Doing Justice or Learning about Justice?

I think Progressive Christianity has a problem.  Progressive Christians like to talk about social justice, learn about justice, and complain about injustice a whole bunch, but when it comes to “doing justice”… well, in my opinion, some of us stink.  Preferring to keep our heads in books and griping about all that’s bad in the world, we avoid building relationship or doing anything about injustices.

This issue became clear to me in a course I took this semester.  In order to fulfill my seminary’s global justice requirement, I needed to complete a field experience which confronted global justice issues.  Most students at my seminary meet this requirement by going on a global justice trip, studying justice issues in other parts of the world—like poverty in South America made worse by the US market or apartheid in South Africa.  My understanding of these trips is that students study, do advocacy, build relationships, and confront how their own privilege negatively affects others around the globe.

Since I don’t travel well without my husband (yeah, call me a baby), I decided to opt for this alternative—a social justice and Scripture class.  In fact, writing this blog post is an assignment for the class.  Those in this alternative class got to shape our own study, learning how globalization has led to injustices here in the US.  Several of the students in the class—me included—had a hard time getting their head around the assignment…

Wait, we are supposed to study global justice issues, but not do anything about them?!  But isn’t the assignment named “Do Justice”?  What organization is going to let us come in to build relationships for study without providing something? What kind of doing is this?

Our brilliant professor called in re-enforcements, the director of the seminary’s Center for Public Ministry.  He understood the situation, saying, “Trying to find an agency that’s going to let you interact with an international population in order to study an issue… that’s pretty unlikely.  Organizations that work on international justice are often set up for privileged volunteers to pitch in and help with something.”

I totally understand why my seminary doesn’t just want us to be helpers and insists we study justice issues deeply:  When privileged people desire to be the rescuer or helper of oppressed people without understanding the dynamics which set up oppression, it creates a really icky power dynamic:

I have something; you don’t.  I want to give you a little bit of what I have… [under my breath] in order to make myself feel better.  I’ll give you a bit of money or time, but not enough that it impacts my lifestyle too much.  Then I’m going to go home with this warm fuzzy feeling, proud I’m a helper.  And you’re going to continue face the oppression I benefit from. 

Obviously, this helper mentality isn’t doing justice either.  But as I found out, finding an alternative option, where a real impact is made, is really hard.  Sure, sure… progressive Christians want people to recognize their privilege, but simply recognizing doesn’t really accomplish a darn thing.  Do something:  Something that doesn’t set up icky power dynamics, something that doesn’t continue to put oppressed people at the whim of another’s charity.  But what?  Do what?

 

This is a tension.  Helping with immediate needs (food, shelter, clothing) is in tension with creating opportunities and advocating for policies that lead to a more fair system.  Like pulling on two ends of a rope, this must be kept in tension.

If I’m honest with myself, I made no noticeable difference in my field experience.  I didn’t really do justice.  I studied the experience of international students and faculty in our US educational system by 1) shadowing an English Language Learner (ELL) teacher in an area elementary school, 2) interviewing a handful of international college students (some which I’ve taught), and 2) interviewing two international faculty members.

I did learn a bit about international injustices embedded in our education system, especially those related to the plight of migrant students in a Midwest school and how language barriers create all sorts of injustices.  But my greatest learnings were not about the education system.

Instead, I learned I don’t know the stories of people who are close to me.  I had no idea what a former Malaysian student had to go through in order to study in the US and the fear she is facing about going back to Malaysia with a degree that’s best suited to the US market.  In interviewing a colleague whose office is just across the hall, I learned she is the child of Palestinian refugees and received her early education at a refugee school.  I had no idea of these stories and others, even though these folks were right next to me in life.  I learned I need to take time to hear the stories of others.  And frankly, I’m embarrassed I never thought to ask until a course required it.

Might hearing the stories of others be the first element of doing justice?  We are motivated by personal stories, by understanding the details from others’ lives, what they have faced, what they have to overcome, including the systemic roadblocks that stand in their way.  When I look at the teachers I admire, they know their students.  They ask about their stories, the details.  Maybe hearing the stories of others is part of studying—and doing—justice.