The thermometer read 102 degrees. Two-year-old Christina lay in bed crying, her tan face reddened with fever as she turned her head from side to side trying to find a cool spot. Berit hung the phone on its cradle and turned to me: “The night nurse said we should give her Tylenol.”
“I just checked the medicine chest,” I said, “and we’re out. I’ll drive over to Green’s and get some.”
Fortunately, Green’s was an all-night drugstore on 52nd Street and Baltimore Avenue, only a few neighborhoods away from where we lived at the time, Powelton Village.
I found a parking place on a residential street about a block from Green’s. It was past midnight; we’d been asleep when Crystal woke up crying with fever. I hurried to the drugstore, made my purchase, and started back along the dark and nearly-deserted street of typical Philadelphia brick-row houses.
Ahead of me I saw a group of young men hanging out on the sidewalk. For a second I thought it might be smart to cross the street to avoid them; this was a solidly African-American neighborhood, and for all I knew they might be turf-conscious and not that friendly toward a white guy. I shrugged my shoulders: It’s my right to walk wherever I want to, so I’ll just continue on the direct route to my car.
There were five or six of them, pretty much occupying the whole of the narrow sidewalk. As I walked into their space one of them stepped up to me and pushed me against the wall of the closed-in porch attached to someone’s row house. Surprised, I stared at him as he pushed me again and said something I was too scared to understand.
Oh, shit! I thought to myself. I’m in trouble, and I’m clueless about what to do. My heart pounded so loudly that my ears didn’t seem to hear anything they were saying. My eyes registered the others in the group stepping closer to me, and I felt my anger rise closely behind my fear. George, think of something!
Instantly I was transported back three years earlier to Miami University in Ohio, where the Freedom Summer training took place in 1964. Rev. James Lawson, a battle-scarred veteran of the civil rights struggle, was explaining to 400 of us some techniques of response to attack.
“Let me tell you about John Wesley, the English Methodist preacher,” Lawson said. “He was used to being mobbed by hostile crowds and developed a technique for handling it. Wesley first of all threw off his hat so the crowd could see his face and he could see everyone in the midst of the chaos. He then scanned the mob to identify the ‘leader.’ Wesley believed that every mob however disorganized had somebody within it who was a potential leader.”
Lawson continued, “Once he got an intuitive sense of who that was, he forgot about everybody else and put all his energy into communicating with that person. If the shouts were too loud for him to be heard, Wesley did eye-to-eye contact, completely focusing on this person who was a potential leader. And, every time, that person would do something to turn the mob away from beating Wesley, sometimes saving his life.” (Antje Mattheus described using just this technique in her guest column last week.)
Lawson’s story was what I remembered in that split-second on 52nd Street, and since I didn’t have any other ideas, I decided to try it out.
I scanned the group of young men and, trusting my intuition, decided the leader wasn’t the guy who was pushing me and being in my face. I figured the leader was another young man, who was standing back a bit with a thoughtful expression in his eyes. Channeling Wesley, I focused my energy on him.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked. I allowed my anger to show in my voice and at the same time held my hands out and down, palms open. “I came out to get some medicine for my baby.”
My voice rose. “She has a fever! She needs the medicine. Why are you hassling me?”
The guy who’d taken the initiative hit me a couple times in the shoulder, not very hard, as if mainly to get my attention while he kept saying whatever he was saying to me (which I still wasn’t understanding). My heart went on pounding, but my backbone was straighter and a calm was growing inside. I had a plan; I was acting. I looked even harder at the guy I hoped was the leader.
“I’m a dad,” I said, raising my voice some more. “I’m trying to do right by my baby. She needs the medicine. I came to Green’s down there.” I motioned with my head in that direction. “Why are you stopping me? I need to get home!”
“Hey, man,” said the thoughtful-looking one to the one who was pushing me. “Let him go, man.”
The pushing guy turned around to address the other. “Why, man? He ain’t got business on our block.”
I suddenly realized I could hear what they were saying. And look at the bodies: There was a subtle dance going on.
