tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/cleveland-29322/articlesCleveland – The Conversation2022-04-11T12:18:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1802242022-04-11T12:18:14Z2022-04-11T12:18:14ZPsychological tips aren’t enough – policies need to address structural inequities so everyone can flourish<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457253/original/file-20220410-66379-yjgfvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1068%2C572%2C5762%2C4330&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who gets to flourish and who doesn't?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-mother-and-father-walking-with-infant-royalty-free-image/909158198">Tony Anderson/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html">Languishing</a>” is the in-vogue term for today’s widely shared sense of pandemic malaise. According to <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/adam_grant_how_to_stop_languishing_and_start_finding_flow?language=en">some psychologists</a>, you can stop languishing with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/well/mind/flourishing-languishing.html">simple steps</a>: Savor the small stuff. Do five good deeds. Find activities that let you “<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_secret_to_happiness?language=en">flow</a>.” Change how you think and what you do, and today’s languishing can become tomorrow’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/04/well/mind/languishing-definition-flourishing-quiz.html">flourishing</a>.</p>
<p>But in an unjust world burdened by concurrent threats – war, a pandemic, the slow burn of climate change – does this argument ring true? Can <a href="https://hfh.fas.harvard.edu/files/pik/files/activitiesforflourishing_jppw.pdf">simple activities</a> like these really help us – all of us – flourish?</p>
<p>As social scientists who study <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/26665603/vsi/10MQ4BLM58B">flourishing and health</a>, we have watched this psychological approach capture <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/11/04/baylor-and-harvard-team-up-for--massive-global-study-of-human-flourishing/?sh=47be107850b8">attention</a> – and <a href="https://www.templetonworldcharity.org/humanflourishing">massive investment</a>. Most of this work is rooted in <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/happier-9780190655648">positive psychology</a>, a fast-growing field that sees individuals as largely responsible for their own flourishing. This new research, most of it survey-based, <a href="https://www.baylorisr.org/programs-research/global-flourishing-study/">aims to revamp health and social policy</a>, nationally and globally. It may well succeed at this — which has us concerned.</p>
<p>What could be wrong with a worldwide effort to help people flourish? <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666560321000451">Our concern</a> is that a narrowly psychological approach overestimates individuals’ control over their own <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/well-being-expanding-the-definition-of-progress-9780190080495">well-being</a>, while underestimating the role of systemic inequities, including those that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2021/11/05/what-does-the-build-back-better-framework-mean-for-bipoc-communities/">well-designed laws and policies can help address</a>.</p>
<h2>Here’s what people told us affected flourishing</h2>
<p>As researchers who combine surveys with interviews, we know that thousands of data points can tell us many things – but not the stuff you learn from sitting down with people to talk, and listen.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2021.100057">new paper</a> based on our <a href="https://arches.chip.uconn.edu/">collaborative research</a>, we asked open-ended questions that surveys cannot answer. Not just, “Are you flourishing?,” but also: “Why, or why not? What helps you flourish? What gets in the way?”</p>
<p>We took our questions to public libraries and private boardrooms, coffee shops and kitchen tables throughout Greater Cleveland, Ohio, speaking with 170 people from different backgrounds: men and women, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, Black, white and Latino. Would their answers align, we wondered? Would they mesh with the experts’?</p>
<p>In one area, our interviewees’ perspectives line up with leading survey research: For over 70%, social connections had a powerful impact on whether they felt they were flourishing. But other topics people raised are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2021.100057">ignored in most leading studies of flourishing</a>.</p>
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<p>For instance, a full 70% mentioned a stable income. Nearly as many flagged what public health professionals call the <a href="https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/social-determinants-health">social determinants of health</a> – reliable access to things like healthy food, transportation, education and a safe place to live. Some also cited discrimination, unequal treatment by the police, and other factors described as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1073110520958876">structural determinants of health</a>.</p>
<h2>Poverty, inequity and racism get in the way</h2>
<p>For people who face inequity in their own lives, the links between adversity and flourishing were crystal clear.</p>
<p>Over half of interviewees described themselves as flourishing. But less than half of those earning $30,000 or less annually were flourishing, compared to almost 90% of those with household incomes over $100,000. More than two-thirds of white interviewees were flourishing versus less than half of Black interviewees. And nearly three-quarters of people with a bachelor’s degree were flourishing, compared to just over half of those without.</p>
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<p>A Latina woman we interviewed explained how poverty and other forms of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2011.576725">structural vulnerability</a> can impair flourishing: “If you have a home that’s infested with roaches, and mold, and lead, and water, then after you’ve worked so hard, you come home and just want to rest. And then you’re like oh, I don’t have food, and you didn’t want to cook … then you’re eating unhealthy.” </p>
<p>She described how all these factors affect relationships too: “You’re not being a good mom because you’re angry. … You cannot give 100% at home. … You cannot give 100% to work, and you cannot give 100% to social life, and you have no friends because you’re so angry nobody wants to talk to you.”</p>
