Acknowledging Our History to Promote a Future of Mutual Respect

“SHADOWS AT DAWN:  AN APACHE MASSACRE AND THE VIOLENCE OF HISTORY” BY KARL JACOBY

This is a mind-opening book which, for the first time in my life, provides me with some understanding of the complexity—and the horror—of what went on in the borderlands of the Southwest in the late 19^th century following the annexation of the significant lands captured from Mexico as a result of the Mexican-American War and the subsequent Gadsden Purchase. 

The story is centered on the massacre of 140 Apache Indians in the Aravaiba Canyon on April 30, 1871 by a combined force of Americans, Mexicans (Los Vecinos) and other Indian tribes known by a variety of names, including most simply, the O’odham People.

Jacoby’s history tells the story from the vantage point of each of these four groups.  It tells the story of development of this Southwestern Territory:  the Indian tribes that were there first, hunting and trapping, sometimes fighting among themselves; their raiding south into northern Mexico for horses and other livestock; the intrusion of Mexicans into the Indian lands; the sometimes fighting and the sometimes coming together, varying over time and by individual; the incursion of the Americans very slowly but relentlessly; the entry of the Army during the Civil War period and then its withdrawal and return again; and the emerging and varying Indian policy of the federal government.

Leading up to this massacre was a “violent vortex of raids and counter-raids” between the Americans and Apaches.  There was the classic disagreement as to whether this conflict was an inevitable outgrowth of the collision between “civilization” and “savagery” or could be traced to unfortunate and ultimately avoidable misunderstandings between Americans and Apaches.

For many, probably the majority of, Americans, there was a view of the Apaches as savages, unworthy of consideration.  A writer for the Arizona Miner wrote:  “Extermination is our only hope and the sooner the better.”  Another writer:  “They must be surrounded, starved into coming in, surprised or inveigled—by white flags or any other method, human or divine—and then put to death.”

During the period of the Civil War, the primary conflict in Arizona was not the North against the South but rather of the Anglos and their Papago/the People tribes and Mexican allies against Apache peoples.  Much of the combat was prosecuted by civilian groups, sometimes working in concert with whatever Union or Confederate forces happened to be in power.  A visitor to Arizona in the early 1860s was Connecticut-born Joseph Pratt Allyn.  President Lincoln had nominated him to serve as one of the territory’s first federal judges.  Shortly after his arrival, he noted the harsh measures of Arizona’s white population toward the Apaches.  “(A) war of extermination has in fact already begun.”  A number of Anglos told Allyn how they had recently invited a group of Apaches to a party.  As the Indians were enjoying the food their host provided, the Americans each fired on a pre-selected member of the band, killing some 30 Apaches.  Some settlers contributed toward a bounty “for Indian scalps.”  The Governor of the territory, John Goodwin, who had attended Dartmouth College, ironically a school founded to educate Indian youth, assembled a group with a speech that in Allyn’s words, “took hold by storm through its powerful advocation of ‘the extermination of the Indians.’”

There were actions taken following this to move the Apaches to reservations.  That was President Grant’s policy.  But there was the proviso:  Indians who weren’t prepared to do that were subject to reprisal, clearly including as far as many Anglos were concerned, their death. 

They could find justification for this, as morally corrupt as it is in hindsight.   This became a case of “tit for tat” though nobody back then would have used those words.  Over simplified, Native Americans were being deprived of land where they had grown food and hunted livestock.  Many believed that livestock on the plains was free to all.  So they continued to claim it even as Anglos saw it as theirs. Confrontation and violence followed.  From incidents like that came the “rationalization” that the Apaches were, indeed, “savage” and that firm reprisals against them, up to and including their extermination in the name of “progress and civilization,” was justified.

The history of the massacre, as it always is, was initially written by those with social power—the Anglos. An organization (“The Pioneers”) was created among many of the Anglos who had actually participated in the massacre. It described it in all-too-predictable way:  “The Apaches had gotten what they deserved”--this even though the camp was attacked at dawn, with people asleep, and that women and children were intentionally slaughtered and some taken into captivity. 

