An Artistic Respite – Ladysmith Black Mambazo

When I revived this blog, I was determined to give it a little more breadth.  I decided that I would break some of the talking a break, especially as I am aware that I can be long-winded and lean toward a lecture format.

Tonight, I’m inviting you to enjoy Ladysmith Black Mambazo, via YouTube links.  You can access their long and fascinating story as you listen via a google lookup.  I recommend it.  I will only add that they are ambassadors for peace from the kwaZulu nation, and South Africa.

My first link is for an 81 minute selection of performances of LBM and the Soweto Gospel Choir, many of which are only the Soweto Gospel Choir (no worries, it’s also wonderful).  It’s beautiful, and long enough to accompany my several year old posts of the philosophy of peace, where I pick a small fight with St. Augustine, or just enjoying while you do something quietly.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Soweto Gospel Choir

Next, I have their 2007 performance of ‘Homeless’ at the Nobel Peace Concert honoring Nelson Mandela.  Homeless was featured on Paul Simon’s famous album “Graceland”

Homeless at the 2007 Nobel Prize Concert

Last one:  Amazing Grace

I hope the hyperlinks work in Blogger!

That’s all.  Good night, and Peace!  

Will we fix what is wrong in Baltimore?

To understand why Baltimore became violent in April, 2015, one needs to understand some basic facts about the city.  It seems clear to me that the riots following the murder of Freddie Gray were inevitable, the catalyst for the violent outburst was the Gray murder, but it could have been caused by any incident given the conditions in the city.

Baltimore is a city in sharp decline.  In the mid nineteenth century it was the second most populous city in the United States after New York.  Until about 1980 it was still one of the ten largest cities in the country.  At its height in 1950, Baltimore had about one million residents.  Today, the city has only 620,000 people, a decline of one-third of the population in 65 years.  It was once one of the great manufacturing centers and a key shipping center.  Despite some recently improved economic sectors, including health care, academics and tourism, these improvements do not replace the losses in employment.

Baltimore is a black majority city.  Nearly 64% of the cities people are black.  In most respects, this fact should be inconsequential.  Sadly though, the mechanisms that continue to repress poor people of color exist in Baltimore.  Within the black community, mobility is stagnated; college education is difficult and expensive to attain, yet the largest employer and organizational group in the city, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins University, rely on a workforce dominated by the highly educated.  Further, there is a clear and undeniable component of racism that oppresses Baltimore’s black people.

One in five residents of Baltimore lives below the poverty line.  I’ll leave this fact alone; it speaks for itself.

Baltimore is desperate, poor, short on hope, and now violent.  It is extremely important to make Baltimore peaceful again.  Of course it’s not easy.  We will continue to see Baltimore being under threat of violence until we address what is wrong.  The big picture resolutions to the Baltimore problem are:

·         Rebuilding trust between the residents of Baltimore and the police force.  The riots were met with a measure of restraint by the police.  I am sure that most officers are proud professionals who ensure everyone’s safety.  Smart protocols which engage police in the everyday activities of people exist in many cities, and could be adopted there.

·         Improve access to higher education.  The sad truth that higher education selects based more on economic status that academic status.  This is a nationwide problem, but it is acutely felt in Baltimore.

·         Identify entrepreneurs within the city, and enable them with microloans and planning support.  Small businesses should bring hope and vision, and

·         End racism.  End institutional racism.  End racism based on ignorance. Just end it.

What a daunting list!  No one said peace was easy, right?

I will revisit the issues raised here, hopefully soon.  I think my next few posts will head into other directions, but I still feel there is a lot of unfinished business.  Peace, my friends.

Some Housekeeping

Let me start this piece off with a bit of a complaint.  As news consumers, Americans have such a short attention span that major, long-trending stories can gain no traction.  I am appalled that a few short weeks after the fires in Baltimore were extinguished, there is hardly a word spoken about the riots, or Freddie Grey.  It would be easy to say that CNN and related news outlets will report on an endless string of stories where a photo opportunity occurs behind the reporter, and that reporting stops when the viewer gets bored.  I am more concerned that these 24-hour news feeds make editorial decisions based on viewers’ appetites; as such, the news is not content-driven, but market-driven.  News has been reduced to a segment of the entertainment machine, and predictably content,  depth, and a willingness to report on second-tier stories have suffered.

