Truth and Reconciliation

Traditional South American Indians : a ClanDoes the United States need to consider appointing a truth and reconciliation commission?  This week I caught a news story about the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which concluded its work on December 15, 2015 to uncover the truth about Canadian mistreatment of aboriginal children and to seek reconciliation between the aboriginal community and larger Canadian society.  The occasion of the release of the report was recognized with a statement by Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, in which he praised the work of the Commission, its search for truth, and affirmed the need for continued reconciliation.

This got me thinking about how issues of race and inequality continue to be problems in American society. From the multitude of press stories about seemingly unjustified police shootings of Black men to the recent U.S. Supreme Court argument regarding affirmative action in college admissions we see issues of race, inequality, and social injustice continuing to be a part of the American social and legal landscape. It amazes me that even in the 2016 Presidential campaign we see issues of race, prejudice, and fear continuing to be successfully exploited by candidates.

Diverse People Holding Hand Truth ConceptAbsent a national effort to seek out the truth of our history, it will be very difficult for our nation to move forward in healing the deep wounds created by a century of slavery (I’m counting from the nation’s founding; I recognize that the actual history of slavery in North America is much longer) followed by a century of Jim Crow and segregation, followed by decades of prejudicial policing and economic injustice. For most White Americans these issues are mentally relegated to the area of “Black History” with the implication that it’s of little relevance to them.  I wonder if it is in the labels that truth gets lost.  Maybe there is no such thing as “Black” history or “White” history, only a shared universal history found in whatever truth we can recover from the past. Slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow were not only Black experiences, they were an experience of all who lived during those times and are a legacy that all contemporary Americans have inherited.

Our search needs to be for something greater than a collection of facts that we call history, it should be for truth, no matter how messy or inconvenient it may be.  Truth is not about vilifying or shaming, but about seeing ourselves as honestly and accurately as possible so that we can find reconciliation and freedom from the past.  Denial is the product of a dysfunctional mind whereas truth is a pathway to healing from the dysfunction.

None of this is a novel idea.  We’ve long known that one of the most important steps for a person struggling with an addiction seeking to become sober through a 12-Step program is a fearless and searching moral inventory followed by an effort to make amends except where it would be harmful.  Religious traditions have long recognized that truth and repair are predicates to redemption. For example, this week I was attended the Friday evening service at Congregation Shomrei Torah and I read the following in the Jewish prayer book:

“You cannot find redemption until you see the flaws in your own soul and try to efface them. Nor can a people be redeemed until it sees the flaws in its soul and tries to efface them. But whether it be an individual or a people, whoever shuts out the realization of his flaws is shutting out redemption.  We can be redeemed only to the extent to which we see ourselves.”

Our national failure to seek out the truth of our history tethers us to the past. Sure, we all know the factual history that slavery and segregation once existed in the United States.  What is lacking is the visceral connection that comes through a “searching and fearless” inventory that reveals the truths behind the history. It’s more than just knowing the basic facts, it’s understanding the why, the how, and the impact. The stories of both the oppressed and the oppressor must be told and heard.

ReconciliationWhen used in this context, truth is not something that is defined by a particular group.  It’s not the property of the oppressed or the oppressor, but is owned by both.  Without truth reality becomes distorted and both the oppressor and oppressed suffer. Consider the bizarre reasoning of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who recently wrote that slavery didn’t strip the slave of his or her dignity. Such reasoning is the intellectual denial of the truth.

Having sought out the truth, we then seek reconciliation with each other.  As a lawyer working in the American legal system, reconciliation is a somewhat foreign concept to me. The system I work in proudly declares itself as an adversarial system where we seek to determine guilt, innocence, or liability, and then impose some form of retribution either in the form of jail or money.  Repairing the relationship between the parties is not the goal and is rarely achieved. Therefore, I find it tempting to reduce reconciliation to its most simplistic concept and regard it as nothing more than apology, but that’s incorrect. In researching reconciliation, I found an interesting paper on reconciliation in Rwanda by Eugenia Zorbas in the African Journal of Legal Studies in which she writes:

“Reconciliation is a vague concept. In the wake of mass violence there is no goal past which ‘reconciliation’ has been achieved. My premise is that legal (prosecutorial) instruments, striking political compromises, publicly acknowledging the wrongs inflicted on victims, and other measures, as ‘messy’ as they may be, are all more acceptable than doing nothing.  I label ‘doing nothing’ unacceptable first because of its ‘shocking implication that the perpetrators did in fact succeed’. Indeed, silences makes us complicit bystanders to the perpetrators of yesterday. Secondly, inaction is unacceptable because it leaves grievances, fears of reprisals, and cultures of impunity to fester, encouraging cyclical outburst of violence by the perpetrators of tomorrow… ‘Reconciliation’ is the umbrella term I will use to refer to this series of messy compromises, though it may be inconceivable or offensive to some, is thus the only sustainable and genuine form of prevention in societies that have undergone mass violence.”

c399f805-cd08-4fdd-97cc-21559c10f305In other words, we can’t simply declare the injustice over and then move on with life as if nothing happened.  Unfortunately, moving on without reconciliation has been the American approach to social injustice to date.  Whether we’re discussing slavery and segregation, native American genocide, or political persecution of communists and socialists, our solution has always been to declare the injustice to be unlawful and move-on. We outlawed slavery, then 100 years later outlawed segregation. We’ve outlawed employment and housing discrimination.  We’ve even outlawed laws that outlawed interracial marriages.  Yet not once have we ever engaged in national soul searching for truth followed by overt action intended to heal the wounds. In the meantime, we see repeat performances of the old demon of racism in our society.  Perhaps it’s not too late. Maybe if we seek truth and reconciliation we can end the denial and start healing some of the wounds that are festering in American society.