As time went on, the true story emerged.  The history could not be hidden.  And there is a small museum that has been created to commemorate the history of the Apaches and this horrible incident.

There were some Americans who opposed this dehumanization of the Indian at the time, but they were in the distinct minority, just as was the case with blacks during the era of slavery—and after—just as was the case with Jews in Germany, Poland and many other countries where people had been dehumanized and come to be seen as the “other” to the extent that they could be exterminated without remorse.

I appreciate how Karl Jacoby ends his book.  He writes that “to collapse the stories running through the Camp Grant Massacre into a single tale of genocide possesses its own perils.  Not because such an account misstates the violence directed against the Apache, but because it risks reducing the stories about (the event) into a narrative solely about the actions and intentions of the incident’s perpetrators.  The ability of many of the Apaches to elude the exterminatory violence directed toward them from the 17^th century onwards and to undertake raids, war parties and peace negotiations of their own is a no less important story—indeed for the Apache, this tale of survival is arguably the preeminent narrative to be told about their past.”  While I wouldn’t go as far as saying that the ability of blacks who were brought to this country as slaves to have achieved all they have in our country, through courage and sacrifice and sheer persistence, is the uniquely “preeminent narrative to be told about their past,” it is one from which to take glory.

Hearkening to the history of slavery in our nation, I’d close with the closing words of this fine book as Jacoby writes:  “What this past asks of us is a willingness to recount ‘all’ our stories—our darkest tales as well as our most inspiring ones—and to ponder those stories that violence has silenced forever.  For until we recognize our shared capacity for inhumanity, how can we ever hope to tell stories of our mutual humanity?” 

Indeed, that is what all the peoples and nations of the world must do; be honest about its history, its dark moments and its bright moments, to recognize that no peoples or nation has been perfect; indeed, all of us are flawed by the flaws of humanity.  From this honest perspective hopefully can come the humility and the shared recognition of our common humanity that can bring us to live in accord with our better natures, helping one another, living in peace.

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EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY FOR A YOUNG CHILD-WHAT DOES IT ENTAIL?

EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY FOR A YOUNG CHILD – WHAT DOES IT ENTAIL?

“No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.”

                                                                                                            John Stuart Mill

It was in reading this famous observation that, I came to realize that we do not have a cohesive, fit-for-the-times framework to address two critical questions:

What does “equal opportunity” for a young child entail?

What portion of that should be underwritten and provided by the state and what part left to private or individual means?

I have chosen to address these two questions within the historic commitment our nation made in the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness – that to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the government.”

What exactly do these “unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” entail?  And when we say that it is to “secure these Rights that governments are instituted among Men,” what exactly is the government’s obligation?  To do what, for whom?

These are profound questions which have been debated, legislated, adjudicated and written about since the very founding of our nation.  These questions have been answered differently at different points in history.  Most glaringly, the Right to Liberty was denied for almost a century to enslaved men and women following the Declaration of Independence.  The Right to vote was denied for many women until 1920. 

It is not my intent to address the history of the on-going debate over individual Rights. 

I will try, however, to address a narrower but, especially today, vital aspect of this question of what are the “unalienable Rights” that should be “secured” by the government. 

Specifically, I will address this question:  What do we mean when we commit to provide “equality of opportunity” for young people as they grow up;  what Rights does that entail and what portion of securing those Rights should be underwritten and provided by the government? 

At the outset, we must acknowledge an overarching reality:  More than any other factor, a child’s development depends more on how his or her parents foster their child’s development, including what is enabled by their economic circumstances and educational background.  Obviously, these conditions cannot in any meaningful sense be made equal and it would be (and has proven to be) folly to try.  It is in the context of this reality that we must strive to answer the question of what we can and must do to provide children with the opportunity so that--as we say in the Declaration of Independence--they are able to “pursue their unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 

I submit that the Rights to which children are entitled include an environment that is safe, good health and a good education.  These, I believe, are basic Rights which must be secured by the government. 

