Happy Easter and belated Passover! Going to start with a quote that’s stuck with me the last few days:
“The wider you expand your circle of compassion, the harder it can be to balance your own individual interests with the interests of everyone else in that circle.” – Ted Chiang
I’ve been extremely unproductive as a writer the last couple of weeks, and each Sunday’s newsletter has been painful to put on paper. A lot has been said about the different ways the pandemic has worn us down, and that wear and tear seems to be manifesting itself in my writing. I just haven’t been fully in it. I’ve been focusing on time with friends and family, on work, and on finishing Ron Chernow’s beastly Grant biography.
I understand why this is happening, but that hasn’t stopped me from being really hard on myself. I re-wrote last week’s edition – which I didn’t send – four times before deciding to scrap the whole thing. Yesterday afternoon I sat at my computer for a couple of hours that yielded two measly paragraphs, neither of which you’ll see here. It definitely hasn’t been the most magical period of writing for me.
But that’s just how things go sometimes, and today I decided to reset the only way I know how: a long run. It was almost 60 degrees and sunny, and for once I didn’t choose a distance and route ahead of time. I just went with it. I listened to a throwback Joe Rogan interview with the spear-fisher Valentine Thomas, found some new graffiti in Bushwick, and ended at the Stop Asian Hate Rally in Brooklyn Height’s Cadman Plaza. Pretty much my ideal Sunday afternoon, and a great way to remind myself that one swallow does not a summer make.
Georgia Mayhem
Imagine that you are a public advocate in New York City, and this one coffee shop in Midtown keeps coming across your desk for discriminating against customers. One year, the shop bans work boots in an effort to keep noisy construction workers away from the wealthy lawyers who come in for their morning coffees. Another year it institutes a hygiene rule to keep out the local homeless population. Each time, the court strikes down the rule after you present your case. At no point can the coffee shop point to any non-discriminatory purpose for the restrictions.
Then one day you receive a new complaint: The store has gone cashless. Now neither the homeless nor the nearby construction workers can go to the coffee shop, since they both pay in cash. You write up your report like usual, citing the clear way that the rule discriminates against certain customers, and you present it to the judge. Then you sit back and wait for her honor to work her magic.
But the judge rules against you. The coffee shop, in its defense, has cited non-discriminatory reasons for banning cash – the safety of its employees and the ability to handle more customers, to name two – and has identified a handful of other stores which are cashless, some of which accept fewer forms of digital payment than they do. The coffee shop has also begun giving out free coffee on the sidewalk during specific hours, which everyone can take advantage of.
You appeal the case, arguing that the context of each store’s journey to cashless payments is important. One competing coffee shop, for example, is owned by a Norwegian whose home country is entirely digital. Another had its employees quit after an attempted robbery. This problem store, on the other hand, has a history of discrimination against the exact same customers that the new rule hurts. Surely that means something! you think.
The story spreads across the city, and the public is split right down the middle. One side sees clear discrimination, and the other sees benign technological changes, in keeping with the rest of the city and the world. Both arguments have some validity.
You, as public advocate, become a champion for the homeless and the blue collar worker, even though a part of you feels that cashless is the way of the future. The coffee shop owner becomes a symbol of oppression, even though her staff is genuinely afraid of being robbed, and the Midtown rush makes counting out change impossible. Both of you try to communicate that nuance in interviews, but your quotes are taken out of context.
One day you decide you’ve had it with the insanity. You set up a meeting with the coffee shop owner and propose a solution: They can go cashless in one year’s time, once the city develops payment processors that accept metro cards that can be loaded with cash. The owner asks that other coffee shops, not just them, be required to accept cash during the intervening year long period. You agree. You ask that they, and all other cashless stores, cover the cost of the new payment machines. They agree.
Going forward, you continue to be skeptical of the coffee shop’s business practices. They have a track record of discrimination, after all. But you are happy with this latest outcome: The city is moving in the right direction, and accommodations were made to bring everyone along for the journey.
