In celebration of Black History Month, this post honors Alicia Garza (included in EP’s second list of 100 peace and justice advocates), a model of the characteristics that define peace activists.
Nonviolence: Alicia’s main goal is the elimination of violence, particularly the forms of structural violence that are the source of most other forms of violence. She notes, for example, “The fact that we have half-a-million black immigrants living in this country, living in the shadows, who are undocumented, is a product of state violence. The fact that black queer and trans folk… are being targeted for various forms of harassment, violence, and in some cases, elimination, is state violence.”
Inspiration: Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman on murder charges for killing Trayvon Martin, Alicia declared a truth that had never occurred to many colorless people: “Black Lives Matter.” The movement that grew out of that declaration has inspired activists around the world to confront a wide range of social problems.
Tolerating struggle: Alicia has devoted herself to the movement tirelessly. “If I’m clear about anything today…[it] is that we are really in for an uphill battle…This country in particular is having a very, very difficult time with addressing the root causes of the problems that we face and until we actually get to that point, unfortunately I do believe we’re going to have a lot more chaos and confusion.”
Empathy and compassion: Alicia tells us: “[to several deadly police shootings] is one of complete dismay and disgust. My prayers go out to their families and loved ones, who are having to watch the death of their loved one over and over again on multiple news stations.” Her deeds prove her words.
Courage: It takes courage to combat racism in a racist society—especially perhaps for a woman of color—and courage to declare oneself gay, and to be openly committed to a trans partner. Alicia has done all these things.
Purpose-driven life: “That really is our work – to make sure that the movement is everywhere … in hospitals and healthcare, in schools, in our workplaces, in our churches,” she says. “That’s what’s going to really accelerate the pace of the change that we seek.”
The cause I am advocating is grassroots reparations. By grassroots reparations, I mean a kind of solidarity work that combines direct aid with truth-telling — replacing a warrior ethos with a rhetoric of responsibility and reconciliation.
In practice, grassroots reparations means reaching out to the communities that we helped hurt, making good on our moral debt to them by mobilizing resources under their leadership. At the level of discourse, a reparative framework means that we need to bring an awareness of our moral agency and responsibilities to our thinking and speaking. It means not only interrogating our individual roles in military violence, but also dismantling the mythologies and secrecies that have obscured the real impact of our actions, either by concealing or valorizing them. This means providing our victims with a platform to speak, while undermining the privilege of our own voices.
Grassroots reparations won’t replace the need for protest or marches. But I do believe that a reparative framework lends a lot of moral clarity to the veteran relationship with the antiwar movement.
Now let me address some potential objections:
1) Veterans are very often used as war propaganda. So why shouldn’t the antiwar movement highlight the voices of antiwar veterans to subvert these appeals? It’s akin to dismantling the master’s house with the master’s tools.
I think it would be unsatisfactory for white allies to try to support Black Lives Matter in a way that does not also undermine their own privileged position in society. I think the same logic applies with veterans.
2) We need to prioritize ending wars over repairing their damage, so our focus should be on crafting slogans, arguments, and narratives for a domestic audience.
Historically, we haven’t been very successful at preventing or ending wars, and I don’t feel good about asking our war victims to wait for us to achieve our long-term political goals before we start addressing their needs. Fortunately, I don’t think we have to choose only one or the other. I think of grassroots reparations as just another kind of direct action. If we build compelling and informative media campaigns to accompany our reparations projects, this kind of work can have an important domestic impact and supplement the broader antiwar movement.
3) Grassroots reparations work only by mobilizing guilt. We should not let the state off the hook, and we must keep working for state reparations.
I think there’s a big difference between mobilizing guilt and cultivating a culture of responsibility, and I’m trying to do the latter. I think we should be vigilant about how the way we live affects others and do what we can to repair the harm we cause. And I don’t think this lessens the importance of state reparations, or precludes us from working for both.
In response to my last post, “Getting to Good“, several engaging peace readers sent photos of signs displayed at the counter-rally on Boston Commons last Saturday, when members of a number of social justice groups faced off against the group rallying on behalf of “free speech.” This rally and counter-rally were responses to the August 12 violence at a White Nationalist rally in Charlottesville, VA.
Consider the signs in these photos. To what extent do you think they can be effective if their goal is to promote nonviolent anti-racist activism? Are some better than others? Which ones? Why? Have you seen anti-racism signs that you think are more effective than these might be?
To me, these signs serve their purpose more effectively than other banners I saw full of curses. I am definitely not convinced that blazoning the F word on an anti-anything placard helps any cause .
Moreover, when the cause is one in which I believe, like the fight against racism (or environmental devastation or hunger), it distresses me that the advocates for these causes cannot conceive of a more civil manner to promote their goals. Where is the evidence that expletives resolve conflicts?
And are the bearers of hateful anti-racism placards really supporters of equal rights, social justice, and peace, or are they mostly trouble-makers, spoilers, infiltrators?
Again, I would love to have you submit your views on these questions. Thank you.
In my previous post, I noted that in my research as a psychologist, I’ve found that the psychological appeals used by people eager to maintain or extend their extraordinary wealth and power tend to target five key concerns in our daily lives: issues of vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness. In this current post, I provide specific examples of how Donald Trump manipulated these concerns in his campaign for President.
Vulnerability: Are We Safe?
When our security is in jeopardy, nothing else matters as much. The mere prospect of danger on the horizon can quickly consume all of our energy and focus. That’s why ensuring the safety of people we care about is such a powerful factor in determining the policies we support and oppose. Unfortunately, however, we’re not particularly good at accurately judging peril. As a result, we’re susceptible to manipulation by those who misrepresent dangers in order to advance their own agenda.
