 I'm still blown away with gratitude that this even happened. I bow to Rocco DeVito and everyone else who helped put this together, and who took a chance on me playing such a significant role in this wonderful conference. Thank you to all of the friendly faces, all the kind comments in passing, liminal exchanges in hallways and tables and parking lots, the backs of conference rooms and along the trails of the park outside. I take none of it for granted. Enjoy the video below and share it around! For those who weren't there, this is a speech about the importance of integrating community and humanity into transit planning, and features updated versions of two bus stories, followed by a Q&A.
0 Comments
 All of us have a friend, or relative, whom we like but who has views we can't tolerate. We like them because we know people are better than their worst qualities. You know this because you are yourself better than your stupidest mistakes, and because people can change. You’ve grown. Right? Maybe someday they will too.
I tend to let people be who they are. I don’t reject those who have different values, partly because on the road, I can't. I rub shoulders amongst, well, everyone, including some of Seattle’s most misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic communities. I feel sorry for the smallness of their prejudiced worlds. But I can’t hate them, because I’ve spent time with them. You can only hate people you don’t know well. I try instead to focus on the good things, listening and leading by example, reminding myself that a person is always more than one thing. But battle lines are being drawn in our great country, and we are entering a new era focused on violating the rights of women, immigrants, people of color, those with disabilities, the elderly, and the poor. That's basically everybody. Some people support this subjugation, wrongly thinking they’ll benefit from it. I speak now to you folks. This post is not for the choir, because preaching to the choir is lazy. It’s for the haters. I reach out to you without judgment, because I happen to like some of you, and I think you’re better than this. Read on. -- Somewhere along the way, somebody awfully clever suggested that feminists hate men. This is not accurate. Women often love men, especially men who are respectful. They simply want their own needs to be addressed too. You know, like how you put on your own oxygen mask first on the airplane. Women want an oxygen mask of their own, that they get to put on–protections, guarantees, support, respect; things men have always had and take for granted. Feminism is a fight not for dominance but equality. When was the last time someone treated you like your desires and opinions don't count, like you’re less intelligent than you really are, less educated, don't make as much money, or don't have as much experience? Ask your female and POC friends if they ever run into this. Wouldn’t it frustrate you too? You know our current president is “pro-rape.” He thinks being a rapist (meaning, a psychopath incapable of empathy, who can violate and permanently traumatize others without the faintest idea of what that’s like to go through) represents a compelling go-getter attitude useful in business and politics. It’s a new phrase, a new idea. I cannot abide by it. Because it, all of it at the end of the day, boils down to this: I was raised to treat others the way I want to be treated. You were too. You’ve heard of the Golden Rule. All religions have a variant of it, because it’s incontestable. Without it all societies would crumble. Also, pragmatically speaking, there's this: If people around you are doing better, you will do better too. You don't lose anything if society treats women and people of color fairly. Men are taught subconsciously that they have purpose if they're providers, and this is why the independence of women scares them- what purpose does a man have if there's no one to provide for? But men can be more than just providers, just as women can be more than homemakers, admirable as those roles are. Not everyone wants to get married and raise kids. If women can control their bodies (meaning their lives) and innovate, contribute, grow, as they choose, rather than being forced to do what others say, forced to put aside their dreams forever... if immigrants can get a foothold and complete, say, medical school (that’s more people who could cure cancer–your cancer, or your kids’)… quality of life improves for everyone. You can be a man supporting the opportunities of others for purely selfish reasons, and it would still make sense. Human rights don’t exist in limited supply. They aren't like food or money. And anyways, why support ideas that make life harder for your own loved ones? Politicians love to manipulate using fear because it's easy. Don’t give in. You're not afraid. Talk to people from other walks of life, ask and listen. Aren't they so much more like you than you thought? The way forward is one where everyone feels empowered, where your needs and theirs are met. This is how we increase the general welfare and the blessings of liberty for all. How did our leaders make you forget what you always knew was true? Treat others as you would want to be treated. Measure everything by that. It’s all you need to remember. I know it’s pointless to try to change others, but I believe in diplomacy first. The most powerful weapons are not weapons, but ideas. Words. I use them now because I want to believe we can get somewhere by having a dialogue. And I may be wrong. Maybe those kids you’ve read about, those teen boys who bully girls by chanting, “your body, my choice….” Maybe I’m wrong, and they should all just be summarily taken out and shot. I can think of no attitude the world would be better off without than theirs. Maybe you can’t talk to these people, just like you couldn’t talk to Hitler or bin Laden. But can you blame me for trying? -- It’s not for me to have the last word on this subject. Here’s Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth and the first woman to write a book on war. Food for thought: In spite of the feminine family tradition and the relentless social pressure which had placed an artificial emphasis on marriage for all the women born, like myself, in the 1890s, I had always held and still believed it to be irrelevant to the main purpose of life. For a woman as for a man, marriage might enormously help or devastatingly hinder the growth of her power to contribute something impersonally valuable to the community in which she lived, but it was not that power, and could not be regarded as an end to itself. Nor, even, were children ends in themselves; it was useless to go on producing human beings merely in order that they, in their sequence, might produce others, and never turn from this business of continuous procreation to the accomplishment of some definite and lasting piece of work.  