In this paper, I will focus exclusively on education—specifically early childhood education.

My major contention:  Quality Pre-Kindergarten Education is A “Right” For All Children.

I believe that we have now reached a sufficient level of knowledge and evidence to conclude that making quality pre-K education available for all children, regardless of their family’s economic means, is a basic Right in the same way that providing quality K-12 education for all children is acknowledged as a “Right” in our Nation.  As such, quality pre-K education calls for public funding just as K-12 education does.  We have learned that quality pre-K is an essential, even more important, part of the education continuum.  We should no more fail to fund it than fail to fund Kindergarten or the 1^st or 2^nd grades.

To repeat, I believe the evidence now available clearly indicates that providing a quality pre-Kindergarten experience must be taken as an obligation of the state just as is providing K-12 education.  While funding streams will be shared by the federal, state and local governments, like K-12 education, the overwhelming majority of the funding will properly come from the state and local levels. 

There are four reasons why I contend that public funding for high quality pre-K must not be seen as a “nice to do” benefit to be implemented when we can afford it.  Rather, it must be seen as a fundamental Right, just like K-12 education.  Here is why:

1.     It is morally correct:  it is a fundamental necessity if all children are to have as approximate an equal opportunity to develop as can be provided recognizing the overarching role of the family.

2.     It is socially correct:  there is no other way that our nation’s young adult men and women, as a whole, will be able to prosper in the competitive world of the future.

3.     It is financially smart:  evidence shows that the investment required to provide this development and educational experience will pay for itself many-fold in lower costs (i.e. less remediation, repeat grades, costs stemming from criminal activity and incarceration) and from higher incomes and the taxes derived therefrom.  As an intervention, quality pre-K provides a far higher return on investment than any other intervention in the education continuum. 

4.     It is the only credible response to competitive pressure from the many other countries which are already providing quality pre-K education to a far higher percentage of their three and four-year-olds than our Nation is today.

I recognize that calling for public funding support for pre-Kindergarten education for all children as a Right in the same way we do for K-12 education demands a very high level of support.  Here is that support.

Essentially, it rests on the overwhelming evidence that quality pre-K education has a significant impact on a child’s development which lasts throughout his or her years of education and life.  We have evidence for this today that we did not have 10 years ago.  In brief, here is what we know.

1.     Quality pre-K and Kindergarten education dramatically improves Kindergarten readiness as measured on well-qualified tests among students of all incomes.

KRA-L Scores*

By Income and Duration of Preschool Experience

                                                No Center-                  Center Based                           Center Based

                                                Based Program            Program-1 Yr. or less              Program-1+Yr.

            Low Income**                        15.8                             18.5                                         19.6

            Other Income                          19.8                             22.4                                         23.7

            As you’ll see, on average a center-based program of more than one year lifts

            children from low-income families to “ready for Kindergarten” levels.

2.     Being ready for Kindergarten dramatically impacts third grade reading proficiency.  Specifically, research conducted in Southwestern Ohio shows that 85% of those children testing ready for Kindergarten were reading on-grade by the end of the third grade whereas only 43% of those children not ready for Kindergarten were reading on-grade.

3.     This doubling of the percentage of children reading proficiently is enormously significant because third grade reading proficiency correlates dramatically with graduation rates.  A child not reading proficiently at the end of the third grade is four times more likely to drop out than one who is.  And if they are from a poor family, they are 11 times more likely to drop out.

*A score of 19 or better is considered “ready for kindergarten.”

