Building Relationally Democratic Cultural Infrastructure
I mean the stature of soul, the range and depth of love, capacity for relationships.
I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure.
I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness.
I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions.
I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase…
Embodying Balance in our Relations by Proliferating Everyday Democratic Practices
This article is a partial expression of the central thesis of The Human Basis of Democracy, a manuscript in process that shares findings from 4 years of ethnographic and auto-ethnographic data collection — post 11.8.16 — in a variety of American cultures.
Announcements about the arrival and departure of American state-level authoritarianism now abound in mainstream media. I’m sure you’ve read your share. This article offers something a little different: a focus on how authoritarianism continues to function in our relations with one another and how each one of us can embody relationally democratic practices.
Now, more than ever, we…
He Has His Hands in Everything Evil and Yet He’s Practically Invisible in the Conversation
This is just a little of Stephen Miller’s work. He must be prosecuted for crimes against the United States and against humanity. He got away with extreme power stealing and hoarding from vulnerable human beings in a democracy for far too long.
His time is up. It’s time to reckon.
Miller wrote the 45th’s 4-year plan (i.e., the inaugural speech):
Miller controlled the 45th’s agenda from the start:
Miller is an authoritarian:
Miller is a white nationalist:
Miller’s white nationalism drove child separations:
Miller’s child separation policy is state-sanctioned torture, say Physicians for Human Rights:
Miller drove ICE:
Miller is responsible for the forced sterilizations by ICE on migrant women:
Miller is responsible for migrant families being separated:
Miller pushed for ALL families at the border to be separated, even those arriving legally:
Miller created the racist Muslim ban:
Miller extended the racist travel ban:
Miller installed white nationalists in the WH:
Miller authored the “1776 Report,” which justifies slavery and the 3/5’s compromise, and advised releasing it on MLK, Jr.’s birthday:
Second in the Series “Building a Case for Cultural Work in White Rural America”
[Previous article in the series: 74,222,593]
“You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas.” ~Terence McKenna
Escaped from academia, exploring, and immersed in research of radically different cultures than mine, I found that the what of things is much less important than the how of them when solving problems in the actual world.
Take, for instance, water. That it is “an odorless, tasteless, very slightly compressible liquid oxide of hydrogen H2O” is far less…
[Vilsack is the Embodiment of the Disconnect between Urban Elites and Rural American Cultures]
Opinion: George Goehl in The Guardian Mon 21 Dec 2020 07.04 EST
It’s unlikely that Joe Biden expected that, of all his cabinet nominees, his choice for US agriculture secretary would cause the most blowback. Yet that is exactly what happened.
The former secretary Tom Vilsack, fresh off the revolving door, is a kind of all-in-one package of what frustrates so many about the Democratic party. His previous tenure leading the department was littered with failures, ranging from distorting data about Black farmers and discrimination to bowing to corporate conglomerates.
Vilsack’s nomination has been roundly rejected by some of the exact people who helped Biden defeat Trump: organizations representing Black people, progressive…
First in the Series “Building a Case for Cultural Work in White Rural America”
One of the things I learned while immersed in ethnographic study of conservative mostly white rural cultures is that those old people never give up. Rich or poor, it’s a badge of honor to stand steady in one place, gritty, never giving ground, doggedly defying all the inevitable processes of change.
It doesn’t matter if they know they’re dead wrong: they willfully turn away from that knowledge and keep forcing. Doesn’t matter that they know their time has passed and the world has moved on: they ignore that actuality and just dig their heels in deeper. …
[We cannot — and need not — cede ground on conversations and curricula about power. White men, wielding this particular flavor of “authority,” aim to steal power from the most vulnerable: BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and their own children and wives]
By Carol Kuruvilla, Huffington Post, POLITICS 12/04/2020 10:38 pm ET [emphases mine]
The presidents of all six Southern Baptist seminaries have roundly condemned a key method that scholars have developed to examine how systemic racism persists in America.
The leaders, whose seminaries educate the next generation of clergy within the country’s largest Protestant denomination, agreed in a statement Monday that “Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality and any version of Critical Theory” is incompatible with their denomination’s core beliefs.
Critical race theory (CRT) is a lens through which some academics seek to understand how racism operates and continues to affect people of…
From the series “Stealing Power from the Most Vulnerable: Authoritarian Practices in U.S. Business Cultures”
“I needed the money. I’m not ashamed of doing everything legal I can possibly do to avoid homelessness. The safety net is just gone right now, and it’s do or die for me — for millions of us. None of us has any reason to feel ashamed about needing help in this pandemic. But businesses like Octapharma — that exploit those of us with few or no options — rely on shame about our circumstances to keep us silent about injuries. I refuse to stand in that shame.” (The national effort to immediately extend pandemic unemployment assistance)
A Series: Building A Relational Frame for Creating Democratic Practices in a Capitalist Culture
[Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.] was not moderate or middle of the road incrementalist. Throughout his life, he communicated ideas that countered the status quo. His goal was to solve problems, not tiptoe around them.” — Allison Gaines, “Why Revolutionary Martin Luther King Jr. Never Believed in Capitalism”
Tired of politics and “personal” issues in professional settings? Wish we could just get “back to normal,” stick to business, and focus on making money? You are not alone. …
And it feels like we’re waking to the possibility of a new world tomorrow
Washington Post Opinion, George Will: 10–27–2020
By a circuitous route to a predictable destination, the 2020 presidential selection process seems almost certain to end Tuesday with a fumigation election. A presidency that began with dark words about “American carnage” probably will receive what it has earned: repudiation.
In “ Three Exhausting Weeks,” a short story in Tom Hanks’s collection “ Uncommon Type,” a man has a short, stressful relationship with a hyperactive woman: “Being Anna’s boyfriend was like training to be a Navy SEAL while working full-time in an Amazon fulfillment center in the Oklahoma Panhandle in tornado season.” After…
Cathy B. Glenn, Ph.D.
SF Bay Area critical researcher, creative, & cultural worker. Content developer for The Relational Democracy Project relationaldemocracy@gmail.com IG @dr.cbg
