john a. powelljohn a. powell

Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and EthnicityRace and Ethnicity

Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Williams Chair in Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, Moritz College of LawLiberties, Moritz College of Law

Bates College MLK Jr. DayJanuary 18, 2010

Lewiston, Maine

Remembering the past… Reflecting on the present

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About Bill Sutherland World War II conscientious objector (imprisoned for

38 months in Lewiston Federal Penitentiary)

Co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality and Americans for South African Resistance

Served as a special assistant to the Sixth Pan-African Congress in Tanzania

Bill is remembered for “tirelessly recording and participating in efforts for social change on both [North American and African] continents.”

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“I'm a person who believes in nonviolence on principle. And true nonviolence is a spiritual force that the people can have, which can be the most powerful thing going. But I respect the revolutionist who adopts a violent method, because I think that the most important thing is the revolution."

-Bill Sutherland4

Honorary Doctorate from Bates In 1940, Bill

graduated with a B.A. in sociology from Bates College

“At Bates college in Maine, Bill continued his activities for racial justice and pacifism…”(Guns and Gandhi in Africa)

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Julius Nyerere, first president of Tanzania, with Bill Sutherland

Bill Sutherland and Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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From Archbishop Tutu’s foreword in Guns and Gandhi in Africa

“Ubuntu…recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be truly human together. Ubuntu is relevant to this book because, in their discussions about the African process of liberation and social change, Bill Sutherland and Matt Meyer have looked beyond the short-term strategies and tactics, which too often divide progressive people. They have begun to develop a language that looks at the roots of our humanness beyond our many private contradictions...”

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Bill Sutherland with Maya Angelou

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Dr. King and Bill SutherlandExcerpt from Guns and Gandhi in Africa:

“Bill noticed that Martin and Coretta King were visibly impressed when, on that fateful night in 1957, the British flag was lowered, and the flag of Ghana was raised. Nkrumah, dressed in traditional kente cloth, his fists waving in the air, tears streaming down his face, shouted over and over again: ‘Free At Last, Free At Last, Free At Last!’

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…Six years later, when Martin closed his own speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with a similar phrase, which he attributed to an old Negro spiritual, Bill couldn’t help but wonder if those thunderous words in Washington D.C had not come from King’s memory of that historic evening in Ghana.” (p. 34)

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“We are all caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever effects one directly effects all indirectly.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Linked Fates…Transformative Change

Our fates are linked, yet our fates have been socially constructed as disconnected, especially through the categories of class, race, gender, nationality, religion…

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Our Current Paradigm Current paradigm: Hobbesian, isolated

Individuals as autonomous-independent selves

Egoistic, possessive, separate, isolated, rational

Role of state: protect individualism and private property

This is reflected in beliefs about Judeo-Christian God

Protects against evil, punishes wrongdoers, promotes individual-success through own will

Within this view, government social programs seen as counter-productive and reinforcing negative behaviors

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Current Paradigm Has led to increasing isolation and fear of the other

This framework creates/marginalizes the racialized other

Creates false separations – negates shared humanity

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As a result we are a nation divided

Current paradigm and inequality Dominant public paradigms point to “bad apples”

Defective culture Individual faults Personal Racism

Overlooks policies and arrangements: “diseased tree” Structures Institutions Cumulative causation 16

Effects of Current Paradigm on Social Justice Work

Within this framework, social justice work:

Overlooks opportunities for coalition building

Is more fragmented and isolated

May be competitive and divisive

Can lead to guilt or disempowerment

Is not connected to overarching set of shared values

Lacks a political and spiritual vision! 17

Are we too individualistic or can we transcend this disconnectedness?

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Spirituality and Suffering Existential/ontological (Spiritual Suffering)

Transience (First Noble Truth of Buddhism)

Loy’s Sense of Lack

Psychoanalysis (Lacan’s Lack)

Inherent in existence

“Surplus” (Social suffering) The result of social arrangements/structures

Visited on people unequally19

Suffering and Spirituality A false separation exists between the secular and

the spiritual in our world.

A role of spirituality is to address suffering, both ontological and social suffering.

Structural racism causes suffering, and animates a call to spirituality to engage those structures.

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Personal vs Social If spirituality is our effort to connect beyond our

egoistic self – how does it relate to social justice?

Could working for social transformation be an integral part of engaging deeply with our personal encounters?

Must reject structures that limit our ways to embrace love in our interpersonal interactions to “come home”

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Love calls the ego beyond itself and “requires engagement with the other and their situated embodiedness.”

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Spirituality and Social Justice We focus on how spirituality inspires social justice,

not on how social justice informs spirituality

Caring about other’s suffering connects deeply to one’s own spiritual development

Suffering a central concern of both

Spirituality Social Justice

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A New Paradigm We believe it is possible through collective

imagination

What is the alternative vision?

A model of connectedness

Individuals as part of something bigger

Inter-being, unified, not egoistically separate

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A New Paradigm Collaborative – focuses on coalition building

Recognizes interconnectedness of our beings and fates

Is the natural extension of a overarching, shared vision and framework

Reconceptualizes society to promote the political, economic, spiritual, and psychological health of ALL

Focuses on “targeting within universalism”25

The Paradigm in ReligionThis perspective is at the heart of a different

type of spirituality

A God who identifies with the poor and oppressed and expects followers to support and work with marginalized populations and combat prejudice

Sees social justice work and government programs as a spiritual necessity

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Systems Thinking Most people (including scholars and activists)

think of problems from a individual perspective rather than a systems perspective.

