Being Uncomfortable is Necessary

I’ve been thinking a lot about something that a lot of guys like me don’t like to think about.  We like to think that we’re good guys, that we do the right things, that we support the right people and that we are helping our communities.  We’re often right – we are all of those things. We stand up for what is right.  We support those who need our help.  We give to charity, or help out with our time. We’re doing the best we can, right?  So why do we need to think about that thing that the “crazy feminists” and #BlackLivesMatter advocates want to force us into considering, that wacky thing they call “privilege”?

Until just a few years ago, I hadn’t really given it much thought.  I mean, intellectually I knew that I had won the genetic/citizenship/orientation/education lottery.  I’m an able bodied, cis-gendered, straight, educated white male.  If people were choosing the characteristics that would make their lives easier, they couldn’t have chosen a better combination.  And I got it all just by being me. I’m one lucky son of a bitch.

Then along comes rapist Brock Turner.  Convicted of raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster in an alley.  And he gets a sentence of six months in a county jail because, in the words of the judge, prison might have “a severe impact on him.” The media outcry in response to this has been astronomical and heartwarming.  People are coming out of the woodwork to protest that this slap on the wrist is not appropriate, and that it underlines the white mans’ privilege that so deeply underscores our mindset.  I was upset too, until I did some digging today at the suggestion of my partner.  And then I lost my mind.  See, I was just upset because this seemed to be yet another example of sexual assault against women not being taken seriously enough by the judicial systems that are supposed to protect us all equally.  But it is even worse than that. 

Let me introduce you to Brian Banks. At only 16 he was accused of rape, and ultimately convicted and sentenced to five years in prison.  And he didn’t do it.  But he was black.

Then there is Corey Batey. Unlike Mr. Banks, Batey did do it.  He was accused, convicted and sentenced.  Just like Turner.  And just like Turner Batey was a star athlete at a major US university and his victim was intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness.  Unlike Turner, Batey was sentenced to 15-25 years in prison.  Same crime, same circumstances.  Turner is white.  Batey is black.

Let’s not even get into how long you can get away with being a serial rapist if you are a police officer and you chose poor black women as your targets. Sure, when you finally get caught you go to prison for life, but how long did it take for someone to come forward?  Why were these poor black women afraid to seek help?

The answer is in the question.  

Lest We Forget

Today marks the 20^th anniversary of one of the darker events that occurred within my lifetime.  On April 7, 1994 the tiny African nation of Rwanda erupted into violence and stayed there for slightly more than three months – 100 days in fact.  In that very short time frame, hundreds of thousands of citizens, the majority of whom were innocent civilians, were massacred.  So fierce and brutal was the period that even today, an accurate count of the number of people murdered remains unknown.  The United Nations estimates that the death toll was between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people.  The official death toll according to the government of Rwanda is 1,174,000.  In three months.

The Rwandan genocide has its roots, as many conflicts do, in conflict that simmered for generations and divided a nation.  I will never understand those roots in all of their complexity, but I do know, at the absolute base of them, lies “the other” – that intangible and often ill-defined condition of being different in some way.  Perhaps a different colour of skin or a different name by which they call god.  Maybe they have a different view on how the people ought to be governed or how government money should be spent.  Sometimes, it is as simple as how they define love.  But some characteristic, some tiny detail, sets them apart.

Terrifyingly, the majority of the murders were not carried out by organized military.  No WWII death camps and trains here.  In this tiny nation, neighbour set upon neighbour with wood axes and clubs.  Baseball bats and machetes were the weapons of mass destruction in Rwanda.

If you have not read Roméo Dallaire’s “Shake Hands with the Devil” you must.  It is a book you will only read once, but it will move you to your core.  It tells a story of a country in need, of a war that was predicted and of a million lives lost that could have been saved.  It ought to be required reading for all military commanders and political leaders.

And that is perhaps the saddest part of the entire horrific matter – they saw it coming.  Months prior to the commencement of the genocide, the UN was told it was going to happen.  Informants in the Rwandan government told UN officials that plans were being made to begin the slaughter, that specific parties were set to incite the people to murder their neighbors.  But no one stopped it.  No one stepped in to help.  In fact, the UN Peacekeepers that were on the ground had their funding cut and their numbers reduced in the middle of the conflict.  Nations with enormous armies did nothing.  Nations with tremendous budgets spent not a dime helping.  And every minute they did nothing, seven people were murdered.

Things in Rwanda today are somewhat improved.  It is no paradise - the nation is still trying to climb out of the hell on earth that it was for those 100 days.  In 100 days, almost 15% of the population was killed.  Children became orphans and orphans became the heads of families.  But the wounds are healing, though resources remain scarce and money, as in many nations, could solve a lot of the problems.  Conflict still runs through the area, and peace remains elusive, though the wide-spread slaughter has long since ceased.

