“A God Who Looks Like Me,” a recent book title, is described by University of Chicago religious historian Martin Marty as “the grossest thought I’ve heard since I last looked into the mirror, craving instead the Wholly Other” (Context, July 15).
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We don’t want to know whether our environment is poisonous, we just want to feel good. “It is often difficult for environmental justice to prevail when the locus of control is placed with the outside researcher,” writes University of Michigan professor Bunyan Bryant in Poverty & Race (July/August). “Traditional scientific methodology is not the only effective method of problem-solving….Affected groups feel that environmental justice is better served if they themselves are involved in a participatory research process, where they at least share in the locus of control of the research process along with researchers and policymakers. They want to be involved in problem identification, questionnaire construction, data collection and data analysis. Often the process outcomes of inclusion, decision-making and respect for the affected populations may be more important and weigh heavier on satisfactory outcomes than content outcomes.”
Wisconsin’s welfare reform “is not tackling the big problems,” says UIC social work professor Jerry Cates, quoted in a recent university press release. “It’s short-sighted, fairly punitive and based on the hope that we can do away with welfare because there are enough jobs. But they’re not out there.”
