One of the most important problems facing Americans today is our loss of focus on living together as one nation. Because we are more divided in many ways, we are losing ground in the global landscape and will not be able to compete on a global scale if we don’t figure out how to work in accordance with one another.
Photo credit: Courtesy Kim Williams
By Kim WilliamsSunday August 26, 2018 03:18 PM EDT
Kim Williams is an Atlanta marketer and tech co-founder of Code Kids Rock, an organization that teaches kids from underserved communities to code, providing classes and curricula that help kids develop real skills and that helps shape tech leaders.
Kim Williams: One of the most important problems facing Americans today is our loss of focus on living together as one nation. Because we are more divided in many ways, we are losing ground in the global landscape and will not be able to compete on a global scale if we don’t figure out how to work in accordance with one another.
In Atlanta, we are plagued with the social effects of gentrification. For some, it’s a taboo topic, but for those who are being displaced, it’s real life. As a native Atlantan, I remember why we were called the “City Too Busy to Hate,” but can see how fast that title is dissolving. We need to grow and thrive as a community, but it is vital that we grow, thrive and contribute to a common cause.
Kim Williams: When it comes to Americans finding ways to come together, we must have difficult, but honest conversations. The good thing about this hateful climate is that it has generated more open dialogue between people from different races, religions, and backgrounds than ever before. When people are talking to one another, a level of trust can begin to be formed. When there’s trust, there’s transparency, and once that happens, we can begin to rebuild our country together.
In terms of Atlanta’s growing pains, I feel it’s important to support organizations that are advocating for those in “inner city/in town” neighborhoods, helping them retain their homes and survive. One that comes to mind is HouseProud. If we put our resources and energy behind their efforts, we can begin to encourage neighborly interactions and dialogue between the “old and new” Atlantans. Our history is rich and can serve as a wonderful foundation for a bright future. To make that happen, we all need to see the value in the community.
Kim Williams: I believe there is a time and place for grassroots activism. Grassroots activism is great for awareness building and alerting others to an issue that exists within our community. The Civil Rights Movement was a brilliantly planned strategy that included both protesting and also changes to legislation that was oppressive to minority groups. Today, our complacency has kept us from fighting to change the laws that plague us, and that’s where we fall short. You can’t have grassroots activism without a strategy aimed at changing institutionalized laws
Kim Williams: Social media is a great tool for self-expression and education about many things that affect our society. People have an opportunity to share their opinions about issues, while also being online champions for a cause in one way or another. My issue with social media is that people can become too comfortable with voicing their opinions without the activism that is necessary to bring about change. If people posting about a problem were to include opportunities for others to engage in ways that helped work toward solutions, social media would be a powerful change agent.
Kim Williams: My church, Cascade United Methodist, and the Center for Civil and Human Rights. Online, I subscribe to Shaun King, MLK50, NAACP, and Rolan Martin. Those are the top places I can go to stay informed about the causes that are important to me and to which I lend my support whenever possible.
Kim Williams: Because Atlanta is among the fastest-growing cities in the country, we should be educating our new residents about the city they have chosen and why the legacy of Dr. King is so important. We are blessed to have Dr. King as our standard bearer, and as a result, Atlantans have a duty to serve as the guardians of everything good in the world. Good starts here in Atlanta, we don’t have time to hate.
One of the most important problems facing Americans today is our loss of focus on living together as one nation. Because we are more divided in many ways, we are losing ground in the global landscape and will not be able to compete on a global scale if we don’t figure out how to work in accordance with one another.
|
more...
There are so many problems we’re facing, it’s overwhelming: systemic racism, sexism, ageism, inequity, homelessness, marginalization, immigration policy, school shootings/gun violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, climate change … this is an incomplete list, and I feel sick to my stomach thinking about it. Much of it stems from hatred and fear of “the other.” It feels like we’ve lost a basic sense of human decency.
|
more...
I want very badly to name the issues of poverty, wealth inequality, and class oppression, but all of these are intertwined with, and compounded by, the problem of race, difference, and grappling honestly with America’s history and identity. I have a metaphor for this process, it is a cracked egg with the yoke running long.
|
more...
Healthcare is a human right. That means ensuring that every person doesn’t just have access to health care, but has the ability to afford health care.
|
more...
Apathy towards injustice is toxic. We have become so entangled in conversational clouds on social media that we honestly feel that ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ are making a direct impact. This helps to a certain degree, but it does not solve the problems plaguing our nation today.
|
more...
The biggest problem facing Americans today is the stark difference between where we have made progress in this country under the Obama Administration and where the Trump Administration is going. With regards to the Trump Administration right now on immigration and voting rights, we believe they are moving in a direction against the values of most Americans.
|
more...
I believe that racial discord remains the most divisive issue facing Americans. It continues to suppress wages for all and promotes anger that leads to violence within the oppressed communities. Remove racist symbolism and implement long-term remedies to counter the long-term legacies of discrimination.
|
more...
Of all the global issues facing us, including biggies like climate change and nuclear war, what troubles me currently is the rise of fascism in governments around the world. This is what also troubles me about America. People are emboldened to openly discriminate and hate because our elected officials represent values of hate.
|
more...
The most important problem facing Americans today is partisan politics that removes empathy from the conversation toward compromise on the real issues that are affecting everyday Americans. Everything is viewed through the lens of tribal political division, when the solutions to most problems facing the nation can be solved through bipartisan collaboration.
|
more...
