Early Summer

Made my first video in a long time. It's not really anything, but it made me realize that I still enjoy making videos and I still have a knack for it, or enough of one that I could be good at it if I practice. Another reason for the renewed interest in film is because of its ability to spark social change. My focus for the past few years has been dance, but I have realized that it is limited in its capacity to make penetrating and coherent social commentary. Hopefully incorporating the pursuit of film into my life again will fulfill my new need to use art for a greater end than gaining recognition for myself.

The Bearing of Labor in Wichita Falls and Texas

In the Texas Workforce press release last month, the TWC Commissioner Representing Employers, Hope Andrade, announced, “Across the country and around the world, the word is out that in Texas, we work hard to welcome businesses – large and small – with open arms.” This proclamation was prompted by the most recent labor market data, showing an unemployment rate that dropped from last year’s 7.0% to 6.4% this March. “Our growing labor force should encourage businesses to continue investing in the Lone Star State,” Andrade proudly concluded.¹ Wichita County boasts an even lower unemployment rate of 5.9%, which declined from 6.1% a year ago.² The unemployment rate shows how many people (as a percent of the population) have been actively looking for work in the past 4 weeks and have been unable to find it. Excluding all other factors, the decrease in this rate does indeed make it seem like the labor force in Wichita Falls and Texas is moving forward.

From a broader perspective, however, the labor force seems to be moving in other directions. About 71% of people receiving unemployment compensation in Wichita County have been unemployed for more than 6 months, a circumstance that brands them as the “long-term unemployed.” ³ Along with the usual obstacles met in a job search, these workers must also confront the widespread prejudice held against them. Research by Rand Ghayad illustrates the ubiquity of this discrimination. He sent out thousands of fake resumes, each with varying lengths of unemployment and different degrees of industry experience, leaving all other variables constant. Remarkably, those who were only unemployed for a few weeks were 8 times more likely to get a callback than the long-term. Ghayad also found that industry experience increased a short-term unemployed candidate’s chances of getting a callback by 7%, but for the long-term it only increased chances by 2%.⁴ Facing these odds, many of the long-term unemployed give up hope and stop looking for work. It is difficult to determine exactly how many people are unemployed and not looking, or how many unemployed people the official rate ignores. With this in mind, one could say that the labor force is segregating.

Or, one could say that it is fragmenting. The reason employment is growing in Wichita Falls and Texas is largely due to an influx of part-time and/or low-wage jobs.⁵ The manufacturing industry that bolstered Wichita Falls’ economy and provided quality full-time, middle-class jobs in the 1980’s has since deteriorated, with the most recent sign being the shutdown of the St. Gobain/Vetrotex America fiberglass plant in 2009. Over the past five years, the service industry has grown to replace it, offering jobs inferior in both hours worked and income earned.⁶ Part-time workers are more vulnerable to illness and poverty than their full-time counterparts. Working less than 30 hours a week disqualifies a person in the United States from employee benefits. In fact, Texas has had the highest uninsured rate in the country for the past five years, and this is partly due to an increase in part-time labor.⁷ Furthermore, with more employers relying on automated scheduling programs, part-time workers have more difficulty coordinating multiple jobs and consequently find it challenging to secure enough income to live on. Even laborers in Texas who do work full-time do not necessarily earn enough to be financially stable. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percent of the labor force being paid at or below minimum wage in Texas hovered around 4% from 2002 to 2007. Now, it is at 7.5%, which is the second highest rate in the nation.⁸

In conclusion, the Texan labor force may be growing in size, but this development is at the expense of the working class. In its statement of purpose, the TWC asserts that “by focusing on the needs of employers, TWC gives Texas the competitive edge necessary to draw business here.” In most cases, strategies of economic development by cities and local organizations concentrate on catering to outside investors and big business. As implied in the April press release, the labor force is seen as bait for employers rather than as an assembly of community members.

Contemporary politics about the economy has turned into a blame game: Republicans blame the poor for not trying hard enough, and Democrats blame the rich for being unsympathetic misers (an oversimplification, certainly). In actuality, no one person or group of people is responsible for the economic woes of Wichita Falls or anywhere else. The problem is systemic. Specifically, there is something wrong with the management of the workplace.

