The Human Question

Violence = Fear = Stupidity = Hate
To perpetuate any of these is to perpetuate them all.

How can this cycle be broken?
How do the wounds of history hurt?
Can we ever recover from attempted genocide?

I know this; human nature is static, it does not change with time, with race, with money, or religion. There are good people, bad people, and everything in between, of every color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, class, in every nation on this Earth, in the past, in the present, and into the future. This is human nature. Culture, community, and family change the way we express these qualities, but they do not change the qualities themselves. We are all intrinsically separate, prisoners within our own minds, unable to comprehend anything outside of our perception, and yet we are a part of a whole greater than ourselves, forever bound together in the ever shifting interdependent web of humanity. What happens when we tear this web with violence, fear, stupidity and hate? Can it ever be repaired?

I know of at least two tears in the web our existence, one is slavery and the other is the holocaust. In both of these atrocities we see the full destructive potential of violence, fear, ignorance, and hate, in all its horror, the worst that humanity is capable of. We don’t like to talk or think about these things, as they are revolting to decent human beings. We don’t like to admit to ourselves that as human beings we are no different than the victims or the perpetrators of these atrocities, so we imagine that we are somehow better than the people who did these things, different than the victims, but we are not better or different than anyone. Those of us who are descend from the victims cannot imagine we are somehow different from our grandparents who were directly victimized, and we live with a sense of vulnerability from that, which affects our outlook on life and our sense of self. It is a type of fear I don’t believe I can explain to someone who has not experienced it, a fear of history both the Black and Jewish communities understand all too well; to everyone else, I ask you to respect that we feel this way.

A feedback loop between racism and anti-Semitism has been created, because each community takes offense at the other’s defensiveness. We don’t talk about it, we don’t think about it, but we act on it unknowingly, and make it worse. Both communities are afraid of the past, and are often so blinded by the horrors they have been subjected to that they are unable to comprehend they are not the only ones who have been traumatized by history. The psychology surrounding how these things affect us is surprisingly similar; it’s just the triggers and sensitivities that are different. The Jewish community takes relatively minor crimes like theft and vandalism much more seriously than others because of what these things have lead to historically for us. Little things others would take lightly or brush off as a practical joke upset us, and our oversensitivity is sometimes perceived as being the result of racism, when it is, in fact, the result of our own historical sensitivity.

In my work with ACORN I was able to speak to many people on the other side of the city about their perceptions of us. To them our predominantly Jewish neighborhood is just another rich white neighborhood the police are over protective of. Years ago, Blacks and Jews had a thriving community right outside of downtown, in an area known as “The Hill”. It is my conviction that integration and cooperation makes us both stronger, and the old Hill exemplified this. Towards the middle of century the Jews moved from the Hill to Squirrel Hill, a still predominately Jewish neighborhood a few miles away. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about the logic behind this move, one of the more interesting ones is even on Kos; few, if any, of these stories recognize that the timing of the move coincided with the holocaust. I doubt the Black community recognized that at the time either, as they were too involved in their own struggles to realize what their Jewish neighbors were going through at the same time, and vice-versa.

We can’t undo history, but we can move forward being sensitive to the scars it’s left. Blacks aren't the only people on the planet who've been victims of systemic violence and are still sensitive to reminders of it. Obama was right in quoting Faulkner’s “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past,” the horrors of the past, and the destruction they wrought are still with us today, and this doesn’t just apply to Black/White racism. The solution is not something which can be implemented through politics, but something each one of us must do in our daily lives. If you want see an end to bigotry, no matter what color, religion, and/or sexual orientation, you are, WASP to Black transgender atheist, treat everyone with dignity & compassion, and be sensitive to things which may upset others for personal or historical reasons. A person who has been personally victimized may never be able to deal with people, places, or things which remind them of that traumatic experience. Some people have the strength to move past such things, but that is more than we have a right to expect from anyone. If that’s the reason for someone’s irrational behavior, let it go. Human beings don’t, and can’t, react rationally to certain things; we must accept that fact about ourselves and the people around us. To be insulted by someone else being an imperfect person is absurd, we are all imperfect.

The best thing that can be done for race relations is to give each other the benefit of the doubt; assuming prejudice and expecting that assumption to be disproven makes people uneasy and causes more prejudice. We are all imperfect and we all do things that unintentionally offend others, no one likes to admit this is true, that we could have done something wrong, so we carelessly assume that every time anyone seems to treat us differently than we would like it’s because they’re prejudice against us; racism its self has become the scapegoat for our inherent flaws as human beings. Whenever someone treats us differently than we would like, instead of examining our own behavior to see if we have done something offensive, or trying to imagine why they might have done that, we assume it’s because we’re Black, gay, Jewish, Muslim, etc. Then we act defensive and feel sorry for ourselves, instead of remembering that the other person is a flawed human being just like we are, that they make mistakes just like we do, and other people’s actions aren’t always about us. Let us all look in the mirror for a second before blaming others for their reactions to us. As Gandhi once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”, it is the only way to end racism and bigotry.

Take Time Out

When you see them
on a freeway hitching rides
wearing beads
with packs by their sides
you ought to ask
what's all the
warring and the jarring
and the
killing and
the thrilling
all about.

Take Time Out.

When you see him
with a band around his head
and an army surplus bunk
that makes his bed
you'd better ask
what's all the
beating and
the cheating and
the bleeding and
the needing
all about.

Take Time Out.

When you see her walking
barefoot in the rain
and you know she's tripping
on a one-way train
you need to ask
what's all the
lying and the
dying and
the running and
the gunning
all about.

Take Time Out.

Use a minute
feel some sorrow
for the folks
who thinks tomorrow
is a place that they
can call up
on the phone.
take a month
and show some kindness
for the folks
who thought that blindness
was an illness that
affected eyes alone.

If you know that youth
is dying on the run
and my daughter trades
dope stories with your son
we'd better see
what all our
fearing and our
jeering and our
crying and
our lying
brought about.

Take Time Out.

~Maya Angelou~