Civility and Humanity

I've just finished Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. If you are unfamiliar with the book, Griffin modified his skin color to walk as a Negro in the deep south in 1959. He journalled his experience, and his deeply moving account is described in this book. What struck me is the dehumanizing effect of withholding simple civilities like a smile, a hand-shake, eating together, cautions (watch your step), and looking a man in the eye.

Withholding economic opportunities also, no matter how politely rebuffed, oppresses ambition. I once witnessed a native couple walking hand in hand, initially hopeful, making their way down a row of apartment buildings displaying vacant signs. When I exited my building a couple hours later, they were walking dejectedly, less hopeful than the start. How many times must a person face rejection - or worse, the "hate face" as described in Griffin's book - before he gives up and believes the lie? I am reminded again of Gladwell's comments on meaningful work. Griffin also describes in detail how the persecutor demeans himself by stooping to cruel behavior. To deny another his humanity is to diminish your own.

An afterword in the book describes the violent upheaval a scant decade afterwards, in the race riots of the late sixties. Mr. Griffin describes the pattern of oppression and explosion, as whites heeded rumor rather than the blacks in their on community and in the white community's reaction to a phantom threat, sparked the black communities in their midst. In the subtext is a suggestion that a lot of this could have been avoided with simple communication. In helping the black man, ask him. Provide an atmosphere where he will be honored and heard.

I can't help thinking in the general neglect, the failure to offer simple courtesy, and the polite refusal to allow a sub-group access to good housing and good jobs, that we as Canadians continue to do a disservice to our native communities. I overheard Shawn Atleo, head of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) that it is the First Nations responsibility for instance, to develop a response to the H1N1 virus. I think he is talking about upending the paternalistic response to "the problem" (As Griffin speaks of in his book), and allowing this community to speak for itself and take care of itself.

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On another note, I stumbled across this article while investigating online acquisition of queue. Guess what? Other people took it before me. At queue.ca, a Canadian IT company, they speak about Customer Relation Management (CRM). Like most things, it's not the tool that makes the company, but the application. Guess what? Just like community interactions, a company will also be much more successful if it listens to it's customers, and is willing to make changes to their process in order to make it better.

The technical issues with CRM are not unlike those of any software development project. First, objectives and specifications must be well defined and documented. Tools and technology must be selected based on relevant criteria (features, cost, etc…). Implementation milestones are then set according to business timelines and availability of resources. A significant testing phase is recommended to ensure functionality, so problems can be corrected on schedule. Final delivery of the application should also be accompanied by a maintenance plan for regular housekeeping issues (backups, synchronization with remote locations, database maintenance, etc…). E-CRM is not EASY by Alex Lee, 2002 http://www.queue.ca/publications.aspx

People Flock

I'm halfway through a book that is a collection of studies on how people react to failed prophecy; the book is called "Expecting Armageddon, Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy" edited by Jon R. Stone.

Article after article describes how a person can accept the most outrageous explanation, even when all evidence points to the contrary. One of the factors that helps a person accept unreasonable beliefs, is that he is surrounded others who believe it too. You might have heard of "groupthink". (Do follow this video link; it is hilarious)

It seems to me that we have some base instincts that drive us to follow the crowd. This would be a useful evolutionary tactic for creatures who live in packs; including humans. Once I identify with my "crowd", I will fiercly defend it. In return, I get protection by that "crowd". This ability to create groups with strong identities, even to the point of outrageous reason, may be called "granfalloons". What a grand word.

Besides the unreasonableness of some of these groups, I think another great hazard is the suppression of individuality. We naturally give up some of our rights to the crowd, in the interests of mutual safety. I suggest, though, that if the group insists in it's own identity being protected at the cost of individual, it has gone too far.

We see this happen in some groups (think high school) where those who are too different, and the dissenters, are shunned, mocked, or worse.

In Western society, where we worship individualism and tend to dismiss the power of groups over us, I think we underestimate the terrible power of expulsion from a group. The sense of loneliness and abandonment is severe.

What is the balance? Individuality must be protected, but extreme individuality is anarchy. The interests of the group are valuable, but a group that insists that it's own values and maintained at the sacrifice of the individual, suppresses.