In Wichita Falls and the rest of Texas, workers are wary of talking with each other or with supervisors about work-related issues, and they should be. Even though the National Labor Relations Board technically protects employees’ rights to concerted activity and collective bargaining (whether or not they are in a union), employers are not required by law to share that information with their workers, nor do they have any incentive to do so. Businesses are free to push limits in terms of the safety, treatment, and compensation of their workers with little fear of retaliation from above or below. Moreover, the NLRB has recently been under attack by several politicians and may be rendered inoperable altogether by political gridlock.⁹

“No taxation without representation” was a slogan of the American revolutionaries. It articulated the injustice of being subject to an institution’s rules and regulations without having a voice in that institution’s policy-making. The English Parliament rejected this idea and assured the colonists that they were being “virtually” represented; that is, the House of Commons and the House of Lords “promised” that they would respect all English subjects’ interests in their role as lawmakers. The colonists did not buy it. They understood that short of actually participating in the government’s decision-making process their interests would be viewed as secondary.

One of the greatest American ironies is how citizens hold this principle of democratic representation as one of the founding pillars of their nation but refuse to honor it in the workplace. The interests of workers are instead being “virtually” represented by employers’ upper management staff and primary shareholders. When that happens, the well-being of employees becomes auxiliary to corporate interests. Under that pretext, the long-term unemployed are seen as out-of-date junk, part-time workers as expendable scraps, and minimum-wage employees as a bargain. This callous misrepresentation of workers emerges out of their omission from managerial policy-making, and that exclusion is what produces the financial insecurity of the working class and moreover the economic depression of communities. Workforce agencies and non-profits scramble to alleviate this suffering with income supports, job training, and financial education. While their efforts are noble, they are ineffectual in addressing the source of the problem - the disenfranchisement of employees in the workplace.

Income inequality inhibits economic development in several ways.¹⁰ Workers borrow money when they have little or no income, which increases the risk of major financial crises. Wichita Falls has over 150 credit access bureaus that facilitate payday and/or auto-title loans.¹¹ Income inequality also correlates with infant mortality, mental illness, drug use, high school dropout rate, obesity, incarceration rate, and homicide rate – all of which repel outside investors.¹² As of 2010, Wichita County has an inequality index of .47 (0 being total equality, 1 being total inequality), which ranks 199^th out of the 254 Texas counties.³ Taking these facts into account, a change in economic development strategy must be contemplated. Rather than focusing on the needs of employers, cities and organizations should shift their attention to the needs of workers. In order to do that, workers must have a way to express themselves in the context of the workplace.

Advocating for workers’ representation will undoubtedly meet resistance from all sides. On the surface, it is a radical agenda. But in its essence it is a demand for the same rights enjoyed by every American citizen, just in a different setting. No amount of non-profit aid or government intervention will be enough to reset the costly asymmetry of employees waiving their right to be involved in the deliberation of workplace conditions and operations. If the labor force in Wichita Falls and Texas is to grow into a sustainable, prosperous community and not into a faceless mass for businesses to exploit, these considerations must be taken seriously.

How to Stop Netflix Autoplay

When I get off from work, I practice dance, work out, and do research on whatever is currently interesting to me. Oh, and I always make sure to find time for television. The latest shows I watch on Netflix before I go to sleep are Star Trek: Next Generation and The X-Files.

I feel the need to “plug in” as soon as I finish skyping my fiancee. We only see each other on the weekends, so anxiety tends to creep up as I fall asleep alone. The voices of TV people make it all better.

If I could sum up what I think it takes to be a better person, it would be to pay more attention - to thoughts, surroundings, mistakes, feelings, etc. Most people, including myself, know deep down that watching television probably isn’t all that great for developing this skill. Research by Robert Kubey confirms this suspicion:

reading produces somewhat more beta activity (“fast waves” associated with increased mental activity and attention) than television viewing, which causes somewhat more alpha activity (“slow waves” associated with relaxation and less mental arousal)... In other words, in terms of concentration, television viewing is a low-involvement activity. The paradoxical consequence is that low-cognitive effort by the viewer may make it harder, not easier, to continue concentrating. (Television and the Quality of Life 135)

If one TV session weakens my ability to focus, then how does habitual viewing affect my daily behavior? Part of me is always aware that instead of watching I could read a book or go straight to bed, but the times I have delineated from my usual routine are few and far between. Kubey describes something called attentional inertia, or the tendency to watch more TV than planned due to the increased alpha activity mentioned above. Netflix’s recently introduced autoplay feature imitates TV’s relentless stream to take advantage of this hypnotic effect. And it works - it is always easier to let the next episode play.

It is also easier to do what you did the day before; to keep the same shit going and let life’s autoplay do its thing. What would it take to push pause?

