THE
EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
By
Barry D. Friedman
Copyright
© 1995-2003 by Barry D. Friedman
During his relatively brief lifetime, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
espoused values based on valuing a human being not based on the color of his or
her skin but on the quality of his or her character.
The experience of this country's black population is an extraordinary
one, and cannot possibly be equated with the experience of any other population. However, the persistent discrimination of black Americans
does present some analogies to discrimination of other groups in this country.
These analogies are worth studying and deserve reflection, on this day
and every day, if not only to understand the amazing experience of the black
community then also to understand ourselves individually and the psychological
stimuli that sometimes motivate us to do less than rational things.
You are probably well aware of the fact that many of the first white
European settlers in North America came because they could not enjoy religious
freedom in their native lands. In
1620, a group of Puritan Separatists--whom we remember as the Pilgrims--drew up
the Mayflower Compact as they arrived in Cape Cod Harbor at Plymouth, Mass.
In May 1631, they set up the General Court.
They restricted the right to vote to members of the approved church.
"It is ordered and agreed, that, for the time to come, no man shall
be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some
of the Churches within the limits of the same."
The General Court prohibited preaching in an unapproved church.
"It is the duty of the Christian magistrate to take care that his
people be fed with wholesome and sound doctrine."
The violation of the 1697 "Blasphemy and Atheism" law might
lead to imprisonment for six months, the pillory, boring the tongue with a hot
iron, and sitting on the gallows with a rope around one's neck.
The Rev. Nathaniel Ward (1578-1652) spoke for most Puritans when he
wrote: "I dare take upon me,
to be the Herald of New England so far, as to proclaim to the world, in the name
of our Colony, that all Familists, Antinomians, Anabaptists, and other
Enthusiasts, shall have free Liberty to keep away from us, and such as will come
to be gone as fast as they can, the sooner the better."
Roman Catholics were not allowed to settle in Plymouth Colony; a special
law enacted in 1647 ordered that Jesuits entering the colony should be banished,
and put to death if they returned. This
law was applied as late as 1700. Four
Quakers in Massachusetts were hanged from 1659 to 1661 for refusing to remain in
exile. The Quakers found refuge in
Rhode Island, founded by the Rev. Roger Williams, a Puritan minister who was
himself exiled from Plymouth because of his political dissent.
Roman Catholics were excluded from the Colony of Georgia for fear that
they would spy for the French in Louisiana and for the Spanish in Florida.
The first Roman Catholics to be admitted were Irish Redemptionists who
had pledged service for passage to the New World.
In many states, Jews could not vote or hold office or both.
So it was for nationalities who came here and suffered abuse.
Americans of Italian and Irish descent, for example, will describe to you
the ridicule and abuse that their grandparents endured as immigrants in this
country. Virtually every
nationality represented in our population can do the same.
There are few things that are more frustrating to me than people who
can't learn from their own experiences. If
indeed, you, or your father or mother, or your grandmother or grandfather, fled
a society because it deprived you of religious freedom, should it not be obvious
to you that you should not deprive others of religious freedom?
What is it about the human intellect that quickly understands the need to
escape from oppression, but is slow to understand the obligation not to oppress
others?
Reflect for a few moments on the experience of a section of the
population in this country that has had a difficult experience here.
I refer to women. This is a
segment of the population that had infiltrated virtually every home in this
country, and thus lived with those who made the policies that oppressed them.
Women could not own property in this country for much of its history.
Why? Because the women were
considered the property of the men. Georgia
was the first state to extend full property rights to married women in 1866.
Women were prohibited from entering many professions; the first woman
allowed to practice law in the Georgia courts did so in 1915.
Women couldn't vote in any state until Wyoming, which allowed
women to vote, was admitted to statehood in 1890.
Back in the 1950s, a movie called "Kisses for My President,"
was made. I used to see it on
television when I was a teen-ager. You
don't see it on television any more. If
the television stations televised it, there would be a lot of anger.
In this movie, Polly Bergen portrayed a politician who becomes the
country's first female president. Her
husband, portrayed by Fred MacMurray (of "My Three Sons" fame), thus
becomes the country's first male First Lady.
And so, MacMurray is brought to afternoon teas and garden-club meetings.
His bed has a frilly canopy above it.
Predictably, he feels that he is becoming effeminate, and chafes from
this feeling of weakness. And how
does this movie end? What brings us
to the climax of the story and its rapid denouement?
Well, MacMurray's character impregnates the president to whom he is
married. She calls a press
conference, and--looking more radiant than she did even on the night she was
elected--she announces with joy that she is pregnant and thus has to resign the
presidency. (Because, after all,
pregnancy is an awful disease that incapacitates one from doing her job.) Meanwhile, MacMurray--standing beside her at the news
conference--has a look of contentment because, after all, he has restored his
mastery over his wife by getting her pregnant.
