Chapters 20-21: Measuring Success

I'm a day late in posting because yesterday we got a new couch for the JPC lobby!

But now it's time for Chapters 20-21.

Chapters 20-21 recount the legal battle that followed Dr. Perkins’ arrest and beating.  The discriminatory attitude of the Mississippi court system is shockingly obvious here, but in the end Perkins is able to count the experience as a victory, if only a partial one.

Perkins’ commentary on our understanding of justice and the need to stand for what’s really right caught my attention:

“Whether we admit it or not, our reading of biblical ethics is colored by our perception of the world around us.  If we think that there are only a few ‘bad guys’ such as burglars and murderers, and that all the given political, legal and economic structures around us are basically okay, then we are bound to read our Bibles in a certain way. … If sin can exist at every level of government, an in every human institution, then also the call to biblical justice in every corner of society must be sounded by those who claim a God of Justice as their Lord” (195).

The challenge to live as a counter-cultural example, humbly confronting injustice wherever it is found, is an important and difficult one.  It’s a role that calls us to be self-aware and willing to address our own issues, as well as unafraid to question tradition, groupthink and business as usual. 

In the coming year of leadership there may be points at which you feel like you’ve made one step forward only to be pushed back or confronted by another challenge. It’ll be important for us to identify ways in which success is measurable.  Sometimes success can be measured numerically: the number of volunteers at your project or the volume of fundraising for SPRINT trips.  At other times, success is evident in impact on individuals or even in incremental changes, as John Perkins saw in his justice-failed trial outcome.  What do you think?

How will you judge success or failure in the coming year?

Chapters 18-19: Finding Hope Amid Violence

Chapters 18-19 are hard to talk about.  You’ll notice that even when John Perkins speaks at SPU, the majority of his conversation isn’t around what happened in these chapters.  In these chapters we see the worst of human hatred and a conscious choice to forgive rather than give in to the dehumanizing desire to seek revenge. 

As he describes being beaten by White police officers, Perkins makes a profound statement that I have overlooked in several times I’ve read LJRD:

“And I can’t forget their faces, so twisted with hate.  It was like looking at white-faced demons.  Hate did that to them.

But you know, I couldn’t hate back.  When I was what hate had done to them, I couldn’t hate back.  I could only pity them.  I didn’t ever want hate to do to me what it had already done to those men” (165).

Miroslav Volf, a theologian who lived through the early 1990s violence in Yugoslavia, writes that violence and oppression damage both the oppressed and the oppressor.  “Just as the oppressed must be liberated from the suffering caused by oppression, so the oppressors must be liberated from the injustice committed through oppression” (Exclusion and Embrace, 23). Oppression seeks to place oneself at the center, excluding and harming those it can separate as “other.”  On the other hand, Volf writes, reconciling relationships place Jesus at the center and understand ourselves and others in relationship to him.  In the process of reconciliation oppressors must repent of their desire to harm and degrade those they have sought to exclude, and victims must forgive and repent even of their anger in order to avoid seeking the opportunity to react and become the oppressors.  It’s tough stuff.

“Though victims may not be able to prevent hate from springing to life, for their own sake they can and must refuse to give it nourishment and strive to weed it out.  If victims do not repent today they will become perpetrators tomorrow who, in their self-deceit, will seek to exculpate their misdeeds on account of their own victimization” (Volf, 117).

Perkins writes that White oppressors look for someone over whom to maintain authority in an effort to feel a sense of power: “You see, there is a kind of white person who has nothing going for him in life except his whiteness and racism.  And too often this kind of person goes out and joins the police force or the Highway Patrol.  It gives him a chance to make himself feel important by brutalizing a black” (176). 

This power dynamic is illustrated in violent ways, but also in subtle, paternalistic ways in other situations.  Eitehr way, the oppressor seeks to maintain power in order to keep himself at the center and define others in relation to his self-centeredness.

Violence and this type of depraved mindset are hard to understand, but sadly, some of this attitude persists even today.  In the news last week JPC teaching fellow Max Hunter ran across this article about a group of white young people in Mississippi who beat, then murdered, a black man.  The report is somewhat graphic – a sad reminder of how ugly hate really is.  http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/crime/2011/08/05/griffin.mississippi.hate.crime.cnn

In all of this, I think the key ideas to keep in mind are our natural tendency to exclude, separate and even oppress others in order to pursue our own self-centeredness.  When we put Christ in his rightful place, at the center, we learn to see ourselves and others in right relation, and there’s hope for reconciliation.

