One of my core ideals as a music teacher is the fostering of community development within my classroom or my ensemble. I carry those ideals in my life as I try to foster relationships with my neighbors. I live in my school’s boundary area. I am the only teacher in my school that lives in the neighborhood our students live in to my knowledge. There used to be two of us. In my lifetime I have watched this idea of community disappear slowly from the landscape. I feel like an outsider within my country currently, because the country’s political leadership is only interested in culture wars, power, greed, and selling the idea of gritty individualism as they embrace white nationalism. All of that hate leaves me feeling angry, depressed, lonely, and puzzled.

One of the first things I learned within my elementary schooling was community. We were not taught the term outright, but our kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Betty Hardy (RIP) taught us that together we were like a family of friends. We needed to help one another accomplish tasks and include everyone in our play. It was contradictory to what happened in my home, as my mother and somewhat my father isolated ourselves from others. We did everything as a family, but seldomly included others outside that family group. The groups consisted of my grandparents, aunt (and uncle,) and some cousins. We never included my mother’s or father’s family in specific celebrations. We did everything separately. Mom’s side on the holiday. Dad’s family on a different day.

The idea of community existed for me throughout my K-8 education. We were all East Coloma Bulldogs. Regardless of differences we tried to include everyone in our goals. I identified with the sense of community and it was logical to actually place the groups goals above my own. School was a safe place for me to express myself. Whereas home was not a safe place to express myself. During my middle school years I expanded this community by getting a job delivering newspapers in my extended neighborhood.

My newspaper route had 80+ customers initially. When my brother was old enough we split that route into two halves. He took the customers closest to our home, while I covered the farther section. My section of the route consisted of the wealthiest real estate. Many successful small business owners lived on my route. I had no idea how privileged I was to serve them, until I became an adult. As their paper boy these families took me under their wing so to speak in short conversations on the daily route. I became a part of their community, and started to understand how to be successful by looking at opportunities as ways to improve myself. As a lower middle class child , these community members gave me a boost. They helped me understand how we all need each other to make life better for those around us. John Dussler (RIP) was a retired construction contractor and he was the most influential of those customers.

Over the eight years of delivering newspapers, I expanded my section of the route by 30 customers. I ended up riding my bike about eight miles a day. Mr. Dussler helped me overcome anxiety regarding talking to my customers. This led to a lucrative fund raising scheme once I entered high school and had to raise money for my high school music activities. I sold thousands of dollars of unneeded merchandise to my customers on that paper route, and in return I paid my way and several other classmates way for band tours and competitions. When my band had local performances, I noticed that my customers came to those performances and cheered me on. In a sense I was building my own community outside of my family. These years really influenced me. I had forged a relationship with complete strangers via my job, and they considered me important enough to support me.

Through college and my early career I found it very challenging to build a community. Were the politics of the time influencing this? I don’t know. Possibly. Creating a connection across barriers (cultural, racial, economic, and geographical) was challenging. My teaching career began in Southern Illinois. Down there the needs of the individual was embraced over the group. This backwards cultural logic is still evident, but it has pervasively expanded by the hateful dialogue of the political right. I saw this first hand as my minority students were treated differently by the cultural elites. My minority students appreciated my approach before the white students. These same minority students influenced me like Dussler had. I learned much from them, despite differences. They expanded my community.

Once I had stabilized my professional life and developed routines that made me a more productive teacher, community building became much easier. It also helped that I moved to Northern Illinois where I understood the political and social culture of the people. Unfortunately this was all torn apart by the Illinois Politicians embracing neoliberal economics in the early 2000’s to remain relevant. All of the communities that I had built were destroyed by this excessive desire to profit off of the people (rugged individualism.) The selfishness that we see today within MAGA politics was built on privilege and anger throughout the early 2000’s and the Obama administrations. Community minded goals were seen as a weakness. Individual goals were far more important than needs for a community.

You can see this on display with the privilege exercised by the political right (fascists) who project their errors on everyone but themselves. Their illusion that land votes makes them arrogant and egotistical. They feel attacked when the privilege they exercise is questioned. Meanwhile the community they serve gets abused by legislation that funnels their tax monies away from them as we socialize the rich in the guise of trickle down economics. We become servants to their goals, rather than equals to the process.

The Christian Nationalists have created a community of cult worshipers, where money is the objective to power. The actual teachings of Christianity are tossed away as being too empathetic or woke. This community is based in hate. Those that oppose us should be hated. This isn’t a community of inclusion or neighborly friendliness. It is community that destroys any chance of building trust or relationships. The Christian Nationalist community is all about destruction… privilege… entitlement… They are the best, everyone else is their servant.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one is lost on the Christian Nationalist privilege. They look at poverty as a disease rather than a sociological condition. They look at their faith as being exclusive rather than inclusive. They lie regularly on political commercials to stoke hate between the races. They use words like extreme or radical to project their lies upon those that oppose them.

The rising democratic socialist movement is a direct response to the community of hate, with a community that wants to reset the political ideal of the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the rich. Bernie Sanders has been the loudest voice within that community as he has maintained the same rhetoric throughout his political lifetime. Workers and families first, Medicare for all, raising taxes on the rich and elite to pay for it, and cutting off Zionism in Israel. Sanders is a Jewish man, so the last part is poignant.

This type of community is my preference. I want to see my neighbors thrive. I don’t want them buried in medical debt. I want to see them be able to afford a new roof for their home, or windows for their porch. I want to see the children in my neighborhood fed, loved, and cared for by the entire neighborhood rather than just their single parent or parents. I’m okay with paying more in taxes to help all of them thrive. I want to see the billionaires taxed 100% beyond one billion dollars. No one needs to be a billionaire. It is not healthy for community building when wealth is hoarded by a small group of individuals. We are not their servant class. Their hate of the working class is their privileged issue to eat, not ours.

Why do I feel this way? If my poor neighbor is thriving, my life will also be better. If my neighbor is not embarrassed by their poverty our neighborhood becomes more social and inclusive. When we can feel like economic equals our community becomes stronger. When economics are erased from the equation the ideas of racial, religious, or cultural difference can be addressed to benefit all. I see these ideas being addressed in New York City, and it appears to be working. No, our life doesn’t need to be socialized, but if we go back to the Eisenhower tax rates I do feel we can make a big difference in providing a universal community a chance to survive… I dissent with the hateful community built by privilege and Christian Nationalism. Please join me this November in voting them all out of office. We need to take our communities back from them, and drive their hateful idiocy back under the ground where it belongs…

…so it goes…