The Time for Radical Humanism is Now....

My soul honors your soul.

I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides.

I honor the light, love, beauty and peace within you,

because it is also within me.

In sharing these things we are united, we are the same,

we are one.

- Unknown

The time for Radical Humanism is now. Every day that we wait to practice it, more lives are afflicted rather than affirmed and each of us becomes just a bit more wounded by the world not healed by it.

What is Radical Humanism, you ask? Essentially, it's a doctrine of my own imperfect formulation, a reflection of my evolving (and hopefully maturing) worldview, a distillation of the learnings with which life has gifted me both voluntarily and involuntarily and a concept that I'd like to share with the world in hopes that it touches and enriches the lives of all who encounter it.

(It's also not to be confused with the concept of the same name developed by M.N. Roy in the mid-20th century, which was primarily political - democratically so - in its focus.)

Let's start with Humanism and then I'll share how I got to the Radical construct that I'm now trying to preach. According to that modern bedrock source of knowledge Google, Humanism is "an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems."

Well, I'm good with most of that except for the "solely rational ways of solving human problems" part because I'm not sure that we humans are capable of solely rational ways. And I believe that "solely rational" crowds out the often higher dimensions of life - like love - which are not always (or ever) purely rational.

In a sense, my concept of Radical Humanism is similar to what that other fundamental fount of modern knowledge, Wikipedia, suggests of the Religious Humanism and Ethical Culture movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, that they were "an integration of humanist ethical philosophy with religious rituals and beliefs that centre on human needs, interests, and abilities." Further, with respect to Ethical Culture, Wikipedia notes that it was "religious in the sense of playing a defining role in people's lives and addressing issues of ultimate concern." In a sense they were non-theistic religions, which is a core component/tenet of Radical Humanism (for reasons that I'll explain momentarily).

Originally I was drawn to Humanism because of its emphasis on our common/shared humanity rather than an idiosyncratic religious orthodoxy that would separate us. Let's face it, in our world, there are literally hundreds of ways to conceive of and worship God or Allah or YHWH or Hu or Brahman or Olorun or....

So starting with a religious premise seemed limiting to me. What I've come to believe is that we need to get beyond or rise above religion as we know it in the modern world, as it constrains and divides us. Think about it: so much of the strife in our world has a religious cast to it, regrettably. For some reason we are not able to allow each other to see and follow God differently ... so we need to find a way to get beyond this limitation so that we can celebrate, affirm and enhance life for all of God's/Allah's/YHWH's/etc. children. Before we are Christian or Hindu or Buddhist or Jewish or Muslim or ... we are human beings and this fundamental equality-in-commonality must be what we value most.

But this does not mean that I favor a solely secular or rational basis for our relations, either. Failure to acknowledge the unique personality-spirit-soul in each of us is a mistake, I believe, because, again, it limits us. When I acknowledge the unique life force that is within you - beyond just the shell of your body - I have a more holistic and thus higher/more profound appreciation for you, for your very being.

I've come to believe that the Hindus have captured this beautifully in the concept of Namaste, which Rita Geno describes in her Yoga Journal article "The Meaning of Namaste" as representing "the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra. The gesture (of Namaste) is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another." We are more than flesh, we are soul, too, and perhaps even more so....

So, so far I've gotten to getting beyond a sole focus on rationality and/or religion as the basis for how to relate to each other to honoring the whole of our unique humanity (i.e., both the body and soul in each of us) and now for a final component (at least at this juncture of my refining this concept): Passionate Proactivity.

I have come to believe that we need to be passionately proactive in honoring, nurturing, celebrating and protecting each other's humanity. It's not enough for us to wish each other well - although this would certainly be a huge step forward - because this is largely passive. In order to affect real change in our relations and thus in our world, we must act and, in fact, be proactive in honoring, nurturing, celebrating and protecting each other's unique humanity.

It's this holistic positive intent - and, indeed, commitment to action - that then becomes our primary spiritual and behavioral focus. Not only do I have to treat you well actively - which is the physical/behavioral component of this weltanschauung - but I have to be positive in my intent toward you and your soul as well. 

(For example, we've all known situations in which, though we've behaved acceptably toward another, we've actually had malice or certainly less than positive feelings in our hearts while doing so.  This is why the must be positive spiritual intent as well: because these situations represent missed opportunities in that we could have acted/behaved even better toward others had our spirit been right/positive.)

This positive intent/soul force is in fact a tenet of three major (Eastern) religions - Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism - as formulated in the concept of Ahimsa, which means "not to injure." As Wikipedia notes, "Ahimsa's precept of 'cause no injury' includes one's deeds, words, and thoughts." So, to practice Radical Humanism, not only must we refrain from violence physically, emotionally and psychically, but we also must proactively exhibit this positive intent in our thoughts, words and deeds.

So what is Radical Humanism? The belief that we are called to honor, nurture, celebrate and protect the unique person and personality in each of our fellow human beings by being passionately and proactively positive in both our intent and our behavior, our physical force and our soul force.

But what's radical about this, you ask?

