This was an interesting article from back in June about Twitter and social events that raises issues on demographics and race.

There were also some immediate reactions to this (the blog these comments appeared on no longer exists, but a snap shot of the twitter thread does)

And the winner of epic fail this week goes to Toyota for letting this ad slip through the cracks! Dear god, it isn’t everyday you hear incestuous, degrading and sexist in a sentence. This commercial was the winner of Toyota’s Clever Film competition but was pulled the moment the backlashing began.

Psst The commercial is titled Clean Getaways for the added fail factor!

I’ve tried to differentiate between what I thought Amy meant, and how many readers took her advice to Victim? In Virginia, but I think she does it pretty well herself in today’s column:

Amy printed the letter of an outraged reader, who accused her of not caring what happened to the victim, suggesting that the victim may have been drugged. Amy then responded this way:

Dear Disgusted: To recap, “Victim” asked a very serious question in a very thoughtful way. She said she had gotten drunk at a frat party and went to a bedroom with a guy.

After saying in advance that she didn’t want to have sex, she did have sex.

The letter writer didn’t lose consciousness and she didn’t indicate she thought she had been drugged. She was intoxicated.

She was wondering if what happened to her qualified as rape and she was wondering what she should do next.

In my answer, I told her that “no means no” — before or during sex, sober or drunk (I assume the guy had also been drinking).

I told her that she had been raped, and I included information from the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (rainn.org) to further educate her about this.

I told her to go to her student health center and seek medical and emotional support and counseling and to get advice from professionals at school.

I told her that the perpetrator should be confronted by authorities at school because he might have done this before and might do it again unless he is stopped.

Unfortunately, I started my answer by expressing frustration at her judgment to get drunk at a frat house, calling it “awful.” This is the part of my answer that has enraged readers, who have accused me of “blaming the victim.”

As a mother (and stepmother) to five daughters — four in college — I have counseled (and worry about) all of my many daughters because of how vulnerable they are if they choose to drink. Drinking to intoxication poses very serious security issues for our daughters and sons, because being drunk impairs judgment and the ability to discern risk.

Because “Victim” wondered where the line was, I tried to draw it for her. My intent was to urge her (as I often urge readers) to take responsibility for the only thing she could control — her own choices and actions — but I regret how harshly I expressed this.

I certainly didn’t intend to offend or blame her for what happened, and I hope she will do everything possible to stay safe in the future.

I’m grateful that she chose to share her question with all of us, because talking about it will help others.

In her original answer, I don’t think Amy explicitly said, “yes you were raped,” and I don’t think she was clear that “authorities”–not the victim herself–should contact the guy–two points that bothered a lot of readers. Personally (maybe because I’ve been reading Amy as long as shes’s been around and am generally sympathetic to her), I felt that she meant both of those things–as she clarifies here. But I think her original column was probably too ambiguous on both of these points.

For those of you who live outside of Australia (and for those here who don’t pay attention to the news) we have a new Federal opposition leader of parliament, Tony Abbott.

From my less than comprehensive or incisive understanding of the political geography of Australia Tony Abbott is a contentious choice, and his elevation was far from unified. He’s known for his conservatism, his aggressive public image, strong catholic ties and dogmatic pro-life stance. (his nickname in the media is the “Mad Monk”)

Much has been made in the media of images of the in shape politician doing various physical things in very small items of lycra clothing (which would you believe, i can’t find any good pics online – always the way, when you don’t want to see it, it’s in your face, when you’re looking - nowhere to be found). These images are reminiscent of Images of Putin in various states of undress, or hunting something.

Tony Abbott is being represented as an aggressively masculine politician,  and it has been broadly acknowledged that women are a demographic group he has problems appealing to (anti-abortion policies can have that effect I hear)

For those who missed this piece (and this glowing endorsement) by Miranda Devine that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age it’s a pretty right wing piece defending Our new Federal Liberal leaders relationship with women. If you read it, be warned; it’s very frustrating.

