Episode 5: "Speaking UP"

What does it mean to use words to uplift, and avoid being one who punches down from a high horse?

Sir Anthony Hopkins shared, “My philosophy is: What people say about me is none of my business. I am who I am and do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And that makes life easier. We live in a world where funerals are more important than the deceased, marriage is more important than love, looks are more important than the soul. We live in a packaging culture that despises content.”

I have been thinking increasingly about positivity, and the spiral of negativity as they pertain to our current state of events. It doesn't take a pundit to recognize that this year will see the dawn of a second epoch where hate and divisiveness will reign supreme and claim superiority. Already news sources are blasting headlines about nearly 100 "First day executive orders" the incoming administration will use to address "anti-immigration" "anti-climate" and federal "anti-workforce" According to Axios and other sources, Title 42 will be making a comeback. The allegedly covid-focused policy cited public health and concerns about spreading illness as a generic clause allowing for the rapid expulsion of millions of migrants at the border-denying even the possibility of an asylum case. President Biden ended the policy in 2023, but it will likely be back on the table. Stephen Miller, The longtime Immigration advisor of the president-elect, has acknowledged it along with other aggressive plans, including yet another attempt at a border-wall, hasty construction of camps where migrant detainees can be concentrated, other broad asylum restrictions, and a still more aggravated interpretation of laws like the Immigration and Nationality Act. The 226 year old law was used to detain "enemy aliens" in times of war, and has been cited in the creation of camps where Japanese and German nationals were forcibly housed around World War II. My citation of Axios is from an article posted December 26th in which they cite the words of the president-elect from 122 speeches, where he enumerated at least 2 dozen policies aimed specifically at immigration and foreign policy. NONE of them seem to be for nearly as much as they are against, and more broadly, as I look over this list, nearly every single talking point seems to include a term of negation. Terms like END, BAN, REDUCE, CLOSE, CUT, STOP, REVERSE, ROLL BACK, REVOKE, TERMINATE, FIRE, KILL, SUSPEND, and others paint a grim outlook as they uniformly decorate the list of policies to be pursued.

With the increase of news media, and undoubtedly every other kind of media, rampantly gobbling and churning out the most eye-catching, and therefore inherently extreme vocabulary, The first thing to consider is that yes, duh, there is very little to be gained personally by a verbal diet rich in these terms. Yet as I make the comparison to food, I think of an impoverished urbanite, trapped in what we now recognize as a "food desert" where fresh produce and raw ingredients are harder to find, more expensive, and undeniable not as convenient as the mickey-D's on every corner. Every pundit screams, "Stay informed" just as every nutritionist proclaims "Eat your vegetables" but where is the advice on a balanced diet of public discourse? How does one tune into the news without getting bombarded by the words which the administration of hate will weaponize against those who want to keep tabs on the decaying status of public accountability? The previous term by our incoming president was marked by a shock-and-awe campaign of headlines, and the reference to the somewhat older military campaign is not an accident. The speed with which salacious soundbites streamed from the administration was nothing short of sickening, and indeed, new medical definitions for anxiety and mental trauma seemed to spring up in an environment where the people learning the most about the ways our bodies respond to stimuli in media were able to see large scale effects in real time. Even if you don't have all the scientific jargon down, we saw that before, and there is no indication that this time around will be any better, indeed, all signs seem to point to a reality much, much worse.

Here's where I want to say that there IS something we can do, to keep a head of the tide without getting swept in the undertow. My methodology here is absolutely not supported by any particular experts I know of, and as a casual person on your airwaves, you already know I am no expert on anything but pushing buttons and yacking. But as I have thought about it, I came to recognize there are a few things I have been doing which seem to have helped me, and I share them in the hopes to at least spark a journey, and if you are listening now, I hope you will reach out and offer some of your own suggestions to expand a community understanding that will undoubtedly be helpful in the four years to come.

