Forwarding the Conversation

I hear a lot of talk about “American Exceptionalism” but I see little progress in living up to that promise. When I walk the streets in most American cities I see boarded up buildings, people sleeping on street corners, and neighbors turning against neighbors. At the same time, I see glistening buildings that touch the sky, opulent shopping, and clean sidewalks. This dichotomy is a manifestation of a slow rot eating away at the foundation of this great nation.

During times of national tragedy leaders, pundits, and others call for us to re-think old paradigms. This is no exception; I believe Saturday’s tragedy in Arizona has driven a wedge into our national consciousness and has given us a short window to address this duality and the violence that it represents.

This is not a time for politics. This is a time for mourning, reflection, and discourse. This tragedy was neither borne of cross hairs on Sarah Palin’s website, Glenn Beck’s rants, or even the Tea Party’s anger; nor can it be undone by simply mitigating our political rhetoric.

The actions of a lone gunman transcend politics and represent something far deeper and more insidious then any single action, statement, or speech by a self-aggrandizing politician or pundit. This tragedy originates from our country’s unwitting acceptance of violence, the scope of which ranges from children maiming their peers in our schools to the violence that originates from fear, hatred, and deception. Bobby Kennedy, in an address after the shooting of Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks to this violence:

[It is] slower, but just as deadly… as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.”

Our recent national discourse has focused on “toning down” our political rhetoric. While this would represent progress in American politics, it misses the fact that this nation has fostered an environment that allows fear, distrust, and hate to run rampant through our streets. Apathy, division, and acceptance create a climate where these ills can thrive, and it is incumbent upon each of us to change our own attitudes so that this sickness can no longer flourish. It is not easy to talk about the fact that America’s institutions are failing a vast majority of citizens. Nor is it easy to talk about the fear and distrust that has swept the nation over the last few years. There is neither an easy set of policy solutions, nor words that will allow the President and Congress to immediately undo the destruction that has been wrought over years of neglect. Bobby Kennedy suggested over 40 years ago that we must re-engage with one another:

[We must] remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.”

Kennedy offered us a roadmap and a plea, in the waning moments of his life, to recognize that “Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.”

If our nation is to remain great, the wielders of force, fear, and hate must lay down their weapons and remember those who lost their lives in Tucson. In order to end the bloodshed and the slow decay of our society we must accept and recognize that regardless of interests, ideology, race, class, gender, or creed, that those with whom we share this time on earth are our human brothers and sisters. This is about ending the acceptance of violence in our country so that we can end injustice and live up to the promise of our great nation’s exceptional, and humble, beginnings.

Over fourty years ago Bobby Kennedy gave a speech about how we – as a Country – measure our worth. I think the ideas expressed in the speech are of value now more than ever. We currently live in a world where former institutions of American ingenuity are crumbling before our very eyes and people are losing their jobs and savings in the blink of an eye. It is now – more than ever – that we must remember that our worth cannot be measured by dollars and cents. Out true value comes from the strength of our relationships, our families, and our communities.

It is also time for us to remember that by pursuing puntative measures that we hurt ourselves. When we incarcerate individuals for long periods of time, criminologists and sociologists find that when the person released from prison that he or she is more dangerous than ever before. Punishment for the sake of justice is not justice at all. When we target bank executives hateful and slanderous remarks who benefits? When we legislate out of populist rage how does that impact the average citizen? It’s time for us – as a people – to come together and work through the current challenges that we face. We may not agree on every issue, but we can certainly reach out a hand to those who are struggling. 

When you pass a serious car accident on the highway what do you do? Do you stop and ask the people what happened? Do you drive by without batting an eye? Or – do you call 9-1-1 for help? 

This post is in honor of three individuals whose purposes are connected and whose paths will cross tomorrow. This post is in honor of the MLK, RFK, and Barack Obama.

Nearly forty years ago Bobby Kennedy stood before an almost exclusively African American crowd in Indianapolis and informed them that Martin Luther King had just been assassinated. You can see the video below and read the transcript by clicking here.

Now here we are on the fortieth anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death – the eve of the innauguration of the 44th President of the United States, and the first African American President. Nearly forty years ago Kennedy stood before a crowd and uttered the words:

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 or lawlessness; but 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 they be black.

Forty years later that message has been resurrected by Barack Obama who proclaimed in his 2004 DNC convention speech (which you can watch below)

there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

Barack Obama has sounded the call – yet again – for each of us to summon our better angels. He has summoned us to have love one another and to treat others as we want to be treated. He has summoned us to look at what unites us instead of what divides us. Obama appeals to a part of our humanity that no individual has been able to reach for forty years. Obama calls for each of us to “be the change we want to see in the world.” He calls us now to action because he knew as Kennedy did that:

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. 

King inspired a nation to Dream. Kennedy dared to bring that dream into reality. Now Obama stands upon the shoulders of all those who came before him poised to move King’s dream closer to reality. Tomorrow at noon Barack Hussein Obama will be sworn in as our 44th President.  King’s Dream is still alive and we’re not there yet.

Bobby Kennedy on the quality of youth:

“Our answer is the world’s hope; it is to rely on youth. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. It cannot be moved by those who cling to a present which is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger which comes with even the most peaceful progress.

This world demands the qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and thus, as I have said in Latin America and Asia, in Europe and in the United States, it is young people who must take the lead. Thus you, and your young compatriots everywhere, have had thrust upon you a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.”

Youth is a quality and a state of mind that gives us the ability to continually see the world through new eyes and different lenses. Bobby Kennedy spoke of the outworn dogmas and slogans of the previous generation and cited that what we need is the quality of youth. If we are to tackle the growing problems of tomorrow we need to go back to the visions of yesterday. We need to go back to a time when we saw the world differently: before we decided things are just the way they are. 

When a newborn baby opens its eyes for the first time it sees a world without labels and identities. It sees a world through the eyes of infinite possibility. That is the quality that we need now, not just in our leaders but among the general populace. Kennedy said that in order to create the world that we all want to pass down to our children that we require the “qualities of youth; not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.”

It’s time that we demand this quality of our leaders and of ourselves. I will now leave you with some questions to spur some creative thinking…

When you were a child how did you see the world?

How does the way that you saw the world as a child differ from the way you perceive the world now?

What is not possible now that you thought was possible when you were a child?

Who do you know that as an adult displays the ‘qualities of youth’ that Kennedy describes?

If you know a person like that, how do they personify these qualities?

Bobby Kennedy is an example of someone who displayed the qualities of youth. The video below is another speech that he gave called the Mindless Menace of Violence which highlights his thinking.