January 13, 2021
Racism, Selfishness, and the Crisis of American Democracy
Eddie Glaude
Chair, Dept. of African American Studies,
Professor of Religion, Princeton University
Henry Von Kohorn, Introducer, and Eddie Glaude
Minutes of the 15th Meeting of the 79th Year
President Stephen Schreiber called the meeting to order at 10:15 AM. Martin Schneiderman read the minutes of the previous meeting. One hundred eighty-eight attended the meeting. The following guests were present: Nancy Kieling, guest of Sandy Shapiro; Sally Maruca, guest of Marcia Snowden; Dave Mc Millan, Norm Tabler, and Pat Irvin, guests of Henry von Kohorn; Bryan Bentz, guest of Jock Mc Farlane; Denyse Leslie, guest of John Kelsey; Nora Koblarz, Trish Scalese, Camille Sinclair, Bonnie Likely, Joanne Hughes, Patti Maslanka, Janine Lacava, Eileen Fraker, Eileen Gibbons, Melissa Molnar, Erin Dolan (members of the Catholic Community of St.Charles Borromeo Church, Montgomery Township), guests of Marge D’Amico. A moment of silence was observed in memory of Emeritus Member Sybil Stokes.
Henry von Kohorn introduced our speaker, Eddie Glaude. Prof Glaude called on us to recognize that this country is facing a moral reckoning. We Americans live by a lie about our very nature: a lie about America that protects us from who we are and what we have done; a lie that penetrates even our private and secret moments.
We must confront the ugliness of who we are. The standards, practices and institutions that support our democracy are collapsing. Our social and political differences have turned into political enmities so virulent that it seems legitimate for white rioters to sack the House of the people. The time has come to question all that this nation holds sacred; it is time to grow up.
Now, even the American idea is in trouble. We need to tell ourselves a different story about who we are. We need a new social and moral contract announcing our obligation to one another: our values as a democratic society. We need to insist everyone gets quality healthcare, quality of life, housing, decent wage, enough food, safety and security of every individual and community.
This moral reckoning will be all the more difficult because we have turned into a nation of lies. Over 74 million Americans voted for Trump, many of whom still believe that he won the recent presidential election. The same lie fuels the widespread distrust of the police and of the military, some of whom were in the crowd storming the Capitol to prevent the perceived illegitimate President-elect from assuming office on the 20th of January.
Professor Glaude stated that our moral crisis stems from the widespread and deeply held conviction that white lives matter more than Black lives. Even law and order, and the very notion of law enforcement, becomes a fiction, given the killing of unarmed Blacks by vigilantes or the police. That Joshua Blake could be shot seven times in the back in front of his children gives lethal force to that lie, as do all those Blacks whose deaths have added moral and existential urgency to the American crisis.
The lie that white lives matter more than Black lives is one reason why Blacks are more likely than whites to have chronic illnesses or developmental disorders, trouble finding and keeping a job, or getting access to a good education, just as it helps in explaining why Blacks are more likely than whites to get sick and to die of the Covid-19 virus.
Professor Glaude made it clear that this is a terrible, challenging time for a moral reckoning, but that reckoning will not go forward until we confront yet another lie: that we “are not like that”; not like the rioters who seized the Capitol on January 6; not like the seditionists carrying Confederate flags into the Capitol and seeking to assassinate the vice president and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
It is imperative, however difficult, for Americans to know who we are together, because of the overwhelming fact of death. Professor Glaude compared the present to the Civil War, when, for decades afterward, the nation was haunted by the dead. There has been no collective expression of our sorrow over the hundreds of thousands who have died from the Covid-19 virus, nor will there be so long as death remains hidden or a private affair. We have been left to die and to grieve alone.
Who do we take ourselves to be? It is also hard for Americans to address that question because the fabric of community and associational life has long worn thin, only to be frayed even further by the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been what Professor Glaude called a pandemic of selfishness choking life from our polity: government becoming merely a tyranny keeping us apart and making us wear masks.
In the discussion period, when asked how this country could heal itself, Professor Gaude said that, although he did not know, he adopts James Baldwin’s understanding of “We”: we Americans, we humans. When a white student told him that he had concluded that his white identity does not matter, Professor Glaude responded by saying, “But you do matter.” Above all, Professor Glaude reminded us, it is time that “We” encourage and enable our children to dream dreams, big dreams, of who we are and can be, together.
Respectfully,
Richard Fenn
Henry von Kohorn introduced our speaker, Eddie Glaude. Prof Glaude called on us to recognize that this country is facing a moral reckoning. We Americans live by a lie about our very nature: a lie about America that protects us from who we are and what we have done; a lie that penetrates even our private and secret moments.
We must confront the ugliness of who we are. The standards, practices and institutions that support our democracy are collapsing. Our social and political differences have turned into political enmities so virulent that it seems legitimate for white rioters to sack the House of the people. The time has come to question all that this nation holds sacred; it is time to grow up.
Now, even the American idea is in trouble. We need to tell ourselves a different story about who we are. We need a new social and moral contract announcing our obligation to one another: our values as a democratic society. We need to insist everyone gets quality healthcare, quality of life, housing, decent wage, enough food, safety and security of every individual and community.
This moral reckoning will be all the more difficult because we have turned into a nation of lies. Over 74 million Americans voted for Trump, many of whom still believe that he won the recent presidential election. The same lie fuels the widespread distrust of the police and of the military, some of whom were in the crowd storming the Capitol to prevent the perceived illegitimate President-elect from assuming office on the 20th of January.
Professor Glaude stated that our moral crisis stems from the widespread and deeply held conviction that white lives matter more than Black lives. Even law and order, and the very notion of law enforcement, becomes a fiction, given the killing of unarmed Blacks by vigilantes or the police. That Joshua Blake could be shot seven times in the back in front of his children gives lethal force to that lie, as do all those Blacks whose deaths have added moral and existential urgency to the American crisis.
The lie that white lives matter more than Black lives is one reason why Blacks are more likely than whites to have chronic illnesses or developmental disorders, trouble finding and keeping a job, or getting access to a good education, just as it helps in explaining why Blacks are more likely than whites to get sick and to die of the Covid-19 virus.
Professor Glaude made it clear that this is a terrible, challenging time for a moral reckoning, but that reckoning will not go forward until we confront yet another lie: that we “are not like that”; not like the rioters who seized the Capitol on January 6; not like the seditionists carrying Confederate flags into the Capitol and seeking to assassinate the vice president and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
It is imperative, however difficult, for Americans to know who we are together, because of the overwhelming fact of death. Professor Glaude compared the present to the Civil War, when, for decades afterward, the nation was haunted by the dead. There has been no collective expression of our sorrow over the hundreds of thousands who have died from the Covid-19 virus, nor will there be so long as death remains hidden or a private affair. We have been left to die and to grieve alone.
Who do we take ourselves to be? It is also hard for Americans to address that question because the fabric of community and associational life has long worn thin, only to be frayed even further by the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been what Professor Glaude called a pandemic of selfishness choking life from our polity: government becoming merely a tyranny keeping us apart and making us wear masks.
In the discussion period, when asked how this country could heal itself, Professor Gaude said that, although he did not know, he adopts James Baldwin’s understanding of “We”: we Americans, we humans. When a white student told him that he had concluded that his white identity does not matter, Professor Glaude responded by saying, “But you do matter.” Above all, Professor Glaude reminded us, it is time that “We” encourage and enable our children to dream dreams, big dreams, of who we are and can be, together.
Respectfully,
Richard Fenn