Category — Influence/Authority

OCCUPY POVERTY (OP) joins together with Del Paso Heights residents upset with what they are calling “unfair treatment” in the predominately black, low income neighborhood in Sacramento, California. And those residents have decided to organize and fight back. The Del Paso Heights Community Association consists primarily of parents who are standing up for their security against the campus police department, and for the education of their children by the Twin Rivers Unified School District.

The impetus for this activity began when a school district police officer went off campus to make a traffic stop against Tyrone Smith. The officer and Smith engaged in a foot race and Smith was subsequently charged with shooting the officer during the chase. The officer is expected to recover from his wounds, but Smith died a short while later in police custody.

Smith’s death initiated an investigation into the jurisdictions and parameters of campus police. It was during this investigation that a tee shirt designed and sold by the Twin Rivers Police Department was discovered. The tee shirt depicts a child behind bars with the message: “You raise them. We cage them.” This obviously contemptuous message has offended and infuriated parents and spurred them into action.

Organizers of the Del Paso Heights Community Association are therefore registering voters to remove the current school board because parents are upset about the failure of their children in Twin Rivers Schools. According to data reportedly provided by Superintendent Frank Porter, it will take black children “twenty years to close the achievement gap.”

OCCUPY POVERTY stands in support of the parents and their determination to bring better safety and education to their community for the benefit of their children.

There are certain strengths or abilities that human beings possess. The most well-known or discussed is the power of love. But recently we are seeing the negative results of another power that is becoming more infamous in everyday life. That power is influence.

Influence is the ability to manipulate another person or persons into doing or carrying out one’s desires. These desires may be positive or negative. For example, you may want someone to attend an event with you, so you provide the tickets and transportation. Or, in the case of negative exploitations, someone may carry out violence at the suggestion of another person whom they may recognize as an authority figure; or they will do something to get the attention of someone whom they perceive as being stronger or more powerful than themselves.

Unfortunately, incidences of violence from school yard bullying to political assassinations are growing in number, and many people are falling under the power of influence. This relinquishing of one’s will may cause them to also become a victim of the circumstances themselves. Too often the bully or victimizer has low self-esteem or could be suffering from some kind of emotional or mental defect.

The power of influence is used, however, by all of us against each other in order to have our way or to get the things we want; i.e. wives to husbands, and vice versa; children to parents, and vice versa; friends to each other; employees to employers, and vice versa; governments to other governments; and on and on. In one of my previous blogs, “Choose your battles,“ I enumerated several ways we can avoid becoming embroiled in conflicts by restraining our desire, or influence, to have authority or control in the situation.

We are constantly in battles of trying to influence our way through life; most often with little negative effect. But when influence is used to carry out schemes causing harm to another, should the person wielding the influence be held as accountable as the perpetrator? By recognizing that the power of influence is at work in our day-to-day interactions, we may be able to consider our motives first  before we try to get someone to do what we want. This self-examination will reduce our responsibility for injury or harm to another. Connecting compassion to the power of influence is a fundamental way.

What happens to a person to make them become intolerant? The question is asked because I refuse to believe that people are born with hatred for others just based on their race, their beliefs, or their preferences. History has shown that when children are placed in homes different from those of their birth parents, they can take on the characteristics of their caretakers or substitute parents. If not being born closed-minded is the case, then how is it that people can become prejudiced or bigoted unless they choose to be; are strongly influenced by others; or taught to be so by those who are bringing them up?

From personal experience, I am aware of different races being more than passing associates or even friends, and different religious devotees to have created loving families. These individuals may have come from homes that stressed the difference between races or religions, however the individual who adopted themselves into families different from their own were able to assimilate or accommodate and incorporate the ideals and beliefs of the adopted family. The fact of these familial blendings are further contradictions of the idea that people are born intolerant.

That being the case, why do people instill prejudice into children? What are the benefits of thinking and acting on the belief that people are totally different than you because of the color of their skin, the way in which they worship or not, or who they choose to love? Admittedly, there are differences in the way that different groups see and relate to the world. Could culture or their appearance, the manner in which they speak or dress or the texture or style of their hair or who they choose as a neighbor or friend bring about hatred so vile as to want to annihilate them from the face of the earth?

We have seen bigotry perpetrated by groups against other groups who share common characteristics such as color and lifestyles, but who seemingly hate each other. Men commit centuries old atrocities against women in the name of superstitions and religions. Sexual preferences have been the source of acts leading to murder, rape and other crimes. Color, status, language, religion, all have been used to separate, reject and destroy the spirits of men by other men.

