All artwork by
Rini Templeton
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Humanity
today faces an enormous challenge: bringing about racial and economic
justice. Throughout the world, official claims of prosperity and
economic well-being are contradicted by the increasing income insecurity
with which the majority of people must contend. Institutional racism
is still the norm, systematically deferring the hopes of millions
who aspire to participate fully and equally in all facets of social
life. People of faith and conscience must build movements which
effectively challenge the legitimacy of such an economic and racial
order. Nonviolent activists must propose changes which address the
roots of the problems, help to dismantle the oppressive systems
and bring us closer to fulfilling Dr. King's vision of the Beloved
Community.
A Dire Global Situation
Let us be dissatisfied until rat-infested slums will be a thing
of a dark past and every family will have a decent sanitary house
in which to live....Let us be dissatisfied until our brothers
of the Third World-Asia, Africa and Latin America-will no longer
be the victim of imperialist exploitation, but will be lifted
from the long night of poverty, illiteracy and disease. 1
--Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.
Unfair economic policies inflict cruel, even
subhuman, conditions upon millions of people throughout the world.
According to the United Nations, at least 40,000 people, mostly
children, die of starvation every day... at least 20 million a
year. Much of the suffering is the effect of economic decisions
made by the Group of Eight powers (Canada, France, Germany, Italy,
Japan, Russia, the UK and the US). The poor in Third World societies
endure punishing "structural adjustments" imposed on them by the
First World lending agencies. These policies involve cuts in wages,
loss of social protection, and result in lowered standards of
living. Countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Indonesia find themselves
shackled to payment of enormous international loan debts. Much
touted neo-liberal economic policies and economic "shock treatment"
have led to major economic crises in Russia, while slave labor
re-appears in China. Super-exploitation of workers takes place
in so-called free trade zones in Central America and Asia. Entire
regions in Africa face unrelieved hardship due to the draining
of their resources throughout the past two centuries. Predatory,
corrupt and rapacious elites in these societies have done their
part to contribute to this over-all panorama of misery. Under-
or unevenly-developed societies are locked into dependent relationships
with the "overdeveloped" regions. The 1997 UN Human Development
Report states, "The three richest people in the world have assets
that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 48 least
developed countries." There is increasing concern amongst economic
specialists of a coming global stock market slump with ever-worsening
social effects.
As the consuming nations opt for continued
unbridled sprawl instead of sustainable growth, the negative environmental
impact of over-development is evidenced in phenomena such as climactic
changes due to global warming. No major industrialized society
is acting economically, socially, or environmentally in the spirit
of Native American and other indigenous groups throughout the
world who weigh the impact which their actions will have upon
the earth several generations into the future.
The
Situation at Home
On the cusp of the twenty-first century, the mainstream media
trumpet the news that the US economy is doing well and that we
are enjoying continued growth, low unemployment, and unparalleled
material abundance. Yet, several harsh realities lie hidden beneath
the glowing announcements. The poor, the unemployed, working families,
and those who have slipped from one rung to the next below, face
a tough situation:
Hunger: 30 million people in the
US are unable to buy food for themselves and their families for
some part of each month; 12 million (40%) of these are children
under 18. 2
Homelessness: 5 to 7 million people
in the US are homeless. 3
Health: In 1996, approximately
41.7 million people in the US had no health insurance; another
40 million Americans had only limited coverage. 4
Poverty: 1 of 4 children lives
in poverty. 5
The Great "Racial" Divide: 33.1%
of all African-Americans, 30.6% of Latinos, and 18.8% of other
non-whites live in poverty, as compared to 9.9% of white residents.
6
The Growing Gap in Wealth: The
combined wealth of the top 1 percent of U.S. families is about
the same as that of the entire bottom 95 percent. 7
Military Spending: $260 billion
went to military costs last year. 8 This equals
$740 million which could go into civilian projects every day.
Our Grassroots History
In order to understand the roots of present social conditions,
it is helpful to retrieve the historical accounts of oppression
and resistance which are often overlooked by mainstream thinking.