Trolley buses remind me of manual transmissions in cars. They demand qualities which require added effort, but which make us better drivers: attention, focus, present concentration, a continual honing of skill, a talent for timing, and an ability to read the road further ahead than normal. No, they're not the easy choice. But easier is not always better. Aren't knives best sharpened against the unpleasant resistance of stone? Muscles best created through effort and strain? Challenges make us better, and trolleys are a skill set with a steep learning curve. I think they're the best work in the system. Read on for tips on how to excel while you're at Atlantic. One day you'll have the seniority to pick away from here, but you just might find yourself wanting to stick around...
If needed: click here for a breakdown of what trolley buses are and how they work. Now, let's begin: Navigating through special work Don’t power through deadspots. It’s bad for the electricity (you’re arcing the power every time you do that, and you may blow your fuses), and it gives a jolt to the passengers, which they don’t like, especially if you’re doing that for the whole ride. Instead, coast through them. How?
Landmarks and difficult special work: an example Let's use outbound 5th and Jackson as an example, and go through it step by step, together. Assuming we're using a sixty-foot trolley (the deadspots will be in different locations in a forty-footer):
General reminders
Stopping smoothly on an uphill Using the hill holder rather than the service brake can make this smoother. Here's how:
Resetting your poles from one lane of wire to another
Resetting your poles after losing your poles I try to be aware of where the poles are at all times, and the minute I’m not sure, I check visually, either by the mirror or by actually stepping out. You want to be sure. This way, you only ever have to move poles from one lane of wire to another, rather than having them fly off and go everywhere. But let’s just say that’s just happened anyway, because sometimes it does. The poles have just flown off and are swinging around, settling on top of the coach.
Merging during switches You’re southbound on 3rd, approaching Union.
Pulling into the yard
Qualifying on trolley routes Pay attention. Stand at the front. Ask questions. For the love of all things holy, don’t sit in the back with your headphones in. Trolleys are a challenge, and you don't need to learn all this the hard way. We're a team at Atlantic. Try qualifying with someone who speaks your native language, so you can hash out all the details. If the driver isn't being a good teacher, try a different bus or come find me. Third Third Avenue has the highest amount of bus traffic of any road in the world. Don't clog it. Here’s a recap for how to do the Weave in three lines:
Thank you for being a professional. The only thing left to say is the one thing that's more important than every single little detail above: We're a team. Let's look out for each other.  This intersection is a living thing. You come upon it slowly, visible as it is from a distance in all four directions, but it still surprises you. Its capacity to shock surpasses the imagination. How debased can humans become, in their treatment of others, of themselves? How thoughtless, how distracted, self-obsessed, how cruel? You cannot know if you haven't spent solid time here, and I don't just mean passing through. I've given up trying to explain it to people. Bosch would shake his head in rueful understanding. Even the more reflective Bruegel captures it in his 1560 Children's Games. This is simply part of who we humans are.
Twelfth and Jackson's current state is the logical extension of our society's preoccupations: a bottomless appetite for escaping present reality, especially anything involving pain or challenge; a tendency to look after one's own needs and no one else's; and– to paraphrase Hanlon's razor, an endless capacity for what looks like malice, but is really just ignorance and laziness. If you could get an entire city's power structure to continue kicking its biggest problems down the road, you'd get 12th and Jackson. So why do I love going through there so much? Why do I relish the opportunities to step outside there, helping people with their walkers and strollers and carts and wheelchairs? To let them know through my actions that I see them as equals? What is it about these castaways, who reject the capitalist system that rejects them, who've found its weak points and milk them without apology, who remind us that the only thing we all have in common is our stupefying talent for making mistakes? Perspectives I haven't always felt this way. But tonight, with the infamous zone now closed, as I drop off my peeps at 8th instead of 12th, and watch them now have to walk the four long uphill blocks to their destination, my heart begins to tell me things my mind has forgotten. These are the most hated, feared, avoided, abandoned, talked-about people in the city. They will be gone someday, and for the first time I realize I'm going to miss them. Why do I find myself having a soft spot for these rejected souls?
