“On the day I was born, the trait which received the most attention was not my height or weight or how loud or long I cried or my inability to stop squirming.

The trait that, unknown to me at the time, was to define my life was not my simple personhood. This was stolen at birth. My skin was black.

 When I enrolled in school, I trusted that I would receive an education sufficient to at least attempt to accomplish whatever goals I eventually set for myself. This expectation was stolen from me.

As a young man, my girlfriend and I signed an application to rent an apartment and it was accepted subject to an in-person interview. When we arrived and showed our faces, the empty apartment was instantly rented … to someone else. Our hope of a chosen residence was stolen.

When, despite my superior credentials, I did not get the job that was openly advertised, my chance for economic improvement was stolen.

In total, my chances of being evaluated as a person by the same metrics used if my skin was not black, of being accepted simply as a human being like you, have been stolen.

I cannot be compensated for this series of thefts. There is no check that can be written.

Do I want to kill somebody out of my frustration, my trap of being black? For sure, but who? It would be like Whack-a-Mole. That person would simply be replaced by his clone.

Do I really want to be in police custody!!! and then in jail for decades? No.

F… it, suicide is preferable. 

I will join the looters and help myself to whatever stupid stuff I can get my hands on. 

Yeah, it’s stealing.

I know all about that. So do you!”

Hope you are holding up okay in these tumultuous times. Below are some thoughts from myself.
In 1963, the famed African-American author James Baldwin wrote “The Fire Next Time.” 
Every time there is a terrible racial “incident,” people have wondered if a fire was being lit which would defy extinguishment, that would not run its course until substantive societal changes had been accomplished.
Enter 2020. The virus has physically hurt minorities more than the white population. Unemployment and the lockdown have financially hurt minorities more than the white population. 
Stress and anxiety were already through the roof.
And then comes the public murder of George Floyd by a policeman, with three of his colleagues watching.
The ensuing fires, their frequency and their ferocity, can come as no surprise.  
Many whites have always socially distanced themselves from minorities, but if they think they need not be involved in this battle for a decent America that lives up to its stated ideals, they are mistaken. 

If we are not “together,” the country will be torn even more asunder than it already is.
Bob

BobHowittBooks.com,”The shadows of evening lengthen around me, but morning is in my heart.”973-537-1814

My reading list can be random – something, somewhere catches my eye. When “The Glass House” by Emily St. John Mandel was billed as having a Ponzi scheme guy as the lead character, I was in. It was a quite interesting and creative novel, with the Ponzi aspect only dominating quietly, but powerfully.

Naturally I had to read another book by the same author, namely “Station Eleven.” Published in 2014, would you believe that a pandemic is the pivotal narrative inflection point. Meaningful portions of the text could easily be lifted and transported into a 2020 timeline.

In the Society section below, I had framed a question this way, *What segment of the population will regard their significant individual history as beginning with the virus of 2020, just as some date their experiences from a baseline of 9-11-01.”

Ms. Mandel describes the situation thusly, “this illness Hua was describing was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life.”

In any case, what follows are a few questions, relatively mundane compared with the apocalyptic scenario in Station Eleven. They are in no particular order, as this would require additional insight. Basically they represent incomplete thoughts in need of closer scrutiny. Any reader could easily add a bunch of questions without breaking a sweat.

In case the memo was missed, nobody really knows how life in the United States is going to evolve.

EDUCATION

*Will there be a devastating negative impact from the pandemic on generational economic mobility.  During the lockdown, the below average K-12 student is being hurt more than the higher average classmate, the younger student more than the older, the lower income student more than the higher.

*Will K-12 schools re-open in the Fall of 2020 without a clue as to whether their students are prepared to move ahead. Will the traditional summer academic fall-off be exacerbated, in fact extend throughout the year as young psyches are slowly massaged back to normality.

*What will K-12 education even look like a few months out: smaller classes, in-class or remote, daily temperature checks, split morning/afternoon enrollments.

*Will the idea of year-round schooling get another look?

*In thinking about the Fall of 2020, which might turn out to be the beginning of the baby year of change in higher education, these are some immediate micro factors stimulated by a forecast of a 15% drop in enrollment and a $45 billion hit to college budgets.

• Delayed deadlines for college acceptances
• Longer wait lists, and more movement down the list
• Maybe more interest by applicants in nearby colleges
• A necessity for colleges to be more proactive about refunds
• A willingness by those with big endowments to provide more financial aid
• Increased dropping or optionality for SAT/ACT requirements, actions which are unclear in terms of what student categories they benefit and which are hurt
• Will parents encourage their collegians to sit out a year
• Easier procedures regarding transferees
• More willingness to accept gap year deferments
• More ingenuity will be needed to keep full-paying international students in the USA
• Fewer opportunities for internships, admittedly not the school’s fault
• Legal bills will rise as colleges defend themselves against class action suits by students and parents who want some of their money back where there are in-class and on-line rate differentials.
• Some colleges are moving up their opening dates in order to finish the Fall semester before Thanksgiving. The break to January reopening would then be almost two full months, sufficient time hopefully to cope with a possible second wave of virus issues.
• At some colleges, alumni are being pressured to provide jobs or “micro-internships” to the new graduates of 2020.

