The Power of Guilt

The Obama administration is wrestling with whether or not to get minimally involved in Syria, meaning there will be limited military strikes, letting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad know that the United States does not approve of his apparently having used sarin gas against his own people.

Fourteen hundred people were killed.

While it is annoying and frustrating that the United States is so often running to the aid of other countries, sometimes, it seems, with a hidden nationalistic and imperialistic agenda, perhaps our nation in this instance is acting out of a sense of guilt. We did nothing during the Rwandan genocide (http://spectator.org/archives/2013/09/06/the-rwanda-legacy), a fact which apparently still haunts former President Bill Clinton, and we did nothing to help the Jews who were slaughtered during the Holocaust. Not only did we, but other nations were silent as well. As a result, way too many people died. We as a nation bear a burden of guilt for our non-action.

President Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, said that he was elected to end wars, and indeed, much of his time and energy has been spent ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even he, however, as much as he seems not to believe that war is the answer to all issues, seems to be haunted some by guilt.”When people say that it is a terrible stain on all of us that hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered in Rwanda, well imagine if Rwanda was going on right now and we asked: ‘Should we intervene in Rwanda?'” the president said. “I think it’s fair to say that it probably wouldn’t poll real well.” ( http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/06/politics/us-syria/index.html?hpt=hp_t2)

It is frustrating that the conflict in the Middle East just will not end. It is equally as frustrating that “we the people” really do not know all of what is behind decisions to go to war; we were not privy to that information in the past and we are not privy to it now. But there is something to be said for being a superpower and turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the suffering of others.

Some would argue that the nation turns that same blind eye and deaf ear to the suffering of its own citizens. Ironically, our nation seems to feel no guilt for the way too many of its own people live. In spite of the superpower image, far too many people here live in poverty, some in that predicament even though they work. They do not make a living wage, but there’s no outcry and no guilt felt about that. Likewise, there are far too many people in this country suffering and dying from treatable diseases, but there is no guilt. In fact, there is a fight against working to get health care for all Americans.

But guilt (and, probably, a hidden agenda) seems to be a driving factor in the debates over whether or not to get involved in Syria. Should Congress vote President Obama’s resolution down that would make the way for our intervening in Syria, and al-Assad continues his attacks on his own people, the guilt will grow exponentially. We are trying to make up for ignoring Rwanda and Hitler…

Here’s an observation, though. Guilt doesn’t work. Guilt only makes individuals and nations act impulsively, doing things they later regret. And, it too often turns out, the dissemination of an action based on guilt is wasted energy, because the situation that produced the guilt doesn’t go away.

It would seem that instead of jeopardizing the lives of even more Syrians, and, of course, Americans, that there is a diplomatic answer to the problem and presence of al-Assad. A boycott or some such participated in by all of the members of the United Nations, for example, might get his attention. We would be doing something, not ignoring the suffering of the Syrian people, and therefore would still be in position to assuage our guilt. A military attack, I am afraid, is only going to stoke the fire of irrationality that al-Assad has already shown. He wants that kind of fight, and guilt is pushing us to play his game.

It doesn’t seem wise.

A candid observation …

Justice Matters

Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deuts... — Martin Luther King leaning on a lectern. Deutsch: 1964: Martin Luther King Português: Martin Luther King (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I traditionally abhor marching, the Martin Luther King -type march. It’s my opinion that there are too many marches and too little action.

The march planned this weekend, then, in Washington D.C., commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech doesn’t move me. Sorry. It just doesn’t. That thousands of dollars have been raised for this march, to be used to pay for porta-potties and parking privileges, and probably for noted people who will speak is troubling to me as well. All that money being spent for one or two days…when communities of black, brown and poor people are floundering …does not make moral sense to me.

But the work being done by a group devoted to empowering people and informing them about the social justice issues of today does excite me. The Samuel Dewitt Proctor Conference, Inc., (SDPC) named in honor of a civil rights icon, the late Rev. Dr. Samuel Dewitt Proctor, deserves attention.

SDPC has invited 50 students from historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to participate in teach-ins. They will learn about the social justice issued faced and addressed by Dr. King in 1963, but they will also be taught about the social justice issues facing black, brown, poor and marginalized people today: issues including mass incarceration and the lack of jobs for “the least of these.”

This group, through an initiative called the “To Be Free At Last Movement,” has created spaces for individuals and institutions to come together and forge partnerships that go across racial, ethnic, professional and denominational lines. That seems wonderfully Christian to me, reflecting an understanding of the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. That seems, as well, wonderfully indicative of an understanding of Dr. King’s desire to build a “beloved community,” where capitalism, militarism and imperialism are pushed aside as groups within the boundaries of the United States seek to make the way for justice to be meted out to those who need it most, but for whom it seems most elusive.