The masculinity of politicians is always interesting, and I think that representation of masculinity in contemporary Australian federal politics will be very interesting, with the well spoken PM Kevin Rudd (often represented as  schoolboy-ish) and the defiantly inflexible and unappealing Tony Abbott. I think this contrast can make for some interesting dynamics around masculine expression and identity, I just hope that the backlash appeal of a traditional and patriarchal idea of masculinity isn’t to appealing for to the people of Australia.

This is a brief follow-up to last night’s very long post concerning the blogger backlash to Amy Dickinson’s column about a college student who wanted to know if what happened to her at a frat party was rape. At the end of a post in The Sexist criticizing this column, Amanda Hess writes,

“As this column makes clear, we should all probably refrain from consulting Ask Amy, as well.

* Note: Amy Dickinson’s “Ask Amy,” a syndicated advice column out of the Chicago Tribune, is not to be confused with the “Ask Amy” advice column penned by Amy Richards, published at Feminist.com.”

I’ve read Amy Richards…and here are some excerpts of what she’s written to women with questions and uncertainties about rape and sexual harrassment:

To a woman who had been abused as a child and is now unable to maintain a healthy sexual relationship:

“Unfortunately, I’m not a “doctor” and, therefore, can’t professionally answer your question. However, through my work with women’s issues, I am familiar with many resources in response to sexual abuse. I also personally know many people who have had similar experiences.” (Amy then recommends a number of books)

To a woman who is receiving uncomfortable comments from her (female) apartment manager:

“Sexual harassment is a fine line and I’m not an expert . . . it sounds like a good first step would be to simply tell your apartment manager that although she may mean for her comments to be flattering, they make you feel uncomfortable. If that doesn’t work, maybe try subtle threats and if that doesn’t work….maybe look for a new apartment. “

And finally, to a woman describing an upsetting sexual encounter with her boyfriend:

“Your question is not unlike many others that I have received over the years — not necessarily the exact details, but the fuzziness when it comes to rape. For some people it’s very clear when it is/was rape — they felt violated and felt that rape is/was the most accurate description of what happened to them. However, most people are less clear about how to describe what happened to them — and even less clear about what they want to do about it. Even if people are describing “it” as rape – they are resistant to entirely labeling it in that way because they then think they have to act upon it and they don’t always want to. Rape is also very personal — what one person experiences as rape, another person wouldn’t necessarily and so in that way it becomes harder to talk about universally since we aren’t always having the same conversation.

I say this all by way of comfort — your mixed, confused feelings seem entirely natural and in sync with most people that I interact with. In terms of what you should do…of course, only you can answer that.”

I’m not quoting these to respond to or comment on Amy’s advice (in fact, in these quotes I haven’t always included her advice). Just pointing out that, even for a woman who writes at www.feminist.com, and who is endorsed by the very bloggers who blasted Amy, things get a lot more tentative when you’re advising a specific person who needs medical attention, therapy, legal advice, or possibly all three. The question of “what exactly happened here, and what can I do?” isn’t much clearer to this Ask Amy than to the other one–and both of them seem to recognize that it’s rarely as black and white as the bloggers want it to be.

I’ll agree, of course, that this Amy Richards is softer and friendlier than Amy Dickinson–each of her responses seems to start with “thanks for writing and I’m sorry for what you’re going through.” But niceties aside–the meat of it is largely the same:

How often do you see these?

I read an interesting article in Time magazine this week called Can These Parents Be Saved? It’s about helicopter parents, parents that hover over their children, and the growing backlash against this style of parenting.

My wife and I, parents of two girls under 4, have discussed our parenting strategies for longer than our kids have been alive and lean heavily towards the backlash side of the debate.  We intend to avoid scheduling dance classes, and soccer leagues, and art classes, and piano lessons (at least all at the same time) so that our kids will have some time to be bored, to daydream, to create their own games.  As the article points out, this down time can help brain development and be useful for developing “leadership, sociability, flexibility, resilience” and more.  Anecdotally, the recent generation of over-scheduled kids now entering college tend to lack problem-solving skills and creativity, possibly as a result of their parents making too many decisions for them.

