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January 2001 Sermons
January 7, 2001 SermonRev. Nancy D. DeanJanuary 7, 2001Let Freedom Ring
This from Amitai Etzioni the scholar of human relationships we call sociology wrote in his book The New Golden Rule. Etzioni goes on to quote the Uniform Crime Reports date of 1992, which states that, "one out of every four or five adult Americans is harassed, intimidated, insulted, or assaulted for reasons of prejudice during the course of [each] year." Undoubtedly, this information disturbs you as much as it disturbs me. Every January as Martin Luther King, Jr., Day rolls around, which this year is next Monday the 15th, we are reminded in this country that freedom for more than select groups is something relatively new and by no means without holes in its fabric. Which is one very good reason for celebrating this great leader for civil rights. Just getting a national holiday to honor the work of the Rev. King was proof enough that freedom is far from easy in our land. If I am not mistaken, there was for a long while, and may still be, one hold-out state that does not have this on what used to be called the bank holidays list. The fact is, that you and I, here in the suburbs where racial and ethnic strife seems to be not a big problem, do not tend to occupy our thoughts toward these issues all that much. No blame is to be allotted, but we always risk the dangers of complacency when we do not stop to consider that while our individual lives may be relatively free of the biases that racial and ethnic diversity bring with them, our brothers and sisters are all not so free as perhaps we think, or think we are. I hear the inner collective groan we are emitting at this moment and the inner selves we try to keep in check all saying: "Oh, no, not yet another sermon-lecture- reminder that racism is still abroad in the land, and that we all harbor racism in our hearts, or that institutional racism is still a cancer on humanity. Can we never get passed it!" The short is answer is, No. We cannot get passed what is still a major roadblock to cultural harmony. And, yes, we all do harbor some forms of bias toward some group whether we like to admit it or not. Which is the very reason for us being wary and aware of the dangers of complacency. Assuming that we do not have these problems, or issues, if you will, is far more problematic to us in the long run, than owning them. I tend to talk about our UU faith in terms of responsibility, that being a UU calls us to challenge ourselves about our spiritual and human weaknesses, and perhaps the most challenging of all is to deal with the issues, the ongoing issues, of racism and what it truly means to be free. Of course, none of us, your minister included, ever particularly likes being reminded of our responsibilities—the child in us remains in evidence life long, so it seems. Which of course reminds me of a story: The recent recruit was on guard at the main gate of a key naval base, and was given strict orders to admit absolutely no cars that had not been issued a special new permit. Finally, the inevitable happened. The recruit stopped a car in which a high-ranking officer was the passenger.
The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, talks about race and class as issues we in ministry particularly must keep before our congregations, because of all the people in the land who are likely to be fair in this country, those of you sitting in the pews and chairs are most "prone to be fair." Yet, he goes on to say that being fair is not the same as "aching for justice," which is what any victim of discrimination is going to feel. In other words, we can feel we are fair and willing to be non-judgmental, yet we may not realized that those feelings do not equate with the feelings we would have if we were the victims of injustice or inequality. Sloane also uses a term I think covers a good many of those of us who have long been part of the work toward social justice, especially around racial and gender equality, which "compassion fatigue." Compassion fatigue, simply being very busy and caught up in the daily grind, and occasionally indifference, and sadly real bigotry all tend to lead to a desire to avoid talking about these problems. We feel variously, helpless, hopeless, out of touch, indifferent, or—though I never want to think this is in our UU community—plain racism. While far from equal in their effect on us personally or on our community, they all have an effect in practice. W.C. Fields, the comic noted for his acerbic wit, once said, "I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally." Fields is about the only person who can claim such an encompassing view. Most of us feel we treat everyone equally, but it would indeed be the rare bird that did not have some warmth toward the same feathered group, and less toward those differently feathered. We have a national song, and a couple of hymns that talk about the virtues of freedom. When I was in grade school we had to stand up each morning and demonstrate our patriotism. We heard a Bible verse, then we stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance, then we sang a song. My favorite was from the second World War Era, "It’s a Grand Old Flag," but a close second was "My Country ‘tis of Thee." The