Justice, Elections, and Whiteness
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.
Be Still
My daughter is learning to nap. Again.
Not on a shoulder or on a lap.
But in her crib, with a stuffed wolf and a pacifier.
To fall asleep on her own;
To quiet her mind and her body and her mouth —
practicing, practicing, ready to talk;
To turn away for a few moments from the excitement of life;
To turn off the stimulation of the every day.
I am trying to help:
To set the scene, to rub her back, to gently say, again and again,
“You’re just going to sleep.”
I watch her work her way up to the edge, ready to leap into dreamland,
and then wake herself up, roll over, wriggle and jump and babble.
I’m not into letting her cry, and I’m not looking for advice.
She will get it.
And she comes by it honestly:
A mother who struggles to quiet her own mind and body (and mouth),
To turn off devices and turn away from Facebook,
To be still.
To know.
To rest.
Conscience and Choosing the Hill to Die On
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.
The Neighbors are Zombies Living in Maslow’s Basement!
Imagine the laid-back life of a zombie.
First of all, you’re dead. So. No more taxes! That’s for sure. And monthly bills will bother you no more.
Besides no more worries about death and taxes, look at how focused you are: your meaning and purpose have boiled down to searching for brains to eat. Admirable focus.
And zombies have lot’s of friends.
Being un-dead has its moments. You’re well beyond all the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Your only worry is getting shot in the head.
Director George A Romero, who directed “Night of the Living Dead,” is credited with having created the contemporary zombie. He has this to say: “I just took some of the mysterioso stuff of voodoo out of it, and made them the neighbors. Neighbors are frightening enough when they’re alive.”
I have a suspicion this goes a long way toward explaining the huge popularity of zombies. Perhaps they represent all the danger we see in others and in ourselves.
Chip and Dan Heath, marketing gurus, have come up with the term “Maslow’s Basement.” Their argument is that most marketing depends upon the bottom end of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “hierarch of needs” pyramid. In that model, there are three principles that motivate people to buy a product: fear, greed, or lust. These are base desires, Maslow’s Basement.
I suppose the high end of Maslow’s hierarchy, such things as morality, creativity, and spontaneity, as Maslow’s attic. (Zombies definitely live in the basement.)
Research shows that people report that other people are motivated by fear, greed and lust. But people self-report that their actions are motivated by empathy and compassion. In other words, we fear their neighbors, just as director George A. Romero claims.
The counter-intuitive fact may be that the self-reporting is correct. Meaning that all of us—including our neighbors—are more influenced by compassion and empathy than by Maslow’s Basement motivators of fear, greed, or lust.
We may be selling our species short! Perhaps our default mode is NOT to dwell in Maslow’s Basement. Perhaps our neighbors are not potential zombies.
Perhaps we all, as Oscar Wilde said, despite having our feet in the gutter, are looking at the stars.
The zombie apocalypse will not be televised. Because it’s not coming. Because most of us are inclined to treat our neighbors . . . not as zombies but as ourselves.
Please
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.
Where Is the I in Me? Emotions, Self and Soul
A child falls down and begins screaming. It’s common. You did it as a child. I did it.
What happens next?
For me, my parents said, “Get up off the floor! Boys don’t cry!”
When this happens at an upscale pre-school nearby, I’m more likely to hear, “You feel sad!” Or, “That’s frustrating, isn’t it?” Or, “You’re so angry!”
What’s the difference between the two parental responses?
Fact is, any time I cried as a child, I got the same response: “Boys don’t cry.”
Consequently, I learned to suppress my emotions rather than expressing them.
That child outside the pre-school, on the other hand, is being taught the difference between anger and sadness and frustration and fear and embarrassment. That child is developing a palate of emotions with nuance. That child is developing “emotional intelligence.”
Kids treated as I was learn that emotions need to be suppressed. We learn “men don’t do that.” We learn “women are hysterical.”
And so the cliches go, ‘round and around.
And so does the drinking and drugs and physical violence and abuse that come as a consequence of the suppression of emotion.
Now, allow me to add that my parents were preparing me for the world that they lived in: working class people learn to be very careful about emotion. You can’t let the boss see your emotion.
My father was in the Boiler Makers Union. You don’t cry among your fellow Boiler Makers. And you don’t get angry when the boss yells at you.