Look at our world and how we actually behave. In this sad, violent and too often dismaying time and place in our journey as a human race, conscious, proactive positivity is indeed a radical act. And that it should be all-consuming - our 'True North,' our guiding and animating principle in life, etc. - is as well. Virtually every one of us can agree that we need to behave better toward each other, but few of us see this as our guiding/default approach to life and to all of those other souls - especially those who may be unknown or different or in other ways represent "The Other" - with whom we find ourselves on this shared journey.

And, finally, some of you will want to discount Radical Humanism and say that it's just Love. Maybe. But since we clearly don't know how to do a good job of loving each other, let's try practicing Radical Humanism instead....

When we look at modern man, we have to face the fact that

modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit,

which stands in glaring contrast 

to his scientific and technological abundance.

We've learned to fly the air like birds,

we've learned to swim the seas like fish

and yet we haven't learned to walk the Earth as brothers and sisters.

 - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Seeing a different world and seeing the world differently....

Not everything can be changed;

but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

- James Baldwin, "As Much Truth As One Can Bear," 1962

Like a moth to a flame I return to James Baldwin periodically, to nourish my soul and steel my backbone, and to emerge, not burned, but fired up both to live passionately in the pursuit of a more perfected reality and also to use this English language to express, deeply, indelibly, accurately, eternally.

And so it is again that I have returned to JAB - the "A" standing for "Arthur" - in this case through the impressive prism of the The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, an outstanding collection deftly edited and introduced by Randall Kenan.  These writings, a diverse compendium of fiction, non-fiction, book reviews, profiles and letters, give us not only a sense of Baldwin's evolution, both personal and literary, but also of a journey through an elevated existence, one raised by the insight and unparalleled eloquence of this singular author and, really, writer.

In the Introduction of the book, subtitled "Looking for James Baldwin," Kenan marvels at the sheer range of his skill and craft: Baldwin wrote fiction (at both short story and novel length), he wrote non-fiction, he wrote book reviews (initially to give himself "discipline" in his writing), he wrote travelogues, he wrote (biographical) profiles, he wrote letters.  He wrote.

And because he wrote we can all both see a different world as well as see the world differently....

Because of his profound gift, I am also inspired to attempt to record glimpses of my own journey, snapshots along the path, so to speak.  I don't pretend to do so as inimitably as the great James Baldwin, but in his honor and inspiration: I write because, through him, I've come to understand and feel what writing can do, can mean and can evoke ... and so I write.

And I regret.  I regret that I really (re-)discovered and began to appreciate Baldwin at mid-life, too engrossed in my own experience to be guided by his in my youth.  I regret that I can only meet the man in his prose and a few videos and documentaries about his life: certainly he was even more in the flesh.

And I regret that, as he paid similar homage to Shakespeare, I will never write like Jimmy wrote ... but I'm so thankful for the inspiration to try.  Not so much to write like he wrote - I'll never reach that unclimbable peak - but to discover my own singular voice and, in so doing, to share with the world my unique perspective.  I'll never speak James Baldwin's language, but I can achieve greater mastery of my own....

I always have to recover after reading Baldwin, literally to take a break to give my mind and soul an opportunity to digest and recuperate.  Reading Baldwin is like starving and then being given free rein at a banquet: invariably one overindulges and needs to be resuscitated, to take some time to come down from the sugar rush of incredibly savory fare (some of which itself can be based on topics most unsavory, actually) and to retreat back into the real world from that glimpse of the eternal one that one experiences in a Baldwin-induced thrall.

As he noted in the 1962 essay, "As Much Truth As One Can Bear," "What the writer is always trying to do is to utilize the particular in order to reveal something much larger and heavier that any particular can be."  And so it is with his own writing: through his gift, invariably we are moved to grapple with the "something much larger and heavier" and in so doing are both ennobled and enervated, raised and yet laid low, by the profundity of his observation, insight and prescription.  I always emerge from Baldwin more passionate and committed ... and then I need to go lay down for a while to prepare for the reengaged and elevated battle....

A large part of the reason that I rest is to gain the strength to address the profundity of his observation and the eloquence of its elucidation.  His framing of issues and opportunities is immaculate, and his address of them is raw, aching and naked such that we are left with indelible, timeless wisdom and reproach.

Cannot one hear the prescience of this 1964 indictment-as-observation resonating today?

Americans are the youngest country, the largest country, and the strongest country, we like to say, and yet the very notion of change, real change, throws Americans into a panic and they look for any label to get rid of any dissenter.  A country which is supposed to be built on dissent, built on the value of the individual, now distrusts dissent at least as much as any totalitarian government can and debases the individual in many ways because it places security and money above the individual....

How incredibly this puts Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and so many other grass roots social movements in our contemporary society into a certain light and relief.  As it did with the Civil Rights Movement and the nascent anti-war movement a half-century ago....