The
initial expansion and later tremendous growth of the United States
as a nation was tragically undergirded by genocide, racism, slavery,
and land theft. White European settlers' westward movement meant
the physical destruction of the original peoples and occupation
of former Indigenous lands. The practices used against Native
Americans in the seizing of prime land could best be described
as a policy of extermination.
Slave labor and post-Civil War Black labor
were the engine for Southern agricultural and national industrial
bounty. After the official abolition of slavery, a two-tier system
of wages akin to South Africa's apartheid was established, in
which different wages were paid to white and black workers for
the same work. This system became the basis for the continued
growth of much of the manufacturing industry in the United States.
The two-wage system was also imposed upon Mexicans
in the Southwest after half of Mexico's territory was stolen through
war conquest and occupation. The US acquired Hawaii, the Panama
isthmus, the Philippines and Puerto Rico in neo-colonial land
grabs using military force. The importation of Chinese, Filipino,
and Japanese labor for mining, railroads, and agriculture proved
indispensable for US infrastructure development.
A major obstacle to peace and justice is racism.
The ideology of White supremacy, a belief in the supposed innate
superiority of European-Americans over people of color, is deeply
embedded and expressed in all economic, political, and cultural
institutions, and has impeded the flowering of a new type of society
based on diversity and equality.
There have been many efforts made at organizing
the oppressed in the US across ethnic lines. For example, in the
early part of this century in Washington state and California,
the Industrial Workers of the World successfully unified White,
Black, and Chicano workers in the quest to form "One Big Union"
which would uplift labor. Likewise, in the 1930s and 1940s, the
Southern Tenant Farmers Union attempted to bring together poor
White and Black sharecroppers against exploitative landowners.
The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s-60s
was a direct and powerful challenge to segregation by African-Americans
and their White allies; other ethnic groups have resisted exclusion
and oppression in movements of their own. These causes took dramatic
strides in making notions of privilege less tolerable, but were
not able to overcome oppression itself and replace it with a new
egalitarian order.
The modern system of profits has also supported
male rule, or patriarchy. While large numbers of women have always
been part of the work force, they have also always faced a situation
of unequal wages and occupational discrimination. Women have resisted
that status, often paying with their lives. For instance, in the
Triangle Shirt Waist fire of 1911, during a strike for better
conditions, 146 young seamstresses died when they were physically
barred from escaping the burning building.
The last three decades have seen the "feminization
of poverty": increasingly, single parent households are headed
by women. Domestic labor, performed by women who work both outside
and within the home, is also not recognized for its contribution
to the economy.
Social Justice and Power: Responses
from Society
Many of the U.S. grassroots movements of this century forced various
government administrations to put forth programs which address
economic insecurity and inequity. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
reform programs such as Social Security, the National Labor Relations
Act, and his 1944 proposed "Economic Bill of Rights" were a response
to the enormous suffering, unrest, and labor organizing spurred
on by the economic collapse known as the Great Depression. And
in 1948, the UN adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
which outlined basic material and social rights for every human
being.
In the 1960s, the Kennedy administration's
"New Frontier" initiative began to address the poverty described
by Michael Harrington's book, The Other America, while
Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society-War on Poverty" was an ameliorative
response to the groundswell of protests. There were numerous movements
of "people power" throughout the decade, from the 1963 March on
Washington to the summer 1968 Poor People's March, heeding Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s clarion call for a radical restructuring
of the economy and a final end to institutional racism. Other
new constituencies arose such as the United Farmworkers union
which sustained strikes and boycotts for better conditions; and
New York's Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, when gays took to the
streets in response to homophobic police brutality.
The women's movement in the 1970s highlighted
discrimination against women at home, in the workplace, and throughout
society, and pushed open doors long closed to women. In 1978 a
rally of 800,000 supporters calling for ratification of the Equal
Right Amendment gathered in Washington, DC. These movements changed
the consciousness of the society and brought about changes which
improved the lives of millions.
Since the Reagan-Bush years, beginning symbolically
with the government breaking of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers
strike in 1981, many of the rights won in the past have come under
attack. A backlash against labor, minorities, women, gays, the
working poor, and immigrants has largely continued unabated.
