July 24, 2009

• Racism? Or Conflict Management?

  

  There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.  (Ray Bradbury)   And too often, fundamentalists (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) will do both.

  A lot has been made the past few days of a world-reknown black professor at Harvard who was arrested.  It seems he came back from a trip with a friend and because of all the rain, his front door was jammed.  So he went in his back door, and then came around to the front door and he and his friend pushed against it until it opened.  While pushing on their front door, a neighbor saw them and called the police to report a break-in.  By the time the policeman came, the professor and his friend were inside.  The policeman insisted on seeing identification and after seeing the professor’s license and his Harvard ID card, proceded to call the Harvard Security and continued to give the professor a hard time.  The professor started yelling at the policeman and asked the policeman his name and badge number which the policeman refused to give him.  The policeman then went outside and told the professor to come outside.  As the professor was still yelling at the policeman to give him his name and badge number, the policeman arrested him for disorderly conduct.  (He could only arrest him if he were yelling outside – not inside his house.)  He then handcuffed the professor and brought him down to the police station.

  Much has been said about this – even by Obama who claimed that the policeman had acted “stupidly”.   Most of what has been said about this case has centered around racism as people claim if the professor had been white, he wouldn’t have been arrested.

  The primary issue in this case should not be racism as so many have discussed.  That might be a secondary issue, but not the primary issue.  The primary issue is Conflict Management.  Did the policeman act stupidly?  Yes.  Did the professor act stupidly?  Yes.  Was Obama out of line to target only the stupid acts of the policeman?  Yes.  (Obama, by the way, has apologized already. 

  The policeman should have realized that there was no threat once he found out the professor was in his own home.  The policeman should not have pursued the matter past that point.  And the professor should have realized that after there was no threat of being charged with burglary, he should have backed off rather than persisted in elevating the tension.  Both were guilty of violating principles of Conflict Management. 

  One big difference is that the policeman should be trained in Conflict Management and also trained in how to apply the principles of Conflict Management when someone else, like the professor, does not have the training.  Either the policeman was guilty of flagrant violations of the principles of Conflict Mangement, or the Cambridge Police Department is guilty of not providing that level of training to their policemen. 

  As a society, we are poor in executing the principles of Conflict Management.  Whether in our attacking countries and killing 100,00o innocent people with our “shock and awe” bombs, or violating the sovereignty of a country by attacking its citizens with drone bombers.  But also in our domestic society we do a poor job.  Whether its trying to iron out the differences (conflict management) in Congress for a health or financial remedy, or the police dealing with the citizens (or non-citizens).  And even locally we do a poor job.  Go to any supermarket at any time of the day and watch how parents try to handle their kids while in the store.  And locally, look at the statistics of spousal abuse, or child abuse, or elder abuse, or whatever.  As a society, we have never learned the principles of Conflict Management. 

  And we need to if we are going to survive. 

  • 7:46 pm
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