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HEAVEN’S RAINBOW #4
THE FOREVER BLAME GAME
It may be the most famous acquittal in all legal history:
when O. J. Simpson was found “not guilty” of murdering his wife, Nicole,
and Ron Goldman.
And I suppose for the rest of his legal career, Mr. Johnny Cochran will
be remembered for, as the media put it, playing the race card. Even a
member of Cochran’s legal team admitted later: “He didn’t just play the
race card – he dealt it from the bottom of the deck.”
One of the hard challenges in racial issues – far beyond our abilities
to dissect here on this radio broadcast in 13 minutes – is the question
of blame. Whose fault is it today if some groups still experience discrimination?
Who should shoulder the blame if some students have lower SAT scores than
others? Should a jury today set aside truth and DNA test results in order
to make up for long decades of kangaroo-court travesties of the past?
How long should society continue programs like affirmative action – which
some see as an endless “payback” for the sins of slavery? A national news
magazine recently ran a cover article on this question:
“What is owed American blacks,” they asked, “for a legacy
of degradation that began, but hardly ended, with involuntary servitude?
Where does acknowledgment of pain stop – and excuse-making begin?”
Here on Los Angeles talk radio a number of months ago,
KABC, an afternoon program host named Larry Elder was discussing at length
a unique high school in Ohio: Shaker Heights High. And just a few months
back, in a Newsweek cover article on improving situations for African-Americans,
there was a sidebar about this same school, written by Lynette Clemetson.
And the baffling question is this: here is an upper-middle-class place
– for both white and black students. The prosperity is spread evenly across
the spectrum for both races. For a number of years, blacks and whites
together have gotten top-flight educations in elementary school, had the
enrichment opportunities, had the classroom computers, lived in the nice
houses. You just can hardly find any variables that are different for
one group than the other.
What’s more, enrollment is split almost 50-50, and has been for years.
And yet educational experts and sociologists bemoan the continuing reality
that black students make up less than 10 percent of students at the top
of the class, and something like 90 percent of the bottom of the bell
curve. And they just can’t locate or pinpoint a variable as to why that
is happening.
Now, there are some dynamic, cutting-edge programs in place to rectify
the situation there at Shaker Heights. There’s a Minority Achievement
Committee, M.A.C., started a decade ago, which is trying to demonstrate
to incoming freshmen that “being smart is cool,” that high grades are
the ticket to success. Black students who stay above a 2.8 GPA are known
as MAC scholars. They have weekly meetings, with the club handshake and
the motto: “I pledge to uphold the name of the African-American man. I
will do so by striving for academic excellence.”
And yet, in the background of our looking for answers, is also an underlying
desire – many times, anyway – to find a place to pin the blame. Who in
the past did this? Who can be the scapegoat?
Now friend, laying the issue of race to the side for a moment, consider
something with me. When we look for reasons why a problem is in our camp,
because we want to effect a cure or a fix, because we want to help, that’s
one thing. Auto repair specialists listen for that out-of-whack sound
in the engine because they want to fix it. The same with good doctors.
But when our energy is expended on finding a reason for a problem just
so we can attach blame . . . history certainly demonstrates that to be
a dead-end street.
I remember an old song by Anna Russell; maybe you’ve heard this one too.
“I went to my psychiatrist to be psychoanalyzed; To
find out why I killed the cat and blackened my wife’s eyes.
“He put me on a downy couch, To see what he could find.
And this is what he dredged up from my subconscious mind.
“When I was one, my mommy hid my dolly in the trunk.
And so it follows naturally that I am always drunk.
“When I was two, I saw my father kiss the maid one day.
And that is why I suffer now – kleptomania.
“When I was three, I suffered from ambivalence toward
my brothers. So it follows naturally, I poisoned all my lovers.
And now the last little stanza, which is such a comfort:
“I’m so glad that I have learned the lesson it has taught:
That everything I did that’s wrong is someone else’s fault.”
