Like vast numbers of Americans, I watched with awe and tears this morning as President Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. It is a remarkable event I never expected to see in my lifetime. I was an adolescent when the Civil Rights movement came of age. I watched television news of non-violent protesters being attacked with Police dogs and fire hoses. I was horrified when the FBI was sent to Mississippi to find, and then confirm the deaths of, 3 young civil rights workers – none older than my brother who had signed up for a “freedom ride.” And, I watched the triumph of one of the greatest legislators the US presidency has ever known – Lyndon Johnson – in passing the Civil Rights Act and, later, the Voting Rights Act. But I have also watched the grinding poverty of inner city communities and the intentional ignorance that nearly 30 years of conservative rule has fostered, only making things largely worse for young African Americans. Rhetorical flourishes such as “No Child Left Behind” give the lie to the slow, inexorable dismantling of government programs intended to address structural inequities resulting from the centuries of slavery and discrimination that is our history. And yet, here we sit with a new President whose parents literally could not have lived in many states at the time of his birth because of their different races. It is truly amazing. But, as Martin Luther King III said just yesterday, his father’s dream has not now been realized. It is still a dream. But it is a dream that now has legs. It is more than an abstraction to say that opportunity to attain the highest office in the land is a real thing. Barack did achieve it, so others can follow in his example. But the obstacles are still huge and will remain so for the next person to attempt what he has achieved. There is so much more to be done, and I can’t think of anyone who is not inspired to redouble our efforts, recommit to our goals, and rekindle our dreams of a world that we would be proud to call our own – just, righteous, compassionate, and peaceful. It is closer today than it was yesterday, and tomorrow, we need to get back to work to help realize that dream.
Also, of interest:
“In Honor of Madelyn Dunham: To Dream from MLK to Obama Inauguration”:
“Barack Obama on the Inauguration”:
Today, I write about the interrelated topics of justice and compassion. First, justice. Normally, I find myself railing about the plight of the disenfranchised and the powerless, but this piece is about the powerful and how remarkably unjustly they are being treated – the leaders of the great financial and now auto companies whose collective imminent demise is being prevented by the intervention of the federal government that is infusing, or considering the infusion of, public tax dollars to prop up their enterprises. Without argument, almost all of the managers still in charge of these failing institutions remain in charge, and tax dollars in the now famous TARP program are all that may prevent a disastrous devolution of the economy into depression and massive unemployment that will drag down the global economy as well. What is unjust about all of this is that they are NOT being held to account; they are not being dismissed for having failed the interests of their shareholders or employees; and they are not being permitted to learn the lessons of their terrible decisions.
Like a child caught cheating on his or her homework, failure to apply sanctions may consign them to a future of many more bad decisions. It’s a terrible thing to miss the important lessons of life, and the heads of Goldman Sachs and General Motors should be permitted to miss the experience. After lifetimes of espousing the wisdom of free markets, they rode that wisdom to the brink of social disaster. Wouldn’t it also be a fine thing to have them realize that free markets need to be checked by appropriate governmental regulation? It is not a minor matter that taxpayers will end up getting the short end of things as well if these people remain in power. Shouldn’t bailout funding of these failed enterprises be driven not only appropriate public ownership, but also by enterprise based commitments to social goals: the financing of renewable energy or the development of highly efficient vehicles that must be developed for our climate’s future if humans are to survive? But I digress. In part, my plea for more just treatment of mega-failed managements of these mega-businesses – such as firing them lock, stock, and barrel – is, oddly enough, born of compassion. Without such treatment, they risk a future where their moral compasses and analytical tools will not connect the dots between their failed judgments and their failed institutions.
If they were in high school, it would never be possible to escape that connection between behavior and outcomes. In the words of a classical parent, they will be better for the experience. Speaking of compassion, I must refer you to a most remarkable 3 minute video on the internet inspired by one of the TED prize winners from this past year, Karen Armstrong. It could, and hopefully will, change your life: http://charterforcompassion.com/.
I’ve spent the last couple of months working harder, and more excitedly, on something than I ever have, at least so
far as my aging, addled memory can recall. It is, believe it or not, all about a repurposed conference that Tides has done a couple of times before. Momentum. Now, you might ask, why in the world would a normal person get so exercised about organizing a conference? Here’s why.
I graduated from college in 1970 in the middle of Nixon’s first term (he was impeached during his 2nd). At the time, the Woodstock generation was in ascendancy and grinding through a social change agenda as though ordained by the gods. Civil rights had finally come to people of color, farmworkers had succeeded in forming a union (still hard fought by agribusiness), the women’s movement was emerging as a force to change seemingly intractable traditions, and the Vietnam War seemed to linger just to remind us why attaining and exercising power was so important. For me personally, Bobby Kennedy’s race in 1968 inspired a sense of what was possible, despite his tragic assassination. Looking forward, at 21, to the coming years, I was so certain that our generation was going to transform American society into an enlightened, tolerant, moral force in the world. How could it not? (more…)
There has been a battle raging in the philanthropic rag, “Chronicle on Philanthropy” that was inspired by a fear-mongering conservative named William Schambra of the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal at the Hudson Institute. He started with the worst of fear-mongering which you can derive from the title to his prominent editorial, “Philanthropy’s Jerimiah Wright Problem.” The article basically tried to equate Wright’s outlandish rhetoric (albeit taken out of context) with a body of very thoughtful work being done by a number of non-profits and foundations that addresses an emerging analysis called structural racism. (more…)
One of my Sunday morning rituals is to read Frank Rich’s column in the NY Times “Week in Review” section. Rich is such a refreshing voice these days, speaking truth to power in such an erudite fashion, and how necessary he is now that the doyens of public opinion have decided to add William Kristol to the regular weekly line-up of pundits. The latter seems caught between competing shortcomings: often on the facts, but now increasingly on their interpretation.
