"Deeds, Not Creeds." Let's Show All Oregonians the Respect They Deserve.
Respect will go a long way toward addressing our most pressing problems.
About a month ago I had a conversation with a friend who works in emergency medicine. He splits his time in rural and urban settings and was again seeing the system at its breaking point because of COVID cases. In the rural hospital, ICU beds were full and space was so limited that trauma cases were being treated in the hallways. Similar conditions were emerging in the urban hospital.
Yet, there’s an important difference between these two settings: rural residents have disproportionately contracted the virus and as Oregon State University researchers have shown, they also are more likely to die than urban counterparts. Similarly, members of communities of color have had more exposure to the most dire consequences of COVID than their share of the population would suggest. Below both these patterns is the reality that socioeconomic status (SES) plays a major role in the incidence of COVID. So, given the high correlation between educational attainment and SES status, I asked my friend, “Is education the core issue?” I was surprised by his answer.
Education has a strong effect on many outcomes. It impacts poverty, life expectancy, social mobility, depression, and so much more. Folks with less educational attainment are more likely to be in essential jobs requiring them to show up at the job site during the pandemic, and if they contract the virus, they are more likely to have severe consequences. So, I asked my question because I thought that by boosting the overall level of education among Oregonians we could increase the options of residents. Oregonians could work in safer conditions, spend more time on physical and mental care, and afford better care options, when ill.
My friend agreed that education is important but did not believe that is the core challenge. Rather, he attributed disparate rates of COVID incidences to a lack of respect. His response caught me off guard. HIs logic is simple enough: individuals who feel disrespected by society and institutional authority are less likely to take any sort of perceived risk for that society, especially if it’s a risk recommended by those institutional authorities. Many who believe society does not respect them or their way of life either do not accept authority or actively push against it. A feeling of disrespect encourages individuals to remain just that -- individual, independent, separate. No number of peer-reviewed studies and reams of data will solve for lack of respect. We talked it over some more and then I realized one of the benefits of having friends who are smarter than me: they change my mind.
I left the conversation convinced that a lack of respect has not only hindered our COVID response, but also has implications that go far beyond the pandemic. It extends to so many of our societal challenges.
I live in an inner southeast Portland neighborhood that has always had a homeless population. Homelessness is so immense in my neighborhood, in Portland and across Oregon that an appreciable improvement seems unattainable. I sense the intractable nature of homelessness everyday when I walk out of my home. I see it with the couple who has lived for a decade in the van down the street and the man I talk with when my kids play at the playground. It is very easy to stigmatize them and not see these folks as fellow humans. It’s easy to dismiss their concerns, fears, and struggles as something they did wrong that we should not accept.
At the core of this problem is the lack of respect. Collectively, we’ve failed to show respect to those struggling with housing instability. These folks are humans and most are struggling with problems we’ve likely experienced in some form, only they are experiencing them concurrently and to a much greater degree. These struggles include mental health, substance abuse, and debilitating health conditions. By prioritizing respect, we can see that we all have very human and very understandable problems.
Additionally, there is a lack of respect for the residents and business owners who are adversely impacted by the social costs of homelessness. The costs of burning fires to cook food during our extreme drought, unsanitary conditions in and around sites where homeless reside, and blocked parks and sidewalks—these direct impacts disproportionately affect just a few of our Portland neighbors. And, they indirectly impact our entire community as well as our reputation. Our communities were not built to adequately accommodate tent camping, and it is a terrible solution for everyone involved.
So where does this overall lack of respect leave us? The status quo is not adequate for businesses, the housed or houseless; it’s also not sustainable for our frontline workers and emergency workers. In a society that lacks respect, everyone ultimately pays the price imposed by a society that is less cohesive. Therefore, change is necessary. Overcoming the status quo will require bold leadership and concessions by all involved. And, it must entail a more humane solution for the most marginalized. One where they trust a life off the street is a better outcome. This challenge was not created overnight and it will not be solved that way - there is not an easy fix. We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of outcomes that will be better than the current state.
The first concession is to admit that we’ve all struggled at times to afford every Oregonian with the respect they deserve. That respect is the product of a lack of familiarity, which is the result of a lack of exposure. We must embrace a “deed, not creed” mentality and stop signaling values with lawn signs and actually start getting to know the full extent of Oregon’s diverse communities—urban and rural, rich and poor, housed and unhoused.
My next article will specifically apply this general framework to homelessness.
Write about society reopening, the positive side of technology and doing better. When not writing I work on creating growth & opportunity in Portland Tech.
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