And the range of his piercing insight: so incredible as to be confounding.  For example, in the same piece as that from which the above quote is taken, "What Price Freedom?," and in the very same paragraph, this:

I am trying to suggest that in order for me as a black citizen of this country to begin to be a free man here, in order for that to happen, a great many other things have to happen.  I cannot be, even if I wanted to be, fitted into the social structure as it now stands; there is no possibility of opening it up to let me in.  In the very same way, in the Deep South, Christian churches do not have many Christians in their congregations, and when I move into the congregation, and when the church itself embraces all Christians, the church will have had to change.

He did not describe himself as a "black gay man," but can we not hear in this trenchant plea a theme that survives to this day, that the Christian church will struggle to open itself fully and truly to all, including the poor, those of Color, to women (especially in sacramental roles) and to the LGBT community?

And as we draw to the close of what certainly has to be the most contentious presidential race in modern history, we are essentially called to choose between two very different visions of our future.  Hence, it's prudent that we be mindful of what Baldwin observed so long ago:

Societies are never able to examine, to overhaul themselves: this effort must be made by that yeast which every society cunningly and unfailingly secretes.  This ferment, this disturbance, is the responsibility, and the necessity, of writers.  It is, alas, the truth that to be an American writer today means mounting an unending attack on all that Americans believe themselves to hold sacred.  It means fighting an astute and agile guerrilla warfare with that American complacency which so inadequately masks the American panic.

In the glow of his legacy, perhaps we hear the echoes of his insight in the writings of Coates, Thurston, Whitehead and Mengestu, Danticat, Adiche, Smith and Gay, to name but a few of those of African descent, and many others who challenge the increasingly inequitable and unjust status quo through their writing.  And yet none of them approaches our Jimmy....

So back to Baldwin I go, seeking to be appalled and amazed, alternately crushed and resurrected, by his piercing insight into his topics and his prose, respectively.  And though tired, and occasionally haggard, I will emerge so much the better for it, emboldened both by the struggle and the possibility of liberation glimpsed through his writing, safe in the knowledge that, for me, the Book of Baldwin in my secular bible....

And yet one is compelled to recognize that all these imprecise words are attempts made by us all to get to something which is real and which lives behind the words.  Whether I like it or not, for example, and no matter what I call myself, I suppose the only word for me, when the chips are down, is that I am an artist.

- James Baldwin, "The Artist's Struggle for Integrity," 1963

Seeing a different world and seeing the world differently....

Not everything can be changed;

but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

- James Baldwin, "As Much Truth As One Can Bear," 1962

Like a moth to a flame I return to James Baldwin periodically, to nourish my soul and steel my backbone, and to emerge, not burned, but fired up both to live passionately in the pursuit of a more perfected reality and also to use this English language to express, deeply, indelibly, accurately, eternally.

And so it is again that I have returned to JAB - the "A" standing for "Arthur" - in this case through the impressive prism of the The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings, an outstanding collection deftly edited and introduced by Randall Kenan.  These writings, a diverse compendium of fiction, non-fiction, book reviews, profiles and letters, give us not only a sense of Baldwin's evolution, both personal and literary, but also of a journey through an elevated existence, one raised by the insight and unparalleled eloquence of this singular author and, really, writer.

In the Introduction of the book, subtitled "Looking for James Baldwin," Kenan marvels at the sheer range of his skill and craft: Baldwin wrote fiction (at both short story and novel length), he wrote non-fiction, he wrote book reviews (initially to give himself "discipline" in his writing), he wrote travelogues, he wrote (biographical) profiles, he wrote letters.  He wrote.

And because he wrote we can all both see a different world as well as see the world differently....

Because of his profound gift, I am also inspired to attempt to record glimpses of my own journey, snapshots along the path, so to speak.  I don't pretend to do so as inimitably as the great James Baldwin, but in his honor and inspiration: I write because, through him, I've come to understand and feel what writing can do, can mean and can evoke ... and so I write.

And I regret.  I regret that I really (re-)discovered and began to appreciate Baldwin at mid-life, too engrossed in my own experience to be guided by his in my youth.  I regret that I can only meet the man in his prose and a few videos and documentaries about his life: certainly he was even more in the flesh.

And I regret that, as he paid similar homage to Shakespeare, I will never write like Jimmy wrote ... but I'm so thankful for the inspiration to try.  Not so much to write like he wrote - I'll never reach that unclimbable peak - but to discover my own singular voice and, in so doing, to share with the world my unique perspective.  I'll never speak James Baldwin's language, but I can achieve greater mastery of my own....

I always have to recover after reading Baldwin, literally to take a break to give my mind and soul an opportunity to digest and recuperate.  Reading Baldwin is like starving and then being given free rein at a banquet: invariably one overindulges and needs to be resuscitated, to take some time to come down from the sugar rush of incredibly savory fare (some of which itself can be based on topics most unsavory, actually) and to retreat back into the real world from that glimpse of the eternal one that one experiences in a Baldwin-induced thrall.

