A More Perfect Union

The Charlottesville white supremacist march was a horrifying escalation of recent racial tensions. Confronting overt racism is necessary, but far more challenging is dismantling entrenched policies propping up racial inequities.

"in Order to form a more perfect Union..."

The first step is admitting that ours is an imperfect country, with flawed institutions, including our military, law enforcement, government, media, and more. Without acknowledging that, there is no way to move forward to account for the sins of the past and the continuing inequities of the present. But without believing, as I do, that all of these institutions are redeemable – and that with mindful striving, they can be continuously improved in pursuit of an unattainable perfection – there is no reason to try.

This is a critical point to convey to those who would retort "America, love it or leave it!" That, despite a history that includes the displacement of indigenous people, the chattel slavery of blacks, legalized segregation, and the internment of Japanese-Americans, America's professed ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity are worth fighting for. Progress can feel slow, but over two centuries this country has vastly expanded whom it covers under the protective cloak of its ideals.

An Evolving Understanding of Our Origins

I just returned from vacation to catch my Tivo recording of the recent History Channel special "Ape to Man", a terrific and timely new documentary chronicling the development of human evolutionary theory. The program covers the span of over 150 years, from pre-Darwinian ideas to the realization of man's common ancestry in Africa and the importance of the use of tools.

Rather then offering just a dry, encyclopedic recital, "Ape to Man" focuses on the chronological advancement of scientific thought on the subject. Key moments are reenacted, from the finding of Neanderthal fossils in Germany in the 1850s up through the famous discovery of "Lucy" in 1974. The scientific history is interspersed with vignettes featuring superbly costumed and cosmeticized actors dramatizing situations like hunting, fighting, and utilizing fire. This may sound cheesy, but surprisingly enough, it is all done so well and fits so neatly into the flow of the documentary as to be completely engrossing.

Any mention of evolutionary theory these days would be remiss not to notice this is a time when anti-evolutionists are gaining momentum by pushing the idea of "intelligent design". This concept has been in the news a lot as of late, drawing apparent support from President Bush and being touted as an alternative to teaching evolution in the classroom.

"Intelligent design" holds that the complexity of life is so great that it could only have been overseen by a supernatural force. There are two ways to interpret this--one, of course, is that this is just a nuanced rewording of the creationist position. In this respect, the idea of "intelligent design" is just a subtle but so far surprisingly effective assault on science and on public education. The idea of uncertainty in the current scientific viewpoint, however, is a reasonable enough idea. There is a bottomless supply of questions to which science yet has no answer. In the context of establishing a basis for scientific thought, however, the idea is fallacious.

Consider that the essence of science is a constant, millennia-old progression of our ability to understand our world. We are always striving to improve that understanding. Scientific explanations are made to the best of our ability based on the ascertained information we possess. Introducing intelligent design into the classroom does a great disservice to science, for the idea is not a scientific one. This is not a debate about whether there is or is not a God, so don't let that topic, irrelevant to the matter at hand, distract you. It's that science is not, as a letter to the LA Times recently pointed out, about points of view.

In the decades and centuries to come, we will almost certainly refine our ideas about our origins. "Ape to Man" did a great job, I thought, in showing how the "evolution of evolution" was in no way easily contrived. In addition to the requisite inspiration and perspiration, scientists had to overcome many missteps (and even intentional falsehoods) to arrive at the current theory of our origins. Even now, science is still trying to solve the unexplained. Intelligent design, though, can never provide any answers, and it still begs the questions of "why?" and "how?" Furthermore, the faux-security it provides cheapens the value of the rational scientific thought that is supposed to be a cornerstone of education.

Here's the beauty of science: if an idea is flawed, it will be cast by the wayside, and we will be better off for abandoning it. If the idea is tested and strengthened, then we all go to sleep feeling more confident that yet another great mystery has been solved by the might of human ingenuity. Regardless of the outcome, that's called progress. So to all challengers, bring it on!

A Day to Honor Heroes

"And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."
-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a time when the country celebrates a great and influential man (whose name is Robert E. Lee, say some Southerners). Today, as grateful students who get the day off from school will tell you, we honor Dr. King's legacy of peace, justice, and equality. Dr. King, however, is not the only champion of liberty whose life is worth reflecting on today.

Zhao Ziyang, former Secretary-General of the Chinese Communist Party passed away this morning. His short reign in the late 1980s witnessed an openness and limited government without precedent in totalitarian China. Ziyang, a reformist leader once seen as the heir to Deng Xiaoping, was ultimately purged for his sympathy to the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. In a famous photograph, Ziyang is shown pleading with the student protestors to give up their efforts, saying "I have come too late" to prevent the violent crackdown that would ensue. Shortly afterward, Ziyang was stripped of his titles.

For the rest of his life, he remained under house arrest, hidden by a government too fearful of the very power of Zhao's name to influence would-be reformers. Xinhua, China's state news agency, devoted a scant few sentences to his passing in its English-language report, referring to him only as "Comrade Zhao" and avoiding mention of his leadership posts. TIME's excellent profile on Zhao Ziyang, "The Prisoner of Conscience", summed it up best: "Zhao sealed his fate with an act of courage unseen among China's totalitarian leaders before or since—he broke ranks." China, had Ziyang remained at the helm, would no doubt look very different from what we see now.

Also, it was sixty years ago to this day that Raoul Wallenberg disappeared into the hands of his Soviet captors. Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat whose ingenuity and courage during WWII saved the lives of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Sadly, near the war's end in January 1945, Wallenberg was arrested by the Red Army on the allegation that he was an American spy. According to the Soviets, Wallenberg died in captivity in 1947, though other accounts state that Wallenberg was alive in Siberian or Russian prisoners at least through the 1960s.

In 1981, Raoul Wallenberg became only the 5th person ever to be accorded with the status of Honorary Citizen of the United States. No critically-acclaimed Spielberg movie was ever made about him, but there is no question that his bravery is an inspiration to us all.

Leave None to Tell the Story

"God already left Africa."
-- Tears of the Sun

Today I biked eleven miles to the nearest movie theater in the area that was showing Hotel Rwanda, a moving new film about the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I would encourage everyone to go see this movie, a remarkable true story reminiscent of Schindler's List. If while watching you are struck by the authenticity of the emotion, know that the film uses displaced Tutsi refugees as extras and some scenes were shot at the sites where real massacres took place. Through 3/4 of this movie I had goosebumps. Like numerous others in the blogosphere whose reactions I've read, Hotel Rwanda filled me with great sadness and great anger.

Prepare to be outraged at the impotence of the international community and at the indifference of the United States. President Clinton had the following to say in 1998 when visitng Kigali:

"It may seem strange to you here, especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.

Unfortunately for the hundreds of thousands of victims in Rwanda, far too many people did not appreciate the scope and magnitude of the disaster. Clinton, however, cannot be placed in that category. Ten years after the fact, Freedom of Information Act requests have shown that the Clinton administration knew that genocide was occuring, and chose to do nothing. Seeking to avoid the entrapment experience of Somalia, the U.S. did the unforgivable, unable to even muster forceful words of denunciation. I don't know if anyone can say with any certainty that Rwanda can ever recover fully; some suggest the country has hardly recovered at all.

The Holocaust. Cambodia. Bosnia. Rwanda. Darfur. Etc, etc, etc. Each time, we say "never again". Despite all the hand-wringing, you can count on it happening again.