Faces Underdogs find each other, sometimes in unexpected ways. Tonight a trans girl of color and a scruffy young white guy enter as friends, nevermind that assumptions tell us they never would, the former gregarious and the latter with that distinctly rural silence you acquire when you know the loneliness of vast spaces. Because 12th is no longer a zone I have to explain the closure to everyone, and this invites conversation. She says, “Why are you the only nice bus driver? Or like, the only driver that's nice to us?” I know I'm not the only one, but I play along. She means the general state of affairs. “I don't know!” I exclaim. “It's not that hard to be nice to people, right?” “I guess it is!” “I guess it is.” “Well, I know you drivers have to deal with a lot of shit.” “That's true. But people are mostly pretty all right. Lotta people struggling these days, can't expect ’em to be at their best.” The rural guy nods silently. I'd remembered the girl from previous rides, when she seemed too distracted to notice anything about the driver, but tonight she shared that she had, “and the next time I got on the 7 I was like hold up, what happened to the friendly bus driver?" Another young man echoes these words later on, appreciating how I announce the stops. "Thanks man," I reply. “I like being out here. I'm glad somebody notices!” “Oh yeah. Sometimes I'm having a shitty day and I blow right past you, but I notice.” His humanity comes into focus as we continue chatting, talking about his days fishing in Alaska, about waves, swells, and finally about the film Interstellar, the two of us united, transported, seen by each other as we rhapsodize over what is both one of our favorite films, enthusing on various aspects of its cinematography and especially that magnificent score. Who could ever say these guys are less than human? I've written often about how respect is the currency of the street. All street fights are about perceived disrespect. Respect on the street, when it is perceived, is often acknowledged with gratitude. Maybe I like the 12th and Jackson crowd for the simple fact that (when they're not having an episode or high out of their minds) they respect me. It feels good, frankly. You don't have to demonstrate respect and gratitude in Bellevue. You can, but you don't have to. But in the spaces I drive, doing so can save your life. And being on the receiving end of it brings me up. Saying hey to Vern, an old-timer I haven't seen in a decade. He slept on my bus for years, but he was always going somewhere, on his way toward something, just like he is today. Witness his quiet surprise that I remember his name. He smiles to himself, feeling seen anew, perhaps a rare feeling for him. My heart warms correspondingly at other gents who remember my name, especially two grizzled men slightly too old for all this mess, the one with piercing blue eyes, who fought in Afghanistan because he wanted to help end Saddam’s crimes against women. Catching up with Nemo on his way to 12th, a young man effusive with praise and gratitude, the kind of angelic personality I've never seen get angry, despite his circumstances. I watch him bring out the light in his friends. “I'm so glad you're still here," I say, "still goin’ strong.” These people can have preciously short lifespans. Here is a jeep at 3rd and University southbound, pulling up alongside me after dark. It's tricked out with a custom paint job, glossy red rims, and an elevated chassis. There's a sunroof, tinted black like all the other windows, and it's opening now, and there's a man standing up through it, the driver's head and torso rising into view. He's gesturing, trying to get my attention. I'm illuminated by my driver's dome light. What does he want? I take a chance and open my window. “Yo," he exclaims, continuing with words of appreciation and gratitude that I'm blushing too furiously over to repeat here. “You got me through that shit for real, all that mothafuckin’ bullshit!” He gestures toward the mayhem back there at the bus zone, presumably referring to a period of homelessness and struggle and late nights on buses. I return his words with appreciation of my own. We wish each other Happy New Year, and I watch with glowing joy as he drives away, a man who's put in the work and gotten through it, driving a fancy tricked-out vehicle that clearly means a lot to him. He dreamt of one day getting here… and he has. “I don't like that man," Abraham Lincoln once quipped. “I must get to know him better." I like this derided crowd because I've gotten to know some of them. When I feel safe– which isn't all the time– but when I do feel safe, and my needs are met, I'm able to feel empathy for them. I imagine this would be true for any of us. Mirrors The single most valuable piece of instruction I got in bus driver training was the great Bob Dowd telling us: Respect everyone, especially the people whom you think deserve it the least. What helps nurture this skill? Art, and for me especially cinema, is the great empathy-building machine. I think of Roma, Keane, Mati Diop, Andrea Arnold’s work, Scorsese, this year's Nickel Boys, Millet, August Wilson's plays; I think of