"Lucky You Don't Bark Like A Dog" . . . OMG, Really?

"...so this Chief U.S. District Court Judge walks into a bar..."  


No, I guess this isn't the right time for a joke.  I'm sure you've heard, but in case you haven't, here's the story:  Richard Cebull, the Chief District Court Judge from Montana in the 9th U.S. District, wrote an email passing along a joke to several friends, stating that he hoped that "it touches your heart as it does mine".  

The joke he sent could be considered the mother of all "your momma" jokes, and it was aimed at the President of the United States.  Now, Jay Leno, David Letterman and the rest of the late-night posse tell jokes about sitting Presidents several nights per week, so jokes are no big deal overall.  This one, however, was not only supremely disrespectful, but it was racist in the extreme, implying that the President's sharing of canine DNA might just be a matter of chance.  

Wow, that's funny!  

No, it's not.  

Since taking office, President Obama has met with a pitched opposition dedicated to eradicating the "error" of his election.  "Birther" movements come, and go, and come again, and go again, and come back some more.  The disrespect aimed at this President has been constant, and unprecedented.  Was Richard Nixon ever catcalled a "liar" when addressing Congress?  Was Jimmy Carter, a President with a limited number of admirers during his tenure, ever treated so rudely?  What American President has been compared to Adolf Hitler as frequently?  What President has experienced a state Governor in his face on an airport tarmac, complete with wagging finger?  We all sense that there is a racist basis for this, but through clever subterfuge, the opposition has used more innocuous terms, such as "socialist".  The fact is, the racist core of this nation decided on Inauguration Day that a black President was a contradiction in terms.  In response this core lost its collective mind and set out to delegitimize the President in any and every way possible, every day of his administration.

Make no mistake, this is not simply a matter of opposition to a sitting President.  The rancorous tone of the opposition, the disrespect, indicates a wholesale rejection of (as Bill Maher puts it) "President Blackie McBlackMan".  

The first step in a long journey

"Tikkun Olam".  A Hebrew phrase, it means "repair the world". 

It's why I'm writing this blog.

My mission is to take on the issues which have "broken" our world and, one-by-one, and to start movements to correct them. A wide range of issues will be covered here, some listed at the end of this article, and others which will be added in the future. With your help the list of prescriptions for how to deal with these issues will grow.

I challenge myself, and I challenge you.  To change our attitudes and beliefs, our commitment to action and our courage to continue when the strain, the pain and the risks seem too great. The scope will vary from local to global, drawing on my thoughts and yours, and on the words and wisdom of those who inspire us. Let us declare right now that we will become well-read on the facts about these issues.  


I further declare my passion and commitment to bring about a change in the world, within one generation.

That's right.  Within. Our. Lifetime. No fooling!

I am an idealist and a dreamer.  My dreams of a better world, one full of love, began in childhood.


My optimism can be explained by my core beliefs: 

• I believe in the power of love, which by extension brings the power of abundance.  Belief in scarcity drives most of the shabby ways we humans treat one another, and belief in abundance can break the shackles which hold us back from addressing the needless suffering we see all around us.

• I believe in tipping points (thanks, Malcolm Gladwell!). When momentum toward an outcome builds to a sufficient level, the outcome becomes inevitable. The trick is in building the momentum.

• I believe in critical mass. When enough people believe in an ideal and act accordingly, it becomes the norm and others - who may not have even heard the message - take on the same attitudes and behaviors.

• I believe that the system of incentives in our world is severely distorted. We reward "bad" behaviors (those which benefit the few at the expense of the many) and punish good ones (which benefit the many but run counter to the interests of the few).  I am grateful to the the authors of Freakonomics - Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner for laying this out clearly with poignant examples.

For the next several posts I will talk about racism, an injustice which shows up every day and in many ways:

A bank officer I know recently told me (under his voice, of course), "you know, a lot of the guys I know from the other banks told me that they will now never promote a black person to management" (since President Obama was elected). It was interesting to note that his voice dropped to a whisper when he said "black person".  The attitude he voiced seemed to imply, "OK, that's enough for black advancement for now."

