Freedom – The Sharpening Definitions

March 27, 1966
Plainfield

Freedom – The Sharpening Definitions

Anger can be directed toward that which is of lesser importance; indignation can erupt without prime consideration of what is essential. I would like to speak of the sharpening definitions of Freedom in the particular context of an issue which seems to have pierced our community and in the general context of what it means to be free and to possess equal opportunity in our nation, I have been reminded with some disapproval that "Brotherhood Week" came in February and that I neither made recognition of it nor made any reference to it. It is simply my present belief that brotherhood is a way of behaving 52 weeks a year, not celebrating once a year. Authentic brotherhood still awaits struggle for achievement and does not represent yet a victory about which anyone may feel complacent.

Since 1954 when the Supreme Court handed down its history-making decision affirming that segregated education in the public schools is unequal education, there has been struggle to define and establish other rights where discrimination and segregation have created appalling damage to persons in minority groups. There have been dramatic boycotts and demonstration and education to develop increasing awareness of critical needs still to be met. We have experienced the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, wherein the right to vote and legal remedies against discrimination in employment and housing have been more clearly established and certain measures taken to provide that the practice of discrimination will be subject to legal penalty and that the right to vote and work and live can be enforced in the courts. Each successive year of federal legislation discloses additional loopholes that must be closed in order that civil rights may become the possession of everyone and equality of opportunity more specifically and realistically defined. It seems probable that there will be a Civil Rights Act of 1966, again for the purpose of closing up leaks where prejudice and discrimination still dilute the intent of prior legislation and Supreme Court decisions. I would hope that we all would be supportive of such legislation when it is introduced if it will strengthen the establishment of rights everyone should be able to practice.

There are those who say, "isn't that enough?" The successive civil rights acts, the Supreme Court rulings which have placed the seal of constitutionality upon such laws, the opportunities that are offered by the various provisions of the Office of Economic Opportunity and the anti-poverty legislation would seem to represent a quantity of remedies which should "satisfy" those who have been so cruelly and obviously deprived of equal rights and opportunities for so long. Isn't that progress enough? Anyone who is at all perceptive of the feelings and righteous aspirations of members of minority groups knows that it is not enough. The sharpening definitions of freedom insist that freedom requires an end to discrimination and segregation NOW, wherever and whenever these appear; that allegations of discrimination must be checked out whenever there is an area of public responsibility. Furthermore, public responsibility is not limited by specific boundaries of governmental jurisdiction, but applies to organizations and agencies, which by their nature are public in their organization, purpose and financing.

In the particular context of our community, there has been much displeasure voiced by the Press and individuals about the allegations by the NAACP that discrimination in fact has been the experience of Negro girls in participating in the Girl Scout activities in this community. How deep the division may be between individuals, some in this Society as well as the Community on this issue is a matter I am unable to estimate accurately. But I do know that there has been much concern and deep regrets on the part of some that this matter has become a public issue. If I can interpret at all accurately, the attitude of our local newspaper in its editorial and the views of a number of citizens whose letters have been published, there are feelings of anger bubbling toward the NAA[CP] because of its dramatic protest demonstration planned for the purpose of calling attention to the injustice done to little girls.

Members of the local NAACP picketed the home of the President of the Girl Scout Council on March 11. I have no doubt that there are those here, who, then and now, considered that action ill-advised and disruptive to the cause of a community increasingly intent on putting an end to unbrotherly attitudes and practices. Beyond doubt there are those here who then and now believe that unless issues are publicly dramatized in such legal and nonviolent demonstrations, then delay in decision will be prolonged and practices will not be markedly changed. I am on the side of those who believe in such demonstrations as a peaceful way to hasten decision and action. Although I did not picket, I find no fault in that demonstration, when I review the series of events. Some criticisms flow from an inadequate knowledge of the basis for deep concern of persons who see human rights as the pivotal moral issue of our nation and our community.

Complaints of segregation in troops were filed with the Plainfield Human Relations Commission in September 1965; I understand that charges data back three years. After first acknowledging there was basis to the charges, the Human Relations Commission has been dealing with the complaints through a sub-committee which has been attempting to bring the parties together. There were many, particularly those persons with deep commitment to the issues involving civil rights, who believe that the nature of the situation did not require that much time to decide whether there was substance to the complaints or not. Then in February there came a series of new charges of discrimination which occurred on an overnight camping trip. These complaints were brought to the Human Relations Commission in February. A month later, when still no decision had been rendered by the Human Relations Commission on both series of allegations, the NAACP decided to demonstrate publicly in order to "focus public attention" on the matter. Within a week, the Chairman of the Plainfield Human Relations Commission issued a statement which I quote exactly as it appeared in the Courier News:

"A profitable meeting was held between the Human Relations Commission and the executive committee of the Washington Rock Girl Scout Council relative to charges of discrimination arising in some of the Girl Scout troops in Plainfield.