<p>Other interviewees told us how entrenched racism obstructs flourishing. One Black woman described racism’s grinding toll as “exhausting” and “such a heavy lift every day.” She compared it to a game of chess requiring “strategies all day long.” The constant vigilance and pressure she described fit <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.060749">what health researchers call weathering</a>, or premature deterioration in health.</p>
<p>Under circumstances like these, would savoring the small things and doing good deeds really help? </p>
<p>To us, the answer is clear: Without the conditions that enable flourishing, psychological exercises will inevitably fall short. More importantly, they risk leaving behind those already facing adversity and injustice.</p>
<h2>Collective flourishing requires structural change</h2>
<p>The path to flourishing is no simple issue of mind over matter. It also depends on society’s systems and structures: <a href="https://www.rwjf.org/en/blog/2019/07/home-is-where-our-health-is.html">Safe, affordable housing</a>. A <a href="https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/take-action-to-improve-health/what-works-for-health/strategies/living-wage-laws">living wage</a>. <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/memos/racism-is-a-public-health-crisis">Solutions to systemic racism</a>. Affordable, <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america">quality food</a> and <a href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/bolstered-recovery-legislation-health-insurance-safety-net-prevented-rise">health care</a>, including <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/02/1084006754/heres-what-experts-say-biden-gets-right-in-his-new-mental-health-plan">mental health care</a>. As <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/well-9780190916831">decades of public health research have shown</a>, factors like these deeply affect health and <a href="http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305831">well-being</a>. We contend that flourishing research and policy need to consider these factors as well.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Author Sarah Willen discusses flourishing on the Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health video podcast.</span></figcaption>
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<p>There’s nothing wrong with taking concrete steps to cultivate kindness, gratitude and connections with others. To the contrary, these are great ways to improve mental health and strengthen social solidarity. But tips like these are probably most helpful to people whose lives and livelihoods are already secure. For those who struggle to meet their basic needs and those of their loved ones, it will take a lot more than simple activities to flourish. It will take structural change.</p>
<p>“Hostile environments thwart flourishing; congenial environments promote it,” as disability justice scholar <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/human-flourishing-in-an-age-of-gene-editing-9780190940362">Rosemary Garland-Thomson</a> puts it. Unless political leaders are willing to tackle the <a href="https://i1.wp.com/blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Yearby_Graphic.png">root causes of</a> <a href="https://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2020/09/22/structural-racism-social-determinant-of-health/">social inequities</a>, chances of flourishing inevitably will be unequal.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/11/13/20955328/positive-psychology-martin-seligman-happiness-religion-secularism">Positive psychologists</a> tend to see flourishing as a psychological matter, separate from social and political conditions. Our interviewees tell a different story. Policy proposals that ignore real-world perspectives like theirs risk leading policymakers astray.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Ancient views of flourishing may help forge a path forward. For Aristotle, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmmh.2021.100045">flourishing is not just about happiness or satisfaction</a> – it involves achieving your potential. In his view, this responsibility lies in one’s own hands. But modern <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-IER-CSDH-08.1">public health research shows</a> that the ability to achieve your potential depends heavily on the circumstances in which you are born, grow and live. </p>
<p>In hostile environments – of exclusion and oppression, scarcity and risk, war and forcible displacement – no one can flourish. Unless all of us – citizens, policymakers and researchers alike – are prepared to confront the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2017.0197">root causes of today’s hostile environments</a>, efforts to promote flourishing will inevitably miss the mark.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah S. Willen is Principal Investigator of ARCHES | the AmeRicans’ Conceptions of Health Equity Study described in this article. Support for ARCHES was provided in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abigail Fisher Williamson is Co-Principal Investigator of ARCHES | the AmeRicans’ Conceptions of Health Equity Study described in this article. Support for ARCHES was provided in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colleen Walsh is Co-Principal Investigator of ARCHES | the AmeRicans’ Conceptions of Health Equity Study described in this article. Support for ARCHES was provided in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.</span></em></p>For people who struggle to meet their basic needs, it will take a lot more than simple psychological exercises to flourish. It will take systemic change.Sarah S. Willen, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Research Program on Global Health & Human Rights at the Human Rights Institute, University of ConnecticutAbigail Fisher Williamson, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Law, Trinity CollegeColleen Walsh, Associate Professor of Health Sciences, Cleveland State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/947182018-04-18T10:43:36Z2018-04-18T10:43:36ZSuperman at 80: How two high school friends concocted the original comic book hero<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215252/original/file-20180417-163962-1qfn9di.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 1938, a cultural icon was born.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/gold-coast-aus-nov-20-2014supermanhes-234349990?src=xU4qxCGZ4iqLtwA4oaZbqg-2-3">ChameleonsEye/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Superman – the first, most famous American superhero – turns 80 this year.</p>
<p>The comics, toys, costumes and <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/box-office-milestone-black-panther-joins-billion-dollar-club-1093586">billion-dollar Hollywood blockbusters</a> can all trace their ancestry to the first issue of “Action Comics,” which hit newsstands in April 1938.</p>
