Rocks 1

None of us can do this on our own

Linking Social Responsibility with Communal Healing in the Pursuit of Justice

Maura Rocks

Dr. Tisha Rajendra

Christian Social Ethics
December 8, 2014
Barack Obama, in his days before holding the highest office in the United States, was a
community organizer. He once wrote that he found "'the promise of redemption'" in organizing,
and it was in organizing that he learned of "'the beauty and strength of everyday people.'1
1 Lloyd, Organizing Race, 640 - 641.

Rocks 2
Community organizing, is, at its root, a response to the injustices perpetuated at a structural level.
Iris Marion Young offers a powerful conception of structural injustice in her work, Responsibility
for Justice, and Bryan Massingale offers a nuanced and situated understanding of that structural
injustice by naming it specifically as racial injustice and racism in the United States. I will begin
my paper from this hybrid moral philosopher-christian ethicist understanding of structural
injustice. I will then move to these writers response to injustice. Young offers a sound
conception of social responsibility, and solidarity, but she is not as clear at addressing the pursuit
of justice across barriers of privilege, experience, and race. Bryan Massingale offers an
opportunity to fill in the holes of Young by offering equally important understanding of the role
of reconciliation across identities - a reconciliation that is an essential component of structural,
social change. These calls for responsibility are incomplete without a human element - without
mending the relationships at an individual level. I will argue in this paper that while Iris Marion
Youngs conception of responsibility is important, it cannot be actualized without interrelational
healing, or in Massingales writings, of reconciliation. The example I will use comes from
Massingales conversations about race. I will finish my paper with an evaluation of community
organizing as the actualized location where responsibility and reconciliation meet to heal wounds
of injustice and move forward to change structures that are unjust.
Iris Marion Young, a moral philosopher, in her book Responsibility for Justice, writes that
theories that emphasize personal responsibility over collective responsibility are incomplete, as
they ignore the many factors that contribute to an individual experiencing poverty or
vulnerability of some kind. She criticizes conservative and liberal conceptions of responsibility
that are limited in scope - those that highlight the many ways in which individuals contribute to
their own reality without addressing larger, systemic injustices. She notes that these theories

Rocks 3
claim individuals live in poverty because of their own choices with little acknowledgement of
larger structures of injustice at play. Young writes that "understanding poverty requires taking
into account socioeconomic structures such as labor markets; investment patterns; a changing
class mix in neighborhoods; divorce laws and practices; and so on.2 She contends that there are
many factors to poverty including race, gender, and class. According to Young, individuals are
not poor or vulnerable because they are lazy, rather they are located in systems and structures
that are unjust. Young writes that individuals live on the margins not because of "individual
fault" or a "specifically unjust policy," rather because of "many policies, both public and private"
and the "actions" of people abiding by "normal rules and accepted practices" perpetuate a society
that exists within marginalizing structures.3 This concept of structural injustice is the driving
force behind her theories of responsibility. Structural injustice exists when social processes put
large groups of persons, often identifying a specific way, often minority populations, under
systemic threat of domination or deprivation of the ability to exercise their capacities, while
simultaneously allowing other individuals the ability to dominate and directly benefit from
many opportunities to develop capacities available to them.4 Structural injustice exists when
systems and structures directly privilege one population at the expense of marginalizing another.
Young asserts that structural injustice is a kind of moral wrong that is bigger than the
individual or even the state. It occurs as a consequence of many individuals and institutions
acting to pursue their particular goals and interests without an acknowledgement of the larger,
greater good of humanity.5 Structures are not often easily identifiable, as there is no one
2Young, Responsibility for Justice,17.
3 Ibid., 47-48.
4 Young, Responsibility for Justice, 52.
5 Ibid.

