In Minneapolis, rioters protesting the killing of George Floyd damaged more than 570 buildings and burned 67 businesses to the ground, many of them minority-owned. In my city of Denver, rioters targeted a pedestrian mall near the state capitol, as well as museums and the public library, smashing windows, defacing statues, and spray-painting graffiti.
I’m old enough to remember similar scenes from my former city, Chicago. A band of young radicals known as the Weathermen joined with Black Panthers and anti-war groups in 1969 to sponsor “Days of Rage” in downtown Chicago. They blew up a statue, smashed cars and windows in a posh Gold Coast neighborhood, and made it to the Drake Hotel, where a massive police force pushed them back.
After the Black Panthers disassociated themselves from such anarchism, the movement divided and the Weathermen went underground. Over the next few years they set off bombs in such places as the U.S. Capitol building, the Pentagon, and the Department of State. Several leaders died in clashes with police and in a bomb-making accident, and some survivors are still serving out life sentences in prison.
The saga of the Weathermen offers a cautionary tale. George Floyd’s death was an outrageous injustice, one that rightly calls for anger and protest. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I have learned to use my anger for good…It is an energy that compels us to define what is just and unjust.”
The Weathermen, too, staged their Days of Rage as a protest, against the injustices of racism, inequality, and the Vietnam war. But protests that begin with a noble cause may even produce the opposite of their intended effect, because of the chaos that ensues. And as history records, no government from the right or from the left will long tolerate anarchy.
Is there any hope for our divided nation? Now that iniquity has been exposed, must we return to adversarial politics and slogans screamed at each other across barricades? If not, how can we make progress in tackling injustice?
In a recent article in , author and activist Van Jones, a CNN contributor, presents a formula for working with “the other side.” A self-described leftist, he was dismayed by Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. Nevertheless, he decided that simply opposing Trump would not solve the underlying social problems that helped fuel his election. “Should I stop trying to alleviate suffering in both red counties and blue cities to focus instead on discrediting [Trump]?” he asked.
Jones chose one issue, criminal justice, and worked with such unlikely allies as Newt Gingrich and the Koch brothers to craft a landmark bill on prison and sentencing reform. The President himself rallied Republican support for the bill. In the process, Jones learned several key principles, which I’ve adapted:
1) Pay less attention to the politics at the top and more attention to the pain at the bottom. Jones deliberately chose a hard problem, one that nobody has been able to solve. Addiction, racism, mental health, homelessness—these are intractable problems with no easy solution. Only the best people on either side will touch them, he found, so you’ll start out with great partners to work with.
2) Separate battleground issues from common-ground issues. Dag Hammarskjöld, who served as secretary-general of the United Nations during the tensest days of the Cold War, explained that in dealing with adversaries he would begin by searching for the smallest point of common ground. Van Jones discovered he could work with libertarians and conservatives on criminal justice issues, which everyone agreed was a problem, while avoiding a fight with them on battleground issues such as climate change or tax policy.
(After listening to an interview with Jones, I did a quick scan of the Gospels. I wish I had been present at some of the private conversations among Jesus’ disciples. For example, Simon the Zealot had advocated violent rebellion against Roman occupiers, while Matthew had collaborated with those very occupiers by collecting taxes on their behalf. Somehow Jesus kept twelve disparate followers focused on issues they shared in common.)
3) Strive for long-term results, not complete agreement. “Don’t convert,” says Jones; “Cooperate!” Politics can be messy, and rarely satisfies all parties. Although committed to emancipation, Abraham Lincoln tackled the issue of slavery in gradual stages, first proposing compromises that were more acceptable to his adversaries. Working with Congress, Lyndon Johnson won key votes for Civil Rights legislation by flattery, intimidation, cajoling, and the promise of government contracts.
In the early years after Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement fixated on overturning the ruling and getting a complete ban on abortions. When that proved impossible, they found other methods, such as counseling centers and restrictions on late-term abortions. The annual number of abortions has since been halved.
4) Treat adversaries with respect. Try to appeal to their best instincts, urging them to honor their own principles rather than scolding them for failing to meet yours.
I cringe every time I hear President Trump use words like thugs, deranged, human scum, and enemies of the people to describe his opponents. Not only does he demean the office of the president, he also greatly decreases the likelihood of working with those opponents in the future.
