Leadership and the Humanities Class Blog Posts

I went to the Sharp Viewpoint Speaker Series on the 12^th, where Michele Norris gave a talk called The Race Card: Observations on Race, Identity, and Inclusion. One of the main things she talked about was The Race Card Project, a project she started several years ago where people would tell stories about their identity in 6 words. It was an inspiring speech, because the goal of this project was to promote speech and give a voice to topics that are generally silent. The project has collected over 500,000 post cards, and that number is constantly growing larger with digital cards and social media allowing for even larger participation.

Some of the most interesting points in her speech, for me, was when she brought up how racism is a spectrum that can range from a noose down to a small social papercut (microaggression), saying that “biases are baked into western DNA.” Serious, uncomfortable discussions are necessary to move us closer to a post-racism society. To end, Michele Norris’s two six-word stories are “fool them all, not done yet” and “there’s still work to be done”

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Before watching this video, I had no idea that so much resistance took place in the United States at the time of the Vietnam war. I was surprised to hear that the anti-war movement began on college campuses nationwide as a protest against the war and the draft. Specifically, the killings of Kent State really disturbed me. These killings marked the climax of the antiwar movement, as the government fired on its own children, and I am extremely shocked that our nation got to that point of extremism and violence. 

I think it is really important to consider the role of leadership in these events. Around 1967, civil rights leaders began publicly speaking up against the war. MLK, for instance, stated in one of his speeches that “[the bombs in Vietnam] destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.” In addition to verbally opposing the war, he also described, “war is not peace and tyranny is not freedom.” In my opinion, this last quote is extremely inspiring because MLK proves that the war has more disadvantages than benefits. In fact, increased militancy caused increased anger and backlash, which explains how the protests rapidly turned violent.

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Every time I study the Vietnam War I am left with the same question: how did LBJ and his administration let it get so far? The video shows the continuous escalation of the war through numbers and protests. At first, protesters were peacefully marching and performing sit-ins to fight back against what was supposed to be an “equalizer” draft. Then in August 1967, 50,000 more troops were ordered to fight in Vietnam. This meant that a half a million soldiers were now going to fight in Vietnam. This escalated protests to larger stages: the senate, pulpits, and other governmental or societal platforms. The video says that in this moment LBJ knew the opposition had shifted- it was no longer just on the streets. Yet that following April 44,000 more troops were called. This number was an escalation to more recent drafts that had been happening. So, in the face of an escalating public push back, LBJ and his administration still decided to continue to fully participate in the Vietnam War. Once Nixon took over protests got even worse and culminated in 1.5 million college students involved in protests and famously 4 college students dying on Kent State’s campus. People from across the nation, from all different background came out in that moment to be a voice of protest. This ignorance of the peoples’ protests is a reoccurring theme throughout history. I just don’t understand how presidencies can turn such a blind eye to the results of their actions.

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Mae Ngai, an American historian, spoke about refugees in America and the myth that surrounds them. American stance on refugees and immigrants is encircled by a myth like the one that surrounds the founding fathers we talked about in class. The narrative we tell in history classes about the founding fathers is one of humble beginnings and extraordinary success. We do not hear of the slaves they owned, their refusal to grant all humans rights, the lack of flexibility the system has upheld beyond those eight men. A similar narrative reigns true for refugees. Professor Ngai summarized the narrative by the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty. “The Colossus” poem suggests that a part of American’s foundation is immigrants and that not only would one find liberty in America, but also refuge. That myth defines the surface of our nation’s immigrant and refugee policies, but Professor Ngai went on in her speech to share staggering statistics about refugees in the US and around the world.

First and foremost, she put a crack in the foundation of the founding fathers. The Second Amendment went into the constitution to protect the vast diversity of religions in the new colonies. But in fact, in the beginning, each state still held their own policy and affiliation with a certain religion. The mythical utopia of diverse religions isn’t true. Then, globally the first policies to support refugees stated, and still do, that any person has the right to exit a country but holds no formal right to enter another. That policy is paradoxical. I believe as a result to this foundational declaration, there are 71.44 million “persons of concern” across the world. Most of these people are internally displaced, and refugees and that number does not include the 5 million people currently displaced in and near Pakistan. Only 1% of the world’s refugees are resettled. The rest remain in camps or are temporarily hosted in countries. One refugee camp has now hosted three decades of Somalian refugees. Professor Ngai emphasized that this is not an issue to be discussed country by country, but as the Geneva Convention on Refugees in 1951 states, a problem that is international. Yet, the US is accepting less and less refugees and asylum seekers as the total number of these people rises. The facts break the myth that begins at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