I think helicopter parents are well documented and widely discussed, particularly in higher education in North America, but I wonder how widespread this phenomenon is in ESL and EFL?  Of course, the answer likely varies as much as the field does.  For example, I teach in an intensive ESL program at a major research university.  Most of the students in my classes are over 18 years old and live without their parents.  If the parents want to be helicopters, they have to do it via email across an ocean, and it doesn’t typically affect teachers in our program directly.

Although I don’t yet feel the need to brace for an influx of helicopter parents and their precious offspring, I wonder if my colleagues in other areas of ESL and EFL do. Do other ESL teachers encounter helicopter parents, or is this parenting style a product of U.S. (or perhaps Western) culture?  Where do parents of generation 1.5 students fall on the helicopter spectrum?  What kinds of parents to EFL teachers in other countries typically encounter?

Communication technologies such as cell phones and webcams have been blamed for the rise in this behavior, or at least enabling it, because before these technologies, it simply wasn’t possible for parents to keep such close tabs on their children.  As these technologies spread around the world, will helicopter parenting follow?

Care to leave a comment?  I’d like to read it.  If not, I hope you enjoy the Time article.

I’ve been sitting on this post for awhile, ruffling and unruffling my feathers and trying to think about what I want to say. The right “moment” has probably already passed–but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

It’s been a season of feminist blogger backlash against the advice columns. It started with restless rumbling against Lucinda Rosenfeld’s harsh critique of a young woman left in the street, drunk, by her so-called friends. Right on the stilettos of this one came Hess vs. Garner regarding Eva, who had been raped (but was reconsidering calling it that) by her boss, was raising the child that resulted from that assault, and wanted help winning back her ex-husband, who left her when she chose not to terminate the pregnancy.

But the bs really hit the fan, so to speak, the day after Thanksgiving, when Amy Dickinson advised a college student who was sexually assaulted at a frat party.

The key points of Amy’s response were:
1) Making the decision to drink to the point where judgement and inhibitions are impaired is never wise–and that’s something you can choose to control
2) According to Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, no matter what state either of you were in, if you did not consent to have sex, and it happened anyway, that’s rape
3) You must seek physical treatment and emotional support immediately through the resources available at your university.
4) Find a way to tell this dude that someone is onto him, and that whether his behavior is deliberately, violently malicious or terrifyingly, alcoholically ignorant, it’s not going to fly under the radar anymore.

The bloggers went to town on this one (among them, Hortense at jezebel.com, meloukhia of This Ain’t Livin’, Amanda Hess at The Sexist, and ginmar at A View From a Broad, henceforth, “the bloggers”), all of them generally re-stating Amy’s response this way:

“Yeah. That’s right. You stupid slut, you made your bed, now go lie in it. Everyone knows that going to parties at frat houses will result in rape, or sex that you will regret, and no self-respecting lady would ever attend such a party, for this very reason.” (that’s meloukhia)

Arrrrrrrrrgh. OK.

I think the advice columns are a fantastic source for social activists of any kind to identify the problems that burden our society. And rape on college campuses is certainly one one of them. I’m all for re-purposing these columns, pushing them out there to raise awareness, to be sure that men, women, parents, and children know that this is happening, and must change. There’s a social and political cause here, for sure.

But I maintain that for the advice columnists, the pragmatic comes before the political.

Amy is pretty cutthroat, no doubt. I agree with the bloggers that her first line, “Were you a victim? Yes. First, you were a victim of your own awful judgment,” probably did not make “Victim(?) in Virginia” feel much better. That’s her style–she’s not a coddler. Carolyn Hax might have started the column with, “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through, and the pain and uncertainty you’re struggling with.” But guess what? I suspect she would have followed it up with very similar advice.

Frankly, I’m not sure Amy is in a position to say, “yes, you were raped. ” In any case, it’s clear she didn’t feel she was in a position to say it. She’s not a doctor, a lawyer, or a psychologist. She’s never met or spoken to Victim, or heard more about what happened than, “he quickly proceeded to go against what he ‘promised,’” which doesn’t give a lot of medical or legal information. It doesn’t help that the whole thing is clouded by (possibly illegal) consumption of alcohol (possibly by both parties).