As he noted in the 1962 essay, "As Much Truth As One Can Bear," "What the writer is always trying to do is to utilize the particular in order to reveal something much larger and heavier that any particular can be."  And so it is with his own writing: through his gift, invariably we are moved to grapple with the "something much larger and heavier" and in so doing are both ennobled and enervated, raised and yet laid low, by the profundity of his observation, insight and prescription.  I always emerge from Baldwin more passionate and committed ... and then I need to go lay down for a while to prepare for the reengaged and elevated battle....

A large part of the reason that I rest is to gain the strength to address the profundity of his observation and the eloquence of its elucidation.  His framing of issues and opportunities is immaculate, and his address of them is raw, aching and naked such that we are left with indelible, timeless wisdom and reproach.

Cannot one hear the prescience of this 1964 indictment-as-observation resonating today?

Americans are the youngest country, the largest country, and the strongest country, we like to say, and yet the very notion of change, real change, throws Americans into a panic and they look for any label to get rid of any dissenter.  A country which is supposed to be built on dissent, built on the value of the individual, now distrusts dissent at least as much as any totalitarian government can and debases the individual in many ways because it places security and money above the individual....

How incredibly this puts Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street and so many other grass roots social movements in our contemporary society into a certain light and relief.  As it did with the Civil Rights Movement and the nascent anti-war movement a half-century ago....

And the range of his piercing insight: so incredible as to be confounding.  For example, in the same piece as that from which the above quote is taken, "What Price Freedom?," and in the very same paragraph, this:

I am trying to suggest that in order for me as a black citizen of this country to begin to be a free man here, in order for that to happen, a great many other things have to happen.  I cannot be, even if I wanted to be, fitted into the social structure as it now stands; there is no possibility of opening it up to let me in.  In the very same way, in the Deep South, Christian churches do not have many Christians in their congregations, and when I move into the congregation, and when the church itself embraces all Christians, the church will have had to change.

He did not describe himself as a "black gay man," but can we not hear in this trenchant plea a theme that survives to this day, that the Christian church will struggle to open itself fully and truly to all, including the poor, those of Color, to women (especially in sacramental roles) and to the LGBT community?

And as we draw to the close of what certainly has to be the most contentious presidential race in modern history, we are essentially called to choose between two very different visions of our future.  Hence, it's prudent that we be mindful of what Baldwin observed so long ago:

Societies are never able to examine, to overhaul themselves: this effort must be made by that yeast which every society cunningly and unfailingly secretes.  This ferment, this disturbance, is the responsibility, and the necessity, of writers.  It is, alas, the truth that to be an American writer today means mounting an unending attack on all that Americans believe themselves to hold sacred.  It means fighting an astute and agile guerrilla warfare with that American complacency which so inadequately masks the American panic.

In the glow of his legacy, perhaps we hear the echoes of his insight in the writings of Coates, Thurston, Whitehead and Mengestu, Danticat, Adiche, Smith and Gay, to name but a few of those of African descent, and many others who challenge the increasingly inequitable and unjust status quo through their writing.  And yet none of them approaches our Jimmy....

So back to Baldwin I go, seeking to be appalled and amazed, alternately crushed and resurrected, by his piercing insight into his topics and his prose, respectively.  And though tired, and occasionally haggard, I will emerge so much the better for it, emboldened both by the struggle and the possibility of liberation glimpsed through his writing, safe in the knowledge that, for me, the Book of Baldwin in my secular bible....

And yet one is compelled to recognize that all these imprecise words are attempts made by us all to get to something which is real and which lives behind the words.  Whether I like it or not, for example, and no matter what I call myself, I suppose the only word for me, when the chips are down, is that I am an artist.

- James Baldwin, "The Artist's Struggle for Integrity," 1963

We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us....

When the comic strip character Pogo first uttered these eternally insightful words, it was in the context of the first celebration of Earth Day in 1970, when a dawning awareness of the need for our species to live in ways more harmonious with and respectful of our only habitat resulted in a more mindful reverence for our planet.

And yet today, many of a certain political affiliation deny science and the virtually inescapable evidence that the way we live materially impacts our environment in a negative way, even leading to seismic changes that threaten our long-term well-being.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

We continue to struggle to affirm life in our violent society and yet the proliferation of guns has become a secular religion for some and a craven abetting by our ostensible legislative representatives.  Factual evidence be damned, the few who brook no common sense approach to the personal possession of lethal force are protected in their right to endanger the rest of us by politicians who are bought and paid for by an insidious and immoral lobby.

So children continue to die needlessly and more mass shootings occur such that they've become part of the fabric of our daily lives.  Somehow we've chosen to value the prospect of potential protection over the reality of a less violent life.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Thanks to march of technology and our instantaneous ability to communicate, a longstanding problem of police brutality has come to the fore of our collective consciousness.  Even though poor urban communities generally and African-American and Latino communities in particular have experienced often oppressive and overly lethal policing for years, thanks to videos, body cams and FaceBook Live, we now see this unfortunate carnage in real time.

