July 4th is hardly noticeable as it approaches, here in the lush but quieter hills close to Lucca in Italy. It's nearly impossible, though, not to notice it in some way. A seafood restaurant owned by a new friend seems perfect as an outing for a few people close enough to us to get that the date has power, tradition, and that it resonates perhaps with layers of meaning.
This looking at things in America from far away tends to bring certain things into a clearer perspective, or at least one that looks different than it might look at home. And one of the issues that looks that way--somewhat different in other words--is the issue of the death penalty, in general and in relation to the massacre in South Carolina on June 17,2015. On the one hand it is clear from here, that not only does the European Union stand against the death penalty but that in addition it will not permit membership of countries who legalize it. As one note of contrast, by June 19th, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, was already calling for the death penalty to be used against Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old suspect in Charleston.
It is from Europe that America seems especially young, and young also even in its abolishing slavery, an institution was once a matter of national acceptance, at least on paper and in terms of Congress. The massacre in Charleston (I apologize for making this act of degradation sound like a good thing) seems to have struck a chord, permitted the beginnings of a broader and deeper discussion about race. I'm not sure if this is because the killings took place in a church and the gathering around the sense of sacred may have an impact on our national consciousness. I'm not sure either if the belief system of the congregants and families of the victims including the notion of mercy and human dignity in their prayers and statements is in fact also making an impact. Of course many factions are still quiet who no doubt will make divergent statements later on. There is, however, one exception to the talk of compassion that I for one find very striking and that has to do with capital punishment.
My own question, for July 4th, has more to do with our humanity and with how many of us see dignity not only as a right, but also something that we are obliged to protect. And in that case my question is whether we are ready to look at how much what and how we do things changes us, in some way or other. Freedom, says my own voice of the spiritual (okay, and sometimes preachy) agnostic, is also responsibility. We can't be free unless we are ready for truth, and complexity, unless in the famous words of Jack Nicholson's character in "A Few Good Men", we can "handle the truth". And okay again, perhaps it's not being ready but finding how we might get readier.
It's one way of seeing things, this one. It would include that we are obligated to include in our vision of things as much real information as is available to us. And this means that it isn't just our appetites that stand to get satisfied by killing a killer, in this one case (and no doubt in many others) but that our efforts to become better at being human get exercised.
We can't kill the killer in us by killing any other person, even if the thrill of the trigger and its being pulled as if by us can satisfy in some a thirst for revenge. Vengeance, as written about by the prolific and innovative psychiatrist Harold Searles, can really be an attempt to cover over anxieties about loss as well as actual grief. It can be exciting and even satisfying, but it is rarely enough. Even an act of justice doesn't bring back our loved ones from the dead, or turn back a history of terrible things. We live with vulnerability at best combined with enough resilience and supports to get through the darkest of times.
Although we may be limited in our ability to understand, whether it is the greed of those who would poison our air, and poison our food and our capacity to figure out who we might want to vote for without sensing the elections are being bought, there is still obviously a modicum of freedom around. I seem (unless I'm fooling myself, which is always possible) to be thinking right now, and whether or not lots of people read this right here, I am free enough to write it as well.
Never really good at prolonged cynicism, I've come to think of myself in mixed terms, as a timid outlaw, and as a reluctant optimist. Maybe this is what is moving me to consider how I really feel about July 4th. Is it a big weekend, a barbeque, or is it--particularly in another country where all the American flags ever made don't seem to be waving--something that even with ambivalence, rings in some personal way.
I can't pretend it has no meaning, and even with mixed feelings I can't pretend there aren't so many things that I cherish. I for one have embraced the idea of change as possible, even if so scary often enough. It's not that change isn't scary for me too; it's just that staying still has also felt like a kind of death, emotionally and intellectually. So I stretch, or I try at the very least.
Capital punishment, says the European Union, is both immoral and ineffective. They are right; it's been proven.
So the question: can we talk, within the field of race and beyond it about our tendency to reward our hatred and not to work it harder.
Maybe it's just human to think harder on anniversaries, it's after all a commemoration. Here's to it.