The world has changed.  We’re more connected now, more in touch with people around the world.  We Facebook and Tweet with people from all nations.  We call someone a friend whom we’ve never met face to face, and likely never will.  We have news dumped into our phones, our computers and our tablets every minute of every day.  A mosquito sneezes in Tokyo and we know about it thirty seconds later.

Yet the world has not changed.  Srebenica, Syria, Sudan and now the Central African Republic.  Genocidal attacks where one group makes a concentrated effort to eliminate an opposing (or even just different) group.  Tens of thousands of dead and dying right now, in this moment, but no government will step in.  The United Nations does nothing.  And children watch their parents die.  Fathers watch their daughters brutally assaulted.  Parents gather the remains of their children, horrifically murdered for the crime of being different.

When will we learn?

This is how it ends...

This is how it ends.
Not with a bang, nor a whimper
silence.

No screams of incandescent rage

No liquid steaming moans
No childrens’ cries
snuffed out lives
silence.

When no one cares

No one dares
To change

Can We Talk?

The other day, whilst riding that most wonderful of contraptions – the Halifax city bus – I was given yet another opportunity to delve into another person’s life, somewhat against my wishes.  There is nothing like the trapped confines of a large bus crammed with ten too many people, all of whom are chatting away on their cell phones, to hit home the realization that we need to buy a car.  The amount of personal information that people spew forth on their phones never ceases to astonish me.  On this trip in particular, I learned that the young lady behind me was upset at her boyfriend because he wouldn’t… umm… reciprocate her oral attentions (just remembered this blog isn’t flagged for “adult content”), that the older lady beside me was still fighting with her daughter over what to do with their dead cat (it’s body was taking up space in her freezer and she really wanted it gone) and that the young lady across the aisle was fighting with her cell phone company.  Seems she hadn’t paid her bill in three months, but, at least according to her, she shouldn’t have to pay those bills, as they hadn’t sent her the actual bills.  Makes sense, right?

We live in a time when the line between the personal and the private is at, dare I say it, an all-time blurriest. Between Tweets, blogs, Facebook status updates and text messages, I know more about my family and friends than I ever did before – some to the good, some to the bad. I can live with that, I actually like most of them, and knowing what they are up to is usually interesting.

But the constant stream of information that we are bombarded with about the lives of complete strangers is blowing my mind. And obviously I am in the minority – if I weren’t then “reality” shows wouldn’t be as popular as they are. Apparently I am one of only a select few people that is not interested in the deep inner lives of those I share my commutes with – and that got me to thinking about the way our society views itself, and how it has done so in the past.

Perhaps my generation (and we’re not that old yet!) will be the last one to really have any idea of what a “private life” meant.  Maybe we’ll be the last ones to not assume that every action and every statement we make is part of the public domain, that every moment there is a camera on us making a YouTube video, and that every single one of us will at some point appear either on the internet or on some funny video program.

I don’t mean to say that it is de facto a bad thing. I am a firm proponent of free speech, but also of integrity and standing behind what you say.  Anonymous posts on the internet bother the hell out of me – if you are afraid to stand behind what you say, then you shouldn’t be saying it. Sure, there may be times when security requires that you have some sort of shield for your data (I know I don’t want my bank account information on the net, though it is due to my eBay purchases and PayPal account) but if you are saying something, have the courage to stand behind your opinion and be taken to account for it.

Or maybe it isn’t really about knowing that information – maybe the trick to it all is learning not to listen to what is happening around me.  I know that a lot of people have managed this trick, surrounded only by their own data, their own music playing in their earbuds, their own news / books / games streaming on their tablets.  While I am usually not one to promote conversation on the bus (or in any public setting) with a stranger, I do see our cutting off of each other from our lives and our sphere of awareness to be a problem.  The more we tune out, the less connected we are.  I think it is easier for the culture of apathy that I have blogged about to propagate when we disconnect from those around us, and I think that is a Very Bad Thing.

I’m a terrible one for sci-fi analogies lately, but in the graphic novel series Risings Stars, one of the heroes helps to turn entire neighborhoods from crime filled to crime free by getting the residents to do one simple thing – go out on their front porches rather than watching television in their basements.  Seems like that is exactly what I am thinking about today – we are less likely to engage in behavior we know is wrong when there are people watching.  We are more connected as a society when we talk to each other, when we know each other’s names.  When we are more connected, we take responsibility for each other, we know that we are a part of something larger, a community.

So I think it is time to do something about it. This is hell for me – I don’t really like people all that much, so if I can do it, you can too.

Why not reach out to your neighbors today, whether they are your bus mates, the person in line at the Christmas tree shop or the people who live down the hall from your apartment?  Why not stop and say hello to a stranger?  I guarantee you’ll hear some things that don’t impact upon your life, and maybe even some odd things you wish you hadn’t heard.  But maybe, just maybe, you’ll connect with another human being, if only for a moment.  And maybe, if we all make those connections, maybe we can slow this whole thing down.

