Citizen of the Month

the writing and photography of Neil Kramer

Tag: Martin Luther King

“Hang Out in Another Neighborhood” Day

November 29, 2014 / / 23 Comments

MLK

I was the opening speaker at the graduation of my Queens elementary school, P.S. 154. I still remember most of the speech. It was a sixth grader’s riff on Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream.”  He was a hero to everyone, including me.

There were three portraits on the wall of my classroom that year– George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King.  We were a mixed school of different religions and races, and it was as clear as anything that society was changing fast — and that this was the future. We were heading towards a color-blind society where no one would care about the color of your skin, only about how many baseball cards you had in your pocket.

My father was about as liberal as you can get, donating his time and money to numerous causes, but I would cringe when he would mention the word “Negro” or “Oriental,” but eventually I understood that he was extremely good-hearted, just using words from another generation.

I’m now the person from another generation, with outdated language and ideas.   It’s taken me longer than some of my other friends to understand that being color-blind is racist.  I still grumble about the concept of male privilege.   I still catch myself being sexist.   I never was taught about these structural issues in school. We were more about equal rights under the law. Even Martin Luther King, with his mainstream views on integration and non-violence, seems old-school today.

I bring this all up because I had this weird idea this morning, and it won’t make any sense without first giving it some context. I’ve been reading a lot about Ferguson, racism, and the inequality of our society, but much of it doesn’t inspire me in the way that Dr. King once did.   Sure, we can boycott Black Friday or unfriend racist friends, but so what? I know this might sound overly-sentimental, but I’d love to find a way to fight injustice by creating some goodwill between communities, getting people to learn about each other, much as we did back in P.S. 154, when we went over to each other’s houses to do our homework, and experienced neighborhoods different than our own.   Anger at the America is important, and we should be angry, but we also need to feel as if there is hope.

It seems as if America’s biggest problem is that we remain segregated, sometimes even more than I remember in the past. White and Asian people are irrationally afraid of black and Latino areas because of the fear of crime. Black and Latinos feel uncomfortable in white areas in fear of ethnic stereotyping.

Solution — we need a way to start sabotaging this fear.

We’re always creating days online, “Talk Like a Pirate Day” to “Buy a Donut Day,” so why not create a “Hang Out in Another Neighborhood Day,” where Americans purposely go out of their comfort zone to connect with those who live in other neighborhoods, particularly those where the residents are different than themselves?

Imagine if hundreds of white folk and their families went into Ferguson for the day — buying burgers at the local McDonald’s, going to the local church, visiting the park, and getting to know how the other half lives. At the same time, black folks and their families, who are intimidated from entering certain well-off white neighborhoods, are invited WITH OPEN ARMS into these neighborhoods to have lattes at some upscale coffee ship or to do some shopping at the local stores.   Even if it is just for one day, it will make everyone less afraid of each other, because we would all cross the invisible red line.

And it is all perfectly legal.   And it might even been fun.  At least it would help demystify each other.

New Yorkers — “Hang Out in Another Neighborhood Day” — Upper East Siders — go have brunch in the South Bronx. Walk around. Support the stores there. Those who live in South Jamaica — have you ever been to Tiffany’s in Manhattan? Come in and take a look. Even if you can’t afford it now, at least realize that you are free to browse freely at any time.

Los Angeles — Beverly Hills folk — go have a BBQ sandwich in Compton, and then go to some of the small businesses in the area. Folk in Compton — have you ever seen the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel?   Why not?

Some people are going to hate this idea, because it doesn’t really deal with the systematic racism in our society.   That the white people get to go back to their fancy neighborhoods while the others are stuck in a police state.   It is an idea that isn’t angry enough.   Structural inequality will not be solved by gimmicks.    I get it.   But since I am old school, still inspired by my elementary school speech promising Dr. King to further his hopes of a less segregated society, I present this corny but radical little idea to you for your perusal.

The Silver Rule

January 17, 2011 / / 15 Comments

I’m sure Martin Luther King Day is going to inspire many posts today, and each one will be different, and reflect the writer’s own interests, whether it be race relations, politics, or religion.

Martin Luther King makes me think of morality.  The civil rights movement of the 1960s was  all about morality, a clear case of right vs. wrong.

Unfortunately, not issue in life is as clear-cut.  Morality is a complicated subject.