"The complaints of troop segregation and of discrimination at a troop weekend were answered by the Girl Scout Council. The discussion disclosed some foundation for the complaints which arose from a variety of circumstances. The commission felt that the complaints have been and are being overcome by positive action on the part of Girl Scouts and their leadership.

"The Commission was advised that the Washington Rock Council is in process of organization of troops on a citywide basis. They are also attempting to secure neighborhood meeting places. The troop complained of, relative to the weekend in question, has been re-organized much to the credit of the girls themselves.

"The creed of Girl Scouting in and of itself is inconsistent with discrimination. There is evident need for better communication and understanding among all interested in the scouting program.

"The Human Relations Commission urges a more positive effort to remove any future repetition of past circumstances and will make further affirmative recommendations in the near future."

This statement from the Human Relations Commission seems to deal with the incidents connected with the February overnight at Camp, and I assume "further affirmative recommendations" will deal with the other allegations and offer suggested courses of action. I am assuming also that there will be recognition that solutions to the thorny problems will be found not only by waiting for the organization of new troops but also by completing rosters of existing troops.

As a resident of this community for but six months, my area of ignorance may be greater than most. Therefore I felt the need to find out just what were the powers and responsibilities of the Human Relations Commission. The ordinance provides, "The Human Relations Commission shall act in an advisory capacity to the Mayor and Common Council and shall attempt to foster through community efforts or otherwise good will, cooperation and conciliation among the groups and elements of the inhabitants of the community and make recommendations to the Mayor and Council for development of the policies and procedures in general and for programs of formal and informal education that will aid in eliminating all types of discrimination based on race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry or age, and to perform such other functions as are now set for in NJSA 18: 25-10."

I trust that the Human Relations Commission continues to maintain and develop a policy that public information as well as private reconciliation is a necessary part of the task. Facts available to the public are something like antiseptic procedures for a wound; when antiseptic is applied, there is pain and smarting, but the growth of bacteria which might cause infection to spread may be halted. Public leadership to aid integration is a community responsibility as well as private reconciliation between parties to a dispute.

Will there be more public protests when patterns of discrimination and segregation seem to be present and action on complaints seems unduly delayed? Yes. Will many of you resent such protests and believe divisions are widening and bitterness increasing in our community? Yes, many of you will feel hostile and that things are getting worse.

I have been speaking about a particular issue in our community; but my deepest concern is not so much what the niceties and inhibitions of middle class behavior may call for, but, what must I believe? What must I say publicly that will be a positive influence, however small, on the fact that unless we in this nation and this city can bring about an enlightened, integrated atmosphere where discrimination, segregation and prejudice for reasons of race are banished, then we have failed lamentably to make our great goals real. Therefore, although the subject thus far has been on a particular issue, there are generalities which need emphasizing. Everyone of you, who, like I, by virtue of the accident of birth, inherited a light enough skin pigmentation so that we have not had to live under injurious social handicap, needs to STOP, LOOK, LISTEN.

STOP: Consider Nathan's parable, an old story from our Judaic culture (2 Sam. Ch. 12). King David had stolen Uriah's wife and had arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle. Nathan went to King David and told a parable about a rich man and a poor man; and how the rich man did great injustice to the poor man. King David’s anger was greatly kindled"... and he told Nathan that the man responsible would surely die. Nathan said to David, "Thou art the man."

There is no health in cultivating a neurotic burden of guilt for the evils caused by prejudice, if you are of my pigmentation. Great damage can be caused by the guilt-ridden person to others and himself. But there is health in recognizing that "justice delayed is justice denied." We who are favored should stop and try to understand a different point of view before raising alarms and uttering regrets about public demands for justice and equal opportunities. As opportunities have widened a bit and the worst effects of prejudice restrained, more subtle ways of discrimination become apparent and cry for attention. One of the truths that can be inferred from the analogy of the Heisenberg scientific theory of indeterminacy is that in human affairs what is real and relevant may be comprehended differently when viewed from unlike perspectives. Is it possible for us who are favored to see from the point of view of those who are deprived?

Allan Temko, an architectural critic, in a interview published by the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions ("The City," p. 26), answered a question about urban and architectural problems,

"If people can be educated and have decent places in which to live, and if we can prevent war, the greatest of all the destroyers of our cities, and if we can marshal all our resources in an orderly, intelligent way, think of the potential benefits to people as individuals. Today the steel industry of our country is working at less than 60% of capacity, and yet one out of ten dwelling units in the United States lacks either an outdoor toilet, hot running water, or a bath or shower. Not long ago, we had a fire in San Francisco in which one person died and sixteen were injured. Last year we had a fire in which seventeen people died. These things happen and they are going to happen again until we rebuild our cities. As long as people live under humiliating conditions, they are going to be bitter and brutal...."

