This article was updated on March 16, 2023. After the attacks on 9/11, I provided Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) services for a variety of private companies. In one case, I ended up staying a week – not just because of the attacks, but because the company was undergoing a merger. Employees were on edge…
Category: Social Issues
Much Ado About Whoopi: A Jewish clinical social worker gives her take on host’s comment
Ironically, it was exactly 3 years ago when a 35-year-old yearbook photo surfaced of (then) Governor Ralph Northam in blackface. To make matters worse, there was another student in the photo wearing a KKK costume. The outcry was torrential. Everyone in the Democratic party, including (now) President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, were calling…
Know a Trump supporter? Here’s how to talk to them.
People have good reasons for making bad decisions. Until you identify what those are and offer better solutions, they will not change. No matter how logical your argument, how many facts you present, how emotional your pleas or how often you repeat yourself, you cannot convince people to change. You see it in everyday life – overeating,…
The strategy for beating Trumpism: Learn from the past and reach out to the future
This country was founded on two atrocities: the displacement and massacre of indigenous people and the abduction and enslavement of Africans. But this isn’t about “us versus them.” This is about us versus us. And Trumpism is America’s reckoning. Joe Biden was right. The 2020 election was about the soul of America. We’ve been in…
The Age of Ageism
Senator Diane Feinstein received a lot of criticism yesterday for calling the hypothetical retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer “a great loss.” She is quoted as saying, “My general belief is if a person serving with integrity and working hard and producing for whatever the constituency is, that’s what these jobs are all about.”…
Demonizing Joe Manchin
Take it from someone who worked on Capitol Hill: DC Statehood was always one of those causes every Democrat in congress would get behind knowing it had zero chance of passing. The question is if 2021 is any different. With the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement and increasing engagement of Black voters, along…
Police Brutality and the Art of De-Escalation
de•es•ca•late [de-es-kuh-leyt] verb (with or without object), to decrease in intensity, magnitude, etc. As a Social Work Officer at Fort Bragg, my primary mission was the Family Advocacy Program, the Army’s solution for addressing domestic violence. When recounting a domestic incident, I was struck by how Soldiers described what happened. They never said, “I was…
What an American Superhero Looks Like
At 5yo, I vividly recall sitting on the floor in front of our living room TV watching Spiderman. I can still recite the theme song. And even though the TV was black-and-white, I remember the show in color. Perhaps this says something about a child’s imagination or revisionist history, but I’ve always wondered why this…
We’re no different. Neither are they.
There was a time I thought Americans were above this. That we were special. I thought what happened in WWII Germany could never happen here. “We’re not that naive,” I thought, “not that dispassionate.” As an American Jew, I grew up learning about the Holocaust – what happens when “good men do nothing.” I learned,…
It's More Complicated Than You Think 