Brits By the Boatload

When that boatload of Brits showed up in Massachusetts, they quite literally considered themselves god’s gift to the continent. Subsequently, they decided which religions were acceptable; which ethnicities and countries of origin were acceptable; who could vote; who would be enslaved; who lived and who died.

This norm has functioned continuously since, letting some in and refusing entrance to others. This normative power is what Professor Ignatiev meant by “white” in her book How the Irish Became White.

A look at the election results this past Tuesday demonstrates that white skin and male gender are still the tickets to power in the United States, the power of whiteness.

That boatload of British Anglo Saxon Protestants declared themselves the baseline. The arbiters of all things worthy. And they vote.

US history shows that some groups were able to get into the club relatively easily. Descendants of German immigrants, for example, now outnumber descendants of British immigrants. George Washington was half German, though it took until 1890 for a full-blooded German to be elected to national office . . .

Germans became white in 1890.

Professor Ignatiev argues that the Irish became white by becoming more racist than the British and Germans. One piece of evidence: is it a coincidence that the great haters on Fox News are generally of Irish extraction?

Whiteness. It’s a club.

Tuesday’s election demonstrated that whiteness hasn’t given up. I suspect it will become more overt in the next several years.

Here’s a hero many haven’t heard of: A. Philip Randolph. Randolph was African American, born in 1889. He organized a union called the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. One of the first African American unions. He was also president of the Negro American Labor Council and vice-president of the AFL-CIO.

Whether it’s right or wrong, the Marxist analysis of race that Randolph believed is very simple: the ruling class (read: that boat load of Brits) uses racial prejudice to divide and conquer the poor. In other words, Marxists say that “whiteness”—and allowing some into the club of whiteness—is a manipulative tool for controlling the poor, the majority.

True or untrue, this analysis of race is why humanists, Unitarians, Universalists, and other progressives were once at the forefront of anti-racism work and nowadays are not. True or untrue, the Marxist story marked a path that could be usefully followed.

A. Philip Randolph was a Socialist. An atheist. And a humanist. He signed the second Humanist Manifesto in 1973. (As did Betty Friedan.) The second manifesto was a child of the more explicitly socialist first Humanist Manifesto, written when the New Deal was a heady dream.

Humanism has socialism in its DNA. After all, if you believe in the inherent worth and dignity of each person, it’s hard to argue that “white” America and its engine, Capitalism, offer a level playing field. Facts on the ground point the other direction. Far from being a statement of individualism, the inherent worth and dignity of every person implies communal action toward communal good.

After all, after you’ve asked how a nation can create a level playing field, you have gone down the road of redistributive justice. The most extreme of un-individualistic ideals.

There are two ways to redistribute wealth: revolution and taxes. Sane people tend to suggest that taxes are the way to go . . .

But back to A. Philip Randolph, who helped plan (along with nonviolence theorist, gay rights activist, and socialist Bayard Rustin) the 1963 March on Washington, where MLK gave his greatest speech. That march was the culmination of a way of thinking outside the norm.

And that was then. Isn’t it almost unthinkable in today’s US? Where would the Civil Rights Movement have been without labor halls to speak in and union money?

We are the stories we tell ourselves. “True” or not, some narratives bear richer fruit than others. The idea that race is a construct used by the oppressors to oppress was the fuel of the Civil Rights Movement. Nothing since has borne so much fruit.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

A Phillip Randolph put it this way:

Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.

As of this writing, Maine nurse Kaci Hickox is under house arrest for her resistance to what she considers a fear-based, anti-scientific, and politically-motivated quarantine.

In 2012, the US military experienced a odd occurrence: for the first time in US history during time of war, more active duty troops died as a result of suicide than combat.

Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhiseng disappeared in 2009. He reappeared recently, in prison, with no charges against him, and no release date.

Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer, risked torture, imprisonment, and death fighting in the courts for the rights of women and children in Iran.

All these stepped out of line. They disobeyed their governments. Some disobeyed the dictates or their religions. Most are disliked by a majority of their fellow citizens. Some of them chose death rather than a life of guilt and shame.

Why do people do things that sometimes get them killed; sometimes imprisoned; sometimes demoted or fired or exposed to the scorn of millions of their fellow citizens?

What drives all of this crazy, counter-intuitive, behavior?

Conscience. And the mental punishment inflicted by conscience, guilt.

Conscience. The feeling that some actions cannot be condoned, no matter how “legal” they are.

The feeling that enables we human beings to take actions for the good of others rather than ourselves.

The Great Leap into Sapiens

Why do human beings have a conscience? Isn’t a conscience merely a drag on getting ahead?

Henry David Thoreau said in his handbook for rebellion, Civil Disobedience: “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”

Despite the fact that Thoreau’s thoughts have become the template for those acting on conscience, notice that word “machine.” Thoreau saw conscience as an individual attribute against a deterministic mass. But it isn’t always, is it? Sometimes, as in the case of Edward Snowden, the machine is ambiguous.

We still don’t know why homo sapiens sapiens—the “wise man,” as scientists have (perhaps over-confidently) called our species—began to have a conscience. My vote for best hypothesis goes to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar.

Dunbar theorizes that human language developed as a result of the need to socially interact in larger groups. Neanderthal, for example—also known as homo sapiens neanderthalensis—traveled in very small bands—and were for the most part inbred. They didn’t use a whole lot a gray matter figuring out what other people were thinking or trying to get along with an extended group.

They didn’t use their words much, and so didn’t have a need for a great many. They probably didn’t have much of a conscience, either.

Navigating the deep and often stormy waters of multiple relationships, however, required a good many words and concepts. And this may be why the children of homo sapiens sapiens—the “wise man”—developed complex language. It was a matter of talking about it or dying. It was also a matter of considering multiple goods in the gray shades that human existence swims in.

Emotions are in the gut. But it takes gray matter and complex language to make the complex decisions a Solomon or an Edward Snowden have to make.

The Critical Mind

Philosopher Peter Singer says there are two types of conscience—the traditional and the critical. This goes some way into an important distinction. Most people have that traditional form of conscience. It’s the stuff of traditional religions. It’s the level of confidence in others that allows us to work in offices and live in communities. Almost all human beings have it.

The people who get the Nobel Peace Prize are of the critical variety. A Malala or Shirin Ebadi. They have considered the arguments of the majority. They have heard the arguments of traditional religion. And they have decided to act for a greater good.

The right thing to do isn’t always clear. Human governments aren’t faceless machines of conformity, as Thoreau appears to have thought. The individual isn’t always correct. (The deluded decision-making of Timothy McVeigh demonstrates that point.) Yet, homo sapiens sapiens gets wiser only though the actions of brave individuals risking themselves and thinking way outside the box.

It is that accumulation of brave thinkers that may, someday, made us truly wise.

Tonight we stood together around candles that marked the spot where his body was found this morning.  Tonight we poured out our stories and our songs, our prayers and our tears. Tonight we reminded each other that we are loved and loving, that our lives have value and are valued by each other.   Tonight we said good-bye to a good friend and a committed organizer.

So tomorrow, when you read in the paper or hear in the news that another black teenage boy was found shot to death in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, stop. Please stop and send love to his family, to his friends, to the community that cared for him, cares for him still.

Please stop and let your heart be broken, broken open at least a little bit, with compassion for a child who was loved, will always be loved, and for those who love him. Mark the passing of a dear soul light who shined brightly in this world and made it a better place.

If you pray, pray for us, pray with us.
Grieve with us. Mourn with us.

And then – organize.

Organize with us to heal this world, to change it into a place where 15 year olds are not killed by guns — are not killed at all. Make George proud.