Serve Others : racism

A great moment in the history of race relations

KTrapani — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:18:00 GMT

Our company is celebrating "Diversity Week" this week with a host of activities and educational encounters. Today, one of our youn guys, Dan Baum, wrote the following note to all our staff. It's terrific and I wanted to share it with you:

"Hi everybody, Today, while Angela, Alexi, Denise, Chris and John go visit the new Greensboro Museum, I want to remind you all to sign up for the pot luck on Friday and share with you the story of the South’s first integrated college basketball game, known now as the “Secret Game.” North Carolina is college basketball country, so it’s fitting that the South’s first integrated game would take place here. In 1944, the NCCU basketball team made contact with the Duke Medical School basketball team to discuss the possibility of playing against one another. Since the NCCU players wouldn’t have been allowed on Duke’s segregated campus, the game would have to be played at Central. The Duke team pulled coats over their heads and hid on the floor of cars as they rode the short distance across town to NCCU’s campus, then sprinted inside the gym hoping no one would see them. They made it in without being noticed, and the game tipped off. NCCU won 88-44, which isn’t surprising, as a basketball historian remembers that Central, at that time, “could’ve beaten Duke and Carolina in the same day – one in the morning and one at night.” Led by Coach John McClendon, who pioneered the fast break, up tempo style of basketball that is common today, NCCU’s program was far better than any of the neighboring ACC schools at this time, but they never got a chance to prove it out in the open. Even better than breaking barriers by competing against one another, after the game ended the players split up into shirts and skins and played a fully integrated game together.

Don’t forget to bring your lunch for the choir’s performance tomorrow!"

We're having a great time here this week, celebrating that which is different between us and recognizing that which has made us who we are. Our activities this week -- and year 'round -- are not about tolerance. They are about the joy that comes from merging different tones into harmony. Our work is not yet done, of course, but we are on an intentional journey and we're each and all better for it.

On reflection: a week after the inauguration

KTrapani — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:18:00 GMT

I could barely see the podium or the big screen last week in Washington, DC. It's not because we weren't close enough to either... in fact, we were pretty darn close to the action.

It's because I couldn't stop crying the whole time.

From Aretha (what a hat...!) to Reverend Lowery ("Let all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen...") the experience was transformational. I was honored and excited to be able to attend, of course, but I was not prepared for the emotion of the event. I have met Mr. Obama and I've been inspired by his words on many occasions. Jennifer and I were there in Denver on that beautiful August evening when he accepted his party's nomination and said, in describing the proper role of government and the responsibility of the individual, "That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we shall also rise and fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper." I was prepared to be inspired, and I was.

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility," Mr. Obama said, "... a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather sieze gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task." Then, he called us all out:"That is the price and promise of citizenship," he said.

So, why the emotion, if I was so prepared for all this? Simple: I was ready to look ahead, but I had not realized how much anger I had been suppressing about the last 8 years... and Mr. Obama's words required me to come to grips with those emotions, right there on the lawn of the Capitol. He said, "We chose hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." He said, "...our time of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed." He said, "We will restore science to its rightful place." He said, "...without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control." And, most important, he said, "...we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

Last Tuesday, Mr. Obama did not just become our first African-America President -- although that is a globally transcendant event on its own. In just 18 minutes, he awoke us from our national nightmare and sent us out into the world to serve, to represent the best of the American ideal.

And now, as he said, it's not about him. It's about us. As my colleague, Dan Baum, wrote recently in one of his wonderful blog posts from Zambia (http://blogs.redwoodsgroup.com/blogs/zambia/archive/2009/01/21/what-obama-s-inauguration-means.aspx) it's time to take these feelings and "put them to work."

I also think it's important to know that our work can't be only about serving. I think it has to be about calling others to serve, too. A year ago, I wrote in this space about Dr. King and about how his reputation had been sanitized over the years. Dr. King was angry, and he had a right to be. And he was widely hated. He was beaten, jailed and, finally, murdered for his beliefs and his actions. While his actions were peaceful, the change he sought was nothing short of violent. He despised what he called "the tranquilizing drug of gradualism." Dr. King and Mr. Obama are different in many ways, but in this way, they are aligned: they understand there is much work to be done.

I left Washington last week with all this in my heart and with the nut of an idea in my head. A sort of New Year's Resolution. And just this morning, aided by the words of the brilliant Tim Tyson, I came to understand the greater depth of this new, more urgent calling:

We are called not only to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable.

Join me, won't you?

The Most Courageous Speech Ever Given...

KTrapani — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:57:00 GMT

It's April 4, 1968. Dr. King has been shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.