**185% of the Federal Poverty line and below is qualifying for free and reduced lunch.

4.     Finally, high school graduation and educational attainment beyond high school have an enormous influence on earnings and a person’s health and success throughout life.  Data compiled by the College Board shows the following as of 2011: 

Median Earnings and Tax Payments Ages 25+ by Education Level

                                                                        Earnings                      Tax Payment

            Less than H.S. diploma                       $21,000                       $4,100

            H.S. Diploma                                      $29,000                       $6,400

            Associate Degree                                $36,200                       $8,600

            Bachelors Degree                                $45,100                       $11,400

The influence of educational attainment goes well beyond earnings.  It impacts family formation, health and the likelihood of being involved in criminal activity.  In the latter regard, it is a shocking fact that 70% of incarcerated men and women are high school dropouts.

Given the above facts, it is not surprising that studies following students over several decades who received quality pre-Kindergarten education show significant cost-effective benefits.  They stem from a combination of 1) higher incomes attributable to higher education and 2) lower costs attributable to less special education, fewer repeated grades and lower costs in the criminal justice system.*

Now, if everyone could afford quality pre-K on their own or if adequate funds could be provided through philanthropy, there might be no need for public support.  That is not the case.  At a cost of $6,000-$8,000 per year, quality pre-K represents 10-15% of the median average income of about $55,000, and for a person making $12 per hour, it represents over 25% of his or her salary.  Plainly unaffordable.

Philanthropy does help.  In the Cincinnati community, for example, the United Way funds pre-K and in-home visiting programs.  Still, combining philanthropy and existing government support, we are providing less than 30% of our population with quality pre-K experience.**   

*See “Dollars and Sense:  A Review of Economic Analysis of Pre-K,” May 2007, particularly the reviews of the High/Scope Perry Pre-School Program; Chicago Child-Parent Centers and the Carolina Abecedarian Project.

**CEECO policy report—May 2014.  See Appendix A for the impact of poverty on enrollment and quality pre-K. 
This gets down to the basic issues of moral values and financial common sense.  There is no reason why a Nation committed to equal opportunity should have children and grandchildren born into families like my own, receive the benefit of a quality pre-K experience—an experience which we now know significantly impacts their entire lives—while children born into poorer families are denied that benefit.  This is especially true because we have proven quality, cost-effective pre-K programs. 

*****

A few asides:

·      In providing quality pre-Kindergarten education as a fundamental Right, there are questions that need to be answered.  For example:

a.     To what extent should public support be means-tested, providing lower support to families with higher incomes?  I believe that means testing should be a fundamental component of any system.

b.     Should public support cover both three and four-year-olds?  I believe the answer is yes.  There is substantial evidence that two years of pre-school is close to two times as effective as one year.

·      Pre-K education should be totally voluntary. 

·      Pre-K education is not a silver bullet.  Particularly for poor families, wraparound services providing health care for the child and his or her parents, as well as job placement and additional education where appropriate, are critical.

*****

In the end, what I am calling for is nothing more or less than providing equal opportunity to a young child, as best we can, recognizing the overriding influence of a child’s parent.  In this regard, I hearken back to the words of President John F. Kennedy as he challenged the Nation to support legislation that eventually emerged as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Shortly before his assassination in fall 1963, he addressed the discrimination inflicted on African-American children.

“This is one country.  It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.  We cannot say to 10% of the population that you can’t have that Right; your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have...as I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal Right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation to make something of themselves.  This is what we are talking about, and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it, I ask for the support of all our citizens.”

Fifty years ago, President Kennedy challenged the nation to give children the equal Right to develop their talents regardless of their race.  Today we are challenging ourselves to give children that Right regardless of their family’s income.

I hope and pray that will happen soon.  In truth, I believe it will.  The evidence is too strong, the cause too right to be denied.  We must act quickly so that future generations of young people have the opportunity which they deserve and our Nation desperately need.

As Krista Ramsey of the Cincinnati Enquirer poignantly writes:

“There really is a sense of urgency–of a clock ticking–for us to get this right because the developmental windows narrow if not close.  We keep acting like we can push a “Pause” button with young children’s learning–as if, if we get this thing wrong, we can just put them into a learning environment whenever we like, and all will be well.  I think people would be appalled if we stopped a young child from walking–just held him back!–or from talking, or learning to feed himself, etc.  It would border on abuse. 

