for Savannah and my mother, with the hope you will give poetry a chance, and for the maestro who recommended Good Poems You learn a lot in high school, whether you plan on it or not. For example: I’ve learned not to assume I know anybody else’s mind, and to know my own a lot better. So without presuming to speak for any of my friends or classmates, I can say with certainty that the most important lessons I’ve learned have not been the ones about the stereochemistry of enantiomers, or Simon Bolivar gallivanting across the Andes, or how to use the subjonctif…and they absolutely—sorry, IB— have not been about the theory of knowledge. Don’t get me wrong; I did learn a lot from History, and languages, and Chemistry (this last through many bleary-eyed nights and multiple textbooks), and even ToK could sometimes be interesting if you gave it a chance. But the lessons that will stick, the ones that I will build on for the rest of my life and that have already shaped me as a person, were the lessons about values. And most of those lessons were learned outside the classroom, from peers rather than profs. When I think about what those values are and how to explain them, I think of the medium that comes closest to drawing together classroom learning with pure living: poetry. Last summer, my teacher recommended a poetry anthology called—wait for it--Good Poems, put together by Garrison Keillor. I had not read poetry outside school since Shel Silverstein in elementary school, and it took me most of the year to read them all—but once I had, and looked back at my favorites, there were seven that stood out. These seven poems are not special to me because of fancy wordplay or grandiose images or tongue-twister alliteration. Instead, they are all poems about how to live—by values high school has taught me to recognize as part of who I am and want to be. In many cases, the writers that speak to me, in drawing the same conclusions and giving the same advice centuries and continents apart, inadvertently corroborate each other. So poetry has street cred with me for its ability to retrieve truth from the white noise of superfluous words, and communicate it with concision and elegance. Here, I look back in these seven poems as rear view mirrors that reflect high school with hindsight, feeling for guidance and grounding convictions to direct me on the winding road ahead. (I recommend you read the poems themselves too--they're short!--which is why I've included hyperlinks, but no pressure.) “The Three Goals” (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2000/12/08) Much of high school is spent trying to develop your own viewpoint by distinguishing it from those of your family, friends and teachers. You have to figure out your standards for yourself; what your priorities are for the present and the future; what you care about; how to forgive yourself and others for mistakes, without wallowing in guilt or resentment, which prevent you from moving forward. Plus, you somehow have to balance being responsible with reveling every once in a while in the enchantment of being a teenager. “The Three Goals,” by David Budbill, recognizes that you have to see “the universal and the particular” simultaneously to do all these things, to have a clear, independent perspective; one race, one test, one party must stand alone in your mind for you to make the most of it, yet you cannot forget that it exists alongside other past and future opportunities. You have to see the person and their context, the heartfelt opinion and the biases that skew that opinion, so that you can make a balanced judgement and respond. Not to mention that all the while, you can’t succumb to analysis paralysis while trying to take it all in, or get lost in “seghe mentali” (mental masturbations). How to actually pull this off? I think friends, reading and a sense of humor go a long way, but the poem does not presume to offer easy answers, and is all the more delightful for it. Budbill cheerily acknowledges the difficulty of this task, with succinctness, style and a light touch—instructive, but not preachy, like the best teachers—admitting that “a little wine helps a lot,” a reminder to take it easy and not get too lofty or uptight. It ends with wry humility; the speaker, after telling you, the reader, what they know about the importance of perspective, asks you to “call me when you get it,” when you succeed in actually seeing “the thing itself” and “all the other/ten thousand things” “simultaneously”, because they themselves are only human and haven’t cracked it yet. “Dilemma” (http://asuddenline.tumblr.com/post/5134369905/dilemma-david-budbill) Perspective and humility are present again, in a different context, in Budbill’s even shorter poem “Dilemma.” It is an astute self-reflection on how the speaker wants to be “famous/so I can be/humble/about being/famous.” That is, what the speaker wants, paradoxically, is not fame itself, but rather to afford the luxury of being modest while already enjoying “proof” of their own worth in the form of widespread recognition. This desire to be recognized for your achievements without bringing attention to them yourself is poignant, genuine. In high school, you might want to be noticed, or respected, or liked, or all of the above, to the extent you can afford to be nonchalant about how you are viewed by others. But by drawing your attention to this whole thought process with tongue-in-cheek self-awareness, this poem gives you perspective on yourself, offers a contrast between how things are for the speaker and how they should be for you between the lines, reminding you that in fact it doesn’t matter if your humility, or kindness, or diligence is acknowledged; what matters is whether you live these ideals or not, and oftentimes only you can know whether you do. “Those Who Love” (http://www.helpself.com/love-poems/poem-8x.htm) On the subject of humility…there is a lot of posing, strutting, name-dropping in high school. But you should not have to fill a void of meaning with compensatory declarations of passion or drive. “Those Who Love” by Sarah Teasdale notes “Those who love the most/Do not talk of their love”; they are too consumed by the feeling itself to do so, too occupied “fighting in somber pride”—struggling without faltering, intent only on a feeling so strong that it is its own reward, for at hearing the name of the beloved alone, “A light would pass over [her] face.” So this poem captures the difference between talk and action, between feeling something real and boisterous bluffing. It sketches the outlines of all-consuming internal motivation with such deep-reaching, thick roots it needs not bother announcing itself to the world. This poem may be about love of a person, but I think you should live your life looking for a passion that inspires this level of unquestioning devotion, for which you sacrifice every bit of yourself behind the scenes, quietly self-assured and fulfilled enough by what you do to not need to brag about it. This poem captures the difference between talk and action, between feeling something real and boisterous bluffing. “Romantics” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54643/romantics) In high school you learn that the truth is not a science. Opposite things can be true for different people depending on their experiences. You realize words are only approximations for communicating the complexity of what and how many conflicting things people can feel and think at once. You learn that you cannot judge or categorize in black and white, and that sometimes all you can do as a friend is listen and try to understand. In “Romantics,” by Lisel Mueller, the speaker chastises those who try to synthesize unambiguous conclusions to replace the inconveniently convoluted truth, those who pigeonhole definitions and abandon nuance. “Romantics” paints a love that, though it may never have been consummated physically, is delicate, complex, exquisite in its reserve. The presumptuous “modern biographers” digging for the details of this love from the present, are a stand-in for anybody analyzing from the outside and trying to measure what can’t be measured, such as by asking “the rude and irrelevant question/of our age,” that is, “how far it went.” Here, the “modern biographers” personify the rapacious contemporary pursuit of clear-cut answers where there are none. The tone tinged with tender nostalgia gives the appropriate weight to the statements “he thinks of her constantly,/his guardian angel, beloved friend”; the speaker convinces you it does not matter “how far it went” when you have such intimate admissions of affection. The nostalgia is in the nods to the “nineteenth century,” a more quaint and in some ways more romantic time, when “a hand/held overlong or a gaze anchored/in someone’s eyes could unseat a heart.” I believe this kind of romance still exists today, but that you have to defy the hookup culture and the digital norms of brazen hyper-publicity to find it or make it real. The speaker is not just nostalgic about love, but about language; “Nuances of address not known/in our egalitarian language” is an acknowledgement of a loss of subtlety with the hurried way we talk and type, and of the potential and power of the right combination of words still has. But this poem reminds me of something else as well, something different. The truth is complicated, yes, and a relationship does not have to be physical to be real—but on the other hand, it is dangerous, very dangerous, to bask in inaction, letting opportunities you have to deepen a relationship or seize the moment slip through your fingers because you are afraid that you will shatter what is already there. And sometimes the “romantic” course of action is not the right one; sometimes you have to buckle down, put in elbow grease and do, say, schoolwork instead of spending a night out, with nothing but a dreary, abstract goal in the future in mind to motivate you. You must not live off daydreams of what could be—you must have the strength to see when those dreams start poisoning your opportunities to act in the real world, when you become addicted to an image of yourself, like Narcissus, and let the real wither away. Contenting yourself with mere possibility, with the delicious anticipation of something beautiful, you set yourself up for missed opportunities: addiction to hypotheticals can be fatal. Hence, concerning this poem, again, while it is true that nothing physical has to have happened for the relationship between the two titular romantics to be real…if they only ever looked in each others’ eyes, and held hands, but were not actually able to be honest with each other about how they felt, too fearful of marring a fantasy, that was a mistake and a tragedy. You must not live off daydreams of what could be—you must have the