Cartoon: Right, Moral, Ethical… vs Legal

by Antonio C.S. Rosa

Rule of law? What law?

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 6 Jul 2020.

Antonio Carlos da Silva Rosa (Antonio C. S. Rosa), born 1946, is founder-editor of the pioneering Peace Journalism website, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS (from 2008), an assistant to Prof. Johan Galtung, Secretary of the International Board of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, and recipient of the Psychologists for Social Responsibility’s 2017 Anthony J. Marsella Prize for the Psychology of Peace and Social Justice. He is on the Global Advisory Board of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies and completed his B.A., M.A., and graduate Ph.D. work in the fields of Communication-Journalism and Political Science-Peace Studies/International Relations at the University of Hawai’i. Originally from Brazil, he lives presently in Porto, Portugal. Antonio was educated in the USA where he lived for 20 years; in Europe-India since 1994. Books: Transcender e Transformar: Uma Introdução ao Trabalho de Conflitos (from Johan Galtung, translation to Portuguese, 2004); Peace Journalism: 80 Galtung Editorials on War and Peace (2010, editor); Cobertura de Conflitos: Jornalismo para a Paz (from Johan Galtung, Jake Lynch & Annabel McGoldrick, translation to Portuguese, 2010).

I will not become what was done to me… Part 2, My Path to Peace and Social Justice Activism

by Rev. Dr. Doe West

About a year after being forced out into a “normal” life that was terrifying, and being forced to learn that my life was not the life of all little girls, that something was terribly wrong with my mother, my life, and so, clearly, with me, I had what I call my “Habakkuk Moment.”

Habakkuk was a minor prophet in the Judeo-Christian Old Testament (a book I had never read). In it, he is brought to such immense anger over injustice that he raises a fist to God!

As I did. To the dark sky in the midst of another terror-driven night, I shook my fist and pressed my heart against the window screen and silently cried out “If you are REAL, if you are this God I am hearing about now, WHY!? Why would you create ME? Specifically ME? And have me live THIS LIFE!? WHY????

I stood and shook my fist and then my whole body as I convulsed into sobs.
Each night for seven nights.
I awoke the 8th morning with what I later termed “the peace that passes all understanding,” and that was the understanding that a creator existed.

My next life shift came when my Native American grandmother took me aside and told me the time had come for me to learn who I truly was. Specifically, I was of The People. I had not known anything about this heritage, this beautiful heritage.

Over the next 5 years, Gra taught me that heritage, and trained me as a “Wise Woman” as part of my lineage. She shared with me how when she was 8, she was orphaned and missionaries took her from the tribal community and placed her as a kitchen slave in a white woman’s home in the Hudson Valley in NY. Thus, we had kinship in a heritage of captivity as well as in understanding the critical role of our own response to it.

Nothing was within normal limits for many more years. I was found to have an IQ that startled our small-town village. In an era without gifted child options, I was “placed” in the library–denied basic education but given the freedom to read every book in that building and forge a lifelong love affair with knowledge! But I also became known as the “Library Gnome,” someone different, again isolated and living a life with the potential for self-hatred, shame, and fear. I chose to focus on the pursuit of knowledge and did research on my own beliefs and those of society around me.

When I finally skipped a grade for the 3rd time, and worked it out with the school system to show up for two classes a day before work, they got state aid and I got a diploma. I had worked full time since I was 13 but now had working papers and could do a regular job outside the village rather than under the table.

I worked three or more jobs to help support my family and pay my own bills and begin saving for college. I knew college was my huge wall to climb over or tunnel under to achieve my own essential form of freedom.

Then the adventure REALLY began… but I will leave that part for later, in simple yet profound celebration of life lessons and mantras that sustain, and lights that shine in the darkness.

Watch for our enemies (We are they.)

Protest at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Terminal 4, in New York City, against Donald Trump’s executive order signed in January 2017 banning citizens of seven countries from traveling to the United States (the executive order is also known as “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States”). January 28, 2017. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Rhododendrites.

Note from Kathie: Wherever possible, we attempt on this blog to provide psychological perspectives on violence and nonviolence.  Today, we share this slightly condensed Open Letter from Canadian Psychologists regarding Donald Trump’s travel ban.

“We as Canadian professors of psychology and practitioners condemn the executive order signed on January 27, 2017, to ban people from specific countries from entering the U.S. We also condemn the right wing rhetoric, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, and xenophobic actions that are dominating political discourse in the U.S. and some European countries.

