I believe that something in us as human beings longs for wholeness. The psyche can’t stand to be divided against itself and yearns for integration.
On this Fourth of July weekend, the United States (once again) has an opportunity to step back and reflect on the gap between our nation’s ideals and the reality of our history and current policies.
The deeper we go in spiritual practice, the more we understand how inseparable our lives are. When we understand this, reflecting on injustice crystalizes into action. In the face of oppression and violence, our moral conscience urges us to act.
I’ve thought a lot this weekend about what to write here, in the midst of a global pandemic, a deepening economic recession, and a growing movement for racial and economic justice. On this holiday, instead of sharing my own words, I offer instead three excerpts from Black authors, past and present, for your reflection.
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Frederick Douglass, 1852
On this day, July 5, in 1852, in Rochester, New York, in a now famous address to the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, Frederick Douglass said:
- “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
Martin Luther King Jr., 1967
Over 100 years later, in May of 1967, Dr. King addressed a room of white politicians and local black leaders. He reflected on the next phase of Civil Rights after desegregation, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
- “It is now a struggle for genuine equality on all levels, and this will be a much more difficult struggle. You see, the gains in the…first era of struggle were obtained from the power structure at bargain rates; it didn’t cost the nation anything to integrate lunch counters. It didn’t cost the nation anything to integrate hotels and motels. It didn’t cost the nation a penny to guarantee the right to vote.
- “Now we are in a period where it will cost the nation billions of dollars to get rid of poverty, to get rid of slums, to make quality integrated education a reality… This is where we are now. Now we’re going to lose some friends in this period… The fact is that there has never been any single, solid, determined commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans to genuine equality for Negroes.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones, 2020
In a powerfully cogent piece in the NY Times Magazine, "What Is Owed,” Hannah-Jones (creator of the 1619 Project) outlines a moral reckoning with the history of structural and institutional racism in the United States and the case for reparations. It is well worth reading in my view. She writes:
- “While unchecked discrimination still plays a significant role in shunting opportunities for black Americans, it is white Americans’ centuries-long economic head start that most effectively maintains racial caste today…
- “…while black Americans were being systematically, generationally deprived of the ability to build wealth, while also being robbed of the little they had managed to gain, white Americans were not only free to earn money and accumulate wealth with exclusive access to the best jobs, best schools, best credit terms, but they were also getting substantial government help in doing so.
- “The civil rights movement ostensibly ended white advantage by law... Changing the laws, too many Americans have believed, marked the end of the obligation. But civil rights laws passed in the 1960s merely guaranteed black people rights they should have always had. They dictated that from that day forward, the government would no longer sanction legal racial discrimination. But these laws did not correct the harm nor restore what was lost.”
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For many of us, none of this is news. We’ve witnessed, lived with, or struggled against the chasm between American ideals and the reality of oppression for decades. For others still, it is a time to reckon with that history, to contemplate the ways in which we benefit from oppressive, unjust systems.
Our collective psyche longs for wholeness. It, too, yearns for healing and integration.
We each have an opportunity today to heed the call for a more just and equitable society, to lend a hand to this movement for transformation. We lend a hand with time, energy, resources; with poetry, art, intelligence; with good will, debate, encouragement, and in so many other ways.
I find my small part in speaking and writing about how our spiritual practice can be a resource and a guide for action. I hope you are finding your own way too.
In kindness,
Oren
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