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I thought that this was an interesting video because I had no idea that there was this type of backlash against the Vietnam War. That being said, I understand but do not agree with what the protestors were doing. I think that it was reasonable for them to be upset about the war, but that they should have supported their country more. Their protests were disrespectful to soldiers who wanted to volunteer and were giving their lives for their country. It must have been very demoralizing to be fighting for the USA but not getting the proper amount of support. The protests also divided the country. During a war the country should unite even more so that there is a higher chance of them winning. Lastly, the protests turned violent and people were often injured and even died. This is kind of ironic because they were protesting a war, but causing a lot of violence by doing so.

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I learned about the Vietnam War in high school, but before watching this video I didn’t know that much about the resistance taking place in the United States. The beginning of the video talks about how the draft was supposed to be an “equalizer” because all men over 18 were required to be in the draft but the loopholes to get out of the draft, such as getting a deferment to go to college, were more accessible to wealthy people. During a demonstration at an induction center, a protester told men who were there to register for the draft that “if you’re a white, middle-class, Dean’s List kind of guy, you have nothing to worry about.” This really stood out to me because it highlights the inequality in the draft process. A disproportionate number of those sent to Vietnam were black and/or lower income, which I never knew. I also did not know that MLK participated in protests against the Vietnam War, but what he said about how the United States spent $322,000 on each enemy killed in Vietnam but only $53 on each American classified as poor also stood out to me.

Something else that I found interesting about this video was that President Nixon’s response to the anti-war protests was to increase the divide between those who supported the war and those who opposed it. He did this by portraying protesters as unpatriotic and sending in the National Guard to demonstrations on college campuses. This didn’t really make sense to me because one of the ideals of America is that we have the right to express our opinions about what the government is doing, even if we don’t support it.

 

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On Tuesday I attended the Sharp Speaker Series presentation “The Race Card.” The speaker, Michele Norris, is a journalist who worked for NPR and became its first black female host. In 2002, she wrote a memoir called The Grace of Silence about her experience with racism. The main focus of her talk was her project that she started in 2010 called “The Race Card.” In this project, she strives to create a platform for people around the world to talk about race by having anyone submit a response online about what race means to them in six words or less.

During her presentation, Norris gave an example of the work she does on a daily basis by reading through some of the responses that she receives, which to me was the most interesting aspect of the project because of the diversity of responses. One of the comments that stood out to me was “Father was racist. I’m not. Progress!”. I found this comment interesting because to me it felt like this person does not understand that  just because they as an individual are not racist does not mean that race is not a significant issue because many people are still openly racist. However, it is difficult to judge this person’s views based on a six word online comment because we do not know why they think that way.

Norris also talked about the fact that many of the responses she receives are from white people, and that the variety of responses can lead to a more productive discussion, which is one of the goals of her project. For example, people of color who have grown up with racism as a part of their daily life may be surprised to read comments from white people about how race is not an issue anymore because they have such different experiences.

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This video certainly opened my eyes to what happened domestically during the Vietnam War. I knew the protests were a big deal but I did not quite understand the magnitude of them until now. It was interesting to see who the leaders were during these protests. I know he didn’t see it through to the end, but the video showed a clip of MLK talking about the war in Vietnam, something I did not know he was fighting against. As a college student now, it puts a lot of these things into perspective. The firing upon students from the national guard at Kent State particularly bothered me. The situation had so many parallels to the Boston Massacre once I thought about it;  protesters throwing things at the people with guns and no order to fire. History certainly does repeat itself. I think the clip of soldiers throwing their medals said everything that one would need to know about how most Americans felt about the war by the time it was over.

I think there’s a lot of comparisons that can be drawn between how divided the country was then and how divided we are now. LBJ referred to the silent majority of Americans who he believed would be in support of the war in Vietnam. Trump focused heavily on the silent majority of Americans who are thought to have won him the election in 2016. The country was so polarized, similar to how it is now. One of the things that confused me the most was why it took so long after Nixon’s election for the war to end, considering he campaigned on ending the war. This just goes to show that campaign promises not being kept are nothing new. I think the protests demonstrate the power of dissent, and I think it’s great that dissent has power in this country and can get results with enough persistence. Though if I have to be completely honest, I think attempting to raid the Pentagon was just stupid.

