(or How NPR’s Michele Norris Helped Me Think More Clearly About Occupy Wall Street)
Michele Norris, co-host of “All Things Considered” on NPR gave a great talk at Sacramento State University recently about her new book, The Grace of Silence. She has an ingenious way to make people think about the role of race in their lives and in American society (the subject of her book). She calls it “The Race Card.” Ms. Norris has invited people all over the country to record their thoughts, feelings, experiences, fears, about race in six words and mail them to her. Then she strings these 6-word essays together in fascinating narrative chains and uses them to provoke conversations.
At first, I thought this was a gimmick. How can you possibly say anything meaningful about a complex subject like race in six words? Actually, it turned out to be a powerful tool to distill thoughts and feelings to their central meaning and to force the mind to focus. Go try it at her website. (Six words.) If you start, you can’t stop. (Six more words.)
Some pundits want the Occupy Wall Street movement to be clearer and more concise about its “demands.” Others say if you can’t figure out what’s upsetting people in this political and economic climate, you are a poor excuse for a pundit. In any event, Michelle Norris’ six-word essays provided a way for me to think more clearly about my hopes for the Occupy Wall Street movement and generally about promoting greater civic health, prosperity, opportunity, and equality in our amazing country. None of the ideas in my mini-essays is original. But I like to make lists, so take a look at mine below. Then add your own, if you like.
Six-Word Essays on How to Make Things Better
Create jobs now; reduce deficit later.
Federal expenditures to create jobs now.
Rebuild bridge, roads, schools, waterworks now.
Preserve public employees’ collective bargaining rights.
Value public education as democratic cornerstone.
Returning veterans deserve respect, jobs, benefits.
Return tax rates to Clinton levels.
Tax capital gains at regular rates.
Restore the Glass-Steagall banking act.
Don’t reward corporations for outsourcing jobs.
Provide meaningful relief for underwater mortgages.
Supreme Court must follow ethical rules.
No more filibusters: majority vote wins.
Secret corporate money shouldn’t buy elections.
Corporations are legal constructs, not people.