“I’m Mad as Hell and I’m Not Gonna
Take It Anymore.” Many of us are old enough to remember the iconic movie,
“Network” from 1976. Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch), the news anchor for
a fictional news network, finally has enough and ventilates in a now famous
on-air tirade that ends with these words. I don’t know about you, but I’m
almost there!
Sometimes things come at me in
clusters. In the last six months I have read “The Divide”, a book that
describes the increasing wealth gap and how our justice system prosecutes—beyond
belief—the small-time offender and rarely indicts individuals in large
financial firms responsible for massive fraud costing individuals and nations
billions of dollars; “The New Jim Crow”, a book that chronicles the mass
incarceration of thousands of people, disproportionately people of color, that
began with the war on drugs, and the life-long tragedy this brings individuals
through our dysfunctional criminal justice system; “Just Mercy”, a book about
the plight of death row inmates who have received incompetent legal
representation and been the victims of vindictive and dishonest officials; saw the
movie “Selma” about the civil rights movement in the 1960’s and the march from
Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and the brutal, vicious treatment of the unarmed
marchers by local law officers and citizens.
And then I watched (and listened)
to President Obama’s State of the Union address to congress and the nation. By
this time I was already ruminating about the injustice in parts of my culture:
the oppression and suffering of thousands of my brothers and sisters because of
their color, sexual orientation, religious tradition or economic status. As I
reflected on the president’s speech and the images of the body language of many
of my elected officials (this is a problem with live television), I couldn’t
decide whether to be angry or laugh hysterically. I chose the latter! Think
about it, the majority of officials in attendance were older, white men dressed
in dark suits, starched white shirts and boring neck ties; it looked a little
like penguins in their nesting grounds—talk about lack of imagination, creativity
and independent thinking. Just so you know, I too am an older, white man;
hopefully with a bit more imagination than what I saw that night. To make it
worse, when the president made statements that should get everyone on their
feet like, “women should receive equal pay for equal work” or “Every American
should have access to post-secondary education and therefore we should make
attendance at a community college available at no cost” or unemployment is down
or thousands of people without access to good healthcare now have insurance—the
penguins sat stone-faced. No applause—expressions of contempt on many faces.
What’s the message? Women are not entitled to equal pay! Everyone who can pay
is entitled to higher education! Or maybe, NOTHING this president can say will
get my support or respect.
So, my laughter has ended and now
my challenge is to be more than a silent cynic. Maybe I’m already “Mad as Hell
and I’m not Gonna Take it Anymore.”—Stay
tuned.