A few hundred miles away, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination, is scheduled to appear before a large crowd in a dangerous black neighborhood in Indianapolis. He is advised by his security detail not to go, but he goes anyway. On the ride to the event, he is quiet, lost in thought. Finally, the unimaginable occurs to him and he asks, "Do they know?" "No", he is told. The crowd has been gathering and waiting for many hours, they've had no way to hear the news. Bobby Kennedy realizes then that he, a white man of great privilege, will be the one to tell the crowd that their great spiritual leader has been brutally murdered.

He delivers the speech -- only 6 minutes long -- from the back of a flatbed truck, without a single note in his hands. In the days and weeks to follow, Indianapolis is virtually the only major US city that is not on fire. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy, too, is dead.

Here's the speech. As you read it, please ask yourself these 2 questions:

- It's 40 years later... is there anything about this speech that could not have been delivered yesterday?

- Aside from the circumstances, how does it differ from Senator Obama's speech on the same topic 2 weeks ago?

Ladies and Gentlemen - I'm only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening. Because...

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

(Interrupted by applause)

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

(Interrupted by applause)

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people. Thank you very much. (Applause)

Robert F. Kennedy - April 4, 1968

A lesson for Presidents' Day

KTrapani — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:41:00 GMT

The war is coming to a close. There are deep divisions in the US between hawks and doves, between blacks and whites, between those who want the firm hand of a central government and those who believe in the autonomy of the states, between those who support the President and those in opposition. It is 1865.

In Washington, DC, March 4 of that year is gray and blustery... not exactly the kind of day Abraham Lincoln had in mind for his second inauguration. Still, with the Civil War drawing to an end, there is hope and joy among the enormous crowds -- made up of wealthy Northern businessmen, a huge contingent of the Union Army, the entire US Government... the victors. Soon, they will have triumphed over the Confederacy and they will set about the process of re-unification. Some, humbled by their victory, will reach out to their opponent in compassion. Others, seeing the outcome as validation of their own moral superiority, intend to have their way with the South.

As he steps to the podium on that day, a month from the end of the war and only 5 days before his own death, Lincoln himself is moved almost to tears. He is about to deliver a speech he knows is his most important, at a time when his nation is broken and deeply in need of healing and inspiration and, as he rises, the sun breaks brilliantly through the clouds, streaming onto the platform, illuminating his very presence. Lincoln proceeds to deliver one of the most important, most emotionally moving addresses in US history and he finishes with words that resonate still today:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all... let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

A year from now, we will have a new President. For the next 9 months, though, we will argue bitterly over the course of our nation: war or peace? Universal access to health care or incremental improvements to health insurance? Governmental controls or free-market influence? Hope or fear? Along the way, we'll likely be goaded into judgementalism, we'll talk only with those who agree with us, or, worse, we'll avoid speaking about our choice completely and we'll allow the complex and fundamental issues of the day to be marginalized by the trivial... did she cry? Did his haircut cost $400? Finally, when our candidate wins, we'll feel, ourselves, victorious.

Unfortunately, regardless of who wins, the new President will have deep wounds to heal... not only the wounds of 8 years of divisive leadership, but the additional wounds of what may well be the most damaging Presidential campaign ever waged. I'm hopeful that not only the new President, but we, ourselves, can be guided by Lincoln's words from nearly 150 years ago: "With malice toward none; with charity for all... let us strive on to finish the work we are in..." In my view, the "work we are in" is not the nasty business of electing a President. For most of us, who are more prosperous than we could ever have earned or even imagined on our own, the "work we are in" is serving others. Particularly at a time when there are so many who are in so much need, it is our duty -- in fact, it is our honor -- to reach out and help those who are less fortunate than we are. Next year, let's not so much "spend our political capital" as much as share our many blessings.

The lesson of Abraham Lincoln is that even the most damaged nation can be healed. Let us hope and pray that, through our shared personal committment to come together through generosity and understanding we "may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

Forty years later, Bobby Kennedy still speaks the truth

KTrapani — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:35:00 GMT

This whole week, the folks in my office are working together to learn about freedom and history and, more specifically, civil rights and racism. Many served in the community with colleagues and family members yesterday on Martin Luther King Day -- "a day on, not a day off", as it has appropriately come to be interpreted. Today, the whole office, led by a 22 year old and prepared by a series of readings, participated in an overview of the civil rights movement and a discussion of race relations in today's world. Tomorrow, at the company's expense, a few of our folks will head to Memphis to the National Civil Rights Museum. On Thursday, those folks will lead another discussion about their experience. Friday, dozens of our folks will head to a photographic exhibit about the civil rights movement here in North Carolina.

All this is being done in the respectful environment of a diverse workplace. Some people will be uncomfortable with the dialogue. Everyone will be changed by the process. And nowhere is better than here, among trusted colleagues, to examine one of the central issues of our time: how do we relate to people who are different from us?