A symbol is required: one that is vivid and uncomplicated and manages to drive home the long-term impact of watching hours and hours of TV. There is a simple exercise that can be used to construct such a figure. First, estimate how many hours you have spent watching television for the past several months. For me, I am going to count the times I have watched by myself on weekdays since I moved to Texas, which is about 1 hour a day for 40 weeks. That amounts to about 200 hours (and that is a conservative estimate). Next, calculate how long it takes you to read. I probably read on average 1 chapter of a book in an hour (once again, staying conservative). If we say that the average book has about 10 chapters, then that would mean I could have read 20 books by now if I had read instead of watched TV.

It is painful to face a loss of that degree. By calculating this number, I have plotted an unforgiving bearing on the real opportunities I have forfeited in favor of watching TV. As depressing as this new perspective is, it clearly shows what direction I have to take to change.

So, goodbye Mulder, Scully, and your strange sexual tension. Bye Picard, oh captain my captain. Stay gold Riker. Wharf, keep hustling. Bye Counselor Troi, I will miss your obvious observations. Geordi, we cool. Data, you’re my hero. Wesley...oh god Wesley...

Don’t worry, I’ll see you all this weekend.

Short Piece on Financial Education in Texas

This is a short article I wrote for the local newspaper about a study that I conducted at the local university:

As Financial Literacy Month comes to a close, the value of savings, credit, and budgeting have become more salient to the average American. Responsible money management affects a household’s ability to secure employment, to pay taxes, and to raise a family. While many parts of the country struggle to promote this subject, Texas stands out as one of the few states that require public high schools to include financial literacy lessons in their curriculum.

Unfortunately, there has been speculation that this standard is not being upheld at every school. Last month, North Texas Area United Way conducted a focus group study at Midwestern State University to investigate these claims. Undergraduates who attended public high school in Texas were questioned about the financial education they had received as well as their attitudes towards money and other financial issues.

Shockingly, the majority of participants reported that they had received little to no education regarding personal financial literacy during high school. The deterioration from state mandate to local implementation can be explained by a shortcoming in the legislation. In 2003, Governor Perry signed House Concurrent Resolution 15, which instructed the State Board of Education “to implement the inclusion of elements relating to personal finance among the essential knowledge and skills in the required public school curriculum, and to adopt and promote a personal finance education program that provides public school districts with textbook selections to assist in the program’s implementation.”

Despite this strong language, the resolution failed to include any system of measurement. To this day, there is no statewide evaluation of financial literacy teachers in Texas, nor is there a statewide examination of high school students’ financial capabilities. Until these assessments are in place, the state’s so-called requirement is effectively meaningless.

State and local statistics verify this legislation’s inadequacy. Texas ranks 39^th in financial literacy among states and 44^th in financial behavior. In Wichita Falls, 43% of consumers have a subprime credit score. Confronted with this evidence, Texan families must decide if they are satisfied with a public school curriculum in which financial education is prescribed, but not standardized.

My Socialist Awakening

My sister and I went to the same college, and we did a lot of the same things. We were both English majors, we hung out in the same crowd, and we lived together during our final years. But we were not identical. Her passion for serving minority groups and the less fortunate was something I admired, but could not seem to emulate at the time. For much of her career at William & Mary, she was involved in the Tidewater Labor Support Committee and participated in a student campaign petitioning the college to pay their staff a living wage. She got the Anarcho-Syndicalist flag tattooed on her arm, would talk at length about LGBT rights, institutionalized racism, how the government was bullshit; and during this whole time I did not really catch on to what she had wholeheartedly embraced.

I struggle to understand why I did not investigate the teachings of socialism earlier. I worked at two restaurants while in school, and many of my coworkers were from low-wealth backgrounds. There were many times when they confided in me the hopelessness of their situations and the challenges they faced on a regular basis. Their cries did not fall on deaf ears - still, I did not know how to help, and at the time I did not believe that I could really do anything for them.

When graduation approached, I began to realize that I did not know what to do next. It was my adviser who suggested non-profit work, and I followed his advice and became an AmeriCorps VISTA, ending up in Wichita Falls, TX to serve as the Financial Stability Coordinator for North Texas Area United Way. My primary responsibility was to help run the Volunteer Tax Assistance Program; since that did not start until January and I got there in July, I had months to conduct research, and my supervisor encouraged me to start my own projects.

I discovered the Bank On model and decided I would try to set up a coalition in my city. I made phone calls to upper management officials from different financial institutions, and, to my surprise, they listened and agreed to meet with me. My position as a United Way representative gave me a sense of agency and purpose that I had never felt before. Now that I knew I could have an impact, I increasingly felt more responsible for the well-being of others.

