In the searing heat of a World Cup clash England, the reigning world champions met Brazil, a team determined to regain their crown.
The match was played in Guadalajara, Brazil. The year was 1970.
Leading the line for Brazil was Pele, arguably the finest footballer ever to pull on a jersey. Determined to stop them were England, led by Bobby Moore, probably the finest defender and greatest captain ever to wear the three lions on his shirt.
The picture on the right shows Pele and Bobby exchanging shirts at the end of a game won by Brazil. The tournament had been marred by racism, and a trumped-up shoplifting charge against Bobby Moore.
There is little sign of any of that in the photograph. What that shows is two wonderful professionals, separated by an ocean and distinguishable easily by their colour, yet the look on their faces speaks to a deep and abiding mutual respect.
Footballers from these two countries, and thirty others including the United States, are currently playing the 2014 version of this tournament. It is a truly world event with supporters and players of each country demonstrating national pride, and in England's case, ritual national disappointment.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of holding this tournament in Brazil right now, what Pele and Bobby Moore showed us in 1970 is a simple way in which national pride and fierce patriotism can develop into an abiding mutual respect. That is a lesson we should heed, and as liberals it is one we should promote.
Imagine for a moment that we had built a society that celebrated difference. A world where having an African heritage, or being a member of a First Nation was a cause for us to celebrate. Go on ... let your mind wander through the landscape that such acceptance of each other might create. Imagine a country where we respect each citizen not for what they have, but for who they are. A society where we value the unique benefits each minority group brings, as they contribute to the rich and colorful tapestry that is the whole ... a sum greater than its individual parts.
When we allow poverty to exist alongside wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, when we marginalize people just because they want to get married, because they are in love, or we jail one section of our society at rates vastly in excess of the comparable figures for other members, we do not become stronger. We remain weak and divided, tolerating that division, even reveling in it if you have drunk sufficiently from the Fox News fountain of knowledge. We give the lie to the phrase all men are created equal. Clearly, in America as in other places, all men are not created equal, nor are they, through either education or opportunity, even allowed to strive to be equal. We have a society that ensures that many of its citizens are born less than equal, and we are quite determined they will remain that way.
From the sublime example set for us by the two protagonists above, we naturally descend to the ridiculousness that is the obduracy of the owner of a team in the National Football League. It is not my place, and I have no intention of arguing the merits of the name of a football team. I am not Native American and I don't tell others what they should think or feel. I am not black therefore my opinion on the use of the n-word is just as irrelevant.
What I will say is that neither black Americans nor Native Americans are actually asking me to give anything up. They are simply expressing how they feel about the use of certain terms, and how the imagery that conjures up affects them as people. Quite why any of us would wish to not respect that view is beyond me. I don't feel that I am being forced to use or not use various terms, nor that anyone else is in any way being disadvantaged. There are no free speech issues here, unless you define hate speech as free, in which case your lack of respect earns nothing from me but disdain and derision.
I have heard it said, usually but not exclusively by Republicans, that the term African American is inappropriate and should not be used. That the people wishing to be known as such have never been to Africa, and given the state of the current education system, might not even really know where Africa is. To be fair, this type of view is often expressed by those who might describe themselves as Italian Americans, or Irish Americans or ... well you get the drift. The point is that I have probably spent more time in Italy than most Italian Americans, yet no one particularly minds the descriptor.
The other term that crops up almost immediately in these debates is the word privilege. Whether it is white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, they all amount to the same thing, and it appears to be not well understood. Even those among us who wish to be inclusive, detest homophobia and resist racism can be left feeling defensive when it is pointed out that they are privileged.
This concept is not hard to grasp, and once well-understood need no longer be seen as either an accusation or a threat. All it takes to understand that you are privileged, is to accept that if you are not one of the minority being discussed, then you don't understand how it feels to experience life in America as part of that minority. It really is that simple. When we move to a position where we accept that essential truth it becomes much easier to listen to what we are being told, and reduces the temptation to be either dismissive of the concerns of others, or to be too quick to explain (man'splain, white'splain, etc) ... how a problem might be solved.
Women, Native Americans, black Americans, the LGBT community are not asking those outwith their group to solve the problems they face. They know what the problems are and have faced a lifetime working out solutions. What they need us to do is listen to them and help them implement laws and policies that will end the discrimination they face ... discrimination the rest of us cannot and do not feel because we are privileged. Although it is fair to say that we can see the results of that discrimination if we open our eyes and look.
Daily Kos is one of the very few liberal strongholds in this whole vast thing we call the Internet. Yet even here it can prove enormously difficult for those citizens, and others, from minority communities to make themselves heard. Most minority groups in our society are discriminated against, and would, one might think, readily join the thriving discussion available at any Blog that supports equality and acceptance.
Yet this is not really happening to any large degree. The site is not a thriving organ of open debate and the sharing of ideas and solutions. Some of that happens, and some contributors have spent many years trying to widen the appeal. Yet the privilege runs very deep. It is hard to open one's mind and accept that there is more that you don't know than that which you ever will. Making a genuine attempt to do so is, however, a great reward in of itself.
We have recently been motivated to discuss violence against women. The whole "Washington football" thing is around, and has spawned some discussion, and some dissent. Racism is a perennial issue and we discuss the subject regularly, and we regularly upset and aggravate those very contributors we really should be listening to ... and if we listened, maybe more of them would come along to help the debate make progress.
I would point out that it is not enough simply to accept difference. I don't think that liberals and progressives are misogynists, or racists, or homophobes. That is not the point I am making at all. Indeed, I would go much further and state that my own belief is that many of the contributors here are among the most accepting, most inclusive and least divisive group I have ever had the pleasure of debating with. Again, it's not enough. Not nearly enough.
You see, it doesn't matter what I think, or how inclusive you think you are. What matters is how those people from minority groups feel. What they think, how included they are, how accepted they feel.
In the end, inclusiveness means that all people need to feel included.
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