Among the crowning achievements of civilization is, I think, the back porch. From the front porch you watch the neighbors, keep track of the garbage collections, mail delivery and Amazon deliveries, all part if the busy-ness of the day.
But the back porch. The back porch was created for more thoughtful activities: drink a cup of coffee, scratch a dog, read a book, talk to friends, watch the grass grow, solve problems and think.
There was a Shel Silverstein book called, Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing. I never read the book, couldn’t get past the title that insists kids must have their own time to create their own selves in their own ways.
The back porch is the adult version of that need. There’s been a lot to think about these 100+ days of demented proclamation and inverted reality. Recently I have spent porch time pondering one of the greatest imponderables, “woke” and DEI, and why they have been turned into criticisms so strong that reputations and institutions have been blackened with the terms.
I know “woke” is from the African American imperative to stay alert, to be aware that skin color can be the first criteria in judgments, a vital lesson parents must teach their children even before the alphabet. Be “woke” to stay alive. Excellent parental advice tragically necessary when skin color does not fall within the acceptable “white” section of the color wheel.
D = diversity. E = equity, equality. I = inclusion. These words are embedded in our Constitution the purpose of which is to create a “more perfect” union and which all public employees must swear to uphold, even the president. What is the problem?
Gregor Mendel’s experiments in genetics show that no group of people can be without diversity unless cloned. The kindergarten lessons that gave us “all we ever need to know” taught us to play together, share crayons, be kind, respect each other, be polite, tell the truth, admit mistakes, and that bullying is an act of weakness.
Yet these terms have been turned around to mean their opposite, to be cited as dangerous enough that universities and corporations are said to be at war with the U.S. George Orwell detailed how in certain societies everything means its opposite. Hitler’s propaganda specialists instructed that saying anything often enough, with authority, will result in people believing.
If the president of a country uses the power of office to repeatedly say that diversity damages national security, that the hierarchy of the military cannot be maintained, discipline falls apart, our country will be overrun by who knows what, people will believe. And it is the fault of woke and DEI.
However, I suspect the real issue here may be that white men, especially straight rich white men, cannot accept that people of different pigment and gender may perform better than they do. They have always been chosen first so there must be something wrong with the system if they are not first.
We are informed of a June birthday parade with military might – and no woke or DEI, I suppose. We may see the goose-stepping lines from the 1940s or today’s North Korea or the bland faces of thousands of terracotta armies still standing after 2000 years guarding their ancient Chinese leader. (The organizers of next month’s parade might keep in mind that the families and workers around those soldiers were killed and buried along with them.)
What do our strange politicians want? They certainly do not want to maintain or improve their country. More money? More vacation? More power? Immortality? Adoration? What? How much money, power, adoration can a single human need or want? If they want to be re-elected, they might find the courage to admit that the king has no clothes and visit their home districts to visit face-to-face.
I cherish the diversity sign that drapes our Spring Street with each new season. Sanity may return to the body politic. Days will get warmer on the back porch with coffee, books, a small dog, birds, squirrels, dozens of shades of green. I will continue to read a 19th century poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. He, too, looks in awe at the diverse world around him, variety in everything, and ends with the exhortation, “Glory be to God for dappled things!”
Call me woke. Call me DEI.
Marie Howard