definition of racism, blaming Black people for their problems doesn’t really explain a lot of the data. It doesn’t explain why police arrest Blacks at three times the rate of whites for marijuana possession even though they both use it at the same rate. It doesn’t explain why Black women with the same education and experience get paid less for doing the same job as white women, even if the Black women score better on every job metric. It doesn’t explain why so many people believed a Harvard educated American Christian was a Kenyan Muslim simply because he became President (and had brown skin). But racism explains it all. Subtle racism like we see in our everyday lives and on social media. Overt racism like we saw in Charlottesville. Institutional racism like we see our criminal justice and healthcare systems. The truth is we all know racism was prevalent in the founding of our country. We all know it existed in law and practice well after the Civil War. We certainly didn’t end it in a generation - most of today’s political leaders were born before the Civil Rights Act was passed. In America, racism is the default and it should be assumed until someone can present a ton of evidence showing it no longer exists. I’ve never seen that evidence. Racism is the inescapable truth at the end of the road. I’m still not done with my journey. I’m not perfect. I don’t know it all and I don’t do enough to help fight injustice. I have racist thoughts and say racist things without knowing it. But I’m trying to be better. I try to fight my implicit biases and listen to others when I’m called out. I try to be anti-racist instead of silently complicit. I try to be an ally and raise up voices from the Black community. I think less of myself than I used to but I’m more at peace with who I am, flaws and all. And that is what I’d like people to take away from my journey. Not so much about me and where I’m at, but that it’s worthwhile to do the work. It’s worth it to admit ignorance and be uncomfortable around a topic. It’s time well spent listening to others, especially those who are different from you, and offering them the basic kindness of understanding. It’s worth it to enrich ourselves but more importantly it’s necessary for the well-being of our Black brothers and sisters. We owe it to them because Black Lives Matter. Always. We can’t change where we started but we don’t have to be stuck where we are. We all have a journey and it starts with one step. Be brave. Listen.

When Fairness isn't Fair

Life isn't fair. That's a sentiment we've all heard a lot lately and probably one most agree with. But it leads to the obvious question: what do we do about it? For far too many people the answer is situational, and fairness sometimes is no fairness at all.

When life isn't fair it means that some people are at a disadvantage, which also means some people are at a relative advantage. To make things fair would require leveling the playing field. If you pay attention, you'll notice that most people argue for such equal footing only when they are the ones disadvantaged, but when life is unfair to their advantage it becomes an unalterable truth that the disadvantaged have to learn to live with.

It's not just personal stakes, but mostly in-group vs. out-group.The heterosexual white guy arguing affirmative action isn't fair. The comfortably middle-class arguing welfare only hurts the poor because it takes away their self-initiative. The middle-aged guy who's all upset that trans women can compete in athletics because that 'isn't fair' to the girls. None of those people can step outside their own world view long enough to see that the 'unfairness' in each specific case is merely a redress to a much larger unfairness in the world as a whole.

While it is true that life isn't fair, it also is unfair in an unfair way. The unfairness of it does not hit everyone or every group equally. If you're sincerely interested in making life more fair, then you need to look at the big picture and focus on the most significant and systemic instances of unfairness and seek to redress those first. If you're in a class that has more privilege than most, it's certainly true that you can still experience some unfairness, but if you only seek to make things fair in those instances and don't consider all the other instances where things are unfair in your favor, you are not actually advocating for fairness but are instead fighting to maintain your undeserved privilege. That's not fair.

Righteous Anger

In all this talk about 'reopening' the economy, I feel it's important to point out some hard truths and face the realities of our situation. First, our economy isn't closed. It isn't shut down or locked down. It's reduced. We all still go buy our groceries. We can order pretty much anything we want off the internet - most of us still have our jobs and income. This isn't to minimize the serious economic collapse that is happening, but words matter. We can't reopen something that isn't closed, but we could ease up the restrictions that are limiting our economy.

But easing up restrictions wouldn't magically return our economy to normal. It's a false choice when people say we have to decide between a few people dying and the economy crashing. First, even without the severe social distancing restrictions imposed by the government, many (most?) people would still choose to restrict their consumption. Restaurants, sporting events, concerts, airlines - anything that groups lots of people in tight spaces will not see a return to normal. They will not have enough business to be profitable and they will fail. Many people will still be out of a job. Most people with jobs will cut back their spending due to uncertainty. The economy will still be crashing, just maybe not so quickly. And that's just the short term.

