Perplexity AI
“The phrase "Can't we all just get along?" was famously uttered by Rodney King on May 1, 1992, during the Los Angeles riots. King, an African American man, had been brutally beaten by LAPD officers on March 3, 1991, after a high-speed chase. The incident was captured on videotape by an amateur cameraman, George Holliday, and widely broadcast, sparking national outrage. The four officers involved—Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno, and Stacey Koon—were indicted on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and excessive use of force. However, their acquittal by a predominantly white jury on April 29, 1992, led to six days of violent riots in Los Angeles. The unrest resulted in 63 deaths, over 2,300 injuries, 12,000 arrests, and approximately $1 billion in property damage. The riots were marked by widespread looting, arson, and violent confrontations, particularly targeting Korean-owned businesses. On the third day of the riots, Rodney King made a public appeal for peace, asking, "People, I just want to say, can't we all get along? Can't we all get along?" This plea became a symbol of the desire for racial harmony and an end to violence.”
Today is June 21, one day after the summer solstice. Officially, days are now shortening until we reach the shortest day of the year on December 20. You couldn’t have noticed it, however. I met an old friend and coworker after a long interval. The setting was a park bench in the shade under tall trees in a lovely botanical garden, on a bright, sunny early summer day. What a wonderful lazy feeling, to know you don’t have anywhere else you have to be, just enjoying the company of a friend while catching up on events past, present and future.
She has been preoccupied recently with some relationship trials. Her partner, 9 years her senior, reached adulthood in another country in the middle east. They are widow and widower, together about 18 months. She describes their differences as “cultural”.
His background is patriarchal, tribal, male dominated. She is a modern American woman who expects to be treated as an equal partner. She was previously in a marriage where the sun did not set on an argument. Now she cannot predict when her partner will be offended by some inadvertent, apparently benign comment on her part and enter a sullen, silent mode lasting a day or two. He admits to a lifetime of trusting noone, not even himself. In many ways he is a gregarious, interesting and likeable person, until some invisible line is crossed. Talking out differences is not in his lexicon. This is, of course, very distressing to her, basically unaceptable over the long term, a potential relationship breaker.
Our conversation involved me interviewing her in 360 degrees about her expectations, her attempts to get through to him and also all of the other significant close relationships in her life; children, grandchild, siblings; those who make up her inner circle of support. I am no counselor nor conflict resolver, and I only have my own anecdotal experience to bring to bear on this situation, but I felt that simply hearing her out and offering the chance to more fully elaborate on the situation might offer her an opportunity to gain some additional insight or even a new strategy to employ to address this impasse in their relationship, before declaring it unsalvageable. She desperately does NOT want to re-enter the senior dating scene.
The Rodney King vignette is a far different situation, but still is an example of a conflict exposed but unresolved, justice denied and an explosive public reaction resulting in many lost lives, arrests and unimaginable damage. This is obviously not the first public example of conflict between law inforcement and the Black male population, leading to large civil unrest in our society. Can you imagine the likely reaction if the exact same event was to happen this year? Can you imagine how it would reverberate through our society in this time of tension, political polarization and assualt on our democratic norms?
As I sat listening and responding to my friend, I thought about my own history with conflict and its consequences. Probably the most significant in my experience was a period at the end of my 23 year career in a local medical center, some of which involved acting as medical director for a busy multi-disciplinary surgical program. An executive/management regime came to power which brought policies that I felt strongly were threatening the esprit-de-corps of our team, pitting one individual against another for “quality, equity and best practice” rational. Our very seasoned, tight knit and highly productive team had internal means of managing conflict, without creating records in employee files. I spoke up, first gently and increasingly forcefully, until the new “system” captured me in it’s grasp, ultimately leading me to resign my position and shortly thereafter, leave my practice and the institution. In retrospect, I needed to “be right”, needed to “win”, and used force of logic but also increasing anger as the driving motivation to engage and stay engaged until I lost the ability to communicate with those in authority over the institutions policy. You can be “right” and tossed out into the wilderness at the same time. I did NOT have an adequate strategy to deal with conflict. I died on that hill, so to speak.
I wonder what would have happened had I approached every one of the individuals with whom I interacted with humility and compassion, attempted to connect with them from their own perspective of duty, obligation and humanity and then attempted to find common ground about policies that I believed were hurting our clinical team. I wonder if I had searched for a way to come to terms with the changes and adjust our internal interactions to avoid negative ramifications of said policies. I wonder if active peace-making, which is an ongoing and continuous process in institutional practice, would have de-escalated my own response to the situation, as well as saving and prolonging my beloved career. I have had a few years of uninterrupted introspection and reflection to approach this topic dispassionately. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to put new insight to the test or not. Still, I am a more settled, less reactive individual than I once was, understanding that peace-making is a higher goal and more subtle art than escalating conflict.
As I view current events on a national and international scale, it seems to me that we are all in desperate need of a spiritual renewal, where we see and pursue possibilities for peace and reconciliation with protagonists and opponents, even enemies, as opposed to continually escalating the terms of conflict. The first step, perhaps, is to look inward and ask, “what am I doing that perpetuates and escalates tension and conflict, rather than de-escalation and identification with the opposite party?” How do my words project the desire to make peace, find common ground and not push a volatile or hostile counterparty further away?
I don’t have ANSWERS, but simply by posing the question, I hope I am taking a first step down a different pathway than aligning with “us” against “them”.
If you have experience or expertise in the area of peace-making, why not share it with me and any who happen to encounter our dialogue. Inch by inch, person by person, the circle of listeners seems to be growing. I don’t write my essays to convince the world of my aptitude for solving problems; more to attempt to take my own confusion and find some sort of order in my mind. I’m always grateful to find that order as a result of someone elses observations and perspective. So…don’t be shy!
Happy sunny days of summer to come. Remember your sun hat, sun block and that new term; wet bulb temperature. If you aren’t familiar with it, try Perplexityai.com and ask it for the definition. I think you’ll be impressed with the prompt summary WITH references!
Just sayin’
You were a good listener to your woman friend, which makes you a good friend. Relationships have become much more complex because so many people who for centuries had "known their place," have now announced that they don't want to e in that place any more. Probably the biggest changes, because there are so many of us, has been the balance in the relationship between men and women. This really is upsetting to those who have been expecting to benefit from the centuries of patriarchy, and now are being told it doesn't work that way any more. Also, the patriarchy likes to send their sons to war. Those who survive expect to take over the system.