And yet our national nerves are so frayed that a movement espousing the acknowledgement that Black Lives (should) Matter as much as others do is labeled a hate group by too many individuals and a craven right wing media.  It is shouted down by those who claim that All Lives Matter - and don't generally acknowledge the unpleasant and all too evident untruth that this implies - and/or that Blue Lives Matter, as if any of us could or do disagree with this.  All lives do matter, but they are not equally threatened, under attack or disenfranchised in our society now, as data from myriad sources indicates.  That a long disenfranchised group - reeling now after the repeal of much of the Voting Rights Act due to the craven rash of state-level Voter ID laws that have a disproportionate impact on their ability to exercise the most fundamental of American rights - is met with derision, dismissal and attack for seeking to have its humanity affirmed, respected and addressed in our society is both telling and damning.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Most recently, we've become embroiled - largely involuntarily it would seem - in a discussion of what is acceptable personal and public decorum and demeanor.  One candidate for our presidency has consistently embodied many of the -isms that plague our society - most recently taking sexism/chauvinism to unparalleled public heights - and seems largely lacking in contrition (and, sadly, many of his supporters seem to love him all the more for this...).

And yet who among us thinks that it's a good idea to have a different set of personal conduct standards for people that depends on their level of wealth and their gender?  Who among us doesn't realize that this ugly vestige of a slowly dying patriarchy is an all too real affront to half of the population, including our very own mothers, sisters, wives and daughters?  Apologies for the crassness, but which one of our female loved ones would we support being grabbed by her genitals?  And who among us can excuse such inhumane banter - although it's hard to believe that it's just this given the multitude of women who've stepped forward in recent days to attest to their unwanted receipt of such dehumanizing treatment - and yet think that such a person - who has yet to display any real contrition and seems energized in his own defense of such boorishness - should be our leader and, indeed, leader of the free world?

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Truth be told, this is all quite simple, but not easy:

If we want an America - or, indeed, a world - that is better, then we have to begin to act this way.  If we want our society and world to be more humane, then we must act this way towards each other and especially with respect to those who differ from us in terms of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, etc.  If we want all of our children to have a chance to pursue the American Dream, then we must structure our society in a way that affords them this chance.  If we want our daughters to have the same opportunities as our sons, then we have to treat them equitably and demand that others do, too.  And if we want a society that is compassionate and constructive, then we must hold our leaders accountable to making it that way.

But if we choose not to pursue these aspects of our individual and collective better angels, then, indeed, Pogo is sadly proven right yet again:

We have met the enemy and he is us....

Standing Up by Sitting Down (and Why This Still Matters)

"I love America more than any other country in this world,

and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."

- James Baldwin

And now Colin Kaepernick.  Star professional athlete, winner in America's economic game and now self-professed freedom fighter.  How terribly inconvenient ... and instructive.

The hubbub that has followed Mr. Kaepernick's extended social commentary in support of his decision to sit in protest during the National Anthem is both virulent and sadly familiar both societally and personally.

Societally, the outcry has centered on a number of familiar themes: that his protest is being executed in an incorrect (read = most often described as "disrespectful") way, that as a highly-paid athlete he has no reason to complain, that he's dissing those in the military who have served and currently serve to protect his freedom, etc.

(Please note that I left out an NBC commentator's ignorant comment that he's not black [enough] and a Fox commentator's asinine suggestion that since he was adopted by a white family, he's had it good [and, thus, conceptually, shouldn't complain].  Don't even know where to start with such maddening ridiculousness....)

Personally, a number of my FaceBook friends have reflected this in terms like "I disagree with his method,"  "it's disrespectful," "what's he got to complain about?," "he should have set up a foundation like other athletes," and, in effect, my favorite, "his approach is so wrong that he's obscuring the focus on the issue."  Hmmm.

OK, let's get this out of the way:  My view is that the sitting in protest during the playing of the National Anthem is not the way that I would have chosen, but it's a bold, courageous move and worthy of our support of his exercise of his First Amendment right to free expression.  And it's completely beside the point to focus on how he chose to protest - and revealing that so/too many have done so - and totally necessary that we focus on what/why he's protesting.  And I do believe that the choice to focus on the how over the why is not accidental but too often a purposeful evasion consistent with a more general and troubling trend in our society.

But back to the hubbub:  A trend that is both disturbing and instructive to me is that the post-Kaepernick focus has been split along racial lines.  Disproportionately in the media, those who've chosen to focus on how the quarterback registered his dissent have been white, while most of those who've defended it are other People of Color (PoC) like him (although, thankfully, more of these supporters are turning out to be veterans of all colors who support his right to free, peaceful expression).

So, too, with my FaceBook friends: all of those who have focused on and complained about his method are white, and all of those who have supported it - including those who may not have like his method - are of Color.  Hmmm.

Let me 'make it plain': we still have a huge race problem in this country and need to address it head-on.

My white friends' objections have been as vehement as those nationally relative to Mr. Kaepernick's method and decidedly muted when I've noted their style preferences and then asked them to address the substance of the issue.  My Friends of Color (FoC) have generally expressed their ennui and exasperation at the focus on method and have instead noted with pique that the 'method dissenters' seem unwilling to move beyond this to addressing the issues that the quarterback has highlighted.