This is so often the case, and I think must be the hardest part of being an advice columnist: rarely, if ever, can they safely diagnose. They can’t confirm that your spouse is cheating, they can’t tell you to definitely have that baby, they can’t help you get a girlfriend, and they don’t know whether you were raped. What they can do, and what most of them are quite good at (in different ways) is break down an overwhelming event into comprehensible chunks, and make recommendations for moving forward.

Another harsh truth of advice columns is that they can only advise the person who wrote to them. It does no good to say “Your mother-in-law sounds like a real bitch, she shouldn’t treat you that way” or “This criminal needs to stop raping people.” The mother-in-law and the criminal don’t care. All the columnist can offer is perspective and choices for the person who wrote.

So bloggers, use these columns to your heart’s content! Please draw notice to the fact that even in this day and age, a young woman can be sexually assualted, and the only place she can think to turn is a stranger, a face she’s seen in the newspaper. People need to know that. And we need to fix it. But keep in mind when you do that that face in the newspaper is trying to provide useful, accurate, honest guidance to an unknown person, on a terrible, delicate situation about which she has only 2 paragraphs of vague information–and about the same amount of space to respond.

You can expand upon, repurpose, and even totally disagree with what the columnist says, while respecting the fact that your audiences and purposes are very different ones. You can take a different tack, make something more of a column that you thought was fundamentally weak, without calling the original writer “one part incredible bitch and one part cover-your-ass scold” (that was ginmar).

For the record–I think Amanda Hess does that really well this time. She’s clearly disgusted by Amy’s response, but her commentary is nevertheless precise, logical and nuanced.

The trouble is, when you get so worked up about criminalizing the columnist, you force yourself to make everything black and white, to disparage everything she says for the sake of being right. For example, meloukhia is affronted that Amy didn’t “provide [the victim] with any resources beyond a tepid recommendation to go to the college health clinic.” Ok…the college health clinic is free, it’s on campus, they’re trained in dealing with students, and they could refer her to local doctors, hospitals, or rape crisis centers with much greater expertise than Amy could. What’s wrong with this recommendation, and how is a directive to go there “tepid”? I don’t get it.

And finally…..(drumroll)…..I admit it: I don’t think Amy’s reinforcing rape culture by agreeing with Victim that her choices weren’t good ones. I believe (subtlety again, look out!) that there’s a difference between, “this probably could have been avoided” and “you deserved what you got, you hussy.”

I don’t believe that anything you do or don’t do, say or don’t say, wear or don’t wear, means you deserve or are asking to be assualted. I do believe that there are choices that make it more likely to happen.

Let me be clear: I am not saying women should wear habits, keep a 9 p.m. curfew, and avoid direct eye contact with men, lest the men be aroused beyond their control. I am saying that everything we do, and everywhere we go, falls somewhere on the spectrum of risk to our well-being: we could be hit by a car, we could get food poisoning in the cafeteria, we could meet a stranger in a dark alley–or an untrustworthy charmer at a party. The answer, of course, is not to cower under our beds (after all, the roof could cave in). But the responsibility to calculate those risks, and choose to take them on, or not, with a clear mind, lies with each of us alone.

Women have fought for autonomy, on college campuses and off, for years. Female college students have insisted, rightfully of course, that parents, house moms, dates, RAs, and older brothers have no place dictating, or even knowing, where we go, what we do, and when, even though just a few decades ago that wasn’t the case. But the corollary is that the responsibility for those choices is ours and ours alone. Being the victim of sexual assault is absolutely not any woman’s fault or rightful punishment. But choosing whether to isolate herself, while incapacitated, with a stranger in a strange place is in her hands, and no one else’s.

The trick of the advice column is that it has practical merit only if it’s directed specifically at what Victim can control. Unfortunately, that inevitably puts the focus on her choices and options, not his unacceptable behavior. Whoever this guy is, he obviously should never have lied to Victim, and then attacked her as soon as he got her alone. But Victim wasn’t able to stop him from doing it, and Amy certainly can’t do anything about it now, from her column. Victim just wants permission to call herself, well, a victim. Amy could give it to her–but what good would that do? What would she do next? Instead, she focuses on a plan of action, encouraging Victim to seek treatment, help, and closure, to reclaim the agency and control that she lost in this terrible episode.