In an ideal world, that is how Georgia’s new voting law would have played out. Unfortunately that’s not the political culture we’ve created for ourselves. You’re either for or you’re against, and there’s no in between. But it’s not so cut and dry! Look what the media has said about the bill in the past two weeks:
“Georgia’s new voting law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday night, is a small-d democrat’s nightmare.” – Vox, March 26th
“The law did make some changes to early voting. But experts say the net effect was to expand the opportunities to vote for most Georgians, not limit them.” – Washington Post, March 30th
“Go page by page through Georgia’s new voting law, and one takeaway stands above all others: The Republican legislature and governor have made a breathtaking assertion of partisan power in elections, making absentee voting harder and creating restrictions and complications in the wake of narrow losses to Democrats.” – NY Times, April 2nd
“Attempts by prominent Democrats—including the president—to tie SB 202 to the Jim Crow era are incredibly disingenuous. For starters, the bill actually expands voting access for most Georgians, mandating precincts hold at least 17 days of early voting—including two Saturdays, with Sundays optional—leading up to the election.” The Dispatch, April 2nd
“The law’s voting provisions are unlikely to significantly affect turnout or Democratic chances. It could plausibly even increase turnout. In the final account, it will probably be hard to say whether it had any effect on turnout at all.” – NY Times, April 3rd
After the way Georgia Republicans acted back in November, we’re right to be skeptical of them. Particularly since Georgia has such a terrible legacy of voter suppression and state-sponsored racism, and even more so because the ability to vote is the bedrock of our democracy. These are critical issues. But we detract from our ability to fight for anything if we ignore the nuance involved. The statements above can be true about Georgia and we can acknowledge that much of the bill’s language is benign and less restrictive than other, more liberal states. Selectively ignoring that reality makes it very difficult for conservatives to believe that voting rights are what is really at stake here. It makes it possible for the WSJ’s editorial board to have this as a tagline: They’re denouncing Georgia’s election law, but have they read it?
Imagine instead that – before condemnations of Georgia Republicans – critiques of the bill commended the parts that are likely to expand access. Or imagine that, before threatening the state for passage of the bill, promises were made to push all state governments to expand access to the level Georgia is being held to. None of that would take away the ability to fight the parts that matter, but it would defang conservatives’ ability to say: “Are these people crazy? Read the bill! Look at Delaware!”
We need a better way to talk about these things that doesn’t immediately descend into trench warfare.
Russians Don’t Smile
Another anecdote from the English classroom:
A Russian student of mine said that she didn’t recognize herself in pictures from her visit to the United States. “I’ve never seen myself smile,” she said. “Russians don’t smile.”
I couldn’t believe it, so I looked it up afterwards and asked a friend who grew up in Russia. It’s largely true! Russians, unlike Americans, are selective with their smiles. I’ve included a few reasons below, but it boils down to: We smile when we truly mean it. And I think that’s a pretty amazing cultural difference between our two countries.
“In the Russian collective consciousness, there is a rule: the smile must be a genuine reflection of a good mood and good relationship.”
“Among Russians it is not acceptable to smile while performing one’s job or any important business.”
“In Russian communication, a smile is not a signal of politeness… It is considered a demonstration of insincerity, secretiveness and unwillingness to show one’s true feelings.”
One more thing
I went back into the office on Friday and had forgotten how awesome it is to commute through the Oculus:
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
Friday Ramble, April 2nd – Return to office
What I’m Reading:
How an Upper West Side Hotel Came to Embody the City’s Failure on Homelessness – Megan Evershed, The New Republic
“The shelter system is legally obligatory, large, entrenched, and expensive. This makes it difficult to change mindsets, to start asking at a wide, systemic level: How do we do things differently? How do we minimize—and eventually eradicate—homelessness and the need for a shelter system of this size?”
The King of Geaser Teasers: Inside Randall Emmett’s direct-to-video empire – Joshua Hunt, Vulture
“For those old enough to remember his early days in Hollywood, Emmett is still Mark Wahlberg’s former personal assistant, the hard-partying hanger-on who helped inspire the character Turtle on HBO’s Entourage.”
The Tuna Salad Conversation – The Department of Salad: Official Bulletin
“We were always going to have the tuna salad talk, so we may as well do it now.”
What I’m Listening To:
The Trial of Derek Chauvin – The Daily
“And she said the Covid restrictions have been a little too tight. So that, again, is like proxy for a kind of conservative attitude that the prosecution wants to avoid. So they moved to get her off the jury.”