strength to see when those dreams start poisoning your opportunities to act in the real world, when you become addicted to an image of yourself, like Narcissus, and let the real wither away. “Courage” (https://allpoetry.com/poem/8505443-Courage-by-Anne-Sexton) This is exactly the quality necessary to remedy such dithering. Ideally, high school is a balancing act in which you live audaciously, but not rashly. Live too cautiously, too zoomed out, and your prudent preempting of mistakes could become habitual instead of intentional—at which point you risk following external guidelines on autopilot and losing yourself. Live too much in the moment, and you could lock yourself into a cycle of temporary exhilaration, which can be so intoxicating you never give yourself the chance to find meaning or purpose transcending a single place or set of people—and should that narrow world ever grow sour, or shallow, or empty, you have no other options. It takes courage to take a stand and have an opinion at the risk of being wrong. It takes courage to fail yourself and admit it. It takes courage to ask uncomfortable questions, to have a conversation with someone with whom you disagree, and to keep making your point while also listening to theirs. It takes courage to be honest with yourself, to admit the difference between how you want things to be and how they are. It takes courage to let go—but it also takes courage to hold on, keep hope alive even when you have no proof; having the nerve to believe in things, exposing yourself to disappointment, is the essence of faith. It takes courage to tell people you love that what you want is different from what they want. The same action can be cowardly or courageous depending on your motivation and intent, because your courage is defined by what it is you fear. Telling your friend the truth even though they may be angry at you is courageous; telling them the truth because you want to make sure you are off the hook is cowardly. Showing that you are not bought, not puppeteered by the adults or authority figures that surround you is courageous, but seeking approval from peers because you cannot grant it to yourself is cowardly. Admitting you need help is courageous if you are proud, but not bothering trying to help yourself first out of fear of failure is cowardly. Anne Sexton’s poem “Courage” picks out specific moments from an entire person’s lifetime, looking back from the end and shining a spotlight on ordinary actions driven by courage. She mentions standing your ground when you are labelled or insulted, where “you drank their acid/and concealed it”; you have to take in what people think of you without letting it warp or wound you. Courage also means not having excessive self-pity; “You did not fondle the weakness inside you/though it was there.” Courage is active, painful; it is “a small coal that you kept swallowing.” Sexton also makes an insightful distinction; she understands that when you have a strong enough emotion to tide you through, a motivation as rock-solid as in “Those Who Love,” you do not need courage to push your immediate misgivings about the moment—you are instead buoyed by “love; love, as simple as shaving soap.” The poem solemnly honors the endurance of “great despair” “alone,” with you having the resilience and perseverance to “[pick] the scabs off your heart,/then [wring] it out like a sock.” You reward yourself with courage, with moving on; having courage in the face of sorrow can tide you through, as the sorrow in the poem “woke to the wings of the roses/and was transformed.” Courage is deliberate, so in every courageous act there is an element of decisiveness, which is the thought with which this poem closes; you cannot choose what happens to you, but you can choose your attitude and reaction. The poem speaks of going with meeting death willingly, proudly, at the end of it all; “you’ll put on your carpet slippers/and stride out.” On your terms. With dignified acceptance. That’s how I want to go.
“Gallanter” than fighting aloud is “to charge within the bosom/the Cavalry of Woe—“ to choose your struggle with full information, without hope of a reward, with resolve that does not waver or shrivel. “Sonnet XXV” (http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/25.html) Doing things for their own sake, not for echoing accolades or any recognition, is in fact a recurring lesson from these poems and from high school—essential to finding purpose and crafting an internal compass that will not crack when you lose external reference points, whether these be settings or people. So who was it who got to the ephemerality of celebrity, before Budbill or even Dickinson? Probably multiple people, but the last of my favorite poems from this collection is the Bard’s “Sonnet XXV.” As usual, Shakespeare is confident, shrewd, balanced, and every word is perfect. “Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most”—my ugly translation of this line at the heart of the poem is, “outside the spotlight, I am free to rejoice in what, or who, is most important to me.” It’s a poem about the fickleness of pride and fame—“Great princes’ favorites their fair leaves spread/But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,” not forever, because eventually the other shoe drops and “at a frown they in their glory die”—this is the mortal peril of living on the whims of others’ misguided approval. The poem ruefully exposes our judgmental, perfectionistic tendency to focus on failures rather than successes; the poor “warrior” “After a thousand victories once foil’d/Is from the book of honour razed quite,/and all the rest forgot for which he toiled.” If you worship something like fame, as David Foster Wallace put it, sooner or later it “will eat you alive.” This poem looks you in the eye and tells you to keep your priorities straight, or you’ll be scarred. It is the people you love, who truly know you, warts and all, who will forgive you your failures, allowing you to hold on to who you are even at your lowest. This knowledge of yourself is a kind of freedom—freedom from the expectations of others. High school has been a gradual process of replacing blind, automatic trust in those around me with trust in myself; for that, I feel bone-deep gratitude. Doing things for their own sake, not for echoing accolades or any recognition, is in fact a recurring lesson from these poems and from high school—essential to finding purpose and crafting an internal compass that will not crack when you lose external reference points, whether these be settings or people. *** After heaven knows how many hours over four years spent squinting and chasing and scrutinizing meaning in every discipline, I know that not overthinking is almost as important as thinking, as is leaving yourself unstructured time for your mind to wander rather than chaining yourself to a chock-full schedule. Reading this collection, I did not go out of my way to crack these poems open or pry out their pearls of wisdom with force. Instead, I just enjoyed them, and the meaning sank deeper the more times I read the ones I love. Poetry may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I see it as the ultimate reassurance that you are not alone in what you feel, because somebody else went and wrote about it, with the precision of thought that only comes from firsthand experience. I know as much as high school teaches you and shapes your values, I won’t ever be quite prepared for the testing of those values that happens in the real world, and that these values will probably change with time. So I will keep coming back to these seven poems, and read many more as well. Reading poetry, like living, should not be forced or rushed, and should be done with an open heart and mind. Call me when you get it.
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The U.S. higher education system preserves students’ academic flexibility instead of forcing us to focus on a single area of study immediately. The freedom offered by this approach—despite its nauseating price tag—was the most important factor in tempting me to enter the fray and apply in the first place. The American college application process itself seems to aspire to be as wide-ranging as the education with which it is associated. We aren’t required to apply for a specific major, let alone demonstrate our aptitude for any one discipline by achieving final exam scores that satisfy conditional offers, as students applying to UK universities must do by taking A-levels. Instead, we are evaluated holistically, in as much three-dimensionality as is possible through a 2-D PDF—with test scores, teacher evaluations, essays, grades, extracurriculars each conveying some sliver of our potential, and, together, in theory, composing a patchwork whole. Having jumped through the fiery rings to apply this autumn, my admiration of the American educational model is mitigated by misgivings I harbor about the entry process. I have little time left to voice my criticism without my credibility being undermined by receiving rejections (that is, coming off as complaining merely because I didn’t get in), since most decisions are released at the end of March. So…I would like to give This Process a heady treatment with its own holistic medicine, by evaluating it in its entirety—but also paying varying amounts of special attention to three of its aspects: “extracurriculars,” the dreaded s/t words (“standardized testing”) and “transcripts.” 