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Last evening I went to hear Michelle Norris talk about her project-The Race Card Project. This began as a simple exercise of just defining race in six words. Now it serves as a platform for people around the world to talk about race. During the talk she showed us daily work that she does as she goes through the archives of responses. One thing I noticed was that every card made me feel a different way. The fact that she lets people’s cards to be seen by others is an important aspect to her project.

Her process of beginning a social experiment/exercise was a cool aspect to me. It was a first hand example of a social experiment and how to apply it. She grouped the different responses into categories. Although this is a sensitive topic to discuss she included racist cards as well. I think the inclusion of these cards is almost a reverse way of getting her point across. She talked about although we think one way, it is important to understand that people think differently than us, but understanding the reason they think that way is where people should look.

 

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The Vietnam War is one that truly divided the nation and tested the bounds of our society. In watching this video something interesting that struck me was the usage of physical, violent efforts versus non-violence. It was reported that a lot of the violent efforts were carried out by college students. Specifically thinking about the March into the Pentagon that took place in Washington, this was a very bold, violent move that resulted in many arrests and prompted some of the violence that took place after this event. Although this march was very powerful, thinking about the non-violent aspects of the riots–they were also very powerful. In the video, we hear that there were multiple reports of people chanting “Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today”. This chant, even for the president, was very powerful as he said it made it difficult to sleep at night knowing that his people thought this of him–he was mindlessly killing young kids. In this case both methods were effective in their own respects but, it was especially interesting to me to witness the power of verbal protests in this movement.

Another interesting part of this video was the mention of fighting the Vietnam War abroad when the government had yet to fight the War on Poverty within the states. This is a topic that I think is still relevant today because the United States government, in my opinion, takes too much value in trying to fix other nations and their governments (ex: Venezuela) when there are countless problems within the states that should take precedence. I believe when running a nation that it is one’s duty to assure that everything within their own nation is being addressed before putting themselves, or in this case, sending unwilling troops, to fight another battle overseas.

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On November 12th I went to watch Michele Norris’s discussion on the Race Card Project. In this talk, Norris mainly spoke about different 6-word submissions that her team received for the question about what race means to you. One of the responses that intrigued me said, “Father was racist, I’m not. Progress!”. This response stood out to me because it was a comment I didn’t expect to see written out on paper. This was one of Michele’s main goals in showing the card replies–to reveal these unanticipated responses.

Although people tend to have implicit biases and opinions that may be against the norm, it is difficult to say these thoughts and opinions out loud as the responses and replies can be very harsh from those who disagree. Through anonymous cards, people feel more comfortable putting their thoughts out to the public. The comment on this card, in particular, made me aware of how those who are not people of color feel about race. It is difficult, sometimes, to understand opposing viewpoints but this card was very clear and explicit about their personal relationship with progressing to a more equal society. Instead of simply saying that they were not racist, they acknowledged the past of racism being the norm as well as confirming that they would be the person in their generation to change those beliefs. Although I’m sure there is an entire story behind these words, which we cannot see, the choice of words was very powerful to me.

In addition to admitting these implicit biases, it also struck me that many of the comments on the cards were clearly from people who were not people of color. It is often expected that people of color are the first and most vocal about race and racial problems because it affects them the most. However, Norris talked about the fact that white people, in particular, have their own truth and the cards were a way to reveal that truth. Whether that truth was that they felt guilty for slavery, felt disadvantaged because of “post-racism”, or some combination of the two–this was their truth. I think this was a very important statement. When surrounded by others who look like yourself it is easy to have an echo chamber and never encounter new, differing opinions but Norris encouraged this as a way to expand your perspective and learn more about why your opinion is what it is. It is important to allow each person, despite race, to say their own truth even if we may not agree with it ourselves. She emphasized that although cards were a good way to hear this truth the message should resonate in day-to-day conversations.

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It is now apparent to me that young teens and college students have a lot of power in the realm of protest and political movements. Time and time again they have stood up for what they believed and became the front lines of protest. Back in high school, I along with my friend lead many walkouts in my school, but I thought that because Chicago was so progressive, it was the only place such acts would be seen. But now learning more about the specifics behind political movements such as war, racial justice, and women’s right to vote, it is clear that we college students have the power to lead. 

