The terrible news out of Arizona struck a deep and festering nerve on the issue of civil discourse in this country. It took little time following the violence before it was branded as a consequence of the poisonous rhetoric espoused by political extremists, their metaphorical call to arms against the government having reached a fever pitch. Ironically, the relevance and association of this murderous act to that very issue was challenged almost immediately, the dismissal of the association as inaccurate nonetheless overshadowed by the presumption’s leap to ascendancy in the American consciousness, our shared intuition rising to the fore, that no good can come from vitriol that is unbridled, intemperate, and laced with the language of hate.
If it is proven true that no direct connection is made of the act to the populism de jure only confirms, at least in my mind, that which my father wisely counseled: you can be right and still be wrong. If this was not an event directly the result of extremist populism, we nonetheless as a nation were expecting there to be one. There is, however, no redemption in an admonition by anyone in “I told you so.”
We as a nation have felt a catharsis of loss, though none as profound as the shooter’s victims and their families. The bond of federal citizenship we share as Americans is dangerously frayed, our commitment to a national vision of democracy eroded by the willingness to burn bridges across differences. We have been here before.
This week we celebrated and observed with acts of service the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was an eloquent leader during the civil rights movement, and successfully led protests against racial discrimination and transformed the country. Nonviolent protest was the open palm he held up to confront and overcome the fist of injustice, hate and violence the movement encountered all along the way. Nonviolence was the spirit of his call to the better angels within all Americans to end racial segregation and rally a nation to the higher cause of justice and equity for all.
Deeply-felt hate and opposition, once goaded into life, went on to reap the whirlwind. Senseless acts of murder followed, including the killing of Dr. King. The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham took the lives of four young girls; murders famously proliferated, such as that of James Chaney, a 21-year-old black Mississippian, and two young Jewish students from New York, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. Their deaths and the deaths of many others underscored the risks in taking a stand in the face of a ruling mob mentality. So deep were the racial divides, not even little girls and young people were safe from the spawn the opposing hatred inspired. The events in Arizona serve as a terrible reminder of the danger intolerance inspires, even if we can’t literally connect the dots between cause and effect.
Philanthropy has often been a divining rod in such times. A merciless light is shed on the contradictions in our behavior and attitudes when an event prompts their measurement against the yardstick of our aspirations as a democracy. Philanthropy is often there at the epicenter. It has itself become an agent of change, serving as a “third eye”, seeing the potential of what we can together achieve in the pursuit of solutions to the important questions of the day.
Foundations invest in charities that occupy in society a space and voice for alternative points of view and experience. We are challenged to study issues more thoroughly, reflect more deeply, debate more vigorously, and share abundance more broadly. Is it acceptable, philanthropy asks, that the world’s richest nation’s cannot conquer hunger, assure access to healthcare, provide equity in education, protect our environment, end homelessness, or guarantee, as a human right, a safety net for those in crisis?
