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Page 2 The Skanner Portland & Seattle July 13, 2022 Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Opinion 21st Century Citizenship: Four Civic Skills We Need To Keep Our Democracy Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor Jerry Foster Advertising Manager A Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Saundra Sorenson Reporter Aurora Hernandez Digital Content Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 info@theskanner.com www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2021 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. s primaries roll out around the country, we’re tracking voter turnout. Raised on Schoolhouse Rock’s cartoon civics lessons, I know that be- ing a good American means voting. Those 1970’s cartoons weren’t wrong. Voting is the most fundamental act of dem- ocratic citizenship. That’s why it has been fiercely con- tested throughout our histo- ry. But now we’re in the 21st century, deluged by informa- tion, increasingly divided, with few models of biparti- sanship. Democracy now requires much more than voting. What should a 21st century School- house Rocks teach? Finding information Most fundamentally, we need to be skilled seekers of information. In this era of deepfakes, bots, and frag- menting media platforms, the ability to access and eval- uate information is key. Al- gorithms push us ever more deeply into one point of view. To address multifaceted 21st century issues, we need de- liberately to seek a variety of information, including back- stories about controversial Melinda Burrell Guest Columnist events, from differing sourc- es to construct the whole pic- ture. Understanding our own biases We must process informa- tion skillfully, getting around our inherent neurobiological “ Democracy now requires much more than voting biases. For example, we natu- rally lap up information that confirms what we already think but ignore information that challenges our world view. We also are wired for double standards: we attri- bute another person’s bad behavior to their personal- ity (“she’s late because she’s disrespectful”) while giving ourselves a pass for the same behavior (“I’m late because traffic was bad”). Understand- ing these natural biases lets us challenge ourselves to ex- plore issues more fully. Having conversations – not arguments – across divides Understanding biases pro- motes a third democratic skill: truly talking with one anoth- er. Research, including my own, shows that liberals and conservatives alike often ex- perience cross-divide conver- sations as an assault on their values. Yet most people also believe these conversations are important and would like to have them to feel connected and informed. Constructive conversations require listening and asking good questions. Political sci- entist Andrew Dobson de- scribes listening as our “dem- ocratic deficit.” We rarely listen closely to the other side. This undermines our abili- ty to create policy which is seen as a legitimate outcome of democratic debate. Nor do we ask enough genuinely cu- rious questions to learn why others think what they do to help find common ground. As Steve Benjamin, former head of the National Conference of Mayors, noted, “We all suffer from some degree of experi- ential blindness and need to become experts at learning about others’ perspectives.” Having complicated relationships Perhaps the most important – and most difficult -- 21st cen- tury citizenship skill is main- taining relationships with people who think differently. For a democracy to function, we need not only a robust marketplace of ideas, but also the ability to work together for policy that meets wide- spread needs. A conserva- tive interviewee in my study remarked, “Everybody is so comfortable being polarized – they are not happy unless they’re mad.” It’s challenging to hold con- flicting feelings about people, appreciating their good quali- ties while disagreeing on pol- itics. But perhaps we make it harder than it is. Research shows we overesti- mate both how much the oth- er party dislikes us as well as how much they disagree with us about policy. Asking genu- inely curious questions and remembering what we appre- ciate just might help us find that we have more in common than we think. Our 21st centu- ry democracy needs us to de- velop these skills. Melinda Burrell, PhD, @Me- lindaCBurrell, syndicated by PeaceVoice, was a humanitar- ian aid worker and now trains on the neuroscience of com- munication and conflict. She is on the board of the National Association for Community Mediation. Black Women’s Double Student Debt Whammy: Twice as Likely to Owe More Than $50K, Have Decreased Savings I Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS LOCAL EVENTS Updated daily online. ! • L i ke u s on F ebo m me • nts TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co in y o u r c o m m u n y d ay • to ac it Hear about it first. Sign up for Breaking News and Events at n mid-June the Federal Reserve, nation’s central bank, raised interest rates in hopes of curbing rising inflation and deterring a full- blown recession. Chief among its responsibilities, the Fed’s duty is to develop “appropri- ate monetary policy”. For much of Black America, many would welcome money itself – funds to provide stable day-to-day living, the ability to get rid of debt without wor- rying whether families will have enough money to last the month’s expenses, and even a bit more left over to face what the future may hold. Student debt remains a stubborn obstacle that pre- vents Black Americans from securing financial stability in the short-term and finan- cial wealth in the long-term. According to The Institute on Assets and Social Policy, after 20 years in repayment, the typical Black borrower still owes 95 percent of their cumulative borrowing total, while similarly situated white borrowers have reduced their debt by 94 percent —with nearly half of white borrow- ers holding no student debt at all. After more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic complicating family finances, the ability of many working Charlene Crowell Center for Responsible Lending Americans to maintain eco- nomic stability is nearing a breaking point. Further, due to historic racial wealth in- equities, these and other im- “ The abili- ty of many working Americans to maintain eco- nomic stabil- ity is nearing a breaking point pacts are felt hardest by Black America in general and Black women in particular. New research from the Cen- ter for Responsible Lending (CRL) analyzes how women’s finances have changed over the past two years. The study, entitled Resilient But Deep- er in Debt: Women of Color Faced Greater Hardships Through COVID-19, shows how these women’s lives dra- matically changed as a result of the pandemic and deepen- ing student debt. The report states that Black women faced a “double wham- my of increased debt and de- creased savings.” CRL analyzed publicly available data and addition- ally commissioned four focus groups of ethnically diverse women with varied educa- tional levels who lost their job or were furloughed during the pandemic. For context, it is relevant to note that: • Between December 2019 and March 2022, 1.2 million women left the labor force; • Between February 2020 and April 2020, almost 22 million jobs were lost; and • In 2021, Black and Latina women were twice as likely as white men to report be- ing behind on rent or mort- gage payments. Overall, findings indicate the widespread disruption in employment due to the pan- demic has had a profound impact on women, their fami- lies, and their finances, states the report. “While a typical white male borrower pays off almost half of his balance within 12 years of starting col- lege, the balance of a typical Black female borrower grows by 13 percent.” Further, about two-thirds of the $1.7 trillion federal student debt burden is borne by women. Black women are twice as likely to owe more than $50,000 in undergrad- uate student debt compared to white men. Both Black and Latina borrowers typically have higher loan balances than white women. Hence, student loan repayment chal- lenges for women of color are higher and strain the ability to cover daily living expenses for their families, particular- ly due to rising costs of food and housing. “Because of persisting pay disparities, and little or no generational wealth, women of color have fewer opportu- nities to pursue a debt-free education or to withstand an economic or personal crisis,” added Sunny Glottman, a CRL researcher. Research found that 60 per- cent of Black women and 40 percent of Latina participants owed more than $50,000 in student debt. By compari- son, only 29 percent of white participants owed more than $50,000 in student loan debt. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve
