Role of people not directly receiving the suffering?

As a white male American I have not had to deal with being a minority. The closest I came was in Los Angeles. I was born and lived in LA until I was 10. In school, whites were the minority in terms of numbers but I did not have to deal with any of the issues associated with being a minority. I have lived a very privileged life. I have never had to worry about a roof over my head, having clean drinking water, or having enough to eat. I have been fortunate enough to go to college and be able to travel around the world. No matter how much I read, learn, or try to understand what it’s like to not have these, I can’t truly understand. As much as I want to help bring human rights across the world, what is my role? How do I reconcile Gandhi’s idea that the movement must be carried out by, in this case, Indians. Does that mean, when I see injustice in sweat shops, migrant rights, international human rights, et cetera, should I just ignore them because I am not the direct recipient of the injustice (or in some cases I help perpetrate injustice, by not purchasing clothes that are sweat shop free)? I say no. I like King’s approach to non-blacks engaging in the movement—he welcomed them. I believe and hope that I even though I am not the direct recipient of the violence, I can have an impact. I think that my actions can be effective in two different ways. 1) I believe I can use my ability as a person of privilege to help work for human’s rights through my purchasing of products, trying to influence congress, et cetera; 2) Join a movement and help stand up with the people who are the victims of injustice.

However, does the movement need to be organized by the people who are oppressed? I don’t know. Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine the civil rights movement being led by whites. I think that a movement like this would not help work towards equality. It would be still be characterized by the dominant group telling the minority group what would be best for the minority group. Whether the changes would be good or not is irrelevant. I believe that the majority group can assist with the movement but leadership must at least originate with minority group. It must begin there and then assistance can be given.

Insulated from suffering

We live in a world where the suffering of others is virtually absent from our awareness of the world. It is easy for us to live our lives totally unaware of the impacts of our choices. If one desires, one can buy and consume without considering how it is we are able to live the way we can. We have grown so accustomed to being able to go to the grocery store and get produce year round. We have no concept of what it means for us to be able to buy bananas year round for dirt cheap. How do we get this produce? Who picks it? I think that it is so interesting to hear people on the news talk about migrant workers are taking jobs and hurting our economy. Since the push to crack down on migrant farm workers coming from Mexico there have been literally fields of crops that go unpicked. The argument that has been made that Americans should do these jobs since there are Americans out of work. But for this to become a reality, we need to confront the current condition that the migrant farm workers have.

Two summers ago I volunteered in Oregon at a church camp. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to engage in a 5 day march from Salem to Portland. I participated for three days of the march. We marched around 12 miles a day. It was really powerful. There were three main points of the march: the Iraq war, education, and migrant farm worker rights. The march wanted to point to the connection between the Iraq war and education. Oregon had its national guard in Iraq and was spending money to fund their national guard. Meanwhile, a large proportion of the school system did not have enough money to have school five days a week. A large percentage of the schools were only having four days a week. The third focus of migrants rights was very interesting for me. At night we heard speeches by various people. One memorable night we attended a rally where farm workers told of the horrible conditions where they worked. But there is not a real choice for them. They’re here so what are their options? They told of not being able to have bathroom breaks; being forced to work for long hours for illegally low pay. The rally concluded with the small church where we were meeting erupting in cheers of “la raza unida jamás será vencida”, which means “the people united will never be defeated.” Through are marching and our rallying we rose awareness about these issues. People from many different walks of life came for different reasons. But we were united in our message. We raised awareness about these issues through our actions. What saddens me is that the invisible has not yet been made visible on a national scale. We are unaware of the injustices that have been perpetrated for the sake of cheap produce.

This march reminded me in lots of ways of Gandhi’s salt march. The people immediately affected by the injustice standing up for their rights. However, this march was not illegal. It did not raise as much awareness as the salt march did because it was not as widely covered and it wasn’t as much of a national issue as the salt. It was great to stand up and engage in a long march in the name of rights. I would love to see the US become more active in our marching and the people taking to the streets, peacefully, in the name of wanting justice and peace.

The loss of a way to practice ahimsa.

How is it possible in our modern world to make the invisible, visible? There are many campaigns that would benefit greatly from Thoreau’s civil disobedience: Wal-Mart, sweat shops, global warming, the list goes on. But how do we develop campaigns that practice suffering? The reason that Gandhi and King were so effective is that their campaigns used their suffering as a catalyst for change. But how do you develop a campaign around such large issues as Global Warming. Especially, since most of the problems of today are not questions of legality, but a question of changing attitudes. I think this is was a problem that the civil rights movement was running into at the end of it. How do you change larger frameworks? How do you change structural or cultural violence? It is so ingrained in our mind and built into the structure of our society how do we change it? These are questions that I don’t know. I think that ahimsa could work but how do we practice self suffering on a idea? What would civil disobedience look like? Especially when it’s not against the law. Marching in DC is not illegal. If it was, would it be more meaningful? I think so.

Wal-Mart: corporate evil or champion of the lower middle class?

Over break I read a book called The Wal-Mart Effect: How the world’s most powerful company really works—and how it’s transforming the American economy, by Charles Fishman. The book does an interesting job at showing the benefits that Wal-Mart has on families by offering cheaper prices than other stores. In a given year a given family could save hundreds of dollars by buying their groceries at Wal-Mart. However, the book chronicles how Wal-Mart is able to provide these low prices: forcing suppliers to reduce costs by whatever means necessary (streamline shipping, reducing wages of employers, sending factories overseas, et cetera). It is interesting to note that we are so concerned with prices that we are willing to sacrifice traditional “American” values like worker rights, five day work week, and a 40 hour work week. Why is price such an important factor in our everyday lives?

One might ask how does this relate to Nonviolence? Every Sunday I participate in a radio show. It’s a mix of talk radio and music. We were talking about wal-mart and one of my radio cohorts talked about Wake Up Wal-Mart. He said that their strategy was to encourage people to shop at Wal-Mart as usual, but occasionally the group would call for a campaign to shop at Wal-Mart. For example, the group would send out a release not to buy anything for Mother’s Day at Wal-Mart. The point of this campaign is to show Wal-Mart that there are numerous shoppers who don’t agree with their practices and that Wal-Mart should change their policies. As a result of this Wal-Mart has launched a major PR campaign designed to boost their image as an employer and that they promote workers rights.

When my friend told about their strategy I became very uncomfortable. This tacit might be successful but I have a hard time supporting a company that is perpetrating Human Rights violations (sweat shops, factory workers rights, employee rights, et cetera) and using this as leverage. When reflecting on how Gandhi would have dealt with this situation I believe that he would have not advocated supporting Wal-Mart when they are not in a campaign. If the company is not behaving justly, then you should not support it. Gandhi didn’t say eat UK salt after the march. He continued not to inflict harm but because of the injustice. I believe that Wake Up Wal-Mart’s tactics accentuate the effects that they can have on Wal-Mart but I think the effects would be more meaningful if they were not limited but widespread. When it comes down to it a week or two of hurt business is not going to greatly impact this multi-billion dollar company. I believe that we need to take actions not only be successful but because they are right. We need to practice actions because they are true.