Progress in a Time of Contagion
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t is hard enough to focus more than 6 inches past your face in more normal times. Even in the lifetime that seemed to end a few weeks back, we become reactors more often that we become creators. It seems that’s what our age requires. Efforts to forge change and take the cruel edges off what it means to be modern are governed by the next vote, the next legislative session or the next grant cycle.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. That’s not the way change happens.
Progress has never been linear. It dodges and tacks. It starts and stops. Sometimes it even moves in the wrong direction. More than anything, it is reliant on two forces, one slow and steady and one fleeting and mercurial.
The slow and steady part is about relationships. Relationships are not transactions. They are more like a flowering plant that requires time, light and space to bloom. As the saying goes, change moves at the speed of trust.
The other force comes from events that produce temporary paradigm shifts; opportunities that open suddenly and close quickly. You don’t know when they will happen, only that they will happen. Today we are in the midst of the mother of all paradigm shifts; a pandemic that has turned daily routines across six continents on their ear. Even though our own President Nero wanted things back to “normal” by Easter, many others are writing about the permanence of some of our adaptations to COVID 19. Politico recently collected such observations from 30 “macro-thinkers”. Among their sometimes-contradictory predictions are a redefinition of patriotism; a decline in partisanship (not seeing that yet); a renewed faith in science; and a further reliance on digital versus personal interaction. Others have forecast the demise of the traditional office in favor of telecommuting (already a trend before COVID 19) and a renewed passion for home cooking. The list goes on.
Most of us, however, haven’t had the mental bandwidth for “macro-thinking”. Just working through the fears and inconveniences of sheltering in place is about all we can handle. That is certainly true among non-profit organizations…in business to promote social change. Everyone knows funding cuts are coming (some arts nonprofits are already shutting their doors.) It all makes the previous “normal” look pretty good.
et social change advocacy is not about “normal”. It is not about returning to the status quo, which we know is unjust and unsustainable. This is the time for us to plan what Mack trucks of policy change we are going to drive through the brief and narrow openings this unprecedented paradigm shift will present. Because, as in the past, those openings will not last forever.
Here are just a few policy arenas where the previously impossible might become possible--for a while:
Paid sick leave
Is anyone feeling comfortable with current pervasive working conditions that incent people to work when they are sick? One of the more interesting ideas I have heard is a proposal to require business establishments to post publicly if they don’t offer paid sick time. I might pay closer attention to that than the latest health inspection.
Stock buybacks and CEO salaries
The recent debate over coronavirus relief shined a light on what big corporate recipients of federal bailouts do with any extra money, to boost stock prices and executive pay. How will that play amid the economic wreckage the pandemic leaves behind?
Open space
I have found the pictures of people crowding local beaches, parks and hiking trails to be among the more depressing and disconcerting images of the past few weeks. Fact is, fast-growing metropolitan areas don’t have enough open space as it is, and what’s left is disappearing. That certainly feels a lot more dangerous for our collective health than it did a month ago.
Bridging the digital divide.
According to federal statistics, 14% of all school aged kids have no internet access. Of course that number is much higher among low-income students (estimated at 25% in my highly wired city of Seattle). In other words, the digital divide accentuates inequities in our educational system. With districts where schools are closed now scrambling to provide free hot spots and even laptop computers, it seems like we could use that momentum to erase this particular gap once and for all.
Wildlife Trade
Like drugs, the illegal wildlife trade is driven by demand. As long as there’s a market, criminals will find a way to smuggle everything from exotic birds to pangolins (the spiny and endangered anteater thought to be the source of COVID 19.) Public education campaigns about the wildlife trade have been around for years. Just a bet that the appeal will have more relevance now.
hese are just four ideas off the top of my head. I have no doubt that far better ones are percolating among social change advocates. I am not a policy wonk, so I happily defer. What I will urge is that we carve out some time in our current claustrophobic lives to look past that six inch barrier that always exists and plan for how to use this unique and horrific point in history to accomplish things we thought too daunting when February turned to March. Those ideas, and strategies for how to achieve them, need to be in our back pockets before this pandemic wanes.
History has proven that people have short memories.
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