First: Set boundaries around your consumption of news. This needn't be punitive, but recognize that the passive, haphazard grazing on headlines is exactly why the news is so often sickening. News content posted on social media is rarely going to cross your feed based on its ability to offer you ANYTHING more than whatever was most inflammatory headline or soundbite. I don't know that we actually have as much agency to curate any social feed to deliver anything antithetical to the torrent of algorithmically driven click-bait. I know this is going to sound crazy, considering a landscape where I've had trouble talking with anyone around my age who doesn't get a majority of their information from social feeds.

We justify this to ourselves in a lot of ways. "Well, I only follow the best influencers writing and delivering information closest to sources on issues I care about," I often say the same, but how is that validated? I suppose there is an experiment one could do about logging all the news you see, and tracking the occurrence of some of the terms I mentioned before. But before you go setting up all the necessary logs and measuring methods, there is one thing we know of most publishing entities online: More clicks, and more shares, likes, and up-votes does equal more income. News producers simply aren't incentivized to deliver anything that isn't crafted to increase engagement. Whether that's a media conglomerate owned by an even bigger shell corporation, or the friendly and somehow consistently beautifully curated social account claiming to be against the corporate media. Does that mean that all news is inherently untrustworthy?

Second: Beware of sweeping generalizations of sources and publishers. It's easy to feel like one needs to filter out lots of media, and it is totally within the realm of such filtering to seek out easy ways to efficiently exclude large swaths of content, simply to get to "core of what matters" But having just made the generalization that all news is biased toward engagement, I have to say that when such a generalization is so broadly applicable, it is less useful as a filtering tool. So stop making it an excuse.
Media is biased. Duh. What else is new? Instead, the goal is to be your own sort of biased. Biased toward what is empirically verifiable. So if you are setting a boundary of watching or following a news publication, consider how you can check what you see against what can be tested.  Sensational numbers a great example of this, because they come in a couple different forms. An article using a verifiable number is consistently going to tell you how to check it, using terms like, "according to" naming their source for the information. Funnily enough, if a number is verifiable, and you look into it, you will often find suggestions that the egregious number is likely much more so than reported. Lately I have heard reports citing "official counts" and acknowledging that the actual numbers might be higher. Sources that used phrases like "thousands" without any sort of backing have in my experience had a much harder time passing a basic scrutiny check.

Setting a real and non-negating boundary on news consumption means you HAVE to be selective. Being selective needs to be an intentional act, not left to what is passively coming across your feed. The thing about numbers is intentionally referenced here because it is and should feel obvious. It's one thing to suggest that you are intentional in consuming high quality journalism, but what is your test for that… do you even have one? How do you know that the media you have decided to include is worth your attention? In food, we think of calorie counts, or sugar-free, with things that are at least subjectable to a test of reading the label on the package. But when was the last time you spent any time following a news story to a source? What does that look like to you? Having an answer to these questions at all can help you be more selective about sources, without making sweeping generalizations, and with something that can be backed up with periodical testing and action.

Recognizing a minimum and maximum amount of regular news consumption, and establishing a few tests by which to verify then occasionally re-examine why you picked a news source, we can move on to the
Third, idea: balance the news with something that engages you positively. See, setting boundaries here isn't about the strict enforcement. You don't get to go bury your head in the sand if you meet your "news allowance" by ten a. m. but in being aware of what you have taken on emotionally and intellectually, you are now empowered to deal with it, and actually, this one has even more in common with food than ever: Exercise. But this is a perhaps different idea than setting a goal to hit the gym and mercilessly pound out sets in an effort to achieve maximum caloric burn. There are a handful of different ways I have tried that do seem to help with relieving the strain of mental load, and I can list the following.