We were also farmers, and farmers in traditional communities aren’t allowed to get angry either. You can’t show anger when the bank won’t give you a loan . . . and on and on. It’s a life of oppression and suppression in which a show of emotion can be interpreted as dangerous.
That’s the world I was prepared for. Everyone has a story.
We call the result “stable.” But at what cost to both the individual and society?
Professor George Rowan did a study called “A Multicultural Investigation of Masculinity Ideology and Alexithymia.” It wasn’t a best seller, but the study tells us what we already have intuited: In many social groups, men are afraid to express emotion, especially in the presence of other men.
“Alexitymia” describes the result of this suppression: an inability to describe emotions; an inability to sustain social connections; and an inability to sustain interpersonal relationships.
The result is a socially-created sociopath. The result is a dangerous person created by the desire to live up to the social definition of masculinity.
That pretty well describes the men in my extended family.
Think for a moment about how many—and different—lives you lead. Partner. Friend. Manager. Co-worker. Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy . . .
We learn to use different vocabularies in these different niches. We learn to express our emotions differently. In addition, as the dad of two children in the GLBTQ alphabet soup, I know that the gender binary is an inconvenient fiction. Men aren’t from Mars and women from Venus. We come from many planets.
Yes, there are differences in the emotional lives—and the ability to articulate—that can be called gender difference. Still, we have an obligation to try to use our words, no matter what planet we’re from.
The Twentieth Century writer Anais Nin started writing when she was eleven. She continued, obsessively writing of her inner life, for more than sixty years. She said this:
I am a series of moods and sensations. I play a thousand roles. I weep when I find others play them for me. My real self is unknown . . . I create a myth and a legend, a lie, a fairy tale, a magical world, and one that collapses every day . . .
It isn’t that Nin had some super-complex emotional life. Or that she was mentally ill. Rather, she had the tenacity to pursue her many selves to the essence of the self. Much like the Buddha. And, like the Buddha, she discovered there isn’t one.
There is no constant self. The evidence is right before our eyes. And right behind them too. What we have instead is an ocean of sensation and reaction. We have emotions, some fleeting, some stable enough to be called moods. These add up to what we call a self. Yet it’s a fiction.
The dangerous and damaging idea behind this insistence on a stable self is what has been called “soul” in the Western tradition. That tradition tells us that the soul is incarnated. Lives in the flesh for a time. Then goes somewhere forever, still constituted as the self that lived on earth. In some traditions the soul is rewarded with heaven or hell. In others the soul blissfully resides . . . well, somewhere.
Such an idea is a dangerous illusion. The only constant is change. And the self and the soul it creates are stories we tell ourselves.
When we figure that out, the Buddha said we are enlightened. Anais Nin put it this way: “I see myself and my life each day differently. What can I say? The facts lie.”
Companions on the journey
“May beauty and passion and compassion be our companions. May we be fully alive. Amen.” ~Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie (Healing Places, 9/14/2014)
Keep the faith, beloveds.
Keep showing up.
Keep paying attention.
Keep speaking your truth.
Because we have changed,
the world is changed.
And you are not alone…
#blacklivesmatter
#FergusonOctober
#MoralMonday
#Not1More
#RaiseTheWage
#ClimateJustice
#bethechange
Razor Blades and Ebola: Processing Fear
Recently we have had a front row seat to observe low-level panic and smoldering fear. The headlines have been shrill:
“Ebola Spread to the US Inevitable.”
“Why America is Not Ready for an Ebola Outbreak.”
“My Daughter’s Ebola Scare.”
Polls show that forty-percent of Americans believe there will be an Ebola outbreak in the next twelve months, and twenty-five percent believe their family is in immediate danger. (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/08/26/3475698/americans-ebola-myths/)
Now, it’s probably a tip-off that the magazine with the vague but scary cover story “Ebola Spread to the US Inevitable” is called “Business Insider,” not “Physician Insider.” Furthermore, Ebola spreading to the US—inevitable in our interconnected world—does not mean that the scenes from Liberia will be repeated here.
But what’s a poor media source to do? It’s hard to catch our media-saturated, jaded eyes, and it’s all about “eyes on screens.” We all know “if it bleeds, it leads.” Fear sells.