<p>Most casual comic book fans can recite the character’s <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=PMYsjzigENIC&lpg=PP1&dq=Superman%3A%20The%20Complete%20History&pg=PA169#v=snippet&q=kal-el&f=false">fictional origin story</a>: As the planet Krypton approaches destruction, Jor-El and his wife, Lara, put their infant son, Kal-El, into a spaceship to save him. He rockets to Earth and is taken in by the kindly Kents. As he grows up, Kal-El – now known as Clark – develops strange powers, and he vows to use them for good. </p>
<p>But the story of the real-life origins of Superman – a character created out of friendship, persistence and personal tragedy – is just as dramatic. </p>
<h2>From villain to hero</h2>
<p>When I was a kid growing up in Cleveland, my dad would regale my brother and me with stories of Superman’s local origins: The two men who had concocted the comic book hero had grown up in the area. </p>
<p>As I became older, I realized I wanted to understand not only how, but <em>why</em> Superman was created. A 10-year research project ensued, and it culminated in my book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Super_Boys.html?id=DbieMQEACAAJ">Super Boys</a>.” </p>
<p>In the mid-1930s, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were two nerds with glasses who attended Glenville High School in Cleveland, Ohio. They worked on the school newspaper, wrote stories, drew cartoons, and dreamed of being famous. Jerry was the writer; Joe was the artist. When they finally turned to making comics, a publisher named <a href="http://majormalcolmwheelernicholson.com/">Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZgZ-ngEACAAJ&dq=Super+Boys:+The+Amazing+Adventures+of+Jerry+Siegel+and+Joe+Shuster&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiPtsK_zMHaAhVpQt8KHco0A0sQ6AEIJzAA">gave them their first break</a>, commissioning them to create spy and adventure comics in his magazines “New Fun” and “Detective Comics.”</p>
<p>But Jerry and Joe had been working on something else: <a href="https://archive.org/details/ReignOfTheSuperman">a story</a> about a “Superman” – a villain with special mental powers – that Jerry had stolen from a different magazine. They self-published it in a pamphlet titled “Science Fiction.”</p>
<p>While “Science Fiction” only lasted for five issues, they liked the name of the character and continued to work on it. Before long, their new Superman was a good guy. Joe dressed him in a cape and trunks <a href="https://medium.com/re-form/no-capes-79c3e27fc441">like those of the era’s popular bodybuilders</a>, modeled the character’s speedy running abilities after Olympic sprinter Jesse Owens, and gave him <a href="https://clevelandmagazine.com/in-the-cle/articles/superman's-influences">the bouncy spit-curl</a> of Johnny Weissmuller, the actor who played Tarzan. It was a mishmash of 1930s pop culture in gladiator boots.</p>
<p>When they were finally ready, they started pitching Superman to every newspaper syndicate and publisher they could find.</p>
<p>All of them rejected it, some of them several times. This continued for several years, but the duo never gave up. </p>
<p>When Superman finally saw print, it was through a process that is still not wholly clear. But the general consensus is that a publisher named Harry Donenfeld, who had acquired the major’s company, National Allied Publications (the predecessor to DC Comics), bought the first Superman story – and all the rights therein – for US$130. </p>
<h2>Was Jerry trying to create a Superdad?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215239/original/file-20180417-163978-7hos5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The first issue of Action Comics featured Superman on the cover.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippl/449712941">Philipp Lenssen</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>The world was introduced to Superman in “Action Comics” No. 1, on April 18, 1938, with the Man of Steel appearing on the cover smashing a Hudson roadster. The inaugural issue cost 10 cents; in 2014, a copy in good condition <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/supermans-action-comics-no-1-sells-for-record-3-2-million-on-ebay/">sold for $3.2 million dollars</a>. </p>
<p>When the comic became a runaway hit, Jerry and Joe regretted selling their rights to the character; they ended up leaving millions on the table. Though they worked on Superman comics for the next 10 years, they would never own the character they created, and for the rest of their lives repeatedly filed lawsuits in an effort to get him back.</p>
<p>But there is another more personal piece to the puzzle of Superman’s origins.</p>
<p>On June 2, 1932, Jerry’s father, Michel, was about to close his secondhand clothing store in Cleveland when some men walked in. Michel caught them trying to steal a suit, and ended up <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/truth-justice-stickup-article-1.314622">dying on the spot</a> – not in a hail of gunfire, <a href="https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-08-25-superman-creators_N.htm">but from a heart attack</a>. </p>
<p>Jerry was 17.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215256/original/file-20180417-163971-1oypsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/215256/original/file-20180417-163971-1oypsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215256/original/file-20180417-163971-1oypsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215256/original/file-20180417-163971-1oypsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=487&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215256/original/file-20180417-163971-1oypsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215256/original/file-20180417-163971-1oypsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/215256/original/file-20180417-163971-1oypsl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jerry Siegel pictured while serving in the U.S. Army.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Jerry_Siegel_1943.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/2628733/The-tragic-real-story-behind-Supermans-birth.html">Some believe</a> Jerry may have created Superman as a fantasy version of his own father – as someone who could instantly transform from a mild-mannered man into a hero capable of easily overpowering petty thieves. Indeed, some of the early Superman stories feature Jor-El out of breath (as Michel often was from heart disease) and show criminals who faint dead when confronted by Superman. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2664732">As many victims of childhood trauma often do</a>, Jerry may have used Superman to re-enact his father’s tragic death over and over in an attempt to somehow fix it. </p>
<p>In Superman’s never-ending battle of good versus evil, this same story is repeated again and again on the page, in cartoons and in movies. It’s seen in kids who pretend to be Superman, tucking towels in at their neck and playing out battles in their backyards.</p>
