The Lorax, the Prophets, and the iPad
Adam discusses Dr. Seuss's book the Lorax.
Do you think the Lorax and the biblical prophets have the same structure to their message?
Adam agrees with the Apple executive who stated to the New York Times that unless costumers care more about working conditions in China than about a new iPhone, conditions in the factories will not change. Adam goes on to claim that we consumers should demand better working conditions in those factories. How do you think we should go about making those demands?
Do you agree with the prophets and the Lorax that if we don't care for the vulnerable members of our world, including our environment, that our society is in danger of dying? Why/Why not?
For more information, see the website for the Chinese group "Students and Scholars Against Coorporate Misbehavior" and ABC's report "A Trip to the iFactory".
I am Trayvon and I am George
Good people across our nation are trying to find answers to the following questions: Was Trayvon Martin’s death a racially motivated murder or something else, an act of self-defense or a tragic accident? Is George Zimmerman a racist or something else, a decent man or emotionally ill? Is President Obama’s response measured and appropriate or something else, too timid a challenge to racism or too dismissive of concerns for safety and security? Is this incident unique or something else, a symptom of culture-wide racism, of too many guns in civilian hands or not enough?
Strident voices are shouting at each other from all sides, confident that they are in the right and that anyone who disagrees with them is willfully, undeniably wrong. As the conflict polarizes and we are forced to take sides, it becomes harder and harder to believe in the goodness of those taking opposing views. Here is the eerie thing about all this for me: it is sadly reminiscent of old, tired patterns of debating moral issues that go back to the Civil War. Let me explain.
When an issue is morally charged, good people take sides. That’s what’s happening here – the death of a young person from gun violence is a moral issue, and this death has become even more morally complicated by the charge of racism. Racist violence, unarguably a moral wrong, has a long history in this country: the violence of slavery, of white race riots and lynch mobs, and the institutionalized racism of the Jim Crow South. One of the tragedies of the Civil War, and there are many, is the way in which the North was able to hide from its own racism both before and after the war by shifting all the blame onto the South. Christian rhetoric from North and South provided cover. Pro-union sermons claimed God’s divine support for the union; pro-secession sermons claimed God’s divine support for secession. Each side believed they were fighting for God, liberty, patriotism and to claim their place as the true heirs to the Revolution. As Abraham Lincoln said, God cannot be for and against the same thing, so at a minimum one side is wrong. As if that were not enough of a minority position, Lincoln nearly became a minority of one when he dared to suggest that God’s purposes might be something neither side had yet imagined.
But wasn’t there a clear right side, an assuredly Godly side, when it came to slavery just as there must be a clear right side with Trayvon and George? Some must think so, especially the ones wearing the “I am Trayvon” t-shirts or speaking publicly in defense of George. But what seems clear at first often gets blurred on closer examination. Take slavery – talk about a clear moral issue! How could it be possible not to condemn the side that would fight to preserve it? The problem with framing the Civil War that way is that the Civil War was not about slavery. Look at that list of causes mentioned in the sermons – nothing about slavery there at all. It is a deafening silence that casts shame on our entire nation. The moral issue that divided the nation was the idea of the nation itself, a sacred cause that justified the killing and the dying. That we did kill and die in unprecedented numbers was taken as proof of our nation’s goodness. Bloodletting always creates hallowed ground. When the war ended and slavery was abolished – a clear moral good – we swept aside the shameful truth that slavery was made possible by a deep-seated racism in the North as well as the South. War erupted, raged and ended without Americans ever openly acknowledging and repenting of racism as a national moral failing. This misunderstanding at the heart of our national memory about the war continues to force the issue of racism underground.
And then it resurfaces in Florida and we take sides again thinking for sure we know what the moral issue is and for sure we are on the right side of it. But what if the real moral issue is something else? What if it has to do with the moral failure of thinking we are right? We all know that feeling of righteous rage, or moral indignation when we are sure we have the devil by the tail. Both sides of the Trayvon case are feeling it passionately right now. Maybe that night Trayvon and George were both feeling right, sure the other was wrong. I don’t know, and I don’t want to shift blame from a truly guilty person, especially in a murder case. I think that it is vitally important that the investigation proceed to determine why Trayvon was killed. But I raised the example of the Civil War because the bloodshed was largely due to everyone thinking they were right. Racism continues to rear its ugly head because we have persisted in refusing to share responsibility for what was and continues to be wrong with our nation. Shared responsibility means sharing being wrong, not forcing all the wrong on someone else. The insistence on being right and on accusing others of being wrong allows us to justify our own hatred and violence, the very thing we denounce in others.
As we deal with the tragedy of Trayvon’s death, perhaps we might step back from our accusations and self-righteousness to ask some difficult questions: Can I find the grace to listen to, maybe even to learn from, the ones I think are wrong? Can I give up my need to be right and be honest with myself about where I am wrong? Am I strong enough to gaze upon everyone who is suffering, even the ones whose suffering I have ignored or even celebrated? Do I care more about being right than I do about ending racism and making our communities safe for all our members? Can I seek the good in a spirit of forgiveness?