Under the Clinton Democrats, the social contract
of the Roosevelt era has been nearly abandoned, finding expression
in the passage of "welfare to workfare" laws (1996), i.e. the
elimination of public assistance to poor families with children,
increased homelessness, anti-immigrant measures, the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, 1994) which means the loss of domestic
jobs, promotion of economic globalization (General Agreement of
Trade and Tariffs, 1995, and the proposed Multilateral Agreement
on Investment, 1999). Downsizing, privatization, and concentrations
of extreme wealth are in full force; in 1997 the average US CEO
made 115 times the salary of the average worker. 9
Reclaiming Dr. King's Vision
of the Beloved Community
More than thirty years ago, the Civil Rights movement, led by
African Americans but involving people from all ethnicities, social
backgrounds and walks of life, brought the burning issue of racial
segregation to the very centers of political power. In August
of 1963, thousands gathered with Martin Luther King in a massive
March on Washington calling for an end to Jim Crow.
King identified racism as one of the pillars
of societal oppression, along with economic injustice and militarism.
Fully aware of the controversy it would provoke, he broke ranks
with more conservative Movement leaders in 1967 by coming out
against US participation in the Vietnam War and against the prioritization
of defense spending. He forthrightly linked the plight of the
oppressed abroad with those marginalized and victimized domestically.
Increasingly, his speeches decried the US's deeply rooted income
disparities.
Personifying liberation theology, King embraced
a preferential option for the poor, for working people, for the
have-nots, regardless of skin color or nationality. As the natural
expression of his broadening political vision, he chose to go
to Memphis in April 1968 as witness and supporter of the plight
of striking sanitation workers. Prompted by the militant actions
of a new generation of Black youth, King moved beyond sitting-in
for civil rights to promoting universal human rights, from advocating
gradualist reform to calling for nonviolent revolution. Impatient
with lofty words which did not manifest themselves in concrete
changes, at the end of his life King called for drastic transformation
of the social structure. In this regard he joined the circle of
other spiritually guided political visionaries such as M.K. Gandhi,
A. J. Muste, Dorothy Day.
King's ideas went beyond the limited objective
of establishing legal enforcement of equality; his vision of the
future was a call for a far-reaching reconstitution of human interactions.
His long-term perspective called for creating the conditions for
interrelatedness and mutuality. He envisioned a diverse humanity
from all walks of life joined together in a common circle of solidarity,
a "world wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond
one's tribe, race, class and nation...in reality a call for an
all-embracing and unconditional love for all men (sic)." 10
Writers Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp, Jr. see
Dr. King's life work reaching towards the higher goal of the "Beloved
Community". Smith and Zepp consider this concept to be "the capstone
of King's thought. The vision of the Beloved Community was the
organizing principle of all of King's thought and activity. His
writings and his involvement in the civil rights movement were
illustrations of and footnotes to his fundamental preoccupation
with the actualization of an inclusive human community." 11
But what could the Beloved
Community look like?
"Synonymous with the Kingdom of God, the Beloved Community is
a completely integrated and inclusive global community characterized
by compassion and justice. The Beloved Community makes manifest
the interrelatedness of human existence. Such a community will
be free not only of racism and the many forms of physical violence
(child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault, police brutality,
and war), but also of economic injustice and exploitation." 12
Informed
by this "organizing principle", King proposed radical and revolutionary
methods; movement strategy and tactics called for massive nonviolent
civil disobedience in order to challenge unjust power and bring
about profound structural changes.
Today, with the yawning gap between the impoverished
many and the wealthy few, the spiritual emptiness of the culture
of materialism and excessive power, and the unceasing cycles of
ethnic vendettas, and wars, Dr. King's vision is more relevant
than ever.
Questioning
the Way Things Are
[T]he movement must address itself to the question of restructuring
the whole of American society. There are 40 million poor people
here. And one day we must ask the question, 'Why are there 40
million poor people in America?' And when you begin to ask that
question, you are raising questions about the economic system,
about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question,
you begin to question the capitalistic economy.
---Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. 13
While many people lack basic necessities for
life, a small minority enjoys great economic wealth. Yet the widespread
greed and consumption of our culture are symptomatic of a deep
social illness: many folks are trying to fill the emptiness of
their lives with pleasure, property and power when only kindness,
compassion and service to others can fulfill us. Dr. King identified
materialism, violence and racism as the "giant triplets," American
values destroying our nation. His vision of a beloved community
draws us to compassion, nonviolence and inclusion.
Social justice movements, while rightly scrutinizing
Pentagon expenditures, hesitate in challenging the core values
of private ownership and possessive individualism. Change is viewed
solely within the context and the logic of the present economic
rules. Yet, is a system which puts profits before people a life-sustaining
system, or is it ultimately at odds with the integrity of human
beings and the well-being of the planet?
The question before all of us remains: is our
present economic system compatible with justice?
The market system promotes extreme income differences,
social inequality, and separateness, and perpetuates age-old hierarchical
distinctions even though all are supposedly "created equal." Income
disparities reinforce divisions along ethnic, gender, and age
lines (people of color, women, and youth and the elderly are generally
poorer).
Because the rules underlying capitalism compel
us to put a price on everything, including work, decisions are
made primarily on the basis of what brings the greatest profit.
This economic process devalues people, who are judged only by
their ability to produce or buy, and viewed as appendages to the
work/consumption machine.
Consumerism, personal accumulation of wealth,
and privatism are the driving values of modern society. The culture
built upon the profit system pushes aside values of community,
connectedness, empathy. Our values have become distorted and twisted:
material accumulation is taken as the ultimate goal, rather than
as a means of building a world community.
More and more full citizenship, and even the
acknowledgment of one's essential humanity, depend upon the amount
of money at one's disposal. A person receives full entitlement
only by possessing the means with which to consume products; without
means of support one is made to feel like a non-citizen, a ghost.
Income and class status mean increased life chances for some,
diminished opportunities for others; some enjoy wide horizons
while the great global majority face, in the words of theologian
Jon Sobrino, "early and unjust deaths."
The morality of the present economy is highly
questionable: the permeability of the cash system continually
yields "dirty money." While government looks away, revenue is
generated by "legitimate" evils such as the alcohol and tobacco
industries and the arms trade, and illegal economic activities
such as manufacturing sweatshops, child labor, prostitution, drug
cartels. As "laundered" money circulates, it mixes with regular
banking and financial enterprises and the overall economy.
A Search for Solutions
I am sure that God did not intend there be so many poor. The
class structure is of our making and our consent, not God's, and
we must do what we can to change it. So we are urging revolutionary
change.
--Dorothy
Day
In a period which presents new social conditions
and where activism is not as widespread as in the recent past
groups around the country are proposing several strategies in
order to bring about justice. These are not full-fledged solutions,
merely critical and necessary first steps which will take us closer
to the Beloved Community envisioned by Dr. King.
- Recognize and celebrate the values that give
life meaning, those Cornel West calls "non-market values": kindness,
compassion, love, care, and service to others.
- Promote an "Economic Bill of Rights" which
would guarantee work, a living wage, housing, health care, child
care, recreation, sufficient food, and clean air, soil and water.
Stress the importance of the natural dignity and rights of all
human beings by making economic justice a human rights issue.
- Support the "Living Wage" campaigns, which
seek to raise pay to meet the actual cost of living. Likewise,
set limits on astronomically high executive pay. Build a national
awareness of the need for income fairness.
- Tax extremes of individual wealth. Social
movements advocate lifting up the poorer classes, but don't
challenge the existence of elite economic or social classes.
It is immoral for humanity to be divided into economic ranks.
- Promote a national dialogue on economic democracy,
with working people and the poor in the lead. Wage-earners of
all kinds should have a voice in the struggle for social change.
The question of how to bring about economic justice is not on
the national political agenda, nor in mainstream discussions,
and until recently has been neglected by the established leadership
of the labor movement, the traditional defender of wage-earners.
- Heighten awareness of corporate welfare.
Expose the ways in which government supports powerful business
interests through tax loopholes and subsidies. Emphasize the
need for corporate responsibility toward workers, communities,
and the environment.
