Peter Greene on Frederick Douglass and “No Excuses”

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1. Dienne says:

   September 14, 2014 at 1:00 pm

   “This was one of Douglass’s genius insights– slavery and the treatment of people as being Less Than was not only bad for the people so treated, but also bad for those who deliver the treatment. Mrs. Auld had to become less human, less decent, less Christian, in order to treat her slaves as less worthy, just plain less than.”

   This is so crucial, but so difficult to make people understand. American culture especially is so rooted in dominance and violence that it’s hard to get people to understand how that’s harmful to all – dominator and dominated. It’s like trying to convince people who were spanked as kids why spanking is bad – some get it instinctively, but many deny the effects and prefer to believe that what happened to them was somehow “good” for them, so it must be good for their child too. People tend to conflate fear with respect and fail to see the harm the former does to both the giver and receiver of fear.

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2. KrazyTA says:

   September 14, 2014 at 8:47 pm

   Dienne: your last sentence reminds me of how I once was able to get through to a HS student by explaining the difference between the fear he felt towards the [genuine] gang bangers in his neighborhood and the feelings that prompted him to have an image of Saint Mary around his neck.

   I wish I could claim some moment of genius, but I was grasping at straws, trying to find some way to get him to realize that he (like so many others) was using one word to describe two totally different things.

   In brief, it went something like this. Somehow during a few minutes of school time we were engaged in a genuine person-to-person connection & dialogue; I realized that he seemed to be at some critical point in his life. So I asked him what he felt and thought when the hard core gang members in his neighborhood were walking down the sidewalk towards him. He quite naturally and directly answered that he got out of their way, stepped off the sidewalk to let them pass by. I asked why. Because, he told me, he “respected” them and knew that if he didn’t get out of their way he would get a beat down. Everybody knew that’s what gangsters do when they’re “disrespected.”

   Then I asked him why he wore a quite prominent image of Saint Mary around his neck. Because he respected her, he replied. And why? Basically, his answer was that she was a mother that loved and stood up for her only son.

   So I then tried to put what he said into context. Query: when he’s walking down the sidewalk all by himself with nobody else around, does he think about the local thugs and how he has to “respect” them and get off into the street, even if it’s wet and dirty? Of course, he thought that was a bit silly and said of course not. Then I reminded him: have you ever met Saint Mary? Would she make you get off a sidewalk? He laughed a bit, in a respectful way, and said of course not. Yet, I reminded him, she’s been dead for two thousand years and you genuinely respect her even though you’re not worried in the least if she can kick your ass and make you suffer.

   And that, I said, is the difference between fear and respect: the instant those that make you fear aren’t around to compel your “respect” you have none for them, while someone who is a symbol of loving decency commands your highest regard in spite of the fact that she is not there in person and even if she were, she would do you no harm, just appeal to the best in you.

   For a moment he just stood there thinking hard. Then he—not I—extended his hand and gave me a very firm and prolonged handshake and said thank you.

   Thank you for your excellent comments and for reminding me of this.

   😎

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3. Joe Nathan says:

   September 14, 2014 at 9:45 pm

   Having visited a number of KIPP and Yes Prep schools, I couldn’t disagree more with this analysis. Many of these schools have music and art programs. They encourage students to think for themselves. They have sports and other extra curricular programs.

   We have not seen all of the same programs – but I don’t recognize any of the more than 20 KIPP schools I’ve seen in these descriptions.

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