<p>Why is Superman’s 80th birthday important? It isn’t just about celebrating a “funny book” about a guy who has heat vision and can fly. It’s about using fantasy to make sense of the world, plumbing personal tragedy to tell a story, and using art to envision a more just and safe society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Ricca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pop culture, personal tragedy and heroic persistence all played a role.Brad Ricca, Lecturer of English, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/676842016-10-28T01:01:08Z2016-10-28T01:01:08ZThe World Series of the Apocalypse?<p>W.P. Kinsella is probably best known for his 1982 novel “Shoeless Joe,” the inspiration for the film “Field of Dreams.” But the following year, Kinsella wrote a lesser-known short story titled “The Last Pennant Before Armageddon.” </p>
<p>In it, Al Tiller, the manager of the Chicago Cubs, is haunted by a prophetic dream that the world will end if the Cubs defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. This puts Tiller in a bind: He must choose between momentary glory or the end of the world.</p>
<p>Those familiar with the short story may have braced themselves on Oct. 22, when <a href="http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2016-10-22-BBN-NLCS-Dodgers-Cubs/id-85d97e7afdd94402a4ce56a6323bb6a2">the Cubs vanquished the Los Angeles Dodgers</a> to win their first pennant since 1945.</p>
<p>The world didn’t end. Not yet anyway.</p>
<p>But if the Cubs defeat the Cleveland Indians to win their first World Series since 1908, it will end the longest period of futility in American sports – and forever put to rest the <a href="http://www.billygoattavern.com/legend/curse/">Curse of the Billy Goat</a>. </p>
<p>Something else, however, could be lost. Failure, melancholy and heartache – not joy and triumph – inspire drama and comedy, and no team in sports has inspired better literature than the hapless Cubs. Over the course of their long, storied history of losing, their failures have played out on the page. </p>
<h2>The best that never was</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/01/the-forgotten-genius-of-ring-lardner.html">Ring Lardner</a> was one of the greatest sportswriters of the early 20th century. He also wrote short stories that captured the distinctive voice of baseball players, and he inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, J.D. Salinger and Virginia Woolf. In “Alibi Ike,” Lardner’s protagonist is a Cubs player, Francis X. Farrell, who has an excuse for every error and every blunder. </p>
<p>In Bernard Malamud’s <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/malamudville/#!">1952 novel “The Natural,”</a> 19-year-old baseball player Roy Hobbs vows that he will be the “best that ever was.” On his way to a tryout with the Cubs he meets the beautiful Harriet Bird. She invites him to her hotel room and then shoots him, leaving him critically injured, his dreams of greatness dashed.</p>
<p>The novel is based on <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-14/news/ct-spt-0315-steinhagen-eddie-waitkus-20130315_1_chicago-woman-ruth-ann-steinhagen-eddie-waitkus">the true story</a> of Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus. In 1949, Waitkus, who once played for the Cubs, returned to Chicago for a game. An obsessed fan, Ruth Ann Steinhagan, invited Waitkus to her hotel room. Once Waitkus entered, she shot him in the stomach, nearly killing him.</p>
<h2>A team of goats</h2>
<p>For Cubs fans, legendary futility is the recurring punchline.</p>
<p>Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko has been dubbed the “<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/wrigley/ct-spt-0330-wrigley-royko-20140330-story.html">poet laureate of Wrigley Field</a>.” He helped perpetuate the story of the “Curse of the Billy Goat,” a spell cast on the team by the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern after being kicked out of Wrigley Field, along with his actual pet goat, during the 1945 World Series. (Fans had complained about the animal’s stench.)</p>
<p>Royko regularly pointed out in his columns that the Cubs failed to win not because a goat wasn’t allowed in Wrigley Field but because <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-03-21/news/9703210060_1_sam-sianis-goat-into-wrigley-field-jackie-robinson">goats were allowed to play for the Cubs</a>. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cubs-Reader-David-Fulk/dp/0395587794">The Cubs Reader</a>” is a 1991 collection of essays that includes contributions from writers like Roger Angell, Roy Blount Jr., George Will and Ira Berkow. In Will’s essay, he admits that his gloomy conservative politics come from his decision to be a Cubs fans at age seven in 1948. “I plighted my troth to a baseball team destined to dash the cup of life’s joy from my lips,” he wrote. </p>
<p>In fact, the first joke I ever heard came from my father, a lifelong Cubs fan who is now 92:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Will the mother who left her nine kids at Wrigley Field please come and get them,” the stadium’s public address announcer says one afternoon. “They’re beating the Cubs 7-2.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Armageddon averted?</h2>
<p>“The Last Pennant Before Armageddon” was included in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thrill-Grass-Penguin-Short-Fiction/dp/B000GG4HRA">a collection of W.P. Kinsella’s essays</a> called “The Thrill of the Grass.” In the story, the backdrop for the Cubs’ season is the threat of nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. In one of the manager’s dreams, <a href="http://boards.fool.com/cubs-and-armageddon-19714458.aspx?sort=whole">God says</a>, “I think you should know that when the Cubs next win the National League Championship, it will be the last pennant before Armageddon.”</p>
<p>Tiller <a href="http://www.presidentress.com/2016/10/the-cubs-trump-and-armageddon.html">finds himself in the decisive game</a> with a fatigued starter. He can leave in his starter, which could cost his team the game but save the world, or he can bring in his closer and probably win the game – and destroy civilization. </p>
<p>“The Thrill of the Grass” was published in 1984 – the year the Cubs were one win away from winning the National League pennant. They ended up <a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason/1984_NLCS.shtml">losing three straight</a> to the San Diego Padres.</p>
<p>Armageddon averted. </p>
<p>Almost 20 years later, before the 2003 National League Championship Series between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins, Kinsella was asked if he thought the world would end if the Cubs won the pennant.</p>