We are living in troubled times, with an economy ravaged by a virus, and protests reminding us daily of a racial divide. Our nation desperately needs to come together. In a statement issued in response to the George Floyd protests, former , “The heroes of America—from Frederick Douglass, to Harriet Tubman, to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr.—are heroes of unity. Their calling has never been for the fainthearted. They often revealed the nation’s disturbing bigotry and exploitation—stains on our character sometimes difficult for the American majority to examine. We can only see the reality of America’s need by seeing it through the eyes of the threatened, oppressed, and disenfranchised.”
“Daddy changed the world!” said George Floyd’s six-year-old daughter in a video that went viral. Whether that proves true remains to be seen. Floyd’s death did, however, open the world’s eyes to how far we fall short of the American ideal that all people are created equal with rights endowed by God.
Former President Bush concluded his statement by saying, “We love our neighbors as ourselves when we treat them as equals, in both protection and compassion. There is a better way—the way of empathy, and shared commitment, and bold action, and a peace rooted in justice. I am confident that together, Americans will choose the better way.”
Truthfully, I don’t have that same confidence…yet. But I’m praying for it, and committed to working toward it.
I am really dusappointed in your post. I feel it dismisses the protesters’ anguish, not just over the death of George Floyd, but that of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and many, many others. Although driven by 400 years of rage, the protests were peaceful and have already begun to bear fruit. It has been documented that much of the damage and looting were begun by outside agitators—many of them white—to discredit the protests. And I can give you examples of the police committing unprovoked acts of brutality. Comparing the protestors to the Weather Underground is unfair as the former is synonomous destruction. As I said, some came to the current protests for that same purpose. And sometimes, rage comes out in a very visceral way.
I don’t know if you have looked at the comments on the Facebook posting of your words, but many, many are nasty, to put it mildly. The are more concerned with property than injustice. And they blame the Democrats, liberals, etc. Precious little understanding or common ground to be found.
Other commentators have pointed you toward black authors writing on racism, I would recommend them, as well.
I have enjoyed your books very much, but not this. Racism was constructed by whites and is up to us to dismantle it. I don’t believe you helped that cause.
It seems we can never get to answers because we are afraid to look at the root of the problem, Certain ideologies are like a cancer that infect and destroy anything it touches, it can happen to the church and it can happened to America. Right will be wrong and wrong will be right. As a teenager I used to think, how can that happen, fair minded people would obviously see through the the lies of the enemy and stand for what is pure and right.
Pastor Tony Campolo, who I don’t always agree with, once said to a group of Christians, “I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.” I realized when I heard that quote that our eyes are on the lesser things and not the greater things. I’m not sure where the Luther’s are in the world anymore, someone to stand up to inequities and people without always having a to make moral comparisons.
We are all flawed, but we have to at least be able to discern what is good so that we can see what is evil.
I was encouraged to read a letter from Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano that was posted online last week. I am not catholic, but I was literately brought to tears with what seamed to me to be a wise man simply focusing on the greater things and not the lesser. I believe It took courage to write that letter, courage is the rarest of all good traits, we need more of it. Courage coupled with truth can still win the day.
I agree with your post. I may have erred in starting with the rioters (which I distinguish from the protesters). Mainly, I was trying to address those who dismiss the protests because of the riots which, as you say, were in many cases led by troublemakers and not legitimate protesters. The protests were absolutely called for. Racism is pandemic in our nation, and I hope we use this opportunity to keep it front and center. I had hoped that Van Jones’s suggestions would point some way toward bridge-building. The responses aren’t encouraging.
I love this article. Generally this is the idea that’s been floating in my head as I think of the Philippines, my country of origin. A highly polarized politics will do no good to any society. A common/neutral ground should be sought through commonly agreed ideals to make things work for good of the majority. That’s the role of a government if it is to make a civilized society functioning and strong. It should go beyong personal and party interest. Highly polarized personality politics is still very much alive not just in the USA. I think it has become a worlwide trend. I think we need a leader who would not see a politically divided country. We need a unifier, a strong influence with leadership skills that can make people work in the middle ground, if we don’t want to see this great country fall apart.
Christians know and believe we live in a broken world. Racism as defined by white treatment of people of color is but one example of our brokenness. It is but one battle and has but one solution…..Grace. Without Grace there is no resolution.
Our collective brokenness is massive. 65,000,000 people died during the reign of communism in the USSR. Racism was not the motive. Slavery is a bigger global issue now than 200 years ago. Few white prople are involved. Racism is not the motive.
When God offered his Son to us wretches, a manual was written for the salvation of mankind. That is the foundation upon which we must build. Nothing less.