This video was very eye-opening to me because it shows how the US has dealt with civil disobedience throughout history. It’s not surprising why we still see police take advantage of their power and turn around and defend it with “they felt like their lives were in danger.” Something else that captured my attention was how the Vietnam veterans felt about the war coming back home. Today I see veterans proud to have served this country, but the fact that these veterans went as far as to throw their metals back shows how unwilling they were in going to war in the first place. 

This poses my question which is, what is our current Vietnam war? What is something our country is so politically or socially separated on that we are willing to protest to see change?

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I never learned much about the Vietnam war or its protests before this video. I thought the video was interesting and it taught me a lot of things. I knew that, like everything else, race played a role in it but I wasn’t sure how. I did not know that black people had a higher chance of being killed during the war compared to white people. I also completely understood their reasoning for not wanting to be drafted. Why would you fight for a country that sees you as inferior to others? It made me think of Muhammed Ali who openly spoke against the draft as well. the draft is unfair and appeals to the rich so I understand why people protested. I wish I would’ve learned more about it in school and I wonder why I didn’t.

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The Vietnam War, in its entirety, was indescribably terrible. It is just unthinkable to me that the US can have blatant and constant disrespect for minorities and people who are poor, all in all the “others” in the eyes of the government. Anyone who is not them. And this is amplified along with the amount of money that it will cost or give them. I feel like, throughout my school career, I rarely heard much about the Vietnam War, especially in respect with the governments hand in things. Other than learning about PTSD and things that have happened to US soldiers as a result of it. But never about the protest nor about all the things that happened there. Everything I did learn came from outside sources.

My grandfather actually served in Vietnam, and if he were alive today I wish I could understand more about his experience with that. How he got involved and what he experienced there. I also wonder, with all the things in the past that the government has done, what are they still doing today that is not being spoken about. Most of the things, that I am sure do exist, probably can’t be seen or understand by us because we are all privileged in a sense since we all are in at a university. How do we change that?

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On Tuesday November 12 I listened to Michele Norris’ talk about The Race Card Project. The Race Card Project is something that she founded, that people define race or discuss their ideas about race in only six words.

It is so interesting how hesitant people are to talk about race. Sometimes we are scared of saying something that no one else may relate to, or it may hurt someones’ feelings. However, it is important to realize that everyones’ ideas are valid and speak numbers about our culture. It is even more interesting to see how people who identify differently than me see/understand race. When we tried this project one girl wrote “it really isn’t a big deal.” Which confused me, because growing up in the south, it was really all I thought about it. But to others its’ effects are invisible. Beginning and opening up this conversation about race is so important because it actively affects our lives, even if it is not noticeable or visible to some. People constantly make decisions based on race, so we all need to continue to educate ourselves on its’ true effects on everyone.

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I feel like I have never learned much about the Vietnam war or the protests taking place in the U.S. during that time. I had heard of some of the events mentioned in that video, such as the Kent state protests, but I never really realized how these events were connected. I had also learned that this was a war the people heavily protested and knew that some people refused to be drafted. My elementary school principal was sent to prison for refusing to be drafted, which is something I have always though about. It seems incredibly unfair that there were so many loopholes to get out of the draft. Based on what was mentioned in the video, it seems that those were most accessible for more affluent populations, such as people that could afford to go to college.

I had never thought much about the impacts that the Vietnam war would have on specific population. Previous classes have never taught me about the disproportionate number of African Americans dying the war. I found it interesting to hear comments from people representing black Americans about why they would refuse to serve, but it makes complete sense. Why would you go to war when you have an especially high change of dying? It’s even less fair than it already was. I also found MLK’s comments about the amount of money spent on the war compelling. He said that it was estimated that $322,000 dollars was spent for each person killed in Vietnam, whereas in the war on poverty, only $53 was spent on each person classified as poor. This information would make me question the priorities of my government.

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In this video, we learned about the Vietnam protest movement and the increasing American opinion to bring the troops home from the war. People drafted in the military were disprortionately black, without a college degree, and from lower socio economic classes. The drafting committees were decentralized and it was largely up to the powerful, almost autonomous committees when deciding who would be drafted into war. Many Americans felt as if this wasn’t their war to fight, Vietnam was on the other side of the world and this war was being fought amidst a number of issues on the homefront. Race played a big role in this conflict, as blacks protested during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s not just for equality, but also protested because they refused to be sent to Vietnam. A large number of veterans who returned home even openly protested against the war and famously ripped off their medals on camera. This movement met a severe backlash, and many accused members of the anti war movememnt as being unpatriotic.