Tolstoy, Hardy, Wharton, Richard Wright. These works and countless others offer suggestions of what it's like to walk in another's shoes. They remind me that all great stories are actually about loneliness, because loneliness is the premier and universal human problem, especially of our time. I watch them walk the long walk up Jackson, and I see myself in their solitude, their uncertain futures. I regard their ignorance and confusion, the restless narcissism of drug-addled youth; I regard the ethnic minorities they disrupt and displace (whom I picture above, and who've lost transit through no fault of their own). I consider my coworkers, suspicious and afraid. All suffer in varying degrees; each of us has something to be bitter about. The difference is that my outcast peeps in the street have nowhere to hide. The rest of us walk our hard walks behind closed doors, playing up our facades of competence and class. They walk their walk in plain sight. -- P.S.: Things I don't appreciate about 12th and Jackson:
 Click here for both interviews. The short version (6 minutes) is at the top of the page, and printed; Scroll down for the long version (19 minutes), which goes into further detail and covers issues like fare, shields, and back-door boarding. Further context:
I post new material at the start of every month. Check back soon!  I always called him by his full name because it made him laugh. Shawn and I crossed paths in the lunchroom, on the road, at our lockers, the bullpen, the layovers, and everywhere else. We moved in similar circles. He and I both had the seniority to pick away from Atlantic Base, home of the hardest and most challenging routes; and we both had the seniority to pick away from night work, but for different reasons we wanted to be there, working our night shifts together downtown. I do it because I like the people and the pace; Shawn did it because he needed the money, and overtime is best found on the routes, times, and places that are least desirable.
But the 70 is such a cush route. It doesn't even go to 12th and Jackson. It's too short for sleepers. It's just the 70. Shawn wasn't downtown, either. This happened in the U District. And, reading this at home, you might think 3 AM is a uniquely dangerous time, but it isn't. In post-COVID Seattle there's no difference in safety between 3 PM and 3 AM. Both are equally fraught. Remember the new full-timer who, perhaps because he was African, was [REDACTED to protect operator privacy]. That happened during afternoon rush hour, broad daylight with tons of people around. Our city allows this sort of thing. Let the terrible sentence live now as it did then, in that poor operator's horrific experience. He will never forget those minutes. The same is true for the ten people recently stabbed near 12th and Jackson within a 36-hour period, by one deranged individual who attacked all of his victims unprovoked and mostly from behind. There are good folks up there at that notorious intersection, from the small business owners to the seniors in affordable housing to yes, the youngsters outside struggling with drugs. I happen to really like some of those people. They don't deserve to be stabbed. Neither did Shawn. I consider his final moments with the paralysis of intimate sorrow, intimate because I’ve probably driven the very same vehicle was sitting in, and because I know exactly the terrain and timbre of his final time and place. Shawn Yim as he stumbled away from the bus, making it only a short distance before collapsing on the concrete, over there in the alley behind Wells Fargo, a young and healthy 59 year-old dying alone, collapsing not just in loss of blood but also in belief. How could it possibly end this way, so badly and so soon? All the things I'd planned for, hoped for, wanted to do, fix, see, live…. You remember that I was in the Paris terror attacks in 2015. My next book dives deep into that. But you also remember how decisively Paris, as a system of governance, took action in responding to something even as nebulous as terrorists, taking preventative measures while pursuing the appropriate action behind the scenes, swiftly and with the use of considerable resources. They ensured safety when the enemy was unknown and few. Our situation is different. Seattle’s problems and dangers are not hidden but obvious. They repeat in predictable and terrifying ways. Violent behavior happens here without intervention. Life-destroying drugs can be used in broad daylight without consequence. Unstable souls with desperate needs, dangers to themselves and others, are dumped on the street and left to rot amongst the crowd. Hundreds of millions of dollars and years of lip service are expended in the name of solving these crises, while 3rd Avenue remains exactly as unsafe as it was four years ago. The fact that it was Shawn Yim crushes me. A robust and friendly man, one of the few Korean-Americans at Atlantic Base besides myself. I rarely brought up our shared heritage but it was always there between us, an unspoken bond the others couldn't share. We would joke about the miserable state of things, the jesting laughs of our brief interactions emboldening us to carry onward. “I