ENC1102-003
July 23rd, 2009
Children and youth are the most vulnerable to the harmful consequences of unregulated extremism, and in the interest of protecting future generations of Americans from social injustice, the time has come for our government to get involved. The type of engagement needed is not that of suppressing the free speech of the extremists, but to actually use free speech in communicating a stronger message of progressive thinking and moderation. By setting a new tone for a public message our government can educate mainstream Americans about the harmful effects of buying into extremist propaganda. The message will need to be refined and highly targeted so as to actively mute and call into question those extremist views that spread and perpetuate bigotry, oppression, and social injustice. When deciding upon which organizations, religions and public figures need to be targeted first, we need only focus on what is causing such a dramatic increase in the number of children in the American foster care systems.
The phrase “walking wounded” is perhaps the most accurate way to describe those people who are the victims of oppression, marginalization, and unjust laws. And even though the oppressors who created these walking wounded might have committed the injustices as adults, it is important to know that in most cases they did not learn their bad behavior in adulthood. Nor were the victims only victimized after their 18th birthday. Dr. Perry Hancock, as president of the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home & Family Ministries (LBCH,) is very familiar with children in foster care. He writes:
It is both the most pervasive and the least understood form of abuse among
children. It can come from parents, teachers, coaches, ministers, and others.
The wounds from it are often hidden from sight. It is fueled by some popular
television shows and movies which promote demeaning language as an
‘entertaining’ form of communication. Some adults even minimize its potential
for harm and believe that its victims will ‘get over it’ when they grow up. The
culprit is the emotional abuse of children (Hancock 1).
As one reads this and other articles on the LBCH web pages, they understand that Dr. Hancock understands the importance of treating children well and protecting them, and it explains why we can isolate virtually every failing of our society by looking at how the evidence of past failings manifests itself in the lives of our rising generation. This evidence is most prevalent and is highly concentrated wherever you find a large number of foster children, but we need to be careful which measure we use in making our assessment. One measure that absolutely cannot be used is one that is based upon a religious belief system. They are, after all, part of the problem.
By just listening to a small sampling of youth in the foster care system a person will realize that a culture that produces walking wounded is actually the trademark of adults living at two extremes in the spectrum of society. At one end we have those cultures that hold fast to tradition. Typically, but not always, a religion is at the heart of their resistance to change. At the other end is a culture where a break from tradition has caused the pendulum to swing to the opposite extreme, and as a result, this culture wants nothing to do with any kind of regulation or constraint. At both extremes these cultures will continue to oppress and marginalize, and children are the collateral damage that nobody focuses on.
In the case of those cultures that hold fast to tradition, they will marginalize those who do not share their views and way of life. They will also fight anybody who challenges their belief system. Because the vast majority of the ruling white male population in the “south” shared this same bigoted view, America had a civil war. Dr. Perry Hancock, who was quoted earlier, is himself a product of the “south,” and when we look at another article of his posted to the LBCH website we are left to fear for those foster children being cared for within the Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home. He writes, “Just a few days ago I talked with a fourth grader who had been introduced to Darwinian evolution in a way that challenged everything we are teaching him at the Children’s Home” (Hancock 2). With the flourish of a pen (figuratively speaking,) Dr. Hancock is attempting to remove science from the life of every child in the care of the LBCH. Because of the traditions of an out-dated (and literal) belief in the Abrahamic texts, and due to an unwillingness to teach anything other than the Protestant Christian’s version of events of the last twenty centuries, the children in the care of the LBCH are at risk of growing into adults who themselves will continue the same oppression that Dr. Hancock is exerting upon them, but it gets worse. Any child at LBCH who is not convinced of the veracity of Christianity will quickly learn that in order to survive they will have to feign such a belief. Simply because they don’t believe the Baptist doctrine they will be made to feel less valued in the eyes of their caregivers and peers, but if they actually verbalize these thoughts it will get exponentially worse. The professor and author Kenji Yoshino coined the term “covering” to describe this, and he defines it as “ton[ing] down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream” (Yoshino 245). Covering does nothing to solve a problem. It only prevents the problem from being manifest outwardly. It would be bad enough to simply be a closeted atheist at LBCH, but for a gay or lesbian youth the feelings of shame and worthlessness go off the chart. Given the extremist views and the utter disdain for diversity that is evidenced by the writings of Dr. Hancock, it is highly probable that the LBCH will produce their fair share of adults who will be counted among the walking wounded, and this from a man who claims to understand what it means to emotionally abuse a child.
