Rutgers-Camden Honors Commencement speaker Dr. Jeffrey Brenner hit on some key these at his graduation speech, calling on students to engage in their civic responsibility after graduation. In doing so, he hit on the gutsy theme of suburb-city conflict, a particularly daring act considering that most Rutgers-Camden students and their parents are from South Jersey. But, as Dr. Brenner pointed towards solutions, he focused on the need to “get along.” A look at Camden’s history shows how that approach can be flawed.
Jonathan Lai at Philly.com has the entire transcript, and Dr. Brenner certainly called out the suburbs:
Our municipalities in New Jersey are a legal form of segregation, where you can wall yourself off from families of different race or class. This segregation is hurting all of us. We have a different municipality for every three traffic light. We have two of the smallest municipalities in the world, in Camden County: The borough of Tavistock, near Haddonfield, has five residents, and the borough of Pine Valley, near Clementon, has 12 residents. Both municipalities are actually golf clubs, and the country clubs where the town council meets. Both have elected mayors.
Our municipalities have used zoning law to exclude people of different classes or races. It’s not an accident that Haddonfield is 94 percent white, and Camden City is 4 percent white. Despite a decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court called the Mount Laurel decision, communities continue to buy their way out of having a fair share of low- and moderate-incoming housing, paying communities like Camden to take their share. Segregation, legal or not, is still segregation.
The article also captured the eagerness with which students seemed to absorb the message, quoting one of my favorite Rutgers students, Brian Everett:
“That type of call to action almost is absolutely what this campus has become. It’s not just a place where the suburban kids come and get their college degrees anymore, it’s a place where students really are expected to make change,” Everett said.
“I wish I heard it when I was a freshman, and I wish more people would have heard it when we were freshmen.”
But Dr. Brenner’s speech also hinted at his proposed solutions, and in doing so showed some dissonance between his understanding of history and his proposed solution. Brenner argued that:
The city burned down because another generation couldn’t figure out how to get along. Your generation can change that story, and many of you already are. The city of Camden made our region great, and we can choose to return it to greatness.
I’m always nervous about arguments that depend on people getting along, particularly in the context of Camden. Many of the important moments in Camden’s history, particularly court cases like Mt. Laurel and Abbott, came about not because of people getting along, but because of conflict. I’m reminded of this Frederick Douglass quote, which I recently ran across while reading Tom Knoche’s Common Sense for Camden:
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others. (emphasis mine)
I couldn’t help but think that Tom Knoche (who was also recognized at graduation for his work as a community organizer while teaching at Rutgers) would disagree with Dr. Brenner’s assessment. Do we need to “get along?” Or do we need to stand up to injustice? Can these things overlap?
In calling for a new discussion of race and class, Dr. Brenner called for civility. But I wonder if civility is overrated. If the appropriate response to injustice is not civility, but indignity, civil disobedience, and protest. That, as Douglass argues, civility enables exploitation. Dr. Brenner cites the environmental injustices faced in Waterfront South and what he calls “legal segregation” enforced by surrounding suburbs. And yet, communities facing these injustices haven’t had the luxury of “getting along.” They’ve been forced to stand up, in an often futile effort, to the forces around them. We should encourage our graduates to do the same.
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