There is another extraordinarily important point Krista makes: 

“Inequality in early childhood opportunities sets people up for a lifetime of inequality:  lower test scores, fewer educational options, lower confidence, fewer career options, lower earnings.  Why on earth would we pour so many resources into trying to close “achievement gaps” at 14 and “earning gaps” at 25, when we ignored the inequality at the educational/cognitive starting gate?  How financially foolish.”

  How financially foolish, indeed.  And how morally wrong.  So let’s get on with it—NOW!

CERTAIN INALIENABLE RIGHTS GIVEN BY GOD

CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS ENDOWED BY GOD

In an essay I wrote last year on the subject of education, I invoked Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words, which introduce the Declaration of Independence – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

I argued in this essay that this commitment compels us to provide to the limit of our practical ability, the support for health and education, which will enable every child to pursue his or her “Unalienable Rights.”

I recently found a profoundly meaningful articulation of this thinking in an essay written by Marilynne Robinson, “The Human Spirit and the Good Society.”  She observes that “without knowing the nature of Jefferson’s religious beliefs, or doubts, or disbeliefs we do know he had recourse to the language and assumptions of Judeo/Christianity to articulate the vision of human nature.  Each person is divinely created and given rights as a gift from God.  And since these rights are given to him by God, he can never be deprived of them without defying divine intent.”

Ms. Robinson goes on to make a point which I have become increasingly convinced of and that is “lacking the terms of religion” it is very difficult for us to assert this right of human equality.  “Every civilization, including this one,” Robinson writes, “has always been able to reason its way to ignoring or denying the most minimal claims to justice in any form that deserves the name.  The temptation is always present and powerful because the rationalizations are always ready to hand.  One group is congenitally inferior, another is alien or shiftless, or they are enemies of the people or of the state.  Yet others are carriers of intellectual or spiritual contagion.”

Robinson finally asserts, and I agree:  “Jefferson makes the human person sacred, once by creation and again by endowment, and thereby sets individual rights outside the reach of rationalization.”

To be sure, I will acknowledge that religion is not a cure all. Like every ideology, it poses the risk of fueling and giving dimension to the invidious and I believe inescapable human tendency to elevate ourselves and gain a sense of worth by comparing ourselves so some “other” that we consider inferior and unworthy.   All too often religious beliefs have become highly exclusive and not inclusive. They have morphed to a mind-set if you don’t believe in my religion you are not entitled to basic Rights, even sometimes the Right of Life.  We only need to recall the Crusades and, today, witness the deadly conflict between Shiite and Sunni to be confirmed in this saddest of realities. 

However, to acknowledge that religious beliefs can be misused to deny the essential human equality of all people in terms of the Rights Jefferson prescribes does not negate for me the belief that it is the essential teaching of all religions—“to love God and to treat our neighbor as ourselves” – which represents our best and perhaps only hope to live in peace and support one another in our imperfect world.

Looking back over the span of the almost 240 years since Jefferson wrote that brilliant introduction to the Declaration o independence, there has been a vital expansion in many if not all parts of the world of what we believe constitute the Rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.  Examples include the outlawing of the institution of slavery, the conferral of the right to vote to women, and the increasing, though still far from universal, recognition of the right of people to marry another person of the same gender. Our minds must be open to how this list of Rights will properly expand in the future if the dignity and right to Freedom for all people are to be respected. 

All and all, it is clear that the precision of Jefferson’s words combined with their openness, is what has allowed us to progress -- albeit unevenly, incompletely, and especially in hindsight at all too often a haltingly and frustratingly slow pace.

I agree with Marilynne Robinson that “if Jefferson could see our world, he would surely feel confirmed in the intuition that led him to couch his anthropology in such open language.  Granting the evils of our time, we must also grant the evils of his and the cultural constraints that so notoriously limited his vision.  Yet, brilliantly, he factors the sense of historical and human limitation into a compressed, essential statement of human circumstance, making a strength and a principle of liberation of his and our radically imperfect understanding.”