don't know how you do it, Nate," he'd smile, watching my enthusiasm as I prepped for another night on my 7. It happened five minutes into his last trip of his shift. Home stretch, almost done. He probably took the piece (we call shifts pieces) thinking this'll be easy, route 70 at night no big deal, nice easy route during the hours when there's no traffic, even better. What was he saving up for, working all those hours? The pain of losing Shawn is the fact that I always hoped to know him better. We were both of us continuously in motion, rushing through our lives, aware that we'd get more out of knowing each other but, you know, duty calls. Our friendship was a lifetime of unfinished conversations. Who was he, deep down? The two of us standing by the microwave, Shawn with his polished wire-frame glasses and trademark light blue oxford–only senior operators wear those, because the uniform store no longer makes them–with a reflective vest on top. His bald head and thoughtful eyes plus the professionalism of the glasses, contrasted with that safety vest, cast him as a sort of urban intellectual, the kind of person you can’t quite pin down, because they don’t fit into any one box. I always wanted to ask another question, share a little more. He knew my partner, and would joke about how good her Korean is. “That’s so creepy, you sound like my sister!” he'd tell her, laughing with that handsome, tired smile of his. Other times he'd be driving the bus I was riding, and we’d wax reflectively about human nature and the state of the city. Of course I wish I could remember our exact conversations. But how can I, sitting as I am in the shell-shocked immensity that is violent death? At least I can still recall the feeling, the easy sensation of another day with one of your favorite coworkers, joking the trip away while watching the road together. He was so good at letting me be myself, even when he had different views. I did the same for him. We never tried to change each other. Talking with him brought me joy. Why do we delay the things that matter most? It is the City’s responsibility–our leaders and ourselves–to make Seattle safe. To foster environments where people don't have to risk damage and death by merely using transit. After all that has happened and continues to happen, who among our leaders would dare to say meaningful progress has been made? My friends on the street and I know differently. We watch and wait as ever we have, waiting for legislation that could so easily reverse a lot of the things Seattleites have to suffer, waiting for someone with the agency and power and courage to come forward and make some real moves. That person will be named a hero. But whoever they end up being, they will be too late for Shawn Yim.  Stalkers are no fun. They make me uncomfortable. It's something female operators and I commiserate about– the problem is more common than you think. One night a colleague walked into the base after her shift with three massive– and exquisite– bouquets of roses.
“What's the story?" I asked. “Oh, they're from my stalker," she replied. “I can't say no, or else he flips out. These are hunnerd dollar bouquets! I'm like, sure! Now I'm ’onna go put ‘em on my Dad's grave! Din't tell him that though!” "Right?? Hey, makin’ the best of it!” She grinned with relief when I and another operator listening shared we have stalkers too. It's an occupational hazard that isn't discussed enough. In past days I was always embarrassed to share about mine, though in retrospect I have no idea why; maybe I thought I was the only one. Shame follows us in curious ways. Of course, stalkers never think they're stalkers. They think they're boyfriends, or girlfriends. For the longest time I thought the best way to deal with them was to stay on their friendly side– you know, “keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer"– by giving them what they wanted in a boring, unfulfilling, and boundary-ridden manner that would hopefully make them lose interest and finally stop bothering me (newsflash: this doesn't even come close to working). I've always been too nice. I didn't know the first thing about speaking up for myself, or how to ask for help. And I'm particularly at risk for stalkers because I have a high threshold for what I think constitutes friendly behavior: more than once have I been accused of sending mixed messages, and more than once has my friendliness been misinterpreted for flirtation. I can hardly blame such accusations; people (myself included) see only what they're looking for. All this to say that there's an antsy knot that appears within me when people refuse to leave the bus, especially at terminals. The invasion of privacy that is someone refusing to let you take your break alone is (strangely) similar to the sensation of being stalked. Both involve an ignorance of your need for personal space. It can be hard not to take personally. That anxiety manifested itself in frustration this afternoon, when I noticed a man in his eighties nodding off when we arrived at the Queen Anne terminal. I told him we were at the end of the line, that it was time to hop out, but he couldn't be bothered. He gazed