Stop and think of the miserable captivity of slaves on our Continent for almost three hundred years. Scholars have pointed out that the form of slavery which existed here was more inhuman and brutal than other varieties of slavery in ancient or modern times. Stop and think, but also stop and consider that terrible as this period of slavery was, it is ducking the issues of our times to categorize all our tensions, bitterness and conflict as the result of three hundred years of slavery. We must know more about and remember that terrible history, but we must be equally aware that it is discrimination and segregation as these are practiced and condoned in OUR times that represent the most formidable barriers in the way of equal opportunity and blocking authentic achievement of good human relations between people in our age, nation, state and communities.

Stop and remember for how long, and in how many places the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were sheer hypocrisy as far as persons with different pigmentation than mine. Stop and remember how many persons have died at the hands of murderers because they ventured to assert and tried to encourage the registration of voters and the integration of public schools: seventeen in 1965, fourteen in 1964, thirteen in 1963, just to cite three years.

Kenneth Clark in DARK GHETTO, (Harper and Row, p. 216-9) writes,

"...The natural reactions to injustice, oppression and humiliation are bitterness and resentment. The form which such bitterness takes need not be overtly violent, but the corrosion of the human spirit which is involved seems inevitable. It would appear, then, that any demand that a victim love his oppressor – in contrast with a mere tactical application of nonviolent, dignified resistance as a moral rebuke with concomitant power to arouse the conscience and effectiveness of others – imposes an additional and probably intolerable psychological burden.

"...An inescapable reality is the fact that the American Negro is inextricably American. In spite of the psychological appeals of identification with Africa, and the temporary props to a sagging ego which can be found in occasional discussions and seminars about 'our African heritage,' the American Negro is no more African than he is Danish or Irish or Indian. He is American. His destiny is one with the destiny of America. His culture is the culture of Americans. His vices and virtues are the vices and virtues of Americans. His dilemmas are essentially the dilemmas of Americans. He cannot escape this stark fact, in spite of the understandable attempts to evade the bitter reality that he has been treated, more often than not, as an alien in his own land. This bitterness has been compounded by the ridiculous, absurd fact that the darkest-skinned foreigner will be profusely apologized to if he is accidentally made a victim of American Racism, that is, if he is mistaken for an American Negro and treated as such anywhere in America. The implication of these repeated "embarrassments" is that it is all right to treat a dark-skinned American as if he were subhuman, but it is embarrassing to the nation, and a reflection on our sense of decency and courtesy, to treat a dark-skinned African or Asian in a similar manner."

Because, through no virtue of my own, I live in this skin pigmentation of the favored group, I must stop and think on these things.

LOOK: Look at yourself. Again let me put before you a most astringent paragraph by Kenneth Clark (p. 228)

"The delusion of the 'white liberal' is superiority of another kind – not of origin or of status, but of the spirit. He takes pride in the fact that he is free from prejudice. The fantasy of tolerance, which a decade ago was, for the liberal conscience, adequate support has been superseded by the fantasy of purity. The crowning insult which anyone can pay to an intelligent Northern white is to suggest that he might be motivated to some action, decision, or plan by racial considerations. He responds somewhat as follows: 'We do not keep racial records. We do not even know the color of Mary or Jim. He is just like one of us.' Northerners find it more difficult or or more painful than Southerners to face their prejudices. For the liberal it is a matter of self-respect to be considered free of bias. Yet when brought to the test by the stark and seemingly extreme demands of Negroes, this confidence often gives way to a resentment and anger at the Negro, an anger accompanied by guilt: 'These Negroes, whose friends we are, are now going too far; they are breaking the bounds of our tolerance.' The white liberal who thought he considered Negroes as 'we', may now address them as 'you people.' If he is sensitive, he may be shaken to discover in himself new feelings of alienation and even hostility."

Is it I? Is it you? Only I and only you know the answer that is deep in our minds and hearts. But let's look at ourselves. Is the anger we feel at some type of protest or demonstration disproportionate – a more intense anger than we have felt at the discrimination and segregation that gave birth and strength to the protest and demonstration? What makes us more angry – the effort to set things right or the social wrongs that causes people to act bravely and unfashionably? If this were ancient Egypt, would we be more angry at the slaves who planned and set out on the Exodus, or more angry at the conditions of servitude at which they rebelled? The answer is easy when looking back 3000 years. Many do not find the answer simple when it is our day, our town, our friends. But right is still right.

