Some Sunday evening musings

Here it is, a quiet, rainy evening in Portsmouth, Virginia, and home to excellent eateries such as the Bier Garden and Roger Brown's within block of each other.

In the midst of ruminating about leadership development, I'm struck by an observation from yesterday. At Yorktown, I spent some time directing traffic in the northern parking lot several hundred yards from the Rally for Social Justice site. I spoke with someone in nearly every car that entered while I was in the lot; my fluorescent orange vest and orange traffic flag made quite a fashion statement when taken in concert with my wild blue shorts.

Anyway, here's one of things I was struck with: why is it when we oppose something we feel we must directly confront it? Many of the counter-protesters felt an urge to directly confront the neo-Nazis gathered at the park. They felt to oppose, they had to confront; they wanted to see the people gathered at the National Socialist Movement site. Rather than confront, the Center for Education Rights' approach is to creatively respond to that which is opposed. Confrontation gets nowhere. Certainly, the neo-Nazis were not going to change the opinions of the counter-protestors from the Anti-Racist Action network or Zion's Sake or any other segment of the population. And, just as certainly, the counter-protestors were not going to change the minds of the National Socialist Movement's members or the members of the other white supremist groups in attendance with the neo-Nazis. Confrontation only provides a place for evil to flourish, on both sides of the fence.

But many -- most -- of the people I spoke with wanted to confront. This includes, by the way, one car load of neo-Nazis in brown shirts and one car load of heavily tattooed young men (a swastika prominently displayed on arms) and several other sympathizers to the white supremist movement; most people choose to confront violently (violence as in "vehemence of feeling or expression; fervor" if not "force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing").

So, my question is: why is it that to oppose something, the seeming natural (at least yesterday at the Park) response is to confront?

As a member of my church suggested to me to today, perhaps the Rally for Social Justice response is one for thinking people, people who have a creative understanding, who can see beyond their own point of view, who understand the world is, indeed, a complicated place.

Let us hope that over the coming years, people and communities see there is power in creating a creative, non-confrontational, non-violent, tolerant response to that which goes against humanity.

Diversity. Tolerance. Non-violence. Social justice.

For all.

These are our watch words; these are our values. May we, indeed, live in a world without fear.

Peace.