Lessons from Harry Belafonte Part II
The second story really struck such a chord that I share it with you because it is a call to action for all of us.
Throughout the evening, much of what Harry had shared with us was full of insights delivered with a mixture of humor and candor. At this point, he directed his words to the African American students in the audience, He told them about an event in the Olympics of 1968. In that year, the United States had the best relay race team in the world, bar none. This team was so good that no one was betting against them. Four African American women were virtually guaranteed the gold. For Harry, the metaphor was compelling, enough so that he set aside time to watch the race on television.
The starter gun sounded, and the runners leaped forward, the African American in the lead. As she approached her teammate with her arm outstretched to pass the baton, they fumbled the handoff. Other runners passed them by. The two quickly recovered but the second runner had a lot of ground to make up. She passed the baton to the next team mate who was still behind, and she to the fourth, to no avail. The United States did not earn the gold – or the silver, or the bronze. Sadness filled the air around them, and among the American Olympic fans throughout the nation.
The wondrous thing about a good story is how it affects the listeners, how it brings them into the story. They can see the runners on the track. They feel their pulses rise in the moment, the adrenaline rush the mind generates. Their breathing increases, reflecting the degree to which the video running in their minds has captured their spirits. I not only saw the loss – chins falling forward, shoulders collapsing inward, tears flowing and open sobbing resonating – I felt it. In that moment, their loss was mine.
Harry paused for a moment to allow the sensations to sink in. Then, in a soft voice, he continued. “I have thought about that race throughout the decades since. A race that was guaranteed was lost because they failed to pass the baton. For me, it is a powerful metaphor. Because we did the same. In all the years that Martin, Andy, so many others, and I worked to create an America in which everyone, including African Americans, would be free to pursue their dreams according to their hearts, with all the marching and protests and speeches – time we committed so that you, in this audience, would have the freedoms to experience the American Dream, we forgot to pass the baton to you. We forgot to tell you what your part in this has to be. You are here today because of the work of others who went before, but the work is not over. So, when the Supreme Court of the United States can determine the President of the United States, where were you? When a president could take us to war in foreign lands based on lies, which cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars, where were you?”
His speech continued for a few minutes more, but his points to me were made.
Each of us in this audience is better off today than our parents because of the leaders who went before, to break barriers, the pave the way for our acceptance, and to make the rights for some the rights for all. And, perhaps they were too busy creating their dream for us that they neglected to pass the baton to us. In turn, perhaps we did not pass the baton to our children. Our parents might not even have known that they should have passed it along. We might not have realized our responsibility to do the same.
But we know it now. Because when a small group of elected officials are blatantly crafting new legislation that restricts the rights of their fellow Americans, when special interests in key areas of commerce and industry can rewrite or eliminate laws designed to benefit our nation as a whole and have new laws put in place without concern for the citizens of our nation, where are WE? When manipulators in the financial industries virtually ruined our nation, and our politicians from both parties failed to ask why – and instead worked socialize the debt and then allowed the perpetrators to privatize the profits and award themselves billions in bonuses, where are WE?
It is sad that we had to discover that we were being emasculated by a select group of corporations using elected officials as their proxies – but it is not too late for us to act to reverse them. The call goes forth and we must be there for each other to take our country back, to redistribute wealth and opportunities – and responsibilities to the majority of Americans who are at risk of losing their rights.
I offer for your consideration two other stories, both crafted in my mind as thoughts gestate in the quiet of the wee hours of the morning.
In the first one, I envision conversations with the angry electorate in Wisconsin and Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee, in Maine and beyond. It centers on critical thinking – or the lack of it. In all these states, as in dozens of others, we were mad as hell, disillusioned with our president and his party. The democrats are ruining the nation by spending extravagantly on programs to kick start the economy using hundreds of billions of dollars – borrowed monies – that our children will have to repay – for our mistakes. We are reinforced in these views by the republicans, who play our dissatisfaction to their advantage. We somehow do not note that they were the ones that created the mess.