The author who expressed this struggle best that I've seen, is Jean Vanier and his book Becoming Human. Jean Vanier is the founder of L'Arche, where people are invited to partner and live with people with mental handicaps, in order to get in touch with the essence of humanness. The commitment of these pairings is intense. Vanier's vision of a healthy group is one with soft borders, that has a shared vision of inclusion rather than exclusion. Healthy group, healthy individuals.

Generational Power

I'm reading Generations by Strauss and Howe. I've known from pop culture and my own struggles that the Boomers have been running the show for a long time. Born in '60, I call myself a tail-end boomer. Like the little sister always lagging behind, I missed out on all the pivotal events that made the boomers what they are. I was seven when Woodstock happened. I've tagged behind the 'boomers in everything else, too. I leapfrogged through my career laterally, as the 'boomers had Management all sewn up. So I had to be flexible, alert for opportunities. It took me twenty years to make it to Management, but I did it. I tell my Millenial generation that their progress will be much, much faster.


So I relate much more to the "thirteeners", or Generation Y, who followed the boomers. Their struggles are my struggles. I was with the Gen Y's when we got tested, and tested, again for our literacy. Our horrified teachers would pull out the dusty grammar books and drag us through the basics over and over again. Unlike my Gen Y counterparts, I had learned to read and write thanks to the British West Indies Reader. I'd started my education in the tropics, where they still believed in old fashioned rote learning. After a week of grinding boredom in Canada, a sympathetic English teacher showed sympathy. She exempted me from the grammar exercises and gave me books from her private collection to write book reports on.


The Gen Y is a cynical generation, reserved, not opening up easily. I don't admit very easily to my own cynicism, probably because I tag it as "realism". It really has been that hard to get ahead. I've been laid off. I applied like a madwoman to get back in. I've pommeled that glass ceiling to no apparent effect. I've felt my whole life that the boomers are running the show, and nobody asked me what I thought.


Which is why this book is such a revelation. The authors point out that the Gen Y's now dominate the culture by population. One can't tell by watching television, as geriatric ads now dominate the air waves. Is it perhaps because the media and entertainment industry has a tough sell to cynics?


So who are we, the Gen Y's? What makes us care? This paragraph from the Generations book really hit home for me, regarding civic mindedness, ..."12 percent of them mentioned voting as an attribute of good citizenship. Then again, 48 percent mentioned personal generosity... When you vote, maybe you waste your time - or, worse, later feel tricked. But when you do something real, like bringing food to the homeless, you do something that matters, if only on a small scale. The president of MIT has likened the 13er civic attitude to that of the Lone Ranger: Do a good deed, leave a silver bullet, and move on."



I'm thinking my plans for middle age and retirement are perfectly suited to that mentality. I don't trust that the institutions I will interact with in a few years are at all prepared to be kind, human. I have the power to make a difference, in my own small way, towards a kinder experience in the queues and lines I will eventually join. I have the time and energy to give myself to a cause, and I can do it quietly without a lot of fanfare.


It's a perfectly fine civic activity to keep me engaged and active for a very long time. I think Gen Y's will make great volunteers in our middle years. Just don't pull any fast ones.

I borrow the picture from Charles Rowland, and his blog, whom I suspect is a fellow-feeling thirteener.

Despondency is a luxury of the rich

Or rather, despondency that leads to inaction is a luxury the poor can't afford. What brought this on was some photo essays from Life magazine. We picked up a discounted copy of their seventieth anniversary edition, and I spent hours absorbing the photographs. Two images are imprinted forever. The first is of a girl lugging twenty-four loaves of bread to the public ovens (page 58). This bread will feed her family for a week.

http://www3.fis.utoronto.ca/research/students/Bhalil/FoodandClothes.htm

The second is a twelve year old boy feeding his baby sister beans and rice, and later lying exhausted on his mat (page 65). He feeds the family while his parents work, and suffers from bronchial asthma and malnutrition. He says, "I am not afraid of death. But what will they do after?"

It is horrifying in our modern society to see such stark examples of poverty and child labor; of life reduced to it's fundamentals. Our world is at a crossroads, facing the consequences of our excess. It may very well be that our children and grandchildren will have to work harder and make do with less. They may never experience the luxuries we take for granted. Will it get so hard as these two examples? I don't think so.

