A Teachable Moment Missed?

“What do you think about Obamacare?” asked my work-study student when she came into the office.  She is an international student studying at my institution and had been in a business management class where the subject had been discussed.  As one of the many in this country frustrated by the continued effort by conservatives and political pundits to discredit the expansion of health care coverage that is the law of the land, I responded with a great deal of emotion.  “It is the Affordable Care Act, not Obamacare, first of all,” I replied.  “Even if President Obama is willing to acknowledge that term, I am not.  I was not in favor of the law, not because I see it as a problem, but because it does not fully address the problem of affordable health care.  What we need is a single payer system not this giveaway to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.  But that was not going to happen so the President chose to work through the current system in place.  There are certainly flaws that need to be fixed, but the solution is not to dismantle the legislation and start anew.  That tactic will only result in the continuation of our current, out-of-control, health care system which lines the pockets of CEOs and fills the coffers of politicians while failing to provide adequate health care to millions of people.  Health care is a right, not a privilege!  It is something that people should have because we care about one another not something that depends upon one’s ability to pay!” 

As I paused to take a breath, I saw the shock—dare I say terror—in her eyes.  It dawned on me that what she really wanted to know is what this Obamacare thing was not my opinion about it.  She had heard about it since coming to this country but did not understand what it meant.  Instead of hearing that question I launched self-righteously into a one-sided moral argument.  Was I hoping to educate another ill-informed student about a current ethical and political issue?  Was I thinking that if I argued it forcefully I could persuade her that my perspective was right?  I’m not sure.  What I am sure about is that this was no way to answer her question, or the questions of other students for that matter.  Fortunately, we were able to talk about it and I was able to tell her why I went the way I did.  I doubt she will ever ask my opinion again.

Over the past few days since the incident I have asked myself, “How often do I react this way to student inquiries?”  I do believe that I try to be as objective as possible when students in the classroom ask important questions.  I seek to probe the nature of their question, engaging them in a process of exploring all sides of a situation, even if it means playing devil’s advocate (and there is no shortage of devils out there when it comes to misinformation regarding the Affordable Care Act).  I am often reluctant to voice my opinion because I worry that it will close off conversation, shut down their own inquiries into important subjects and ideas.  This is no way to educate I tell myself.

As a teacher of religious ethics, it is obvious to everyone in the class that the way I have structured the syllabus, the readings chosen, or even the content of the course itself communicates to some degree my approach to the subject.  Yet students often ask where I stand on an issue or what my beliefs about a particular idea or doctrine is.  At the beginning of each class, as we develop our ground rules for discussion, I make sure that I raise that issue.  I tell them that I am reluctant to share my views because I do not want to close off conversation or generate reluctance on their part to state their own.  Usually, students suggest that after it is clear the student discussion has run its course, if they asked my view that they would like to know what it is.  Perhaps that is the best path to take; I don’t know.  

What I do know is that in this situation I should have asked what she wanted to know and why she was asking the question.  This would have enabled me to get a better handle on the question at hand and certainly provide a better even if partial answer.  Yet I am passionate about this and about other important ethical issues that call for clear moral reasoning rather than the expediency of the moment.  Is it my job to hide my passion, to be objective (whatever that means), so that students can learn?  Or does being passionate about an issue provide an opportunity for students to learn?  For over twenty years, I have wrestled with these questions.  I imagine that the struggle will continue.

Forgiveness and Anger in the Work of Justice

I attended the Conference on Jesuit Higher Education and its Commitment to Justice.  One of the keynote speakers was Margaret  Farley, a retired Christian ethicist from Yale and a woman religious.  Farley asked the question about what attitudes of mind and heart are conducive to just encounters with the other.  She then provided a compelling justification for forgiveness as crucial for just relationships with the other.  To forgive requires that we decenter ourselves, to let go of something within us to offset our worse forms of indifference, greed, and self righteousness; these are the preconditions of recovering respect for one another. It also means at times the need to let go of something in ourselves, such as our anger and resentment, and something of ourselves, such as our self-protectiveness.  Overall, I agreed with her assessment that forgiveness can restore just relationships in meaningful ways but in my gut I felt uneasy with this.  The overwhelming positive response to Farley's presentation kept me from voicing my concerns publicly.

My discomfort became crystallized when a question was posed to her:  If it is true that there is a need to decenter the self to forgive and accept forgiveness, what do you do with those people whose sense of self is diminished, even destroyed, at the hands of persistent institutional oppression, such as racism, sexism, or heterosexism?  They might not have enough of a sense of self to come to the point of forgiveness.    Farley acknowledged that the need for forgiveness is harder to understand and offer when the abuse is structural or institutional.  Moreover, she insisted that forgiveness should not be a therapy for the victims.  Instead, the victims of oppression need to find some way to heal the self and recognize their human dignity before they can come to forgive those who have been the perpetrators of their oppression.  She suggested that the church community can play a significant role in that healing process.

