Violence Is Never the Answer

Violence is never the answer—it can only escalate the problem.

There is a systemic problem in this country built upon our unique democratic origins wherein specific ‘human rights’ were granted to citizens as a constitutional right (upheld by law)—but citizenship was reserved only for white males.  The devastation that is now threatening to engulf our nation has its origin in the institutional enslavement of humans to work and build this nation to world prominence (primarily in the South).  Imported mainly from Africa, the enslaved were deemed ‘property’, denied rights—even denied the recognition of full humanity.  White  American males were ‘in control’ and automatically believed in their ‘superiority’.  It became an embedded belief.  A belief leads to assumptions which dictates behavior, producing habits which finally become entrenched. That superiority belief has its roots in the law of the jungle—‘Might Means Right’.

Slavery was abolished and laws were changed . . . but the systematic acceptance of superiority and dominance did not.  Blacks were given voting rights with the fantasy of equality, but widespread discrimination was the norm—and the myth of white supremacy in the minds of many men continued.

[a side note that is relevant:  Women also were considered property, inferior and denied rights.  Only in the 20^th Century, after years of struggling for change, women for the first time were ‘given’ the right to vote and the appearance of equality but continued to be controlled by the illusion of their ‘privileged position of wife’. . . They didn’t need to be  ‘out in the world’ they were being ‘protected’ by husband.  To this day women are still denied full pay and equal authority.]

What I’m saying is that a deeply imbedded attitude is largely unseen and often unrealized.  Attitudes permeate cultures and take many generations to dislodge. 

There is just cause for the anger, rage, and pain in the black community.  I support demonstrations, and while the majority of protestors are concerned citizens, these events are opportunities for outsiders to create mayhem which degenerates into riots.  In this particular crusade too many rallies become destructive.  There is never a just cause that can validate violence.  The violence only justifies in the minds of white bigots that they are right to oppress and call in lethal weapons . . . and everything escalates until damage, destruction and death follows; obscuring the valid accusations of injustice.   Violence cannot be used as a tool against injustice because it also is unjust.

The killing of black men in the name of law enforcement is a travesty—and it truly happens.  All reasonable people will agree.  But to turn a demonstration into burning, smashing, destroying and an orgy of looting is equally despicable.

Our dictator; excuse me, our president who clearly thinks he is the lawfully appointed ultimate example of the Supreme white supremacist has chosen to militarize the streets of our cities in response—this is a cycle in which there are no winners!

Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and the Suffragettes knew that the only formula for success in the fight against injustice is to put the self at risk in front of the offending party and be willing to pay the price, whatever it is.       –as did Jesus

I refer you to a prayer from Teilhard de Chardin:  ‘Trust  in the Slow Work of God’  (see google)

Reparation

Reparation has become a thorny issue; can it be explored rationally without immediately jumping to one side or the other?  Let’s begin with a simple definition—reparation: making amends for a wrong, by money or otherwise helping (offering assistance).  The question being asked in America: ‘Are members of the black race entitled to compensation for the injustice of slavery’?

Before continuing, I take a brief side trip in history.  For eons slavery was a norm for society, usually a rather local issue.  To quote the International Slavery Museum: “For more than 2000 years people in many different parts of the world forced their fellow humans into slavery.”  

The character of slavery changed as capitalism emerged in Northern Europe in the 16^thCentury; it gave rise to the institutionalization of slavery.  Rather than remeining local, vast numbers of people were captured, gathered and shipped far away. 

The majority of those enslaved were from central and western Africa where slavery was historically widespread.  The captives were sold to Western European slave traders and shipped to America under horrible conditions and then offloaded and sold at auction.  This became known as ‘the transatlantic slave trade.’  It went on from the 1600’s to the 1900’s.  Only in the 1800’s in Europe and America did it come into question as a moral and political issue.

Denmark was the first nation to ban the import of slaves in 1792, becoming law in 1807.  The French colonies abolished slavery in 1848 and in the 1860’s the issue of slavery brought America to the bloody Civil War.  On January 1, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves.

The slaves were technically freed, but the injustice caused by slavery continued through decades of segregation and the resulting social inequality has never been directly addressed. The issue of reparation asks that we as a nation address it.  Some point to Holocaust survivors being financially compensated—but that is a different issue, those are individuals who experienced direct suffering whereas there are no longer people alive who experienced direct suffering from slavery.  Yet, just looking around you will see it is indisputable that blacks are still suffering societal injustice.  Some individuals have succeeded against the odds, but the majority has not.  