Let's look at ourselves and remember that if things are wrong today we cannot stop at blaming ante-bellum southern slave owners or northern slave traders, for such just explains the origins of inequality and do not represent the flimsiest reason to keep barriers up today.

Let's look at ourselves and the events which make us angry and the persons who cause annoyance to stir within us. If indignation is righteous, it is stirred by one’s sense of values – and among us, it should be the dignity and worth of every human person. I will look at myself and judge whether my anger is proportionate and properly directed. For me, the consequence of looking at myself, even allowing for human inertia and human reluctance, is that I am false to myself unless I stand for the elimination of all the old barriers of discrimination and segregation anywhere in our town and in our land. And there are many ways to try – legislation, persuasion, dramatic protest, embarrassing confrontation.

LISTEN: Listen to what persons are saying. Listen closely to what persons are saying who have borne the blows, deprivations, and hurts of discrimination and segregation. Listen and try to understand their anger. It seems to me that a good deal of our listening is defensive listening. We may seek the flaw in what others are saying or analyze an absence of logical precision in order to justify ourselves. Our ego, our fear for our own place in the status quo, may block us from hearing what is being said. I will not deny there is a great deal of comfort provided for the ego when with deft thrust or parry, we answer that part of the argument we wanted to hear. In a conversation or controversy, we do like to stick in our thumb, pull out the plum and say, "what a great boy am I." But in this crucial age when freedom is being re-defined and the points of the definition are sharp and getting sharper, we need to listen. Think of the last time you were thwarted in some effort, when frustration pushed the temperature of your anger threshold past your usual degree of tolerance – that business deal that fell through, that repairman who ruined your appliance, that honor you expected that somehow didn't arrive, that flight that didn't get off the ground. What if all your life there had been thwarting of legitimate aspirations, a frustration of goals which rightfully should have been yours? What if all your life you had been kept on the disenfranchised end of all the one-way Liberty Streets?

Listen to James Farmer’s experience in Plaquemine, La., not in 1750 or 1860 or even 1900, but in 1963. He writes that his experience is not unique but can be "told only with details altered, by thousands of civil rights workers in Selma, Bogalusa, in Meridian." James Farmer went to Plaquemine in the Summer of 1963 to aid in a voter-registration drive sponsored by CORE. A peaceful demonstration was interrupted by troopers, mounted and armed, who charged the crowd, flailing them with clubs and stabbing them with electric cattle prods. A church was destroyed, windows, benches, "laid waste everything they could reach and flooded the gutted building with high-pressure hoses until Bibles and hymnals floated in the aisles." It soon became apparent that the troopers were planning more than intimidating a civil-rights group and beating up demonstrators. They were after James Farmer in order to kill him. He writes how it feels to be hunted by men determined to lynch him. How faithful friends concealed James Farmer from that lynch mob is one of the more epic stories of courage in our times. One who listens can understand why James Farmer should introduce his book with this quotation:

"If we are not for ourselves,
who will be?

If we are only for ourselves,
of what worth are we?

If not now, when?"

Somewhere in my notes of other religions, there is a digest of remarks by an anthropologist who studied a pre-industrial religion in Polynesia (I think). Among the archaeological remains was a circle of images of the gods of that religion, or possibly they were the elders of the tribe. The person before the council was explaining his life or his acts; and all the elders or gods held a hand cupped behind an ear with head slightly inclined, as though to indicate that their basic approach was, "Go on, we are listening before judging." None of us are gods, although a few of us are beginning to qualify chronologically as elders. And we must listen to those who have labored under the heaviest burdens.

In conclusion, the sharpening definitions of freedom may cut deeply into an institution such as the free church. Kenneth Clark is of the opinion that the Church cannot be effective except by a course of action which will alienate its strongest supporters (p. l78). He may be right; time will tell, and perhaps not too long a time.

But it is of some relevance to observe that American business, which may be the strongest social force in this nation, is coming to hold a different view of conflict. At a conference of upper-level business executives wherein there was discussion of how people and problems should be handled, Robert Townsend, Chairman of Avis, Inc. commented, "a good company will have a considerable amount of open conflict. It would be horrifying if everyone in top management agreed on everything." The President of a large utility company said, "Conflict can be used as a tool to get things moving. And usually, if you resolve your conflict in the open, it produces a good answer."

It is just this creative use of conflict that can cleanse an issue of irrelevancies and side-issues. There are inequities in our land, in our community. If we stop, look and listen then we can emerge from conflicts, if not unbruised, at least somewhat wiser, and hopefully, more able to meet the piled-up demands that historical and social forces are requiring us to answer adequately in our time and in our place.