The 2014 Ebola outbreak was a “red-pill moment” for the world. Ebola is a terrible disease that broke out in the worst possible place and has only been controlled through the herculean, heroic efforts of the local national and international communities. The young nations of Sub-Saharan Africa have some of the most fragile healthcare systems in the world. Save the Children’s report “A Wake-up Call” brings the disparity into focus. The report suggests that it would take $86/year to provide minimum essential services. In 2012 the governments of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone spent $9, $20, and $16 per person/year respectively on healthcare, while the US spent $4,126 and Norway $7,704. Martin Luther King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Perhaps this year with the rise of globalization we recognized that failing or overwhelmed healthcare systems anywhere are a threat to health everywhere.
In The Matrix (1999) Morpheus warned Neo of the risks of seeing the world as you wish it to be instead of seeing it as it really is. “Taking the red pill” has become a popular cultural reference for swallowing the sometimes painful truth of reality.
As many mavens have observed on both sides of the argument, the lessons we must draw from Baltimore cannot stop at the need for police reform. The stark statistics are also arresting: an African-American baby born in Baltimore between 2006 and 2008 had a significantly shortened life expectancy compared to a white baby born during the same period (70.2 vs. 76.2 years). The African-American baby was twice as likely to be born at low birth weight (15.1% vs. 7.4%) and was nine times more likely to die before the age of one. Nine times. Baltimore is emblematic of all our American cities including our Nation’s capital, where the death rate for poor children is similar to that of children in El Salvador or Cambodia.
We have a choice. We can continue the rancor and continue writing things to be read by those who agree with us; blaming each other while we do nothing.
Or we can move toward recognition and admit: Something is terribly wrong. Someone must be wrong. Perhaps, just perhaps… we are all wrong about something.
Recognition should lead to personal and real social reflection. Is this the world we want to live in? The pregnant woman standing next to us in line at the downtown CVS would be better off having her baby in another country. Is this how things should be?
Social reflection requires dialogue, not diatribe, discourse or even discussion (from the same root word as “concussion” or “percussion,” meaning “to dash to pieces” or “shake apart”). As Peter Senge observed, discussion means I will persist until I beat you into agreeing with me. Dialogue is different. It requires active listening and the possibility that I could be wrong, at least in something.
And social reflection also means that we listen to the voices of those affected by disparity and not simply assume that sincere, well-wishing, outside “experts” will be able to speak to and solve these problems in a way that they stay solved.
Recognition and reflection lead to resignation: these problems are centuries old. They will not be solved in a fortnight. This will be a stubborn, painful, vexing, fight. It will not be solved by a single life or perhaps even within a single lifetime.
But resignation should yield to resolve. We will confront this disparity, shed light on it and will resolve not leave things the way we found them.
The past twelve months we have been force-fed the red pill of reality globally and at home. Disparity threatens the personal security of most of the world’s population. It also threatens ours.
We would do well to listen to Morpheus: “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back… All I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.”
Faced with this truth perhaps “Why?” is a less important question than “What?”
As an American and global community let us ask “What can we do together now?”
There is no turning back.
Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front https://henryv43.wordpress.com/
Henry V 4.3 
Chuck,
Perhaps the follow on after we ask the “what” during resolve entails repentance: what part do we play in the problem, and must we away from? To bring us to reconciliation.
Thanks Andy. I agree – especially from the standpoint that repentance implies a turning away and a turning toward something. When my daughter was a toddler she used to grab my face in her hands when she was talking to me and turn my head so I was looking at her eyes. Then she knew I was paying attention. We all need to turn and pay attention – in the US and across the world. /chuck
Significant protests on the street have been largely absent in the US for many many years until recently. The Tea Party movement and the 99% folks have showed the stirrings of social unrest s/p the Great Recession and the growing awareness of inequality in our country. The episodes of perceived and real police transgressions is just a flash point for these stirrings. I hope that our political system is responsive enough to consider the root causes of these problems and act in a reasoned manner. Given the unapologetic influx of easy money in our political system I am concerned that our system will be less responsive than required and a climax will be required to move the process forward.
Dialog is desired but not what is on public display from our halls of government currently. Let us demand from our leaders real problem solving and thoughtful compromise.
Thanks Kevin. I have been involved in situations in hospital leadership where aggrieved people turned to their elected officials or to the press because they felt that they were not being listened to. Listening implies understanding and action. It starts with getting the right people at the table with a spirit of humility and perhaps in addition to setting expectations for our leaders to engage in this kind of dialogue we should be willing to dialogue too. Could it start with turning from rancor to reason on social media? /chuck