Angela Boyd wrote this morning on responsibility. I found what she said important enough to share with all of you. But at the same time, I felt the need to caution all of you that these are complex issues, with no simple answers. Even when we think the answers are straight-forward, it's often because we haven't been exposed to solid arguments on other perspectives.

Angela wrote this entry in synthesizing all our entries on responsibility to date. But most of us reflect the goals of the site: peace and social justice. Those are good, solid goals, but philosphers like Nozick have reminded us that part of human progress results from allowing those who can to accumulate and to do whatever they are capable of. Nozick wrote of justice, not as fairness and equal access, but as unencumberment of the individual by the society at large.

No one has any definitive answers to these conundrums. Since the days of Socrates we've been asking "How shall I live?" As pleased as I am to see how thoroughly Angela has thought this over, I hasten to add that it is not necessarily a contradiction to hold oneself responsible only for one's own actions. It is simply a different piece of the puzzle, and a different kind of responsibility. Understanding this is just one of the ways in which we must start by forgiving ourselves. In theory we've come to call this self-reflexivity, questioning ourselves about shifting perspectives and about our unstated assumptions.

Trust me, you'll hear excellent articles on the other side. And we'll try to offer them for your consideration. Our role is not to change your minds, but to stretch them, to encourage you to ask the questions others have dared not ask. The answers are for you to choose.

Having said all this, I post Angela's journal entry, for it is said so well, I think it may guide many of you who are thinking through the same issues. love and peace, jeanne

On Saturday August 11, 2001, Angela Boyd wrote:

First let me start out by saying I never expected such great feed back from my two journal entries, I am both honored and pleased. Thank you to everyone who responded.

In reading my first journal entry about taking responsibility for the past treatment of black people by white people I can see the contradiction with my second journal entry. Unknowingly at 6 years old, I did take responsibility for the treatment of poor kids compared to other more privileged kids. I had no idea at the time that I was going up against something so much bigger than myself. I just saw an injustice and set out to fix it anyway I could. I took responsibility, again unknowingly, for the school's behavior by stealing the milk tickets. I did not have anything to do with starting the policy of not giving milk tickets to everyone, but I did have a responsibilty to stop it. If I didn't try to stop it, then I would be just as responsible, as if I started the policy myself. It's funny how the simple act of a child can take on so much more meaning as you grow up.

jeanne's comment

This is where you need to start forgiving yourself, Angela. Your responsibility wasn't to stop the injustice. You would not have been "just as responsible" had you done nothing. You would have been complicit. That means you would have enjoyed the benefits while following the dominant discourse normative expectation to deny anyone's responsibility for the injustice. By taking action you avoided that complicity, even though you confused the adults. You didn't impose what Freire would have called the "circle of certainty" that surrounded and denied the injustice. That's what Charlton Heston is telling the Harvard students they must not do. They must not be complicit in injustice by cloaking the injustice in silence and denying it. But we're definitely not recommending a return to the Robin Hood approach.

In reading and listening in good faith to the several responses to my two journal entries I understand where my contradiction lies. I now see that it doesn't matter so much who or when racism, sexism,or classism started, what matters more is how it's carried on today. By trying to remove ourselves from taking "responsibility" for the past treatment of black people we are dismissing our responsibility for it today. (I hope that makes sense; it does in my mind.)

jeanne's comment

Yes, it makes a good deal of sense, Angela. But again, no Robin Hood approaches, OK? It is enough to guard against complicity by not accepting the denial of reality in silence. Although your argument that we are responsbile if we DO nothing, is logical, it fails to take into consideration the many conflicts we face today and the necessity of managing a life, too. Some of us will choose to fight racism; others will focus on classism. Some of us will choose to educate, and must refrain from imposing our own views on others. And some of us will take up causes for which we will make the most persuasive case possible. All these are ways of accepting responsibility. And all these leave us open to complicity, if in general we fail to listen in good faith to the validity claims of Others, and to deny them in silence.

Like most white people, I was looking at "taking responsibility" as a personal attack on me because my ancestors participated in racism. When really, if I don't do anything to change the current treatment of people, I am just as responsible as my ancestors. This is a hard concept to swallow because I despise the way black people, jewish people, and all other races were and still are treated (this includes how women are treated as well). I do not want to think that I am the cause of anyone's heart ache or that I perpetuate racism. I mean who, besides extremist groups, can take pride in keeping other people down based on something as simple as race? I think the only way to not be responsibile for past treatment of black people specifically is to accept responsibility for it and change what we can to stop it. I really hope this makes sense to you.

This revelation can be applied to all races and within races as well. I think if we all look at our part in racism, sexism, and classism and accept responsibility for it then, and only then, can we find ways to eliminate it.

Please let me know if I need to clarify anything.

Thanks again,
Angela Boyd

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