I Am Not a Coward

I grew up in New Jersey — Monmouth County to be specific.  The city next door, Asbury Park, was a burgeoning summer resort town when I was born, but by the mid 1980s, had become a run-down, boarded-up economic nightmare.  Asbury suffered from every form of misfortune of that period: shady business dealings and mob-like fraud and extortion; political corruption; racial tension.  Like many cities during the 1960s, blacks and whites were segregated.  In Asbury Park, the “other side of the tracks” was Springwood Avenue, and most of the African American community lived on the “west side” of Springwood.

In the summers of 1969 and 1970, I played Pop Warner football at Asbury Park High School.  I didn’t really like football.  I was small, not very strong.  I did it because my big brother had — so naturally I would learn to enjoy it.

One night after practice during my first season, as the players split off and headed home, I witnessed a scene I don’t expect I’ll ever forget.  A group of five or six toughs seemed to be putting a younger boy, ironically named Cecil Battle, through a rite of passage.  They rounded up one of the minority players.  And I mean rounded him up.  They formed a circle around him, and led by Battle, took turns tackling him, tossing him to the ground, taking swings at him.  I can only imagine the sight — looking up at that “huddle” of white-helmeted players, each jeering and preparing to take his turn.  If it weren’t for the football equipment, I’m sure the kid would have been badly hurt.  Thankfully one of the coaches saw the fracas and broke it up.

I know now that this was just one isolated example of hazings that were carried out thousands of times in this country, many with far more dreadful outcomes.

The Bradley School, named for the founder of the City of Asbury Park,  was my elementary school.   Students were bused into Asbury Park from local towns that didn’t have their own schools.  In the fall of 1969, in Mr. Scalpati’s sixth-grade class, all of the minority students (of two 35-per classroom sixth grade classes) occupied a single column of seven desks.  In the other section, Mr. Vivino’s class, there wasn’t a single minority student.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I was one of the students who occupied that single rank of seven desks in the sixth grade at Bradley School that year.  I was the young player who was encircled and mugged by Cecil and his tough guy friends.

And if you haven’t guessed by now, I am white.

I ran home that night after football practice, too afraid to take the shorter path by the railroad tracks, but ran all the way just the same, to the cozy all-white neighboring town of Interlaken.  And I went back to practice the next night, though to be honest I was frightened.  I finished out the season, and arrived much bigger and stronger the following summer.

On the Fourth of July of my second Pop Warner summer (1970), five days of racial unrest had broken out which ultimately led to over 100 arrests, shootings, looting, the calling-up of the National Guard.  Buildings burned, and the ashes fell in our front yard.

All the same, even then I understood why so many young people were angry and looking for opportunities to demonstrate that anger.

My father, Joseph N. Dempsey, Esq., was an attorney in Monmouth County for over 50 years.  Among other things he was counsel to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  He worked with leaders in the local black community to publish a Swahili textbook, and then to introduce a class into the language curriculum at Asbury Park High School.  Stafford Thompson, a black man, was his sole partner in his law practice in downtown Asbury Park during the 1970s, and one of the many leaders of the black community who were regular guests at our home.

I take extreme pride in how we were raised not to see differences not between black and white, but between courage and cowardice.

When we stand up to the racial discrimination and segregation when it occurs in any community, at any time — and put our energies and our reputations on the line to bring about change, we show courage.  When we give in to the wishes of a mob, and carry out the mob’s will on weaker elements among us, we are acting as cowards.  We know this intuitively.

In 2008, Americans elected our first African-American President of these United States.  A month after his inauguration, his chief prosecutor, Mr. Eric Holder, was appointed Attorney General.  And he stated we are a nation of cowards.

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”  Eric Holder, US Attorney General, February 18, 2009

I am not a coward.  And the day Attorney General Eric Holder made this statement, I was at long last and at age 52 compelled to gather my thoughts about this blunt and sweeping statement, and offer my reflections upon it — reflections upon cowardice and courage in American culture today.

Our politics today are as polarized as I have observed in my lifetime.  Never have the lines been drawn more clearly between gangs in the war to define the role of central government.  One mentor drew the distinction like this: “Government exists to redistribute income,” on the one hand, and “Government exists to guarantee rights,” on the other.  Neither is adequate or complete, but they point to a fundamental difference of perspective.

And this difference sets up what distinguishes courage from cowardice in our culture today.