And few 'method dissenters' have listened to his entire position as shared in that almost 20-minute informal press conference during which he detailed his dissent, while many of my FoC have.  Again, not surprising, but revealing.

One of my friends suggested that he was concerned about the issues raised, but focused virtually exclusively on how this was done.  When I asked him how he would have preferred that Mr. Kaepernick express his dissent, he was noticeably muted other than suggesting, in effect, it should have been some other way.  When I kept pressing the point and asked if he were aware of any protest or protest movement in history that was conducted in a way that met with wide acceptance in our society, he was similarly muted.  When I mentioned that, a half-century ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was reviled for moving beyond to the fight for civil rights to question both the Vietnam War and the staggering economic inequality in our society, he acknowledged that he was aware of this but had nothing else to say about the underlying issues that Mr. Kaepernick highlighted.

One of my favorite exchanges about this situation occurred with one of my friends who's an avowed political conservative.  After a number of objections - the most substantive of which was that the approach taken obscured the focus on the underlying issues - she made some suggestions about what Mr. Kaepernick should have done, including the aforementioned 'set up a foundation.'  When I pointed out that hundreds of current and former professional athletes have foundations that are doing admirable work but receiving a level of recognition nowhere close to the quarterback, she was noticeably silent.  When I mentioned that part of the problem is that too many are focused on the approach and not the underlying issues, she suggested that perhaps Middle America wasn't responding because it didn't see this as an issue that affects it.

Bingo!

And that's a huge part of the problem: that so many are not concerned with the clear and historic differential in how rights are respected and opportunities are allocated in our society as a whole and therefore choose to be uninvolved because it doesn't affect them directly is part of the why these life-limiting discrepancies are still so pervasive in our society.  Selfish indifference and societal equity don't work well together.

That these responses differed along racial lines reminded me yet again that our perspectives are so far apart because our experiences are.  Almost all of my white friends can afford to focus on the method over the issues because they are not directly affected by them.  And, sadly, they seem to prefer to focus on the style over the substance because it allows them to avoid dealing with the latter.  I have only seen one of them post about or express alignment with addressing the myriad underlying issues about which Mr. Kaepernick is dissenting - and her husband is African-American and her children thus biracial, so she's not insulated from the issue.  In sum, those who don't have mixed families or close relations of Color have chosen to express outrage at being challenged to consider horrible issues too often hidden by the status quo rather than at the issues themselves; they've expressed concern about being disturbed but not about the disturbing realities of the lives of too many of their fellow citizens.

At this stage in my life, I'm not surprised or overly disappointed by this reality.  I accept - but am still disappointed by - white apathy.  What I've learned over time is that this concerning reality isn't uninformed but conscious: I've yet to find a white friend who doesn't understand the issues at some basic level, but virtually all of them indulge in the privilege of being sufficiently unconcerned as to be uninvolved.

I get the desire to indulge in the insulation that American success affords: to some extent, those of us of Color do the same to the extent that we can.  But we also have to explain to our childen what a classmate meant by saying "Nigger" in a kindergarten class, we also have to walk the tightrope of preparing our children to be singled out while encouraging them to focus on fitting in and we unfailingly have to have 'The Talk' with our teenage sons, none of which are shared experiences.

So our experiences are different and thus our appreciation for and approaches to race-affected issues are, too.  Until this gap narrows, it will be much harder to address the issues that affect us all (even as they affect those of Color disproportionately).

P.S.  No, I don't like Mr. Kaepernick's choice to wear socks to a recent practice that depict police as pigs.  That sort of, in effect, name-calling, wasn't helpful in the '60s, either.  Did the police often feel more like an occupying force than a cadre of those dedicated to protecting and serving us then?  Yes.  And now?  In too many locales, the same is still true.  But a peaceful, respectful protest - like kneeling during the anthem (as numerous other notable African-American athletes and societal leaders and other PoC have done over the years) - is better than directly disrespectful and unhelpfully provocative expression.

One of the reasons that I respect Mr. Kaepernick's choice of kneeling is just this: he's not defaming anyone but, in sitting down, is standing up for what matters to many of our fellow citizens that we too often choose not to see.  I am ever mindful that despite our (inauthentically) hagiographic fawning over the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the late pugilist and humanitarian Muhammad Ali, they were, in their time, reviled for their timidity to challenge the status quo of our society that, in their day as in ours, too often found both PoC and the poor disproportionately disenfranchised.  Yes, we appreciate the many things that continue to make America great ... and we also absolutely must continue to keep the work that we need to do to insure a more equitable access to opportunity and well-being in our country in the forefront of our minds and actions.  This isn't an either-or situation but a truly life-changing both-and opportunity and this is why sitting down/kneeling is an important way to stand up to our natural tendency to choose comfort over conscience....  

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism

or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our Savior Is Come....

Come to the Savior, make no delay;

here in his Word he has shown us the way;

here in our midst he's standing today;

tenderly saying, Come!"