Rocks 4
institution, person, or group of people that one can point to as being an unjust structure. All of
these parts contribute to something objective, given, and constraining - likened by Marilyn
Frye to a birdcage.6 When one acknowledges that he/she exists in systems that are
fundamentally flawed, that individual is inspired to address the injustice at the locus: the
structure itself.
In response to structural injustice, Young enters into a conversation about responsibility,
namely, what responsibilities we hold on each other and those to which we are held accountable.
She presents a "social connection model of responsibility" which highlights the fact that
"individuals bear responsibility for structural injustice with an awareness that their actions
contribute" to the processes that produce unjust outcomes.7 Responsibility, for Young, is
linked to a realization of human interdependency coupled with an awareness of the ways that we,
as a human community, suffer when systems or structures that oppress or marginalize parts of
our larger, human community. This communal and interdependent nature of humanity, a
belonging together, offers a base to challenge injustice as well as a platform for cooperation
and positive movement forward - toward a future rid of oppression and marginalization.8 The
essence of Youngs social connection model of responsibility is rooted in these factors: a
collective realization of the toll that injustice plays on the interconnected world in which we live
coupled with a constant desire to look forward toward a more just and inclusive future. Young
writes that the forward-looking responsibility is rooted in changing the institutions and
processes so that their outcomes will be less unjust, and later, Young writes, No one of us can
6 Ibid., 55.
7 Ibid, 105.
8 Young, Responsibility for Justice, 105.

Rocks 5
do this on our own.9 A responsibility to other individuals coupled with the responsibility to
challenge structures that oppress signals the movement into political responsibility, a notion
rooted in the theory of Hannah Arendt. Naming this responsibility as specifically political is
important because it calls individuals out of their otherwise private, individual existences and
into organize[d], collective action to reform structures.10 Individuals are called to fight
alongside each other and are called outside of themselves - and their individual existences - to
fight for justice at the political and structural level. All individuals, no matter their privilege or
disadvantage or social location, are invited into this struggle. What differentiates Young's
conception of responsibility from previous liability models is the assertion that "responsibility in
relation to structural injustice is shared among all those who contribute to the processes that
produce it," and that as a result, "victims of injustice nevertheless share responsibility for it.11
When individuals abandon their private and individually isolated selves and work together,
despite differences, for a greater collective good, they are walking in solidarity. Solidarity, to
Young, is a relationship among separate and dissimilar actors who decide to stand together, for
one another and is firm but fragile and must constantly be renewed.12 Solidarity is, in many
ways, the result of a response to Youngs social connection model of responsibility. Solidarity is
constantly fleeting, changing, and being redefined, as are the humans who contribute to its
existence.

9 Ibid., 111.
10 Ibid.,112.
11 Ibid., 113.
12 Young, Responsibility for Justice, 120.

Rocks 6
Iris Marion Young offers a very whole conception of structural injustice and responsibility by
naming individuals as the locus for change, but she offers a much thinner argument of how to, on
an individual, interpersonal level, create and mend relationships with other people seeking
justice. In Iris Marion Youngs understanding of responsibility, she fails to fully address the fact
that movements for justice must be rooted in communities that are working for justice across
identities (privileged, poor, white, black, female, male, etc.) in earnest attempts to address
historical oppression and present disparities at the societal level but, more importantly, at the
personal level. How can one work for justice alone? How can one work for justice without the
experiences and social locations of people across identities? Justice is impossible without
relationships, and often the barriers of privilege, experience, and race must be addressed and
reconciled before justice can be sought at the structural level. These barriers can create elements
of miscommunication, paternalism, or even more conflict. When working in the pursuit of
justice, the narratives and encounters are what, in many respects, fuel the fire for change.
Without personal relationships and without an attempt to reconcile the harmful history of
difference that exists, particularly in the United States, but in most contemporary societies, the
calls for justice ring hollow. In addition, movements for justice done at one level of society whether that be a level of privilege, socio-economic status, skin color, or gender - are ineffective
because they do not engage society fully. If a group of men were engaged in a movement for
gender equality but had no women engaged in their movement, the effectiveness of their
movement would be minimal. If a group of white students were engaged in a movement for
increased diversity on their college campus but had no students of color engaged in their
movement, the authenticity and intentionality of the movement would be questioned. Whenever
individuals of privilege enter into spaces or conversations about justice, the concern always

