8.29.2020 - week 69
this week our mighty newsletter team of 3 is:
- taking a well deserved vacation (jess)
- starting the year managing the home education of 3 intense boys (kristen)
- launching the last semester of grad school + finishing a few big projects
so we prepared something different for you ... over a week or so ago, i had a long conversational back and forth with my lifelong friend, cal nolan, on the current moment of justice. i think you will find it interesting. if you like or hate or whatever .. don't hesitate to reply and send any thoughts my way :)
-luke
LUKE:
Through the course of our friendship, we have had a lot of good natured discussion about politics and justice and christian morality, and think about things to some degree differently. from your unique perspective as a native born white south african, how have you been processing the calls for reckoning and justice in america, summer 2020?
CAL:
Yeah our different perspectives have always been really helpful in thinking through challenging issues because it has shown the spectrum of outcomes and nuances of most things in our world.
Given my upbringing, topics of racial injustice and comparing/contrasting South Africa and the US has frequently been top of mind.
Having a bit more knowledge about Apartheid, Nelson Mandela, etc. has been useful for my thinking in how to arrive at justice and solidarity in a nation. Obviously SA has a majority black population that was actively segregated by a minority white government, so that is a different dynamic than in the US, but there are still foundational parallels.
One such thing is the role of reconciliation and reparations. Mandela was truly remarkable in his capacity to humbly forgive his oppressors. He always said it was critical for the country’s black citizens to avoid feelings of vengeance, no matter how justified they might be. That kind of leadership was one of the key things that made SA’s transition out of Apartheid possible in my opinion. I feel like I’m seeing plenty of voices saying the same in the US and the movements going on here, but also acknowledge that it’s a very challenging issue to deal with.
LUKE:
So then, in this moment of public outcry for justice and the more militant refuse to compromise element of the left-wing, what does your life experience tell you is the proper juxtaposition of the tension between justice and mercy in the current moment?
CAL:
That’s the entire fulcrum point of this discussion; the balance between humble mercy and courageous justice. From my vantage point, unfortunately we seem to live in a moment where merciful action is quickly regarded as weak or lacking enough tactical application in society to make real changes to established patterns of racism or social injustice.
This is fairly understandable given the entrenched issues plaguing our country and overall institutions responsible for setting the standards of justice and enforcing the rules. However, as much as I’d like to believe that hundreds of years of injustice can be overturned in a single generation given a unique opportunity like we’re seeing in this moment...I think a visionary like Mandela, or many others throughout the Christian tradition, have seen that merciful and intentional reconciliation over many many years paves a more steady pathway to a fair system of justice. It’s a daunting task to dig into a movement that will potentially need 100s of years to reach its goal. But since it’s taken 100s of years to set up the paradigm we find ourselves in, I think it’s reasonable to assume the same to untangle some of the mess we’re in. It’s iterative, not immediate. That’s a tough sell for those most energetic about the movement, but if you want something real and lasting I think you have to
acknowledge this reality.
LUKE:
I resonate with what you are saying, so can someone sitting in a white male seat, effectively show urgency towards change while also registering healthy disagreement with excesses in the movement? All movements have edges that need softening, but this moment seems to be so rigid that any slight disagreement is tantamount to full revolution?
CAL:
Yeah, the current climate is filled with that spectrum of voices saying “you’re doing too much” on one side, with a bunch of nuance in between and arriving at “you’re not doing nearly enough” on the other.
How could it be that there are so many versions of what everybody
“should be doing”?
As I’ve turned this question over, ultimately I land on the fact that according to the Bible, one of God’s core attributes is His holy justice. He created the world with a paradigm of justice, or in other words that
1) there are rules
2) fair ways to follow them
and
3) consequences if you don’t.
From a simplified biblical sense, “justice” could be seen as a journey from the law of “an eye for an eye” in Deuteronomy to the core principles Jesus taught in the parables. For example, and just to name a few, The Prodigal Son, The Good Samaritan, The Parable of the Talents... all of them seem to incorporate strong notions of God’s justice or ideas of fairness. Ironically, these stories hardly deal with privilege, reciprocity, or equality in the ways we see them being fought about in modern society. Almost always, the values on display reflect God’s heart for intentional, sacrificial love or mission based righteousness and redemption that is motivated by God’s love.
That said, it seems to me to flesh out authentic thoughts and experiences as to how white males (or people) in general can engage in this space. What does that realistically look like in the next minute, week, month and year?
If I’m honest about what I did to evaluate where I was on the spectrum of contributing to problems or solutions of racism...basically I started with an inventory of what I thought my life looked like. I’m not sure if that was the “right thing” to do, but I felt I had to do an accounting. And be as honest as possible.
Some things are obvious and objective. I am a white male. I have a career in professional services and I make this much money. I say certain words and don’t say others. On that objective spectrum I don't believe there are obvious things about me that are automatically questionable in my contribution to racism.
However, the more complex or subjective elements of this space are
where I'm hoping genuine learning going on.
If I focus on my relationships, I suppose I feel "good" about it, but then feel weird for feeling good about it. As you mentioned, since I’m South African, I’ve always been a bit more cognizant of disadvantaged blacks in society. I saw and lived It firsthand in SA. Poverty is extremely real. Double standards and systemic oppression are extremely real.
Growing up my best friend was Asian. I've always had black friends and have consistently had meaningful conversations about race with them. One of my best friends in college and still a great friend to spar with intellectually is Indian. My weirdly self justifying thoughts say "How could I be racist given this kind of seemingly diverse “racial resume”?"
But that’s where I continue to turn over the ideas of systemic advantage or disadvantage. What good are those relationships when many lanes of my life are pretty entrenched in privileging people that look like me, sound like me, and think like me?
