Until very recently I was one of those guys on social media posting whatever annoying Donald Trump-themed piece of news crossed my wires. While I don't think I've posted as much cyber-black bile as some people I know, I shared enough that if you blocked me or stopped following me, I wouldn't be surprised. I'd unfollow me too. In recent weeks, however, I've stopped posting and ranting.
Now, I think I get the need Trump is meeting for his supporters. I think I've learned what he's doing for America right now. And until recently, I was lucky enough not to.
Since 2007, I've worked as an adjunct professor for the University of Alaska Anchorage. While I've worked in a few different departments at the university, I've never felt more at home teaching and engaging with students than in the creative writing classrooms.
And, for as much as I adore teaching and mentoring in creative writing, I also teach to make ends meet with my full-time, 9-to-5 job with a mental health agency. The cost of raising two rapidly growing boys as a single parent can eat a paycheck — sometimes entirely whole. Like a lot of the adjunct professors I know — and we're a significant number at UAA — I frequently blow over to campus straight from a meeting at my full-time job. Sometimes, I also blow back to the office after class too, to finish work I abandoned before my UAA class.
This spring though, a number of my students approached me with a puzzling series of questions, including, "Professor Bower, what class am I supposed to take next semester?" and "Do you know what creative writing classes are offered in the fall?" They were attempting to find and register for next term's classes and their searches weren't bearing results.
I've taught a series of creative writing classes in the English department for four years now, including the ones they were searching for and knew what classes they needed next term.
No dice, my students informed me. The classes I described were not appearing on the schedule, which was news to both them and me.
The English department had recently phased out the creative writing coordinator's position. So, initially I didn't even know where to turn to address this conundrum. Not only did my students need answers. Given my own financial circumstances, I did too.
I sent an email around the English department and was invited to meet with the chair.
We met at the chair's office during finals week, at which time he informed me that due to the current financial situation at the university, and the state's budget crisis, there are no classroom workshops offered next year.
Students, meanwhile, could find and take online, distance creative writing courses that fulfilled the course requirements of creative writing courses previously offered at UAA. Times being what they are, students interested in fulfilling the course work for their minor would need to opt for creative writing courses offered to them on a computer screen from wherever wifi allows.
I was perplexed on the drive back to my day job, but couldn't sort out why until I'd returned to my office. Then the full impact of my situation washed over me:
I was being outsourced.
Until that afternoon, it'd never occurred to me that educators could be outsourced.
Growing up in a working class family, I was urged to invest in education to avoid the circumstances of working-class Americans who were watching their jobs migrate elsewhere during youth and young adulthood. I even went to grad school to further cement my job security and upward mobility. But in the space of one mystifying conversation, the lay of my landscape altered considerably.
My work was going …Well, where?
My thoughts went to the Indianapolis factory workers at Carrier, the company known for its air conditioners, heating and furnace equipment.
On Feb. 10 of this year — the day, curiously enough, I turned 44 — an executive for the company announced on the factory floor that its employees' 1,400 jobs would soon be outsourced to Mexico.
The commotion on the floor during and following the announcement — the booing, the swearing, the disgust voiced by the employees receiving the news — is palpable as you watch video shot by one of the employees on his phone. You would be forgiven for wanting to drill holes in the executive's skull when he demands that the employees hear him out, only so he can remark, "This is strictly a business decision."
The video went viral. Three days following the company's announcement, the New York Times reports, Trump's campaign made the company's Mexico move "a centerpiece" in speeches about making America great again.
When I first read that piece, my heart sank for the workers. But at the end of that day, I got to put the paper down and move on. After the full force of my own outsourcing walloped me weeks later, I printed the article and pinned it to my wall.
As I race to cobble together a new plan, I struggle with panic and a lot of sadness — for both my students and me. Oftentimes my sadness becomes anger, a wild blend of frustration as I consider the insult UAA continues dishing out to many departments and the hardworking, qualified individuals in their disciplines.
Note that I hardly suspect the blame for this turn of events falls on my department. I've seen my colleagues and fellow faculty attempting to work miracles with their hands tied the last couple years, and my heart hurts for them nearly as much as for my own circumstance.
In my work at the mental health agency, it's become helpful for me to think of "depression" — a term that can refer to a spectrum of emotions and behaviors — as "anger turned inwards."
However, anger doesn't remain inwards forever. As some point, the complicated emotions toiling away inside a person will cry, beg for release. We witness this occur in many frightening, sad, and frequently aggressive forms on any given night in the news.
Until very recently, I haven't cared to understand or too-broadly consider the state of affairs comprising the chaos and rage so visibly fueling the Trump campaign.
Now, however, I don't feel like I have a choice.
Jonathan Bower is a father, writer, musician and mental health employee living in Anchorage. He can be reached on Facebook, or at jonathanjbowermusic@gmail.com.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.