Rocks 7
remains: do those individuals of privilege speak for the marginalized or do they allow the
marginalized to speak for themselves?
Since Iris Marion Young does not fully address this need for reconciliation and
relationship-building in her work, I look to Bryan Massingale, a Catholic priest who selfidentifies as African American, because he offers a theological nuance to the notion of political
responsibility that is, in many respects, rooted in relationships. While he never explicitly links his
concepts of lament and compassion to her concept of structural injustice and solidarity, I find the
two helpful in informing each other and a larger, more complete conception of justice. His work
in Christian theology fills the holes her philosophy leaves open, especially in relation to the role
that individuals and relational healing play in promoting justice. Massingale, in his work, Racial
Justice and the Catholic Church, offers an alternative narrative of justice, one from a black,
African American perspective. Prior to addressing his theology, however, Massingale's entire
first chapter entitled, What is Racism?, attempts to explain the deepness and complexity of the
structural injustice that is racism. His writing engages the topic, specifically, of racism - at an
interpersonal and institutionalized level. He writes that racism is rooted in the reality that in the
United States, one racial group is socially advantaged and the others endure social stigma.13 To
Massingale, racism stems from a set of shared beliefs and assumptions that undergirds the
economic, social, and political disparities experienced by different racial groups.14 Racism is
deeply embedded into the dominant, Western Culture, specifically that of whites in the United
States. He offers a quote in full from Charles Lawrence which I will share here, as it is an
essential summation of the deepness of racism and its many complexities:

13 Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, 15.

14 Ibid., 24.

Rocks 8
Racism is a set of beliefs whereby we irrationally attach significance to something called
race But racism in America is much more complex than either the conscious
conspiracy of a power elite or the simple delusion of a few ignorant bigots. It is part of
our common historical experience, and therefore, a part of our culture. It arises from
assumptions we have learned to make about the world, ourselves, and others, as well as
from the patterns of our fundamental social activities.15
In these descriptions of racism, it is easy to draw parallels to Youngs conception of structural
injustice. She writes that injustice that is perpetuated structurally is not easily addressed, because
there is no one target, no single oppressor. The injustice is rooted deeply into the fabric of a
society, so much so that the culture, itself, needs to change for there to be change at a structural
level.
In his chapter, Toward a More Adequate Catholic Engagement, Massingale uses and
redefines Catholic terms and concepts to fit into his context, namely the realities and injustices
facing African Americans in the United States. Massingale engages with a the writings of Eric
Yamamoto, focusing particularly on his concept of interracial justice. Yamamoto cites interracial
justice as the hard acknowledgement of the many ways in which racial groups harm one
another coupled with the attempts to redress justice and the present-day effects of
antiquated and perpetuated forms of racial oppression.16 Yamamoto names the four aspects of the
process by which individuals seek interracial justice as recognition, responsibility,
reconstruction, and reparation.17 Massingale takes these insights and develops a two-part

15 Ibid., 32-33.
16 Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, 97.
17 Ibid.

Rocks 9
movement to racial reconciliation. First, he identifies truth-telling as essential to reconciliation,
because, he argues, deep social wounds do not heal without an honest examination of the
causes of the interracial fissures that are so deeply embedded in society.18 When one is called to
tell the truth and to honestly examine the many ways in which truth is often concealed, one is
called to address the realities and injustices uncovered by the truth. The narrative of history,
when addressed for its verity, often requires some rewriting. Truth inspires a movement from the
debunking of comfortable fictions to a personal conversion of sorts.19 It is in the truth, and
our personal connection to the truth, that we are called to a identify our responsibility and
respond to our complicity. After identifying and telling the truth, Massingale, following
Yamamotos lead, calls for affirmative redress. When Massingale speaks of affirmative redress,
he is directly addressing the active reparation of damaged social relationships that are results
of the racism, oppressive system. Massingale takes seriously the notion that those with privilege
are called to remove the systemic barriers that keep individuals of color from full
participation in society. From political engagement and representation to the rights so inherent
to everyone who lives in the United States (housing, education, healthcare, and occupation),
affirmative redress is a process by which individuals whom the system privileges are called to
address and change the many ways in which other individuals are oppressed by the system. It is
this act of justice inspired by the converted heart that attempts to rectify the harms caused by a
long history of race-based unjust enrichment and unjust impoverishment. Massingale relies
heavily on these concepts from Yamamoto, as they offer an alternative to previous
understandings of interracial reconciliation and dialogue.