We must carry on, living in truth as we best see that truth. 

JEP:pmc

CertainUnalienableRights102714

NELSON MANDELA'S "LONG ROAD TO FREEDOM"

I am posting an extraordinarily insightful and comprehensive review of Nelson Mandela's magnificent autobiography with one purpose in mind--to encourage all of you who read this to read this book in its entirety.

This review was written by a very good friend of mine, A P&G leader and native of South Africa, Lindsay Schmauss.

“The Long Road to Freedom”
gave me so much to think about – it really is a book to read and re-read.  It’s
more than a story or even a history - it’s a collection of fundamental lessons. 
Truly the breadth and depth of those 750 pages is awesome.  There are lessons on
leadership, on strategy, planning and flawless execution, on working together
with people, on resolving conflict, bridging differences, driving change,
mastering one’s self, practicing self-discipline and commitment to
self-improvement.  There are lessons on justice and injustice, on making a point
and arguing a point of view, on compromise, on forgiveness, on suffering and how
to alleviate the suffering of others.  There are lessons about family
commitment, love, loyalty, betrayal, the tension between “tradition” and
progress, the value of heritage, spirituality and independence.  Lessons on
courage, on mastering fear, on bluffing it, on seeking and giving support.  On
and on I could go.  Just to make this list takes me skipping back through those
pages, which come alive in my memory.  I know people learn in different ways,
and certainly I have always been someone who learns best from a story.  When I
can experience something even vicariously through telling, I find the lesson
takes root in my mind like a seed that proceeds to grow.  The “Long Walk”
planted a forest and the more I think about it and return to it, the forest
becomes a plantation!  It’s one of those moments where I think to myself, if I
can just internalize and apply a fraction of the knowledge I have been exposed
to here, what a difference it would make!  The cool thing about the way human
beings are created is that that process happens naturally. Of course we can seek
to be more INTENTIONAL about it, but the great thing about education is that it
changes you – once you know and understand, you do think and operate
differently.  Education can change the world, said Nelson

Mandela
☺

REFLECTIONS ON A VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA

VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA – SOME REFLECTIONS

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of visiting South Africa with my daughter-in-law Maggie, my P&G associates, Lindsay and Steffen Schmauss, Lindsay’s dad Daryl (who lives in Durban) and Matthew Willman, a young man who served as Nelson Mandela’s professional and closest photographer for ten years starting about 2003.

It was the experience of a lifetime.  In a period of 72 hours, we visited a succession of sites and were informed by testimony from Matthew that brought to life the courage, the fortitude and the values of Nelson Mandela’s life as we could have never otherwise experienced.  Our visits took us to:

·      The Nelson Mandela Center of Memory, where we met its founder Vern Harris.

·      Robben Island.  Matthew had spent 18 months coming to and from the island as part of his work with Mandela.

·      The Victor Verster Prison, the final imprisonment site for Nelson Mandela.  It was here that the negotiations were conducted with DeKlerk after 27 years of imprisonment and Mandela’s release finalized.  We had the special privilege there of talking with one of his wardens, Jack Swart.

·      The Nelson Mandela Capture Site outside Durban.  It features a remarkable exhibit profiling Mandela’s life.

This experience was informing, inspiring and humbling.  The bravery and determination of Mandela and his associates were palpable.  It brought to life for me in a far deeper way what I had learned from his magnificent biography, “Long Road to Freedom.”

No words of mine will do justice to this experience.  I’d urge all who can to make this visit.  I only hope it can be in the company of someone who can convey close to the insight we gained from Matthew Willman, Vern Harris and Jack Swart.

*****

I took a number of deep impressions from this visit; many uplifting, other presenting me with a personal challenge as I, together with so many others, work to pursue the mission of the Freedom Center.  Here I will present two of these impressions:

1.     The first is to say how glad I am that we were able to honor Nelson Mandela at our last International Freedom Conductor Award event and that his great-great-grandson, Luvuyo Mandela, joined us. 