Second, it isn't just a few more deaths. People look at our current fatality numbers and think 'it's not too bad'; 'it's only the sick and elderly who are dying'. Regardless of the inhumanity of those comments, there is a truth that we make economy vs. life decisions all the time. We could save thousands of lives a year with stricter environmental laws, but it would cost money. Thousands die in car accidents - we could reduce that if we put another $10k in safety features on every car, but we, as a society, feel it's more important that people can afford cheap cars. So yes, we accept fatalities for the sake of the economy all the time. But we aren't really talking about just a few old, sick people dying.

No one knows for sure what will happen if we just stop social distancing, but what evidence we do have is pretty clear. This virus spreads and kills exponentially. You can't have a 'little' exponential growth. We either clamp down and stop it like we are currently doing, or it takes off and our death rate skyrockets. Millions will die (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf). And not just the sick and elderly. At those numbers, thousands of working age, healthy people will die. And when they do it will cost the economy money. It will result in more people choosing to shelter in place and more governments to reimpose the same restrictions (and worse) that people are complaining about now. If we just 'reopen' things a lot more people will die and our economy will be one of them.

But it is true that our economy and society can't continue like it is indefinitely. No one is saying it should. All the experts, including most state and the federal government, are saying we can and should loosen restrictions, but we should do so in a tentative way based on the best science and information we have (https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-s-coronavirus-reopening-Gov-Gavin-15200205.php). We need to be able to test better to track the disease and we need to trace contacts better to stop the spread and exponential growth. That's the current plan - the real question is why is that taking so long. The answer is the federal government.

Now testing is a complicated issue, but it mostly boils down to money and material. In the U.S. the testing is primarily being done by commercial companies and they don't have the monetary incentive to invest in greatly expanding testing when the need will be for a relatively short time. It doesn't make sense to invest in training extra testers if they'll have to fire them in a year. It doesn't make sense for companies to increase making the materials needed if their demand will crash in a year. The market is failing us. But the federal government can get around that. It can order companies to expand testing capabilities. It can pay them to do so. It can coordinate all this. It's simply choosing not to.

The federal government also has many tools to fight a crashing economy that state and local governments simply don't have. It can give people money (borrowing money is basically free with our current interest rates and every reputable economist knows that government spending in a recession/depression is the best way out). If you don't want to give people money, it can create a massive jobs program (we already have a small one). We need people trained to do testing - let's hire and pay people to learn how. We need people to do tracing. We need people to support the sick and elderly. Heck, we need a ton of infrastructure work that will greatly help everyone and our economy - let's hire people to do what needs to be done.

Most states are constrained by balanced budget amendments (this is why they are a stupid idea). Many states, especially those red ones, simply aren't rich enough to spend this kind of money. And even if some states could do it, their resources would be taxed and failed when all the people from the other states either come to take advantage of them or come to bring more virus into them. We need to handle this on a national level because we are all in this together.

People are angry. I get it. It sucks that so many are losing their jobs or facing financial uncertainty. It sucks that our kids aren't in school and many of them are now going hungry. It sucks that our economy is crashing and we are suffering even though we didn't do anything wrong. It's not fair. Your anger is justified. But the response still needs to be appropriate. 'Reopening' the economy now isn't going to work. The economy will still crash; more people will die. We face nothing but bad choices but the current path we're on is a bad choice that involves fewer people dying and our economy ultimately recovering better. So go ahead and be angry, but learn to live with it. And maybe learn to direct your anger where it can do more good - by changing the people in power who are making our choices worse than they have to be.

Systemic Racism =/= Personally Racist

It is entirely possible for a system to have racial bias without it meaning every individual involved is racist.

Imagine a politician who runs on a 'tough on crime' platform. That could easily come from a sense of justice, a desire to protect citizens and do what is right. No aspect of race is necessarily involved. And in the spirit of neutral justice, maybe such a politician would advocate for computer-driven policing. Maybe even a robotic police officer who could roam the streets and dispense even-handed justice to all the wrong-doers.