1) EXTRACURRICULARS Allowing students to discuss extracurriculars in an application is a thoughtful way of encouraging us to share and show ourselves through how we spend our time outside the classroom. It is effective as a means, a channel through which to demonstrate our personalities and interests—unless incentives are tainted so that we treat that means as an end, and alter our behavior to create a certain admissions profile. If you do extracurriculars because you think they will look good on your CV, although there is a chance you will try something on a whim and discover you genuinely enjoy it, you are learning to perfect your image without bothering with authenticity—to do what looks the best instead of what means the most, which is a disservice to yourself in the long term, even if you think you are playing the system. Ironically, in terms of twisted incentives, service-based extracurriculars seem the most problematic. Is genuine altruistic intent not corrupted by using someone else's needs to meet your own? Volunteering just to write “I volunteered?” Jet-setting service is a commonly criticized case—while students do have meaningful experiences combining travel with service, and do leave places better than when they arrived, more good might be done by mundane, regular volunteering in the local community. Moreover, if you pursue, say, a leadership position, telling yourself you want it for its own sake, while denying to yourself that you are interested in the title and not the grunt work, you are putting up a front—not just to others, but to yourself. As a result, you are likely in the future to have more difficulty differentiating between your own genuine interests and whatever pursuit is fashionable or expedient. Finally, since it is unlikely you will be willing to put in the hours and scrupulousness necessary to perform as well as somebody whose motivation and passion are genuine, at the high school level or beyond, the fruits of your efforts are likely to be mediocre at best. When colleges consider what students do with their free time, that time ceases to be completely free. What if there is incentive to join a sports team to broaden your college profile, instead of spending unprogrammed afternoons each week reading historical fiction? Is the former really worth more if your heart is not in the game or the team? Because the process is so hyper-competitive at the top, there is a culture of fitting in as many concrete pursuits as possible, and a sense of guilt associated with downtime. I have filled up my hours since middle school, not out of competitiveness but because I’ve never been comfortable being idle—so in this model, I would be a person obliviously exerting top-down pressure and stressing everyone else out. In fact, I’ve recently realized that I have trouble just sitting and thinking in an unstructured environment, without writing or talking to someone, because I am so used to doing something all the time (chance or karma? Who knows?). That ability to think things through without being distracted by anything else is not to be undervalued, and I feel it is being chipped away by the stigmatization of inactivity. Therefore despite their value, the overemphasis of extracurriculars can prevent students from slowing down enough to think, and can create temptation to spend time inauthentically. 2) STANDARDIZED TESTING N.B: I am much better informed about the SAT than the ACT, so I will focus on discussing the former. This category is a (perhaps unwelcome) reminder, on approximately the opposite end of the admissions spectrum from extracurriculars, that “holistic” is not synonymous with “qualitative.” Standardized test scores offer easily comparable data points on student ability, which are the enticing, vindicating products or illusions of objective standards—hence the weight attributed to SAT and ACT scores. To me, far more compelling than their semblance of clear-cut measurements of ability is the metaphor—or amusing coincidence—of the meaning (lack thereof) of both acronyms. “SAT” morphed from standing for “Scholastic Aptitude Test” (1926) to “Scholastic Assessment Test” (1990), to “SAT I: Reasoning Test” (1993), to “SAT Reasoning Test” (2004), to just SAT. The ACT was created in 1959 as the “American College Test,” but it too was stripped of its significance in 1996. That means that today, both "SAT” and “ACT” literally, officially standing for nothing but themselves—which does not speak volumes about the confidence of the two education companies in what it is the much-hyped tests are actually supposed to measure. Today, both "SAT” and “ACT” literally, officially standing for nothing but themselves—which does not speak volumes about the confidence of the two education companies in what it is the two tests are actually supposed to measure. The conceptual flaws of these tests run deeper. The SAT developed out of an intelligence test administered to recruits during World War I, in a time of increasing interest in IQ. As an “aptitude” test, it was not originally a test you studied for—but today, it is, which is where problems arise. Take my criticism here with an extra grain of salt; as a student, I was pretty arrogant about the insignificance of the SAT, so I prepared little and slept less leading up to the test in a hectic junior year spring, and let myself down in how I responded to timed conditions. In November, I took it one more time—since I come from a family that was able and willing to pay the 95 dollar international registration fee again, and to take me to a testing venue in another town. My case is a textbook example of where the well-intentioned measures to level the playing field (e.g. by making “test prep” accessible for free to everyone, online, with Khan Academy) fall short; like most systems, this one struggles to purge itself of socioeconomic disparity. The colleges themselves are aware of this—indeed, it is part of the rationale for the holistic approach, which is supposed to take note of economic inequality among other things. Anyway. I regret my attitude, but I do not regret how little I "studied"—because when you prepare for these tests, as with extracurriculars, the means becomes the end, in what I view as amounting to a spectacular waste of time: drilling for these particular types of assessment teaches you next to nothing beyond being a test monkey. There is a flaw in a system that incentivizes you to choose test prep over studying material for your classes, where the actual learning should be occurring. The SAT consists of reading, math, writing and an optional essay (while the ACT includes a science component), with all (except 13 out of 58 math) questions being multiple choice. I’ve found some of the reading passages interesting, but the analysis requested is still formulaic. The math is lackluster, as are the grammar exercises (although given the tendency not to teach English grammar, you could argue that doing these questions is actually educational). The essay—well, you can almost always learn from writing, but what college seriously needs a writing score when they almost always ask for a sample of your writing anyway, in the form of an application writing supplement? If the idea is that the SAT essay is a control on whether somebody has written your essay for you, aren’t the same people whose essays are bought likely to be able to afford extensive test prep? It's no wonder the SAT can no longer be called a "Reasoning Test"--its essence seems to veer discouragingly close to undermining and contradicting reason. The argument for a standardized test of some form that measures all applicants against one benchmark is understandable. Just as democracy is a terrible form of government, except for all the other ones, exams are a pretty poor way of judging learning—and are also the best we’ve got. All this to say: I take issue not with testing itself, but with the form the test takes. Why not use “meaningful” standardized tests from more in-depth, subject-specific nationalized exams, similar in format to the Advanced Placement (maybe college-preparatory level courses could have end-of-course exams too?), so that you don’t have to choose between studying for your classes and studying for a bland college entrance exam? This would resemble the European approach, with end-of-secondary-school exams that determine college admissions (A-Levels in the UK; “maturità” in Italy; “baccalauréat”—bac—in France…). Just as democracy is a terrible form of government, except for all the other ones, exams are a pretty poor way of judging learning—and are also the best we’ve got. 3) TRANSCRIPT—HIGH SCHOOL GRADES (How irritating and fitting: there’s hardly space to discuss class after spending all those words on standardized testing…) In the US system, standardized test scores are considered in conjunction with high school grades. Taking into account grades from classwork—labs, essays, projects and regular tests—precludes the high-pressure horror of having a final exam be the sole measure of your understanding (as with the previously referenced UK system), and creates an expectation of consistency and hard work throughout any school course. However, when everything counts a little, instead of one thing counting a lot, the classroom becomes a place where, for the best results, you should avoid errors—and if there is less room for error, there are fewer chances to learn from mistakes. When you become more concerned with doing well on the test than understanding the material—memorizing a template or technique without understanding it—true education takes a backseat. This is the risk of assessment without respite. * On the Whole…Holism: A Double-Edged Sword The requirement of personal essays in addition to these three categories—not to mention teacher evaluations, family details and so forth (…maybe next year they could add pets, just be that much more thorough)— completes applications such that we students can indeed be “holistically” evaluated. The system is impressive—with so many components, the shortcomings of some parts of the application are compensated by their counterparts. Yet the holistic approach itself bears blame for pressuring students to lose perspective; to devote inordinate amounts of time and energy to fretting over where they go to college, and to take rejection personally. It is not just your test scores that are rejected—it is you. The person described by your teachers. The voice behind the essays. The personal selectivity of the most elite schools also creates a hierarchy, and a desire to climb, to prove your worth to yourself and others. The sheer number of qualified applicants means that acceptance to a “top school” seems like an acknowledgement that you are part of an in-club for geniuses; that you have some quality, some talent, some special, desirable characteristic that sets you apart. Winning the lottery with acceptance quells trademark adolescent self-doubt, and is a mark of status that can be fitted into the idealized image of ourselves we want to project, on social media as well as in person. Yet the holistic approach itself bears blame for pressuring students to lose perspective. But college applications should not be driven by preoccupation with image, or with becoming part of an “in-crowd.” Fundamentally, any college application process should prompt students to think about the big picture, whether we have already done so of our own accord or not. We should be encouraged not only to consider which areas of study interest us, but to look far enough beyond our immediate circles of friends and family, activities and studies, to become conscious of some of the needs of the world. Awareness of these can ground us while informing frank introspection, as we reflect on our own experiences to ask ourselves: What motivates us? What we can give of ourselves? What are our values? We don’t have to find definitive answers to these questions—but we must ask them. Application essay prompts come the closest to incorporating this big-picture objective into the American process. However, even these must be completed in moderation; I only applied to five colleges, which is very few compared to most