 

The Hostile Holiday Greeting

Happy Everything to Everyone written on wooden with Santa HatThis week I received a telephone call from a salesperson who was trying to sell me a product that I have no interest in or need for.  It was one of those cold calls where the sales person knew my name and asked for me personally.  I was polite, but firm, in telling the sales person that I wasn’t interested and asked them to please take me off their calling list.  I said goodbye and prepared to hang-up the phone when the salesperson says:  “You have a Merry Christmas Mr. Abrams”, which on the surface is not something I find offensive, but his greeting was delivered to me with a tone of contempt and hostility that left me feeling a bit stunned.

I don’t celebrate Christmas, the holiday is not part of my religious tradition.  But I’m not one who finds a cheerful “Merry Christmas” to be offensive.  I tend to use the phrase “Happy Holidays” when delivering my own season’s greetings because it feels more genuine to me.  It feels a little off for me to use the phrase “Merry Christmas” since it’s not a holiday I celebrate.

What I don’t understand is how the various season’s greetings moved from  social kindnesses to statements of division and defiance.   I’m not talking about the negative responses by the recipients of the greeting, but hostility on the part of the person extending the greeting.

For example, in recently weeks we’ve witnessed the  “Merry Christmas” greeting utilized as a political statement of defiance adopted by some politicians.  According to CNN, during a campaign stop in October, Donald Trump pledged to his supporters that he would always say “Merry Christmas” and that “…you can leave Happy Holidays at the corner”.

Closer to home in Harris County, Georgia, and perhaps even more divisively, is the story reported by the Washington Post of the local Sheriff, Mike Jolley, who posted a sign “welcoming” visitors that says:

“WARNING: Harris County is politically incorrect,” the sign states. “We say: Merry Christmas, God Bless America and In God We Trust. We salute our troops and our flag. If this offends you … LEAVE!”

I’m dismayed when I see things like this sign.  I’m left wondering if Mr. Trump or Sheriff Jolley understand that they are really changing the nature of the Christmas holiday and greeting through their statements.  They’ve unwittingly, or not, transformed the holiday from a season of good will to something that is much less inclusive and appears much more aggressive to me.

It’s oddly ironic the way people such as Mr. Trump and Sheriff Jolley are co-opting the Christmas greeting into some sort of quasi-religious patriotic statement. What they’re offering is something very different than the freedom we Americans aspire to.  Instead, they’re demanding conformity as a predicate to inclusion.  I wonder if either has really thought much about freedom, what our troops fight to protect, or the dignity that is bestowed upon all human-beings through concepts of religious sacredness?

I am free to be MELouis Brandeis, a United States Supreme Court Justice, during the challenging first half of the 20th century considered the nature of freedom and is quoted as saying:

“The right most valued by all civilized men is the right to be left alone”

In the end that’s really all most of us really want isn’t it? It’s not about “political correctness”, whatever that really means.  It’s about simply being accepted as we are.  Surely, in the land of the free, I can chart my own path and decide how to greet people and what holidays to celebrate without being invited to leave town?

Art Is The Foundation

Last weekend, while visiting in my in-laws in Cleveland, Ohio for Thanksgiving, I was able to visit the Cleveland Museum of Art.  The museum was hosting an exhibition called “Painting the Modern Garden: Monet to Matisse”.  The exhibition contained many impressionist paintings, which are always favorites of mine.

Garden PosterFor me, visiting an art museum is a spiritual experience.  As I walk through the galleries, studying the expressions of the artists’ imaginations, it’s as if I am drinking in an elixir that opens my mind and helps me see the world both as it is and as it could be.

I’m at a loss to understand why the arts are relegated to a second place status in our national culture and in our education system.  It often seems to me that many of our leaders regard the arts as a nice frivolity that has no economic value. The logic seems to be that only math and science are needed to compete economically and for innovation.  In my opinion, to regard art as secondary or as a frivolity is profoundly ignorant and absolutely detrimental to society.

Art is foundational to both economic and technological progress.  Exposure to art opens our minds to the possible and gives us a fresh perspective on what already exists.  Art education is where we learn to create, to imagine, and to communicate our innermost thoughts and ideas. Science and math are of little value in the absence of imagination and creativity. Before you can build it, you have to imagine it.

Albert Einstein, often considered the greatest scientist of the 20th century, is quoted as saying:

“The greatest scientists are artists as well.”

Additionally, the arts were so important to Einstein that he is said to have remarked,

“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.”

In more recent times, the founders of the two largest technology companies, Microsoft and Apple, both pointed to the importance of art in the development of their companies.  Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, stated:

“I have seen the critical role that the arts play in stimulating creativity and in developing vital communities….the arts have a crucial impact on our economy and are an important catalyst for learning, discovery, and achievement in our country.”

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, also recognized the importance of the arts when he said:

“It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”

We cannot ignore the value of art in simply improving the quality of life in our communities.  Consider the cultural differences between living in Paris, France, with its many artistic resources and influences, and a less artistic city, such as Jacksonville, Florida.  Paris is legendary, largely because of its artistic richness.

Violinist playing in black background.I am fortunate.  I have the arts in my life.  I had art and music in my elementary school when I was a child.  I have access to great music and just about any book of literature I could ever want to read.  I play guitar, violin, and banjo.  I see theatre and have written and performed a musical play in two Fringe Festivals.  In my life I’ve been able to visit some of the great art museums of the world such as my recent visit to the Cleveland Museum of Art.  I know the impact art has had on my life, but I also know that many people don’t have the arts in their lives. We must make sure that art is in our schools and in our small towns and communities.  Now more than ever, we need the inspiration that art provides us to see our world in new ways and to recognize the potential that surrounds us.  After all, it all begins with the arts.