But this robot officer, or robocop, would have to use facial-recognition software to identify criminals. And it's pretty well established at this point that such software is less accurate with darker skin tones. And when robocop makes a mistake, it has a tendency to just gun down anyone who isn't complying with its orders. Nobody intended it, no racists were involved, but we end up with a criminal justice system with a greater likelihood of killing black people (not dissimilar to our current state of affairs).

Now, if you're a black person in this society and robocop comes around the corner as you're out for a stroll, you don't really care what anyone's intention or motivation was. You just know that you are more likely to get hurt because the color of your skin and it isn't fair. That's systemic racism.

Once this is known, the politician, and those who support him, have a decision to make. Do they continue to advocate for measures that have been shown to lead to systemic racism, or do they denounce the unfairness and look for solutions that truly are race-neutral? Systemic racism can come from something other than racism, but however it got there, supporting it is an act of personal racism. That's the difference.

It's entirely possible we have a problem with systemic racism, and the many people who support it, those who don't think of themselves as personally racist, are actually racist.

The Other Side of the Coin

There are many incidents over the course of my life that I think about now and then, with my thoughts now being quite different from what they were then. Things I've learned, experiences I've had - they've changed my perception of what happened in the past, even if only through interpreting the meaning behind the actions. I'd like to share a couple incidents, minor things that seemed of no import at the time, in the hopes that other people might learn from them as well. I'm quite aware that some people will be amused it would take me years to really appreciate what these incidents meant, but I can be a slow learner and I think there are others out there who have yet to learn these lessons.

It will be helpful to know a little bit about me from a physical standpoint. I'm a white guy. I'm tall and lean, clean-cut and deferential. You could easily find my wardrobe in an L.L. Bean catalog. I've been an athlete all my life but I'm also a big geek. All those things factor into my stories.

When I was in grad school at UCLA a bunch of us would get together for homework sessions on campus. We'd often work until midnight and then head into town (next to campus) for a beer (or more likely some ice cream). One night, as our group was leaving the physics building, still discussing Maxwell's Equations and force vectors, a young woman approached us and asked if we were headed to town and if she could walk with us. We said sure, no problem. I didn't immediately understand why she wanted to tag along. But we continued as a group, crossing the dark and empty campus. When we reached the city streets which were well lit and full of people the young woman thanked us and went her own way. Only then did I realize she wanted the protection of a group. She didn't know us, didn't know if we were really safe, but she must have decided the risk of approaching us was less than walking alone.

A few years later, still in Los Angeles but no longer in school, I was walking home alone from my local Mexican taqueria in the dark. A few blocks from home in my relatively safe neighborhood, I spotted a woman walking towards me by herself. I noticed as she looked up, saw me, then quickly crossed to the other side of the street. I didn't think much of it but after she passed I glanced back and noticed she had crossed back over to the my side again. She had avoided me on purpose. How silly, I thought. I'm about as non-threatening as they come, and if she had stayed her course the worst I would have done would have been a short hello and a friendly smile. Her loss.

But both of those women made a calculation. Both had to quickly assess the situation, take what they saw and make a judgment about what was going to be the safest course of action. They chose what they thought would minimize their risk. Were they right?

It doesn't matter. The point isn't about the accuracy of their assessment but the fact that they had to make it. I almost never make that judgment. Never really think about it. There was that one time I was in a foreign country, walking around some ruins in the dark by myself when I wondered if I should be thinking about such things. Then I decided I was being silly and continued on my way. Those women, and all women, think about it all the time. They have to. They should.

There have been situations where I get anxious and feel the need to make judgments to minimize my risk - mostly social situations since I'm an introvert (and still a geek). I think most of us know this behavior, but what we don't often appreciate is how often other people have to engage in it. How often those who are more disadvantaged than us, especially physically, must make such calculations simply to go about their normal lives. It must be exhausting.

So now, when a woman crosses the street to avoid me, or doesn't make eye contact on the bus, or sees me out with my wife and approaches to talk, I understand. I don't take offense no matter what way the interaction goes. I don't even try to go out of my way to convince them I'm safe. I do my best to simply let them make their own judgment and trust that they are doing what they need to in order to make it through their day.