people I know, yet by the end of my essay-writing, I felt vacuous, like my introspection was souring into self-promotion. The American college application process is well-intentioned, but pockmarked with issues of image and incentive. As all-encompassing as the holistic approach is, it inadvertently shifts our focus away from the questions that matter the most, prodding us to obsess over “which college” and neglect the issues of what we want to do and who we want to be. It’s up to us to reject that prodding. “Crisps.” “Pram.” “Sitting exams.” “Taking the piss (out of something or other).” There are at least several hundred, and probably thousands of words unique to British English. There is also a less easily delineable category of expressions which, though not exclusively British, have their meanings complicated by tone and context when used in the UK. These tend to be deceptively simple: indeed, in the first conversations, you are blissfully oblivious of anything awry…and as you talk to more people, a sense of vague discomfort sets in as you begin to suspect that there is something you are missing…until at last you have that “ah-hah” moment where you realize the misguided naiveté of taking such expressions at face value. Every language and culture has its idiosyncrasies. These examples do not mean that people here aren't kind, friendly and sincere, which they are; communication is just more complicated than I would have expected, which makes it fascinating as well as treacherous to bumble and wonder about what everything really means. Take these two examples of unassuming expressions with hidden barbs (if you are not English, try to give them the appropriate accent when you read them to yourself in your head): 1) “Is that alright?” Literally, you might think you are being asked—do you understand? Are you ok with doing that—it isn’t too much or too little? However, this question resembles “How are you?” in often serving as a filler and convention checkbox to tick. If somebody asks “Is that alright,” especially without raising their pitch in conclusion to indicate a question being asked and actually solicit an answer, you are likely being told that whatever “that” is should—better be—acceptable. Or else. 2) “Well done” Hmm. Maybe you did a good job. Maybe you did a job. Maybe you didn’t even do that. You should be on hyper-alert that you are being condescended, or smugly chided for presuming to think you had done something well, or actually being reminded of how poorly you did something. In short, it is just as likely that you are being called out for some shortcoming as complimented. ** In the first conversations, you are blissfully oblivious of anything awry…and as you talk to more people, a sense of vague discomfort sets in as you begin to suspect that there is something you are missing…until at last you have that “ah-hah” moment where you realize the misguided naiveté of taking such expressions at face value. I associate these two expressions especially with British school, so it is possible that I am bristling at a connotation that they only have when used by authority figures. However, there are other, more general phrases and types of talk that, while they cannot be as cleanly dissected, are also descriptive of a culture where clever, targeted use of words is paramount, for better or for worse. Banter (“Good bant”) Case in point: banter, or friendly talk with no strings attached—particularly, talk intended to impress with cleverness and layers of humor. Here in the UK, you explicitly compliment your own or somebody else’s “good bant” because it’s a type of exchange and remark warranting veneration. To me, this valuing of “good bant” is a doubled-edged sword. On the one hand, it keeps exchanges lively and entertaining, while encouraging self-awareness. However, I wonder if it also creates a prioritizing of presentation over content—does it not make promoting your own cleverness, by showing your ability to see flaws and poke fun, more valued than having an earnest conversation? Banter often involves irony. Therefore, like any irony, it can either create a sense of camaraderie, that you “get each other” even if nobody else does, because you can appreciate the same humor, or it can be toxic—lace social dynamics with daggers, where you will be wounded and made the fool if you take things too seriously. “Have a go at…” This has two definitions. If you have a go at a person, you are lambasting or attacking them—so “have a go” is pretty passive, understated language to convey such a strong action. Indeed, in general, overstatement seems to be a British faux pas—possibly because you undermine yourself in the long term if you are found out for exaggerating, when it is already difficult to be taken seriously due to the erosion of sincerity by sarcasm. “Have a go at” may also be a genuine request that you complete a task to the best of your ability (“Have a go at this game”). This expression builds in the expectation that you are “trying,” not “doing,” that you are attempting and don’t have to succeed. “Do you want to try…” This expression is interchangeable with the previous example’s second definition, but allows consideration of another complexity of both. As with “is that alright,” you may be better off assuming you are not being asked what you actually want to try; you are expected to do. This expression appears to consider the person being addressed by the speaker, and placates you with the illusion that your interests are being prioritized, so you hardly notice that you are being ordered around. “If I’m honest” “If I’m honest” is a preface I hear a lot. Has it evolved to fill a void and emphasize the truth of what’s being said? Or is it necessary as a disclaimer to warn people to prepare themselves for a sincere statement? I think both, in a place where earnestness is the exception instead of the rule, because of the layers from verbal jesting to outright sparring. It is also interesting that Americans would say “in all honesty,” or “to be honest with you,” using the noun or infinitive from of “to be” instead, and shifting the focus off the speaker and onto the honesty itself—in fact, this comparison solidifies the categorization of this as another example (like banter) of an expression whose first priority is conveying a quality of the speaker instead of the information being discussed (appealing to an idea I mentioned in my last post). “To be fair” This expression is certainly used beyond the UK; what is interesting about its usage here is that it seems deployed not to present a balanced view of situation, but to introduce a statement reinforcing your own perspective. Prefacing Statements with “Surely” to Indirectly Ask Questions This common practice allows the speaker to avoid being so confrontational and simultaneously vulnerable as to ask a question outright—they instead phrase an innocuous, irreproachably polite statement that suggests they already know the answer, while creating an opportunity for clarification. “Thanks very much indeed” This is an exception. I do not think this expression usually is sarcastic, or any sort of defense mechanism; it seems more like pushback against both of these types of language. My theory is that this phrase is a symptom of language inflation—that you have to throw in more words in order to communicate the genuineness of your “thank you” because the mere “thanks” or “cheers” are used insincerely too often to count. ** These examples may not at first glance seem to have anything in common. I see them as, at least, making conversations more complex, and at most, making them competitions as each tries to expose and puncture the pride of the other. The weapons in the verbal arsenal are most suited to social maneuvering, self-assertion, and nuanced offense ( “is that alright”; “well done;” “banter;” “have a go at/do you want to try”; “if I’m honest; “to be fair”), and occasionally to defense (“surely”), but may also be exceptions that push back against the coolness of insincerity (“thanks very much indeed”) . They keep you conscious of your social mortality; once you are aware of how many cues there are to take and give, you may be swept up by the game as you seek to trip up others and in so doing reassure yourself, or intimidated into submissive, safe meekness, which may save you from attack, because the meek do not create competition or pose any threat of dropping clever insults. Again, this does not mean that people are hell-bent on putting each other down—the thick silver linings of these different meanings are lots of stimulation and good-natured laughter. Moreover, people abruptly take their guards down and become unabashedly sentimental and tender; this seems to happen especially often in the Christmas season, for some reason. This does not mean that people are hell-bent on putting each other down—the thick silver linings of these different meanings are lots of stimulation and good-natured laughter. My observations are rudimentary and limited; I cannot comment on Canadian or Australian parallels or differences, or even address the variety of accents and expressions within Ireland, Scotland, Wales and different regions of England. What I can say from my experience is that Americans tend to value sincere exchanges of words instead of treating them as suspicious or simplistic, explaining the comparative boring, safe lack of ironic nuance in the American offshoot of British English… perhaps we just need more time to evolve our own wry conversational webs and pitfalls. As for the speaking of English in places where it is not the first language, this kind of difficulty would nip any hope of effective communication at the bud. So whether these expressions are the legacy of the British hierarchical heritage—after all, virtually the only thing the nobles spent time doing was making witty conversation—or something else, they do seem uniquely tied to England. I do not doubt that I remain in the dark about the existences and meanings of many other terms, and could well have botched these. Assuming I haven’t, consider these expressions testimonies that there is always more to the conversation than meets the ear. If you are American, or interested in American politics, you have probably been asking yourself a lot of questions since this Wednesday. Questions about politicians’ roles and responsibilities: What qualifies or disqualifies somebody to lead? To what extent should a public figure be held accountable for their private demeanor (or misdemeanor)? Questions about the past and future: how did polls and predictions fail so epically? What kind of president will President-Elect Trump be? Questions about the entire American political process: is the electoral college system outdated—did it do its job by guaranteeing that rural voters who otherwise would