up from behind his walker with glassy eyes, staring fixedly out the window, then at me. He wore green corduroy pants and a clean oxford button-up. He had a large Nordstrom Rack bag. It looked brand new. I took a deep breath and sat across from him, resigned to having lost my break due to his presence, trying to hide my irritation while reminding myself that this was no stalker, obviously, just another bewildered soul who got on a bus without reading the destination sign, trusting to fate that it'd take him where he wanted. I said, “Where you tryin’ to get to?" "Boren and Minor,” he said. My brain hiccuped. Aren't those parallel? “Well, lemme take a second and look that up. Boren and Minor, that's tricky. You got a good one. Usually I know where stuff is!” I've removed all web browsers and social media from my phone, but I still use Maps. Together we confirmed that there was no such intersection, and that what he wanted was the Capitol Hill QFC on Pike. Still bewildered, he said, “You always drive this route?” “I've done most of the routes, but usually do the 7 and the 49.” “The 49, where's that go?” I reminded him. “That's right, the one I'm spossa be takin’.” I was coming around to the guy. His slow-birthing confusion reminded me of early childhood, the age-old puzzlement we feel looking out at existence, so full of questions we never find answers for. He had that quality of paralysis I've felt in times of grief, when just being takes great effort. “We'll work it out,” I said. “How's your day been otherwise?” “Been good. I woke up this morning.” “Exactly yeah, good to be above ground, nice beautiful day like this. I like this job.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. I been driving these buses 17 years.” “Oh! Long time!” “Yeah man, 2007. I still like it. Where’d you work before?” “Postal service. It was real uh, blue collar type work.” He had a soft voice, thin, and no teeth, but there was just barely enough articulation to make out his words. “Hey, that's you and me both,” I exclaimed in agreement. "I respect that so much, real work doin’ somethin’ with your hands. Feels like you've actually done something at the end of the day. Did you like it?” “Hell no, I just wanted that retirement!” We laughed. The silence he wore so well couldn't stay put for long though, a silence of memories lived and lost, hazy, emotions waiting in forgotten rooms. He said, “My twin sister she passed just as you was startin’, in 2008. We were real close.” “I'm sorry to hear it.” “Thanks,” he said, with real appreciation. “We were real tight, every day. She taught me to read and write, taught me how to cook.” “Sounds like a good person.” “She was.” “What was her name?” “Kathy. Kathy –.” I paused. Somehow it was important to continue, to respect his presence with spoken interest, engagement. You get ignored too often in later age. No one likes to feel invisible. “You been in Seattle a while?” “You bet. Came here 1953.” “Oh 1953, wow! I bet you seen some changes.” It's a line I often share with the old-timers, the better to make their memories feel heard. It unleashes the wound-up slipstream of memory inside them. Having been here thirty-plus years myself, there's always a lot to share, here in this metropolis even I now barely recognize. But he had a different answer. “Um. Not really. It's pretty much the same.” No one's ever said that about Seattle! But I realized he was much older than most of the old timers I chat with. He wasn't fifty or sixty; he was at least mid-eighties, if not moreso. He had the perspective to have seen not just one rise or fall, but several of each. I found myself grinning with newfound optimism. By way of paraphrase, I said, “…Everything changes, everything stays the same!” “Ha! You got that right!” “People are happy, people are sad, joy and sorrow, highs and lows.” “Highs and lows for sure." We learned each other's names and shared further words and silences, as I let his humanity reach me. He was about as far from being a stalker as one could be. When we finally arrived at his stop, I went back to alert him, and walked out with him together, showing him how to cross the street and where, for his connecting route. I'm often moved by the solitary figure walking away from the bus, and was once again as I watched him. The figure striking out, alone, amidst a vast throng of indifferent souls, all moving and thinking faster than he. We can only hope that when we are one day as old as he is, if we're fortunate enough to live that long, as rich in memory and perspective, that a youngster or two will take time out of their day to slow down and help. To meet us at our pace, and trust that once, long ago, we were kings.  In reviewing the recent electoral catastrophe, I find myself seeking answers. Am I wrong about my own views? Is it me or them? How did this train wreck happen, and why? It's similar to how I feel when confronted with cruelty and apathy on the street. I'll witness a moment of extreme selfishness and wonder, where is their best self, their considerate self? Why this instead? Selfishness happens most naturally when one's survival is at stake… or when one thinks one's survival is at stake.