Can we afford to lay down?

Only if we have excess. At our most fundamental, we must get up from our mat and determine a better day. Every day.

Devotion makes me cry

It was a book that brought me to tears. It was the story of a young man who gave his all to good. That will get me every time. The story was from Navy commander Abrashoff and his relationship with the crew of the USS Benfold. He listened to them and helped them do their job better. Along the way, there were stories of nobility. These young men joined the navy to escape or rise from a checquered past. Some chose to make a better way. Like the young man who had spent his childhood bouncing from one foster home to another, who resolved to be a social worker. He would make a difference for the young boys coming after him.

That example of selfless giving always moves me to tears. It speaks to greater values than personal gain. It is still there in our society, maybe not blazing in neon or blaring from our i-pods or speakers, but it is there.

Neighbourliness

I confess, Hubby and I are the nosy neighbours. You know, those very special people who nose in to your lives and somehow know more about you than you do yourself. Neighbours like us are commemorated on screen, like this top twenty-five list of sitcom neighbours. Surely you remember them. There's Frank and Marie, Urkel, and who can forget Kramer?

http://www.ebelog.com/15/sitcom-neighbors/

I figure it's the unique combination of our strengths and neuroses that led us to where we are today. We both love the small town life, but live in the big city. I figured, if the mountain won't come to Mohamed, well.... So I added a few small town habits. We stop and talk to passers-by. I drop off cookies for newcomers, or to commemorate an everyday fence-burning, or maybe just for no reason at all. After all, I love to bake with my granddaughter but I cannot eat. Why not give the love away?

Hubby asks everyone what they are up to, aggressively interested in their day. He's not faking it. He really wants to know. After all, people and their lives are loads more interesting than television. He also has a sharp eye for makes and models of cars. We know, for instance, when our single neighbour has switched boyfriends, by noting the change in make and model of car in her visitor's spot. We figure when our young couple is visiting family out of town, when their spot is vacant for a few days.

Me, I want to extend our social network for our own sake. Since we are in a religiously mixed marriage, it's tough to find couples in our relative congregations who will socialize. So I constantly search out new prospects in our neighbourhood. These extended friendships also help to remind my hubby that regular people, religious or not, are just plain fine folk.

Building our own small town around us has it's perks. We've lent and borrowed sugar. Sympathetic neighbours have pooled their collective intelligence to help us break in to our own home. I've traded perrenials around the complex so I now have a blazing variety of flowers in my garden. We've helped our neighbours apply as foster parents and get their mortgage witnessed, and they've helped us get our passports.

Helping each other fill out those necessary applications have been a wake-up call for the young couples in our neighbourhood. In the busy-ness of building their lives and their little family, they suddenly realize their network of friends is very, very small. What does it say about our modern, isolating lifestyle that the best candidates to vouch for them are the....nosy neighbours?

Something New - Youth Games

A local organization is promoting an "Edmonton Urban Games", possibly for 2010, that will feature at-risk youth participating in hip-hop, beatboxing (what is beatboxing? Oh. It's music. I thought it involved beating on each other) graffiti, and skateboarding.

Here's another great group, working at breaking down the barriers, and re-integrating some of our disenfranchised back in to the community.

The organization is Youth Restorative Action Project (YRAP), and is peer-run. Think about it. Committess of teens telling teens how to straighten out.

I am reading of Mercator, maker of maps

His biography came my way by boredom. I'd bought the most recent Koontz novel and to my deep disappointment, I was finished it in two days. It was a very fine novel. But it did not satisfy over the days.

So I went to the library. One of the books I picked up is "Mercator: The Man Wo Mapped The Planet" by Nicholas Crane.


The book gives a rich description of life and society of the 1500's. The story is extensive, too, because like so few of his time, Mercator lived to be over eighty years old. What strikes me is that a bad winter or a poor harvest could send the people in to a spiral of poverty and starvation so very, very quickly. I am at the part of the story where Mercator is in his fifties. He has just lost a grandson, his daughter, and one of his sons to the plague. His contemporaries are passing from kidney stones, an accidental splinter of jousting pole to the brain, gout, stroke, and heart attack. Familiar to our times, the series of disasters and political events have many convinced that armageddon is at hand. All the signs are abundant.