later ends with the powerful phrase, "let freedom ring." Over the years of the Civil Rights movement, that phrase was often used to lift up the message of the black community’s struggle for the same rights that white American’s enjoyed. Let freedom ring. Why does that seem to have such a powerful message? A bit of deconstructing of the phrase suggests that like the sonorous, unmistakable sound of a great bell, such as those in the church bell-towers around this country that for generations called the townspeople to gather, freedom is a message that needs to be sent out, rung out. During the late fifties and early sixties, especially, there was a peal that grew from one great bell to be sounded, literally as well as figuratively, across the land until the complacent peoples of this country could no longer ignore the serious divisions, the tremendous discrepancies that existed between blacks and whites. Finally, after much agonizing and fighting and bravery on all sides, we got the Civil Rights Amendment to the Constitution in 1964. The bells pealing at their loudest and best. But, that was to be only the beginning. There was, and is, a lot of work still to be done. Certainly, nearly thirty-six years since that great event, we find that there has been much accomplished. Legal segregation is no more, but segregation, racism, prejudice and bigotry still are prevalent. Sloane puts it this way: "Racial discrimination is the one thing most clearly wrong with or country. In the eyes of the world it not only undermines our frequent claims to moral leadership, it contradicts everything our country stands for." Part of the problem has to do with a general mindset of much of the country for quick fixes, easy solutions, instant gratification. White America in effect says, "We gave you what you wanted, now why aren’t you just like us now?" But it is unreasonable to expect even logical changes to happen quickly when a problem has existed for so long. Firstly, our prejudice shows when we take the attitude that people of other races or ethnicities should be "just like" white America. That is both arrogant and misses the point of what "freedom" means. White America is not all just alike either, but White Americans have assimilated in a number of ways and have the privilege of being viewed without prejudice at first encounter, which is not to say there is no pecking order even among whites. In fact, it is this very pecking order within our own race that should make us more sensitive to the obvious nature of it when and where people of color are concerned. I remember well the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. I was still at Harvard, and many in the black community there, students and professors, where angered by the clearly white choice Thomas represented in the George H. Bush administration. One colleague said in a discussion group where the topic came up, that Thomas was a white person’s black man, not a black person’s; mentioning, quickly the name of Thurgood Marshall as an example to counter. For real freedom to be affected in this nation, we have to be able to get beyond the notion of anything monolithic. We are a pluralism of peoples. We are united in our nation on a number of levels, but we come from all sorts of different backgrounds, and the old melting pot ideas have always been flawed. Etzioni says that the old notions of all people assimilating into one homogenous group has never been true, even though it gained great popularity at the turn of the 20th century, with the great immigrations from Europe. What we have had, in reality, is a rainbow or mosaic; either metaphor much closer to the reality of what our country has always looked like. A lot of people who think back to the early days of our country, and longingly refer to our founders, forget that there was a race of people all ready here who had been savagely, and further, criminally displaced from their homes. The words of the Constitution said more than the same founders clearly intended, which does not diminish the rightness of those words, and the ongoing need to make sure that the really do cover all the citizens of this country. Both the Native Americans and the African American communities have seen repeatedly that words and deeds of our leadership often have been in conflict. Treaties were often broken when the controlling white leadership saw a chance to do so; meaning, when they had an advantage to gain. Ignoring the "all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain God given rights," statement in the Constitution when the people were blacks, Native American Indians, or women. In 1985, Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore of New York City said (quote from Sloane):