Few in my social and professional networks disagree about the great challenges facing our nation.  We have just concluded a year of spirited debate on the issue of health care reform.  We have troubling unemployment rates following an economic crisis driven by questionable public-private sector collusion in our financial markets.  We remain under threat of terrorist attack from a radical religious segment committed to our total elimination by whatever means necessary.

At the community level, there is greater divergence of opinion about our most pressing needs.  And that’s as it should be.  States, counties, cities, towns, neighborhoods — they have different priorities.  Detroit’s problems are not West Virginia’s are not Lawrence, Massachusetts’.

What disappoints me these days is how many of us look at those needs, assess their importance to the community, and conclude that it’s up to the government to fix these problems.  More specifically, it is the federal government’s responsibility — it is Barack Obama’s job — to fix these problems.

It takes the courage and leadership of individuals, in families, in neighborhoods, towns, cities, counties and states to fix our problems and to fulfill our moral obligation to leave our world better than we found it.  It seems more and more these days that we expect just the opposite — that a wise federal government will fix our problems for us, and that top-down government programs will clean up our messes.  Is this a profile in courage?

I think not.

Worse, I think the growing reliance on federal government to solve problems we should be addressing in our local communities, counties and commonwealths belies a loss of faith in our character and capabilities as responsible individuals in society.

I find it ironic that everyone I know (or with whom I’ve discussed the hypothetical situation) agrees that their home (or apartment, as the case may be) is their castle, and that it is their responsibility to protect that precinct from any attack or invasion.  Whether it’s a criminal break-in, or a petty theft by a teenager during a birthday party, or the relentless attack of mother nature during a protracted rainstorm — we do all that we can to prevent damage to our homes and families, and spring to action should one occur.

We all agree to the concept of “neighborhood watch.”  I let my neighbors know if I’ve seen any unusual activity around their home, as they do me.  When we had torrential rains this spring, in my neighborhood we pooled our resources (pumps and hose) to get the water out of our houses — until the very small hours of the morning.  That’s what the situation required.

In most communities — whatever their form of government — there is spirited debate about the schools and sports programs; about town budgets and spending limit overrides; about how best to remain fiscally responsible though broader economic conditions are so challenging.

As if by natural law, most adults see concentric rings which extend from their home and family, to their neighborhood, to their community or town — and see personal responsibility linked from one ring to the next.

But somehow, somewhere beyond the ring which wraps around our towns and schools and connects to our States or Commonwealths and beyond to our Federal government, the connection to personal responsibility and values is ruptured.  More and more of the group of adults I know either personally or professionally suddenly abdicate their own commitments and obligations, and yield all authority.

What happened to the personal leadership and courage in family, neighborhood, and community — the commitment to leave the world better than we found it — along the way?

I assert that the moral high ground, from which many believers in the innate goodness of large and growing Government peer down, is built upon contours of cowardice.  That the silent narrative behind the relinquishment of power to state authorities and agents is the admission of clayfootedness and fear.

Why this cynical view of my fellow man (and woman)?

Because I believe it is far easier to vote for a socially liberal representative than it is to work in a community to bring about change and realize justice where it may be threatened.

Because the cumulative effect of that abdication of responsibility, throughout the industrialized world, has been to create societies where more citizens are “in the cart,” (receiving their livelihood by the good will of the State through entitlement programs) than are “pulling the cart” (working and contributing, through taxes, to fund those government handouts).

Because this leads to national economic crisis such as we see in Greece, with the potential domino effect through to Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain — perhaps to the entire European Union.

Because I believe that many sleep better at night, though they be white and middle-class, knowing that their politics provides preferences and protections for many groups which they as individuals don’t dedicate one minute of time to protect or guarantee.

Because I believe that many of these folks would be flat out afraid to venture out of their comfortable, homogeneous precincts to brush shoulders with those poor people their elected representatives are doing so much to help.

I am not a coward, and I believe that our most courageous act would be to create a nation built upon the foundation of such strong local communities, filled with such dedicated and courageous leaders, that we would feel shame — not pride — in a large and activist central government.  In my opinion, large and powerful States are judgments that individuals and communities have failed… not that some grandiose activist political agenda has prevailed.

What do you think?

Tagged as: Asbuy Park, Civil Rights, Immigration, Joseph N. Dempsey, NAACP, New Jersey, Stafford Thompson