At the other end of the spectrum will be those in our culture who abhor any regulation. One of their favorite sayings is “let the cream rise to the top.” With that view comes an implied creed that those in society who are deemed the “skim milk” are only there to support the cream above them. This is the free market mentality that, over the past 26 years, set the stage for the collapse of the global economy. During this time in America, for the first time in our history, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. After priding ourselves for generations on the wealth of our middle class we actually allowed our government to set out policy that, starting in the early 1980’s, steadily moved people from the middle class into poverty. David Bloom, an associate professor of economics at Harvard, was quoted in a June 2001
Time article as saying, “There has been a thinning of the middle class. As society becomes more polarized, it has more ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ with fewer in between” (Koepp). One non-profit group in Texas predicts a 30% increase in the number of children in foster care from 2006 to 2009, which follows a 40% increase from 1999 to 2003 (Texans Care for Children). The stories of these foster children create a parallel track for an American history of government failure that will never be published. It wasn't supposed to be this way.
More than 300 years ago the first Europeans came to this continent to escape the tyranny of kings and the brutality of theocracies that had oppressed their citizens since the beginning of time. Our American constitution was written to prevent such abuses from happening within our borders, but even at that, through our own 233 year history as a nation, the evidence shows how often we have failed to honor the fact that all men are created equal. It has also failed to prevent the fundamentalist Christian majority from oppressing more moderate Christians and non-Christians. The evidence of this failing is manifest by how many walking wounded live among us today, and we know it is getting worse when you look at the kids in foster care and understand the role that extremist Christian views play in their oppression.
In Utah, the bastion of traditional Christian morality, it is estimated that fully 43% of their homeless youth (35% nationally) end up on the street because they are rejected by their biological families after they self-identify as gay or lesbian (Utah Pride Center). From September 2007 to September 2008 the Homeless Youth Drop-In Center in Salt Lake City saw a 175% increase in use (KSL). Although there is no official study on what caused such a spike, one is left to ponder whether the extremely polarizing climate surrounding Utah’s involvement in the California “Yes on Prop 8” Campaign carried some weight with it. That battle was in full array in September 2008. It was not a time in Utah where the words “progressive” and “moderate” were used very often. The Mormon prophet had dug in his heels on a message of intolerance and no fewer than five satellite broadcasts were pumped into regional conferences that were attended by hundreds of thousands of faithful Mormons. Families were split down the middle and “moderate” Mormons like the famous NFL quarterback Steve Young and his wife were vilified for supporting the “No on Prop 8” campaign with a few lawn signs and small donation (CBS). In spite of being caught in a lie about how much the church itself invested in the campaign, the federal government has done nothing to publicly condemn The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for requiring the membership to adopt such an extremely political position that was undeniably oppressive to an entire class of people (Wright).
As good as the constitution was it has always relied upon the work of unrelenting progressives to maximize its potential. Every victory has only come after an enormous struggle against both the forces that resist change and the forces that resist regulations. In our relatively short history progressives have used the constitution to not only free the slaves from white Christian males who cited the Bible as their authority, but also to banish child labor by imposing regulations within a free market that wanted absolute freedom to maximize their profits. After winning the right to vote for women (again fighting Christian males) , it was progressives who likewise established minimum wage laws and allowed workers to unionize (again standing up against the free market forces.) But then, starting with President Reagan, we started a backward slide. Hopefully we will now witness the emergence of a political will to reverse direction one more time and see more advances in social justice reform. It will require political will, but for the sake of the rising generation it is a battle that we must not lose.