I find it interesting to note that every time this person shared a racist comment with me, he took great pains to imply that it was others, not he himself, who held racist beliefs.  This is a common way that I've seen people disassociate themselves from their own racism.

A former best friend of mine had two significant attitudes:  

• You can take away his guns when you pry them from his cold, dead hands
• Blacks and Hispanics don't belong in our neighborhoods and our schools. 

Every year when we went camping in Connecticut, we passed a psychiatric hospital that was located in a primarily black community. His name for it? "Looney Coons". Either he or his wife (or both) would manage to mention this nickname on every trip. 

It wasn't until my son was born that I recognized the need to break free of this man's influence. A little over twenty years ago my wife and I visited our friends' home when my son was about a year old, and we recorded parts of the visit on our brand-new camcorder. I'm not proud of this, but when I played the tape back at home, I caught my own off-camera voice telling an incredibly childish and racist joke about Mayor David Dinkins. I was horrified, and realized that this was not the attitude I wanted to pass along to my son. I stopped contact with this friend shortly afterwards.

A few observations:

• In all the kitchen-table debates I'd shared with my friend and his wife, I never made more than a cursory attempt to challenge his racist attitudes.

• Although I always considered my friend's wife to be the "reasonable" one, just like a late-night sidekick, she would chime in and support her husband's comments, even though I suspect she didn't really believe as he did.

• My behavior (and hers) demonstrated the cowardice that people face when encountering their families' and friends' racist attitudes. The feeling that it's better to "get along" than to endanger the relationship.  Even worse, my decision to pitch a mild racist joke of my own - aimed at ingratiating myself with my friend - was effectively throwing my own principles under a bus. No wonder it shocked me out of my complacence!

When my son was in high school, he told me at times of friends and acquaintances who espoused extreme beliefs - including racism - and observed that while these were usually superficially understood, they were deeply felt. These attitudes may have been acquired casually, but they were experienced passionately.

• What upsets me most about racism is how easily it is taken up by our youth. While many of today's youth exhibit tolerance far exceeding that demonstrated by the previous generation, vehement, bitter racist attitudes are still expressed by children starting from middle school through high school age. How does a 12-year-old have sufficient life experience to justify hating another race?  Parental influence explains part of it - the beliefs, the statements, but not the passion. I have a theory: just as youthful smoking exists despite scientific evidence of its negative effects, racism flourishes regardless of the social changes that have reduced much of the racial tension of the past.

• Why is this so? Consider smoking: despite the scientific evidence and public policy changes discouraging smoking, there is still a multibillion-dollar industry with a vested interest in keeping the new customers coming. Water flowing in a stream finds a path around a boulder, the tobacco industry continues to innovate in marketing methods that circumvent the law, and vested interests which would seek to maintain animus and distrust between the races.  Subtle messages surround us to continue to blame "an other" for our woes: crime, the economy, the housing bubble, drug addiction, unemployment, you name it. As long as these vested interests wield influence, they will perpetuate their toxic effect.

What to do about this?  Defusing and deconstructing the influences toward racism requires commitment, passion and rigorous self-discipline.  For a start, let no racist comment ever go unchallenged.  Put the person who makes a racist comment on the spot: "Is that really how you feel?", "Don't you think we should have moved beyond that thinking by now?", "Don't you agree that everyone matters?", "Isn't it time we begin seeing people, individuals, and not groups?", "Isn't this world big enough for everyone?"

Make this commitment, today:

• Zero tolerance for racism in ourselves
• Zero tolerance for racism in our children
• End of story.  End of racism.

In my next article I will share thoughts I've had on how to respond to racist graffiti.

Future topics will include:

• Sexism
• Intolerance
• Domestic violence
• Gender rights
• Hunger
• Homelessness
• Environment
• Sexual exploitation
• Economic exploitation
• Corruption
• Animal cruelty
• Disease
• Rape
• Murder
• Genocide
• War 
• Please tell me - what else?

Please share your comments -- keep it civil and mature, thanks!