To a wide audience of parents, students, feminists, voters, etc., “This should never have happened! Our society is broken!” is a powerful rallying cry. But to one woman to whom it already did happen…well, it’s not so helpful. We need both the political and the pragmatic, the activist and the advice columnist. What we don’t need is the ranting and the name calling.

From University of Washington News

* * *

Study supports validity of test that indicates widespread unconscious bias

In the decade since the Implicit Association Test was introduced, its most surprising and controversial finding is its indication that about 70 percent of those who took a version of the test that measures racial attitudes have an unconscious, or implicit, preference for white people compared to blacks. This contrasts with figures generally under 20 percent for self report, or survey, measures of race bias.

A new study (pdf here) validates those findings, showing that the Implicit Association Test, a psychological tool, has validity in predicting behavior and, in particular, that it has significantly greater validity than self-reports in the socially sensitive topics of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age.

The research, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, is an overview and analysis of 122 published and unpublished reports of 184 different research studies. In this analysis, 85 percent of the studies also included self-reporting measures of the type generally used in surveys. This allowed the researchers, headed by University of Washington psychology Professor Anthony Greenwald, to compare the test’s success in predicting social behavior and judgment with the success of self-reports.

“In socially sensitive areas, especially black-white interracial behavior, the test had significantly greater predictive value than self-reports. This finding establishes the Implicit Association Test’s value in research to understand the roots of race and other discrimination,” said Greenwald. “What was especially surprising was how ineffective standard self-report measurers were in the areas in which the test measures have been of greatest interest – predicting interracial behavior.”

Greenwald created the Implicit Association Test in 1998 and he and [Situationist Contributor] Mahzarin Banaji, a Harvard psychology professor, and [Situationist Contributor] Brian Nosek, a University of Virginia associate professor of psychology, further developed it. Since then the test has been used in more than 1,000 research studies around the world. More than 10 million versions of the test have been completed at an Internet site where they are available as a self-administer demonstration.

The research looked at studies covering nine different areas – consumer preference, black-white interracial behavior, personality differences, clinical phenomena, alcohol and drug use, non-racial intergroup behavior, gender and sexual orientation, close relationships and political preferences.

Findings also showed that:

• Across all nine of these areas, measures of the test were useful in predicting social behavior.
• Both the test, which is implicit, and self-reports, which are explicit, had predictive validity independent of each other. This suggests the desirability of using both types of measure in surveys and applied research studies.
• In consumer and political preferences both measures effectively predicted behavior, but self-reports had significantly greater predictive validity.

Studies in the research came from a number of countries including Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Poland and the United States. They looked at such topics as attitudes of undecided voters one-month prior to an Italian election; treatment recommendations by physicians for black and white heart attack victims; and reactions to spiders before and after treatment for arachnophobia, or spider phobia.

“The Implicit Association Test is controversial because many people believe that racial bias is largely a thing of the past. The test’s finding of a widespread, automatic form of race preference violates people’s image of tolerance and is hard for them to accept. When you are unaware of attitudes or stereotypes, they can unintentionally affect your behavior. Awareness can help to overcome this unwanted influence,” said Greenwald.

* * *

To visit the Project Implicit website and find out more about implicit associations, click here.

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “What Are the Legal Implications of Implicit Biases?,” “Confronting the Backlash against Implicit Bias,” “Do You Implicitly Prefer Markets or Regulation?,” “Legal Academic Backlash - Abstract,” “Naïve Cynicism in Election 2008: Dispositionism v. Situationism?,”  “Implicit Bias and Strawmen.”and “The Situation of Situation in Employment Discrimination Law – Abstract.”  For a list of Situationist posts discussing the research on implicit bias and the IAT, click here.

De flesta är nog bekanta med Gartners hypekurva:

Först är det ingen utom early adopters som hört talas om det nya, sen stiger förväntningarna något oerhört och alla pratar om det, och sen kommer back lash:en när det går 13 på dussinet som dissar det nya. Och till sist blir tekniken okontroversiell och mainstream.

Just nu har vi en liten backlash för sociala medier i allmänhet och Twitter i synnerhet.