During this weekend, and in the days leading up to August 28, these students will learn what’s before them, and will plan a rally honoring A. Philip Randolph that will be held at Union Station in our nation’s capital. On Sunday, the torch of leadership will be passed to them by veteran civil rights and labor leaders including John Thomas and C.T. Vivian. They will also participate in a Town Hall Meeting with Judge Greg Mathis during the weekend’s events.

With as much as there is at stake for “the least of these,” it is comforting to feel like someone gets it and is being intentional about training people to carry on what was begun back in the days of slavery. A high note was reached by Dr. King when he gave his famous speech, but many people have said that his dream has become a nightmare. African-Americans are still struggling, as far too many African-American men are incarcerated, and young African-American men still cannot get employment. There is still an overlying spirit of racism that suggests that black people are bad people, unworthy of freedom and too apt to complain when they have access to anything they want.

In theory, perhaps, but in actuality, that is not the case, and that’s why the work of social justice as concerns “the least of these” is so important. It is important that young people be trained and strengthened even as they enter the fray. Obtaining social justice for and by “the least of these” is some of the most difficult work ever. Those who fight for it fight against power, which, we all know and as Frederick Douglass said, “concedes nothing without a struggle.” These young people are being sent into the lion’s den, so to speak, a lion’s den that people like Dr. King and Rev. Vivian and Rep. Lewis knew and know well. They are being equipped to carry on the work – with all of its attendant opposition – of people like the late Fannie Lou Hamer and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. They are being equipped to struggle not only for black, brown and poor people, but people in the LGBT community as well. Justice is a right of all American citizens. Dr. King said he looked forward to the day when all of America’s children, black and white, Christian and Jew …would be able to walk and work together. It hasn’t happened yet, and in the name of globalization, the spread of people needing justice has grown. Justice matters.

That an organization is willing to take on the behemoth task of equipping young people to carry on the work that Dr. King talked about is exciting. It is worth tapping into.

The march? Not so much.

A candid observation …

The President, Racism, and Trayvon Martin

The president finally said something about the outcome of the George Zimmerman second-degree murder trial.

He spoke honestly about what it is to be African-American, specifically an African-American male, in this country. He said that, 35 years ago, he could have been Trayvon Martin. And he was and is right.

Many whites really do not understand, nor do they believe, that African-Americans have the struggles we have had since …forever. Whites complain about us complaining; they say we “whine,” and perhaps some of us do; perhaps all of us do at certain times.

But we also live lives on the edge. I as a mother had “the conversation” with my son about how to act if stopped by police. I worried about him when he got to be a teen, more so than any parent of a teen worries. I had to warn him to be careful. I had “the conversation” about how it isn’t all that safe to be black in America, in spite of his protestations that perhaps I was being too dramatic. Times have changed, Ma, he said.

Well, maybe not so much. Or at least not enough. George Zimmerman remarked that Trayvon moved, walked, too slowly. A few years ago, a black youth, tabbed by police as “suspicious,” ran, was shot, and was killed. The criticism levied was that he had brought his death on himself; he shouldn’t have run.

So, Sybrina Fulton’s observation, her question and the questions of many African-American mothers, was spot on. What do we tell our sons? Should we tell them to run? Walk quickly? Stop? Walk slowly? What?

President Obama’s question, “If Trayvon Martin had had a gun, would he have been able to stand his ground?” struck an immediate note of painful doubt, borne by experience where black youth have been arrested for things that white youth have gotten away with. Surely he would not have been able to “stand his ground,” shoot and kill George Zimmerman, and gone home. He would have been accused and probably convicted of murder. Mark O’Mara‘s comment that if Zimmerman had been black, he wouldn’t have been arrested, was pure poppycock.

The comments heard this week after the Zimmerman verdict show how deep the divide is between black and white people in this country. Juror B-37 was completely infuriating as she talked about how “they” live and talk as she referred to Rachel Jeantel. There was absolutely no awareness of cultural differences and how they are different. In her comments could be heard patronization, scorn, and worse.

All of those comments, and more, have been the polarizing statements, not what the president said. They have been polarizing and maddening, and yet, in spite of the preparation for “riots,” there has been quiet grace, people practicing “hush-mouth grace,” trying to get over yet another wound caused by America‘s disease called racism.

Perhaps some people are calling the president’s words polarizing because they will not believe that what he said he has experienced as a black man is true. Americans live in denial when it comes to racism…When someone says something about which we are in denial, on whatever subject that may be, we instinctively get angry and defensive. Our denial is the only way we can survive in too many cases.