This framing of the issues has the potential to

limit our understanding of the nature and depth of a problem as well as a proper solution.

Traditional non-discrimination models focuses our gaze in a way that restricts us to recognize that the problems at hand are in need of systemic resolution.

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Dynamic Systems Theory Systems’ dynamics emphasize the importance of

mental models. These cognitive models are the implicit (often

unconscious) causal maps of a system that we hold as well as our beliefs about how the system operates.

Our predominant model of racism is the individual racism model.

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Tenants of Systems Thinking Interdependence of objects and their attributes -

independent elements can never constitute a system.

Holism - emergent properties not possible to detect by analysis should be possible to define by a holistic approach.

Goal seeking - systemic interaction must result in some goal or final state.

Transformation of inputs into outputs - this is the process by which the goals are obtained.

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Systems Thinking

Systems Thinking:

A D

C

B

E

Causation is reciprocal, mutual, and cumulative.

The Newtonian Perspective:

A B C D E

Linear causation

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Systems Thinking Systems Theory is a transdisciplinary model that

focuses on a web of relationships and processes and not on linear, singular causation or the intent of one or even a few individuals.

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Systems Thinking From a systems perspective, causation is

cumulative and mutual.

Outcomes are caused by many actors’ and institutions’ actions and inactions over time and across domains.

Outcomes are the result of causes that accumulate over time and across domains.

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Cumulative CausationExample: A labor economist’s analysis of discrimination

in the labor market, controlling for background characteristics and educational preparation of labor market participants, ignores the previous discrimination in education, housing, and health markets.

Wealth: intergenerational and impact across domains.

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System Interactions

Source: Barbara Reskin. http://faculty.uwashington.edu/reskin/ 35

Structural Racialization Structural racialization refers to the ways in which

the joint operation of institutions produce racialized outcomes.

Structures matter and are not neutral. They unevenly distribute benefits, burdens, and racialized meaning.

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37Adapted from the Aspen Roundtable on Community Change. “Structural Racism and Community Building.” June 2004

Cumulative and Mutual:Cycle of Segregation

Lower EducationalOutcomes for Urban

School Districts

Increased Flightof Affluent

Families fromUrban Areas

Neighborhood (Housing)

Segregation

SchoolSegregation

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Housing is a critical intervention point into the complex web of opportunity

Housing is a component of a larger set of interrelated structures that are

both affected by housing and have impacts on the attainment of safe,

stable housing.

Housing

Childcare

Incarceration/ juvenile justice

Education

Health Employment

Transportation

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playgrounds, parks, arts…

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Put these together, you can imagine a structure

Systems view The application of a systems theory model

changes our analysis of responsibility and response to harms.

Consider global warming: Caused by cumulative and mutual actions of

many actors Need for collective action No need to show intent before responding

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Changes, Challenges and Opportunities Facing our Society

Our world today is more complex and interconnectedGlobal labor marketGlobal financial marketGlobal credit marketGlobal climate change

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Reassess our AssumptionsAre unfettered markets good?Is government action inherently bad?Who wins and who loses?

Source: United for a Fair Economy

More than ‘thinking globally’ and ‘acting locally’

Our global economy requires affirmative, deliberate collective action, across multiple domains, and at a regional level

How can we affirmatively incorporate our marginalized communities into the mainstream economy?

Dr. King on Economic Justice Called for an “economic bill of rights” and a

massive jobs program and worked on the Poor People’s campaign “It must not be just black people…We must include

American Indians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and even poor whites.”

In 1968, Dr. King supported a sanitation workers strike in Memphis

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness.

Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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For more information: www.KirwanInstitute.org

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Appendix

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Cherished American ideals vs. reality Representation : Public institutions do not reflect their

constituents Equality: A race-based social hierarchy predominates Non-discrimination: Unresolved tensions between the

public ideal (colorblindness) and reality (inequality) Citizenship: Membership in society conferred unequally Dominant ideologies in America such as open opportunity

and individualism are hollow People in poverty cannot fully exercise their freedoms Cumulatively these represent a deficit in democracy

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Positive Feedback:Cycle of Segregation

Lower EducationalOutcomes for Urban

School Districts

Increased Flightof Affluent

Families fromUrban Areas

Neighborhood (Housing)

Segregation

SchoolSegregation

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Negative Feedback Loops

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The Enlightenment: “A Science of Man”

Since Newton had proved that the universe worked according to certain laws, discovered via the scientific method, shouldn't man, society, government work according to universal laws, too?

This is the birth of the social sciences: sociology, economics, psychology, anthropology…

David Hume: The Newton of the “Moral Sciences.” 56

Enlightenment Jurisprudence Modern jurisprudence has been an attempt to make

the law more scientific: Objective, neutral, mechanical, certain.

Hugo Grotius: “The Galileo of law”

Francis Bacon Blackstone Montesquieu

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Enlightenment Objectivity Assumed intrinsic separability of the knower and

known, subject and object (Cartesian cut) Observer could view world without affecting it.

Quantum Physics calls into question the limits of possible objectivity and certainty.

Uncertainty Principle: in measuring the characteristics of a particle, we necessarily disturb its pre-measurement values.

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