Robert M. Randolph
Chaplain to the Institute
August 29, 2014
Today as tempers have cooled, as fears of Armageddon have faded, it is
hard not to step back and think everything will be ok. There remains the desire
to be really angry, but few of us can carry our anger for long periods without
it eating away at our integrity. The
overly optimistic had proclaimed a post-racial era when we elected our first
black President. There are those who claim they have reached a state of color
blindness. And then there those who understand what Samuel Taylor Coleridge
meant when he wrote:
“If men could learn from history,
what lessons it might teach us. But passion and party blind our eyes, and the
light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on
the waves behind us.”
I think there are some
things we can learn from history so long as we recognize that party and passion
do blind us. Today as we gather the lantern light is cast on the life and death
of Michael Brown. That is what has brought us here to think of Ferguson, MO a
community that most of us had never heard of before the death of Michael. But
the lantern may as well cast light on the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford,
Florida who was 17 years old. Or we
might remember Jason Moore in 2011 also from Ferguson who was older but died as
well in police custody.
The lantern on the stern of
our collective boat may also cast light on events in New York when a bachelor party led to the death of a groom to
be in a hail of gunfire by police responding to a report of a non-existent gun.
The lantern casts light on the police in Albuquerque and the light reaches back
to Mobile, Alabama in 1981 when Michael McDonald was picked up at random on a
street by three men who were angered by the fact that a black man had been
acquitted of a murder charge and wondered if they killed a black man would they
be acquitted. They were not. The lantern casts light back to 1946 to the deaths
of two black couples at the hands of a mob-the last recognized lynching in the
United States. Three of the victims were members of the same family; all were
in their 20s. We know the pattern has remained the same and only the
designation has changed.
It is a pattern that calls
us here today; it is a pattern that tells us that for more than 400 hundred
years to be black in the west has meant to live in danger when you move beyond
constrained boundaries—beyond family, communities and even then you are not
safe. The black neighborhoods of Tulsa were bombed from airplanes. The name
Rosewood comes to mind and the story is the same: destruction meted out because
of racial hatred and fear.
The lantern casts light over
the past to reveal that the disparities of wealth are a constant. To be poor is
dangerous to your health. And when we see the realities of poverty laying
burdens on generations now unborn we know this is not simply a problem for our
day, but for years to come. We recognize that forces are being unleashed that
turn poor people—black, white, brown—against the interests of the other. And
the other shifts shape to become whatever can be defined as a threat.
The lantern reveals that too
often the power of law enforcement is the
power that we give to those
who protect us. When we are afraid we look the other way and allow people just
like us to exercise power we have given them. We are surprised when the power
is misused because we have forgotten the notion of accountability. ” Do unto others as you would have done unto
you.” has been forgotten in our desire to be protected from the evils that
abound in our world. We cannot live with ambiguity and turn to the unambiguous
acts of violence unleashed by the use of weaponry better suited to the battlefield.
And we wonder why we do not feel safe.
When you are afraid of the
other-however defined- and you place your trust in weapons the lanterns arcing
light over the past reminds us of how inhumane humankind can be. So we are here
today asking where to begin. We want to understand and we want to act. Where to
begin?
Let me suggest a few things
to keep in mind.
First,
the notion of a post-racial society is a notion that is false and unattainable.
We are to value one another with all of our differences. Here our religious
traditions give us guidance. Human kind is shaped in the image of the divine
and is to be valued as such. Here at MIT we talk
about the values of family,
the worth of one another and that is the kind of tapestry of meaning we can
aspire to see. A tapestry has a pattern visible on one side and on the other
are the broken knots of good intentions gone unrealized, of projects that did
not work, but still we work to make the pattern clear, the picture inclusive.
Secondly, at the same time we acknowledge our differences we need to recognize
the benefits of privilege. To be white and tall and of loud voice has its
benefits! To be blond and slight of modest voice also has its benefits! Privilege plays out in many ways to benefit
those of us of common ancestry –male and female. When privilege comes
responsibility and that means we adopt an ethic of care for the other.
Third,
we must acknowledge and understand the role of poverty in the issues we raise
today. To be dropped into the maw of hopelessness and then told to pull
yourself out of the abyss is a thoughtless exercise of privilege. We celebrate
Horatio Alger, but do not account for the countless nameless casualties
unremembered in our celebrations.
Finally, we are technocrats
who solve problems and our solution at hand is education, but education that
only advances the individual is not enough. We flirt with elitism unless we
recognize that a 22 year old graduate of MIT who is black is still at risk when
he or she walks down the middle of the street in the Fergusons of our nation.
If we leave here today with
nothing else let us leave with a commitment to widening our friendship circles
so that we maintain a commitment to
empathy for who are
different than we are. Cultivate friendships that push you to see the world
through other eyes. If you are not intentional about doing that your world will
always remain defined by folk like you. Homeboys are important but being
captured by a clique is still to be a prisoner. We can do better than that.
When I was younger I thought
we would have solved all these problems by now. That we have not is terribly
disturbing and yet experience tells me I should not be surprised. Human kind is
flawed. We hear that in different ways and see it often. We care for me and
mine and lose perspective on and empathy for the other. And there are those who
tell us that is OK. I am here this afternoon to tell you that that is not OK. Ferguson tells us it is not OK and that is
what this afternoon is all about.
This is important work. May we be guided today by powers that are
greater than we are.
