Commentary: Forging community from conflict

President Barack Obama, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sergeant James Crowley meet in the Rose Garden of the White House, July 30, 2009. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
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By Linda Stamato

Conflict can forge stronger communities, when it’s viewed as an opportunity for constructive change.

Sometimes we fail to see this opportunity when it presents itself.

Fortunately, at other times, we seize it.

From the Past:

One lesson, learned and applied, occurred more than 300 years ago, before America was born. At its heart is the Great Treaty of 1722.

That document, and the will to achieve it, brought an end to a conflict that colonists in Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York believed could spark a war on the continent if they could not come to agreement with members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy–five Indigenous groups that included the Iroquoian and Algonquin nations–over how to handle the brutal murder of a Confederacy member.

Largely unknown until Nicole Eustace, a professor of history at N.Y.U, revealed it, the story provides a stunning example of what constructive approaches to justice can look like.

Linda Stamato
Linda Stamato

In short, the colonists wanted harsh punishment for the murderers, drawing on British colonial justice that had retribution at its core. They expected a trial and beheadings; the Haudenosaunee wanted the murderers spared, and reparations paid.

Representatives of both sides met and argued for six months over which culture’s legal customs would be followed. The approach embraced by the Haudenosaunnee sought to create a fair society, “one in which people who commit crimes can later be reintegrated into the community — and one in which a crisis of violence can be resolved without inflicting further harm.”

In the end, the Haudenosaunee view prevailed. They offered an incentive to the colonists, moreover, confirming their land claims in Pennsylvania.

The treaty provides a working model of restorative justice, one that demonstrates how communities of the victims and the perpetrators of a crime can come together to repair relationships through economic, emotional and spiritual offerings.

Strict adherence to the British approach would have blocked the opportunity to cement the already existing peace between the tribes and the three colonies, a value-added element that often comes with the resolution of conflicts in communities that are viewed as opportunities.

Even from this distance, there are lessons to be learned.

Back to the Present:

Bridgewater

A fight between two teenagers at the Bridgewater Commons mall earlier this year ended with the arrival of two police officers. One tackled a dark-skinned youth and held him on the floor, while the second officer told the other fighter, a light-skinned young man who is Colombian and Pakistani, to sit on a bench, unattended, evidently so she could assist subduing the other young man.

The disparate treatment, widely reported in the press and online via a video, had an impact on David D. Hobbs, the pastor of the Macedonia Baptist Church. He knew he could not ignore something that ‘“made the community sit up and take notice of the things that we think happen outside our community,”  yet happen right here. He didn’t want to see the incident become a festering sore.

Recognizing an opportunity he couldn’t refuse to act on, Hobbs, functioning as a mediator, leveraged the good will of his church to bring together multiple parties, many of whom were outraged and demanding action, including many individual citizens and representatives of organizations.

He asked that they come to together to talk, air grievances, and listen to others, using his church as the organizing force. Space at the mall was made available so that a conversation could take place, one that Hobbs hoped could improve relationships in a community on edge.

Eight months after the mall fight, the community has chosen to move forward, reaching some common ground on police training and accountability, turning a potential crisis into an opportunity for building bridges in the larger community.

Central Park

Not so long before the fight at the mall, another highly visible story took shape in the press, one that didn’t have a similar outcome. A white woman in New York’s Central Park threatened to call police on a Black man. He had merely asked her to leash her dog, as required, in that area in the park.

The man, Christian Cooper, turned out to be an avid birder and a board member of the city’s Audubon Society. He video-recorded what happened, including her angry threats to call 911 – including her plea on her phone, “There’s an African American man threatening my life.”

Unlike most incidents, this one – because it was recorded – went viral when Christian Cooper’s sister offered it on Twitter. The video led to the woman being fired from her job, calls to ban her from the park and a steady stream of criticism as her intemperate, racist actions were repeatedly viewed.

There were no charges. But the video was chilling to many who watched it because things could have ended very differently for a man who seemed “out of place” simply because he was Black.

This encounter with racism renewed national attention to the dangers — the marginalizing, dehumanizing and, for many, the routine reality — of simply “living while Black.”

Ending the story there, though, amounts to a lost opportunity.

Unlike in Bridgewater, where opportunities to talk yielded constructive results, Cooper’s later observation that the incident perhaps should not have led to the woman losing her job sounded like an opening. An opening for conflict resolution, for using a community forum for facilitated conversations, for mediation and, perhaps, for restorative justice.

Surfacing and distributing evidence of a profound wrong to shame an offender accomplishes only so much. Seeing the wrong as an chance for potential gain, however, may benefit both the offender and the offended and, as noted, may well contribute to the public good.

There are many fraught encounters, much less visible, that need to be seen as opportunities for serious investments in conflict resolution in our communities.

A mediated conversation involving both people, for example, could have been beneficial to both. Having an opportunity to talk and to listen, to absorb what an experience meant and the harm it caused, can lead to positive outcomes for those directly and indirectly involved, serving, potentially, as a lesson for the public. The opportunity was missed.

Cambridge

There is yet another highly visible encounter that tells us we need to see opportunities in community conflicts. That is the very public story of the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates by the white police officer who saw a Black man attempting to break into a home in Cambridge, Mass. Gates was trying to enter his own home.

This encounter became widely circulated and reported on and, as is often the case, interpreted differently, as in “the usual racist injustice,” for some, and “justifiable police work” for others.

Barack Obama, then America’s president, saw an opportunity. He invited both men to the White House, offered to “share a beer” with them, and created a space for a direct conversation between the two, to explore the harm caused to Gates, and the ridicule experienced by the officer, but also to give both an opportunity to listen to each other, and, to show the nation that it is possible to generate something positive out of a negative encounter.

When disputes take place between and among citizens, in neighborhoods, in public and private spaces, we need mediators from the community to help manage them effectively for the good of the parties and the communities of which they are a part.

When differences in communities rise to a level that threatens the fabric of the community we need spaces for talking, for listening, for exchanging ideas, to find ways to improve relationships and help cement communities — not only to lower the risk of civil disturbances, but to find opportunities to listen, to heed and to heal. And, as often happens, to build community and to cement peace.

MORE COLUMNS BY LINDA STAMATO

Linda Stamato is the Co-Director of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. She is a Faculty Fellow there as well. Active in the Morristown community, she serves on the trustee board of the Morristown and Morris Township Library Foundation and is a commissioner on the Morristown Parking Authority.

Opinions expressed in commentaries are the authors’, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Wish the comments would be more bipartisan- the reason for the remarks was to foster better understanding of others. All good but oh so partisan and defeating the intent for all to come together

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