"Shaping Thoughts and Changing Lives for the better"

 Book Synopsis: In this timely and unabridged book, the authors utilize their strong skills of literary research and a unique ability to link thought with feelings to craft a compelling and unbiased analysis of the challenges associated with being a humanitarian in America during an unprecedented period of political and social strife. The analysis shares current survey data, historical trends, revealing photographs, and relevant literary work of other authors, scholars, historians, news correspondents, bloggers and social activists to uniquely explore and untangle nine powerful societal influences. Individually, and at times in combination, these influences are having the most impact on shaping public thought and fueling historic divisiveness among Americans today.  

 In the new book, Earl and Charlotte introduce and cross-examine a set of societal influences or Framing Factors, which have a significant influence in the daily lives of Americans today. 

The anti-humanitarian effects of several of these Framing Factors were amplified during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to exist at an elevated level today. The Framing Factors include:

• The Influence of The Human Mind
• The Influence of Selfishness 
• The Influence of Apathy and Indifference 
• The Influence of The Less Educated
• The Influence of Social Media and Mass Misinformation
• The Influence of Conspiracy Theories
• The Influence of Partisan Politics 
• The Influence of Wealth and Power
•  The Influence of Religious Hypocrisy 

In the 190-page book, the Cobbs deliver a rich and unbiased analysis of the “impacts” these influences have on humanity and kindness within the United States. Common-sense approaches to countering the impacts are proposed as starting points, for those interested in taking on the challenge of becoming a true, people person. 

Within the dissertation, we make no attempts to persuade anyone that one set of thoughts, conclusions and beliefs are the only valid perspectives on the topic. We simply set forth what we believe to be a candid, honest and contemporary discussion. 

As our research confirmed, because America’s story of humanity, involves social paradoxes, created by political decisions and actions of the wealthy and powerful,  most individuals striving to become people persons are emotionally and psychologically impacted by lingering social and cultural “wedge issues”  —  even when there is a majority consensus, nationally, on the most equitable, cost effective and humane solutions.  

Having been born as African Americans in the 1950s and during the Jim Crow era in the southern United States, we are no strangers to the prominent role that race and race relations has played, and continue to play within many aspects in the lives of scores of millions of Americans.   Three steps forward and one step backwards would be a quick “snapshot” shared by most minorities and marginalized Americans who are unwillingly mired in this demoralizing social and political game.

The shocking January 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States capital where the 117th Congress was meeting to count the results of the Electoral College vote and certify the winner of the 2020 presidential election. By all accounts it was a historic rebellion, led by an overwhelmingly “white”, conservative and angry group of President Trump followers. The entire day-long episode was televised and broadcasted for the world to see. Sadly, the uprising ended in deaths and destruction.

There were many national events that stood out during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in America. However, none was as emotionally moving and dramatizing as the video footage of how George Floyd met his horrific death under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, named Derek Chauvin, on  Memorial Day 2020.

As human beings, much of what we think and most of our thoughts, “arise in our conscious experience without us knowing how it got there”, and “the mental work that produces impressions, intuitions, and many decisions goes on in silence in our mind”. 

When we constantly hear, read and share, in our daily lives, misinformation or disinformation, it has a way to becoming reality in our minds. It also creates the prospect for us to narrow our focus on the actual social, and economic issues affecting us as a nation and widens our propensity to demonize, resent, and even hate others in our society who we believe are the cause of our hardship.

We can only take comfort in knowing, that political partisanship has been an irritant for America’s Republic since it was founded — as we partake, and for most of us, suffer through, the ultra-polarized partisanship of today. 

Political hostility in the United States is more, and more becoming personal hostility. New findings suggest that the sources of dispute, in contemporary life, go far beyond ideological differences, or mere polarization. They have become elemental, almost tribal, tapping into in-group loyalty and out-group enmity.

The most important question, we should be asking about the  influences of wealth and power is "What are the  societal side effects of the paradox of the sometime humane and then often inhumane actions taken by those Americans who have obtained wealth and power?"