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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
May 29, 2011
The topic for this morning’s sermon comes from the Davies services
auction. At the services auction this past March, I offered—to the
highest bidder—the right to name a topic or a concern or a question
as the subject of a sermon. I did not necessary pledge to come to
the conclusion that the purchaser might want, but I did pledge to
wrestle with the topic that was chosen.
It’s useful for me to do this. For one, it raises a little money for
the church. But offering the right to name a sermon topic also
forces me into realms I might not otherwise venture into. Often the
topic named is something I wouldn’t have thought of. Or it’s
something I don’t know very much about. Or it’s beyond my comfort
zone. All of these apply today. I probably would not have thought of
this topic. I don’t know much about it. And: it’s beyond my comfort
zone.
Nevertheless, I’ll make an attempt.
This topic starts with an observation and then proceeds into
statistics which identify a problem. The observation is that the
United States puts people in jail at a rate higher than any other
country. We have 5% of the world’s population but almost 25% of the
world’s prisoners; that’s 2.3 million people behind bars. China,
with a population four times that of the United States, comes in a
distant second with 1.6 million people in prison.
If we consider the rates of incarceration—that is, the percentage of
the population that is in jail—the United States also leads the
world with 751 people in prison for every 100,000 in population. The
only other country that comes close to that rate is Russia, with 627
prisoners for every 100,000 people. Other industrialized countries
show much lower figures. England has 151 people in jail per 100,000;
Germany’s rate is 88 per 100,000; and Japan’s is 63 per 100,000.
Moreover, this is a recent phenomenon. The US prison population has
shot up dramatically in the last 25 – 35 years. In the 50 years
between 1925 and 1975, this country’s rate of incarceration stayed
steady at about 110 per 100,000 people. But from 1975 until the
present, that rate has shot up by a factor of almost 7—I don’t even
know the word for that: if increasing by a factor of 4 is
quadrupling, I guess going up by a factor of 7 must be something
like “septoogling?”
Whatever we name it, there is something going on. And as with most
“somethings” that are going on, multiple causal factors are
involved.
Some of these are:
Our emphasis on being “tough on crime,” which began in about the
1970s and produced more and longer prison terms.
Also, the United States criminal justice system puts people in jail
for lesser crimes than in other countries. This is one of the few
places in the world where passing bad checks can land you in jail.
Also, drug violations are punished more severely here and at an
escalating rate. In 1980, about 40,000 people were in American
prisons doing terms for drug crimes. Today, it’s approaching half a
million.
The rate of crime in the United States is not that different than in
other countries. But the crimes themselves tend to be more violent,
due in part to the ready availability of guns. More violent crimes
produce longer prison sentences.
Another factor is that the judicial selection process in the United
States is heavily politicized. In some areas, judges are elected
directly; in other areas judges are still subject to political
pressure. If you have ambitions of being a judge—or of keeping your
job as a judge—positioning yourself as “tough on crime” is a proven
vote getter. And being “tough on crime” usually translates as
putting a lot of people in jail.
Others have pointed to the privatization of prison facilities as a
factor in the increasing rate of incarceration. When private
corporations stand to profit, then they are likely to lobby for
policies that produce more prisoners. And indeed, National Public
Radio reported that Arizona’s recent stringent illegal immigration
legislation was given significant support—both lobbying support and
help in actually drafting the legislation—by the corporations that
run the prisons. (Build them, and they will come.)
Young African American men are imprisoned at a much higher rate than
those in other populations. According to one source, over 10% of
African American men between 20 and 25 years old are now in jail. In
1980, there were 143,000 black men in prison and 463,700 enrolled in
college. That is, there were over three times the number of African
American men in college as in jail. Twenty years later, there were
603,032 African American men in college, an increase of about a
third. But there were 791,600 black men in prison. That is, there
are now more African American men in jail than in college. Moreover,
the rate of incarceration increased by a factor of five in just
twenty years.
