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| Shaun King |
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| Rachel Dolezal, today and in high school |
Everybody’s heard of the Black Lives Matter movement. It came into being sometime after the case of
Trayvon Martin. Martin was the black
teenager who was killed by neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, in a
violent confrontation in Sanford, Florida.
Black Lives Matter found its voice after a number of violent encounters
between police and African-Americans in various places in the USA.
It is certainly a noble principle to
remind the public that there is value in the lives of each and every human
being. But when some state that ‘black
lives matter’ is an inferior slogan to ‘all lives matter,’ they get
shouted down and called ‘racist.’
Many members of society, whatever
their personal racial makeup, experience the pain of exclusion and marginality. Maybe it is time to explore the nature of
society which determines who’s in and who’s out. And strategise to assist those who are ‘out’
for whatever reason, and to help them find their way in. But would-be revolutionaries whose influence
is based on grievance, find that notion dismiss-able at least. Because it contextualizes their particular
grievance into a greater quest for opportunity and advantage. And marginalizes those who seek to profit
from their own particular grievance. And
that's why we have the Shaun King’s and Rachel Dolezal’s of the world.
Shaun King, a
blogger on the Daily Cos, is one of the founders and principal spokesmen
for Black Lives Matter. It turns out he
isn’t black at all. Not even half-black,
like President Obama. Both his parents
were white. Does that make him
unqualified to lead a movement that advocates for the rights of black
people? No, of course not. But in this day and age, no black people
would accept him as a leader if he were not black. So when he claims to have been bullied in
school for being biracial, he is not telling the truth. He may very well have been bullied, ffor any
number of reasons. Maybe he should have
become a crusader against bullying. But
for whatever reason, he built himself a fictitious identity around his
supposedly being biracial. Why?
Perhaps this might
shed some light: he attended Morehouse
College, an historically-black college on a free ride. A scholarship paid for by Oprah Winfrey which
is only available to black males. It would
at least seem that he created an identity for financial gain. I don’t believe that there are any
scholarships specifically for victims of childhood bullying. If there were, half the students alive –
perhaps more – would be eligible!
Then there’s Rachel
Dolezal. She’s another person without a
drop of black blood in her veins, who has created for herself a persona of a
biracial person. Using that legend, she
built two careers. The first as an
instructor of African-American Studies at Eastern Washington University. The second, as a professional activist,
serving in various salaried positions culminating in her election as president
of her local branch of the NAACP – the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. Does being white,
disqualify Rachel Dolezal from advocating for black people? Again, of course not. But today, as a white person she would never
build a career on such advocacy. Dolezal,
after finishing high school moved far from home, to Mississippi where she
created her legend of being part-black. She
parlayed that into a free ride at Howard University, another historically-black
school, where she took her MA.
There is justice,
from the Hebrew word tzedek. It
has a number of synonyms, among them:
fair play, equity, neutrality, objectivity. Our Torah reading this week, Parashat Shof’tim,
opens with a plea for justice. You
shall not pervert judgement, you shall not respect someone’s presence, and you
shall not accept a bribe. (…) Justice, justice shall you pursue, so that you
shall live and possess the land that Hashem your G-d, gives you.
Then there is social
justice. The dictionary definition
of social justice is: Justice in
terms of distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a
society. But it has come to mean
something more like social engineering for the purpose of righting historic injustices. Like many concepts, it sounds noble. Like many concepts that sound noble in theory
but aren’t so much so in practice, the drive for social injustice itself, unfortunately
leads to injustice. And it also gives us
characters like Shaun King and Rachel Dolezal.
Both individuals
have histories of deception and dishonesty, aside from their false racial identities. Dishonesty is dishonesty, whatever the purpose
of the deception.
But an important point
is: why would someone engage in
deception in order to be seen as a member of a supposedly-oppressed minority? And the answer to that is the result of the
drive for social justice. No matter how
well-intentioned, any offering of advantage to specific targeted populations is
sure to create new inequalities. And
draw out those who will use them to their own advantage. Even through dishonesty.
That’s one of the
explanations why our Torah reading repeats the word tzedek. The statement reads: tzedek, tzedek, tirdof. Justice, justice, shall you pursue. If there’s not one extraneous pen stroke in
the Torah, as the traditionalist avers, then why the doubled word? Some commentators take it to mean that we must
pursue justice, justly. Creation
of new injustices – new advantages to the historically oppressed – are not
justified. Good intentions do not
justify injustice.
A number of black
and other minority thinkers have pointed out the danger in lowered standards
and set-asides, even when intended to set historical wrongs right. They point out that every black student on a
university campus must work doubly hard to prove himself, because he is under
the suspicion of being handed his seat at university in the interests of
affirmative action. Therefore, black
students are less likely to be challenged or taken seriously by their
professors or their peers. And what this
creates is a form of racism…in the interest of eradicating Racism.
If Racism is a
persistent problem – and many agree that it is – then it makes no sense to
employ means shown to create and perpetuate racism in the drive to eradicate it.
The use of unjust means in the service
of justice is often attractive. That’s
why, many would argue, the caution was stated in the Torah. If the ancient Israelites did not have a tendency
to engage in specific behaviors, the argument goes, Hashem would not have
needed to use the Torah to forbid them. Any
act that is expressly forbidden in the Torah can be assumed to have had at
least some attraction for the people Israel.
Understanding this
tendency, we can understand the tendency in our own age to do the same. And we can understand the timelessness of the
lesson. And heed it. Or not.
Shabbat shalom.
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