I’m not a particularly religious person, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about religious issues such as morality.  When I write about Jewish subjects, I tend to go for the cultural items — the bagels, the Yiddish words, the mother jokes — but I’m actually quite interested in Jewish religious thought.  I mean I like to mock it, too, because I figure God wouldn’t have given us a sense of humor if he didn’t want us to make fun of Him.

The Golden Rule is considered the basis for most moral thought.

“Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.”

The Golden Rule is as ancient as it is cross-cultural.  The ethic of reciprocity was present in ancient Babylon, Egypt, Persia, India, Greece, Judea, and China.

The Golden Rule is certainly a major part of the Torah.

However, there are two competing version of the Golden Rule, or more accurately, there is a Golden Rule and a Silver Rule.

The Golden Rule is frequently attributed to Jesus, even though it was around for centuries before his birth.

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

Christianity adopted the Golden Rule from two passages in Leviticus in the Old Testament.

Leviticus 19:18 —

“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself”

and Leviticus 19:34

“But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

Of course, the Golden Rule is older than both the New Testament AND the Hebrew Bible.  It first appears in Ancient Egypt (c. 2040-1650 BCE) and is even spoken about by Confucius (551-479 B.C.)

Early Christianity was eager to distinguish itself from the Judaism of Jesus, so much of the traditional commandments were seen as unnecessary, including the kosher and circumcision laws.  This was partly to attract new converts.   In order to separate the new religion from the old one, Judaism gets a pretty bad rap in the New Testament, where they are portrayed as a priestly people obsessed with outdated laws and corruption (like a Washington D.C. of the time!), preparing the way for centuries of anti-Semitism.

Since Christianity was presented as a religion of good deeds, it is no surprise that “Do unto others…” became so central to Western culture.

Unfortunately, early Christian leaders, focusing on positive stories like “the Good Samaritan” gave little emphasis to the flip side of the Golden Rule — “The Silver Rule.”

The Silver Rule was already an established part of the teachings of the great rabbis at the time of Jesus.  Hillel, an elder contemporary of Jesus, is have said to have written this famous line in the Talmud, Shabbat 31a, when asked to sum up the entire Torah concisely, as if it were a Twitter update:

“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”
—Talmud, Shabbat 31a

In effect, don’t do unto others that you wouldn’t want them to do to you.

This Silver Rule was not unique to the rabbis.  It was central to the teachings of Confucius.

“Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself” (己所不欲，勿施于人）
—Confucius, Analects XV.24

I think I personally follow the Silver Rule more than the Golden Rule.  I’m not sure if this has anything to do with years of Hebrew school or just my personal makeup.  The Golden Rule doesn’t energize my brain.

For example:

If I am walking out of my apartment building, and I see an old woman shuffling behind me, I would hold the door for her.  Why?  Out of instinct.  I don’t need to ponder the Golden Rule.

But let me change the situation:

I am rushing to catch the bus.  I open the door to head out when I see the old woman shuffling behind me.

“Hurry up,” I say to myself as she walks, as slow as molasses.

If I keep holding the door for her, I might miss my bus.

NOW is when I need a internal barometer, a belief statement to help me make this split second decision.

“Do Unto Others…” doesn’t help me.  I’m not being asked to do something positive.  I am wondering if the situation allows me to do something negative.   I need to think about the Silver Rule.

“Don’t Do Unto Others…”

Should I slam the door in this old woman’s face because I want to get to the bus?  Is it worth it?  Would I want this to happen to me, if the situation was reversed?  Won’t she think I’m an asshole?  What if I tell her that I am in a rush, so then she will understand?  Or should I just wait for the next bus?”

A little neurotic?  Maybe?  But if I were living in the South during the 1960’s, many moral questions would be presented to me every day, almost none of them about “doing unto others.”  They would be about “don’t do unto others.”

Why shouldn’t my fellow citizens have the same rights as I do?

The “negative” Silver Rule appeals to me.  It seems to me to have a concreteness necessary to make moral  decisions in the real world where NOT DOING SOMETHING WRONG comes up as frequently as doing something right.   We need to give everyone adequate health care not because I believe you would be kind enough to help me, because knowing you, you’d probably be too busy on Farmville to care, but because I would be outraged if I was in your shoes and couldn’t care for MY family.

Dr. Martin Luther King, like Gandhi, was a big advocate of the Silver Rule.

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