Commentary on "Life Animated" by Ron Suskind

In case you haven't read Ron Suskind's Life Animated (or seen the movie--I have not watched it), here's a very brief summary followed by a few comments.

Summary
Suskind gives his family's personal story which is dominated by his son Owen's autism. Often autistic people have an obsession. Disney movies are a common and Owen displayed a fascination with them from a young age. Eventually, Suskind and his wife realized that Owen was using dialogue from the movies to communicate and Disney sidekicks to cope with life. With this knowledge, the Suskind family used Owen's obsession with Disney to engage with him and get him to engage with the world. Suskind provides a trajectory of Owen's life from being a toddler to young adulthood. At the end, we see Owen as a young adult enrolled in a college program designed for young adults like him. He has begun a relationship with a woman he met there and he is a talented artist.

Comments
One of the biggest contributors to Owen's success was his strong family support, which was anchored in the teamwork displayed by his mother and father. The Suskinds communicated regularly about what each was observing in Owen and tried to brainstorm about what their observations meant. Both parents were very active in engaging Owen to enter into Owen's world so that their son could enter into the larger world.

Get Paid to Attend a Taping of a TV Show

Did you know that you can get paid for being a member of the studio audience for certain TV shows? Of course, most of these shows tape in or around Hollywood and New York City. For the listings at Onset Productions the pay was from $55 to $70 per sitting. Not bad if you're not employed. Standing Room Only, another site that books these types of gigs, was offering $10 per hour for 2 to 4 hours of your time. Finally, there's a site that only list New York City shows aptly called New York Show Tickets. Not every show listed will pay you to attend but the pay is clearly listed where applicable.

An Open Letter to Trump regarding His Question: "What Do You Have to Lose?"

Dear Mr. Trump:

Recently, The Washington Post reported that you have been asking African-Americans and Hispanics a most interesting question: "What do you have to lose?". My assumption is that you want both groups to ask themselves what they have to lose if they support your bid to be president.

First, let me put forth a disclaimer. I am only one African-American (a term I have no endearment for but more on that later). I only speak for one person in a larger group, not the entire group.

My dear Mr. Trump, you sir have asked the wrong question. Although I'm just one American, I observed a few themes that run like a golden thread through the tapestry of the land. In America, we don't focus on what we have to lose in a given situation. We are a nation of winners. We believe the best is yet to come. Americans don't want to think about what we have to lose. We want to know what we have to gain.

The question that I would love you to answer Mr. Trump is the following. What do Americans have to gain if we support you? That's the question you should be both asking and answering to get our support.

Please notice I didn't say African-Americans or Hispanics or White-Americans or Asian-Americans or  "Minorities" or "people of color" or any other term of division. We are Americans. A hyphenated America is a divided America. A divided America cannot stand.

Our shared hope in the promise of America is what makes us one people.  I live in the America of promise. The life you described as the situation for African-Americans is foreign to me. You painted a picture of an African-American community that lives in hopelessness and despair. That's not my experience. So your appeal to fix that for me doesn't resonate.

You see sir, that's the wonderful thing about America. We have a shared hope and a common destiny, but we are all very different. Even those of us who share African ancestry are not one big monolithic group. We are different. Perhaps, as you said, there are some Americans who live impoverished communities that have levels of violence that resemble war zones. Perhaps. If there are some, it's admirable that you've promised to bring them relief. But what are you offering those of us that don't have those difficulties?

Again I ask, what do Americans gain if we support you? Please get back to me on that.

Sincerely,

One American Voter

The Confederate Flag is not the real issue--continued

I wrote the post about the confederate flag yesterday. Today I came across a piece about statements by civil rights icon and former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young. He too believes people need to stop debating the flag and deal with more serious issues.

Confederate Flag Debate Is a Distraction

I hate the confederate flag.

That flag stands for so many things that are painful, divisive, racist, and I could continue my list of pejorative adjectives in relation to that rectangular representation of evils. But I won't because I don't want to get very deep into the current debate of the confederate flag. The flag controversy is a distraction from the real issues that need to discussed in relationship to the tragic massacre in Charleston.

Nine people have been so viciously removed from this life and we're talking about a piece of fabric. Rather that talk about the need to send that disgusting symbol to the history books, we should be talking about what leads someone to commit this sort of violence. Flags don't make people kill.

Sometimes I wonder if as a society we avoid difficult discussions because the truth may come too close to home.  What drives someone to do something like this? Evil in the human heart. However, if we acknowledge the evil in someone else's heart, we might start looking inward at what drives the wrong things that we do in our own lives. While the rest of us aren't guilty of this heinous crime, each of us is guilty of something. The universality of wrong-doing in the human race speaks to a universal problem. A universal heart problem.

The same Bible that was being studied when these events occurred teaches us that the heart of man is "desperately wicked".  Yet in the Charleston massacre, we have seen both extremes of what man is capable of. In the shooter, we saw man's heart in its natural state, evil. In the families of the victims, we see the near unbelievable, a willingness to forgive. A forgiveness that comes from first being forgiven. By offering forgiveness, these families have shown the world that Christianity is real. The Christian God who forgives is real and when you know His forgiveness, you are able to forgive when the world can't understand how. These families have shown us what it means to follow the One who prayed for the forgiveness of those who were crucifying Him.

Fighting Human Trafficking: How to Go Beyond the Anti-slavery T-shirt

With Congress' recent passage of  anti-human trafficking bill, my thoughts turned again to this tragedy of our times. It's hard to write about such a dark topic, however, there are many who are shining lights into the darkness. If you're came here from my shop, here's a way you can help beyond wearing an anti-slavery t-shirt by supporting organizations that are working to help victims and/or stop the scourge of human trafficking. Here are a few of those organizations.

Samaritan's Purse seeks to prevent human trafficking through educating vulnerable communities. They also assist victims.

Gospel for Asia operates Bridge of Hope centers as a refuge for children vulnerable to exploitation.

Compassion International works to prevent human trafficking by giving donors the opportunity to sponsor an at-risk child.

Know before you go: how to tell if your prospective college is hostile to people of color

Recently there was an article in the Washington Post's Express about Washington and Lee University's decision to remove the Confederate flag. The move was in response to protests by African-American students that the university is unwelcoming to minorities. I'm torn between applauding the student's for their victory and scolding them for being naïve. Surely, these young activists who are intelligent enough to attend university weren't surprised by the environment they found at this institution. These students probably had other places that could have gone to university but they chose a place that had several, pardon the expression, red flags that it was not welcoming to people of color. If you're a young person looking to attend university, here are four signs your school might be a hostile environment for African-Americans and other people of color.

1. The school is named for a historical figure whose claim to fame is his oppression of black people.
2. That historical figure is buried on campus.
3. The confederate is flying there.
4. The university owned and sold slaves, but has never expressed regret for that history.