Then there are the conspiracy theories, such as the emerging one that Al-Qaeda is spreading Ebola. I don’t doubt there will be—if there hasn’t already been—a headline such as “Biological Attack on US Soil Inevitable!” And I’m sure “ISIS” will be next on the conspiracy list.
I have provided a link to a great video that underlines how we misplace our fears.
The meme that toasters are much deadlier than sharks began at an aquarium in Cape Town, South Africa. The numbers are clear: 791 people killed by toasters worldwide, nine by sharks. But I suspect no one reading this will harpoon your toaster.
Fact is, far more people are killed by their toasters than by sharks. And far more Americans are crushed by their television sets than are killed by terrorists. Yet we fear sharks and terrorists. We fear Ebola but not Diabetes.
Baseless panic can change the way we live. Take, for example, Halloween. Once, Halloween was a community event. Kids ran around the neighborhood in the dark collecting homemade cookies and candy apples.
Then reports spread that people were putting razor blades in apples. Hospitals opened their doors offering to x-ray apples. Then reports went around that people were poisoning apples. And soon churches began to sponsor neighborhood Halloween parties so that kids wouldn’t have to go out in the dark.
Fact is, there has never been a single instance of a razor blade in an apple. There HAVE been two instances of poisoned apples given to kids at Halloween. In both cases it was a parent trying to kill their child and disguise the murder by pretending the poison came from Trick-or-Treating.
Fear.
Speaking of Halloween, how ‘bout those haunted houses?
Novelist Neil Gaimon says,
Fear is a wonderful thing, in small doses. You ride the ghost train into the darkness, knowing that eventually the doors will open and you will step out into the daylight once again. It’s always reassuring to know that you’re still here, still safe. That nothing strange has happened, not really. It’s good to be a child again, for a little while, and to fear—not governments, not regulations, not infidelities or accountants or distant wars, but ghosts and such things that don’t exist, and even if they do, can do nothing to hurt us.
An interesting insight from a writer who creates fear in small doses for a living. Could it be that haunted houses and scary rides function as relief valves? We don’t have to worry about terrorists when we are in a haunted house. Or looking for a ghost. (Though I’m quite sure some haunted houses will feature scary terrorists this Halloween season.)
It’s more comfortable to fear a shark than a toaster, isn’t it?
But what about Ebola? Like razor blades in Halloween apples, Ebola feels tangible, doesn’t it? Blood. Death. Something we can really sink our fear into.
As we’ve seen, it’s difficult to get a large number of people worked up about global climate change. Psychologists argue that the reason lies in how our brains picture danger. We can picture a tornado, so we are afraid of it, but when asked whether tornados or asthma kills more people, most people say tornadoes. That’s far from true.
I used to live near the Gulf coast and spent a lot of time on the beach. There are sharks out there. People do get bit. But getting an arm or leg torn off or getting swallowed just doesn’t happen. Even people who spend time in the water where sharks live are three hundred times more likely to be killed by a deer than a shark. But Jaws feels more scary than Bambi.
I like what entrepreneur Seth Godin has to say about fear: “Worry is not preparation, and anxiety doesn’t make you better . . . We dance with the Resistance, we don’t make it go away. You cannot make it go away—you cannot make the voice go away, you cannot make the fear go away, because it’s built in. What you can do is when it shows up, you say ‘Welcome! I’m glad you’re here. Let’s dance about this.’
Godin is getting at an important truth: Courage is not the opposite of fear. Courage is what you are able to do despite the fear.
Fear sells. Reason is slow and difficult. Chances are there will be frightened people attacking Liberians. It’s time for some courage and wisdom.
Beliefs, A-Liefs, and Seeing the Way Things Are
Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.
Alexander Pope
![By Kennybozzle (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://localhost/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Willis_Tower_-_Skydeck.jpg)
By Kennybozzle (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
One of the major tourist attractions in Chicago is the Willis Tower, formerly the Sears Tower and also formerly the tallest building in the world. Upon reaching the 103rd floor, visitors have the opportunity to walk out on “The Ledge,” glass boxes that reach four feet past the outer walls of the building.
More interesting than the magnificent view is the reactions of visitors. Walking out onto clear glass 103 stories up is scary. And fun. And exhilarating. And some simply can’t bring themselves to do it.