Well, friend, whole books have been written on the question
of fixing blame for today’s continuing racial challenges. Whose fault
is it, really? A British historian named Hugh Thomas just wrote a scholarly
volume called The Slave Trade. And he places blame, or responsibility,
on some new shoulders. Here in the United States, eminent people like
John Locke – who was a philosopher of liberty – either invested in slave-trading
companies or flat-out traded themselves. According to Dr. Thomas:
“The worst blame should be assigned to royal families, among them Louis
XIV of France and Ferdinand, as well as the African rulers of Benin, Ashanti,
Congo and other kingdoms who for generations sold Africans from other
tribes to European traders, often in exchange for cloth.”
What a devastating thing, then, to dig in the history
books for someone to blame, and then discover that perhaps your own ancestors
might have been victimIZERS rather than victims.
However, as one Newsweek reporter, Ellis Cose, pointed out:
“The slaves are all dead, as are those who enslaved
them. Isn’t there some generational statute of limitations?”
Last any of us checked, John Locke is dead. Those European
kings are dead. The traders in Africa went to their graves many, many
years ago. Unless there is some redemptive purpose to it, what’s the purpose
of blame?
We mentioned just a few weeks ago a miraculous trend in South Africa,
where victims of apartheid – instead of seeking vengeance – are looking
for reconciliation. Leaving the past in the past and simply forgiving
each other. What a contrast to a tragic story reported in Newsweek, entitled
“Learning the Killing Game.” Albanian schoolchildren in Kosovo, now that
they’re back in their homes, back in school, have a one-word goal: “Revenge.”
A little nine-year-old boy, Laurant, with red hair and a gray toy pistol
– frighteningly like the real automatics the grownups have – is asked
what he wants to do when he grows up. “Kill Serbs.” Little Vlera Halili
is eleven. She wants all the Serbs thrown out now. “Now it should be only
Albanians here,” she tells reporters, her voice hard. “Because they [the
Serbs] wanted it to be only Serbs, and they lost.” Flamur Dushnaku is
15, remembering how things were hard for his family. “Everything they
did to us, we will do to them,” he promises. These bitter young victims
want someone to blame now, someone to take revenge on. And so the helpless
struggle continues. As long as you’re looking for someone to blame, you’re
looking to your past. You’re looking at failures and guaranteeing to repeat
them forever.
I suppose we could learn something from the oldest Bible story on record:
Adam and Eve and the snake in the tree. Even there in Genesis chapter
three, when God asked Adam: “What have you done?”, our human family’s
first member instantly blamed his wife. “It was Eve. She gave me the fruit
and I ate it.” Actually, Adam’s blame is indirectly focused on God. “This
woman YOU gave me.” It takes Eve just a moment before she deflects blame
as well. “The serpent deceived me. How could I have known?”
Friend, here’s just a small point for all of us to consider. This was
a family! Adam and Eve were husband and wife! They were children of the
heavenly Father. But when there was trouble, when there was failure, they
immediately blamed each other for the mistake.
Here’s my observation. What if – in a happy, loving family – you had someone
who scored high on their SATs? Someone else is better at music. Someone
else letters in football. And one kid, who perhaps is gifted in some art
or craft or unique ability . . . just regularly brings home lower grades
than the others in math and verbal. And what if you could even prove,
scientifically, that this one kid, and his kids, and their kids, were
going to always struggle in math, always bring home lower scores?
What would that loving family do? Look for answers? Sure they would. Try
to spot variables to correct? Without a doubt. But every effort you expended
in that search would be – NOT for the purpose of blaming anyone or casting
doubts on the human worth of one child or another – but to give each son
and daughter a shot at their full potential: whether it’s in front of
a laptop computer, an artist’s easel, or on the hardwood floor of an NCAA
basketball court. Because you’re a family. Because each child has equal
worth. Each child is a redeemed treasure.
Jesse Jackson gave a speech to kids once – young men and women, ethnic
kids struggling with self-esteem, struggling with high pregnancy rates.
He challenged them with purity, with self-esteem, with hope for the future,
because they were part of the wonderful human family. And they ended with
this stadium chant:
“I am somebody. I may be poor, but I am somebody. I
may be unskilled, but I am somebody. Respect me. Protect me. Never neglect
me. I am somebody. Down with dope – Up with hope. My mind is a pearl.
I can learn anything in the world. Nobody will save us, FOR us, BUT us.”
And that means all of us.
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