Their fears that we are failing ourselves and our children drives us solidly into the republican camp with their messages of slashing spending and getting our financial house in order. We listen to the promises of the candidates in Ohio and Wisconsin and we forget to use critical thinking. We hear them tell us that we need to control, even slash spending but we fail to ask the critical questions – like “How”.
Within weeks after the elections, we see what they really meant. They extended billions in tax breaks for the wealthiest among us, and now they attack public sector workers to make up for it. They go after unions in fields mostly populated by women, -- teachers – with nursing on the horizon, leaving for the moment male dominated fields such like police and fire fighters. In Maine, the new governor endeavors to legislate new wage structures that cut minimum wages for people ages twenty and younger by $2 and hour! And to permit the extension of hours that children can work during their school periods. Where are WE?
Taxes paid by the wealthy are a fraction of what we pay. Taxes paid by corporations in many cases are a fraction of what they should be paid – all of this legal – because our legislators changed the rules. (I cannot overlook with gratitude that our neighborhood big box retailer COSTCO pays its full share. I urge you to frequent their stores.)
Currently the government is within hours of a shutdown brought about by issues that have nothing to do with the budget. Instead, republican legislators are holding us hostage to push their social agendas upon us. Many senators and congressmen are blogging and tweeting that the administration is threatening our military by their actions. They use other blatantly falsehoods to muddy the water in an attempt to accomplish their agenda. Where are WE? Who should be actively telling them to remove the riders to the bill that have nothing to do with the budget, and work on their other issues at a later time?
We need to be on their blogs challenging them to return the financial legislation that protected our nation from abuse by investment bankers, and to actively investigate those corporations that in 2008 brought this country to its knees. We need, each of us, to watch the documentary Inside Job that we might better understand how we got hosed, and to use the rage we will feel as we watch it in a positive way to take political grass0-rrots action to stop the plundering so we can then focus on rebuilding the nation. And while we do this, we must pass engage our children – and pass the baton.
The second story really struck such a chord that I share it with you because it is a call to action for all of us.
Throughout the evening, much of what Harry had shared with us was full of insights delivered with a mixture of humor and candor. At this point, he directed his words to the African American students in the audience, He told them about an event in the Olympics of 1968. In that year, the United States had the best relay race team in the world, bar none. This team was so good that no one was betting against them. Four African American women were virtually guaranteed the gold. For Harry, the metaphor was compelling, enough so that he set aside time to watch the race on television.
The starter gun sounded, and the runners leaped forward, the African American in the lead. As she approached her teammate with her arm outstretched to pass the baton, they fumbled the handoff. Other runners passed them by. The two quickly recovered but the second runner had a lot of ground to make up. She passed the baton to the next team mate who was still behind, and she to the fourth, to no avail. The United States did not earn the gold – or the silver, or the bronze. Sadness filled the air around them, and among the American Olympic fans throughout the nation.
The wondrous thing about a good story is how it affects the listeners, how it brings them into the story. They can see the runners on the track. They feel their pulses rise in the moment, the adrenaline rush the mind generates. Their breathing increases, reflecting the degree to which the video running in their minds has captured their spirits. I not only saw the loss – chins falling forward, shoulders collapsing inward, tears flowing and open sobbing resonating – I felt it. In that moment, their loss was mine.
Harry paused for a moment to allow the sensations to sink in. Then, in a soft voice, he continued. “I have thought about that race throughout the decades since. A race that was guaranteed was lost because they failed to pass the baton. For me, it is a powerful metaphor. Because we did the same. In all the years that Martin, Andy, so many others, and I worked to create an America in which everyone, including African Americans, would be free to pursue their dreams according to their hearts, with all the marching and protests and speeches – time we committed so that you, in this audience, would have the freedoms to experience the American Dream, we forgot to pass the baton to you. We forgot to tell you what your part in this has to be. You are here today because of the work of others who went before, but the work is not over. So, when the Supreme Court of the United States can determine the President of the United States, where were you? When a president could take us to war in foreign lands based on lies, which cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars, where were you?”
