QuakerInfo.com Forum

[pilgrim]

I've been a proponent of nonviolence for a while now, but some of my recent experiences have led me to notice some apparent holes in this philosophy.

About a year ago, I was at a party when some neo-Nazi skinheads showed up. They walked up to the porch and the first words out of their mouths were "White Power". Within minutes I noticed them chasing a black kid down an alley. Before I could think about it, I was there in the alley trying to break up the fight. After everything was said and done I had been punched in the face three times and my glasses had been stomped and broken in half. I didn't hit anyone or say anything that wasn't peaceful. I did break a skinhead's cellphone in half because he was trying to call for back up.

Afterward I really started to reflect on that event. What if the skinheads would have had weapons? A knife? Or a gun? More importantly, what if a group of skinheads went around assaulting people all over the city on a regular basis? Is somebody responsible for stopping them? If so, they would potentially have to resort to violence.

I've been involved in the local chapter of the Occupy Movement. We were all camping out in a church parking lot a month or two ago. Now, the free food and warm sleeping bags attracted a few homeless people to our group which nobody really seemed to have a problem with. Until one of these men admitted to having sexually abused women in the past, one of which was seven years old. This moment was really a turning point for me. At that moment I thought I needed a knife in case I had to protect some girls at the camp sight. Things turned out to be alright in that situation. A few of us guys kept a close eye on him and he never tried anything.

But my point is that we live in a world where people are raped and murdered every day. Even if we put aside questions about self defense, am I not responsible for protecting the innocent people around me? If so does that mean I should own a gun? In some situations, I think that I would rather commit the sin of violence than do nothing and try to remain pure.

[CelticNorth]

Friend Pilgrim, your witness to violence and the questions it raises about personal safety are more common than you realize. I entered a "7-11" convience store on Sunday morning for coffee on the way to Meeting, and walked into a confronation going on between two black males in the back of the store, which was escalating, with threats of violence being made between the two. The store clerk was alone. I felt felt compelled to intervene and stated loudy to the two men involved to " Be nice-keep the Peace ! ". Another voice from the back of the store also exclaimed "Keep the Peace", and then the store clerk proclaimed to the two men to " Please preserve the peace, and leave now -peacefully- or I will call 911". I approached one of the black males closest to the cashier and told him it was not worth ruining a beautiful day, since the clerk would call the Police, he would be jailed, and that the wisdom of the moment seemed to dictate that he leave peacefully, and continue on to enjoy his day. He left without futher incident, the situation difused itself, but the fear of violence and the unknown presence of weapons was felt amoung all of those in the store at the time. I think the answer to one of your questions is that once one witnesses an act of violence, or potential violence, you are automatically involved in the outcome and its resolution. Actions which speak to stop violence, or its spread, seem entirely appropriate to me. Going to the aid of someone being victimized seems to assert civilization as we would like to know it. Kudos to you, Pilgrim.

[Shay]

What does it matter that they are black?

[CelticNorth]

It matters, Friend Shay, in remembering the first noticable characteristics of a possible crime suspect (s), if indeed the 911 call has to be made and one may asked to give a police report on the incident. In the case of Friend Pilgirm, he was specific in the suspects being White Skinheads, as opposed to Hispanic Skinheads, which would have implied a Latino gang affiliation, or in some cities, Asian gang affiliates are also, desciptively, "skinheads". In the scenario I walked into, it was a small group of whites who attempted to difuse a black on black violent encounter. If they would have been Black and Hispanic males, then they would be described as a Black male and Hispanic male engaged in disbute; if a White male and White female, then again, those characteristics would be the predominant identifiying features of the people involved. How one assigns thier own personal risk and safety based upon race is, of course, foolish; when the feathers start to fly, as in the case of Friend Pilgrim, rage becomes colorblind.

[Shay]

Yeah, but to tell the story on the internet?

I understand Pilgrim describing that some people were skinheads, because they assaulted a black man and there's a racial aspect in the story.

With your story, there's a bunch of guys in a store. There is no racial aspect to it except the one you call attention to, twice. I just don't get it.

Pilgrim- I'm sorry, I thought I had posted this- there is a very interesting thread here: http://www.quakerinfo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1645&highlight=nonviolence

It even deals with your exact question on page 6, I believe.

[CelticNorth]

I do not think there is really anything to get, or construe otherwise, Friend Shay; when I am pulled over in a motor vehicle stop I am most certainly being described to a dispatcher as a White Male, and I think that anyone walking into a situation of potential violence has a "Kodak Moment", when one visually records what one's eyes are seeing. One could play a race card, and alternatively suggest that it was an affair between two black men that was none of anyone elses' business, and then walk on. The encounter was frightening, volatile, unpredictable and was one that was escalting. I think the point made raised by Pilgrim about our social and ethical responsibility to intervene, when possible, in attempting to diffuse acts of violence is the thread here, and how we individually respond to it in our daily lives is one of bearing witness to the peace testimony through getting involved- without resorting to vilolence ourselves. I think that to often the peace testimony gets diluted in theory to where any involvement in attempting to stop violence becomes a excuse for total pacifism, and can lead us to do nothing. Perhaps I am wrong to link pacifism with noninvolvement, but I see how it can create a paralysis of inaction in the time of an emergency when even the smallest of actions could turn the tide.