I’d like to leave you with the thought that the real obstacle to ending racism may be our need to take sides. It is 150 years overdue, but maybe we can find the grace to stop needing so desperately to be right so that we can embrace both Trayvon and George, an embrace that is generous and large enough to include the good and the wicked, the innocent and the guilty, the right and the wrong. Perhaps peace will have a chance if we can say together, “I am Trayvon and I am George.”
Peace Building Opportunity: If you’d like to learn how to give peace a chance in our schools, speak directly with Ted Wachtel on Friday, March 30 on our web radio show, Playing for Keeps. Ted is the president of the world's first graduate school devoted entirely to the teaching, research and dissemination of restorative practices.
Playing for Keeps with Professor Julia M. Robinson
Julia M. Robinson, PhD, an Associate Professor of African American Religions in the Religious Studies Department of University of North Carolina at Charlotte, was the first guest. A teacher of courses in African American History, African American Religion and the Religions of the African Diaspora, Professor Robinson investigates the intersection of race, religion and gender within African and African American culture. Adam and Bob asked Dr. Robinson-Harmon about her research into lynching and the legacy of racism following the Civil War. Listen in on this compelling conversation.
Spiderman, Proverbs, and Jesus: Great Power and Great Responsibility
Adam discusses a scene from Spiderman, where Uncle Ben says a proverb: "With great power comes great responsibility." This proverb guides Peter Parker as he fights crime in his role as Spiderman. The Bible has a book called Proverbs, in which parents are instructed to provide wisdom to their children. There are two paths, one of justice, compassion, and love, and another path of wickedness and violence. Which path will we go down? Paul picks this idea up when he talks about Jesus. According to Paul, God was reconciling the world to Godself through Jesus. We have the power to participate, or not participate, in God's work of reconciliation.
Was God the Problem on 9/11?
I reflect on the 9/11 anniversary events I attended in the Chicago area: the Ground Zero 360 exhibit at the Field Museum and a conversation with community leaders at the WBEZ studio sponsored by the Project on Civic Reflection. When asked how we could recapture the unity of those early days after 9/11, one women I met at the Field said, "Turn to God". That got me thinking.
The Casey Anthony Verdict: Is the Devil Dancing?
Emotions have been running high since last week’s acquittal of Casey Anthony in the murder trial of her two year old daughter Caylee Anthony. Many have lived with this case since Caylee’s murder three years ago. The case has been a media sensation for many reasons, one being that Casey Anthony has made for a very good villain. She is portrayed as monster of a human being – a mother who would rather party and hook up with men than care for her daughter. She lied to police and investigators at the beginning of their investigation into Caylee’s whereabouts. Public opinion turned against her as she was seen partying just hours after her daughter went missing.
As the father of a boy who just turned three and another boy soon to turn 5, I understand the extreme emotions felt by many throughout the country when Casey Anthony was acquitted of the murder. But, the facts remain that, for one reason or another, the case against Casey was weak. As John Cloud of Time Magazine states, “Casey Anthony is guilty of many things. She is an enthusiastic liar. She was an indifferent mother. She mooched off her overindulgent parents for years. Even after her daughter went missing, Anthony partied and got a tattoo. But the state of Florida did not make a good case that Anthony murdered her daughter. In acquitting Anthony, the jury made the right call.”
The jury not only made the right call, but it was also a very brave call. They knew the high emotions of the American public riding on this trial. We wanted a guilty verdict so that we could know justice had been done. So, an acquittal meant that, for many of us, justice failed. One prominent television talk show host on a major new network put it like this: “there's something wrong with that. Because Caylee — is dead. And her body decomposed, 15 houses away from where the Anthonys put their head on the pillow every night, every day searching, searching for this little girl. Now I know, I know it is our duty as American citizens to respect the jury system. And I do, believe me I do ... But I know one thing. As the defense sits by and has their champagne toast after that not guilty verdict? Somewhere out there, the devil is dancing tonight.”
I think this commentator is right - the devil is dancing, but for reasons the speaker is blind to. The devil is not so much a red mythological figure personified with horns and a pitchfork. No. The devil is so much more dangerous than that. The devil is symbolic of a way of life that paradoxically leads to chaos and to order. As Mark Heim writes in his book Saved from Sacrifice, “Satan is the sower of discord and also the bringer of order. The devil delights in nothing so much as in instigating conflict among humans” (148).
The devil continues to dance because the seeds of conflict continue to be sown, and those of us on the side of “justice” are not innocent. We sow those seeds. For many of us, justice means retribution, which is a nice word for revenge. The satanically mimetic pull of uniting against a common enemy is in motion. We are thus well ordered in uniting against Anthony for a crime that can’t be proven. We have already begun to unite against a jury which made an honest and brave decision based on the lack of evidence put forward by the state of Florida. They made that decision with great risk, as jurors have even been threatened with murder, one by her co-workers!
We hate Casey and we hate the jury with a mimetically shared and uniting hatred. That hatred blinds us to our own corrupt desires for revenge and violence that we validate in the name of “justice.” And, indeed, that hatred, and that form of justice, is the song that causes the devil to dance.