Rural white poverty has always been, numerically, the largest type of poverty in the US, and as ever, it remains the least studied. Sociological studies of the poor tend to stem from major cities and the diverse demographics within them. Many of us have relatives who live out there, with baffling perspectives we cannot share. And don't forget– they find us equally baffling. Perspectives come from education, whether in school or from lived experience. What sort of education do we imagine exists out in the red states? To what degree are our rural and working-class neighbors equipped to decode the clever messaging politicians send their way? 1. Breaking it Down Literacy comes to mind as an effective unit of measure. And literacy is more than being able to read and write. Let's briefly review the PIAAC’s (Program for International Assessment of Adult Competencies) six levels of literacy (more here). -Below Level 1: basic vocabulary only; can understand info on a familiar topic. -Level 1: can fill out basic forms; can't make inferences from written material (unable to understand correct dosage on a medicine label). -Level 2: able to make comparisons and simple inferences; unable to evaluate reliability. (can understand product reviews. Able to write a paragraph about your day). -Level 3: able to read multiple pages of text. Can evaluate sources and infer complex ideas; can identify inappropriate or irrelevant info (can compare two bus schedules and plan a trip). -Level 4: can understand non-central ideas from multiple texts to evaluate subtle claims and persuasive discourse (able to detect subtle bias and form one's own conclusion). -Level 5: can synthesize contrasting points of view; select key info to evaluate conceptual models of ideas; aware of rhetorical cues and high-level inferences requiring specialized background knowledge (can write a PhD dissertation). These are not measures of worth. I write the above without condescension. There are numerous types of knowledge, including all those the PIAAC system can't even begin to measure. Many of my favorite people, from the street or otherwise, are exactly those whom the above criteria would deem limited in their ability to decode written or spoken messages. I happen to like some of these people, and I respect and learn from them. I find something to admire in a certain freedom they sometimes exhibit, a freedom from the homogenizing intellect-based worldliness that becomes so tiresome after a while. But when an election is going on with this much at stake, you need to be able to understand what you're looking at. And as it turns out, 54 percent of the US is below a Level 3. This means they can't identify bias, evaluate reliability, or make inferences about what's irrelevant. They can read headlines, but not multiple pages of text. This map has breakdowns of literacy levels for every county in the US. You might be surprised to discover how many counties are mostly illiterate at levels 3 thru 5. You'll also notice a certain vast, recurring and undeniable correspondence between… you guessed it, counties with limited literacy levels and a high Trump voter response. 2. Feelings & Distractions All of us humans nurse a loneliness we pretend we don't have. We yearn to belong, to be seen and heard and wanted. What vast pocket of Americans has been continuously ignored, ridiculed and overlooked, by the wider culture, by media, news, politicians and governments? You know the answer. They have spoken now. They don't care about your needs, because survival is a selfish act and they imagine their survival is at stake. They believe the lies they've been told, the reassuring pronouncements that their needs will finally be addressed. They've fallen for the urgency capitalism wants us to think is true: that only some can survive. A person who feels ignored, especially in the sense of being able to sustain their livelihood, as rural and working-class folks today do, is going to respond enthusiastically to a politician who claims to see them, not condescendingly but equally, who claims to be one of them, who will save them from the rest of the world that ignores them and their needs. Who wants to burn down the whole broken system that's sidelined them for so long. Fear and frustration: these are the ways to manipulate the masses, especially if they're not looking too closely. Which is where the literacy part comes in. Trump is not “one of them,” and never was. You know this. He's an unstable billionaire with dementia seeking to make life easier for himself and other billionaires. He’s a convicted serial rapist and 34-count felon who absolutely does not care about poor white people, as his previous administration makes numbingly clear. Those folks are doing just as badly as they always were. No, he cares about rich white people. He distracts the poor with hot-button social issues that shouldn't even be political, taking advantage of people's shortsightedness on class, while making economic decisions that disadvantage everyone besides his own tax bracket. Only in a country that turns such a blind eye to class could voters fail to comprehend this massive and thoroughly obvious oversight. I'll refrain from discussing the many other oversights. Literacy. That's what this election was about. The ability to decode rhetoric. To read through advertising, to perceive the culture's political tricks for what they are. They fell for it, millions of them, to the point that they voted against their own self-interests. 3. In Summation This great, young country of ours strikes me now as an adolescent, a fiery, brilliant, impassioned creature who seems fully formed but isn't, who has difficulty understanding basic truths, who responds not intellectually but emotionally. Puberty. It's when you make your worst decisions, when you think only of yourself and ignore the needs of others. Sometimes there's nothing harder than having to share the room with a teenager. Especially when they get to make all the decisions. --- What lies ahead? As a society, we have no choice. It's a cancer diagnosis. As individuals though, we do have choice: to help the person next to us. To foster community locally. To remember we do better when those around us (different as they may be) do better. Helping others takes patience and effort. Let us breathe. We don't get to choose the times we live in, but we do get to choose how we live in them. I'll see you out there. --- Sources and Further reading: Trump
Literacy
Rural white poverty
Although I feel compelled to share the above, this won't become a political blog, I promise! As Paul Currington said, politics and opinions push people apart... whereas stories bring people together. Right now we need the latter.  I post at the start (or before) of every month. Check back when bills are due!
