Your Life Matters – “meeting physical force with soul force”

Prologue

Wife to Husband: Do you think I am beautiful?

Husband to Wife: Yes, you are beautiful. Of course, many women are beautiful as well.

Author's note: while this sophomoric husband is technically correct. With an answer like this, he is more likely to be sleeping on the couch for a few night. His wife was looking for affirmation not information. 

I attended the KC Digital Drive's work group meetings: the Health Team. www.kcdigitaldrive.org https://www.kcdigitaldrive.org/vertical/healthcare/

KC Digital drive got started after the KC area was selected for google fiber. Here is an example of one of the projects: https://www.kcdigitaldrive.org/article/white-house-smart-cities-kc-apps/ “coming our way from Washington is US Ignite’s Smart Gigabit Communities program. Funded by a $6 million, three-year grant from the National Science Foundation as part of the Obama Administration’s Smart Cities Initiative, the program will build a “living lab of testbeds” for smart/gigabit applications in 15 cities, including KCMO/KCK.”

 I attended the CODE ACROSS KC 2016: Hacking for a Healthier Community event https://codeforkc.org/codeacross2016/ that is working to make lives better but especially for poorer communities.

As a technologist, I want to use technology to help people. As a realist, I understand that throwing money and technology at a problem does not always help and in some cases does more harm than good.  Still, technology has its role to make our world a better place.  This event encouraged me to write the following:

Your Life Matters – “meeting physical force with soul force”

In 2016, the Black Lives Matters movement has polarized America. One group is looking for affirmation of who they are and another group wants to provide information. This has caused conflict between groups. This reminds me of the quote from Byron Reese, “Civility is the second casualty of political debate. The first is empathy.” In the attempt to build bridges and have less sleeping on couches, here is my response to the question if someone asks me, do “Blacks Lives Matter.”

My response is considering a specific person. Questions such as these are better answered when you consider a real person and not an abstract concept. I will call this person Malcolm. He is 19 years old and has struggled in school. Some of his friends have had trouble with the law and he is not sure the America of opportunity has any opportunity for him.

To Malcolm I would say, of course, “Blacks Lives Matter” but more importantly, your life matters. The real question is how can you, your family and friends and society help to make your life and black lives matter?

Each year I try to read Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech on his birthday. His speech gives profound insight into many issues of our day even 53 years (in 2016) after he gave it. Malcolm, I believe MLK’s words provide insight on how to make your life, black lives and my life matter.

Note: Future quotes in bold are from MLK’s speech with some word change in [] to reflect modern usage of the words.

Malcolm, you may believe that still today, “the life of the [Black American] is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”  Whether true or not really does not matter, to make your life matter, you must believe that you have the full rights, dignity and opportunity that America has to offer. As Americans, we must work together to help you believe this but you must also do your part.  You must pursue this opportunity to make your life matter.

“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men [and women], yes, black men [and women] as well as white men [and women], would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Malcolm, I want you to know that almost all Americans want you to have these rights. Teachers, coaches, mentors, first responders, small business men and women, and all people who work in government, churches, nonprofit organizations and anyone else who are trying to make people’s lives better are such people. There is short term “pursuit of happiness” that some try to find in greed, drugs and alcohol but this will not lead to life or liberty but death and bondage. A life that matters is one that helps yourself and others. It is also a life of self-disciple. This is how you can pursue long term happiness for yourself and other.

Malcolm, you may be angry and you may want to strike out at those who do not treat you with dignity but “In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

“Soul force” is more than just nice sounding words. “Soul force” transformed lives and a nation in the past and it can make lives matter today.

“The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the [Black] community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers [and sisters], as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.”

Malcolm, I want you to know you are not walking alone. There are many out there of different backgrounds willing to help you but in partnership with helping yourself. 

“knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men [and women] are created equal." …

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

So Malcolm I say to you, live such a life of character that it will be impossible to judge you any other way than a person of integrity and dignity. Be careful not to play the victim card when it is truly your character that is at issue.

For the rest of us, let us be very careful when we judge another person. Even if someone’s character is the issue, would you judge that person the same way you would judge your children, your family or friends? We want mercy for ourselves and those we love and we want justice for others – maybe especially if they are of a different political party, race, or religion or different in some other way. Let us be quick to show mercy and remember “that all men [and women] are created equal.” 

Craig Venter said, “I’m not sure whether the optimists or the pessimists are right, but I know this: The optimists are going to get something done.”

Malcolm, I would encourage you to look beyond your current state and work hard to change your life. Your adult life is just beginning. There are many government and nonprofit organizations and faith based organizations that are available to help. Find a mentor. If someone sees you making the effort, they are much more likely to help you.

Byron Reese in the book, Infinite Progress: How the Internet and Technology Will End Ignorance, Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and War wrote:

 “There exist two sorts of optimists. There are the people who hope the future will be better. Then there are the people who reason the future will be better. I am the second variety. In this book, I maintain the future will be without ignorance, disease, hunger, poverty, and war, and I support those assertions with history, data, and reason. After reading my arguments, you may or may not believe the future I describe is inevitable, as I say it is. But I hope you will at least believe it to be possible. And you may even— reasonably, optimistically— think it to be quite likely.

If you happen to live in the United States, as I do, optimism should be coursing through your very veins. America was birthed in optimism. The American Revolution was not the story of the “have nots” overthrowing the “haves” in a bid to increase their place in society. Just the contrary: It was the entrenched social order, those with everything to lose, who decided to fight a war with the most powerful country on the planet against overwhelming odds. But all along, they believed they would ultimately prevail— and not just win the war, but also do something epic that would change the course of history for all time. They believed they would build a great empire of liberty that would begin a series of revolutions for liberty all around the world. And they did!”

Malcolm, try to be optimistic in spite of your challenges. Instead of fighting the system, work for the American dream of equality and freedom for all.

 “And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men [and women] and white men [and women], Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics [and even those who do not believe], will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

So Malcolm, your life matters and I want it to matter even more. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass are examples of great men and women whose lives matter by giving freedom to others. May we all strive to live such a life that matters.

Epilogue

Byron Reese tells the following story in his book and is a great example of how we can make lives matter.

“In 1981, a businessman named Eugene Lang returned to the elementary school he had attended fifty years earlier in East Harlem. He was to give a talk to the graduating sixth-grade class. His prepared speech could be summed up as “Work hard and you will succeed.” But before he spoke, he chatted with the principal of the school who informed him that only a quarter of these students would finish high school.

This struck Lane so much that he changed his speech. He told the kids about seeing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’ s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 in Washington, DC. He told the kids they should dream their own dreams, and he would help them achieve them. Then he dropped his bombshell: He promised free college tuition to any of his audience that stayed in high school and graduated. He hired a full-time program coordinator to work with the kids and he then partnered with a local organization that provided support to the kids through high school graduation.

So what do you think happened to these kids? Kids who now had a real reason to hope and believe in their future? Well, of the sixty-one original ones, the organization has stayed in contact with fifty-four. Of those fifty-four, 90 percent graduated high school or got their GED (not the 25 percent the principle had predicted to Lang years earlier), and 60 percent went on to college. Almost all of the students hold fulfilling jobs and many of the ones that are now parents vow they will be sending their children to college.

The success of this program has caused it to spread around the country. There are now about two hundred “I Have a Dream” programs in twenty-seven states helping 15,000 “Dreamers.” This is the power of hope. Not hope as an empty wish, but hope as rational thing, a reasoned belief in a better tomorrow."