[Shay]

Right, but... this isn't a police report. There is literally no reason to mention anyone's race. No one is 'playing a race card,' what I'm asking is why, specifically, you felt the need to detail the skin colors of the people invilkved when there is no aspect to the story that makes it necessary for further understanding? Unless you think two men having an argument, then stopping that argument and leaving is notable because of their skin color.

Look, this is the same story:

[CelticNorth]

Friend Shay, the descriptions I used were for a good reason. Back in 1968, the case of Kitty Genovese made headlines due to her cries for help being ingnored during a physical assualt, reported at the time as being heard by many as 38 people, and no one intervened. She died from the assualt. Becasue of the nature of her death, social pyschologists examined the social dynamics of why no one responded to her cries for help, and developed the theory of the " the bystander effect", and " diffusion of responsibility" theory. A National Crime Victimization Survey revealed that in 68% of physcial assaults, a bystander is present, and that in 65% of all "victimizations", there is a bystander present who can intervene. What seems to occure is that with larger numbers of bystanders present during a crime, there is a sense of diminished social responsibility to respond to aid, and the time table for offering immediate assisantance diminishes. Male on female crimes show the greastest disparity for a bystander repsonse, along with the victim being a stranger, or someone unknown to the bystander. I think that being white and observing a black on black assualt, there is apotential and perceived greater tendency for whites to not intervene, given the lack of familiarity with the victim, that he is a stranger, and that he is also non-white ( choose any color ). I believe that in Quebec, Canada, a ordanance was written that requires a bystander to intervene in a victimization event as long as his/her physical safety is not in jeopardy, perhaps the only statute in the world that requires that a "bystander" to observe a legal requirement to "get involved". That fine line is what Friend Pilgrim ran head-on into during his intervention. When one senses the duty and obligation to "do something", does the treat analysis and moral equation discerned at the moment of intervention permit one to use physical force and violence as an intervention, or if one is a Quaker sworn to the peace testimony, to excuse oneself from assisting a assualt becasue it would violate one's faith tradition ? It is a very fine line we all walk when confronted with another human being being assualted in our presense, with nearly all of us whoefully unprepared to respond to as the number of bystanders present increases. It is a very strange social phenomenon.

[Shay]

[punkrainbow]

[CelticNorth]

What occurs to me to be racist, Friend Shay, was the inability of a group of white people already present in a convience store failing to intervene in a black on black assualt There is a dymanic at work which disables most people from "getting involved" in breaking up acts of violence as the social distance and familiary with the victim diminishes through race, sex and other differnaces we use to differentiate those is distress from ourselves. This is the core theory born out of dimininshing social reponsibility. If it were family, close friends or co-workers involved in these secnarios being victimized and beaten, intervention would seem to be a certainty by more than one bystander. What is racist, Friend Shay, is to exucse those of another race from being the recipients of assistance when in distress and offering the same level of aid we would offer to family and close friends if they were in the same predicament.

[pilgrim]

[punkrainbow]

[CelticNorth]

I am in agreement with you, Friend Shay, in asserting that all we can do is offer "ourselve's up to God and seek grace by doing good- knowing that such moral completion is a gift". That act of courage is indeed "transcendent", and seems to have inspired religious conotations throughout literature and philosophy. In philiosophy, we read that Paul Tillich equates the act of courage with the existential "courage to be" to "non-being", fundamentally equating it with religion. "Courage is the self affirmation of being is spite of the fact of non-being. It is the act of the individual self in taking the anxiety of non-being upon itself by affirming itself...in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation....every courage to be has openly or coverlty a religious root. For religion is the state of being grasped by the power of being itself." Here is Maya Angelou: " Courage is the most important of the virtues, because without courage you cannot practice any other virtue consistantly; you can practice any virture erratically, but nothing consistently without courage". We often assume, and I think wrongly, that it is only through the testing and tribulations from within the individual private life that we transcend into a state of "non'being" and obtain spititual oneness, the Light or the Spirit; but that it is also acheived through acts of civil courage, where one is not expected to make good a social ill. We often read ot those who fear not death or injury to themselves in the face of evil or injustice, and like the actions of Pilgrim " in not even thinking" was a transcendent moment affirming his being, his Spirit- and his humanity. While one may possess a sense of moral courage to think about the rightness or wrongness of an act, civil courage begets one to act on those beliefs in the face of others not doing so who may also abandon and ridicule. Like the 23rd Psalm elaborates, "Ye, though I walk throught the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil', may announce the moment of human transcendence into the spirit and that of fully being.

[pilgrim]

punkrainbow,
Your words are beautiful and truly speak to my condition. And for the record, I'm not suggesting we throw out the Peace Testimony and replace it with something like Just War Theory. I'm still deeply committed to nonviolence and working toward a more peaceful world through living the example of Christ. Its just that, for me lately my commitment to peace has been put to the test. And it seems to me that a lot of the people I hear preach peace and nonviolence have never really had to live up to their word. (Honestly, most are middle class and live in the suburbs, somewhat removed from the evils of the world.)

I've also realized that the challenges to peace are not lofty and rare hypothetical situations, but very real things that happen everyday. Like I said, I don't think I would hesitate to use force if I thought I could prevent sexual abuse or violence to innocent people. These are things that people use force to attempt to prevent everyday.

In the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I don't blame him for trying to assassinate Hitler. Even though he spent his life preaching peace and may have never reconciled his actions with his words, I can't say that he made the wrong choice in that situation.
_________________
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