Bootstraps N' Such

It ill behooves the man who is not forced to live in a ghetto to tell those who must how to transcend its limitations.

-Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

Aside from the slightly oldish language like "ill behooves," it's easy to forget that Thurman wrote this thing 50 years ago.  Because apparently a lot of people, Republican and Democrat alike have not realistically dealt with the reality that opportunity in this country is in no way equal.  We chip away at barriers like race, sexual orientation, religious differences, and we try in fits and starts to do something about the socio-economic tragedy of our so-called land of opportunity.

There is this tendency to call every form of discrimination a phobia (homophobia, xenophobia, islamaphobia, gender-dysphoricaphobia (okay I may have made that last one up, but you get the point)).  This implies that people have neurotic fears of people who exhibit these conditions, that's what phobias are: irrational fears, perhaps even to the point of panic or being utterly disabled by that fear.  However, most phobias have some sort of trigger, and most of the common phobias are present in the general population, for instance claustrophobia, fear of small or enclosed spaces.  This is a fear that is founded in basic survival instinct, going into small places can be dangerous, i.e. caves, there can be scorpions, spiders (arachnaphobia is not just a movie) or bears and badgers, there is the danger of collapse, in other words, one might have legitimate reasons to fear small spaces, None of those actually apply to say getting an MRI, but most people find that experience somewhat unpleasant because it places them in a confined space in which they must hold still, while the thing bangs and whirs and makes various danger sounds.

Calling discriminatory or prejudiced attitudes a phobia may be correct in that it can often manifest in ways that are neurotic or irrational, but it also raises the defense mechanisms of the person you are sticking with that label.  You are essentially committing the same error that people who vilify welfare recipients or migrant workers are making, you are from your own perspective, telling someone else that their ghetto is not a place they should want to live, but you are giving them absolutely no way to get out of it, in fact, you are probably only affirming their feelings of persecution because, "who are you to tell me..."

In the sermon on the mount, Jesus encourages empathy rather than control.  His injunctions to turn the other cheek, give more than is demanded, walk an extra mile, and love your enemy, are ways out of this trap, for everyone.  They are about much more than just non-violence, they are about escape from our phobias and neuroses.  When you understand how truly difficult someone has it, you will find it harder to hate them, even if their behavior or their demeanor rubs you the wrong way.

Here is perhaps an odd example, but one that relates particularly well to the problems of racial AND economic justice: rap music.  You probably know the evolution of blues and jazz from the synthesis of African tribal music and Christian/western folk music, and how antebellum slavery and the subsequent oppression of black folk precipitated the creation of these forms that later gave birth to Rock and Roll and Rhythm and Blues.  But do you know that rap/hip hop music was born because kids living in the ghetto were too poor to own instruments?

The art of beat-box, which is making rhythms and sounds with nothing but your mouth and body, and mixing, which involved using turntables to sample and mix existing music as a dance track or a background track for a rap were innovations born out of necessity, because poor kids had neither access or encouragement to train their musical gifts in more traditional ways.

Hip Hop can be vulgar, it can be mindless and nonsensical, but in some very important ways it can also help us to walk a mile in someone else's shoes.  Artists like KRS-One and Chuck D from Public Enemy can give people living in white suburbia a sense of what it's like to live in the ghetto.  Ice Cube and Tupac Shakur can talk about life in a world of gangs and drugs, and the music is an aid to empathy.  Eminem (who is white, but grew up really poor) can tell you about what it's like to be a poor white kid from Detroit's Eight Mile trailer parks who is trying to make it as a minority in the world of rap music.  The Notorious B.I.G. can tell you what it was like to grow up in Bedford-Stuyvesant and sell drugs before "making it" in the world of entertainment.  These may be stories you don't want to hear.  They may be stories that trigger some phobias.  They may sound angry, they may use bad words, but if you want to understand the struggles they face, maybe you should listen.

There can be a lot of sifting to do, but understanding is part of what we have to do.

We need to face our fears.

We need to stop naming everyone the enemy.

We need to recover our sense of empathy and common humanity.

One of the rappers I mentioned above, Chuck D wrote this: "The minute they see me, they fear me, I'm the epitome of Public Enemy," and I don't think this is posturing as a tough guy, I think that is a lament about the fact that the world sees him as a threat: an angry black man.  I understand that, as a middle class white guy, I will never entirely understand what it's like to live in the ghetto or to be truly hemmed in by a racist system, but I believe that we can try to understand better, and at the very least stop blaming people for where they're born and criticizing them for not climbing their particular mountain of trouble the way we think they should.