The Right To Be Human

December 10, 1967
Plainfield

The Right To Be Human

The nature of the human condition is such that it must possess rights. The American Revolutionists spoke of the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Beyond such generalities, I would suggest (with Bettleheim and others) that the human self is not just a mechanism molded and directed by external conditions determined by the accidents of birth in a particular family, in a given culture, in a specific period of time. Unique and independent, the self operates in the external world, working out its activity guided from within. We all have the basic creative inner center of direction, but this can be smothered by oppression and hopelessness.

The authentic human self must have power to exert some effect on events in the world in order to be truly and fully human. The power to influence is a uniquely evolved quality of being human. The human self is developed through awareness of one’s powers; and the experience that one does have power.

If this is the human condition, then social forces which destroy the influential self or restrict its despotically are the social forces which must be understood, challenged, and eliminated.

Recognizing such unalienable human rights as proper goals and standards for all the peoples of mankind, the General Assembly of the United Nations, with no dissenting votes, adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, on December 10, 1948. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the General Assembly of the United Nations has proclaimed 1968 as International Year for Human Rights.

Today I would seek to remind you of some of the international standards which have begun to have some influence as a consequence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Then, because I believe there is an essential linkage, I would summarize the meetings between the “Black Caucus” and the Board and Trustees of the U.U.A.

There are nine conventions and two covenants which have been adopted by the United Nations – 4 by the United Nations and 4 by the ILO. Here is a brief review of these because never in human history have international organizations spoken so clearly about the rights of persons and the obligations of governments to respect these rights:

1)The Supplemental Convention on Slavery outlaws not only slavery but also practices similar to slavery – prison for debt, serfdom, purchase of brides and child labor, as well as slavery itself.

2)Genocide – defined as committing certain acts with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. All who are guilty would be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials, or private individuals.

3)Political Rights of Women: This provides that women shall have equal rights with men as regards voting, election to publicly elected bodies, the holding of public office, and the exercise of public functions.

4)Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination: Condemns racial discrimination and undertakes to pursue by all appropriate means and without delay a policy of eliminating racial discrimination in all its forms and promoting understanding. Among other goals, integrationist multi-racial organizations [are] encouraged and anything which tends to strengthen racial division is discouraged.

5)Abolition of forced labor: Attacks and discourages forced or compulsory labor as a means of political coercion or education, as a punishment for expressing political views, as a punishment for striking, or as a means of labor discipline.

6)Discrimination in employment: Promotes equality of opportunity and treatment in employment with a view to eliminating discrimination based on race, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction, or social origin.

7)Equal pay for equal work: Seeks equal pay for men and women workers for equal work.

8)Freedom of Association: Workers and employers shall have the right to establish and join organizations of their own choosing.

9)Discrimination in Education: Administrative practices, equality of opportunity and treatment. Parents free to choose private education for their children.

10)Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Consideration of communications from individuals who claim to be victims of violations of civil and political rights.

11)Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights – Right of self-determination to work, to strike, to social security, to protection and assistance for family, for adequate standard of living, to education, to participate in cultural life and enjoy benefits of science.

In preparation, but not yet adopted, are conventions on the elimination of religious intolerance and to promote freedom of information.

These become more than fine-sounding statements only when they are signed by the representatives of governments; and then ratified by the particular parliamentary body. In the United States, it is the Senate which can ratify the articles. Of the eleven which have been adopted by the U.N., the United States has ratified only one – the Slavery Convention. Four others have been signed, but not ratified by the U.S. Senate: racial discrimination, genocide, forced labor, and political rights of women.

One of the appropriate ways that 1968 can be properly observed as the International Year for Human Rights is to encourage our Senators to ratify the articles before it and to encourage the consideration of all other conventions.

Thus the international community we know as the United Nations has set standards of achievement, and by consent of some nations, established goals in the form of laws which may help substantially to establish the right to be human where this is denied; and will help protect the right to be human where some of these rights have been established as moral standards.

Of course, when we celebrate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we need to look at our own nation as well as others.

If the right to be human requires that a person be aware that he is not just a mechanism to be conditioned, but a self with the joys and pains of awareness; a self with some power to influence one’s own destiny, then the prejudices and discriminations which nullify or ruin this awareness and prevent this oppression of influence, deprives the person of the right to be human.

When a person in our community is prevented just by his color from purchasing a home, for which he has the proper deposit and has met the requirements of the mortgage, then he is being robbed of the right to be human because he is prevented from exercising the power of self-choice of freedom of movement and association.

When a person in our community is denied a job because of his color, he is being blocked from maintaining his right to be human. He is robbed of power.