To those who constantly have to make such decisions and hope they guessed correctly - I see you. To all of the others, like me, who are much more likely to be seen as a threat than to feel threatened, take some time to really think about what the other side of the coin is like. Don't just cut them some slack, but do whatever you can to make the world a place where such risk analysis is unnecessary. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was as carefree as you and I?

Fight for Democracy: 2020 Primary

The 2020 U.S. election cycle is well underway and this Tuesday, March 3, 2020 is Primary day for many states, including California. So I'm going to talk a little about the Presidential Primary race and separately about why you should vote (spoiler: they are two different topics), though not specifically who you should vote for. This is aimed at my fellow Californians, but much of it also applies to voters across the country.

You should vote for a Presidential candidate because you might as well, not that it really matters much. Maybe that doesn't sound like the most motivating of reasons, but bear with me. More importantly, you should vote on Tuesday for the many other positions and ballot measures to be decided. In California we have a state-wide bond measure (13) which is important and deserves input from everyone. There are also Congressional seats on everyone's ballots, and while some of them might be foregone conclusions, many districts have important primary choices that will ultimately make a big difference in the general election. And there are even more local issues: in my city and county we have school bond measures and local supervisor choices that will make a noticeable difference in my life for the next several years. Voting matters and local politics often impact your life more than national - and your vote (proportionally) counts for more! If you want to do something in a political environment that increasingly feels distant and removed from our personal realities, voting in local elections is one of the best ways to get involved.

And since you're voting, you might as well vote for whoever you want in the Presidential Primary. And that's the key thing - vote for who you want. Don't worry about 'electability' or who's leading in the polls or who does the best in hypothetical matchups. Definitely don't listen to the pundits who tell you who you should vote for. And it's best if you don't base your decision off your gut. Don't worry about who you'd rather have a beer with. Don't listen to political ads or even give much weight to debate performances or official endorsements. You should vote for whoever you want and you should base your decision on the policies the candidate supports (check their websites and do some reading) and their likelihood of accomplishing the things you think are important. Too many people try to play three-dimensional chess and come up with the best strategy for their vote. If history tells us anything, it's that these rationalizations and guesstimates are totally inaccurate at predicting the future. Sure, sometimes they're right because every possible outcome is predicted by someone, somewhere, but that isn't a reason to believe in them ahead of time. Just vote on policy, actual written and articulated policy.

Policy is ultimately the reason why it isn't that important who you vote for in the Primary. Because it's going to come down to whoever the Democrats select versus Trump and the Republicans in the General Election in November. While there are significant and important differences between the policies of the Democratic candidates, those differences pale compared to the abhorrent policies of the Republicans. All Democrats want to expand health care coverage; all Republicans have been fighting for years to limit and repeal coverage. All Democrats agree on instituting some measure of reasonable gun control (like requiring background checks). All Republicans have fought for years to prevent such measures. All Democrats agree on passing (bipartisan) immigration reform. This one's tricky because a lot of individual Republicans support reform but as a unit they have blocked every attempt at passing actual legislation. Republicans are fighting for additional tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations. Democrats are fighting to increase minimum wage. Republicans have proposed cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Democrats want to preserve those time-tested institutions. Republicans want to allow and encourage discrimination (as long as it's for religious reasons). Democrats want a fairer world with less bigotry (for any reason). Republicans had the chance to follow the Constitution and remove a President who has obviously and routinely violated his oath of office, broken many laws in the past and the present, lies repeatedly about everything and everything, assaults the norms of decency and fair play that hold our government together, and disgraced our country on the world stage. The Democrats did everything they could to stop him.

The differences between parties are a wide gulf and whoever wins the Democratic nomination will deserve and require the full support and enthusiasm of every decent American who wants to return democracy and rule of law to our country. If you're tired of politics being a gutter war fought waged through tweets and a never-ending news cycle of embarrassment, then electing a Democratic President (and Democratic Congress) is the only hope. So go ahead and choose your favorite candidate in the primary, but never lose focus that the real fight is much larger and more important, and all of us must come together to win back our society and our sanity.