by Barbara Raye, Executive Director, Center for Planning, Policy and Procedure
Below is a speech I have made several times. It served as one of the first efforts in Minnesota to claim our values, articulate our vision, and inspire our action in restorative justice. I am honored to have been invited to reclaim the past voices of our best selves and to bring them forward to guide us. I am humbled by the passion and wisdom of those whose words are held here. I am also inspired to live them.
We are experiencing record level capture and deportation actions, the impulsive bombing of Iran, complicity in genocide in Palestine and other places, police killing of African American men and women such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, missing and lost Native American and Black women, devastating floods and hurricanes, straggling emotional recovery from COVID (which caused the death of over one million people and impacted tens of millions others in the United States alone), peaceful demonstrators being named traitors, attacks on and demonizing of gay and transgender people, gutting of health care and basic food services, and reversal of many of the social and environmental justice gains made over the last 40 years.
In this time, the challenge, vision, and hope of these earlier words still guide and convince me to stay the path of peace. I hope they are relevant for you as well.
“Using Personal Power to Make Peace”
By Barbara E. Raye
Introduction
(1992, 2002)
A few years ago I gave a presentation in Duluth, MN. On that day, February 26, 1991, as I drove to Duluth from Minneapolis, the radio relayed the announcement that Iraqi troops had begun to withdraw from Kuwait. But before I could breathe a breath of hope, it was further announced that the UN forces would continue to bomb until we could assess the motivation for withdrawal—was it an admission of defeat or a tactic of temporary retreat to regroup? The news was sickening.
Today, I—and I am sure many of you—are still recoiling in the wake of the jury finding in the Rodney King case. Yet before we’ve had a chance to determine our own feelings and response, streets are filled with rage and violence. The latest count is that over 18 people have been killed. This news is also sickening.
But neither then nor today is “sickening” a sufficient reaction. My 22-year-old son told me last night that he wasn’t surprised by the verdict of innocent and that those of us that were, just weren’t seeing the world for the place that it truly was. He went on to say that he was ashamed of being white and that he was angry with all of us. The liberals didn’t have a clue of how to deal with racism and violence; the republicans seemed to focus on punishing criminals and individual rights for arms and that obviously hadn’t worked either.
Then, knowing me, he went on to say that those of us who talked peace weren’t any better. We had great words and ideas about what we wanted but stayed stuck in inaction—doing nothing—in the face of oppression and violence. We had words to define what methods people should not take but had no concrete actions that people could take. We left silence and “nothing” and “passiveness” in the wake of war or individual violence and oppression.
He was expressing to me the failure of adults to provide the essential guidance, leadership and vision of this world. Those who looted and killed in Los Angeles were young, acting in the only way they had to express the rage they felt. They had little hope of being served by the “system” and now have less hope. They had little modeling of what action to take in response to fear, threat, and helplessness. They imitated the actions of the system—using violence to resolve the conflict and express the emotions they felt. Our failure is evident. The results our responsibility.
Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant…. Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.
Rollo May 1909– (Existential therapist, humanist)
Goal
The goals of my presentation are to identify strategies for peace—Preventive—Eliminating the root causes of violence such as discrimination and oppression; Reactive—Intervention with both victims and offenders using a model of Restorative Justice, and Pro-action—Private and/or individual action to transform self and community. Each of the three strategies links together and involves Power (private and public), Place and Time (prevention and intervention), Politics (personal and systemic), and Outcomes/Goals (of both process and product). The presentation is intended to create a vision of a community or society that shares common values, demonstrates those values in the private and public actions of its members, and designs systems and structures that will implement and guarantee those values are extended to and carried out within organizational and community actions.
Above all, today, and for me, I need to identify action—I need for peaceful and non-violence to not be perceived as nor in reality be the same as “Nothing” or “Passiveness”. I need to move beyond the immobilization I have felt for the past two days—the fear, the precipice of hopelessness and powerlessness, the guilt of complicity.
Part I Prevention
By creating a community or society that maintains health, harmony, and balance for all its creatures/life systems, we prevent the root causes of violence. Most of us act in ways to recreate balance in our lives—even when offending the rights and safety of others.