<p>“We’ll just have to wait and see,” <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-10-12/news/0310120437_1_cubs-tiller-kinsella">he said</a>.</p>
<p>The Cubs were five outs away from winning the pennant in 2003 when things fell spectacularly apart – not because of spectator <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/22/us/chicago-cubs-steve-bartman/">Steve Bartman reaching for a foul ball</a>, as too many Cubs fans want to believe – but because of poor fielding, poor pitching and poor managing.</p>
<p>If the Cubs do win the World Series, Kinsella won’t see it. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/books/william-p-kinsella-author-of-shoeless-joe-dies-at-81.html?_r=0">He died on Sept. 16</a>, a day after the <a href="http://www.si.com/mlb/2016/09/16/chicago-cubs-clinch-division-nl-central-playoffs">Cubs clinched the National League’s Central Division</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>No team in sports has inspired better literature than the hapless Chicago Cubs. The oeuvre includes a little-known tale by W.P. Kinsella: ‘The Last Pennant Before Armageddon.’Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/633022016-09-02T02:11:45Z2016-09-02T02:11:45ZHow American policing fails neighborhoods – and cops<p>How should we understand the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003615939/video-shows-fatal-police-shooting.html">violence</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/09/us/dallas-police-shooting.html">counterviolence</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-milwaukee-riots_us_57b5e66ee4b0fd5a2f41c985">civil unrest</a> that mark the current era in American policing? </p>
<p>And, based on this understanding, what can we do to stop it?</p>
<p>Rather than focus on the characteristics of “bad apple” police officers or angry, revengeful citizens, sociologists like me tend to look at the context in which the violence occurs or at how individuals within this context interact.</p>
<p>For example, sociologists might study a sport like soccer. Participants learn the rules of the game, what behaviors they expect of each other, how to score points and what it means to be considered a “good” player. </p>
<p>Policing also has rules and logic that makes certain actions the right things to do and other actions the wrong things. </p>
<p>Sociologists like the influential French thinker <a href="http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511812507">Pierre Bourdieu</a> argue that the game itself, rather than innate personality traits, shape the worldviews of the players and make them act in a way that fits the logic of the field. </p>
<p>This suggests that to understand the behaviors of American police, one must uncover the logic of the “game” they’re playing – policing. </p>
<h2>No consequences</h2>
<p>In our book <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442260504/The-Violence-of-Hate-Understanding-Harmful-Forms-of-Bias-and-Bigotry-Fourth-Edition">“The Violence of Hate: Understanding Harmful Forms of Bias and Bigotry,”</a> Jack Levin and I describe how the game of law enforcement produces, in many police officers, a worldview and disposition that puts them at odds with the community. </p>
<p>Many police officers remain strangers and adversaries to residents rather than partners in keeping neighborhoods safe. Officers are highly suspicious of strangers, hypervigilant of danger, fixated on sorting the good people from bad and uninterested in the long-term harms to individuals and communities that result from their law enforcement efforts. Police and government leaders wrongly view the current law enforcement practices as a natural way of policing rather than a socially constructed game that can be changed.</p>
<p>So what do we know about the way the game is currently played?</p>
<h2>The game of law enforcement</h2>
<p><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12108-002-1007-1">I worked as a police officer for 13 years</a> and then a sociologist studying police behavior for another 13 years before undertaking a year-long research project at <a href="http://www.ci.wilmington.de.us/government/city-departments/department-of-police">my old police department</a> in Wilmington, Delaware in 2014. </p>
<p>On this return to the profession, I noticed that aside from having better technology, things had not changed much in terms of what the police were doing. What had grown noticeably worse, however, were the relationships between the police and minority communities, a situation mirroring the underlying racial tensions in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ferguson-mizzou-missouri-racial-tension_us_564736e2e4b08cda3488f34d">Ferguson</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/opinion/sunday/how-racism-doomed-baltimore.html">Baltimore</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/02/cleveland-segregation-115320">Cleveland</a>, among other U.S. cities at the time. </p>
<p>Through the lens of sociology, it was clear that Wilmington was focused on the old “law enforcement” game. This long tradition was exacerbated by the war on drugs among other policies that <a href="http://observer.com/2016/06/nypd-ig-no-link-between-quality-of-life-enforcement-and-lower-crime/">overemphasize street-level arrests</a> as a way to improve the quality of life. Status and power in the department were tied tightly to street arrests, gun and drug seizures, and the heroics of “running and gunning,” a catch phrase for chasing down armed criminal suspects.</p>
<p>In this hardcore version of the law enforcement game, well-intentioned and highly competent officers seemed blind to the consequences of their actions and indifferent to harm it caused. It didn’t seem to matter to them whether a neighborhood was ultimately safer following police action, or whether convictions were won in court. It also didn’t seem to matter whether serious crimes like robbery or burglary were ever solved, or whether families and communities would suffer from widespread police sweeps and the disruption of mass arrests. Worse, nobody worried that the broken trust in the police would contribute indirectly to more killings. These things were not part of the logic. </p>
<p>The only thing that mattered was that “lockups” were made and that guns and drugs were seized. “Community policing” meant placating the community with a few friendly faces so that real police work – arresting criminals – could go on unimpeded. </p>
<p>My observations about the game of law enforcement are consistent with the published findings of recent Department of Justice investigations in <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/file/883366/download">Baltimore</a>, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2014/12/04/cleveland_division_of_police_findings_letter.pdf">Cleveland</a> and <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf">Ferguson</a>. They also jibe with the reflections of <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9029.html">sociologist</a> Peter Moskos of John Jay College, who spent a year working at the Baltimore Police Department. </p>