The more I studied wealth inequality and the methods of addressing it, the more I began to question the financial education projects I had started. Something felt wrong about teaching people how to better manage their money when they did not have any money to begin with. I knew this from the start, but like most people I understood poverty and financial misfortune as a sad but inevitable part of American society. Even though I did not believe it was their fault for being poor, by promoting financial education I was insinuating that it was their fault for staying poor.

Fortunately, my curiosity (and the internet) led me to great socialist writers like Noam Chomsky, Helaine Olen, Chris Hedges, Robert Jensen, among many others. Granted, I still have not made it through Das Kapital, but I have read enough to believe that it is the capitalist system that creates poverty and that fighting for workplace democracy is the only way to ensure financial security for every American household.

Charting this personal history, it should be clear that my socialist conscience and capacity to act derive from being placed in a position of power. Not much power, for sure, but enough to be heard and enough to be taken seriously. There is no reason why anyone should be denied this. It is the cornerstone of citizenship, labor, and life.

The major employers of Wichita Falls include Wal-mart and AT&T, both notorious for their unfair labor practices. Only three unions exist in the city, and there are no socialist or workers’ rights groups of any kind. My service year ends in July. Will I be able to make a difference for workers here in that short window against those odds?

Although I did not know how to respond to my restaurant coworkers when I was younger, I hear their voices more clearly every day. I cannot ignore them anymore. I am ready to join my sister and rage against the forces of injustice. With or without hope, I’m ready to fight.

Vegan Trials and Tribulations

When I became a vegan, it didn’t take too long for me to start feeling pretty damn good about myself. I made the change because I wanted to act according to beliefs I held about the ecosystem, animal consciousness, and economics. Achieving this kind of authenticity was deeply pleasing, and this strange and powerful satisfaction rolls over me every time I eat, every time I see a restaurant, every time I even think about food. Over the course of several months, it has grown into a monolithic self-image.

Surprise - I find myself judging other people for not being vegan. People have told me, “I really respect how you don’t preach or judge anyone else, you’re just focused on yourself.” If only they knew. If only they could feel the cruel sentiments that boil in my brain when I watch a piece of meat being consumed.

Now let me clarify quickly that when I say judge I don’t mean I actually give credence to those angry thoughts. But I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I wrestle with them on a daily basis.

It turns out that the pleasure of being proud of myself has its costs. You might say that there’s nothing wrong with a little self-appreciation, a little self-respect. I do not mean to devalue these attributes. Rather, I want to reiterate that self-perceptions can be belligerent.

Finding new definitions for ourselves means rejecting old ones, and this process is not confined to the individual. I have not met another vegan since I made the switch, so every person I meet is a reminder of my former lifestyle. I am constantly shown how much more convenient eating could be, and I remember what it was like. My vegan side, in an effort to resist and sustain itself, resorts to judgement. No, it tells me, you’re better than them.

I do not think I have to beleaguer the point that thinking of one’s self as superior to others is dumb and unproductive. What I do want to address is how we can regulate our identities as vegans in a way that preserves feelings of camaraderie with our fellow human beings as well as empower us to grow and better ourselves as responsible citizens and stewards of this world.

The key, I believe, is awareness of opportunity. Sure, it took some courage for me to choose to adopt the vegan lifestyle, but I also happened to be at an auspicious point of my life for making that decision, all thanks to a privileged background. I was living by myself for the first time, so I did not have to endure playful or sincere harassment from roommates or family. On top of that, there was a grocery store nearby that offered vegan options, and I knew about vegan community sites like /r/vegan. I had the privilege of being white, male, and educated, which increased the probability of me being hired as an AmeriCorps VISTA, which in turn increased the likelihood of me reading books like The Necessary Revolution by Peter Senge and I am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (both greatly influenced my decision). I was fortunate enough to be raised in a very supportive family and am currently engaged to a very supportive young woman. Assuredly, this list of conditions is not exhaustive, but you get the point. Marvel with me at the role of sheer coincidence in our lives. I am vegan by choice, yes, but that choice could not have been made had I not arrived at an opportune juncture.

Thinking of yourself as a vegan, a vegetarian, a donor, a volunteer, an environmentalist, a socialist, a caregiver, a good person - can be dangerous. When you take on a new identity, even if it is positive, it is difficult to abstain from judging others for not being like you. Unfortunately, this sort of judgement hampers self-growth. I take courage from those around me. Judging someone based on one model, like veganism, prevents me from seeing other manifestations of love, compassion, and bravery. Every person has access only to the opportunities that their life circumstances have delivered, and we owe it to each other to be aware of that diversity as we strive to be more awesome human beings.