So I understand why people are angry, but isn’t it time that America get out of denial and start the work of healing? President Obama put the ugliness of what it means to be black in America on Front Street. He aired the ugly truth, out loud. People don’t want to hear that stuff.

But that stuff is our stuff, America’s stuff. The sooner we move it from the “stuff” bin in the back of our cultural and historical closets, the sooner we can clean that closet out, air out our differences …and be the nation we are supposed to be.

A candid observation …

Violence in the Streets Won’t Help

Wreaking havoc in the streets in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal is not wise, smart or needed.

It’s OK to be angry; it’s expected. But engaging in violence on the streets is counter-productive, to those who engage in it and to those who are affected by it.

I remember when, in the height of the Civil Rights Movement, riots broke out all over the country. I lived in Detroit. The riots began after police arrested a group of people who were in an after-hours club, celebrating the return of some men from Vietnam. Police apparently arrested everyone in the club. (http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_events.htm) After the police left with those who had been arrested, a couple of people, angry because the club was closed and they now no longer had someplace to go, broke a window at a clothing store which was next to the club. The riot erupted from there and lasted for 5 days. At the end of the riot, 43 people were dead, and close to 1200 were injured and nearly 7000 had been arrested.

The riot began on Clairmount Avenue. Clairmount was clearly in the black section of the city, and I knew the area well. My pediatrician’s office was blocks from there, on Clairemount and Dexter Avenue. What bothered me is that the rioters were angry but were taking their anger out on black folks! It was black business that was affected most. Black neighborhoods were devastated. After the riots were over, my parents took all of us (5 children) into the “war zone,” my father called it. The neighborhood was gone. Everything we had grown up seeing was gone, burned to the ground. It was as though war planes had come and dropped bombs.

It was counter productive then and it’s counter productive now. What we need, when there is injustice or something we perceive as being unjust, is strategy so that we can “speak truth to power.” We know that many youth in the streets are brilliant, even if their education has not been good. This is a time where their brilliance could be used to make a difference in the communities in which there is so much injustice. We need to figure out a way to stop black-on-black crime. Although the comments of Robert Zimmerman, George Zimmerman’s brother, sounded arrogant to me, I hated it that he could and did mention that scores of black youth are shot on a daily basis and nobody is ever arrested! That is a sad fact and it is up to us to change it. Anger is not a bad thing. It shouldn’t be suppressed, because suppressed anger converts into depression …We don’t need communities with any more depressed people …but we do need change and the anger that is “out there” now because of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin can be used to bring some real change in the lives of too many kids. I don’t care what the politicians say; there is a need for gun control in this nation, and there is a bigger need for gun control in black, brown and poor communities…and that’s only PART of the work we need to do.

On Sunday, the day after the Zimmerman verdict, I sat in a church service with a predominantly white membership. The occasion was celebration of Freedom Schools, an amazing program begun by Ella Baker in 1974 and taken up by Marian Wright Edelman, head of the Children’s Defense Fund. The CDF Freedom Schools program is a six-week program which takes kids in, infuses them with a love of and for themselves, uses college kids to teach them not only to read but to love to learn. Children come in with heads down, often, because of what they cannot do and leave with heads up, because they have learned that they can do more than they ever thought they could.

On Sunday, three of the college kids, teachers to the kids, called “Student Leader Interns,” spoke. All three, two African-American men and one Hispanic woman, spoke about the Zimmerman verdict and how it was a call to action. The Hispanic woman wept as she talked; I wept throughout the service. These three young people called for this to be a time for action, and they are right…not violence in the streets, but action so that those who are children now will have different struggles to deal with, not senseless gun violence in their communities, or laws that work to their detriment.

There is a song the Freedom School students sing, “Something Inside.” They sing the song every day. The opening words are, “Something inside so strong… I know that I can make it, though you’re doing me wrong, so wrong…” The hope, or my hope, is that those words “take” and become the propulsion for the kids and for those of us who love them …to become the agents for change we need in this world which has not been, let’s face it, fair when it comes to poor people and people of color.

Get off the streets, guys, and use that anger in a way that is going to produce positive change. Help turn a nation’s mourning …into dancing. It is so needed. Ella Baker said, when she was still alive, “Until the death of black men, black mothers’ sons, is as important as the death of white men, white mothers’ sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest…” We cannot rest, not yet. We have to value ourselves and our “sons” and the work needed is immense…and it is needed now…

A candid observation …

Abigail Thernstrom Wrong on “Obama’s Mistake in Trayvon Martin Case”

Abigail Thernstrom, vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote an article for CNN.com that shows a remarkable ignorance and insensitivity about the problem of race for African-Americans in this country. (http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/15/opinion/thernstrom-trayvon-martin-obama/index.html?hpt=hp_t4)

The author of Voting Rights – and Wrongs: The Elusive Quest for Racially Fair Elections, faulted President Obama for his statement on March 12, 2012, shortly after Trayvon Martin was shot, for saying, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon…When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.”