<p>So what can we do to change this reality?</p>
<h2>A new policing game</h2>
<p>The current crisis in American policing requires dismantling the old law enforcement game and starting anew. Many police agencies, including <a href="http://www.ci.wilmington.de.us/government/city-departments/department-of-police">my old department</a>, are collaborating with the <a href="https://www.bja.gov/programs/vrn.html">U.S. Department of Justice</a> and organizations like the <a href="https://www.policefoundation.org">Police Foundation</a> to develop and implement a new game that redirects the work of the police away from law enforcement “outputs” such as arrests and drug seizures as a measure of success. This new approach emphasizes <a href="http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/taskforce_finalreport.pdf">public safety “outcomes</a>,” like strong, safe, thriving <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=251259">neighborhoods</a>. </p>
<p>My work over the past several years has focused on identifying and measuring the underlying <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10439460410001674965">psychological processes in neighborhoods</a> that build community trust and cohesion in some places and “Stop Snitching” campaigns in others that reinforce barriers between police and citizens. Uncovering these hidden dynamics enables officers to tailor policing strategies toward <a href="http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=3190&issue_id=112013">strong neighborhoods</a>. </p>
<p>Strong neighborhoods are places where crime rates are low and where residents and the police work together to keep it that way. In 2014, during my research year, the Browntown neighborhood in southwest Wilmington was such a place. The Wilmington police worked closely with residents to build relationships through block-by-block organizing, regular neighborhood social events and collaborative problem solving. Surveys of this neighborhood at that time reflected strong support for the police and the willingness of residents to intervene as needed to prevent crime.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/08/17/baltimore-police-commissioner-kevin-davis-editorials-debates/88911038/">recent editorial</a> following the release of the Department of Justice report on the Baltimore Police Department, Kevin Davis, the new police commissioner, claimed that “most police officers come to work every day and consistently do the right thing.” </p>
<p>I agree that the vast majority of police officers want to do the right things. </p>
<p>But what constitutes the “right thing” is contingent on the game being played. Changing the goal of modern policing to creating strong neighborhoods creates a new game. It is the logic of this new game, rather than the moral reasoning of individual officers, that will lead to the cultural shifts in policing of the magnitude imagined by today’s <a href="http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/taskforce_finalreport.pdf">police reformers</a> – including those protesting on the streets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James J. Nolan has received funding from U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing. </span></em></p>Violent cops are just playing by the rules American society has created for them. It’s time to change the rules.James J. Nolan, Professor of Sociology, West Virginia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/627612016-07-22T04:19:21Z2016-07-22T04:19:21ZIn acceptance speech, Trump embraces role as hero of the forgotten<p>Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for the presidency <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974#ixzz4F5LHIG38">in a speech</a> destined to be remembered by history as the “I am your voice” speech – a phrase that Trump repeated several times to tie together his themes of economic revitalization, military strength and government honesty. </p>
<p>As a scholar of American political rhetoric, I have <a href="http://www.tamupress.com/product/Rhetoric-of-Heroic-Expectations,7737.aspx">written</a> about how presidential candidates will often use campaign speeches to depict a nation in crisis, with themselves as the saviors. True to tradition, Trump’s speech contained a narrative of crisis and heroism. </p>
<p>He also fulfilled the expectations for a typical presidential nomination speech by arguing for a united party, explaining his political philosophy and appearing presidential. Of the many topics addressed in his wide ranging speech, he was at his best when he railed against government corruption. </p>
<h2>Make America isolationist again?</h2>
<p>The culmination of four days of speeches organized around the themes of keeping America safe, putting America to work, putting America first and making America one, Trump’s speech offered a new version of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=812lbix0oH4C&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false">American Exceptionalism</a>. Since 1980 our understanding of American Exceptionalism has been framed by Ronald Reagan’s famous Republican Party acceptance <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=25970">speech</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Can we doubt that only a Divine Providence placed this land, this island of freedom, here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Trump’s version was less tied to this sort of “divine” exceptionalism that’s welcoming of all people.</p>
<p>Nor was his American Exceptionalism grounded in America’s unique role as an “exemplar of liberty,” as this year’s <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/papers_pdf/117718.pdf">Republican Party platform</a> declared.</p>
<p>Instead, Trump’s American Exceptionalism was more isolationist and protectionist, devoting the first half of his speech to this theme under the guise of “America First.” </p>
<p>“Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo,” he said.</p>
<h2>Speaking for the neglected and ignored</h2>
<p>Consistent with his campaign so far, the speech was largely vague about his plans for accomplishing his campaign promises and specific about his criticisms of presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. His overarching criticism of Clinton is that she is “corrupt,” and rhetorically, his speech was most coherent in its critique of Clinton’s and government’s corruption. </p>