This association of anti war movements with anti patriotism is nothing new in American politics. The legacy of the Vietnam syndrome and the anti patriotism associated with this era was a big talking point for Republicans in the 2004 election Bush vs. Kerry. Many Republicans accused Kerry of being unpatriotic due to his open opposition to war in the 60s, and his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. The scene of Kerry throwing his medal in the video had a huge impact on his political career, and the Democrat party as a whole. Even just a few years ago, when Kerry finalized the Iran Nuclear Deal, many Americans saw him as an unpatriotic man who was not loyal to his own country and did not risk himself for the flag. It evokes the quintessential role of the American citizens that arose in debates between the Federalists and the Democrat Republicans in the 1790s- what is the role of the American? Should they unquestioningly trust their government and praise their freedom? Or should they question their government, be critical, and offer suggestions, even if militant and radical at times? Or is it a little bit of both??

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Anthropologist, Dr Hirsch talked on the International Criminal Court. She talked about how the ICC is a global type of security. This was interesting to see leadership at a global level. Those who sign the preamble are responsible to the ICC to help prevent things like genocide. The overall purpose of the ICC is to be a safety net and alliance for countries incase a (member) country cannot handle a global threat. Hirsch talked a good bit about the resistance to the ICC, particularly the United States. The main reason for resistance is military concern. An important system of leadership within the US.

This resistance from the United States has been seen recently as well. The US is beginning to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. In recent history, the US has been a leader globally. As Hirsch talked I began to wonder if the US can maintain that dominance if they are critics or unwilling to agree globally. The US obviously is not in the ICC along with countries like China, Libya, Iraq, and Qatar.

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In his talk, Sean Theriault was presenting a current work in progress, which was interesting because there were still some unanswered questions and date yet to be filled in. Even so, I feel like I learned a lot about why we have so much political gridlock. This talk was about the decline of bipartisanship in Congress. He started off by telling us about how unique the senate is because it takes 60 votes to get anything done. This means that Congressmen must consult with people outside of their party in order to get anything passed. Thus, bipartisanship is required in Congress. I think this decline in bipartisanship is related to the lowering public opinion of the Senate. Only 25% of people believe that the senate is going a good job. Surveying has shown that the language used to describe Congress is almost never positive never positive. Furthermore, people said they prefer head lice, traffic jams, the country of France, and root canals to Congress. 

Party polarization has grown overtime and become a problem for our Senate. In the 1950s senators were senators before they were members of a political party. Now senators are so concerned with the wants of their political party that fewer laws are enacted because compromises cannot be made. Too much partisanship and narrow thinking does not lead to practical problem solving. Few senators are able to exercise free will because there is a lot of pressure from their party and constituents to act one way.  Theriault pointed out a couple really interesting ways we can see that people in Senate are getting along less with members of the opposite party than they used to. There is less and less participation in events like seersucker Thursday and secret santa. Previously, these used to be activities that members of both parties would participate in. 

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These stories are what I think of when I think of humanities. At first I struggled with how to connect the readings to leadership (I know leadership can really be applied to anything) but after a little more reflection, I understood.

The Omelas story reminds me very much of Plato’s Allegory of the cave. Children and adults who never see the child in the cell are like the people in stage one of the cave looking at the shadows but not realizing the shadows are not real. Once people see the child in the cell they are on their way out of the cave. The author describes how when people see the child they either become incredibly sad and then move on or become so incredibly sad they walk away and only they know where they are walking. I think this has a lot to do with leadership especially leadership of social movements. Injustices in society are brought to people’s attention because they involve injustices. We label people who see or suffer from these injustices and then act to combat them as leaders and we label people who see them and walk away from them as cowards or ignorant.

 

As for the lottery, I definitely picked up more of a women in leadership conversation starter. The fact that men ran the show and were the only ones capable of picking a number and determining their fate is not news but it still contributes to the narrative of a patriarchal society. The fact that the person chosen as the lottery winner (yet more like loser) was a woman only strengthens the story’s patriarchal themes. The rules that say a woman cannot pick a number and daughters must draw with their husbands family seem outlandish yet REAL laws and REAL policies we have as a REAL society say very similar things (ie, signing on a credit card to prove income or marital rape exemptions). We have learned a lot about marginalized groups throughout the semester and The Lottery is just another example of how women are part of the marginalized.

Overall, these short stories don’t seem like much on the surface but after a few more close-reads, they tell a lot about women, society, laws, mindsets, and of course leadership in the humanities.

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