- "Come to the Savior, Make No Delay," George Root

Now that a certain candidate for President has realized that inclusion is a better electoral strategy, African-Americans and Hispanics - his description, not mine - have nothing to lose and thus an new electoral option.  Our Savior is come.

Perhaps we should change religions.

That Mr. Trump is feigning concern is, to be kind, convenient, but, of course, his approach is telling: to paraphrase, "Your lives suck - you're poor, have no jobs or decent schools and you can be shot walking in the street* - so why not vote for me?  I'll fix everything that's been ailing you for your hundreds of years in this country because I alone can do it."  Or some ish like that.

There are many reasons why African-Americans and Latinos shouldn't support Mr. Trump - based on both his historical record and on this latest disingenuous political gambit - but I'd like to consider just three:

First, let's start with who Mr. Trump is and how he's related to Communities of Color (CoC) in his life.  Lemme see, his campaign started with the defaming of Mexicans and the promise to build a wall to keep them out of 'our' country (which, apparently, Mexico will pay for out of sheer gratitude and its admiration for Mr. Trump).  Before that there were the many lawsuits filed against his companies for their racial discrimination in refusing to rent to People of Color (PoC).  And, of course, for those of us in the New York metropolitan area, there was his stunning performance during the horrific and sad Central Park Jogger case years ago during which he very publicly led the 'prosecution in the press' of five underage Youth of Color (YoC) - who, it turns out, were completely innocent and railroaded to jail - while calling for their punishment by death.  Hmmm.

(That's really bad, right?  Notice that I didn't even mention his leadership of the racist Birther Movement that disrespected our first African-American president a few years ago.  Now let this sink in and then add it to your assessment of his character, temperament, judgment and fitness to be president.)

Next, let's move to the solutions he proposes that will alleviate and elevate.  This will be the shortest section of this essay because, well, there haven't been any policy suggestions near as I can tell.  Perhaps we can intuit that his recent comments suggesting that he'll restore "law and order" throughout the land by turning our protection over to "tough" cops might be one of his intended solutions.  And we all know how well aggressive policing has been working for PoC (and especially unarmed African-Americans) of late....

Finally, let's look at how he has approached this "outreach" and divine its deeper meaning.  Perhaps my perception is wrong, but my understanding is that Mr. Trump chose as the site of his outreach speeches overwhelmingly white enclaves - you know, the kind where over 90% of the residents are white - and then, not surprisingly, had virtually all-white audiences in attendance to hear his recommendations for their Neighbors of Color.  It could just be me, but somehow I'm thinking that if he really wanted African-Americans to hear his message, he might have chosen a setting wherein they'd be more, uh, present (without having to be bused in and/or paid to participate, of course).  Which then raises the question of why someone who wants to speak to Blacks and Latinos would go to a white neighborhood to do so?  Can't help but think that one of the primary motivations - in addition to insuring that there wouldn't be a revolt after his condescension was uttered - was that he wanted his real audience to hear it and to agree with him that someone willing to pretend to be inclusive toward PoC couldn't be racist and thus, by supporting him, neither could they be so.  I could be wrong about that, but, somehow, I seriously doubt it....

So, what do we have here?  A new Savior for Black and Brown folks who preaches to them from places where they are not and offers them nothing new or substantive other than the opportunity to be his pawns.  Yeah, I can see how that would be attractive to groups in which he's polling under 20% support in the best case (Latinos) and under 2% in the other case (African-Americans).

Am I really surprised that it's come to this/that Mr. Trump would stoop so low?  No.  After all, what in his behavior in the past year has suggested that there is any bottom below which he will not go?  It's the rest of us - those of us who stubbornly cling to apparently outmoded things like morals, ethics and a sense of the commonweal/broader community - who have a problem, because it's quite clear that he cares not a whit for our standards of comportment, at least as they're supposed to apply to him.  We need to move on because it's equally clear that Mr. Trump has no intention of changing authentically to acknowledge and value the humanity of all whom he would presume to govern.

So, perhaps his latest racist gambit - pretending to be inclusive to PoC while really trying to reassure and assuage the guilt of his largely white supporters - will work ... with white folks, because I'm quite confident that none of us Black and Brown folk are gonna be taken in by this latest craven chicanery.  But Mr. Trump can still hope, as it's clear at this point that he needs every potential vote (and it's equally clear that he's literally willing to say anything necessary to win those votes, even when he has to contradict himself or "pivot" or "soften" as he is doing now with respect to his previously rabidly deportation-focused approach to illegal immigrants).

To sum it up, as People of Color, if Donald Trump is our new Savior, we need to change religions....


*  And this coming from the candidate who bragged that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York City and his supporters would still be rabidly committed to him.  To quote the great Seth Myers, really?!?

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing

but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

- Matthew 7:15 (NRSV)

(Blogger's note: Apologies that I didn't quote "Two Corinthians" just now, but this Scripture just seems more appropriate....)

I Can't Breathe....

If Love is the answer, Justice is the measure."