So, as my earlier readings of medieval times have led me, people are no different today. We react the same way to dire events. There is love, dignity, fear, and prejudice in abundance.

What is different today is the strength of our administration, civilization, health care, and the devising of social safety nets. Can you imagine today, when a financial crisis looms, that we be faced with lines of migrants leaving our city, emaciated, munching on grasses and barks to stave off death?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51f9uEYGeKw

Not that we take the needs of the poor for granted. Oh, no. But we have come a long way. There are ways to prepare for social crises. We've learned something from our histories. Like Joseph of old, our leaders should store up during the seven fat years of abundance, for what may lay ahead.

It just makes the world a little less cruel...

The chicadees were waiting for me this morning. They were close enough for me to see their plump grey forms hopping up the bush. It pays to be reliable, especially when little creatures are depending on you.

I got a follow-up e-mail from someone else interested in Homeless Connect, and she twigged me to a YouTube clip on the San Franciso campaign. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1-K0-GC7jM It looks as wonderful as it sounds. The line that really stood out for me on the video was from a volunteer who said, "It just makes the world a little less cruel." Another volunteer noted that these are the same people we pass on the street every day without acknowledging, yet in the connect atmosphere they are "just like everyone else." Isn't that what it is all about, to bring humanity in to every interaction?

On a separate note, I just finished another delightful novel from Alexander McCall Smith. He's the only author whose books I can't wait to come to paperback. I'm beginning to collect an impressive series of hard bound books about the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency", set in Botswana. But this man does a lot more than write delightful detective novels. He is also an expert in the field of bioethics, serving on many national and international bodies. A BBC biography writes of McCall Smith, "If his day job presents its own philosophical complexities and dilemmas, McCall Smith's writing offers an escape to a place that celebrates moral certainty, warmth and compassion. The author considers it "legitimate to write about virtue" and The Detective Agency series, in particular, shows "qualities that are found all over Botswana. People don't go in for distance and insincerity"."

Legitimate to write about virtue. What a delightful turn of phrase. Is it not also legitimate to campaign for virtue and decency, even in a jaded world?

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Update from Elise, on Facebook: "Anyways, I heard really good things from my co-workers about that event (Homeless Connect). They all thought it was very successful. The event expected 1000 people but over 1500 showed up! "

A Tipping Point to Peace

On September 24, the Edmonton Journal told a good-news story of city counsellor who helped turn around escalating teen violence in the community of Mill Woods, "Road to justice in Mill Woods takes a splendid turn". City counsellor Amarjeet Sohi brought together the parents and the police to talk and come up with solutions. Most impressive is how the escalating violence has been brought to an abrupt end, and struggling parents were brought together for assistance and mutual help.

I think this is an impressive example of, not only of great leadership on the part of Counsellor Sohi, but of the principles of the tipping point as described in Gladwell's book. Not only was an epidemic of violence stopped in it's tracks, but a new positive epidemic of support and helps was generated for a community.

I think the incident also points out that we can't objectify violent teens as a problem of "those people". The problem could erupt anywhere, in our own households, if the conditions are there. Parents everywhere take note, and get help if you need it.

We mustn't justify violence as a natural progression in a growing, struggling city. Find the root of the problem and be as bold as Sohi to take action.

Civilization

Civilization, decency is fragile. It requires each of us to be alert, diligent to keep our humanness.

That's my conclusion after thinking deeply on Romeo Dallaire's message when he came to talk to us all (on June 20, 2008?). Here's another book for me to try,

"James Orbinski's An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-First Century. Orbinski, the Canadian physician who served for more than a decade with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), took his darkest journey into the abyss of human suffering during the Rwandan genocide, when hundreds of victims overwhelmed his Kigali clinic. It was there, as he desperately sought to staunch the wounds of a woman raped and then mutilated in the most unspeakable fashion, that he came closest to despair. It was this patient who, holding his arm, said "ummera - sha" -- "courage, my friend" -- and sent him on to help other patients while she awaited death. Her quiet, selfless compassion guided him through many more horrific experiences." - Salt Spring News http://www.saltspringnews.com/index.php?name=News&catid=&topic=6&allstories=1