Until there is much more general recognition of the relationship of self to being accepted as a person with all a person’s rights, including the right to be an influence, to have power to determine one’s own destiny in some authentic measure, then more troubles and turmoil cannot be averted. Hopelessness and despair drain the self-powers of the human condition. Inhuman consequences surely follow.

If you were here when Roger Hall and Roger Guthrie communicated their understanding of the findings and feelings expressed at the Emergency Conference on the Black Rebellion in New York, you probably have some impression of the difficult position of the white Unitarian Universalist.

The tensions and mixed feelings they felt at that meeting have increased, denominationally, as a consequence of the meeting between the Steering Committee of the Black Caucus and the Unitarian Universalist Board of Trustees. Following their meeting, the Steering Committee of the Black Caucus was vehement in denouncing the U.U.A. Board position.

My present views are that I still believe in an integrated social order, in integrated Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships. I hope I understand the feelings of Black people. The reach for Black identity, Black organization, Black control, is directly related to the right to be human. To be human is to be able to exert influence, to be able to lead in the determination of one’s destiny.

So I can understand the wish for Black separatism, but cannot endorse it, because even though integration in our churches may be a “liberal fantasy,” as Henry Hampton wrote, I still believe integration in our societies and parallel organizations to be the best possible condition from which to make longer strides in shorter time toward full recognition that all person are of worth and dignity and deserve equal opportunity. Unless I have been badly misinformed through the years, this has been one of the causes for Negroes joining our churches – that we believe in the superiority of an open society – open to all.

Therefore, I believe that the U.U.A. Board takes a position with which I can agree. I would make this reservation: If the February Conference of the Black Unitarian Universalists, subsidized by the Commission on Religion and Race, should make it clear that the prevailing conviction among Unitarian Universalists generally, not just the 30 members of the Black Caucus at the N.Y. Meeting, is that there should be a Black controlled, Black membership organization as one of the affiliate agencies of the U.U.A., then I believe that such a movement should be recognized and accepted. I would maintain, still, that given the U.U. context, as well as the context of the minority groups, one could predict that such separatism would not endure. But if such organization proves to be a strongly-felt need, then this will emerge as one of the results of the forth-coming February conference.

One thing more, I can understand the feelings which led the Black Caucus and the Black Steering Committee which came to make peremptory demands – accept or reject, without debate, etc. I think I can understand the impatience with the tedium of the parliamentary process. But I cannot support the view. The process of affirmation and opposition; the right to argue against a proposal as well as support – these ways of information and decision are not just temporary expressions of our U.U. movement. One can deride or berate Roberts’ Rules of Order, or scold those who prolong floor debate. However, the procedures are not trivial, but the product of at least a thousand years of due process. I do not see how we can fail to protect the right of dissent. I have been a member of minorities frequently enough – and protected by the right of dissent – I cannot believe we can lightly jettison this hard-won procedure in democratic relationships.

Certainly we have failed to eliminate discrimination and prejudice. Certainly we have been too ready to believe in automatic progress without personal sacrifice and pain. But the most enduring values that have grown and among the better human resources of hope is the establishment of the rile of law and the democratic process in our religious societies, in our nation, and slowly, but increasingly, in our world. This may sound hollow to those who have not received anything like equal treatment. If I were a member of the minority burdened by centuries of prejudice and cruelty, I might not believe any more in the functioning of due process, of orderly procedures which allow for dissenting arguments and negative votes. But, as I see it, no one could gain much and everyone could lose much more from an abolition of the due process by which groups make decisions following the assertions of those who wish to be advocates of their cause.

The Celebration of Human Rights should be more than verbal or philosophic recognition of the various articles defining human rights and claiming these rights for all persons. To properly celebrate, we must feel the tension of what has been done and what must be done to advance the freedom, dignity, and equality of opportunity for persons. Circumstances do not permit the neglect of our community, our U.U.A. or our world.

We are charged not only by the developing moral awareness of the U.N., but also by the best values of our Unitarian Universalist tradition to defend and promote the right to be human; to be a conscious self, aware of the fulfilling achievement of being able to guide the direction of life – one’s own and, in a measure at least, the trend of society. There can be no real sense of individual responsibility until a person is convinced that there will be a real response to his labors, his voice, his aspirations, his assertions of his rights. If one expects responsibility on the part of others, one must be willing to be open to the response from others. This I believe is one of the true balances between self and other; this is the right to be human.

In the [Brothers Karamazov] (p. 92), Rakitin is asked to confirm the charge that if there is no immortality, there can be no virtue. Immortality is not the subject today, but his reply speaks pointedly to the right to be human, “Humanity will find in itself the power to live for virtue even without believing in immortality. It will find in it the love for freedom, for equality, for fraternity.” Such love and the ability to so love is basic to the right to be human.