Given that criticism, I find myself thinking about addressing matters of peace that seem urgent.  In fact, many of the issues that come out of the news of the day are urgent.  I would like to do a deep dive into Syria, Iraq and ISIS.  The proposed Iran nuclear deal is incredibly important.  Events in Yemen, Burundi and Burma vie for my attention as well.  Nonetheless, I am not writing these pieces to keep up with the day’s news, and so I will only refer to these issues tangentially, so that I can follow some long term trends, and keep a longer conversation moving along.  I apologize if you think that I should devote more of my time to Middle Eastern issues, or the Guantanamo Bay prison, or the Ukraine.  They are all worthy of our attention.  Instead, I will keep a discussion (a dialogue would be OK ;-) ) going about a finite number of themes that will allow us all to become better educated, and to become better peacemakers.  To that end, for the remainder of 2015, I plan on limiting my posts the following:

·         Justice for the American underclass.  My recent post titled ‘Baltimore and Beyond’ can be seen as a launch of this thread,

·         The South Sudan Civil War, to the end of educating my followers and exploring how conflicts rise and continue, and how peace might develop,

·         The worldwide migration of vulnerable people,

·         A retrospective of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 70 years later, which will include current non-proliferation challenges, and an introduction to the pacifism of Thomas Merton,

·         The connection between peace and art, to break from the politics and brighten this space a bit.  This is a new idea that I’m looking forward to, and

·         A calendar of peace events in Greater Boston, or perhaps throughout New England, which was always a goal of this blog.

I hope that keeping to these issues will bring my writing into better focus, and allow for better reading for you.  As the 1500^th pageview will most likely happen over the next few weeks, I’ll want to write more regularly, and build my readership.  Thanks.  Look forward to a follow-up on Baltimore in the next few days, and a cycle through of each of the items I’ve promised.

Baltimore and Beyond

Let’s get a few items off the plate before we get into the core of our problems:

• ·         Yes, the riots were the wrong response to the problem.  Violence is never a good solution to anything.
• ·         Yes, police protect life and property at great personal risk, and as such deserve respect.
• ·         Despite the two preliminary statements above, there are serious and systemic problems in society that have contributed to the unrest in our cities.  In the current climate of distrust, and in the absence of extraordinary leadership and proposals, the unrest will continue for some time.

I’m glad those matters are done with.  It is time to unpack what the problems are, and how we might constructively engage in solving them.

First, the proximate cause for the unrest is police brutality.  I have no problem with saying that Freddie Gray was murdered.  Receiving a broken neck, and a crushed larynx prior to being thrown into the back of a vehicle, unrestrained, do not constitute reasonable force or self-protection.  Gray’s criminal activity and character have no bearing on these facts.  Eric Gardner’s death in New York was identical in many respects.  Michael Brown’s death in St. Louis was not as clear cut.  We can only draw circumstantial conclusions.  The injustice in St. Louis is that no legal proceedings excepting a summary dismissal by a grand jury were brought.

It would seem that a quick remedy for police brutality, however rare or common, is a system of reporting and accountability, and the addressing of urban police tactics.  Unfortunately, an accountability system, while an important part of the solution, treats the symptom, not the disease.

The underlying problems which give rise to the instances are much more challenging:  Those underlying problems are:

• ·         Endemic urban violence, fueled by ready access to firearms, distrust of police, and most importantly, lack of social mobility, or lack of opportunity if you prefer.  Sadly, these issues victimize both urban people, and police.  Police brutality and anger at police, ironically, are two sides of the same coin.
• ·         A broken and dangerously flawed justice system that makes an enormous amount of people felons.  The mechanics of how this happens are very complex, but are driven by the legal system that follows up where the policing problems end.  Two important components of this injustice are mandatory minimum sentencing, and the stripping of civil rights of former felons who have completed their sentences.
• ·         Bigotry.  This is the biggest and ugliest part of the problem, perhaps the ultimate source of all of the problems.

One quick word about bigotry is that bigotry encompasses more than racism.  Racism directed at people of color is perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the problem, but intensifying social stratification, and an utterly suppressed underclass have also emerged.

I am gratified that in the immediate aftermath of the Baltimore riots, peace rallies have emerged.  It’s a great start.  There is a danger that if left to photo ops for CNN, and calls for bland dialogues, the attitude of emerging peace will burn off in the heat of a dangerous summer, but we have cause for hope.

I should stop here tonight.  I think that’s enough to digest.  Each of the points above can be and have been the subject of entire books.  We have a lot more to discuss on this, and some other burning issues about peace, So, let’s stop here.  Pray and/or meditate on behalf of everyone in Baltimore and beyond.