Liberty for all

"After all, every human being’s life in this world is inevitably mixed with every other life and, no matter what laws we pass, no matter what precautions we take, unless the people we meet are kindly and decent and human and liberty-loving, then there is no liberty. Freedom comes from human beings, rather than from laws and institutions."

Clarence Darrow made the above comment during his closing argument in the case of The People Vs Henry Sweet, heard in Detroit in 1926.
The case involved a black family whose home was attacked by a white mob. Panicked, the family fired shots into the crowd trying to get them to leave, and a white man died as a result. Members of the black family were charged with murder - no white people were charged with anything - and Darrow's spirited, successful defence of the Sweets is heralded as a landmark blow against the racism that was so commonplace at the time.

The above quote - pulled from a seven-hour-long speech - strikes me because it was spoken almost 60 years before I was born, and succinctly sums up a concept I've spent years and thousands of words trying to communicate.

These days racism is against the law. That's a good thing, but it has an unfortunate side effect. It pushes racism underground. People who never experience it can comfortably pretend it does not exist. A workplace can no longer put up a sign saying "no blacks", but the people within now just quietly go about never hiring any black people. The majority feels good, but people of a certain race remain victimised, and it's now a more insubstantial problem, and harder to fight.

And laws against horrible behaviour are slight if people remain horrible. People keep hating. Those of my generation and those below have no excuse for racism except ignorance. They have never lived in a world where such beliefs are upheld and sanctioned by society as a whole. Despite that, these beliefs persist, and all the paper in the world can't stop it.

I encounter a certain amount of surprise when I ask people to discontinue their racism - at least in my presence - as I'm a white guy, and it's felt I shouldn't care in the first place. But despite being a left wing hippy nutjob, my thoughts in this and in many things stem from a simple idea:

"Just don't be a fuckwit."

Far less eloquent than Mr Darrow, but it's what I live up to. I don't always succeed, but if we all made that effort, we wouldn't need many laws at all. Just ... try to treat people as people. That's it. That's all I've got.

Oh, and a big shout out to my mum for buying me the mighty tome "Speeches That Reshaped The World" for Christmas. It's great, and obviously the inspiration for this post. And while she may never have phrased it as such, she is responsible for instilling the above sentiment in my brain, and teaching me over the years - through direct advice, the odd shout, subtle examples and as an example - that if you treat people like people, most of the other stuff will work itself out.

Thanks mum!