I just finished Nelson Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom. There are so many important facets to this memoir documenting Mandela's life and the South African fight against racism and oppression (a fight that they are still embroiled in today), and I feel like the complexity of this work lends itself well to reflecting on the complex social issues we face right now. I would encourage everyone to give it a read. For those of you that do not have the time or desire, here are a few things that stood out to me:
1. We need to stop demonizing everyone who disagrees with us. One of the reasons Nelson Mandela was able to achieve victory in ending the apartheid was by finding humanity in those who should have hated. If he could still manage to find goodness and common ground with the people the imprisoned him for thirty years, I think we can do better to at doing the same to people who simply express a different viewpoint than us on social media. That doesn’t mean we should entertain the ideas of bigots and racists—they should be condemned—but it does mean we shouldn’t castigate those who have a different, nuanced perspective on an issue than we do. (Interestingly enough, South Africa is also still dealing with the undergirding systemic racism and oppression that could not simply end overnight after being reinforced for centuries, the difference being that Africans and people of color are the majority in their nation, not the minority.) “I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”
2. The Black Lives Matter movement, in the end, will help all lives—both those currently being oppressed and those (even unwittingly) engaging in oppression. The rising tide against injustice towards people of color will help everyone, including the white majority. While I have never considered myself to be a bigoted or ignorant person, I have not always been “antiracist”. It is freeing to become aware of the biases that have tainted my worldview. Consequently, the movement to “defund the police” (which is not as radical as the branding makes it sound) will free up honorable men and women serving in law enforcement to deal with crime in a way that will not deprive them of their humanity. African Americans and people of color have unequivocally been on the receiving end of a system stacked against them more than the police. They cannot choose not to be black (nor should they have to since their heritage is something to be celebrated), and they cannot simply “clockout” of their skin color. However, with that said, how many officers lives have been ruined because they had only been trained to respond violently or with deadly force to a situation that would have better been suited for a social worker, psychologist, or addiction expert? How many have stood by and watched as their colleague abused their power because they are taught to be loyal to the badge rather than human life? How many officers acted on their own undergirding or subconscious biases because they had not received proper diversity training or engaged in meaningful self-reflection on their own social blind spots? How many officers are now being unfairly stereotyped racist because they are part of a broken criminal justice system that is racist? In this sense, “Black Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” are not mutually exclusive slogans. “I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”
3. One of the most difficult things about tackling the issue of systemic racism is that it is such a complex issue and there are so many components that need to be dismantled. It is hard to know where to even start. Add to this the fact that, as a white male, I am conscious that I am an ally in this fight who does not ever want his “antiracism” to become performative, and it becomes easier to convince myself to stay silent rather than speak—especially if it means going out on some uncomfortable limbs. In some ways, I am even more at a loss as to how to make a difference in the fight against social injustice than I am with how to fix a dripping faucet.
Laura
will confirm that I am the least “handy” person in the world—what I have in “book smarts” I lack equally in “street smarts”, but luckily she is the real life version of Macguyver, so it all works out). However, just because I am not sure exactly how to fix the leak doesn’t mean that I can or should pretend that it doesn’t exist. The smallest drip in poor judgement can eventually become a flood of prejudice if left unchecked. To prevent this slow descent into ignorance from happening, I can start with educating myself—and by extension—raising the awareness of those around me. While this solution may not be as immediate as those suffering from injustice want or deserve, education is the only solution that will eradicate hatred and bigotry in the long term. This means I need to become more educated in terms of history (not just the sanitized version I received growing up, but one that takes into account the perspectives or different ethnicities, genders, belief systems, etc.). This also means I need to be more educated about who I am as a person and be willing to engage in meaningful self-reflection—not just now, but for the rest of my life. Being “anti-racist” is not something you master and then forget about, it is a life long pursuit that requires your vigilance constantly as the plague takes on new shapes or forms. So, if you are wondering where to start on your journey to becoming anti-racist (and you can start no matter your past beliefs or age), start with educating yourself. “Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mineworker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farmworkers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”
4. I firmly believe that peaceful and nonviolent protesting should always be the first sought solution, and despite the few instances of people hijacking the movement for their own complex reasons, I believe that it has been. The far left will have you believe that police officers are attacking peaceful protesters on a whim while the far right will have you believe that every protestor violently antagonizing the police, vandalizing public property, or looting a family owned small-business. With that said (and this may be unpopular to many), there comes a time when “peaceful”, noncriminal protesting is ineffectual—especially when the forces you are protesting against become criminal themselves. It is easy for us to forget that Martin Luther King Jr. was extremely unpopular while he was alive and lambasted as a criminal by those hoping his rhetoric would not take root. Nelson Mandela and his organization (the ANC) were labeled as being criminal and Communist by the state. (Interestingly enough, those buzzwords apparently still hold sway today as those labels are being used to discredit the BLM movement today). As a privileged white male, it would be easy for me to sit on the couch and watch protests that make me uncomfortable and think, “They are taking this too far,” when I have never and probably will never face the oppression they do nor the years of waiting peacefully and passively for things to get better when they haven’t. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.” Does this mean I support protestors who engage in violent or felonious behavior behavior? Of course not. Does that mean I support those who stay up past a curfew, refuse to move from an important/symbolic place? Absolutely. Also, I am beginning to recognize like Nelson Mandela did, that the responsibility for de-escalation for a conflict rests primarily with the oppressor—and while both sides need to be willing to have tough, complex conversations with the other rather than polarizing in their own pools of hate—the oppressor should take the first step towards reconciliation. So, if mainstream society would like to see the protest movement become less militant, it may be incumbent on us (the white majority) to stand up to systems of oppression that have caused such strong reactions from people of color. It may be incumbent on society generally and our elected leaders more specifically to sit and listen rather than gravitate towards a forceful, violent response that will only escalate the conflict. Can you really claim the moral high ground if you are on the side of “law and order” that often serves as code for firing rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds of protestors? “Nonviolent passive resistance is effective as long as your opposition adheres to the same rules as you do. But if peaceful protest is met with violence, its efficacy is at an end. For me, nonviolence was not a moral principle but a strategy; there is no moral goodness in using an ineffective weapon. “A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire”.
While this post may seem like a long-winded downer, I am actually more hopeful now than I have been at any time in recent memory. Nelson Mandela makes the point that, “A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones," and his life and legacy is one that can remind everyone that “as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
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