*Longer-term, will colleges, whatever their delivery method, have to realize that for the vast majority of students, they are a place where skills—both tangible and intangible—are learned which are applicable to getting a job. Will the cost structure be altered to fit with more price-buying on the part of applicants, who have heard enough true tales of student debt oppressed graduates.

*Will the hyper-attention to colleges as job training organizations lead to more emphasis on alternative paths, to economic success, e.g., apprenticeships and CTE. (A big “YES”)

*As the new construct of higher education shifts increasingly to on-line – or at least a hybrid model — will credentials, and the accumulation thereof, become the new standard, replacing a conventional college diploma. Already sophisticated employers in the tech area are going in that direction.

*Will the combination of changes at the higher education level finally bring about a true examination of the cost structure of colleges, as distinct from the current total emphasis on how money can be obtained to pay for the obscene expenses of higher education.

*Will colleges react to the new environment by cutting back on their administrative and singular cause staffs, which have been the driver of total higher education employment. 

*Will the almost late, mostly lamented MOOC concept come roaring back to life (evidence is positive), at the eventual expense of many jobs in higher education, particularly if small liberal arts colleges decide their only way to survive is by joining forces with a stronger financial institution.

*Will deferment of student loan repayments until September 30, 2020 prompt a deep dive into the whole debt issue, with real numbers being examined, i.e. not a flippant, “let’s just cancel them all.”

SOCIETY

*“Truth, Ambition, and Compromise” may be the subtitle (with “In Putin’s Russia”) for a book (“Between Two Fires”) about a different country, but that tension resonates everywhere. Will we balance the conflicting pressures of self, family, children, marriage, community, ideals, and economic reality differently after the virus impact has peaked.

*Will we become less individualistic, recognizing that the “this cannot happen to me” attitude proved terribly wrong during the virus outbreak. Will we agree that the health of that person six feet away is connected to my health, making the issue a “we,” not an “I” situation.

*How deeply do we care about increased levels of hunger among children? (I you are not outraged, I feel sorry for you – sorry about the editorializing.)

*Will our increased level of communication persist. If we revert to prior norms, will we miss these days of heightened interaction.

*Will there be a renewed personal resiliency with “legs,” or will the “Coddling of the American Mind” prove to be entrenched as a relatively long-term negative.

*As we Zoom more, do we lose interest in traveling and become even more culturally insular. Airlines are assuming no recovery to 2019 levels for many years.

*Will there continue to be declining interest in having babies; 2019 was a 35-year low.

*Do we eliminate the hug as a dangerous infectious activity.

*Given that Americans have already stepped up their wars on themselves (suicide rates), will the country become more likely to seize upon a flimsy excuse abroad to launch an external war.

*Will entertainment become even more digitized than at present.  Are professional and other sports feasible with crowd restrictions.

*Not a question, but a given: the 2020 election will be incredibly ugly, with more than a good chance that the loser does not accept defeat gracefully.

ECONOMICS

*Will issues of social justice/equity/fairness for all sectors of the populace lead to more discussion and eventual acceptance of the Universal Basic Income concept. Reportedly, 40% of those formerly earning $40,000 or less are now unemployed.

*Will globalization take a big pause as nations recalibrate their degrees of interdependence. Or will there simply be a redistribution of sources, China losing share to other low-cost countries and some manufacturing coming back to the United States itself. The Economist estimates that 90% of the population lives in countries with “largely closed borders” and that countries representing 59% of world GDP have “tightened rules on foreign investment.”

*Given that the country has been slavishly addicted to perpetual GDP growth, does the virus “hiccup” cause one to reconsider that metric as the sole yardstick for quality of life. Or will we instead immediately bounce back to the consumptive model, fueled by ever-increasing debt loads, no longer regarded as a governmental problem under new monetary theory.

*Does the totally atypical debt load of the country suggest that something has to change, to avoid a recurrence of inflation that has almost always gone with a hyper printing press for fiat money. If the Federal Reserve pumps money in to get us out of a recession, continues pumping as the economy recovers, and then tosses in mega-money in response to the virus, what monetary tool remains.

*Will the rise in anti-anxiety and depression prescriptions be reversed if a COVID-19 vaccine proves effective and widely available.

EPILOGUE?

“The other channels were all static and test patterns by then, except for the ones that were repeating a government emergency broadcast over and over, useless advice about staying indoors and avoiding crowded places.” Ibid.