An ad for the building says, “Get out on the ledge if you dare!”
Now, the glass floor consists of three layers of half-inch thick glass and is designed to hold five tons. You’re not going to fall through the floor. So. What scares people?
Tamar Gendler, Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Yale, has named what is happening an alief. An alief is something that hits you out of the blue. Out of the recesses of your psyche. You “a-lieve” from the gut. Your a-lief says, “Freeze! You’re going to fall.”
You “be-lieve” just the opposite. Your mind, your reason, tells you that The Ledge is well-engineered and is there merely as a thrilling curiosity.
I find the believe/alieve distinction valuable. (In a be-lieve sort of way.) Feeling you are going to fall through the glass floor is gut, immediate. You can reason yourself out of it. You may even bring your frozen legs to carry you out onto the glass. You may even laugh at yourself for being afraid. But if human beings didn’t have the alief reaction, The Ledge would be a waste of money, not a major tourist draw.
Poet Alexander Pope formulated the point: “Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined.”
I belong to a clergy group made up of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and humanist me. We do public debates, trying to model ways that religious dialogue can be done without resort to anger and name-calling. After expressing my agnosticism, I’m often asked something along the lines of, “If you were bleeding and dying by the side of the road, wouldn’t you pray?”
I answer as honestly as I can. Yes, I would pray. Not because doing so proves the existence of supernatural forces, but because I grew up in a religious tradition that taught intercessory prayer. I don’t believe it, but I will always a-lieve it.
This twig was bent by fundamentalism.
And, by the way, I’m not going out on that glass floor, either.
Good Enough: 10 Tips for Sucking Less
Recently Christine Organ (a blogger for this UU Collective) published a lovely post on “good enough” parenting in this competitive age. Frankly, as someone who feels like “good enough” parenting is pretty much the top of my game, I appreciated the reminder that plenty of other folks are perfectly fine parents without living up to their own—and perhaps other people’s—expectations.
But I think we can take this a step further. In a world where we are constantly exhorted to “dream big” and “pursue excellence,” maybe it’s time to admit that there are all sorts of areas of our lives that might benefit from a realistic dose of “good enough.” Once we accept that we are unlikely to win a Nobel prize, solve world hunger or marry a movie star, we might consider the possibility that for certain things, at certain moments, we would be just as well off striving for sucking less, rather than magnificence.
Here then, are ten tips for sucking at life just a little less. Please post additional suggestions in the comments below.
- Procrastinate better. We all know that there are some projects we’re just going to put off as long as possible. Sad but true. But it is possible to be more productive in one’s procrastination. Choose cleaning the kitchen or doing laundry over solitaire or leaving nasty comments on YouTube.
- Be more creative when you yell at your kids. Yeah, excellent parents don’t yell. If you’re already excellent this post is not for you. For the rest of us, it would be good enough to holler “If you two don’t stop bickering I am going to need to claw my eyes out! Either knock it off, do it somewhere I can’t hear, or find me new eyeballs!”
- Decide earlier in the day what you’re not going to manage to get around to, and let those expecting your efforts know that they’re going to have to wait. Bonus points if said informative email does not contain the phrase “Hold your freakin’ horses.”
- Eat healthier junk food. Yeah, OK, kale chips. Maybe. But really I’m thinking along the lines of darker chocolate, take-out that contains vegetables, dried fruit instead of candy. Unless the candy is dark chocolate, which is a health food.
- Take a walk. For bonus points, bring along a kid or a dog. Or not, and have a few minutes to yourself. I’m sure going to the gym or yoga class is excellent, but getting out for a stroll for a few minutes sucks less than sitting all day and all night.
- With your spouse/partner, agree to give each other a free pass on one annoying habit apiece. Excellent people fix their flaws. Good enough people pursue forgiveness.
- Find something you enjoy so much you can’t wait to do it, and treat that as a spiritual practice. Sure, meditation and prayer are excellent, but singing in the shower or playing tennis is pretty good. Good enough.
- Fix something little. The world is full of really huge problems. Climate change, economic injustice and racism are not going to get solved today, most likely. Find something small you can do, and celebrate that.
- Don’t obsess over arbitrary standards of what is “enough.”
- See #9 above.