But it is neither Rich nor Kristol that caught my attention this Sunday. No, it was…..the “Public Editor”! This fellow, Clark Hoyt, is intended to referee when folks get factually out of line – often relatively minor transgressions. But this column – hmmm – how to say? It was mind-blowing. You see there was this column on May 12th authored by one Edward N. Luttwak, the military historian, in which he basically said that Obama would be unwelcome in the Muslim world because he was an “apostate” for having rejected his father’s religion and followed his mother’s Christian tradition. He argued quite convincingly that nothing could retrieve Obama from his fate and that he would be subject to assassination that authorities in Muslim countries could do nothing about because Islam sanctions the murder of apostates. For those of us who so want Obama, or anyone else, to return the U.S. to a positive and respected role in the international community, the column was disturbing to say the least, for it undermined our hopes for a renewed era of international comity.
So….more than TWO WEEKS LATER….it all turns out to be a bunch of hooey. Check out Hoyt’s column yourself. He couldn’t find an Islamic scholar who agreed with this wacko historian Luttwak. Not a one. And the editors of the Times? It turned out they hadn’t even asked a scholar to comment. They “consulted the Koran” (the editors, that is) and reviewed articles, but no experts were sought out. One actually might begin to question the judgment of the Times’ Editorial Board, if I can say such a blasphemous thing. Does that make me an apostate?
I’ve spent part of each of the past two weeks in DC - first for a Board Retreat of Island Press, and today for a meeting of the irrepressible Environmental Working Group. In both cases, these terrific organizations are dealing with complicated change. Island has to deal with the changing nature of the publishing worlds and the challenging economics of publishing books. IP, by the way, is one of the leading publishers of environmental subject matter in the country and have frequently published books that have directly led to policy changes and the like. Gretchen Daily’s Nature’s Services has literally shifted thinking about the economic role our natural systems play in our system. Alter them at our peril is one lesson you can derive. And Apollo’s Fire is helping people really understand the potential economic boom that can be fueled by agressively attempting to deal with climate change in our urban environments. Really good stuff.
In the picture above, you see Ken Cook, founder of the Environmental Working Group and his sidekick, Richard Wiles, who have built one of the most impressive environmental research and advocacy organizations in the country. Ken is holding forth on the prospects for their “Kids Safe Chemicals Act” idea which would change the way acceptable chemical burdens are measured. Kids just don’t do as well as adults in their ability to manage toxic accumulations, yet our regulatory system measures only adults. Crazy.
EWG also recently had a huge “win” when reports finally confirmed their long held argument that endocrine disrupters (now there’s a mouthful) can be toxic in even small amounts. There is a call in California to ban the use of one - bisphenyl A - which has made EWG the object of, how does one say….the close attention of the chemical industry. The industry’s association, by the way, changed their name to American Chemistry Council to sound less corporate. Needless to say, they don’t like the idea that groups like EWG publicize that humans are bio-accumulating toxics in our systems at quite a clip. Have you seen Ken’s remarkable “10 Americans” presentation? You won’t come away unchanged.
Also of interest:
http://www.youtube.com/user/EnvironmentalWG
I want to highlight a new Tides donor, Ishmael Beah, who hosted a “tea discussion” with Tides staff on the afternoon of the New York launch. Ishmael is a 26 year old whose new Tides fund will support young people in his native Sierra Leone, where he was a child soldier.
Now an activist, and author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael serves on many international human rights commissions, and is a brilliant writer with a captivating presence. During the discussion, Ishmael elaborated on the inspiration behind his fund and his plans for implementation.
Ishmael Beah Fund
Ishmael has lived through the kind of death and destruction that most of us cannot imagine. His work with Tides is one of his ways healing and creating change. The purpose of the Ishmael Beah Fund is to assist in the rehabilitation and reintegration of former child soldiers as they transition back into their communities after years of captivity and torture. It will support projects run by local organizations in Sierra Leone and other African countries that deal with the rehabilitation and reintegration of children who have been used as weapons in war.
Rene Joslyn in NYC is Ishmael’s Philanthropic Advisor, and she facilitated the tea discussion last week. Kudos, also, to Gary Schwartz for having the vision to secure Ishmael as a donor.
As a token of his appreciation, Ishmael gave a signed a copy of his book to Tides. It is inscribed to the Tides San Francisco Office, and was delivered via Berit and Gary to me. I encourage you to read it, as it is a remarkable story of the resilience of the human spirit and a great reminder of why we do this work.
For more details about his book, and life see videos at
http://www.alongwaygone.com/media.html
.