The man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization. And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth.
Chief Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle, page 250 taken from Touch the Earth, A self-portrait of Indian Existence compiled by T. C. McLuhan, Promontory Press, New York 1991.
We need to learn that there are no solitary actions. Everything we do impacts on others; and there is no experience that does not impact or affect us in some way. What I eat here in the Untied States affects the Rain Forests. What is released into the air in the Midwest affects the environment in the Northeast in the form of Acid Rain. What I buy impacts on the economic and racist policy of apartheid and exploitation of Mexican and Korean laborers. When one person is killed, I am affected and diminished. When a class or set of people dies of malnutrition while I have plenty, I share responsibility for action. There is an interdependence and link between all living things.
It is isolation that is critical to war. You can’t be abusive when you realize your connectedness.
David Kadlec
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
How different would actions have been if the LA police offices felt connected to and related to Rodney King? If the looters and rioters felt the oneness of themselves with the shop owners, police, and citizens of LA? And then each acted accordingly.
The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain… until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.
Jane Addams—won Nobel Peace Prize in 1931
POWER to act—Private and Public
We each have power—personal, position, affiliation/influence and we can act in both private and public arenas.
I can act on behalf of social justice. I can vote for and expect from my public process a standard of living for all people. I can insist on access to education, health care, housing, food, and opportunities to contribute and participation for all people. I will do that because that is what I want, and I will only have those things in safety and security if all people have them.
I can also act alone and with partners, family, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow worshipers or group members to assure that these things are achieved for those I have direct and immediate access to.
Politics of action—Personal and Systemic
The saying of the 60’s women’s movement was that the “personal is political” encouraging women to act in political ways regarding the personal issues they faced. It was a challenge to make women’s issues part of the political agenda. What would happen if the motto for the 90’s was “the political is personal” and we chose to take public issues and political decisions and found ways to act personally to affect them. The most effective change comes from the individual (grass roots) up to the community or “system” rather than “system” down. Yet most systems change work focuses on some external “other” or as something disconnected from or out of the control of individuals. We also often believe humans to be expendable and owed nothing in our efforts to change the system. If they threaten our analyses and power or disagree with us—they must be destroyed or removed.
Every public reform was once a private opinion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Part II Intervention
What I do to others, I do to myself. There is no “we” and “they”. No thick line separates offender from victim, innocent from guilty, the oppressed from the free, or the homeless from those with homes—only circumstance. Each of us could be any or all the above at any time.
We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety—to its security and peace; persevered from annihilation only by the care, the work, and I will say, the love we give our fragile craft.
Adlai Stevenson
But, crime occurs, people commit actions that hurt and offend. Not all children are nurtured, protected and loved; not all adults live without stress, doubt, mistakes of judgment and action, fear, and need. How we intervene when a violation of person or property has occurred makes a difference.
By designing a criminal justice system of Restorative Justice, we can use intervention to recreate/re-establish balance and harmony in the lives of victim, offender, and community. It would be a significant shift in our approach to the people caught up on our justice system if we assigned to both offender and victim the motivation of seeking the natural mandate of “balance” rather than the imposition of imbalance. We might be much better able to both understand their needs and behavior as well as create a response that heals rather than continued the hurt in different proportion. Our system would also look different if that was our goal—balance and harmony.
A strange thing, our punishment! It does not cleanse the criminal, it is not atonement; on the contrary, it pollutes worse than the crime does.
Nietzche, DAWN
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another.
Emma Goldman
He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in.
Ursela LeGuin, The Lather of Heaven
Kids know, better than grown-ups, what we do is more important than what we say.
Pete Seeger
There must be integrity of words and actions. Violence and coercion work. Anyone can be forced by our justice system to do what we want—the question is to what end? To what result? Understand? No! Sincere Atonement” No! Rehabilitation? No! Compassion? No! It is common knowledge over the ages that the oppressed who become the oppressors after the revolution only prepare the stage for the next revolution. Audrey Lorde (paraphrased) said “we cannot free ourselves from the master’s house by using the master’s tools.”
