The Solution to Simplistic Solutions
“The farther you are from the problem, the simpler the solution seems.”
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Last week, we inaugurated our new mayor. The Chicago mayoral race came down to a choice between Brandon Johnson, a former teacher and the eventual winner, and Paul Vallas, a career politician and the police union-endorsed candidate. One of the narratives throughout the race was that Chicago needed a mayor who would take crime seriously. The head of the police union predicted that, should Johnson win, 800-1,000 police officers would resign and there would be “blood in the streets.” For what it’s worth, a few days after the inauguration, neither of his predictions have come to pass.
The president of the police union is notoriously incendiary so, as despicable as they were, his comments weren’t surprising to Chicagoans. What was interesting to notice during the campaign was how many pundits and ordinary people outside of the city picked up on this narrative about crime and law enforcement: that Chicago is uniquely dangerous among American cities (we’re not) and that increased numbers of police would solve the problem of crime. I noticed that quite a few people who live far from Chicago seemed to have strong opinions about our rates of crime and its seemingly straight-forward solution.
I’m writing this on a bus traveling southwest from Atlanta to Montgomery with a group of Christian men from Chicago. We’re spending a few days visiting important sites of the Civil Rights Movement and reflecting on what our discipleship to Jesus requires of us in the realms of racial justice and reconciliation. Last night, on our way to the hotel after a full afternoon of museum visits and testimonies from elders of the Movement, I found myself in a conversation with the man who led this group of men for many years until his recent retirement. I was curious how he had successfully brought men of diverse racial groups and socioeconomic statuses together over his years of leadership. I asked him this question and Ray Carter responded with an observation that I imagine he’s spent a lifetime experiencing. He said, “The farther you are from the problem, the simpler the solution seems.”
For the people looking at Chicago from a distance, the police union president’s one-dimensional description of the city and the solution he prescribes are appealing precisely because they are simple. For the distant observers, a simplistic narrative suffices because they lack the proximity which would introduce the complexity that is an inextricable part of being human.
I have found myself in conversations, more often than I care to remember, with non-Black people who’ve told me without a trace of uncertainty or curiosity that the problems experienced by Black communities can be traced to, in their words, the “epidemic of Black fatherlessness.” The distance from flesh-and-blood African American people allows these observers to reduce a nuanced people to a simple problem. They will not see the disproportionate impact on Black families and communities of, say, mass incarceration or rates of unemployment. Neither will they see the countless examples of incredible fathers or the African American churches which move heaven and earth to support families, nurture marriages, and encourage fathers. This is all too much complexity for the distant spectator.
The simplifying impact of distance not only distorts reality, it also provides a convenient escape for the non-proximate person. Because if the problem is simply the need for more police or simply the absence of fathers, then there’s nothing that I, the distant observer, have to do. Except, maybe, to opine from the insulating safety of my distorted vantage point. Because the problem I’ve identified doesn’t have anything to do with me, it requires nothing of me.
All of this changes with proximity. The closer we are to any so-called problem, the more layered it becomes, the harder it is to reduce it to a single solution. And because proximity allows life to take on its actual nuance, we are also more able to see our place in this complicated story. We’ll find that we are not neutral, standoffish observers but participants in the circumstances which impact one another’s lives.
It's impossible, of course, to be proximate to everyone or every group of people. For lots of reasons, there will be some communities for whom proximity is not a reasonable and regular option for some of us. But remembering the power of proximity can keep us from succumbing to simplistic and deceptive problems and solutions. We will assume that there is much more that is interesting, creative, and possible than what can be conveniently contained in a simple story. Because after all, isn’t that the kind of gracious complexity we want for ourselves?
(Photo credit: Pixabay.)