[We] believe that the following principles have been well-established:

1. When people feel secure and accepted in their society, they will tend to be open, tolerant and inclusive with respect to others. Conversely, when people are discriminated against, they are likely to respond with negative attitudes and hostility towards those who undermine their right. Rejection breeds rejection; acceptance breeds acceptance.

2.  When individuals of different cultural backgrounds have opportunities to interact with each other on a level playing field, such equal status contacts usually lead to greater mutual understanding and acceptance. Creating barriers between groups and individuals reinforces ignorance, and leads to mistrust and hostility.

3.  When individuals have opportunities to endorse many social identities, and to be accepted in many social groups, they usually have greater levels of personal and social wellbeing. Individuals who are denied acceptance within many social groups usually suffer poorer personal and collective well-being.

In addition to supporting these three principles, we note the following:

A. Global humanitarian crises do not happen overnight. Such chaos begins in small steps, which may appear benign, somewhat acceptable and even justifiable under given conditions. The world witnessed too many humanitarian crises during the last century.

Not speaking out against such events right at the outset contributed to the escalation of evil and its dire consequences. The current immigration ban applied to seven predominantly Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen) may not be felt by majority of Canadians. However, it can contribute to the escalation of the unfair treatment of a wide range of groups.

B. Studies show that blatant “us vs. them” categorizations contribute to prejudice, discrimination, group polarization and intergroup antipathy. We argue that it is in no one’s interest to narrow the membership of “us” (e.g., Canadian, American, or European) and to widen the membership of “them” (e.g., Muslim, Mexican, members of the LGBT, feminist, and refugee communities). Such polarization leads to fear, rejection, and discrimination, with the negative consequences noted in the three principles described above.”

Signed: John Berry, Ph.D., Queen’s University; Gira Bhatt, Ph.D., Kwantlen Polytechnic University; Yvonne Bohr, Ph.D., C.Psych. York University; Richard Bourhis, Ph.D. Université du Québec à Montréal; Keith S. Dobson, Ph.D., R. Psych., University of Calgary; Janel Gauthier, Ph.D., Université Laval; Jeanne M. LeBlanc, Ph.D., ABPP, R. Psych.; Kimberly Noels, PhD. University of Alberta; Saba Safdar, Ph.D., University of Guelph; Marta Young, Ph.D., University of Ottawa; Jeanne M. LeBlanc, Ph.D., ABPP, R. Psych.

If he were alive….

Inscription on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, commemorating the location from which Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington on 1963-08-28. Available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

If he were alive.  If he had not been struck down by an assassin’s bullet.  If he had not embraced the mantle of peace and social justice in a country where murderers abound, and where their targets are frequently people of color, crusaders for social justice, gun control advocates, and proponents of nonviolence.

If he were still alive, he would probably weep at the slow hamstringing of progress towards the goals for which he fought. Yet, if he were still alive, I know we would see him continuing his struggle to make the US a better place–a struggle in which we should all participate.

Monday is his day, and in his honor I am posting another excerpt from the essay Building a Racially Just Society by Roy Eidelson, Mikhail Lyubansky, and yours truly. Let’s keep his beacon burning.

“Psychology plays an important role in the social forces perpetuating individual and institutional racism. Because of the link between race and class, the psychological mechanisms that perpetuate class injustices also tend to perpetuate racial injustices. The widespread preference to see the world as just, for instance, leads people to… blame those who struggle with socioeconomic disadvantages – disproportionately people of color in the U.S. – for their own plight. This perception then dampens the popular will to support a role for elected governments in setting reasonable minimum standards of economic rights, fostering a political culture that greatly harms working families of all races.

Other psychological mechanisms relatively independent of class also reinforce racist attitudes and actions. Negative cultural stereotypes of African Americans are pervasive and entrenched, in part because of a psychological inclination to unconsciously legitimize status quo disparities….

These biases not only serve as the foundation for intentional expressions of prejudice and racial violence but also for unintended yet harmful micro-aggressions, which often cast African Americans as deserving of fear, distrust, and disrespect. Too often, inaccurate and biased news reports and media portrayals further serve to reinforce perceived differences of the racial “other.” At the same time, stresses associated with disproportionate suffering from class injustices, with being treated as “second-class” citizens, and with being targets of discrimination increase the likelihood of negative physical and psychological health outcomes for African American children and adults.”

If you have not read the entire essay yet, indulge yourself soon.