<p>His motivation for seeking office is to protect the “forgotten men and women”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.… These are the forgotten men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a voice.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps drawing an analogy between the hardships of the Great Depression and the hardships of the Great Recession, Trump may have borrowed the “forgotten man” figure from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s April 7, 1932 <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=88408">Fireside Chat</a> in which he explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“These unhappy times call for the building of plans that rest upon the forgotten, the unorganized but the indispensable units of economic power, for plans like those of 1917 that build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put their faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like FDR, Trump positioned himself as an empathetic leader as well as defender of the downtrodden: “I AM YOUR VOICE,” he boomed.</p>
<h2>Corrupted logic</h2>
<p>We don’t see the word “corruption” used frequently in presidential nomination addresses. To the best of my knowledge, only Al Smith and Dwight Eisenhower used the word. Smith used it to talk about Prohibition, and Eisenhower <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=75626&st=corruption&st1=">used</a> it to rail against the federal government: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Our aims – the aims of this Republican crusade – are clear: to sweep from office an administration which has fastened on every one of us the wastefulness, the arrogance and corruption in high places, the heavy burdens and anxieties which are the bitter fruit of a party too long in power.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like Eisenhower, Trump argued that he is motivated to become president because our current politicians are too corrupt to help people: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then pointed his finger directly at the establishment.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Remember: all of the people telling you that you can’t have the country you want, are the same people telling you that I wouldn’t be standing here tonight. No longer can we rely on those elites in media, and politics, who will say anything to keep a rigged system in place.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So far, so good: Trump has laid out his argument that there’s widespread corruption and we know who to blame for it. However, what makes Trump the right hero to save the nation from corruption? </p>
<p>He never really gives a coherent answer.</p>
<p>According to Trump, he’s the nominee even though corrupt media and pundits said that he would not be; therefore, Donald Trump has been right all along and the system is “rigged.” It’s an awkward logical construction that equates his detractors being wrong with their being corrupt – which, of course, isn’t the exact same thing. </p>
<p>What evidence does Trump give to support that he is the right hero for stopping corruption? Again, his speech makes an odd logical leap. Trump argues (with a wink) that because he once got involved in corrupt dealings himself, he knows how it works.</p>
<p>He doesn’t specify how or why he’s no longer corrupt, however, and the audience is left to wonder whether and if his “conversion” has taken place. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it,” he boasted. “I have seen firsthand how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.” </p>
<p>Despite reverting to some of his vague rhetoric, Trump did a much better job, stylistically, of performing his speech from the teleprompter than in the past. Only going off script occasionally, he delivered the speech with great energy, rousing the crowd to chant, at various points:</p>
<p>“USA! USA! USA!” </p>
<p>“Build a Wall!” </p>
<p>“Lock Her Up!”</p>
<p>To that last chant Trump responded, “Let’s defeat her in November.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Mercieca does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trump appeared surprisingly presidential. According to a scholar of American political rhetoric, there were echoes of Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan.Jennifer Mercieca, Associate Professor of Communication and Director of the Aggie Agora, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/620722016-07-15T02:28:46Z2016-07-15T02:28:46ZWill Trump use the convention to broadcast a more moderate image?<p>Most political candidates spend an enormous amount of time and energy crafting campaign images. When it comes to judging politicians, what you see is at least as important as what you hear. The pictures that appear on screen, especially the people who surround a candidate, can have a powerful impact on voters.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2012.722174?journalCode=upcp20">In my work on campaign ad imagery</a>, I found that viewers saw the people pictured in a candidate’s ad as a cue for what kind of people that candidate supported.</p>
<p>For example, candidates featuring African-Americans were more likely to be seen as supportive of affirmative action. Candidates who pictured blue-collar workers were more likely to be seen as supportive of raising the minimum wage. In fact, the impact of the image was just as strong as if the candidate had explicitly come out in favor of these causes. Moreover, viewers extrapolated a candidate’s ideology based on the groups pictured. If the candidate pictured groups generally viewed as liberal, like African-Americans, then he was perceived as more liberal. If she pictured groups generally viewed as conservative, like farmers, then she was perceived as more conservative.</p>
<p>While political ads can have a large cumulative impact, perhaps no single event garners more attention than a national political convention. These made-for-TV events are an excellent opportunity for a candidate to shape his or her image. </p>
<h2>Lessons from conventions past</h2>
<p>Tasha Philpot of the University of Texas has done <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3APOBE.0000043455.25490.a9">excellent</a> <a href="http://www.press.umich.edu/189552/race_republicans_and_the_return_of_the_party_of_lincoln">work</a> on how the Republican Party has managed its image on racial issues. Her research details the national convention strategy used by the George W. Bush campaign and the GOP, which put African-Americans in prominent positions during the 2000 and 2004 conventions in order to emphasize the party’s racial diversity. Because of the importance of race in American politics and <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4385.html">the link</a> between African-Americans and liberalism, emphasizing racial diversity also helped the Bush campaign project an image of ideological moderation. </p>
<p>Philpot found that viewers who watched the conventions came away thinking that the GOP had moderated its positions on racial issues and moved left toward the ideological center, even though racial issues were rarely discussed at either convention. This effect was especially pronounced among white viewers, while African-Americans were less likely to be influenced. In short, the GOP pictured African-Americans at the convention in order to appeal to moderate white voters.</p>