18 Ibid., 98.
19 Ibid., 100.

Rocks 10
Massingale calls forth concepts from the Christian faith to address the holes that
Yamamoto present (mirroring holes in Iris Marion Youngs Argument) particularly, their shared
inference that justice can be achieved rationally or technically. Massingale argues that one cannot
solve the problems of the world simply by accomplishing goals set in front of them. Racial
reconciliation calls for the individual to throw his/her entire self into healing process, and as a
result, the journey to healing transcends the limits of logic and reason.20 Massingales
concepts of lament and compassion offer a more emotional tone to justice and reconciliation, as
he calls them forth from scripture and Christian tradition. Massingale employs the concept of
lament first, stating that lament, often the biblical cry of anguish, fear, sadness, sorrow, grief, and
injustice, provides a language that can disrupt, and can redirect the apparent normalcy of a
skewed radicalized culture and identity.21 Massingale sees lament as necessary for all peoples regardless of their social location in conversations of oppression. For those experiencing
oppression, particularly, for Massingale, people of color experiencing racism and segregation,
lament is a visceral response. It is a way to let God and those who are oppressing them know the
pain of oppression. For those who hold an oppressor identity and whose privilege stems from
oppressive systems, lament propel[s] them to new levels of truth-seeking as profound and
uncomfortable questions arise from dialogue and shared suffering.22 Lament gives rise to the
realization of an individuals and a communitys complicity in past injustice and entails the
hard acknowledgement that an individual holds privilege at the expense of someone who is
oppressed.23 Lament is a cry so loud that individuals are called to attention and called to respond.
20 Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, 105.
21 Massingale, Racial Justice in the Catholic Church, 110.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., 111.

Rocks 11
This highly emotional and vulnerable response to injustice is not found in Youngs philosophy,
but it allows for the development of a bottom-up movement for justice. When individuals hear
and express lament with each other across identities, the wounds that exist on a personal level
begin to heal.
This healing allows for compassion which is transformative. Compassion allows for
transformation, because instead of avoiding suffering, individuals are called deeper into the
suffering of the world around them.24 Massingale continues, that this transformation emerges
from the "gut-wrenching response to human suffering and anguish that moves an individual to
do something - often beyond the typical, normal response.25 Compassion is the point in which an
individual understands and holds the differences between her and another human being and
moves above those differences to fully give herself to that other human being. Maureen
OConnel names compassion as the moment that overrides social, cultural, racial, economic,
and religious boundaries.26 Compassion is followed by solidarity - the understanding that we as
individuals, as people of God, belong to each other as sisters and brothers. Solidarity moves
individuals to enter into community and to fight for justice on behalf of the members suffering
from injustice. How is solidarity sustained? Massingale writes that authentic solidarity is
rooted in transformative love.27 When an individual experiences lament and is moved to
compassion, that next step is entering unconditionally into solidarity with those who are

24 Ibid., 115.
25 Ibid.
26 Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, 115.
27 Ibid., 120.

Rocks 12
suffering. This very dynamic process of reconciliation and healing is constantly forward-looking
and in the pursuit of a better world than the one that exists presently.
While Massingale speaks particularly from a context of race and racial reconciliation, but
these concepts can be transformed into other realms of injustice. Individuals experiencing racism
share the oppression of other individuals who are suffering - from poverty or income disparities,
those without access to basic human rights, women experiencing sexism and violence, those with
disabilities suffering from abelism, or LGBTQI folks who experience the hatred and violence of
a heterocentric society. Community organizing is a process by which individuals across identities
engage in the pursuit of justice, particularly addressing issues of injustice, representation, and
oppression.
Holding these conceptions of responsibility and reconciliation, community organizing is a
practical application of these theories and has been proven at effectively engaging diverse
individuals in a collective, and often successful effort, at challenging and changing social
structures that are unjust. Saul Alinksy was a prominent organizer on the South Side of Chicago
during the middle of the 20th century, and his writings on community organizing, later known as
the "Alinsky Method," were adopted by communities experiencing injustice across the United
States.28 For him, "organizing meant bringing people together," especially community leaders,
and "by joining resources and identifying shared concerns" the diverse leaders he recruited
"could advance the interests of their community in the face of oppression."29 His organizing
challenged previous forms of political activity, due to the radically inclusive nature of his
practices. Everyone, no matter status, race, or creed, was invited and empowered to participate in