 - The Rev. Eric Ovid Donaldson

Several years ago, I took my sons to the rally in memory of Trayvon Martin in downtown Newark - and posted our "hoodie" profile picture on FB - because I wanted to teach them what I considered to be an important lesson: that citizenship is an active - and indeed proactive - privilege and responsibility.  As much as they had been fortunate to lead (relatively) privileged lives, they owed it to themselves and, more broadly, to their community to be engaged in helping to shape the contours within which we all live.  I wanted them to understand that the response to injustice is protest and concerted action/advocacy thereafter ... and now I can't breathe (again)....

The list is too long - starting even before Trayvon and now extending to Alton Sterling and Philando Castille - and my heart is too heavy now: I can't breathe....

I can't breathe because I realize that I can't protect my sons from the police and that even a supposedly routine occurrence - in Mr. Castille's case, a traffic stop for a busted taillight - can be lethal for them ... and I wonder what kind of world and American society has evolved on my/our watch and am now too weary and wounded to be angry anymore.  It's almost enervating.  Almost.  But I realize that if it has to change, I, too, am going to have to summon the emotional energy and commitment to help change it ... and to enlist my sons in this effort, too.

I can't breathe because I am absolutely devastated by the post-mortem press conferences - or, in Mr. Castille's case, the livestream of the incident on FaceBook - that evidence the decimation of families and loved ones for whom the loss if felt most acutely.  My prayers extend to them, but they deserve more: they deserve my individual - and our collective - action.

(And if you're tempted to think that prayers are enough, just remember how hollow and angry you feel when the members of our do-nothing Congress offer their prayers to the victims of the gun violence that they refuse to act to curtail and/or prevent.)

I can't breathe because I'm flabbergasted at the blithe unawareness and/or unconcern on the part of so many of my white friends and colleagues.  It reminds me that Privilege has many guises, including/especially the ability to be indifferent to that which doesn't affect you personally.  As MLK reminded us a half-century ago, what we/history will remember is not the acts of the bad people but the disengagement of the self-considered good ones....

(Seriously, does any one of us believe that if the situation were reversed - that if whites were routinely killed by African-American police officers - we'd be in a similar position?  Can you even conceive of such a situation?  I thought not....)

I can't breathe because I can't explain to myself or my sons how Black life, especially in its young male incarnation, has become so cheaply valued.  Actually, I weep because this isn't exactly true: I and we have always known that Black life was cheaply valued, but what's new is the cell phone and other videos that show us this reality in such stark relief ... and then we have to connect our current tragedies to a long historical record of tens of thousands of unreported and unrecorded 'race killings' that are as old as our Republic.  As the FaceBook meme rightly points out, the violence isn't new, the videos of it are ... and our visceral awareness of this continuing injustice hurts all the more because we can't escape it.  It's real, not theoretical or removed.  I and we have seen Alton Sterling murdered by the police like Tamir Rice and Walter Scott and _______ (fill in the blank) before him and Philando Castille and _______ (be ready to fill in the blank) after him.  The ghost of Emmett Till has arisen anew and we are haunted yet again....

I can't breathe because as I age I get more sensitive, not less.  Because I'm more aware of the possibilities for life and thus feel more deeply its pains and tragedies.  And because I have to fight disillusionment even harder: weren't we supposed to be better than our parents and the other generations that came before?  If so, then why is this still happening at such an alarming rate and on such a massive scale - 559 African-Americans killed by police and counting so far this year alone!?! - and it's now just another unfortunate component of our collective existence.  As a friend pointed out so powerfully earlier this morning in a FaceBook post, THIS IS NOT NORMAL!!!  Unless we allow it to be....

So what can I and we do to catch our breath and regain our sense of well-being?  The first thing is to vote.  It's the most powerful form of protest available to us.  We underutilize it to our peril, as is abundantly clear in these instances of police killings and the accompanying slaughter of innocents that have also become routine (as President Obama has described them repeatedly and with a heavy heart).  I will hold my elected officials accountable - both locally and nationally - to making the police protect and serve us rather than occupy and terrorize us and to having the hard conversations about addressing our violence problem and taking systemic actions to address it.  Further, I will engage my sons (and daughters) in their civic duty to participate and advocate.  After all, it's their chance to help us improve the world that they're inheriting.  And, finally, I will educate - especially those who are insulated by choice from this ongoing tragedy - so that we can see this for what it really is: beyond race, this is a humanity problem.

For those of us of faith, if we truly believe that we're all Children of God, then we have to act this way by actively loving our fellow humans - be they of the same or different nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, etc. - and by seeking to create a world in which their individual and our collective humanity is affirmed, valued and encouraged by the ways in which we live.

That sounds like a noble, ethereal goal, but it's not.  It starts very simply: every day, my African-American children (and especially my sons) should feel and be free to pursue happiness in our country and our world as should your children and other loved ones be.  And when we realize that this will only happen because of our collective empathy and engagement, starting with addressing and eradicating our suicidal cultural propensity toward violence.  In three words, our goal should be, as a friend pointed out, "No More Hashtags."

And when this day comes, I will be able to breathe again....

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never is, but always to be blessed:

The soul, uneasy and confined from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

– Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man" (1734)