In the 1980s we saw a great deal of poverty that used to be hidden in various ways, and with the threat of another recession posed for us almost daily, that is what most comes to mind for me. That we will have, yet again, a huge number of people homeless, turning in ever larger numbers to food banks and soup kitchens. And, in light of what Bishop Moore said, I must say I agree with his assessment. I feel repeatedly the frustration and anger that we as a government and a people can address untold amounts of energy toward whatever expands our bank accounts; further, we would never think we could apply one wholesale solution and expect that we would never have to do another thing. Allan Greenspan is the country’s Federal Reserve Chairman, I have little doubt that almost every working adult—and quite a few children--could tell you who he is. Our nation’s money supply is constantly being studied, regulated, and bolstered when need be. There are no half-way measures when it comes to our capitalism. Just imaging what could happen if we applied even half as much of that kind of energy toward the problems of poverty and prejudice. The results would be astounding, and absolutely possible. The only things that are impossible in human affairs are the ones we declare so. We put no bounds on the possibilities for science and technology. A good part of the population would have no bounds on the stock market. Yet, we are resigned to all sorts of problems existing that have everything of the possible in them. We will ring the bells for some things, and not for others. I have heard good-hearted, well-intentioned people say things that imply they believe the poor, minorities, women, will never be able to do what the white male leadership has done. That there are limits to their, our, abilities. The subtleties of prejudice are what get in our way--and, get in the way of ridding ourselves of the problems of racism. Do hear this, racism is not confined to one race, all human beings must deal with their own racism, and the implications it has for them. It is no better to think that whites are by nature greedy and oppressive, than to think all blacks or browns are lazy. Nor is it healthy to believe that women are less competent than men, or that homosexuals are less moral than heterosexuals. We must continue to look at how we view ourselves in relation to other people we view as different from ourselves. This is how morality is built in a person and in a society. Sloane, Moore, and many other social and moral activists point out time and again that priority is the only difference between devoting ten billion dollars to weapons and a few million to the issues of race and poverty (all too connected, I would add). If I were to ask virtually any person in this country if they would rather have children have insurance which would be both preventative of more serious illness and save the country thousands of dollars per person, or get a tax cut of a couple hundreds dollars next year, I feel confident that each one would say that they would prefer the former, yet we tend to vote for the later. Why is that? The easy answer is that the American public is easily convinced to be guided by their self-interest. We might not end all of the problems of our society, but we could sure make a huge hole in them. I met a young man whose father was born in the rural south of a poor family, and after World War II, he went to college on the GI Bill, eventually earning a doctorate. He worked many years for Dupont, earning a high status position, and what with good economies and careful management, he became a well-to-do man. He has a will in which he will leave his children a great deal of money, enough so that most people would consider them wealthy. He has all ready given them a great deal in trusts and so forth. The young man, the son, is totally devoted to avoidance of inheritance taxes, against taxes generally. He cannot see that it was taxes that allowed his father to get the education that brought him his wealth in the first place. The young man cannot see that the kind of help his father received might help many others. Not everyone who had the benefit of the GI Bill had his success, but far more had some relative success than would have otherwise. A far greater number became educated than had before. "A nation that puts so much stress on getting ahead has a hard time dealing with those who fall behind. If you’re successful, you seldom identify with failure. This is proved by the fact that integration of races has already resulted in an even greater segregation by class. The so-called ‘underclass’ has all the marks of a subordinate caste. In the long run, I believe, class will prove a tougher nut to crack than race." Sloane, here, makes the point that we need to examine all motives when it comes to the problems that most trouble this nation. You and I as people of this ethics-based tradition we call Unitarian Universalism, are both part of the problem and we are the helpers to solve them. I am not suggesting we will find easy answers. These issues, like the money supply, need constant monitoring for good health. We need to keep the bells ringing if we are to be called to action—and we are called to action morally. Many in this congregation have been part of study groups to learn more about racial justice issues. We have a program in progress now to learn more about the justice issues for gays and lesbians. We will continue to offer programs that lift up the concerns of the disenfranchised through our Adult Religious Education program as well. Please pick up a copy of the Adult RE brochure and sign up for some of these offerings. We will keeping ringing the bell of freedom every time we make an effort to confront the nations most serious problems. It is both the least and the best we can do. |
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