If people can harbor such jealousy and contempt for their own wives,
mothers, and daughters, is there any limit on which strangers they may suspect
and be willing to harm and oppress?
And, as we review the history of racial and religious minority groups and
of women in the United States, the patterns that emerge ought to alert us to our
own potential failures to learn from experience.
So often, there is frustration over requirements to provide
accommodations for those who struggle every day with disabilities.
Facilities that the able-bodied use without thinking and without effort,
with stairs and other barriers, are all but closed to those who use wheelchairs
and other aids. Every person who
opposes accommodations, or who is responsible for creating facilities without
these accommodations, has likely forgotten a simple rule of disability:
The person who is able-bodied today can be the person with a handicap
tomorrow. One's racial or religious
background or sex may remain a constant, but one's status as an able-bodied
citizen can change instantaneously. In
fact, it does. I don't believe that it is incorrect to say that most of us,
at some point in our lives, will live with a disability. Can we be so short-sighted as to be unable to anticipate this
real possibility, and take it into account?
Shortly after Bill Clinton assumed the presidency in January 1993, he
began the process of making good on a campaign promise--to allow gays to serve
in the military branches. The
outcry from large sections of the heterosexual population, especially members of
the military, was deafening, and Clinton had to settle for half a loaf--the
"Don't ask, don't tell" rule. One
of my students, during a class, commented that in his estimation Clinton had
blundered by running afoul of the preferences of the majority.
I thought about this criticism of the president for a moment and I said,
"You know, with all respect, the contention that one ought to get majority
support for a civil-rights initiative is preposterous, by definition.
If we have majority support for civil rights for a certain group, then we
don't need the civil-rights initiative. By
the nature of prejudice, a society needs a civil-rights initiative precisely
because the majority doesn't and won't support it--at least not
now."
Thanks to Dr. King's sermons and speeches, and the work of his
equally courageous associates, every one of whom risked life and limb, the
American public has been sensitized to the injustice of discrimination against
black Americans. Slurs against blacks, that were absolutely commonplace when I
was a child, are now considered improper in polite company.
But slurs against women, such as dumb-blonde jokes, remain in vogue,
appearing now and then in the Reader's Digest.
Still, society grudgingly provides assistance to people with
disabilities. Gays and lesbians
remain far from obtaining the same rights and privileges afforded to
heterosexuals, such as the common unavailability to a member of a gay or lesbian
couple of employer-provided benefits for the other member of the couple.
Once, while I was a faculty member at another university, I was eating lunch with some of my colleagues, and heard some kind of intolerant comment about one of the groups that is now seeking civil-rights. I can't recall which one; it might have been gays. I listened for a while and finally said, somewhat impatiently, "Must we have this same exhausting process, over and over again, where we decide a certain group is a pariah and ought to be oppressed, and then we hear the complaints of their leaders, and then some of the foresighted leaders of the majority population begin to advocate for the minority's interests, and then Americans---just about one at a time--reconsider their antipathy against that group, and finally, after decades or centuries, the discrimination abates?" Must we go through this process for every single group, separately, without noticing that there is a pattern? Take a look at this graphic, which shows the group-by-group cycle of demands for equality.
We
go through the cycle from extreme prejudice against to acceptance of the first
group. While we're fighting that battle over the first group, the
process of gaining acceptance for the second group begins.
And then, it's the third group. And
it goes on and on. And we just
can't learn Dr. King's whole lesson; it's as if we can only digest one of
his words per month, and then we take the next word, and chew on that one for
the next month or so.
Let us resolve to use the resources that we have--our intellect, our
reason, our compassion, our love--to move ourselves forward faster on
this otherwise slow, agonizing process toward accepting our fellow man and
woman. And let us accept and
explain to others that when we hurt our neighbor out of racial or religious or
sexual hatred that we do violence to ourselves and, worse yet, to our children
who learn to do the same, and, above all, to the Power that created every one of
us. Here's the bonus:
When we stop wasting our material and emotional resources on bigotry and
hatred, all of these resources will be freed up for the things that can bring us
closer to the contentment, happiness, and brotherhood to which all of us aspire.
(NOTE: This essay is based on the author’s article that appeared in NGCSU’s The Voice in its November 9, 1995, edition.)
Personal disclaimer: This page is not a publication of North Georgia College & State University and NGCSU has not edited or examined the content of the page. The author of the page is solely responsible for the content.
Last updated on July 28, 2004, by Barry D. Friedman.