There is no refuting the truth that we must act out of and consistent with our words and values. If we act inhumanely or violently in the name of humaneness and peace, we are hypocrites—and all who see us know it.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Abraham Maslow
There is a difference between consequences and punishment, and we know it. Punishment always reflects our own frustration and anger and is not related to the actor’s specific actions. Our justice system is dishonest if we do not acknowledge this truth and everyone who sees us knows it.
We know generally who will be caught, convicted and punished for committing crimes. We can often predict it. We know that crime rate fluctuations can often be explained by the age of young men in the culture. Acts of vandalism and criminal behavior are almost rites of passage in this culture. We do not yet know how to raise our children without role scripts that do not fit their individual spirits or physical attributes. Many of us and many of our children go through tortuous struggle discovering who we are and shedding the scripts given to us by former generations uncertain of how to prepare for a fast changing and every dangerous world.
In addition, we know that the poor, illiterate, disenfranchised, mentally ill, chemically dependent, desperate/needy and powerless will comprise most “criminals” in our system. We know that some will be repeat offenders. That there are some patterns that emerge regarding situational opportunity, severity, and frequency if there is not effective intervention.
We now have research that predicts the grade school bully more likely to offend than others. Extensive research continues to indicate that un-recovered victims of both crime and systemic oppression often act out their own victimization in “offender” behaviors. Those who disconnect from the rest of humanity and other life can objectify their victims and become emotionally detached from the impact of their actions on others. Society often however disconnected from them first.
We also know that women (generally/culturally) and the poor are not motivated by the same things as the multi-million dollar inside trader. When the powerful commit crimes, the justice system tires to force humility and to equalize/lower the ego of the offenders. When the oppressed or powerless commit crime, do they need the same “humbling” experience? What lessons are learned from the oppression of the already oppressed? I suggest they are not the lessons we seek, and they do not contribute to long term peace and harmony.
This knowledge obligates us to act with more than emotional instinct. We know that no one acts independent of her/his heredity and environment. All arguments are about which one is more influential, not if either influences behavior. All of us come to the present point in time with the accumulated knowledge, skill, personal and emotional maturity of our life experience combined with our predisposition granted at birth.
Nietzsche also frequently spoke of the criminal who, seeing his own means of lies, cheating, stealing, and violence used against him, learned only that his cause was out of favor—not that his actions sere unacceptable.
I contend that the death penalty is a relic of savagery, perpetuated by custom and in ignorance, maintained by false assumptions and consummated in a killing that is legal in name only; it is illogical and inconsistent with religion and morality’; it condones in an act of an agent what would be murder for an individual’; it carries out in secrecy what would be revolting in public; it is man-made and fallible and, therefore, subject to gross miscarriage of justice;’ it is ineffective and sets an example for murder; it violates the teachings of Jesus and the conscience of enlightened mankind.
Lewis Lawes (warden of Sing Sing)
Our response to crime should be:
- An acknowledgment of our own victimization and our own violation and/or guilt: out connection to rather than our distance from the actors.
- Action that seeks harmony and a return to balance—in wealth, security, health, and relationship between offender and victim and between offender and community.
- Use only of those “means” that contribute to and do not contradict our values and words.
- An investment (economic, political, social, and personal) in a solution that addressees our long-term goal for both individual and society—prevention of future crime and violence.
When we apply these goals the justice system has the goals of:
I. Humaneness—Connection with life. Everyone from law enforcement, to prosecutor, judge, community, family, and neighborhood is included rather than excluded from the process. Each is informed and trained to connect with others rather than withdraw. Each first offers empathy rather than objectification.
II. Wholeness of the victim—a system that establishes “the state vs. the accused” has depersonalized a very personal act—personal to both victim and offender. Data suggest s that 89% of all sex offenders know their victims—most general assault victims also know who assaulted them. Certainly, all domestic assault and marital rapes are personal—about as personal as possible—and 75% of homicide victims were known to their killer. Even when stranger crime occurs the impact is a very personal one—cutting deep into our souls and making us changed forever. All crimes are very personal and to further de-personalize what has happened reinforces the position of the offender. Victims need services, participation, resolution, and a sense of justice. They need these things from their community in the present tense while accepting and integrating what has happened to them. But they also need these things afterward—as they transcend (not merely survive) their experience and want to give back to the community and to serve others.