For all of human history, this question has confronted leaders who choose to unite rather than to divide. Those who divide do so by appealing to man's lowest instincts: to judge, to exclude, to persecute, even, to eliminate. Those who unite appeal to our highest ideals: to love, to nurture, to understand, to share. Over forty years ago, speaking to a group of young paople in South Africa on their Independence Day, Bobby Kennedy framed this issue beautifully and left the group -- and all of us -- with a call to action. Here are some excerpts from that speech:

"This is a Day of Affirmation, a celebration of liberty. We stand here in the name of freedom.

At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man, the child of God, is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and the abiding practice of any Western society.

The first element of this individual liberty is the freedom of speech: the right to express and communicate ideas, to set oneself apart from the dumb beasts of field and forest; to recall governments to their duties and obligations; above all, the right to affirm one's membership and allegiance to the body politic--to society--to the men with whom we share our land, our heritage, and our children's future.

Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men's lives. Everything that makes man's life worthwhile--family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head--all this depends on decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people. Therefore, the essential humanity of men can be protected and preserved only where government must answer--not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular religion, or a particular race, but to all its people.

Many nations have set forth their own definitions and declarations of these principles. And there have often been wide and tragic gaps between promise and performance, ideal and reality. Yet the great ideals have constantly recalled us to our duties. And--with painful slowness--we have extended and enlarged the meaning and the practice of freedom for all our people.

For two centuries, my own country has struggled to overcome the self-imposed handicap of prejudice and discrimination based on nationality, social class, or race--discrimination profoundly repugnant to the theory and command of our Constitution. Even as my father grew up in Boston, signs told him that No Irish Need Apply. Two generations later President Kennedy became the first Catholic to head the nation; but how many men of ability had, before 1961, been denied the opportunity to contribute to the nation's progress because they were Catholic, or of Irish extraction? How many sons of Italian or Jewish or Polish parents slumbered in slums--untaught, unlearned, their potential lost forever to the nation and human race? Even today, what price will we pay before we have assured full opportunity to millions of Negro Americans?

In the last five years we have done more to assure equality to our Negro citizens, and to help the deprived both white and black, than in the hundred years before. But much more remains to be done.

For there are millions of Negroes untrained for the simplest of jobs, and thousands every day denied their full equal rights under the law; and the violence of the disinherited, the insulted and injured, looms over the streets of Harlem and Watts and South Side Chicago.

But a Negro American trains as an astronaut, one of mankind's first explorers into outer space; another is the chief barrister of the United States government, and dozens sit on the benches of court; and another, Dr. Martin Luther King, is the second man of African descent to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent efforts for social justice between races.

We have passed laws prohibiting discrimination in education, in employment, in housing, but these laws alone cannot overcome the heritage of centuries--of broken families and stunted children, and poverty and degradation and pain.

We must recognize the full human equality of all of our people before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this, not because it is economically advantageous, although it is; not because of the laws of God command it, although they do; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do.

In some, there is concern that change will submerge the rights of a minority, particularly where the minority is of a different race from the majority. We in the United States believe in the protection of minorities; we recognize the contributions they can make and the leadership they can provide; and we do not believe that any people--whether minority, majority, or individual human beings--are "expendable" in the cause of theory or policy. We recognize also that justice between men and nations is imperfect, and that humanity sometimes progresses slowly.

"There is," said an Italian philosopher, "nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things." Yet this is the measure of the task of your generation, and the road is strewn with many dangers.

First, is the danger of futility: the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills--against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. Yet many of the world's greatest movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant Reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal.

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

The second danger is that of expediency; of those who say that hopes and beliefs must bend before immediate necessities. Of course, if we would act effectively we must deal with the world as it is. We must get things done. But if there was one thing President Kennedy stood for that touched the most profound feelings of young people around the world, it was the belief that idealism, high aspirations, and deep convictions are not incompatible with the most practical and efficient of programs--that there is no basic inconsistency between ideals and realistic possibilities, no separation between the deepest desires of heart and of mind and the rational application of human effort to human problems. Of course to adhere to standards, to idealism, to vision in the face of immediate dangers takes great courage and takes self-confidence. But we also know that only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly.

A third danger is timidity. Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.

For the fortunate among us, the fourth danger is comfort, the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged--will ultimately judge himself--on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

So we part, I to my country and you to remain. We are--if a man of forty can claim that privilege--fellow members of the world's largest younger generation. Each of us have our own work to do. President Kennedy was speaking to the young people of America, but beyond them to young people everywhere, when he said that "the energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."

And, he added, "With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

No words need be added to Bobby Kennedy's, except these: cannot your own community, cannot your own workplace be a place where constructive, civil discourse on the most important issues of the day be the rule and not the exception?