But how does this healing take place?  I agree that community whether the church or other is important to begin that healing process.  But what attitude of mind or heart must the oppressed develop that will enable them to find such healing, to get to the point where they can offer forgiveness?

Years ago, another Christian ethicist, Beverly Harrision, wrote an essay that spoke about the power of anger in the work of love.  Her point was that anger is not an outlaw emotion in the face of injustice.  Rather, it is the appropriate response to conditions of oppression and injustice.  While some believe that anger can be destructive, Harrison suggested that such righteous anger enabled the victim of injustice to assert her dignity in the face of oppresssion and provided the motivation to work for justice.  In the words of Farley,  the anger is the oppressed's way to utter a radical no to injustice.

So what is the relationship betwen anger and forgiveness in the context of injustice?  I agree that forgiveness may require us at some point to give up our anger in order to enable a just relationship in our encounter with the other.  But sometimes getting to the point where one can develop the attitude of mind and heart to forgive, may require the oppressed to claim their righteous anger as a way of affirming their dignity, to center themselves enough to be able to begin the task of decentering themselves, ultimately leading them to engage fully in just relationships with the other, even those who have perpetrated their oppression.

Religion's Role in Racial Integration of Baseball

In the face of recurring allegations of the use of performance-enhancing drugs against some of baseball’s elite players, Major League Baseball would love Americans to focus on some of the more noble chapters of the game’s history.  Thank God for Hollywood.  The film “42” shown in theaters in April (and soon to be released on DVD/Blu-Ray for home viewing) highlights the “noble experiment” of the racial integration of baseball, when Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson to play for the major-league Brooklyn Dodgers.  While I have not yet seen the film, I have heard that the religious aspects of that “noble experiment” were included only briefly in the drama.  That does not surprise me.  Yet at a time when the more noble chapters of religion’s history could also use some retelling, especially in light of recent sex abuse scandals and religious violence, it is important to see that religion did play a decidedly significant role.

This was in part because both actors in what Robinson called “Mr. Rickey’s drama,” were raised in the bosom of Methodism.  Wesley Branch Rickey was a devout and pious Wesleyan, who was active in churches as a lay preacher, helped to find funding for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and promised his mother that he would never set foot in a ballpark on Sundays.  Given his propensity to use religious allusions and to give sermon-like speeches, baseball writers referred to him as “Deacon.”  While a director of a YMCA in Delaware, Ohio, he came in contact with the teachings of the social gospel and its emphasis on creating communities where all persons were treated with equal respect regardless of race.  He even invited such luminaries as Booker T. Washington, Jacob Riis, and Jane Addams to speak there.  All of these religious influences instilled in Rickey a commitment to justice and fairness and a desire to end discrimination in baseball if he ever had the opportunity.  Rickey would later write, “I couldn’t face my God much longer knowing that His black creatures are held separate and distinct from His white creatures in the game that has given me all I own.” 

The reason that Rickey chose Robinson from among all of the qualified African-American ballplayers was because Robinson was “a Christian by inheritance and practice.”  Robinson also grew up in the Methodist church.  His mother, Mallie Robinson, was a god-fearing woman who sought to instill in her children a commitment to live according to the will of God.  She taught her children, “God watches what you do; you must reap what you sow, so sow well!”  By example, she challenged the bigotry and racism she faced in Pasadena but in a way that sought to overcome such hatred with kindness and love.  His minister, the Reverend Karl Downs, helped Robinson to see the relevance of the biblical stories to everyday life.  Participation in the life of his church became a pleasure, what he later called “excitement in belonging.”  The combined influence of his mother and his minister helped Robinson to develop a strong sense of his own dignity and a belief that racial segregation was immoral.

As much a part of this drama was the religious text used by Rickey to get Robinson to agree not to retaliate in the face of the abuse he would experience both on and off the field.  The passage from the Sermon on the Mount to “turn the other cheek” will undoubtedly be highlighted in the film.  Less clear is whether or not there will be reference to the book Rickey gave to Robinson in the midst of their three-hour meeting, Papini’s Life of Christ.  In particular, Rickey asked Robinson to read the section on nonresistance, where Papini contends that “turning the other cheek,” which is an active not a passive stance, is the only response to violence that has the potential to end the cycle of violence and bring about community and reconciliation.  “Turning the other cheek means not receiving the second blow.  It means cutting the chain of the inevitable wrongs at the first link.”  Could Robinson, who had a “hair-trigger disposition” in the face of racial bigotry, do it?  He was not sure, but as he recalled the biblical message embodied by his mother’s example, to overcome hatred with love and patience, he knew it had to begin with him.  As Papini writes, “Only he who had transformed his own soul can transform the souls of his brothers, and transform the world into a less grievous place for all.”

The rest, as they say, is history.  The “noble experiment” succeeded in integrating major league baseball and contributed to the end of segregation in our nation, something the film “42” certainly accentuates.  The hero of that drama, Jackie Robinson, has been enshrined anew in the minds and hearts of all who see it.  And while there were many things that influenced the unfolding of this story, religion contributed greatly to the success of this moral transformation of American society.  I hope this is the role that religion will continue to play. 