be ignored by campaigning candidates still have a voice, or did it corner a country into subjugation to a leader it doesn’t want? Why does the American government only have two mainstream parties, and what is the future of those parties? For some time before the election, I’d been trying to understand the origins of the divisions in opinion about this year’s candidates in order to inform my own perspective—and it felt impossible to reconcile the different visions of the United States’ identity and of what the nominees represented to different people. So the queries that have bothered me the most are more general; in politics and beyond, how do we draw completely different conclusions from the same words? How do we sort facts from opinion and falsehood? I’m more confused than ever, but I have concluded that one phenomenon to blame for my confusion is the devaluation of language. The steady increase in separation between language and meaning throughout this election was one of the process’ most disquieting aspects—because, especially if you are physically removed from the actual events unfolding and the people who are the political protagonists, it’s a Herculean task to grasp what the truth is. Being cut off from the truth leaves you feeling awfully vulnerable; if knowledge is power, ignorance is weakness, and the awareness of one’s ignorance is a very unpleasant and unsettling paradox to experience. The steady increase in separation between language and meaning throughout this election was one of the process’ most disquieting aspects. Three forces are responsible for the loss of language’s meaning—while the consequences of its devaluation are more difficult and upsetting to quantify. The first is the official media, in conjunction with mainstream status quo political rhetoric. The second is social media. The third is Donald Trump himself. The mandate of many journalists covering the election shifted, consciously or subconsciously, from reporting Trump’s policy ideas to categorizing him as a bigoted villain. The assumption made—which I personally would agree with, but that was damaging to the media’s credibility because it was, in fact, an assumption—was that Trump’s offensive words proved him to be a prejudiced person (misogynist, racist, what-have-you). Newspapers limited themselves en masse to preaching to the choir, to those who already shared their interpretation of Trump as bigoted, because those writing could not present the alternative interpretation of Trump’s words as joking or unfiltered. It doesn’t seem like a big jump to call somebody “misogynistic” if they routinely evaluate women based on their appearances and make demeaning, lewd comments on video, but characterizing Trump as “misogynistic” and “racist” automatically alienated a subsection of readers who didn’t take his offensive words at face value—leading to the devaluation of those words as criticisms. Which is very, very dangerous, because that allows—did allow—the dismissal and trivialization of the appertaining traits. David Foster Wallace explained language’s twofold purpose best: “…every sentence blends and balances at least two different communicative functions—one the transmission of raw info, the other the transmission of certain stuff about the speaker.” It’s the election-related content we’ve shared on social media that is most guilty of this Wallacean self-indulgence. Maybe we tell ourselves that the articles we post or the opinions we write are supposed to convince people to see things our way…but it sometimes seems that their primary goal is to allow us to publicize our own social awareness, sense of justice, or other positive quality. Our social media profiles by definition reflect us as individuals, so maybe the same way you share a photo of yourself in which you look nice, you post political statements out of a frantic sense that you have to let people know what you stand for, to reassure them that you are a moral person. I realize I’m treading on thin ice here. I’m not saying that we should all stop declaring what we believe in (which would make me a hypocrite)—I just want to prompt reflection about why we sometimes fail to communicate, because the way we present our opinions right now is a significant cause of polarization. When what should be the main determining factor in our word choice, conveying ideas accurately, is eclipsed by our concern with conveying ourselves accurately—or not even accurately, but in an ideal light—we preclude meaningful exchanges of perspectives. Some part of us intuitively picks up on other people doing this, and accordingly devalues or rejects their words and perspective by default. On both social and journalistic media, our weakness for humor and simplification have also undermined language drastically. Humor has functioned as a defense mechanism this election, as a way of distancing ourselves from the vitriol and appreciating the absurdity of the political cast of characters. But while it has sometimes reflected bipartisan unity in dismay of politics in general, humor also has also indulged polarization: many memes are shared by and for a crowd that get each other, that see the same ideas as ridiculous and therefore appreciate the same type of humor. Gluttons that we are for constant entertainment, of course we devoured stories about Trump’s socially unacceptable comments, his dramatic offensiveness. He played us like a virtuoso pianist (although his hands are probably too small for that to be a realistic simile). The comment I just put in parentheses is an example of the kind of mockery that proliferated in online discussions of the election, which undermined the seriousness of the political process and the most substantive, powerful criticisms of Trump. When we laughed at Trump for being defensive about having small hands, then made fun of him for it in a self-satisfied auto-ironic fashion, the line between jest and genuine criticism was blurred, then erased, until the entire political discourse was debased. Whenever we satirized Trump for saying “bigly,” we weakened the credibility of serious criticisms, related to his prejudices and possible temperamental instability. When we laughed at Trump for being defensive about having small hands, then made fun of him for it in a self-satisfied auto-ironic fashion, the line between jest and genuine criticism was blurred, then erased, until the entire political discourse was debased. Accompanying and complementing this humor in catering to our ever-shrinking attention spans, victims of the digital era, is the over-simplification and synthesis of political coverage. Most of the issues we are trying to understand, from economic to environmental, have cause-effect linkage that is too nebulous or complex for us to be comprehensively educated about in the length of a newspaper article or blog post. With the impossible quantity of information we have to sift through in a limited amount of time, we all end up cherry-picking reading sources we are likely to agree with. Therefore nuance and comprehensive coverage have been sacrificed to the illusion of understanding, further eroding the meaning of words by promulgating simplistic, imprecise generalizations. We are left with the language distortion by Trump himself. The media may have tainted itself slightly, but that should not have detracted from the unparalleled means it has to find and share the facts. Trump has ingeniously stabbed freedom of speech in the heart by extrapolating from the media’s bias to insinuate that whatever facts he doesn’t like are fabricated—instead of repressing dissidents, he has pulled the rug out from under them and defamed and discredited them fatally by labeling them elitist, self-interested, smooth-talking liars. He transformed his own comments from means of conveying information to projecting a quality of himself—calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” became code for “Donald tells it like it is” for most of his voters, as did his comments about women, Muslims and every other minority he’s offended. He hijacked and harnessed language as a vehicle for his own self-promotion. Trump has ingeniously stabbed freedom of speech in the heart by extrapolating from the media’s bias to insinuate that whatever facts he doesn’t like are fabricated I think my distress about the seemingly abstract relationship between language and meaning is actually closely related to the concrete hurt and bewilderment many people feel about this election result. Those who still attribute meaning to language feel profoundly wounded by the implications for American identity of the fact that a man who has said “grab her by the pussy,” who insinuated that “Second Amendment people” could take care of Clinton, who threatened not to accept the outcome of the election saying “I’ll keep you all in suspense,” who said of Jon McCain "He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured"—has been elected to represent the nation’s values. Because…what does that say about us? Trump was encouragingly civil in his speech post-election, saying exactly what I would have hoped he would to his opposition (aside from slightly understating it as “a few people”)—“I'm reaching out to you for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.” But nobody wants to hear that, because it isn’t the words that people are listening to anymore—it is their source, because Trump has outdone himself with the extent to which he has discredited language. This presidency will be the ultimate reckoning for him if he doesn’t follow through with actions on his words. But if he does keep his word, well, that would be even worse… We need our language to be meaningful and trustworthy: our world is too complicated for us to understand everything going on through firsthand observation, meaning we need input we can trust from one another, for which the medium is language. So whatever form progress takes, let’s strive to create transparent, genuine, inclusive conversation—where we listen to each other, ask the right questions and collectively heal by restoring worth to words. Is there any better window into the essence of a place than the unfiltered exchanges that occur in the melting pots created by public transportation? Probably there is—but here in Oxford, at least, the fact remains that the buses are settings that can provide golden nuggets of insight into going-ons about town and beyond. Seemingly mundane aspects of the bus system itself also reflect and construct tiny pieces of cultural norms. Consider having one door per vehicle, as opposed to two (not that this is unique to the UK, but it certainly isn’t the norm everywhere); it actually alters the entire ethos of the use of the transportation. Boarding the bus without a ticket, for example, becomes impossible, given the nonexistence of the