I’m delighted that we have acquired Matthew Willman’s photographs as a foundation for sharing Nelson Mandela’s story at the Freedom Center, and beyond through a traveling exhibit.  I’m excited about other ideas that emerged from the trip which might enable us to become even more a repository for Nelson Mandela’s memory and values.

2.     I was deeply impressed by the similar progress that has been made in South Africa and the United States in overcoming some of the worst aspects of apartheid in South Africa and segregation in our country.  Yet, at the same time, I was impressed by the similar and enormous challenges our nations continue to face in overcoming the legacy of apartheid and slavery and on accepting each other as one.

While I am no expert on apartheid and how far it has been overcome, I was encouraged by some of what I saw.  To observe the inter-racial beaches at Durban, which not long ago were segregated into four separate blocks—White, Black, Colored and Indian—was encouraging.  I was moved by the congregation at Lindsay Schmauss’ father’s parish—The Anglican Parish of St. John the Baptist in Durban.  Its racially mixed congregation and group of ministers would be the envy of most churches in our nation.

Still, the history of apartheid rests heavily on South African today, just as the legacy of slavery rests on our country.  The history of South Africa is, in many regards, like our own.  I was reminded how the Whites legislated the Black Africans into “Homelands,” not surprisingly the most arid and least desirable lands in South Africa.  How alike in essence was this to what has happened in our country, as prejudice and the flawed execution of federal “fair housing” policy led to segregated neighborhoods and ghettos.

And within these shockingly disparate residential communities come the disparate schools, those for the poor, being dramatically inferior to those in the wealthiest suburbs, resulting in another cycle of increasing inequality.

On the positive side, I found it reinforcing to learn from Lindsay Schmauss’ sister-in-law, who is working in urban planning, that she is working with groups in major cities to bring together in a coordinated way government services in health, child development and education, recognizing that holistic improvement in neighborhood infrastructure is the only credible way to make significant and sustained progress.  How similar that is to the growing conviction in Cincinnati (and elsewhere) that we need integrated neighborhood-by-neighborhood support for individual families to break the back of poverty and the lack of opportunity which so many of our young people face.

My visit to South Africa and ever deepening awareness of the ravages of poverty in our own nation add great weight to my commitment to do all I can to overcome our failure to give every child the opportunity to develop his or her abilities.

We must garner our energy and determination to address this challenge.  The future of our nation depends on it.  There will be no total solution; we know that.  But the opportunity and need for major progress rests with us.

In closing, I share this challenge laid down by Nelson Mandela himself which I happened to read while I was on this visit: 

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice.  Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural.  It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.  Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great.  YOU can be that generation.  Let your greatness blossom.”

“There is nothing I fear more than waking up without a program that will help me bring a little happiness to those with no resources; those who are poor, illiterate and ridden with terminal disease.”

IMPLICIT BIAS--THE INFLUENCE OF STEREOTYPES

REFLECTIONS ON TWO OUTSTANDING BOOKS:  "BLIND SPOT" AND "WHISTLING VIVALDI"

  

These two excellent books have provided perspective on the implicit bias that discloses itself in stereotypes of two kinds – stereotypes we have of others and self-imposed stereotypes we have of ourselves – which have a negative effect on behavior in many cases and, in some (i.e. a positive self-imposed stereotype of ourselves) actually have a positive effect.

 

In “Blind Spot,” we encounter the telling test where we are asked to associate pleasant words and unpleasant words with African-American and European-American children’s faces.  It discloses in a very uncomfortable way the stereotypes that I have which are more likely to link negative connotations with African-Americans.

 

What is most encouraging in this book and in “Whistling Vivaldi” is that it is possible to change existing associations.  Data has shown that hidden bias can be weakened by relatively minimal interventions; for example, showing student research subjects pictures of 10 admirable Black Americans and 10 despicable White Americans show weaker White=good association in a subsequent test.  