Do you think that is some of the most important facets of this moment? The end goal is less about seeing behavioral change and more about a real change in values. Yes of course, we want to see better statistics. We want to be done hearing shocking and heart wrenching stories of black bodies being murdered by police or disadvantaged in schooling. But even more so, we want to know that justice; fairness, integrity, humility, sacrifice, love...we want THOSE things to be glorified and experienced right? That’s the real noble pursuit.
LUKE:
I keep thinking through 5 different verses in same section of
scripture over and over:
Romans 14:5b - 'Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind'
The antidote to this moment of extreme duality of views is not to become mushy in our beliefs. in the huge portion of life that is gray, we must be able to come to a rigorous decision and live by it. kinda believing in a lot of views helps nothing and no one.
Romans 14:12 - 'So then each one of us will give an account of himself to god'
Ultimately, we will answer to God and God alone for the choices we make and so we must choose from that place, not from a desire to please people or force them to conform to our way of thinking.
Romans 14:13 - ‘Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.’
Romans 14:23b - 'For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin'
Pressuring people to choose in the gray something different than their conscience tells them to is wrong. using our strength of knowledge or experience to virtue signal everyone around us into conformity is wrong. New believers and young people may see certain things in a more rigid black and white way, and them obeying their conscience (when it is reasonably aligned with the bible) is more important than them agreeing with you.
Romans 15:1 - 'We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the week and not to please ourselves'
Any privilege or strength or power or possession you have accumulated must be leveraged towards those with less. we get so we can give.
___________
I suppose that's a long winded way of saying, you are responsible to understand your place in the social strata and do what you can to help. I don't agree with the concept that everyone must be involved in every issue or care about every problem.
CAL:
That’s a super helpful unpacking of that section of Romans.
And your summary is spot on to me:
“you are responsible to understand your place in the social strata and do what you can to help. i don't agree with the concept that everyone must be involved in every issue or care about every problem.”
How do you respond to someone who might say that while everyone doesn’t have to be involved in EVERY problem, there are some problems
that EVERYONE must be involved in,
i.e. - racism/social injustices/sexual misconduct?
This concept of “anti racism” is being proliferated a lot of places and I’m fascinated by it. My understanding is that it’s not only a call to take personal responsibility for moral thinking about racial justice, but also an admonition to advocate for minorities or marginalized races. How does this apply to an individual’s actions or behavior?
LUKE:
What I like about it is the refusal to allow a neutral position to be a positive.
'I'm not a racist' can be seen as positive, but also gets someone out of responsibility, sort of like, 'it's not my fight.'
Here's what i believe to be a concrete example, phillipians 2 calls Christians to look not just to our own interests, but also the interests of others.
Just because a certain public policy or candidate might help you (in whatever way), you should be willing to see how that impacts others and adjust conduct accordingly. so in the same way, to be anti-racist is to speak and act on behalf of a group you may not be part of.
What say ye?
CAL:
Well I certainly agree with how you frame the way “antiracism” removes the opportunity for neutrality as a positive position. In large part I think that’s a win.
Saying “I have no problem with X people” but being unwilling to consider or advocate for them has long been a problem, and it seems in the area of racial justice, that kind of “neutral” position has been accepted for far too long.
However it will be interesting to see how the notion lands with people’s behavior. The reason the “neutral” position has been accepted for so long is because that side of things is much easier to judge. Certain observations can reveal a lot about the racist nature of someone’s character, but it isn’t the same for “anti racist” behavior. This is a classic and common problem when dealing with topics like this.
Would you agree that it seems easier to see what racism IS, than what it ISN'T?
Justice indicates that there are rules to be followed and consequences if those rules are broken. With systemic racism, the rules of our communities have been skewed to unfairly advantage certain people...and we’re seeing those who have been disadvantaged violently reject the framework for the rules. Now we have to do the messy and difficult work of rewriting the rules in real time, not simply trying to produce outcomes we desire at the end of it all.
As an example of the above, there was a viral video from Candace Owens in the days after George Floyd was murdered—she outlined a number of reasons why she didn’t believe Floyd should be characterized as a martyr and why she felt the protest movements weren’t really justified. In the video she said something to the effect of, “I’m tired of black people saying it’s too hard to play by the rules to succeed in life.” I found that statement incredibly myopic. Her criticism is unfounded and potentially based in a political position, but I haven’t heard the black community say or do anything to the effect of “it’s too hard to play by the rules to succeed in life.” Instead what I hear is “we’ve played by the rules for centuries, and the rules are skewed so that we aren’t rewarded fairly the way we should be when we succeed, and we are EXTREMELY unfairly penalized if we make mistakes.” And that is the crucial element that needs to change as we grow out of the moment we’re in.
LUKE:
To try and bring this convo in for a landing, what I see most of all in our back and forth is the need for nuance, for being willing to see competing viewpoints as having partial validity while also not necessarily pressing for unilateral agreement from people we care about.
What do you take into the season ahead?
CAL:
Primarily, it feels like this season is an urgent and living
reminder of Proverbs 3 - specifically 27 & 28:
27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.
28 Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again,
tomorrow I will give it”—when you have it with you.
This moment is capturing the essence of the difficulties of determining justice for all. There are so many opinions, but as long as you take responsibility for your own and make it actionable, then you are contributing to the hard work of resolution, rather than punting and hoping "things just get better."
Personally I struggle with addressing issues when they're in their infancy rather than waiting until they grow into bigger problems I'm forced to deal with. This whole movement seems like that reality for our country. Therefore movement toward introspection, thoughtful action, and rebuilding foundations of justice are necessary. It won't ever "all be equal", nor do I think that is the aspiration that God has for the Earth, but it can be more fair, more sacrificial, and more just. Pursuing these ideals and putting in energy to carry them out will always be satisfying for us and glorifying for our God.