III. Wholeness for the offender—that includes consequences, reparation, forgiveness, and then services and an investment in his/her reintegration and long-term health. We want the offender to reconnect to life, and s/he will do so only if life reconnects to him/her. The offender needs services, participation, resolution, and a sense of justice. (A petty drug user who under the new federal drug laws is sentenced to life imprisonment has the role of victim and no reasonable person—especially the offender—believes that justice has been done. A mentally retarded, poor, black, juvenile abused as a child is killed by the death penalty—who can honestly say that justice has been done? A black motorist stopped for driving erratically is beaten by at least five officers in the presence of many others and with the public eye recording the event is left with permanent brain damage. —How do we look our children in the eyes and tell them that the system we have created is a just one?)
We know, too, that one evil cannot be cured by another. Evils don’t cancel each other out. They total up.
Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Nobel Peace Prize 1980)
IV. Prevention—by giving resources to those who use crime to equalize/balance themselves. We need to integrate what we know about human development, learning process, motivation, and values. Having the knowledge and the power obligates us to do so. We know what prevents crime, violence and abuse. We share the liability of what happens when we fail to act consistent with that knowledge.
Part III Proacting
By making personal commitment to live our values, to integrate words and action, to hold ourselves accountable to both act consistent with our beliefs and in a long-term focus on a vision of Peace, we change the world.
Each of us can visualize what kind of world we really want to be a part of, and I think we would reach consensus on the major points. A world of peace, where people and the environment are valued and treated with respect, dignity and compassion. A world that reinforces a one-ness and a sense of harmony with all life. The challenge is to act in a way what will bring about that vision.
It is easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.
Alfred Adler 1870-1937 Austrian
It is easier to love humanity than to lover your neighbor.
Eric Hoffer 1902—San Francisco long shore man and writer
I know that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and we often see what we want to see. Many of us benefit from the oversight and blindness of those we love when it comes to our mistakes and imperfections. But we also fail to see what we do not want to see. Many of us are punished and experience abuse and violence as a result. As I watched the videotape of the King beating and heard the over voice of one of the jurors, I sat open mouthed and silent. How could her sight be so totally different from mine? I also watched in horror as jurors found a man not guilty of raping his wife after viewing a tape, he had made that showed him beat, bound, gag, and then yell at her and rape her. How can people not see what is there?
I think now that we don’t see what we can’t handle. Seeing some things would destroy our sense of order and power. It would crack our belief structure and hope for a just, peaceful and predictable world. I wonder what I do not see because I could not integrate and accept the truth of it. I received a call one night to say that my sister and brother-in-law and their two small children had just been killed in a head on collision. I remember wondering what kind of a person I was that I would make up such a horrible story. My mind would not accept its truth. I even wondered if I should tell my partner that his sister had just been killed—for if it wasn’t true what a horrible thing for me to do to him.
We each go through some process of letting ourselves see the unthinkable. Of choosing to let its truth enter our consciousness. And finally of acting. We need to take that journey now—in the sight of the poverty, violence, self-hatred, other hatred, fear, and hopelessness that is true. It is unthinkable but true. We then need to search ourselves for our values and our duty and finally act.
The ultimate test for us of what a truth means is the conduct it dictates or inspires.
William James 1842—1910 American
Conclusion
Being a pacifist between wars is as easy as being a vegetarian between meals.
Ammon Hennacy
There is an old Roman proverb that says: “If you would wish for peace, then prepare for war.” Rubbish! If you would wish for peace, then offer alternatives to war!
Barbara Ward
No social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of dedicated individuals.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our vision, our obligation, our hope and our work are to act for peace. Making peace is not a passive thing—it is active, defiant, radical, powerful and the only choice we can make.
It may well be that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the glaring noisiness of the so-called bad people, but the appalling silence of the so-called good people.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
The power to begin is in each of us.
Each time a person stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
Robert F. Kennedy
END