One of the most stunning realizations coming out of my youth justice work is that it’s the so-called “foreigners” of the world who are giving more of themselves to see juvenile justice reform happen in America than most Americans are.
You can see it in the comments to this Diary. Gloria is from Spain. Dani is from South Africa. “JC” is a Frenchman living in Japan. Wolfgang is from Germany, usw.
It was Wolfgang, in fact, who alerted me to the existence of Paul Henry and, judging from the “feel” of developments over the last two months, who has profoundly changed my life. I have never even met the man, and yet it was at his direction that I chose a fork in my path that has caused me to make some particular lifelong commitments.
As I look at the major donors to Jordan Brown’s trust fund—those individuals who have given $1,000 or more—without exception they are all people from Europe and Canada.
Americans have given in large numbers compared to the number of donors from other countries—and I do not say this to in any way imply that I am not grateful for their generosity—but the gifts from Americans have been smaller amounts which are infrequently more than $50 and rarely over $100.
With ample justification we Americans believe ourselves to be a generous people. We’re not stingy. No, my comparison of gift sizes results in a measure of another phenomenon entirely.
It is, I think, an indicator of our sense of resignation as a nation.
It is a measure of how much abuse we have been conditioned to tolerate in our and our families’ lives. It’s a measure of how much we’ll put up with, how out-of-our-ways we are willing to go to accommodate official insults to our sense of morality, offenses that betray and compromise our most cherished values.
It’s a measure of how much we fool ourselves into believing that we are free.
I have the strongest impression that these foreigners believe in American values more than we do. It is as if they are drawn to the image of America as a gleaming city on the hill, and upon entering the city discover that its streets are choked with filth and criminals and desperate masses of paupers.
We who live in the city long ago adopted a cynical view of the realities of living at the gleaming summit in what we know is only a sham stage set. We have long ago accepted that the only substantial palaces in our gleaming city are inhabited by the dynastic princes of finance, commerce, and industry. We who are milling in the streets have long been accustomed to having to be satisfied with the scraps and leftovers doled out from the palace kitchen doors.
Thus, as we look around and see that even our own children are suffering in this ruthless reality—drugged in their homes, tormented in their schools, and raped in their prison cells—we shrug our shoulders and say: “Welcome to the real world, kid. Shit happens. Grow up. Look out for yourself. It’s either you or the other guy.”
When we see the throngs of street waifs, maybe we throw a few zinc coins to assuage our consciences, but we keep the copper, silver and gold for our own.
A curious thing is happening, however. “Our own” are increasingly being counted among the waifs, and being treated as if they have no value, and deserve no respect, in our city on the hill.
As Gloria points out in her comments to yesterday’s post, the United States has 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. Childlike behavior is being criminalized in the schools, and a growing number of children are being funneled into the criminal justice system for offenses as trivial as farting in class or as blameless as exhibiting autistic behavior. Children as young as eight are being treated more harshly than adult serial killers (in Arizona by the same prosecutor)!
Why must it take a lady from Spain to awaken us to what is happening here? Are we like the frog in the pot that allows itself to be boiled alive if the water temperature is raised slowly enough?
To be totally blunt, the history of the last century shows that the Europeans did an excellent job of boiling their young. Millions of young people, whole generations really, were wiped out in the two world wars. (This diary is named after one such generation of promising young people which was exterminated in the First World War.) So I do not believe that, in becoming so highly involved in American juvenile justice, Europeans are making any claim to moral superiority.
I do think, however, that they are hyper-sensitized by their relatively recent history to what it feels like when the temperature is slowly raised. They have learned from their history, and yes, they do believe in America’s shining ideals and promise, and they can see that we are throwing it away. This is why they are so outraged by the hypocrisy they see here, and why they are supporting our children’s rights and freedom as generously and unreservedly as they do.
One of my mentors, a brilliant anthropologist, once told me that you can learn everything you need to know about a civilization by looking at just four things: how a culture raises its children, cares for its sick, treats its prisoners, and buries its dead. He said that a culture’s morality is codified in its laws.
As I measure our culture against these standards, I can only conclude that our gleaming city is a depraved and immoral place. If there’s any hope for us to rise to the ideal that one sees from afar, we must begin rebuilding the city through our children.
Achieving the ideal is a greater task than you and I will ever see in our lifetimes. It will only be achieved by succeeding generations—but only if we can begin doing better for the children who are in our hilltop city right now.
An adult who as a child never experienced justice, love, compassion or understanding would be hard-pressed to provide any of those things to his children. We human beings can only create that which we can visualize. Yet sometimes our friends can see and visualize things that we cannot. Sometimes the view from Spain or Germany is better than our hilltop view.
Thank you, distant friends, for caring so much for America’s youth and for helping us see through your eyes.
۞
Groove of the Day
Listen to The Beatles performing “Fool on the Hill”