Stämningarna kring Twitter liknar, precis som Deeped redan för ett tag sedan påpekade, de man hörde om Facebook under senhösten 2007. Där fanns de som gick med för att testa, snabbt tröttnade på alla spel, och dramatiskt tillkännagav att de skulle släcka ner sina konton, var det 1 november?

Facebook idag är lika coolt som telefonkatalogen

Redan då hävdade jag att Facebook skulle bli odramatiskt – ungefär lika coolt som att vara med i telefonkatalogen, men samtidigt lite konstigt om man inte var med. Vi är inte där än, men vi är på god väg mot tremiljonersstrecket. Det är ungefär en tredjedel av alla svenskar eller nästan 40 procent av alla online.

Twitter är bara en liten rännil i jämförelse, en tummelplats för social media-evangelister, media- kommunikations- och marknadsföringsfolk, journalister och en hel del wannabes. Och det diskuteras otroligt mycket om Twitter på Twitter, precis som det diskuteras mycket om bloggar på bloggar. Och om media i media.

Men jag tror att man gör sig själv en ernorm otjänst om man väljer att inte se till potentialen.

Historien visar att vi alltid undervärderar kommunikationstekniken

När Internet startades befolkades det av datanördar. Den som tittade på Internet i dess barndom och inte tänkte längre än näsan räckte hade ganska lätt kunnat avfärda det med ”det här är överflödigt, informationen är inte jätterelevant och inte så intressant heller”.

När webben uppfanns var det som ett verktyg för forskare. Under 90-talet avfärdades webben gång på gång som ”ointressant” eller ett ställe där det ”bara fanns porr” av samma kortsiktiga människor. Varför skulle de som campar utanför Gekås bry sig om det här?

En fantasilös person som spelade poker online i början på 90-talet (irc-baserat, dvs med textgränssnitt) skulle aldrig ha förutsett det tidiga 2000-talets explosion av pokersajter. ”Poker handlar om att spela motspelaren, och hur gör man det om man inte ser honom?” Fråga Isildur1 …

Historien är full av den här typen av missförstånd – i telefonens barndom trodde man att ett av de stora användningsområdena skulle bli att ringa in och lyssna på konserter på distans …

Men vi människor älskar att kommunicera och anammar snabbt ny teknik om den hjälper oss att göra just det.

Mikrobloggandet är inte ännu en kanal – det är en helt ny typ av kanal

Jag ser samma potential i mikrobloggandet, där Twitter i dag är störst. Till skillnad från nästan alla andra sociala nätverk fungerar mikrobloggar verkligen som ett cocktail-party. Du behöver inte sätta upp en komplicerad profil, utan det tar bokstavligt talat en minut att komma igång. Du behöver inte känna nån för att delta, utan kan komma i kontakt med nästan vem som helst. Har du nåt vettigt att tillföra välkomnas du, annars inte.

Att tro att mediaeliten kommer få behålla den här typen av infrastruktur för sig själva är förbluffande närsynt och historielöst. Speciellt när det framförs av folk som ska vara proffs på området.

Med det sagt – jo, det är mycket hallelujah nu. Jag känner det själv när jag läser vissa inlägg om sociala medier, och jag ser det på mina kollegor när jag berättar om ytterligare ett socialt nätverk. Sociala medier kan inte ersätta tradmedia, närvaro på Twitter räcker inte för att bättra på imagen, och det råder fortfarande stor förvirring om vilka mått som är relevanta och hur man faktiskt ska bära sig åt för att ta fram dessa mått. Och var i h-e finns pengarna egentligen?

Men istället för att hänga upp sig på allt Twitter inte är idag – titta på vad det redan är, och vad det kan bli. Det jag ser på Twitter är inte bara ännu en kanal bland många andra – det är en helt ny typ av kanal.

Eller vad tror du? Kommentera gärna här nedanför.

I made that up myself.

While Newsweek belittles her and liberals snigger at highlights from her latest disastrous interview, Going Rogue is selling fast and Sarah Palin is getting rich.