There are terrible personal and social costs when so many people
spend so much time in jail. It’s also expensive in real dollars. In
Maryland, for every dollar spent on higher education, $.74 goes to
prisons. In five other states, more tax money goes to corrections
than to higher education.
We could go on in this vein for awhile, but I think the point is
made. There are a lot of people in jail in the United States, the
rate of imprisonment has been increasing dramatically, a lot of
those prisoners are young men, and a disproportionate number of
these are young African American men.
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These statistics could bring on a sermon about prison reform or one
that urges us to re-evaluate our approach to incarceration. That
would be valid, but it’s not what the purchaser of this topic is
concerned with. It’s also not where I want to go. While it is
certainly true that the high rate of imprisonment in this country
results in part from how we define and punish crimes, it’s also
worth considering whether other factors might be involved.
All societies, including our own, offer guidance—roadmaps, if you
will—that help manage the transition from childhood to adulthood.
They guide boys to becoming men and then provide images of what it
is to be a man. As they also guide girls to becoming women and then
provide images of what it is to be a woman. During our Time for All
Ages this morning, Denise told about an initiation rite from New
Guinea intended to help manage that transition. The masked figure
represented the scary things out there in the adult world. The
ritual battle between the boy and the masked figure—which would end
in victory for the boy—showed that it was possible to defeat those
scary things. It demonstrated to the boy that he could become a man.
Joseph Campbell explored myths from around the world that define
this transition into manhood and suggested that they follow a
universal pattern. He called it the myth of the hero: the hero with
a thousand faces. These stories vary in their specifics, but the
underlying pattern, according to Joseph Campbell, goes something
like this:
A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of
supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a
decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious
adventure with the power to bestow boons (benefits) on his fellow
man.
This myth of the hero is expressed in many contexts, such as, in
popular culture. For example, in creating the Star Wars series,
George Lucas consciously drew upon Joseph Campbell’s work. Luke
Skywalker is the classic hero who is subject to tests and trials as
he negotiates the road to adulthood in his world. (So you see it was
quite appropriate for Jaida to offer the theme from Star Wars this
morning as our prelude.)
Society not only offers stories that instruct young people about how
to make their way into adulthood, it also provides points of entry
into that adult world. In our society, for example, getting a
drivers license and then owning a car. Suddenly this child finds
himself or herself subject to the laws and responsibilities of
adulthood. Or getting a job which usually means moving from being
supported by one’s parents to supporting oneself. Or marrying—taking
responsibility not just for oneself but for a family unit, a family
unit that might someday include children.
That’s the way it should work. Society offers ways in which children
become adults, in which boys become men. But sometimes it doesn’t
work. Something breaks down, and this transition into adulthood
becomes difficult to negotiate. Not for everyone, perhaps, but for a
sizeable portion of the population. This breakdown can be seen in a
variety of symptoms. Such as, increases in unemployment, in mental
illness, a widening gap between rich and poor, a delayed entrance
into the adult world, increases in violence...and increases in the
prison population. When people can’t find a place in society
following the customary routes, then some try others which might be
illegal.
Is this is what we’re seeing in the statistics detailing the
increase in American prison populations? Perhaps it’s not just that
Americans have become altogether too enthusiastic about putting
people in jail—even though we are. Perhaps it’s not just that our
criminal justice system is running on steroids—which it is. Perhaps
it’s not just that we are becoming a more punitive society—which we
are.
Perhaps it’s also that the route to adulthood has become less clear;
obstacles have been created that make it difficult for young people
to make their way along this road. And perhaps these obstacles
affect men disproportionately, and men in minorities even more.
If so—if this is a valid interpretation of what we are seeing—what
can we do about it? Specifically, do churches have anything to offer
as we confront the possibility that old routes leading to adulthood
don’t work as they did for previous generations—and new routes have
not created pathways that reliably guide individuals toward becoming
productive and self-sufficient adults.