My question is “why?” Can the need to have authority over others be strong enough to kill a single person or whole populations to satisfy a personal intolerance? Whole nations of people who were once rational human beings have turned into monsters of destruction killing and maiming entire ethnic groups including their children, and sometimes even their animals in the name of their personal philosophy. Again I ask “why?”

Knowing that each of us has a limited time here on Earth, couldn’t we best spend it motivating, inspiring and uplifting each other? As we go through destroying life, who is to say what essential breakthrough or discovery that one could have made for the benefit of so many more? Everyone comes here for a purpose; even those with intolerant minds. But why teach or choose bigotry as the reason to be?

For the last four or five years I’ve been writing blogs and doing social networking and have joined or connected to over 300 internet groups. When I Google my name, I’m surprised at the things that pop up and am amazed at how far my name and messages have reached. This is not to thump my own chest, rather to set the stage for something which never ceases to amaze me. I wonder and am surprised when others comment on how strong they consider me to be.

My readers’ perceptions make me wonder to what exactly is that strength attributed? Is it the time I’ve spent at the keyboard pecking away; or it is starting, deleting, uploading and downloading pictures and videos? Is it using the Thesaurus to express the same words in different ways to vary my content; or is it reading and re-reading, checking the spell-checked text to be sure I’ve caught all the errors? Is it arranging, rearranging, placing and displacing sentences, clauses, phrases, titles, paragraphs, punctuation marks, or whole topics?

Is it the subject matter I write about; the opinions I confer, the arguments in which I take a determined stand, or the information about my experiences I choose to share? Or could it be my resolve to write even when I wonder if what I am saying is making a difference?

I have come to accept that my being strong is not a power that I particularly possess. But my strength comes from the perception of my readers. If those who read my articles can derive some measure of understanding, enlightenment and inspiration, I believe they are made stronger. Their strength is then reflected back to me in encouraging comments they send which in turn makes me stronger.

Without receiving responses, the posts I write are merely me consuming time and effort. Instead they have become more than expressions of my point of view and a sharing of my life’s journey. Our ongoing communications have become a source of reciprocal strength, and I wish to thank all of my readers for making me strong.

When I attended school in the southern part of the U.S. during the Jim Crow days of the mid 40s and 50s, my father placed me and my siblings in Catholic school. Although he and my mother were Baptists, he felt that we could and would get a better education at the hands of the nuns, rather than attend the segregated all-black public schools.

Whether or not that was true, the difference between our school and the others was the teachers. All of our students were black, but all of our teachers were white nuns. So not only did we get an education laced with religious instructions, although prayer was still a mainstay in the public schools, our social education was given from a totally different perspective oftentimes based on the racial differences of student and teacher.

I imagine the nuns felt it was their “Christian duty” to inspire confidence in us to counter the racism we faced day-to-day. Even to some of the protocol our parents insisted we show to the whites with which we came in contact, the nuns added stipulations. We were not to say “yes,” or “no, mam” to anyone who was not as old as our grandparents, including the nuns.

The nuns’ influence made an indelible impression on me, and probably my two sisters and brother also. So much so, that our father relocated the family to California for more than financial reasons. In great part, I expect, it was to protect us from the authority we had learned to defy.

I recently heard the statistics that 75% of teachers in the U.S. are white, and the schools have been integrated since the 60s. But there is something as sinister as segregation afoot in our school system. Many of our children are struggling, particularly in the area of social skills, and there are a number of things which have attributed to this situation.

For one, the banishment of prayer and along with it the teaching of good and bad. I too believe in religious privacy, but now children learn about actions and consequences, and everyone’s rights must be respected. It seems they are getting the message that if it feels right to them then they can do it, as long as they are willing to face the consequences. Our jails and prisons are filling up with criminals, many wealthy and famous, who acted on their feelings rather than whether what they were doing was right or wrong.

It seems to go back to the teachings of the nuns that we were supposed to respect our rights regardless of how others were disrespecting us. But somewhere in there was also the lesson that others had rights too, and it was wrong if we did not respect them.

With everyone seeming to go for themselves lately, along the way we, especially our children, have become lost. It seems that a return to treating others as we want to be treated is in order, but this concept can only be learned. Whether from our caregivers’ laps or in the classroom, social skills training and empathy for others is crucial for a civilized society. We must relearn the values that contribute to an appropriate way of life, and education is the key.

Here is a great video of children learning social skills rules in class. Thanks to the students and their teachers for this effort.