On Wednesday, August 8, 2001, Angela Boyd wrote:

Dr. Curran,

I have always been really good at picking up on sexist, racist, and classist situations, ever since I could remember. My first experience with distributive justice came when I was in kindergarten. I was 6 years old and had such a strong feeling that the school was not treating some kids fairly. I didn't know why and didn't really care, I just saw a situation that needed to be fixed, and I was just the one to do it.

I am talking about stealing milk tickets from my teacher and giving them to the poor kids in the class. Milk tickets back then cost 20 cents, but, despite the low cost, some kids had to drink water at lunch because their parents could not or would not give them money for milk tickets. I of course got caught by my teacher and my mother was called and my reign as robin hood came to a halt.

I did not charge these kids money, I just gave them the tickets because I didn't think it was fair they couldn't drink milk at lunch with the rest of us. My mother and teacher had a difficult time explaining to me why I was doing something wrong when I felt I was doing something good.

jeanne's comment:

We'll want to discuss this scene in terms of the imposition of dominant discourse. This is one of the ways in which colonization is so effective, and so is "mere" socialization. (The "mere" is my recollection of Gayatri Spivak's admonition that "mere" racism is not "colonialization." I still question that.) Mother and teacher impose the normative definition of stealing without listening in good faith to the child's validity claim. They enforce their normative perception without regard to the fact that normative depends on consensus, and consensus, like democracy, suppresses differences in the interest of collective action. That suppression of difference in the interest of collective action, though rational, does not excuse the denial of good faith listening to the validity claims not satisfied in the collective action.

The following year the school implemented a program for low income parents to apply for assistance so their kids could receive milk tickets free. I don't think I had anything to do with the change, but it made me feel better, and I felt justice was served. (This is a true story).

jeanne's comment:

The following year the collective communicative action changed: poor children were given milk tickets. Yes, Angela, you did have an effect. The cumulative expression of all who spoke out on the unfairness of the normative response ultimately resulted in change of that response. You were a part of the collective action that made a difference, even though you had no specific knowledge of all those Others who agreed with you.

Life back then seems so simple: I saw a problem, and I set out to fix it. But now I have a hard time trying to understand all the problems of the world, specifically racism, sexism, and classism. They all seem so overwhelming and interconnected that we will never overcome them as a society. My problem comes from losing hope. I sometimes feel like fighting these 'isms' is like running into a brick wall at high speeds. My question to you as an educator is this; how do we (by 'we' I mean generation X) not lose hope for our future, and start the healing that is so needed in our society? Where do we start? Is it possible to heal the wounds at all? What can we do?

I just had a baby this last December and I look into her face and think what a horrible shame it is going to be when all that innocence is lost to reality. She is a bi-racial baby that is so perfect right now. It is really sad to think that some day I will have to explain to her that she will probably run into racism, classism, and sexism and people who still believe that some people are better than others based solely on skin color. I do not want to ever have to explain this to her, because with this explanation comes the reality that people are not really nice to each other, and some people are downright nasty. Believe me, if all I had to do was steal some milk tickets to prevent her from ever having to deal with reality and preserve that innocence, there wouldn't be a milk ticket left in this world.

The ultimate question is this: How do we not lose hope for a better future?

Please help,
Angela Boyd

On Wednesday, August 8, 2001, jeanne responded:

That's a tall order, Angela. As I recall, you were the one who started this whole thread on responsibility this summer. You began by saying that you were only responsible for your own actions. And only now you tell me the story of your Robin Hood adventure in kindergarten! Only responsible for yourself, indeed!

That first message came in on July 8, 2001, and this is August 8, 2001. And here you see an illustration of the goal of this site: to set up dialog on peace and social justice in which we, students and teachers and broader community, can begin to hear each other in good faith. Look back at Pat and Malika's responses that we are all responsible. We took off in the dialogue to convince you that "no man is an island" (John Donne), only to learn a month later that you knew that instinctively at six years of age!

To me, that means that we need to talk things out to hear each other. What we say at first may not convey the whole message, because it comes from our present context and reflects what is preoccupying us at that time. As we talk and listen in good faith, we begin to hear each other, to hear past misunderstandings ans miscommunication. In our traditional texts that exchange and that shift in understanding never takes place. That is why books alone are not the answer. Books alone do not listen to us in good faith, they merely convey their own message, taking no notes of our thinking.

On our site, which encourages the dialogue necessary to real understanding, others have a chance to share our dialogue and stretch the corners of their minds with us. And because the text is edited and posted, others can return to the dialogue in the future, when we who initiated the thread are no longer here. Now, that's distance learning! Across space, and across time!

And so I answer, albeit tentatively, your question about not losing hope. I think you're right: hope is what we must not lose. And that is what led us to name this site after Habermas. He, too, found the need to keep hope alive. And his way of doing so was to turn to communication, language among all the Others of this world, as communicative, not manipulative or "instrumental" as he calls it. He puts his faith in our talking to one another, and in our listening to each other in good faith. He counts a lot on reason, and there I tend to disagree with him. Depends, I guess, on how we define reason. But we are hardly a rational species in our interpersonal relationships. Rational at building things like nuclear bombs, but what's rational about a nuclear bomb?

But minor diagreements like that aside, I think that just the kind of dialogue we have here on this site suggests that Habermas has reason to hope. And so, with the grace of God, do we.

love and peace, and may your daughter know hope, jeanne