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During my time on this earth, I have seen the roles of men in our
society change. I have seen assumptions about what it is to be a man
change. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways, it’s been
a good thing; it’s been a good thing for me. I did not want to be
what it seemed like men were supposed to be as I was growing up.
This transition in the role of men offered options to me that might
not have been available before.
As an example of this change, look to the fields of work that once
were virtually closed to women. Our two daughters are pursuing
careers in fields that a generation or two ago would have been
difficult, just because they are women. One is studying to become an
architect, the other is entering graduate school to become a
geologist. Thirty years ago, forty years ago, there weren’t a whole
lot of women architects or geologists. Today, there are bunches of
them. When I began as a Unitarian Universalist minister, there were
only a few women in ministry, and most of those were in lower
echelon positions. Today, women dominate the Unitarian Universalist
ministry. For me, that’s been good. I am more comfortable with the
feeling-oriented style of ministry that women have brought. I was
never one of those super rationalist guys that male Unitarian
ministers used to be.
But you have to wonder, what’s become of the men who would have been
architects, geologists, and ministers? What’s become of the men who
would have taken any number of the other positions that have become
more welcoming of women? I doubt that these fields have grown enough
to employ the numbers of men that would have been in them had older
patterns prevailed. So what’s become of those men?
Maybe you’ve been struck, as I have, by the number of young women we
encounter who are strong, sure of themselves, knowing what they
want, moving along a clear personal and/or career path. And maybe
you’ve also encountered young men who don’t quite seem to know where
they are going or what they are doing. In my own limited experience,
it seems more often today the men who are drifting, the women who
have chosen clear pathways to a goal.
Perhaps this is just one example of a deeper pattern that gets
expressed in many ways beyond the increase in prison population. For
boys and adolescents today, it seems to be more challenging to
manage the transition from childhood to being a man.
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When a society gets shaken up, when roles and expectations change,
and when people get caught in the middle, there is a temptation to
return to the memory of more stable times. Bring back the nuclear
family as the foundation of society, bring back the traditional
roles of men and women; bring back the one-income household; bring
back guaranteed job stability; bring back that old time religion;
bring back returnable glass bottles, dial telephones, Studebakers
and black and white TV. It might be tempting to return to the good
old days, but it is not going to happen.
And besides, that is not what we of the liberal religious tradition
do. Lots of religions try: they try to stop change in its tracks.
But that’s not what we do. Our role has been and continues to be:
embrace progress, affirm the advance of human rights, advocate for
change—even when these changes bring unintended side-effects:
side-effects like some people feeling that they have lost their
place in the world.
So if our role is not to try to role back change, then what is it?
Let me offer a possibility. I’ll introduce that by remembering a job
I had when I lived in Cleveland. For a time, I worked for an
African-American newspaper. It was originally called The Cleveland
Voice, and I was in on the second issue. Then The Village Voice,
which seems to own the word, Voice, when applied to a newspaper,
intervened, and the newspaper’s name changed to The City News, which
is what it is today.
My assignment at The City News was to write profiles of individuals
in the Cleveland African American community. I was an unlikely staff
member: a middle-aged white man in a black paper run by people much
younger than I. But I was willing, and they needed somebody so I got
the part. I would make an appointment for an interview, then show up
at an office or a home or restaurant. People would do a double-take
when they saw me—there are a lot of Marshall’s and Bruce’s in the
black community, so they had made some assumptions. But then people
would talk; they would tell me about themselves and their lives and
what it they were doing and what was important to them.
This was inner-city Cleveland. It’s a rough place: some people just
hanging on, some not even hanging on. I learned a lot about life in
that community—the struggle to make ends meet, the drugs sold on the
street corners, the efforts to take care of children who were
falling between the cracks, the attempt keep kids in school.