 

As Claude Steele writes in “Whistling Vivaldi,” the purpose of his book is not to show that stereotype threat is so powerful and persistent that it can’t be overcome.  Quite the contrary:  it intends to show how, as an unrecognized factor in our lives, it can contribute to some of most vexing personal and societal problems, but doing quite feasible things to reduce this threat can lead to dramatic improvement in these problems.

 

The book underscores that although we have a strong sense of ourselves as autonomous individuals, “evidence consistently shows that contingencies tied to our social identities do make a difference in shaping our lives, from the way we perform in certain situations to the careers and friends we choose.”

 

It presents a set of actions we can take as individuals to reduce the impact of these threats in our own lives, as well as what we can do as a society to reduce their impact in schools and work places.

 

The lack of intimate association, Black versus White, is still with us.

 

When Black and White students were asked how many close friends of a different race they had, among the six closest friends, neither White nor Black students averaged even one friend from the other racial group.

 

As just one example of what an established stereotype can do, when a math test was given to women who were first told that the test would disclose gender differences, when in other words women could feel the stigma of doing poorer in a mathematical test, women did worse than equally skilled men.  However, among women participants who were told that the test did not show gender differences, women performed at the same level as men.  The same thing happened in testing with Blacks where there was a difference in establishing the nature of the test up front as to whether it measured intelligence.

The same impact of a stereotype being reinforced before a test held true among older people.

 

Steele attributes the decline in test performance to “over-efforting” based on the desire to overcome a bias.

 

The book establishes clear evidence that people will tend to favor their own group.  We see that even in learning a language at the very earliest stage.  “No type of person or a nation of people has shown immunity to this ‘minimal group effect.’”

 

One must avoid cues that implicate one’s marginality.  For example, “do I belong.”  This takes me back to that unforgettable encounter I had with Lloyd Ward, our first African-American General Manager at P&G, who when I asked him if there was anything I could have done to have kept him with the company, he answered “no.  I didn’t feel in the house.”  

 

In Steele’s words, there may be “a principle of remedy if enough cues in the setting can lead members of a group to feel ‘identity-safe’”.

 

Another powerful insight in the book, which I can identify with so well, is the story of a professor who had “faith” in the book’s author as a “worthy partner.”  “Somehow his assumptions about what he was doing as a scientist included me as, at least potentially, a capable colleague.”  That captures precisely the cognitive and emotional reaction I had to the chance encounter I had with John Smale when he was two or three levels above me in the company and asked me in the course of a car ride coming back from a presentation by an agency head, what I had felt about that presentation.  He made me feel like a “worthy partner.”

 

There is another question raised by the author on how to provide critical feedback to a student, such as an African-American, or a woman, who might feel negatively stereotyped.  His conclusion was that it didn’t work to try to “be neutral” in giving feedback, nor by prefacing the feedback with a “generally assuring positive statement.”  Black students didn’t trust these forms of feedback, the author writes.  The one form of feedback which did work, for both Black and White students, was described as the feedback-giver explaining that he “used high standards” in evaluating the material.  Having read the students’ essays, he believed the students could meet those standards.  His criticism, this form of feedback implies, was offered to help the students meet his high standards.

 

Another intriguing example that illustrated lessening stereotypes occurred in a racially integrated classroom.  Teachers gave each student an envelope instructing them to write down their two or three most important values and then a brief paragraph about why these values were important to them.  In other words, the value statements were put in the form of a personal narrative.  It took only 15 minutes.  That process resulted in the African-Americans doing better in their tests.

 

In conclusion, the author sites a “preponderance of evidence” which strongly suggests that “under-performance, when not caused by discrimination is likely caused by stereotype and identity threats and the interfering reactions they cause.”

 

A final perspective which opened my mind is that while all of us have identities, they are truly multiple identities.  No one or two or three identities will capture or represent a whole person.  And also, identities are fluid, “their influence on us is activated by their situational relevance.”