Embracing the Imposter Within

“What are you working on these days?” the President asks.  The setting is a professional meeting.  I am on the Board of Directors of my professional society and I am at my first meeting.  I discover that we begin each meeting with this same question.  Everyone goes around the room to talk about the book, the essay, the project they are working on.  Then, it is my turn.  I change the focus away from my own work to the work I do for the society.  I am brief, and then the person next to me picks up the question.

The others at the table don’t know me; don’t know the angst I am feeling.  Given all the work that these professors have published, many I had read, a few I regarded as superstars, I wondered what I was doing in this room.  How did I get on this board in the first place?  I have no brilliant book that is a must read for anyone in the field.  I have not garnered a prestigious NEH grant worth thousands to my institution.  I am just one of the worker bees—chairing a committee that people often ask, “What is it your committee does?”

I am a poor kid from the projects who went to a small, little known church-related college with an open admissions process, not Harvard (although I did live just up the street—a “townie” I am told, often with an air of condescension).  My neighborhood was where the Harvard students would come when they wanted to “give back” to feel good about themselves; noblesse oblige I later learned.  I was a charity case; I needed their help to succeed—at least that’s what I was told.  I did appreciate the free meals, the bus pass, and the few bucks which I stole occasionally from their pocketbooks or wallets when they weren’t looking.  But I can’t say I learned much from them.

Now, here I sit with them steering the future of the academy or at least our part in it.  Who am I to be giving suggestions?  What the hell do I know?  So at first I don’t say much for fear that I would be found out for the imposter I was.

I remember completing coursework in grad school and had the obligatory meeting with my advisor.  Apparently, the department had conversations about me and my performance to date.  My Ivy league bred advisor began the conversation, “In truth, we were not too sure what we would be getting with you given your background.  We decided to take a chance and we have been pleased with your performance.”  Did they really think that poorly of the preparation I received in my previous schools?  I wondered if he had the same conversation with my peers, all of whom had graduated from prestigious schools, one of whom had already had a Fulbright.  I knew I wasn’t as polished as they were.  Did they think I even belonged in the program with them?  Perhaps not.

           

After I graduated, I was not sure I wanted to go into academia, into a profession where I felt—where I was made to feel—inferior.  I had been working as a community organizer in public housing projects like the one I had grown up in.  I felt at home here; I knew their struggles and they appreciated the work I was doing.

I taught part-time in prisons and in the historically black colleges in the area.  Most of my students came from similar backgrounds as me and I found joy in teaching them, which was the reason I pursued a Ph.D. in the first place.

I ultimately decided to go on the academic job market and surprisingly landed a job as a “teacher-scholar” at a small, church-related college, much like the one I had attended.  My department welcomed me, offered me help as I started my teaching career.  This too felt like home, but I was still nervous.  The research and publishing requirements were not overly burdensome but research and writing were not my passion, at least not in a joyful sense; writing was torture save for those times when I could write on behalf of the poor, the unemployed, or about baseball. 

I poured myself into teaching.  I spent countless hours researching and conversing with colleagues at the college and the academy about pedagogy and the best ways to engage students who were in my classes because it was required.  I experimented with and developed some competence in active learning and non-traditional adult learning theories and practices even though I knew it limited time for other research.  My students appreciated my efforts, nominating me for a teaching award.  Had I “made it”?  Did I now belong in the academy?  

My confidence was bolstered by invitations to write about my classroom experiences, to engage in what became the scholarship of teaching and learning.  My peers welcomed my contributions at presentations at professional societies and eventually through the nascent peer-reviewed publications that were emerging in the field.  I added a teaching professorate, staff positions on faculty development programs, and several other teaching awards to my resume, including an academy wide excellence in teaching award. 

The highest achievements in the profession, however, were still measured by and given to scholarship.  I could work for my professional society but could never be nominated for its presidency.  My contributions to my field of religious ethics have been much less successful.  My rejections outnumber my acceptances 4-1 both for presentations and for publications.  Was I really a teacher “scholar”?  I had earned a place at the teacher table.  But I was still a stranger at the table of scholars who gathered at the board meeting.  Would this ever change?  Does it really matter?

After 20 years, definitive answers to these questions elude me.  The imposter syndrome still feeds on my soul, periodically eating away my confidence every time a student writes he didn’t learn a thing in my class (even though he was only 1 of 35); or my proposal or paper is rejected.   But its meals are less frequent now:  in part because I am a tenured full professor; mostly because I have embraced the imposter within.  I have learned to use the angst it generates to propel me forward, to become the best teacher-scholar I can be however limited, just like so many of my imposter colleagues, who I have discovered make up the vast majority of the professorate. 

I still feel uncomfortable at times sitting at the boardroom table, especially with the superstars of my field.  But I am no longer quiet.  My experiences, my insights into the world in which we work, the struggles most of us endure, are valuable, perhaps even the norm.  Imposter or not I would be irresponsible if I kept quiet.  After all, most of the higher education world is filled with “townies” like me.