28 Llyod, Organizing Race, 644.

29 Ibid.

Rocks 13
movements for social change. According to Lloyd, Alinksy viewed "religion or race" as having
the ability to "define a community;" these identities and populations were essential to promoting
change.30 Alinksy's organizing model inspired intense growth in the field of community
organizing in the United States, but Alinksy viewed churches as respositories of money and not
as social change agents.31 In the 1990s, organizer Ernesto Cortes translated Alinksy's model into
a model that focused on embracing multiculturalism, and took into account the "elements" in
"religious traditions" that are "inclusive - respecting diversity, and conveying a plurality of
symbols which incorporate the experiences of diverse peoples."32 This plurality, a product of
Cortes and the 1990s social and political climate, was, at times, problematic as it limited
discussions about race and difference in many of these organizations. Often, faith-based
community organizations would focus on the injustice as it applied to their faith and not to larger,
systemic reasons. As time has progressed, however, faith-based community organizing has
become one of the most powerful methods of organizing people. Since 2008, faith-based
community organizing has become a nationally regarded practice of engaging communities in
justice work.
Community organizing has its roots and history in communities and conversations of
faith. Saul Alinksy, the patron of organizing, wrote in his Rules for Radicals that organizing
mirrors "those rights and values propounded by Judaeo-Christianity and the democratic political
tradition.33 In fact, themes of justice, fairness, compassion, and love - rich with faith-based
30 Ibid., 645.
31 Warren, Building Democracy."
32 Lloyd, Organizing Race, 645.
33 Lloyd, Organizing Race, 641.

Rocks 14
language and meaning - are still successfully used in organizing rhetoric and tactic. Vincent
Lloyd, in his work, Organizing Race, writes that race and religion are intrinsically connected and
entangled, and he argues organizing has the potential to challenge and break down racial barriers
in the intent of increased cooperation and collective action for social justice.
The major components of faith-based community organizing are that it has an
institutional base, namely that of the religious community, it is rooted in values of justice that
stem from faith traditions, it prioritizes relationships and relational organizing over issue
organizing, and it emphasizes interracial mobilization.34 In FBCO models, the theory of change is
rooted in the belief that relationships and faith-based values are the basis for public action.35 In
other words, relationships, not issues, come first, and the priorities in FBCO groups is the
ability to build individual relationships with each other as the basis for public action on behalf
of their communities.36 While many models of community organizing find their goals in
structural change, the center of faith-based community organizing is rooted in engagement and
the building of democracy within congregations and other faith communities. The achievement
of structural change is not as essential, then, as is the relationship building amongst individuals
seeking change. This emphasis underscores the importance of intersectionality when seeking
concrete social change but acknowledges that interpersonal relationships need healing before the
system can be fully healed. There are many models of community organizing, but faith-based
organizing matches most closely with the theory I have presented in this paper. When individuals

34 Warren, Building Democracy."

35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.

Rocks 15
are moved by values and political responsibility, change happens on multiple levels: the personal
and the societal. Change must happen in both levels to be sustainable and impactful.
Injustice exists at every level of society, and often, when looking to address issues of
injustice alone, one quickly feels very small, very alone, and very powerless. Community, in Iris
Marion Young, Bryan Massingale, and the writings about organizing, is essential for the effective
and impactful pursuit of social justice. These writers have established the necessity of
community in social change, but they only form a complete and actualizable understanding when
they are taken altogether. Where Iris Marion Youngs theory leaves holes in the practical means
of working for justice across identities, Massingale picks up with an ethic that encourages
emotion, lament, compassion, and ultimately solidarity. Community organizing has proven in
many cases, and in my own personal experiences, to be a space and a practice that incorporates
political engagement with personal relationships. When hundreds of protesters hit the streets of
Chicago clamoring to save affordable housing in Uptown, they are responding to a call for
justice rooted in the relationships they have built with each other coupled with the democratic
abilities they have been awarded. When an individual of privilege meets a person who is
experiencing homelessness, the process of lament-compassion-solidarity coupled with the
structure of political action allows for conversion not only of the systems but of the person.
Justice is only possible with the conversion of both the system and the person. The systems,
however, cannot be changed until individuals, through relationships and dialogue with others, are
challenged to think differently about themselves and their place in the world. The call for justice
must incorporate these elements to be effective: a conversion of heart followed by conversion of
systems rooted in communal healing and relationship building.

Rocks 16

Bibliography
Lloyd, Vincent. "Organizing Race: Talking Race Seriously in Faith-Based Community
Organizing." Journal of Religious Ethics 42, no. 4 (December 2014).
Lundquist, Leah, Girija Tupule, Pashoua Vang, and Chendong Pi. Community Organizing
Models. University of Minnesota, 2012.
Massingale, Bryan N. Racial Justice and the Catholic Church. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books,
2010.
Warren, Mark R. "Building Democracy: Faith-based Community Organizing Today. Shelter
Online: National Housing Institute. (2001): accessed November 24, 2014, Retreived from:
http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/115/Warren.html.
Young, Iris Marion. Responsibility for Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Rocks 17