<p>Campaign imagery is effective precisely because it doesn’t explicitly engage the viewer in the same way as political speech. Voters often use their own preconceptions, particularly those driven by partisanship, to tune out political messages. Rather than passively accept information, viewers form mental arguments against political messages they disagree with, and may even <a href="http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/56/1/87.abstract">misremember</a> political messages in favor of their own <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2111381">preexisting views of parties</a>.</p>
<p>However, subtle image cues can bypass voters’ <a href="http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781461293781">cognitive processes and biases</a>. An African-American standing in the background of a campaign ad, or even an African-American gospel choir singing the national anthem at a convention, isn’t particularly noteworthy and does not draw much of the viewer’s attention. Viewers see an image and automatically associate it with a concept rather than actually taking the time and effort to think carefully about an image and what it means. The image can leave an impression on the viewer precisely because it isn’t noteworthy.</p>
<p>GOP efforts at projecting diversity continued in 2012, where the party attempted to put <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/31/latino-rnc-speakers-compare-previous-conventions_n_1846354.html">Latino faces on screen</a> in prominent spots on the program. However, those efforts made little difference in an election year where voters made decisions very early and often did so based solely on <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10350.html">partisanship</a>. In addition, subtle image cues were undercut by the more memorable image of Clint Eastwood <a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/57/12/1688.short">yelling at an empty chair</a>.</p>
<h2>Following Bush’s lead</h2>
<p>So what will a Donald Trump convention look like? For the upcoming GOP convention, Trump could follow the path laid out by George W. Bush. It would seem obvious that Trump should use racial imagery at the GOP convention to try and repair his image. His calls for a ban on Muslims as well as his attacks on a Hispanic federal judge have made it difficult for Trump to solidify Republican voters, let alone reach out to independents. Even other <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/07/politics/paul-ryan-donald-trump-racist-comment/">Republican</a> <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/06/politics/republicans-donald-trump-judge-racism/">leaders</a> have publicly criticized Trump for his overt racism.</p>
<p>Trump’s campaign rhetoric has taken a toll on his public standing. There has never been a more <a href="http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/188936/trump-negative-image.aspx">unpopular</a> GOP nominee at this stage of the campaign, and his support among traditional Republican voters is slipping. For example, Republican candidates usually win college educated whites by comfortable margins, but Trump <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-may-become-the-first-republican-in-60-years-to-lose-white-college-graduates/">currently trails</a> among these voters. Trump is facing a particularly large gender gap, with women overwhelmingly opposed to his <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_geoffrey_skelley/venus_vs_mars_a_record_setting_gender_gap">candidacy</a>. Just as Bush used African-Americans to project moderation, Trump could make racial imagery a key component of his convention and might win over voters without actually moderating any of his views. This is a particularly good strategy with female voters, who often prefer candidates with moderate positions on racial <a href="http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/content/68/4/512">issues.</a></p>
<h2>Awkward and overt</h2>
<p>However, it is not clear that Trump is actually capable of engaging in that strategy. He seems loathe to back down from even his most obvious mistakes and his use of images of racial diversity has been clumsy, to say the least. At a recent campaign rally Trump pointed out an African-American audience member as proof of his appeal to black voters, even referring to him as <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/03/politics/donald-trump-african-american/">“my African-American.”</a></p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/37-M_AzPxmM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trump: ‘My African-American.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This kind of explicit, awkward appeal is unlikely to be successful. In Philpot’s work, and in my own, racial imagery was effective precisely because the candidates did not draw attention to it. Trump’s inability to be subtle may make it impossible for him to win over moderate voters.</p>
<p>Finally, there is the possibility of violence at the convention. The host city of <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/rnc-2016/index.ssf/2016/07/republican_national_convention_8.html">Cleveland</a> is preparing for protests, counterprotests and mass violence. Violent clashes would be a disaster for the Trump campaign. Many voters already view Trump as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-new-poll-support-for-trump-plunges-giving-clinton-a-double-digit-lead/2016/06/25/0565bef6-3a31-11e6-a254-2b336e293a3c_story.html">unqualified for the presidency and dangerous</a>. Pictures of violence, especially violence between angry whites and minorities, could cement that image in the public’s mind.</p>
<p>The candidate has two paths forward. Trump could continue as he has, ignoring the importance of campaign imagery and appealing to moderates, and remain a long shot for the White House. Or, the candidate could learn from his past mistakes and put on a typical convention. He could use racial imagery within the convention to subtly repair his image. Hillary Clinton is not a <a href="http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating">popular or well-liked candidate,</a> and if Trump could merely come across as reasonable and somewhat moderate he could still pose a strong challenge in November. Either way, his choices at the convention could direct the course of the general election.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathaniel Swigger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>These made-for-TV events are an excellent opportunity for a candidate to shape his or her image. A subtle approach works best. That could be an issue for Trump.Nathaniel Swigger, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.