But what impressed me and has stuck with me is something else. Not
the difficulties of life in that environment but the efforts of
people to make changes, to help each other, to work together to
create a better future. Now granted, I was talking to a select
group—local leaders, people involved in organizations, those who
took seriously their role in the community—but still, what impressed
me was that just about everybody I talked with was doing something
to help the community. It might have been a little something—maybe
just affecting one or a few other lives, nothing that was going to
overturn life in inner city Cleveland. But something. Maybe it was
tutoring a child who was having trouble in school. Maybe it was
becoming a foster parent. Maybe it was starting a small neighborhood
business. Maybe it was serving on a committee to help support the
school. Maybe it was being a neighborhood lookout to keep drugs off
the streets. Whatever it was, it was something. Something to help
people in this community, no matter what the circumstances in which
they found themselves.
I think about that and wonder if maybe here is a response to the
question which is the title of this sermon, “What’s to become of
men?” Life has changed in our time, particularly for men. Some
men—not all but some—have found these changes difficult. They have
floundered and foundered as traditional roles and assumptions have
slipped away. Some men go around feeling lost, out of place. Some
are angry, some become violent. Some get put in jail.
A response to this condition that we can offer from our religious
tradition—one that is authentic to our religious tradition—is to
encourage us, each of us, to do something to serve the community, to
serve others. Like the people I met in Cleveland: do something to
help an individual, a neighborhood, a community. Just do something.
Maybe it’s serving on a committee, maybe it’s tutoring, maybe it’s
mentoring a young person, maybe it’s cleaning up somebody’s yard,
maybe it’s picking up trash off the street, maybe it’s trying really
hard to understand somebody who’s different from you. Something to
help rebuild the community, uphold a sense of the value of people
and the enterprises in which we engage.
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So what’s to become of men—in this new age in which the roles men
play are not so clearly defined?
You might have seen the cover article a few months back in our
national magazine, the Unitarian Universalist World. It was about
Superheroes. You know, like Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Wonder
Woman. The author, Doug Muder, noted a change in the nature of
superheroes in recent times, perhaps reflecting a change in what we
need—a change in our own myths of the hero, a change in how we might
manage the transition from childhood to adulthood.
Earlier superheroes—like Superman—were individualists. They saved
the world alone. They didn’t have any help, they didn’t need any
help, they didn’t want any help. Moreover, they were isolated
individuals, without family, without a past. Batman was an orphan,
Spiderman was raised by his aunt, Superman arrived on earth from a
planet that had just blown up. These superheroes were not based in a
community, did not have the guidance of ancestors; they were on
their own.
I don’t keep up with comic books, but apparently there’s been a
change in recent years. This not a change in the mission of
superheroes. Superheroes save the world. That’s what they do. The
change is in how they approach that mission. Where earlier
superheroes were loners, the newer varieties work in relationship
with others. They have teachers; they have mentors; they draw from a
tradition. The X-men all have a mentor who imparts wisdom to guide
their mission. Luke Skywalker has Obiwan Kenobi, the last of the
Jedi knights, who shows him how to be a man. According to Doug Muder
who wrote this article, after 1980, all the newer superheroes have
mentors and some get their strength through finding that they are
part of an ancient lineage. That is to say, they are connected—to
other people, to teachers, to ancestors, to a wisdom tradition.
Maybe these stories are part of a collective myth that tell us
something of what we need now, in this age, to become heroes again:
heroes of our own lives. In a time of transition, when pathways into
the future are not clear, then maybe what we need is to come
together. Find teachers, seek out the wisdom of our families, our
ancestors, our traditions. Seek support to take our next steps into
the future.
What’s to become of men? I don’t know. But I suspect I know
something about how to find out, that is, how to manage the
transition from the men of yesterday to becoming the men of
tomorrow. That is, help each other, learn from each other, guide
each other, stand by each other. “Lean on me,” as the closing hymn
expresses it in terminology that would make earlier generations of
superheroes and Unitarians shudder. “Lean on me...We all need
somebody to lean on.”
Sources:
Washington Post, New High in U.S. Prison Numbers, February 29, 2008
The New York Times, Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’,
April 23, 2008
NPR, Was Arizona’s Immigration Law Prompted by Private Prisons?,
April 20, 2011.
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