Celia just called me, a spur-of-the-minute decision as she sped down Rainier late tonight. “This is Celia,” she says in the voicemail. She adds her last name, as though I might have forgotten after all these years. Not a chance. “I saw you driving the 7 just now, and I thought I would call. You were northbound on Rainier at Rose. You had your light on, as usual. I was reminded of all the good times we had together, all those rides and conversations.” I am suffused with a kind of bewilderment, the melancholy joy that comes when we are reminded of the size of existence. Her voice brought back a flood of– not so much memories but the sensation, the bodied recall of an effortless peace, when the clutter was benign, those sections of our lives that did not feature pain or stress as their principal ingredient. You remember. She worked at Italian Family Pizza and brought me slices regularly. Those were the days when I got so many meals gifted from passengers I didn't know what to do. Her and I, laughing at the terminal. Or the two of us quietly absorbed in the world moving by, me driving and her up front watching, one or the other of us periodically punctuating things with a comment. The genial silence of relaxed friendship, easy, uncluttered by romance or goals or futures. Or later, speaking softly in her family’s kitchen, the two of us building ideas after the rest of the house had gone to bed. Was she the sister I never got to have? Celia sitting on top of the wheelwell because why not, she's light enough. And me so happy she made it running all the way down First Hill from work to downtown to catch me, just in time, a long jog in the dark hoping for this moment, her flustered smile still scented with cardboard and dough. She was carrying leftover slices in a box under her arm. Why do I remember this moment better than all the others? Memories. They overwhelm me now, the surprise that once upon a time this was the biggest thing that ever was, the present, a Tuesday night bus ride home. Catching up over rain-slicked neon pavement. We echo into the deeper past, unknowingly, a gift for our future selves. If the only intelligent response to the incredible gift of life is gratitude, then the only meaningful interpretation of the past is through forgiveness. We must forgive, others for their hurtful actions and ourselves for our faults. Why dwell on ignorance, laziness, selfishness? There is no time. The time that was is gone. Let the gauze of selective memory paper over the pain, work its magic, that we might more fully recall the rest of the picture: all of the joy, the lightness and normality, the neutral afternoons and the textures that become real when we forget to rush. Tonight she continues in the voicemail, telling me she tried to make my recent art show, plus an update: she has a newborn now. It was going to be a surprise at the gallery, but here we are. Her voice is at peace with itself. The times we shared could only have happened then. That was our season. She makes no mention of “we should get together.” We humans drift closer and then apart, pulled by the tides of ourselves, new projects and people. It is the way of things. Friends once, now acquaintances. They're living their life now and so are you, and you're busy. But you find yourself pausing, now. You tarry tonight in a still room, alone with your memories even if someone else is sleeping nearby. You go to the kitchen for water and remain a bit after turning out the light, appreciating the darkness and the liberating fullness of time. How the faint light catches the rim of the water glass. You say to yourself, “She was a good friend of mine.”  I've got two interviews for you this month, both centering around the creative process. These were conducted in relation to my Gallery 110 solo show from last year, which you can learn more about here (including video of a very fun art talk!).
I post once a month, at the beginning of the month– check back soon for an epic piece about the very last 7/49, which by super special request I was lucky enough to drive! |
Nathan
Archives
May 2025
Categories |
RSS Feed