Liberal pundits correctly identify the Palin and Beck variety of populism as a symptom of an increasingly alienated and marginalized white middle class, and they are right to note that the Republican Party’s efforts to capitalize on this anger is ultimately a losing strategy.

There are political implications in the fact that America is becoming more urban, more diverse, and more liberal. As Obama’s victories in states like North Carolina and Colorado showed, using divisive politics to attract disenchanted lower and middle class whites is becoming less effective as the country becomes less, well, white.

While Middle America feels that it is being deliberately marginalized by the coastal elites, deep down it knows that it’s a numbers game, and that it’s losing. Demographic trends may one day make the white middle class a sideline player; for now, it fuels the inchoate anger that has become a major obstacle to Obama’s agenda.

And for better or worse, coastal elites are a much easier scapegoat than birth rates

But there’s more than demography at work here.  Recall the deliberate ambiguity and no-time-for-debate urgency that obfuscated the financial meltdown, the ensuing bailout packages and the quick recovery of executive compensation. It’s easy to understand why everyday folks feel that the political elites are working against their best interests – hell, I feel the same way.

The lesson Obama needs to take from this is that policy matters less than the Republicans would like to believe. Mercifully, Palin long ago gave up trying to articulate policy; not surprisingly, this has done nothing to hurt her popularity, which has always been about identity anyway.

Back home, people will say (more matter of fact than defiantly), that no, Sarah Palin doesn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is, and neither do they. She probably doesn’t know what a hedge on a credit default swap is either, and that resonates with people.

The best Obama can hope for is to create the perception among Middle America that he is well intentioned, if misguided. Until he does, that resonance will continue to be a problem for him.

Recently I’ve had conversations with OSL students about the programs shortcomings and about things I would change. My tone came across much harsher than I meant, which happens to me often, and because of that I’ve received a fair amount of backlash about my character. In just a few days I’ve been accused of being pessimistic, a bad listener, having a superior attitude, being too clingy, talking too much, and a few other things I can’t remember. Although it was tough, I’ve learned a few valuable lessons through all this that I wanted to share.

1. Know who you are. Don’t let other people’s words define you. Understand that their perception is only one small portion of the reality that makes you who you are. Be careful to understand that many people, mostly insecure ones, will remember bad over good, and give them grace when this happens. Have compassion, know your own character, and think critically about their accusations.
2. Search yourself. If someone has accused you, don’t let pride overtake your spirit and keep you from discover new revelation about areas in which you could change. If more than one person has mentioned some negative thing about you, it requires extra attention because it is more than like true, although not always. Be confident in yourself, but leave room for error.
3. Be discerning of motive. As I mentioned above, a person who is struggling with insecurity in any certain area will automatically look to another who is not insecure and attempt to tear them down. Think about areas you are insecure in, and you will remember speaking negatively about another person or else having bitterness in your heart towards those who have overcome these same insecurities. Understanding that the problem lies mostly within the accuser will ease your own hurts.
4. Don’t let the other person define you. In my case, my entire character has been defined by two or three conversations, when in reality I know this isn’t true. Because I have become confident in who I am, I understand that their grievance against me is only one facet of my personality. It is still difficult, though, when you know you are one way but someone accuses you of being another. It becomes less difficult the more you know yourself. What people think of you should not dictate your life, but what God thinks of you should be of extreme importance.
5. Saturate yourself in prayer. When someone comes against you it’s easy to let pride overtake and to ignore the truth in what your accuser says. Be prayerful and seek God’s direction on what to do with these accusations, and listen closely. Do not turn a deaf ear to the correction and discipline God may be sending your way, because it is in these things that we are refined and made more complete, more like Jesus.

My lesson has been learned, and I am thankful to the Father for His discipline. Thankfully I am at a place now where I can (a) look back and recognize that these accusations are not 100% correct, (b) realize I do look to the bright side as often as not, (c) know that I do encourage people often, and (d) see I have been accused more out of others’ insecurity than my actualy wrongdoing. This doesn’t get me off the hook, though; if people are saying these things, I have to step up and examine myself, rid my heart of negativity, and take responsibility for my own shortcomings.

This whole Christianity thing gets hard sometimes, but I wouldn’t trade my walk with Him for anything in the world.