Apathy

I don’t know if people have always been callous and uncaring towards others.  I don’t know if our ancient ancestors, crouching in their caves around the warmth and safety of their fire heard the screams of one of their tribe being savaged by a wild animal, and just sang louder to drown out the sounds.  I don’t know if people in small towns are more likely to help their neighbors than people in big cities.  And I don’t know if the apathy that we see every day is getting more or less prevalent, or maybe just staying the same.  But I do know we have to do something about it.

Yesterday, I was taking a break from my work (which is already depressing enough most days) and decided to read the newspaper.  I should have known better.

In Toronto, on Monday night, a 66 year old woman, an Alzheimer’s patient, left her home sometimes after two am and apparently wandered away from her home, with no appropriate clothing.  She froze to death in the driveway of a house, approximately one block from her own home.  Police officers have been quoted as saying that at least two people heard her screams (presumably for help as she froze to death) and one man saw her distress.  The evidence also indicates that she clawed at the screen door of the house she froze in front of, hard enough to damage the metal screen.  When police arrived on the scene, they were unable to perform CPR, as her body was frozen solid.  No one offered to help her.  No one called 911.  No charges will be laid.

Here in Halifax, about a month ago, a young man was assaulted in broad daylight at a bus stop on a busy Halifax street.  The assaulters stole his iPod and continued to beat him.  Police reported that several cars drove directly past, while this young man was on the ground being viciously kicked.  A older man from across the street finally yelled at the attackers to stop and told them that he was going to call the police.  The attackers fled the scene, taking the victim’s property with them.  He was hospitalized for a day.  Other than the senior citizen, no one offered to help him.  No one in the vehicles passing by called 911.  No charges will be laid.

The most appalling example of this remains the Kitty Genovese story.  You can look it up, its all over the web.  In essence, in March of 1964, Ms. Genovese was returning home from her job as a bar manager at about three a.m.    She was assaulted and stabbed by Winston Moseley.  When one of the 38 people living in the apartment complex responded to Kitty’s screams of pain and fear with a yell of “you leave that lady alone”, Moseley ran off.  About ten minutes later he returned and found Kitty (she had dragged herself toward the door), raped her for a half an hour and murdered her.  She was alive and screaming during the rape.  Moseley was eventually found, arrested and convicted of Kitty’s murder, along with two other rape/murders.  No one offered to help.  No one called the police until after she was dead.  No one dialed the police while she was screaming and dying.

A South African humanitarian group, POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse) conducted an experiment.  Watch only if you are ready to get upset.  Hopefully, more upset.

We, as human beings, possess a survival instinct.  Its in our DNA.  We have atavistic fears of snakes and sharks as a result of this instinct.  Our bodies are designed to provide us with the necessary burst of strength, speed and stamina in order to protect ourselves during a conflict.  Our brains have been shown to operate at higher processing rates during times of great stress, yet another mechanism that we have for helping to save ourselves from danger.

Our hearts and souls, it would appear, are not so well prepared.  Time after time, no one steps in to protect those who need help.  Yes, I understand that people want to be safe, and don’t want to put themselves in harms way.  After all, those two men beating up that young man for his iPod could be armed killers, ready to slit the throat of anyone who intervenes.  That woman could have been a crazed killer, armed with razor sharp dentures, ready to rend the flesh of ... ok... it is bullshit no matter how you pretty it up.

We, as a civilization, are failing ourselves.  Maybe it has been happening forever.  Maybe there is no hope.  But in this day and age, when every damned person driving by the scene of an assault is armed with a cell phone, and all that it takes is one minute to call 911 and report an assault, or a scream from outside, or from the apartment next door... you can help, stay safe, and be anonymous.  There is no fear of reprisal.  No fear that you are going to take a punch for someone else.  You aren’t putting yourself or your family in any danger by dialing the phone or by yelling “I am calling the police” as you drive by.

Dante reserved a special spot, just outside of hell, for those who did not care enough to be good.  Apathy, not racism, not hatred, not violence, is the greatest threat that our civilization faces.  Those who are passionate enough to stand up and refuse to allow bullies to continue their harassment, who say “No!” to a racist, who challenge our governments to take action against oppressive regimes, and who hold our own government accountable, they are to be commended.  They’ve remembered that we’re all in this together, that we owe a duty, if only a moral one, to our fellow human beings to help each other.

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. day in the US.  Dr. King said something far better than I ever could:

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

I fervently believe that the good people outnumber the bad people in orders of magnitude. I know that for every senseless and pointless death and assault we hear of on the news, there are ten situations that were stopped by good people, standing up and saying “NO!”... but those voices need to be hear more often.  The good people of this country, of this world, need to take action, to take responsibility.  To stop saying “not my problem” and start saying “I may not know you, I may not even like you, but I will help you.”