What is your response to these quotes from Perkins and Volf?

What are some ways we might tell the story of reconciliation on campus in ways that would draw people in, help us repent and refocus, then move forward with hope?

Chapters 16-17: Vision and Public Action

As I read these chapters I’m reminded of two recent but quite different public revolutions: Tahrir Square in Egypt this Spring, and the riots we’ve watched in London this past week.  Though there were elements of collective action and individual opportunism in each, what sticks in my mind are the neighborhood groups that banded together to keep the revolution on track and protect individuals and property in Egypt.  In London we’ve seen images of protestors shouting at the government while running off with merchandise grabbed from a storefront.  Both actions have a feeling of “We’ve had enough,” but one has vision and direction, while the other degenerates into chaos.

(BTW, did you hear about the guy in London who was arrested for looting after he Tweeted a picture of himself and the stuff he’d stolen?  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/london_police_to_arrest_tweeting_looters.php)

As the drama unfolded in Mendenhall (back to Chapters 16-17), Perkins remembers that while the community needed to stand up for itself, it was important that the community act in ways that would bring about long-term transformation.

“Even as I warned our people that we could only hurt ourselves seeking revenge, I reminded them that we could also hurt ourselves – and our children as well, if we simply caved in and did nothing” (142).

When given the opportunity, Perkins uses the platform created by his position to call for changes that would benefit the entire Black community in Mendenhall (149).  It’s vision that motivates Perkins to focus beyond his particular situation (“Let me go,” or “Follow proper protocol for arrests”) to address the larger issues in the community (street conditions, employment, government representation, etc.).  Instead of seizing the opportunity to release pent-up rage, the community joins Perkins’ call by enacting the boycott and organizing marches.  The good of the whole keeps the actions of the individual in check and on track.

In all of this there’s evidence of tension between blacks who were willing to stand up to the oppressive system under which they struggled and others who had found a stable place within the White-dominated society:

“The officials kept up their efforts to hurry me out of jail.  Of course, the quickest way, dropping charges, was out of the question as they saw it.  So they sent up some blacks to urge me to come out – blacks they through might be willing to forget injustice in the name of ‘cooperation.’  But as each one came up I would convince them of what we were doing.  All understood, except for one or two who were so sold-out to the system that they couldn’t think for themselves anyway” (148).

I’m interested to think about where I might have landed in this situation.  So, question, with no judgment or right/wrong answers:

Which character in these chapters do you think might best represent the way you’d have acted in this situation?

Chapters 14-15: Cooperatives, Empowerment, Voice

In Chapters 14-15 John Perkins dives into the challenging and sometimes divisive work of community organizing, helping those in the community who had been oppressed find means of self-expression.  As we’ve seen several times so far in LJRD, many in the church didn’t understand the need for this type of work, even considering it outside the scope of the Gospel.  Perkins, however, holds empowerment and the Gospel as complementary, even mutually-necessary, ideas.

This quote caught my attention:

“In situations of inequality or oppression, the oppressed group must take a stand somewhere, sometime.  For until the people take that stand, there is no development possible for them.  Yet when they take that stand in the face of clear injustice, an oppressed people are once again humanized.  And they then become capable of a level of development – spiritual, economic, social or other – not psychologically possible for a people still in a passive, dependent state” (120).

Unless people grasp their own ability to effect change on their own situation, they’ll remain helpless.  Effective community development helps people access the ability to take charge of their own change.  A few years after LJRD, Perkins wrote in Beyond Charity:

“To believe in indigenous leadership development is to believe in the inherent dignity of the people who need developing.  If you don’t believe that they can eventually lead themselves then you must believe that they are somehow inferior to you.  This type of attitude manifests itself in relationships that are patronizing, self-gratifying, and dependent” (Beyond Charity, 73).

One more idea from Paulo Freire, the guy who gave us the “Praxis” idea for which this blog is named:

“Authentic liberation – the process of humanization – is not another deposit to be made in men.  Liberation is a praxis: the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 79).

In summary, it’s important for community developers to equip the people around them to act in ways that bring positive change.  Without the ability to choose for themselves, take their own responsibility and lead, people remain oppressed and little of value results.

Now I’ll ask you questions, including one that focuses on me as your advisor:

What contributes to effective community empowerment?  What disempowers communities or individuals?

How have you witnessed empowerment or disempowerment? 

What will make this year an opportunity for empowerment and growth for you?  What support or freedom do you need from me and JPC staff?

How will you let me know when to suggest and when to set you free?  (This is me saying in advance that I want to work with you, not over you…)