requisite back entrance—and this precludes even considering cheating or attempting to get the best of the system, such that an honest culture of paying for every ride you take is automatically established. But the workings of a bus system itself can only be of so much interest, and pale in comparison to the fascinating things you hear from the strangers in transit with you, which offer reflections of the repercussions on individual lives of large-scale events. Consider having one door per vehicle, as opposed to two; it actually alters the entire ethos of the use of the transportation. One afternoon, a Swiss woman expressed her own personal fear of terrorism to an acquaintance, after the New York bombing that injured 29 people on 18 September, which took place near where she had once worked. She then explained a curious fact about gun control in Switzerland; all 18-year-old boys are required to fulfill a year of military service, after which each one of them is provided with a gun by the government…but the sale of bullets in Switzerland is evidently strictly regulated. Who knew? One afternoon, a Swiss woman expressed her own personal fear of terrorism to an acquaintance. Another morning, following the shocking assault of a 14-year-old schoolgirl on 28 September in one of the busiest areas of Oxford, in broad daylight, the horror and acute personal fear the attack provoked throughout the city were apparent on the bus in the conversation of a group of middle school girls. They were earnestly coordinating how they would travel home together, citing their mothers’ words of caution, and under no circumstances intended to allow each other to go anywhere alone. You do sometimes witness moments that are purely heartwarming, like two sets of glowing young parents proudly sharing their newborn daughters’ names with each other. But something happened on the bus this Friday afternoon that revealed a social divide I’d never witnessed so acutely firsthand. They were earnestly coordinating how they would travel home together, citing their mothers’ words of caution, and under no circumstances intended to allow each other to go anywhere alone. An older couple was sitting near the front of the double-decker bus, on the lower level. In front of them sat an elderly man—white hair, glasses, carrying a cane. He was alone. From the back of the bus, it appeared that the man spontaneously starting yelling at the couple behind him to shut up. The whole bus went silent, with people exchanging nervously amused glances and wondering how or whether to react. The old man stood up and turned around, eyes wide, voice trembling with rage, brandishing his cane. The couple claimed they hadn’t said anything, and he emphatically called them “bloody liars.” His next words explained the real source of his aggression. “You Chinese…you should go back where you came from…” was accompanied by a general spewing of furious derogatory comments. The couple responded that they weren’t even Chinese, and the man being yelled at told the person with the cane he should “go home.” The abuser seemed to have been waiting for just such a comment. He radiated this fury that I haven’t seen many times in my (albeit limited) life experience. “Say that to me again,” he challenged, threatening to hit the people with his cane. A younger man sitting very close by finally stood up and told the cane-bearer to calm down. He spoke English with an accent when he did so—not only did the aggressor tell him to mind his own bloody business, but the man seized on the accent, and began ranting about how he, they, everyone foreign was destroying England, taking English people’s jobs. A British woman also close by stood up and, close to tears, pleaded with the man with the cane to sit down, telling him he was upsetting everyone. His response was unintelligible from the back of the bus—but the young man with the accent, earnest and unfazed, continued engaging the old man. He told him he did not agree with what the man was saying in insulting the couple; that we all have to respect each other; that only “the mind,” not the ethnicity, can “make a person bad.” Moreover, when the victims of the entire exchange, the couple, finally dismounted, passengers went out of their way to apologize to them on the man’s behalf. The man himself sat down as before; silent. Alone. The man seized on the accent, and began ranting about how he, they, everyone foreign was destroying England, taking English people’s jobs. There was a moment, when he was brandishing the cane and the Asian man admonished him not to hit a woman, that he seemed to somehow register the hole he had dug himself into. Not that he wasn’t genuine in his hostility—but he seemed to realize the role he was playing had swollen into a villain he didn’t intend to be. Admittedly, that could be my idealistic misinterpretation from across the bus in absurdly seeking some redeeming quality to partially neutralize the venom in his words. The word “Brexit” was never pronounced by any of the actors in this exchange, but the incident seemed to me to crisply encapsulate the most controversial and dangerous division between Leave and Remain—which is social, not economic. The empathy in that scene in transit far outweighed the aggression, given the kind actions and reactions of other passengers. On a human level, witnessing the visceral nature of the older man’s hatred made me think that the real cause of most racism must be a wounded dissatisfaction with one’s own life; what if his aggression was the twisted result of his not having anyone to go home to? Maybe we would do well to rectify similar situations through better developed social outreach—in conjunction, naturally, with engaging in dialogue, as the young man did with such dignity, to make real progress against entrenched bigotry. The word “Brexit” was never pronounced by any of the actors in this exchange, but the incident seemed to me to crisply encapsulate the most controversial and dangerous division between Leave and Remain—which is social, not economic. At the end of the day, buses anywhere are stressful, crowded means of getting from point A to point B. But your time onboard is a lot more interesting if you pay attention to your surroundings enough to appreciate exchanges that can broaden your local and universal perspective—and the poignant testimonies to the humanity of your fellow passengers. 9 August 2016 – Wilmington, North Carolina, USA (Disclaimer: the interviews with the unnamed man and Glenn Wilson, and with Ben Staley and Austin Marcelo, respectively grouped together as they were conducted, do not specify which quote can be attributed to which of the two simultaneous interviewees in cases where the handwritten notes were taken too quickly to specify—those interviewed after Laurie Mitnar agreed to be recorded to prevent any further lack of clarity. I apologize and chose to include the quotes anyway given the contributions they make to maximally informing the reader of the spectrum of opinions expressed at the rally.) Due to the multiple-block line meandering through the UNC Wilmington campus that Tuesday in early August, I was not able to enter Trask Coliseum and witness Mr. Trump in the flesh. I consequently only later heard the media-generated uproar about his remark “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks…Although the Second-Amendment people—maybe there is, I don’t know”—an insinuation that gun-toters might have the power to prevent Clinton from being elected or performing as president by, well, shooting her. But this feature is not about what he said, or has said since then. This is a simple snapshot of one community’s support and reasons for at least considering Trump in the southern United States. In the syrupy afternoon humidity, I turned to the plethora of other parties not among the lucky first 5,800 who got to enter the Coliseum, the doors of which opened at 11 am, though Trump was not scheduled to speak until 2 pm. I was provided with interesting firsthand insight into the appeals and turnoffs of Trump, from supporters and the undecided. His real talk is consistently positively regarded, and seemed to preemptively redeem him for any of his off-color remarks. The hottest talking point was not so much Trump’s appeal as the turnoffs of Hillary, which often surfaced even unsolicited by questioning. SUPPORTERS AND POTENTIAL SUPPORTERS The first woman I talked with gave her reason for supporting Trump as there being “too many people cutting in line” with reference to immigrants bypassing the legal process of naturalization—she added that she “would follow their rules” in another country. Most people she knew she perceived “don’t care” about Trump and/or are poorly informed. Another rally attendee, a 17-year-old boy, was more ambivalent. When asked if there was anything he disliked about Trump, he suggested that he put “too much emphasis on tax cuts to corporations; I don’t think cutting corporate tax will help the middle class.” He added, however, “I don’t agree with either of the candidates,” Hillary “[is embroiled in] scandals, is wishy washy, has the Wall St. aspect.” He considered Donald Trump “xenophobic” rather than racist, but took issue with the perceived unfeasibility of his proposals, not their implicit biases; “I understand where he [Donald Trump] is coming from, but frivolous spending, building a wall and a Muslim ban would be impractical.” On his impressions of his acquaintances’ opinions of Trump, he said that “Most people are neutral or dislike” the Republican nominee. The hottest talking point was not so much Trump’s appeal as the turnoffs of Hillary, which often surfaced even unsolicited by questioning. I spoke next with two men, one who gave his name as Glenn Anthony Wilson and appears to be or have been involved in the New Hanover NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). They expressed appreciation of Trump’s honesty, in that “He says what most white working class, middle class Americans are thinking; he’s not hiding his position.” The unnamed man said that while “most people I know can’t stand him,” he’d heard he “has a 73-page agenda for black America” (though I could not find this online) and had suggested “the top 10% of the rich should relinquish their social security” (Trump does have a record of calling for the rich to give this up), ideas which he considered refreshing and appealing. His fear of the alternative they characterized as “Hillary Clinton is attached to her husband’s policies; it might be a replay” of Bill Clinton’s presidency, which he associated with the three-strikes law that led to mass incarceration, an especially devastating phenomenon to black men (in the United States, according to a report from The Sentencing Project dated June 2016, “African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons across the country at more than five times the rate of whites”). One of them added “I don’t like Qaddafi,” referring to American involvement in Libya in 2011 while Clinton was Secretary of State. Elaborating on the link between Bill and Hillary with an unusual twist, Wilson explained his perception that “Woman is an extension of male; the white woman never left him, and she stood by him in slavery. Hillary Clinton stood by her husband. The white woman is an extension of the white man, who runs the world.” I next approached two young men—Ben Staley, 23, a recent graduate of UNC Wilmington, and Austin Marcelo, 20, a current student. Their opinions on Trump were nuanced. They “like how he’s very blunt” and that he “hasn’t been in Hillary’s position… that he was just a businessman” but feel that “he puts people up to violence.” Of Clinton they explained “all I see on TV is that she supports kids” as well as “lots of comparison videos about how her stances have changed,” implying distrust in her for evolving stances over the years. Though clearly aware of fallacies in both mainstream candidates, like the majority of the electorate this year, one of them said “I have to vote because I have to have a voice in America.” Marcelo professed a desire for radical change in the American political system. “I just want something to change, and you have to take the risk; if things stay the same they will get worse. We have so many lobbyists.” Trump “will help the businesses; we can’t just rely on other countries because we’re so in debt.” The two agreed with the 17-year-old about Trump in that they “don’t think he’s downright racist” but rather that “he’s anti-illegal immigrants because they don’t pay their taxes.” Marcelo added, however, that “he means it about Muslims, but that’s part of his strategy; rile up his supporters by choosing someone to hate.” Ultimately, while Staley said he was pretty determined to vote for Trump, Marcelo professed more hesitancy—“I’ll watch him closer in his campaign…he can’t just call out all Muslims.” (PICTURED BELOW: AUSTIN MARCELO, LEFT, AND BEN STALEY, RIGHT) In the midst of the interviews, occasional cult-like chants would spasmodically engulf the supporters. “Lock her up” and “build the wall” were the most common catchphrases—“Benghazi” was also taken up once. Just across the street from the scene, throughout the talks, stood a crowd of perhaps 50 protesters holding colorful signs and hanging over the edge of the metal barriers. They tended to yell back “Love Trumps hate!” Every couple minutes or so, cars and the distinctively American gargantuan diesel trucks that I’m sure could serve as tanks in a pinch would pass between the two sides, and drivers would beep their horns or vroom engines, “rolling coal”—belching black smoke—while shouting support or rebukes out of their vehicle’s windows. But despite the negativity inherent in the former chants, the atmosphere never felt violent. There were police officers present to keep the peace, and they did take two people aside—one protester with a sign that was apparently offensive, and the other who jumped onto the road—but the aggression in the atmosphere was that of rambunctious fans on opposite teams at a football game. Nothing more. At one bizarre, surreal moment, both sides—protesters and Trumpers alike—were roaring the same thing at each other. “USA! USA! USA!” What better anecdote to capture the fracture in the definition of country and progress dividing the two sides? The scariest and most authentic negativity came out during the interviews—from people who have been genuinely let down by the political system. At one bizarre, surreal moment, both sides—protesters and Trumpers alike—were roaring the same thing at each other. “USA! USA! USA!” What better anecdote to capture the fracture in the definition of country and progress dividing the two sides? Laurie Mitnar is a Wilmington resident and another rally attendee in search of answers for herself. “What I like about [Trump] is he’s not Hillary Clinton; I was originally campaigning for Bernie Sanders but I learned 30 years of history about Clinton and I don’t want to see her in office.” When asked to elaborate on what she’d discovered, Mitnar said “Her whole past is dark; financial, corporal, Wall Street backers.” She considers it “a disgrace that she was able to run for presidency while under investigation by the FBI.” Mitnar was the first to mention that she “might go green” and vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein instead of either of the mainstream candidates. Asked if she had any misgivings about Trump, she said “I guess the concern of Trump is the racial undertone but I really don’t know; I came to the rally to check out the diversity.” [Aside: the rally was predominantly white, but then Wilmington is 71.4% white and 19.5% black—men and women of all ages were certainly present.] Responding to the protesters, she in fact said “I understand the race issue, I completely agree with that, but at this point I’m willing to overlook anything rather than go back to a Clinton administration.” As for Trump’s appeals, “He doesn’t have corporate backers, and she would “like to give the country to someone who doesn’t have a record of destroying the country.” Though she is “not as well-educated about Trump as about Clinton,” Mitnar “would like to think he would keep promises.” Her distrust of the current state of affairs was evident in that she stated “Our taxes aren’t going to rebuilding our country.” She expressed profound pessimism about the state of American politics, saying “I don’t really have hope in the American people electing president” and that a lot of the blame rests with the “complicity of the mainstream media.” Asked if she saw any way this could change, she said “We can only change if enough people stand up and demand change” but “I think we have a dark future.” The current conditions that have shaped her opinion of the necessity of change include “corporate greed, pollution of food, water, fracking; situation with BP (British Petroleum) in the Gulf; toxins in Ohio River; Flint, Michigan doesn’t have clean water; drilling; [provision of] water where there are droughts.” She is “tired of wars” and expressed resentment as “You can’t be in the wrong country for 10 years blowing it up and not expect revenge.” She additionally recounted her eyewitness experience of economic hardship, first saying she saw it “every day” in her 10 years spent teaching in the local public schools. She also contrasted the economic situation of her childhood with now; “I was raised in the 70s, and my dad built us a home and had a good job” yet today, her niece and husband cannot get by even though “she works one job, he works three.” This quote is an important one. Think about how you may have heard people spew statistics about the unemployment rate sitting at a nice low 4.9%, and consider Trump’s ability to dismiss facts and statistics. When people like Laurie’s niece and nephew-in-law are working around the clock to get by, are they going to listen to Clinton riff on the status quo and spout the 4.9%? Or are they going to flock to someone with a tendency to spurn facts for feelings? It’s not just an isolated case; Ms. Mitnar said “Everyone I know is hurting financially.” In sum, in the America she perceives, “people don’t have hope; everything is a struggle.” (PICTURED BELOW: LAURIE MITNAR) Fast forward to when the doors of the Coliseum finally opened back up after the speech. I approached a man who did not leave his name and commented on his own perception of the speech, and on how it differed from previous speeches, if at all. He did not mention the 2nd amendment comment—rather, Trump’s focus had been on “NAFTA, immigration, job growth, keeping jobs here instead of shipping them overseas, if they do go overseas there’ll be more of a tax imposed on that whenever they come and try to sell merchandise back in the US; health care policies; he said there was gonna be a tax break, a tax incentive for child care; if you have a family that works, there’ll be child care incentives that you can take off your taxes, which is good for the working family.” To him, the most important Trump policy is “Probably the creation of jobs, and that turns into your taxes; with a lower tax rate for the middle class and the upper class, you can turn that around and create more jobs. Job creation, economics for me is the biggest.” He could not think of anything Trump had said that he disagreed with; “sometimes it’s the way he says it that might come across as a little brash, but he’s saying what people are thinking anyway.” He also did not think there was anything Trump could say that would deter him from having his vote; “we’re pretty committed.” On Hillary: “I don’t believe she’s a very truthful person, and I think she, a lot of times, has to tell untruthful statements to cover up other untruthful statements she’s said, and in a nutshell I believe she’ll say whatever she wants to be elected.” His perception of her dates “Back when her husband was president, a long time ago. You could just tell they were a political machine established in Washington, and they know what to say and what to do to keep them in office.” The last supporter I interviewed was an older Republican man, another Wilmington resident, who did not want to be named. He too likes Trump because “He’s honest. He tells it like it is, he’s not a politician. Politicians, I think, are one of the three groups of people in this country that do the most harm to the country. [The other two are] lawyers and Democrats—liberals.” Asked if he feels Trump is loyal to the ideals of the Republican party, he said “I hope so.” He wants and expects Trump to “tone down the political correctness; he’s going to lower taxes; he’s going to strengthen the military; he’s going to bring free trade back to the country. People can leave if they want to, but they’re gonna pay a heavy tax—which they should.” To him, the most important Trump policy is “Probably the creation of jobs, and that turns into your taxes; with a lower tax rate for the middle class and the upper class, you can turn that around and create more jobs." Asked about Hillary Clinton, he blatantly said “I think she’s a liar. If you look at the history of her and her family, it dates back to Whitewater (a real estate debacle where the Clintons were accused, but never prosecuted due to lack of evidence, of pressuring David Hale into providing an illegal loan to their investment partner) when Bill was governor of Arkansas—and everything she has touched has gone bad. Everything. People forget that.” Beyond Whitewater, he said “look at the Benghazi thing; look at the childcare that she touts as being the savior of which was a joke; her time in the state department, she