Gratitude journaling: the hardest part is getting started. Whether you sit down and dedicate a portion of your morning to logging all the ones you can think of, or keep a notepad handy and jot them down as they come, there is powerful energy in writing, and gratitude specifically is one that is inherently positive. From my own experience, I can say that there is a way to have a "bad set" verses a "good set" and that comes in your use of language. If you catch yourself, as I have, starting to express something like, "I'm grateful I am not dead yet," stop. What are you expressing? Yes, "not a negative" is inevitably positive, and starting from nowhere, it is still better than nothing. But focusing up will empower you, in even the moment of writing it, to question the negative. Why use a negative expression in gratitude, when a simple language shift can be so much more powerful? "I am grateful to be alive" lifts the spirit much higher, and it took me a while and a good coach to recognize it in my own thinking. My partner Misha has been leading me into considering gratitude, and with exercises like that, I cannot deny that I arrived at a point where I recognized all of the most positive aspects of my status in life were being anchored by negativity. I am still in the process, still on the road to changing that, and I will be honest to say that I will do much better and more consistent journalling before I reach the goal she helped me set.
But see what I did there? Instead of passing that not, "I am not as good at this journalling as she'd like me to be" I reframed it, and acknowledged being on a better path.

That said, one would need a lot more time to habitually generalize positive statements in news headlines. I have only considered doing that for statements that start with me, and found it considerably helpful.
 

Gratitude itself is intentional and positive, but the catharsis of offsetting negativity can be achieved by a slightly less structured Daily creativity. For this, I have a few criteria: It has to be fun, so I tend not to indulge something where there is a high risk of getting stuck. If it’s a doodle, and I know I will want to draw perfect hands, I will find the thing I invest in for the fun of it is something without hands. There is awesome energy to be found in besting a challenge, but that isn't what this is for. Instead, consider something you already do pretty well, or at least don't take yourself too seriously with. Pick a simple prompt, or refer to one from another source. I have a notebook of daily doodle prompts, and that works pretty well for me. I have also found plenty of opportunities to practice creativity in work, and even in chores, and found relief in finding a new way to approach something like folding laundry, frequently inventing different folding styles in a way that makes the activity mentally stimulating, and busy enough to take my mind off a particularly bothersome notion.

If all else fails, embrace the runners high. Sustained physical activity doing something that is aerobic seems to do wonders in helping shake off the negativity. Even a walk in the neighborhood can do the trick, if its long enough, or you take your partner, maybe even the dog. Make a mini-adventure out of it, and at very least, be open to the idea of release.

So, the recap - #1, set clear parameters on what news you get and when, and why. No passive doom-scrolling.
#2. pick criteria for defining your news feed. If you must use an aggregator, find one that intentionally minimizes extreme language. CurrentStatus.io uses a fairly neutral language, but remember, no source is completely without bias, so make sure there is enough variety in reporting to keep your understanding as objective as can be.
#3. Balance the news you take on with what you do. I definitely forgot to mention taking direct action in your community, but you are listening to WHIV-LP, and somehow I imagine you are already doing that.
Find an activity that lets you unwind, and make sure you are doing as much of that as you are engaging in news.

I definitely want to further consider this topic. I think I intended something different than what seems to have emerged from the stream of consciousness here. Not to devalue what I have said so far, I just realize there is so much more to cover. But alas, We are just about out of the time I set aside for this.
I realize this is less of a "hispanic issue" today. I just felt a little of the weight of the continuous "us versus them" mentality in all of the reporting, and have decided that healing is an important thing to consider in this project. We as a nation will need to consider much in terms of healing in the coming years, and we might as well start sooner rather than later.

 

I welcome you to join me in sharing your experiences, skills and ideas and other forms of mutual aid as we explore how to actively do good as resistance against hate.

As for me,

I'll be doing whatever I can. For now, I know I can use my voice to reach out, and some of it will sound like screaming into the void. Initially, I know I cannot remain silent as hate and chaos grow. But I also hope to empower people, amplify the marginalized voices, and offer the skills I have to projects that help bring the future we all want to be living in.

My name is Jose, and I am human, lifting my voice for human rights.