Another guy stepped into the argument, and I saw the energy had shifted. No one was looking at me; they were looking at the pushing guy and the leader. My hearing went blank again as I continued to focus on the leader. He glanced at me, then turned back to the pushing guy and said something. Somebody seemed to agree with him, judging from the body language, and a couple of them turned their backs on me. It was all about their argument, now, and I started to edge away.
I’m a huge white guy and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t suddenly invisible to them, standing in a small circle three feet away. Still, no one did anything about my continued edging across the sidewalk into the street and then, walking more rapidly, I headed down the center of the street to my car.
My heart gradually calmed down as I drove home, praying my thanks to Jim Lawson and John Wesley and the entire tribe of Methodists and the God they worship, and most of all, to the guy who, whether or not he really was the leader of his friends, stepped up at an excellent time.
“George! I’m up here,” Berit called as I entered the house. I took the stairs two at a time, bringing the Tylenol to Christina’s bedroom where Berit was waiting. She looked at me closely, then said, “What happened?”
“Berit, don’t ever let someone tell you that nonviolence training isn’t useful. I have a story for you.”
It’s real-world examples like this that make your comments invaluable. Thank you.
It’s a good story, though I think it is significant that the threat detection software in your brain was working, and it provided a timely warning that you chose to ignore. This phenomenon has been reported by countless victims of violence; they tell of somehow knowing in advance that they were in danger, and yet failed to heed their internal alarm system. Trust your feelings and instincts; Two million years of evolution have provided us with quite a remarkable threat detection system.
Many thanks, Philip, for pointing out this lesson explicitly. Over-riding my threat-detection software — in the name of “my right” (and, I could add, a certain amount of masculinity bullshit) — is not a good idea!
George
You raise a a very important point, Philip. However, as important as that threat detection software is, I don’t think it’s foolproof.
For example, I am a white male living in the United States, where racism has programmed white people to regard young black males as a threat. I’ve had experiences of my internal alarm system going off just walking down the street because there were one or two black people coming my way or hanging out at a street corner. Usually what happens in these situations is that I choose to disregard my alarm system, because I can see no rational reason for it, and because I’ve heard black people talk bitterly about white people crossing the street to avoid having to pass them, and that’s not the kind of white person I want to be. So far, in these situations, my internal alarm system has been proved wrong every time.
It’s a powerful survival mechanism, no question, and one people should pay closer attention to, but I think in some cases, people may have good reason for overriding its advice.
If your internal alarm is returning false positives, then you might want to evaluate what you are interpreting as your “alarm”. Cultural training and experience provides our operational template, and if that happens to include “avoiding young black males”, you will indeed see a lot of false positives.
I have observed one example of this type of training with my own child. After getting the “stranger danger” lesson from her female teacher at school, my daughter became fearful of men she didn’t know. It took months of parenting to modify the result of that well-intentioned safety lesson.
With my original post, I did not intend to promote or further cultivate a culture of fear, but rather for individuals to slow down a little bit and tune in to their own bodies and feelings. With practice, I believe anyone can unlearn harmful social customs, while at the same time heightening their situational awareness, and learn to trust their true instincts.
Again, George, you have posted one of your own experiences that will always be valuable to me. I am glad that your humanity–plus that of the gang you confronted–was recognizable and usable during that night.
The technique you used was effective and just confirms to me from what I have experienced with others–and read about: There are always other choices in conflict besides giving in and fighting back. It is not always easy to come up with these strategies or know what they are, but I know what they are not: they are not giving in and they are not fighting back.
I also noted that your language came from the thoughts and emotions of any reasonable adult in the circumstances. By remembering what you had learned you were able to “fine-tune” that message to be the most effective one at the time. I may be wrong, but I was left feeling that the gang members had a new sense of respect for you after you turned your back and walked to your car.
We will all need imaginative and respectful communication skills to move around, act and breathe in this new global culture. Your article is now indelibly part of my own toolkit.
Thank you!
Hi George,
GREAT STORY! We need to hear more and more of these stories of successful nonviolence if we are ever to get folks to throw their guns away.