There are so many things that need to be fixed but somehow we need to stop the OTHER mentality. Trying to embrace difference — and understanding that our differences are what make us stronger — will lead to a better unity within our populations. We spend so much time hating and singling out those that are different. If we used that energy to come together we could make a better life for all of us.
|
more...
Atlanta and America have never participated in reparations for its genocide, land theft, and displacement of indigenous peoples, its kidnapping and enslavement of African peoples, or its destabilization, colonization and assassinations in other nations. So, in 2018, what we are still faced with is the displacement, incarceration, and murder of black and brown people in this city, this country, and this globe.
|
more...
The most important problem facing all of us is our increasing inability to work with and get along with those who don’t share our views. I know it’s a cliché, but “United we stand, divided we fall.”
|
more...
The most serious issue for all Americans is the very real risk of our democracy being taken away, which is happening on a daily basis. There are so many issues: racism, human rights, climate change denial, guns, income equality, lack of a universal heathcare system, police brutality, tearing refugee families apart and putting them in interment camps, our status in the world and how we interact with other nations, and a government party in charge that refuses to act in the best interest of the American people.
|
more...
The greatest problem facing USA citizens today, is how to become a global citizen without having an imperialist or colonial mentality. The greatest problem facing Atlanta today is how to move from the white and black mentality to become a multicultural city in action and not in words only.
|
more...
Greed. The only consistent measure of success is wealth. If you’re so good, so smart, so talented, why aren’t you rich? Why should anybody listen to you? You’re accomplished, but if you’re poor, you haven’t “succeeded.” Rich, therefore smart. Rich, therefore good. There’s a paucity of everything, so you’d better have dough. If you’re needy, it’s because that’s what you deserve. Loss of wealth is loss of power, loss of status.
|
more...
The most important problem is the denial of the problem. Most white people have been lulled into the myth of a “post-racial” America. Research on implicit bias and the persistence of numerous forms of institutional racism, including in the criminal justice system, demonstrate the reality of racism in 2018. A much greater threat than hate crimes and organized white supremacists is our inability to address core issues like white privilege and internalized white supremacy. We cannot progress until we have that honest reckoning. Atlanta paints itself as the city “too busy to hate,” but it’s been too busy to do the real work to begin to heal the very old wounds of its racist history.
|
more...
The most important problem facing Americans today is the pervasive ideology of white settler colonialism. By this I mean that we live with a way of thinking brought over to America that goes back as far as the English Reformation in the 16th century — the belief that God has ordained a select group of white people to claim land — regardless of who might already have been on it — as a God-given right.
|
more...
“The most important problem facing Americans today” is that we have so many problems that rotate in and out of first place that we cannot choose and therefore cannot answer the question. The second part of the question is easier (for me). Atlanta’s most important problem is a subset of a national problem.
|
more...
A decline in trust. We’re losing opportunities to get to know each other. We spend all kinds of time and money creating our own private, secluded spaces, both in the physical world and online, where we don’t have to encounter people who look or think differently than we do.
|
more...
The most urgent problem facing not just Atlanta, but all of humanity, is the fact the U.S. is now ruled by a fascist regime (Trump/Pence) set on reshaping society in a way that will be catastrophic for humanity and the planet.
|
more...
One of the most important problems facing America is the widening income inequality/economic mobility gap. For many, the “American Dream” is just that, a dream they will never realize. Many of the social and political challenges we are dealing with today stem from this problem.
|
more...
The list is long and it’s all really important. But most of the things on that list have a root cause, and I think it’s greed. People’s desire for power and wealth outweighs their humanity and their ability to see humanity in others.
|
more...
Tony Paris has been covering Atlanta music, news, and culture since 1975, becoming Creative Loafing’s music editor in 1980, a position he held until being named managing editor, 1994 - 1998. Leaving the paper in in 1998, Paris worked in Jerusalem, Tokyo, and New York, before returning to Creative Loafing as a music columnist in 2017. In 2018 Paris again assumed the duties of managing editor. Check out Tony Paris’ regular column here
Contact Paris at tony.paris at creativeloafing.com for editorial inquiries and submissions or freelance work, as well as for any and all music-related correspondence, information. Any correspondence sent through Messenger, iMessage, or via social media will not be acknowledged. Please send an email.
People getting sucked in by drama and taking the bait that created the division in the first place. It causes people to focus on our differences instead of our commonalities. We are so much bigger than affiliations. We have so much more in common than not. Regardless, we should show respect and love each other. Do unto others, love thy neighbor, etc. …
The lack of self-awareness as a nation. Our unhealthy lifestyles and how we conduct ourselves on a day-to-day basis. This constant tug of war of who is right and who is wrong is a never-ending cycle that adds more fuel to the fire. It doesn’t help when the main purpose on people’s minds is to obtain wealth by any means.
The most important problem facing all of us is our increasing inability to work with and get along with those who don’t share our views. I know it’s a cliché, but “United we stand, divided we fall.”
The most important problem facing Americans today is partisan politics that removes empathy from the conversation toward compromise on the real issues that are affecting everyday Americans. Everything is viewed through the lens of tribal political division, when the solutions to most problems facing the nation can be solved through bipartisan collaboration.