was absolutely horrendous—working to deal with Iran, we’re gonna get another nuclear state in the world…a lot of people can’t handle that. Including me.” He also said “I really can’t say that there has been” anything Trump has said he’s disagreed with. “I really think that what he’s saying is the truth. A lot of people deny the truth, and that’s what people like about him—he tells it like it is.” The state of affairs of the country currently he considers “dismal.” He suggested discomfort in particular with the threat to law and order he thought the Black Lives Matter movement posed, and even questioned the legitimacy of their claim that racism in the police exists. He stated that police look for people based on the physical descriptions of those who commit a crime—for whites is they were white, for blacks if they are reported as black—and so forth. He did not address random traffic stops, but did stress especially that it is unacceptable for people to call for police murder, referring to phrases like “pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon” (used to incite violence against the police). Yes, it is ironic that this statement was made outside the same rally where Trump seemed to suggest people kill Hillary in the ultimate rejection of law and order—but to be fair, police officers actually have been killed, while Trump was somewhat able to pass off his words as a joke. A few of this man’s friends are opposed to Trump, suggesting again that units of people are not necessarily cloistered in supporters of their preferred candidate. On request, he also commented on Bernie Sanders. “Bernie Sanders I think is out of touch with reality. He wants everything to be free for everyone; nothing is free, somebody is going to pay for it. And you just can’t, we can’t—right now we have 70 million people on welfare. That can’t happen; the country will go broke.” “He’s honest. He tells it like it is, he’s not a politician. Politicians, I think, are one of the three groups of people in this country that do the most harm to the country. [The other two are] lawyers and Democrats—liberals.” DETRACTORS AND PROTESTERS And now we move to the other side of the fence. Rachel, 20, and Arissa, 21, are two more respective UNC Wilmington current students and alumni, who showed up to protest Trump’s visit. In commenting on what they think he would do as president, Rachel said “I’m not really sure; I don’t think he has [would have] the power to do a lot of the things that people think…like, I’ve heard people say he’s gonna put people in concentration camps and all that, but…I think he has no experience with politics, with foreign affairs, and I don’t think it would be good if he goes across borders, especially with Russia, and says stupid stuff like he says here…” Arissa agreed; “Everything he would try to do is just ridiculous. He says he’s gonna build a wall—like, I don’t think he can actually build a wall; what is the point of that? Where are you gonna find the money for that? Second, he’s gonna use way too many weapons on other countries, and is gonna start a war which we do not need to be in.” Rachel reflected that Trump supporters like Trump “Because he speaks his mind”—and, Arissa added, “A lot of people in politics don’t speak their minds.” Here the topic turned to Hillary, who Rachel described as “just saying what everyone wants to hear.” This is why she is “voting for Jill Stein,” justifying herself with the statement “I refuse to vote for evil people, so I’m voting for neither one.” Arissa, however, is willing to vote for Hillary to stop Trump. In expanding on why she considers Hillary evil, Rachel too referenced her inconsistency “Well, she’s gotten people killed, first of all; she lies—I mean, she was against the Civil Rights movement back when she was younger, but now she’s all for it; she was against gay people, and now she’s all for it…she just does whatever she wants to get people to like her.” The mistrust isn’t limited to Hillary; Rachel said “The mainstream media is bullcrap” and doesn’t know where to get information she can rely on; she questions “everything.” Denny “Papa” Bass hails from Southeast North Carolina, while Chris Meek is a New Yorker, but both are current residents of Wilmington, and fellow anti-Trumpers. Denny said “Donald Trump represents everything that’s wrong with America. He represents misogyny; he represents racism, he represents phobia…he represents a de-evolution of where we have been going. We’ve been steadily making progress, building up…women’s rights; minority rights; gay and lesbian rights—over the last 40 years…and it seems like in the past few years we’ve almost hit a wall; we’re not going forward. Donald Trump represents that wall. He wants to build a wall…he is the wall; him and his republicans are that wall, the wall against progression, of America continuing to mature and evolve.” Chris succinctly stated “I think Donald Trump epitomizes P.T. Barnum saying that there’s a sucker born every minute, and right now those suckers are standing on that side of the fence.” He could not fathom anyone supporting Trump “unless they have certain ideologies, racist ideologies, xenophobic ideologies.” Denny broke down Trump’s appeal to supporters as follows. “There’s a certain amount of fear in America, and there’s a certain amount of legitimate fear—but he takes that fear and exploits that. There’s a fear of terrorism, and it’s a legitimate fear to a certain extent; there is a legitimate fear of jobs and wages…but he takes that and exploits it and aims it at the wrong people. So he’s exploiting people’s fears, and people who might not otherwise agree with the misogyny and the racism that are coming out are allowing themselves to be exploited.” Denny “Papa” Bass: it seems like in the past few years we’ve almost hit a wall; we’re not going forward. Donald Trump represents that wall. He wants to build a wall…he is the wall; him and his Republicans are that wall, the wall against progression, of America continuing to mature and evolve.” They take far less issue with the status quo than, for example, Ms. Mitnar. “It’s getting better,” Chris said. “From where we were eight years ago—and we were in a mess, we were on the verge of an economic collapse (Denny: “a depression”); not just the United States, but worldwide. And it took a lot to have to step back before we could have moved forward. And we had the leadership that stepped us back to where we needed to be, and moved us forward. I hear a lot of numbers being thrown around, but the one number that stands out to me is 4.9—that’s the percentage of unemployed Americans today…the lowest since the early 2000s.” Denny added that the rebound of the housing market, especially in the Wilmington area, had been extraordinary; “just look in this area and you can see all the houses being built.” Denny “was a Bernie supporter” and has not decided whether to support Hillary, but “Most likely I will be supporting a third-party candidate—I’m thinking green.” Chris, on the other hand, is “A converted Hillary supporter. When I saw that Bernie wasn’t gonna win the primaries—and I only converted early last month—I listened to Hillary at the N.E.A. (National Education Association) convention (for which Chris was wearing the t-shirt); she won my support in her speech supporting education in the United States. That’s my primary issue, is an excellent public education system…which under that administration (gestured towards Coliseum) would crumble.” Reflecting on the limitations of mainstream media, Denny said that in, for example, the nightly news, “they have 30 minutes so they have to concentrate on very small things and can’t really go into a lot of detail, so they tend to grab the most sensationalist stuff they can find, and that’s what they do…they’re almost as much an exploiter as anybody else in my opinion.” He and Chris both use BBC, and Denny, like the 17-year-old, mentioned the Young Turks. Here are some things protesters yelled back and forth at each other across the fence. There were certainly more run-of the-mill insults flying back and forth too, but there were attempts to convince, which created a surprisingly encouraging sense of free dialogue: Trump supporter, male: Hillary’s been playing her whole life. Anti-Trump (female): Hillary’s not the only other candidate. Trump guy: Yes she is! Anti-Trump: No. You got Johnson! You got Jill Stein! Educate so you can elevate! The last protester I spoke to, Tiffany, 35, had taken the day off to make her voice heard. Originally a Bernie supporter, she now supports Hillary because she thinks a 3rd-party vote “would let Trump win.” Because “the mainstream media plays what they want to,” she considers it unreliable and instead listens to speeches, rallies and candidate interviews. She reflected especially on the contradiction she saw in his slogan. “When I think about making America great again…and saying that America isn’t great now, and again, for me being African American it’s hard to envision when it was great—so when are you talking about making it great again? When are we going back to—a year when there was segregation?” Indeed, in the next president she hopes for “a lot more inclusion for all people” and unfortunately “this election has brought out a lot of hate.” (PICTURED BELOW: TIFFANY) “When I think about making America great again…and saying that America isn’t great now, and again, for me being African American it’s hard to envision when it was great." Trump supporters obviously want change, and though much of the incentive is economic, the majority of the few I spoke with seem to dismiss or cautiously endorse his comments on immigrants rather than take issue with them. But the palpable abhorrence of Clinton was the most consistent unifying force I perceived, which seems to be what gives his “non-politician” brand and bluntness its special appeal. Is she held to a different standard than other politicians? Is she unfairly lambasted? I don’t know. But I do believe that the extent to which Trump has driven home that the process is rigged, however much or little it is actually rigged, in conjunction with the profound mistrust of and disgust with Hillary, developed over years of her switching positions and seeming to have conflicts of interests under the scrutiny of the public eye, mean one thing. If she does win this election, it is the most likely in recent memory to result in violence on the streets and even disrespect for the democratic process. And if he wins…will he who “tells it like it is” provide the changes promised and anticipated? That’s the “yuge” question.
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Born in Boston, USA, spent six years in Florence, Italy, and now living in Oxford, UK. Archives
July 2017
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