Whatever criticism one might have about President Obama, one cannot say that he has gone out of his way to “lean in” toward black people. In fact, as Thernstrom herself acknowledges in her article, the president effectively distanced himself from race and from “agitators” in his speech, “A More Perfect Union,” delivered in March, 2008. “The president’s role is not to be a racial agitator,” Thernstrom writes, “and the mark of a great civil rights leader has been a determination to reject the temptations of that approach…People such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson see white racism as endemic and elevate what’s wrong with America over all that is remarkably right,” she continues.

She praised Obama for “once again” separating himself from the voices of anger on Sunday, speaking after George Zimmerman had been found “not guilty” of second degree murder and manslaughter in the death of Trayvon Martin. “But if his Justice Department brings civil rights charges against Zimmerman, as the NAACP has urged, and which it is reportedly still considering, the ugly racial politics of this prosecution will be undeniable.”

Thernstrom says that if President Obama had a son, “he would have been born to extraordinary privilege and raised with all of the advantages of two very affluent and highly educated parents. He would have gone to private schools. His path in life would have been almost as dissimilar from Trayvon’s as one could imagine.”

All that is true…but what Ms. Thernstrom does not seem to understand is that African-Americans, no matter how affluent or well-educated, are profiled all of the time. If the president had a son, he would have been subject to such profiling, and anyone who is African-American knows that. Many prominent and well-educated African-Americans have been profiled and treated quite poorly by law enforcement officers. It is a sore spot, a blazing fire in the lives of African-Americans, and time has not made it any better.

Just because Mr. Obama is president does not mean that he has forgotten what it is to be black in America. Thernstrom says that “the president …wants disadvantages Americans to believe that he and his family are one of them…despite their life of unparalleled privilege.” The bottom line is, Ms. Thernstrom, is that at the end of the day, Obama IS one of them, and he knows it.

A couple of weeks ago in New Albany, Ohio, a young black man was walking in his neighborhood. Sixteen-year old Xvavier Brandon, an honor student, was walking to school, when, out of nowhere, he found himself confronted by police. “A gun was pointed at me and handcuffs were put on me, and that’s everything that’s done to a criminal,” Brandon said.

This kid was exempt from final exams, said an article in The Columbus Dispatch, because of good test scores at his high school. He was minding his own business, in a neighborhood where he had every right to be, walking to football practice. There had been in that neighborhood, however, some break-ins. Some residents were wary and nervous. So when a resident saw Brandon walking down his street, he got nervous and called the police, telling them that there was someone walking down the street who might have something to do with the break-ins.

Brandon was unaware that he had been viewed as suspicious, profiled, one might say. He continued to walk down the street, listening to music with his headphones in his ears. He didn’t know anything was wrong until he heard a loud shout and turned around to see a gun pulled and pointed at him.

He was told to drop to the ground and was handcuffed; he was asked if he had any jewelry on him or in his backpack. The young man, on the ground and completely humiliated, says he tried to turn his face so that if anyone saw him and the police officer, they wouldn’t recognize him. It was only after another officer turned up about 15 minutes later and recognized Brandon as a teammate of his son’s on the football team that the youth was released.

Brandon was not disadvantaged. New Albany is one of the most prominent neighborhoods in the Columbus metropolitan area. One might say that Brandon is privileged and well-educated, and yet, that did not keep him from being suspected of being someone a problem in that neighborhood, and accosted by police.

Because of preconceived ideas about black people, many, many African-Americans are profiled daily. Ms. Thernstrom said that “Obama’s hypothetical son and Trayvon would have shared the same brown skin. Would that have made them interchangeable?” The answer is, unfortunately, that in many cases, the answer is “yes.”

The president’s comment or observation that had he a son he would look like Trayvon was not, therefore, out of line, or indicative of a president who “surrendered to his political instincts.” He was speaking the truth as it is for African-Americans in this country. To be sure, there are a host of problems in the African-American community; the fact that African-American youth shoot each other at alarming rates, with hardly a whimper from the larger society – is a major issue, but that does not negate the fact that African-Americans are profiled daily and that yes, if the president had a son, he would be in danger of being profiled just because of the color of his skin.

The sad truth is that white racism is endemic, and it is something that nobody really wants to deal with or talk about. The result is that bad behavior keeps on happening. George Zimmerman profiled Trayvon and, regardless of what happened afterward, Trayvon is now dead. It’s nothing new, Ms. Thernstrom. It is part of the way African-Americans live…

A candid observation ….