- Support labor in its efforts to organize.
Endorse campaigns which seek to expose and eradicate exploitative
sweatshop conditions.
- Empower people of color and other marginalized
groups. Speak out against hate crimes. Defend affirmative action
laws.
- Defend immigrants from scapegoating by nativists
and racists. Educate citizens as to the human rights of immigrants
and the contributions which they make to society.
- Advocate for youth power; ensure that young
people have the resources and quality education which they need
to exercise their creativity, intelligence and zest for life.
- "Work to reduce the rates of imprisonment
in the US, which are now the highest in the world and disproportionately
entrap people of color. We need to oppose the current prison-building
binge, to develop alternatives to incarceration that are also
consistent with public safety, and to fund preventive programs
like public service employment, drug and alcohol treatment programs,
and education and training." 14
- Support the call for "definitive cancellation
of the crushing international debt where countries burdened
with high levels of human need and environmental distress are
unable to meet the basic needs of their people or achieve a
level of sustainable development that ensures a decent quality
of life." 15
Where
Do We Go From Here?
Consistent with our vision and life of active nonviolence, we
raise the following goals for ethnic and economic justice:
- Meaningful work at a living wage;
- Enough income to provide adequate food, clothing,
medicine, recreation for every person;
- A decent home for every human being;
- Recognition of the value of unpaid labor
at home;
- Universal health care;
- Quality education for all;
- Protection from economic fears due to old
age, youth, sickness, accident, or unemployment;
- Quality child care for all families.
- Cancellation of the international debt
In 1998, exactly thirty years after the death of Martin Luther King,
Jr., and fifty years after the death of Mahatma Gandhi, the U.N.
General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an "International
Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children
of the World (2001-2010)". The adoption of this initiative coincides
with and complements the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have lived to see the
Gandhian and Kingian visions take a central position on the world
stage, even though the fulfillment of those ideals is still to come.
In
the spirit of the UN International Decade, the FOR pledges itself
to building a People's Campaign of Nonviolence which will the
usher in the Beloved Community, where ethnic and economic justice
is the norm. The People's Campaign will bring together those who
are now voiceless and unrepresented and who desire a just and
peaceful society. Understanding the need for a spiritual and moral
self-renewal, the FOR proposes a ten year campaign to revitalize
and unify these communities.
The market-oriented culture in which we live
values objects over people. We are seeing more and more that consumerism
does not necessarily mean happiness or a better society; the material
abundance offered by the system is often accompanied by a spiritual
emptiness and loss of community. By the same token, in many underdeveloped
societies where "free-market" privatization is now the law, the
masses of the poor groan under the burden of worsening living
conditions.
The gap between the shrinking groups of owners
of economic-financial monopolies and the growing populations of
those who sell themselves for their "meal ticket" grows wider
and wider. We are committed to building a popular nonviolent movement
from below which will move society in the direction of economic
democracy and transform the old conflictive roles into ones of
cooperation and fellowship. We are aware of the need for a revolution
in our consciousness, if we are to turn toward new ways of living
with each other.
Our vision of the future embraces the entire
human family. We know that the unjust international imbalances
which are now viewed as "normal" will one day be seen as barbaric
and cruel. We must see to it that, just as, in the 19th century,
chattel slavery was ended throughout most of the world, so too
in the future, racial and economic injustice will be abolished.
Progress has been rolled back time and again
when oppressive practices resurface under new governments. Bloody
revolutions often end up betraying their original ideals, resulting
in renewed oppression of the masses of people and the loss of
hard-won gains. As Gandhi tried to show, nonviolence is the only
method which avoids such pitfalls.
We call for a radical nonviolent revolution
where our hopes for social justice are realized without coercion,
without bloodshed, and in the spirit of uniting people from every
background, every nation, and every faith, in a new type of society.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation calls upon
people of all faith traditions, nations, ethnicities, and perspectives
to unite in devotion to nonviolence, inclusion and compassion,
to work together for racial and economic justice, replacing exploitation
with fairness, greed with service to others, hatred with reconciliation,
and violence with peace.
Footnotes