His speech continued for a few minutes more, but his points to me were made.
Each of us in this audience is better off today than our parents because of the leaders who went before, to break barriers, the pave the way for our acceptance, and to make the rights for some the rights for all. And, perhaps they were too busy creating their dream for us that they neglected to pass the baton to us. In turn, perhaps we did not pass the baton to our children. Our parents might not even have known that they should have passed it along. We might not have realized our responsibility to do the same.
But we know it now. Because when a small group of elected officials are blatantly crafting new legislation that restricts the rights of their fellow Americans, when special interests in key areas of commerce and industry can rewrite or eliminate laws designed to benefit our nation as a whole and have new laws put in place without concern for the citizens of our nation, where are WE? When manipulators in the financial industries virtually ruined our nation, and our politicians from both parties failed to ask why – and instead worked socialize the debt and then allowed the perpetrators to privatize the profits and award themselves billions in bonuses, where are WE?
It is sad that we had to discover that we were being emasculated by a select group of corporations using elected officials as their proxies – but it is not too late for us to act to reverse them. The call goes forth and we must be there for each other to take our country back, to redistribute wealth and opportunities – and responsibilities to the majority of Americans who are at risk of losing their rights.
I offer for your consideration two other stories, both crafted in my mind as thoughts gestate in the quiet of the wee hours of the morning.
In the first one, I envision conversations with the angry electorate in Wisconsin and Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee, in Maine and beyond. It centers on critical thinking – or the lack of it. In all these states, as in dozens of others, we were mad as hell, disillusioned with our president and his party. The democrats are ruining the nation by spending extravagantly on programs to kick start the economy using hundreds of billions of dollars – borrowed monies – that our children will have to repay – for our mistakes. We are reinforced in these views by the republicans, who play our dissatisfaction to their advantage. We somehow do not note that they were the ones that created the mess.
Their fears that we are failing ourselves and our children drives us solidly into the republican camp with their messages of slashing spending and getting our financial house in order. We listen to the promises of the candidates in Ohio and Wisconsin and we forget to use critical thinking. We hear them tell us that we need to control, even slash spending but we fail to ask the critical questions – like “How”.
Within weeks after the elections, we see what they really meant. They extended billions in tax breaks for the wealthiest among us, and now they attack public sector workers to make up for it. They go after unions in fields mostly populated by women, -- teachers – with nursing on the horizon, leaving for the moment male dominated fields such like police and fire fighters. In Maine, the new governor endeavors to legislate new wage structures that cut minimum wages for people ages twenty and younger by $2 and hour! And to permit the extension of hours that children can work during their school periods. Where are WE?
Taxes paid by the wealthy are a fraction of what we pay. Taxes paid by corporations in many cases are a fraction of what they should be paid – all of this legal – because our legislators changed the rules. (I cannot overlook with gratitude that our neighborhood big box retailer COSTCO pays its full share. I urge you to frequent their stores.)
Currently the government is within hours of a shutdown brought about by issues that have nothing to do with the budget. Instead, republican legislators are holding us hostage to push their social agendas upon us. Many senators and congressmen are blogging and tweeting that the administration is threatening our military by their actions. They use other blatantly falsehoods to muddy the water in an attempt to accomplish their agenda. Where are WE? Who should be actively telling them to remove the riders to the bill that have nothing to do with the budget, and work on their other issues at a later time?
We need to be on their blogs challenging them to return the financial legislation that protected our nation from abuse by investment bankers, and to actively investigate those corporations that in 2008 brought this country to its knees. We need, each of us, to watch the documentary Inside Job that we might better understand how we got hosed, and to use the rage we will feel as we watch it in a positive way to take political grass0-rrots action to stop the plundering so we can then focus on rebuilding the nation. And while we do this, we must pass engage our children – and pass the baton.
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