Preposition Proposition

The healing of a broken world can take place by the simple act of changing one four-letter word for another. The old math says this:

w/b + r/p + m/ w + b/ w + i/ n + s/ g + mg/ yg + m/n = S⁴

Translation: White over black + rich over poor + man over woman + boss over worker + immigrant (colonial conqueror) over native (indigenous people) + straight over gay + my god over your god + man over nature (etc) = Self-created Suffering, Sorrow and Sadness.

The simple shift of a preposition—white with black, rich with poor, men with women, etc. etc. and etc.— is the new math that will begin to move us toward our promise of a sustainable harmonious world earned through intelligent and courageous conversation edging us toward compassionate cohabitation.

And so the battle lines of the American election drama are drawn over two simple prepositions. The old math requires wars, walls, deportation, exclusion, dominance and the reduction of human complexity to robotic compliance of a homogenous privileged group, a fantasy world where everyone is a white rich male straight Christian (which sect?) CEO sitting in an easy chair smoking cigars while all the others serve him. Unless they were kicked out of the country. The new math asks for the real story of how anything in this country worthy of pride was born from the struggle to get out from under “over” and insist on the Constitution’s promise of “with.”

It’s time for new math. It’s as simple as that.