Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America

by Chris Arnade

Drugs really are a refuge for many in the back row (and the front, for that matter, though for different reasons).

Their belief that life isn’t worth living has turned into recklessness, their addiction into a form of suicide.

‘There is no place like home.’ But there is a lot to improve. But it is my home. When you don’t have anything else all you got is your home.”

Yet those were a reaction to failure, not a sign of success.

I get asked: What are the solutions? What are the policies we should put in place? What can we do differently, beyond yell at one another? All I can say is “I don’t know” or the almost equally wishy-washy “We all need to listen to each other more.” It is wishy-washy, but that is what I truly believe, because our nation’s problems and differences are just too big, too structural, and too deep to be solved by legislation and policy out of Washington. We need everyone—those in the back row, those in the front row—to listen to one another and try to understand one another and understand what they value and try to be less judgmental.