Statement written for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, March/April 1999

Toward the Beloved Community F.O.R.’s Racial and Economic Justice Vision Statement by Andrés Mares Muro

Rini Templeton

Humanity today faces an enormous challenge: bringing about racial and economic justice. Throughout the world, claims of prosperity and economic well-being are contradicted by the increasing income insecurity with which the majority of people must contend. Institutional racism is still the norm, systematically deferring the hopes of millions who aspire to participate fully and equally in all facets of social life. People of faith and conscience must build movements which effectively challenge the legitimacy of such an economic and racial order. Nonviolent activists must propose changes which address the roots of the problems, help to dismantle the oppressive systems, and bring us closer to fulfilling Dr. King’s vision of the Beloved Community.

A Dire Moral Situation The widespread greed and consumption of our culture are symptomatic of a deep social illness: many folks are trying to fill the emptiness of their lives with pleasure, property, and power when only kindness, compassion, and service to others can fulfill us. Dr. King identified materialism, violence, and racism as the “giant triplets” destroying our nation. Social justice movements, while rightly scrutinizing Pentagon expenditures, hesitate in challenging the core values of private ownership and possessive individualism. Change is viewed solely within the context and the logic of the present economic rules. Yet is a system which puts profits before people a life-sustaining system, or is it ultimately at odds with the integrity of human beings and the well-being of the planet? The question before all of us remains: is our present economic system compatible with justice? The market system promotes extreme income differences, social inequality, and separateness, and perpetuates age-old hierarchical distinctions even though all are supposedly “created equal.” Income disparities reinforce divisions along ethnic, gender, and age lines (people of color, women, and youth and the elderly are generally poorer). More and more we find that full citizenship, and even the acknowledgment of one’s essential humanity, depend upon the amount of money at one’s disposal. A person receives full entitlement only by possessing the means with which to consume products: without means of support one is a non-citizen, a ghost. Income and class status mean increased life chances for some, diminished opportunities for others; some enjoy wide horizons while the great global majority face, in the words of theologian Jon Sobrino,”early and unjust deaths.” The morality of the present economy is highly questionable: the permeability of the cash system continually yields “dirty money.” While government looks away, revenue is generated by “legitimate” evils such as the alcohol and tobacco industries, the arms trade, and illegal economic activities such as manufacturing sweatshops, child labor, prostitution, and drug cartels. As “laundered” money circulates, it mixes with regular banking and financial enterprises and the overall economy.

A Search for Solutions In a period which presents new social conditions and where activism is not as widespread as in the recent past, groups around the country are proposing several strategies in order to bring about justice. These are not full-fledged solutions, merely critical and necessary first steps which will take us closer to the Beloved Community envisioned by Dr. King.

• Recognize and celebrate the values that give life meaning, those Cornel West calls “non-market values”: kindness, compassion, love, care, and service to others.
• Promote an “Economic Bill of Rights” which would guarantee work, a living wage, housing, health care, child care, recreation, sufficient food, and clean air. Stress the importance of the natural dignity and rights of all human beings by making economic justice a human rights issue.
• Support “Living Wage” campaigns, which seek to raise pay to meet the actual cost of living. Likewise, set limits on astronomically high executive pay. Build a national awareness of the need for income fairness.
• Tax extremes of individual wealth. Social movements advocate lifting up the poorer classes, but don’t challenge the existence of elite economic or social classes. It is immoral for humanity to be divided into economic ranks.
• Promote a national dialogue on economic democracy, with working people and the poor in the lead. Wage-earners of all kinds should have a voice in the struggle for social change. The question of how to bring about economic justice is not on the national political agenda, nor in mainstream discussions, and until recently has been neglected by the established leadership of the labor movement, the traditional defender of wage-earners.
• Heighten awareness of corporate welfare. Expose the ways in which government supports powerful business interests through tax loopholes and subsidies. Emphasize the need for corporate responsibility toward workers, communities, and the environment.
• Support labor in its efforts to organize. Endorse campaigns which seek to expose and eradicate exploitative sweatshop conditions.
• Empower people of color and other marginalized groups. Speak out against hate crimes. Defend affirmative action laws.
• Defend immigrants from scapegoating by nativists and racists. Educate citizens as to the human rights of immigrants and the contributions which they make to society.
• Advocate for youth power; ensure that young people have the resources and quality education which they need to exercise their creativity, intelligence, and zest for life.
• Work to “reduce the rates of imprisonment in the US, which are now the highest in the world and disproportionately entrap people of color. We need to oppose the current prison-building binge, to develop alternatives to incarceration that are also consistent with public safety, and to fund preventive programs like public service employment, drug and alcohol treatment programs, and education and training.” (Bonnie Block, Fellowship, Jul/Aug 1997)
• Support the call for “definitive cancellation of the crushing international debt where countries burdened with high levels of human need and environmental distress are unable to meet the basic needs of their people or achieve a level of sustainable development that ensures a decent quality of life.” (Jubilee 2000/USA Platform, 199

Where Do We Go From Here? Consistent with our vision and life of active nonviolence, FOR’s Racial and Economic Justice Program raises the following goals for ethnic and economic justice:

• Meaningful work at a living wage;
• Enough income to provide adequate food, clothing, medicine, recreation for every person;
• A decent home for every human being;
• Recognition of the value of unpaid labor at home;
• Universal health care;
• Quality education for all;
• Protection from economic fears due to old age, youth, sickness, accident, or unemployment;
• Quality child care for all families;
• Cancellation of the international debt.

In 1998, exactly thirty years after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and fifty years after the death of Mahatma Gandhi, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an “International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World (2001-2010).” The adoption of this initiative coincided with and complements the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have lived to see the Gandhian and Kingian visions take a central position on the world stage, even though the fulfillment of those ideals is still to come. In the spirit of the UN International Decade, FOR pledges itself to building a People’s Campaign of Nonviolence which will seek to usher in the Beloved Community, where ethnic and economic justice is the norm. The People’s Campaign will bring together those who are now voiceless and unrepresented and who desire a just and peaceful society. Understanding the need for spiritual and moral self-renewal, FOR proposes a ten-year campaign to revitalize and unify these communities. The gap between the shrinking groups of owners of economic-financial monopolies and the growing populations of those who sell themselves for their meal ticket grows wider and wider. We are committed to building a popular nonviolent movement from below which will move society in the direction of economic democracy and transform the old conflictive roles into relations of cooperation and fellowship. We are aware of the need for a revolution in our consciousness if we are to turn toward new ways of living with each other. Our vision of the future embraces the entire human family. We know that the unjust international imbalances which are now viewed as normal will one day be seen as barbaric and cruel. We must see to it that, just as in the nineteenth century chattel slavery was ended throughout most of the world, so too in the future, racial and economic injustice will be abolished. Progress has been rolled back time and again when oppressive practices resurface under new governments. Bloody revolutions often end up betraying their original ideals, resulting in renewed oppression of the masses of people and the loss of hard-won gains. As Gandhi tried to show, means and ends are interrelated so that a nonviolent goal is undermined by violent means. We call for a radical nonviolent revolution where our hopes for social justice are realized without force, without bloodshed, and in the spirit of uniting people from every background, every nation, and every faith, in a new type of society. The Fellowship of Reconciliation calls upon people of all faith traditions, nations, ethnicities, and perspectives to unite in devotion to nonviolence, inclusion, and compassion; to work together for racial and economic justice, replacing exploitation with fairness, greed with service to others, hatred with reconciliation, and violence with peace.