On the campaign trail, Trump consistently fed our worries about vulnerability. Describing himself as “the law and order candidate,” he warned that “our very way of life” was at risk, and assured us that only he could protect us from a wide range of purportedly catastrophic threats. Promising to build a “great wall” along our border with Mexico, he falsely claimed, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” With similar over-the-top rhetoric, he railed against bringing Syrian refugees to the U.S. as “a personal invitation to ISIS members to come live here and try to destroy our country from within.” Trump also exploited fears in a different way: by issuing disturbing threats of his own. For example, responding to a protester at a rally, he told the crowd, “You know what they used to do to a guy like that in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.” He also had a warning for media representatives who criticized him: “We’re going to open up libel laws, and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.”
Injustice: Are We Treated Fairly?
From everyday slights to profound abuses, the recognition of injustice can be a powerful force for change. When we’re aware of mistreatment, it often stirs outrage and a desire to correct wrongs and bring accountability to those we hold responsible. But our perceptions of injustice are imperfect and uncertain. This fallibility can make us easy targets for those with a self-serving interest in shaping our views of right and wrong and misleading us about victims and perpetrators.
Throughout his campaign for the White House, Trump portrayed his candidacy and platform as an effort to address wrongdoing on multiple fronts. When announcing his run, he lamented, “The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems.” Months later in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, he feigned common cause with “the forgotten men and women of our country,” promising “to fix the system so it works justly for each and every American.” At the same time, Trump was quick to cast himself as an aggrieved victim of injustice as well. For example, prior to his victory he repeatedly claimed that the election was rigged against him (“They even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths…voter fraud is very, very common.”). And on several occasions he insisted that he was being mistreated by the media (“I get very, very unfair press having to do with women and many other things.”).
Distrust: Who Should We Trust?
We tend to divide the world into people and groups we deem trustworthy and others we don’t. Unfortunately, the judgments we make can be flawed and imprecise. Sometimes these errors create unwarranted barriers of distrust that interfere with the building of coalitions and working together toward mutually beneficial goals. Those who have a vested interest in preventing such collaborative efforts often manipulate our suspicions in order to promote their own agenda.
Trump routinely characterized his political opponents as untrustworthy. For example, he referred to Ted Cruz as “Lyin’ Ted” and to Hillary Clinton as “Crooked Hillary.” He also cast doubt on the integrity of his media critics, arguing, “They are horrible human beings, they are dishonest. I’ve seen these so-called journalists flat-out lie.” Trump encouraged the public’s distrust of specific marginalized groups as well. He described the Black Lives Matter movement as “looking for trouble,” and placed American Muslims under a cloud of suspicion, expressing potential support for special identification cards and a registry database. Meanwhile, Trump presented himself as the only reliable truth-teller, one who shunned the deceptions of political correctness. When he accepted the Republican nomination in July, he told the attendees, “Here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.”
Superiority: Are We Good Enough?
The positive and negative judgments we form about ourselves are often based on comparisons with others. The yardstick can be nearly anything: for example, our intelligence, attractiveness, professional success, community stature, or moral values. To reinforce our positive self-appraisals, we sometimes focus attention on the very worst characteristics of other people or groups. Not surprisingly, our self-evaluations are prime targets for manipulative appeals by those eager to turn our hopes and insecurities to their own advantage.
With his “Make America Great Again” campaign Trump aimed to instill a sense of pride and superiority in his supporters. In part, he lifted them up by viciously belittling his adversaries, describing them as “disgusting,” “total failures,” “idiots,” and “losers.” Likewise, he claimed that current leaders had failed the American people and the U.S. flag that proudly represents “equality, hope, and fairness…great courage and sacrifice.” For example, Trump complained that Americans “have lived through one international humiliation after another” and that “everyone is eating our lunch.” At the same time, he presented himself as a savior who would make sure the country and its citizens regained the stature they had lost. He claimed that his own accomplishments surpassed those of everyone else, boasting in one interview, “I’m the most successful person ever to run for the presidency, by far.” Trump also repeatedly insisted that his name — and everything he does — is synonymous with top quality, on one occasion explaining, “Nobody can build a wall like me.”
Helplessness: Can We Control What Happens to Us?
Control over what happens in our lives is very important to us, and we therefore resist feelings of helplessness. But if we nonetheless come to believe that our efforts are futile, eventually we stop trying. This is true for individuals and groups alike. That’s why a sense of collective helplessness is such a serious obstacle to effective political mobilization. Manipulating our perceptions of what’s possible and what’s not is a common strategy for those seeking to advance their own interests.
Throughout his campaign, Trump extolled his capability, his expertise, and his doggedness regardless of the odds against him. He told one interviewer, “My life has been about winning.” In his acceptance speech he denounced “the system” and claimed, “I alone can fix it”; he concluded with “I’m with you, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you.” Memorably, he also told a crowd in Washington, “We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning.” Trump contrasted this purported track record of consistent success with the helplessness Americans would experience if his opponents prevailed. He warned of “uncontrolled immigration,” “mass lawlessness,” and “overwhelm[ed]…schools and hospitals;” and he described prospects for immigrants to join the middle class as “almost impossible.” On Twitter, Trump claimed, “Crime is out of control, and rapidly getting worse.” And he cautioned that efforts aimed at reforming gun laws would make Americans helpless to protect themselves: “You take the guns away from the good people, and the bad ones are going to have target practice.”
In my final post for this series, I will provide suggestions as to how concerned Americans should respond to the threats implicit in Trump’s mind games. We are not helpless.
Originally published in Counterpunch, December 22, 2016. Reprinted with permission.
Roy Eidelsonis a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, former executive director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Roy can be reached by email at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com and on Twitter @royeidelson.