It does not make sense nor is it reasonable to consider direct financial payment to descendants of slaves from several generations ago, but it would make sense to compensate for the societal injustice with a societal response by providing free education or skills training to any low income black family who requests it.

This is a call for a consciousness change to recognize the decades long injustice and offer assistance—reparation—for the wrong that had been done. 

Of Human Progress

There is meaning to life.  Throughout time consciousness is expanding toward a goal and humanity is progressing.  Most human progress is so gradual it goes unnoticed in day-to-day affairs.   Some even argue there is no progress—but if we make it a point to look carefully at where we are now as compared to where we have been the picture changes.

Let’s begin with considering that in primitive man, the earliest signs of awareness and consciousness were directed toward nature and survival.  His identity was not personal but rather as part of a tribe or clan wherein all outsiders were considered ‘enemy’.  At what point was there a growing longing for ‘something more’?  We can’t see back that far but get hints from stories and myths carried forward in the oral tradition (such as Gilgamesh and various Creation stories). 

Then a phenomenon occurred during the first millennium BCE, roughly between 800-200 BC, there was a change in human consciousness throughout most of the inhabited world.  It was the period of time in which rigid and closed tribalism gave way to dynamic human interaction that became civilization as we know it.  That period is now called the Axial Age, so named by the philosopher Karl Jasper in 1870 as that period represents a pivotal change in human thought with the birth of philosophy and all major religions.  Jasper wrote: “The spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea and Greece.  And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today.”

That in itself seems curious . . . there was no intercommunication between these remote areas, yet it was almost as if it were ‘time for humanity to wake up’.  What caused the awakening? . . . the seed to break out of its shell, the butterfly to emerge from its chrysalis? . . . Clearly the time had arrived!  Was it the invisible hand of God guiding humanity to the next step needed for civilization to emerge?  Or was it simply what was required by the circumstances of having become more densely packed?  Or was it individual persons thinking more deeply about the ‘something’ of their longing?  Or was it all of that together?  Whatever the forces at work, it happened; there was a consciousness change that brought deep questions, a searching for meaning and the discovery of selfhood apart from ‘tribe’.

Now, lets look at what might be considered human progress.  It is easy to acknowledge technological advances—things that didn’t exist but once discovered changed humanity and the world:  the humble loom, printing press, steam engines, the sewing machine, electricity, telegraph & telephone, airplane, computer . . . all introduced by the human.

Those are things produced by human ingenuity and are readily accepted as examples of progress because of the direct benefit they give.  The human progress is less obvious, moves at a slower pace and is resisted because it comes at a cost and demands change.  But we can chart its progress:  Where there was once unrestrained use of brute force to overpower neighboring territories to rape and plunder and lay claim . . . that mitigated to a less obvious conquest mentality of explorers planting a national flag and ‘claiming’ a newly discovered ‘primitive lands’, pushing back or enslaving the natives . . . which changed again with developed nations ‘colonizing’ territories, treating the natives a bit more kindly and ‘civilizing’ them while harvesting whatever valuable resources the land had to offer (not exactly embracing humanitarian compassion but baby steps to ‘less cruel’) . . . and now, colonization is frowned upon and technically abandoned in the 20^th Century—the increasing respect for human rights shows advancement.

Social change is slow and hard fought but when evaluated through the eye of justice, and given time, we come to the right conclusion.  Slavery was an institution since the beginning of time, yet in the mid-1800, following a bloody war it was finally acknowledged by society that slavery was incompatible with civilization.  That view, however, did not extend to discrimination which took another 100 years to reach public awareness as unjust and was overthrown without violence by way of peace marches led by Martin Luther King Jr.  There is so much more yet to be done but this gives evidence to humanity’s progress.  In one of Dr. King’s inspiring speeches he spoke these words:  “The Arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  That is the nature of human progress—humankind choosing to move toward Justice, Truth and Love is the expansion of consciousness.

Other examples:

            --endorsing education for all, not just the privileged

            -- realizing an obligation to care for the sick and wounded

            -- philanthropic concern for those in need

            --the UN formulating the Declaration of Human Rights

            -- using diplomacy and striving to end war

These give evidence to human progress—to become less cruel and more compassionate, to move toward positive values . . . it will never be complete and never absolute but progress is measured by humans collectively choosing for the good.