The time has come for government to get more involved in the social justice reform process and make enough of an impact that the lives of families are improved, in more ways than just income and housing. When writing about completely unregulated markets that threaten the traditional beliefs of our past, Debora L. Spar, a Harvard Business School professor and accomplished author, wrote: “These are deeply personal choices […]. The long-term effects of these choices, however, carry social costs. And thus society must have some say in how these choices are made and the extent to which they are left to private preferences and market forces. The only way to exercise this voice is through the political process” (Spar 238). Spar is neither a scientist, doctor, nor a preacher. She is a world renowned consultant for multi-national corporations, nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) and governments, and as such she knows about the effects of free markets and restrictive traditions. Her view is that the solution lies somewhere in the middle. She is a moderate, and she is also progressive. When she wrote the above words she was specifically talking about test-tube babies, and it is notable that Spar did not state where the line in the sand needed to be drawn. She left that up to us, as members of a global community. It is time to find our voice and ensure that our leaders hear us.
In order to meet the needs of humanity, and in the process change the course of history for today’s youth and children, we must first teach people to look outside of their own family and neighborhood and become more aware...not of anything in particular,
but of everything. This is the role that government can assume. Once we, as a society, figure out how to turn the eyes of our citizens outward instead of inward, a growing number of people will naturally gravitate toward one progressive cause or another. This is the mentality that Kwame Anthony Appiah was speaking of when he coined the phrase cosmopolitanism. In forecasting the kind of change that would be introduced by encouraging cosmopolitanism, Appiah wrote, “[a] creed that disdains the partialities of kinfolk and community may have a past, but it has no future” (Appiah 16). If we can bury religious fundamentalism and outdated traditions and relegate them to the history books as quaint allegories of a past era, humanity will be much better for it. By doing that, and by regulating the punishing consequences of a market that has too much invested in profit and not enough invested in people, it will allow humanity to raise a new generation of children who have far fewer emotional scars. We must reverse the trend of failing families.
Works Cited
Hancock, Dr. Perry
1) “Childhood Emotional Abuse.”
Family Articles. Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home.
http://www.lbch.org/articles/ChildhoodEmotionalAbuse.pdf 28 July 2009.
2) “Children in an Anti-Christian Culture.”
Family Articles. Louisiana Baptist Children’s Home.
http://www.lbch.org/articles/Anti-ChristianCultureDoc.pdf 28 July 2009.
LBCH.org.
www.lbch.org/RCC_2009.htm 28 July 2009.
Yoshino, Kenji, “From Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights.”
Emerging – A Reader 2nd ed. Ed. Barclay Barrios. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. (244-254).
Koepp, Stephen., “Is the Middle Class Shrinking?” Time.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,143633,00.html 24 Jun 2001, 28 July 2009.
Texans Care for Children. “A Closer Look at the Issues.”
http://www.texanscareforchildren.org/files/fostercare_reimbursement.pdfUtah Pride Center. “Homeless Youth Pride Walk 2009 – Utah Shine.”
http://www.utahpridecenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=300&Itemid=128 28 July 2009.
KSL. “Number of Homeless Youth in Utah is Growing.”
KSL News.
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=4885505 24 Nov 2008, 28 July 2009.
CBS. “Steve Young’s Home Displays ‘No On 8’ Signs.”
CBS5 News.
http://cbs5.com/local/steve.young.prop8.2.853885.html 1 Nov 2008, 28 July 2009.
Wright, Jonathan. “Proof that the Mormon Church Broke IRS Rules?”
Dallas Voice.
http://www.dallasvoice.com/instant-tea/2009/01/15/proof-that-the-mormon-church-violated-irs-rules-on-prop-8/ 15 Jan 2009, 30 July 2009.
Spar, Debora L., “Designing Babies: Fixing Flaws and Pursuing Perfection.”
Emerging – A Reader 2nd ed. Ed. Barclay Barrios. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. (212-243).
Appiah, Kwame Anthony, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. W. W. Norton, 2006.
It was evidence that the Mormons are not that far removed from 1857. It showed us that in the 21st century, six million Mormons would willingly follow the prophet if he were to turn that dial, once again, to a 10. 
It was evidence that the Mormons are not that far removed from 1857. It showed us that in the 21st century, six million Mormons would willingly follow the prophet if he were to turn that dial, once again, to a 10. 
