We're all in the same boat

Submitted by Judy K. Ball, Morgantown, WV

When Jim Justice was Governor of West Virginia, he often talked about all of us “pulling the rope together.” He was intending to inspire and recognize collective efforts to achieve positive results, I think.

Now, I’m as big a fan of metaphors as any writer. But the more I think about this rope idea, the more it troubles me. It troubles me especially in today’s political climate. If you have ever watched a real tug of war, you saw two teams pulling on opposite ends of a big rope. Then, the strategy and outcome are always the same: One team’s few bigger, stronger participants anchor the rope and overpower the other team by brute force. In so doing, they leave even the smaller, weaker members of their own team behind, usually trampled in the mud.

Is this what we want for West Virginia? I don’t.

I have a different perspective to suggest. Right now, in the United States and in West Virginia, we're in a Constitutional crisis. Our most vulnerable citizens and residents — all our neighbors — are being literally and figuratively trampled in the mud, thrown in prison, having their economic prospects, futures, and families destroyed and leaving our next generation deprived of the education they need to escape a future of hard labor.

What I see — regardless of who you voted for or whether you voted at all — is that we’re all in the same boat. And our boat is leaking, seriously leaking, with the hole getting ever larger and the water level in the boat rising rapidly. It is not beyond reason to think we may capsize.

So, what do we do?

Brute force will not help us. Have you ever seen a pair of folks trying to row a boat when the person on one oar is pulling stronger than the person on the other oar? The boat goes in circles, not forward. Either they row together, with similar force, to propel the boat forward or they get nowhere near the safety of the shore on the other side, their collective destination.

Regardless of where we originated (that voting thing again), we need to focus our attention on getting to the other side, to safety, to higher ground. Together.

Let’s also remember, not everyone can row. Some of us have to bail out the water and plug the hole with whatever material is available. I grew up alongside the Little Kanawha River in Wirt County, West Virginia. I know a little bit about managing leaky john boats! Never once did we sink, because the holes were attended to.

For other non-rowers, some need to protect the most vulnerable among us who don’t have the strength to row or even to bail. We all have to do our part. We have to do what we can do. We can’t just throw the weak overboard to save ourselves. That is cruel and inhumane. It’s also not who we West Virginians are, morally or ethically. Those who are small and weak now may represent our future.

I mentioned the safety of that shore on the other side. In the midst of the crisis, few people are even thinking about the other side these days. That’s what happens when you’re in the middle of a crisis. The crisis takes over; tunnel vision ensues. Nothing else matters but the crisis. It’s quite normal; it’s understandable.

However, I believe we need at least to believe that there is another side for us to aspire to reach. Without that hope, the easiest thing to do is give up. We can’t do that. We must not do that. That’s what I see and hear a lot of folks wanting to do, though. Giving up comes from feeling hopeless. This is happening by design. There is a plan afoot to tear citizens down, wear them out, disenfranchise their vote and force them to comply with the wishes of a powerful few. We cannot let that plan succeed.

What does the other side look like? Admittedly, we really don’t know yet. It took years of determined, malicious effort to put us all together, all at risk, in this vulnerable leaky boat. I do know that if we start acting as powerless hostages, as though we have no control over our fate, we will just float, continue to take on water, potentially moving into ever greater danger. There may be rapids or waterfalls ahead. We must avoid them. We have to row, we have to bail, we have to work together and focus on the other side. This takes strength, determination, persistence. If we do not, we will sink with our boat.

Finally, let me remind you/us that we have been through crises before. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the fight to destroy fascism in World War II, COVID. In each of these catastrophes — I’ve named only a few of the worst — we made it to the other side. We worked together, rowed together, each doing our part. We survived to see that other side.

When we get to that other side, we can rebuild. That’s what survivors do.