The Prophet Jeremiah in the Bible was one angry prophet and he had every right to be. In his lifetime, he saw the Kingdom of Judea defeated and Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple destroyed by the Babylonians around 587 BC. For a prophet, the destruction of the Temple was a catastrophe.
In his mind, this calamity befell Judea because of the sins of the people and was a punishment from God. His caustic rebuke of his people is evident in all three books that he wrote or co-wrote – the Lamentations, the Books of Kings and Jeremiah.
Thus, buried in chapter 13 of the book of Jeremiah is a verse that really captures his despair and maybe even cynicism. Verse 23 of that chapter reads:
“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.”
That verse has spawned the saying, “Can a leopard change it’s spots?”, a saying which basically means that we are who we are and can never change. That our character decides our actions and we cannot be more or less that what our character is.
The metaphor is quite powerful then we know the skin color of an Ethiopian (or Cushite as in some translations) and the spots of a leopard are just unchangeable. Maybe, with developments in gene technology, that might be a possibility in the near future but now and at the time Jeremiah wrote, it is and was not a possibility.
There are many variations of this saying like, “You cannot teach an old dog new tricks” or like Popeye used to say “I am what I am” or “Old habits die hard”.
My favorite of all the variations is the German version:
“Man kann nicht über seinen eigenen schatten springen” or “You cannot jump over your own shadow”.
Being a very visual person, I have always imagined that vividly. It clearly illustrates the difficulty in overcoming oneself even more. One’s shadow is basically a light-induced extension that is impossible to separate from, or even jump over. The shadow can also signify one’s history, what one has done in the past, that upon which others draw. Is this shadow so dark that one keeps tripping over it?
Now let’s take this exercise a step further and apply the saying to not only humans, but everything that acquires an identity or develops a personality. To mind comes societies, groups of people, nations. These are entities that over time acquire a distinctive identity that has moral and ethical factions. Thus, these groups can be said to have their own distinct characters that may arise from how the majority does things or in what the majority believes.
So can we then ask if a nation, one such entity, can change it’s spots or even jump over it’s shadow?
If that nation is the US, can we ask if this nation can escape is dark history and jump over it’s shadow of racism and bigotry? Can black people be seen as humans who matter? Can we ask if whites can empathize with the lot of non-whites? Can we ask if Black America can escape the cycle of violence and poverty? Can we stop assuming that all whites are racist or that all blacks are thugs? Or are we all condemned to being who we are?
The Ethiopian stays black and the leopard remains spotted.
To continue on that tangent, let’s go back to Jeremiah 13:23 and read the last part of the verse:
“….Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil”.
As written, the statement is a bit unclear.
Did Jeremiah mean:
“Can you who are accustomed to doing evil ever do good?” or
“Even you who are accustomed to evil can find it yourself to do good?”
This uncertainty in his meaning is evident in the way this statement is translated in the different versions of the Bible that are available. One finds one of the three forms in different versions.
Yet if we can remind ourselves of how angry Jeremiah was and who he heaped the blame on for what befell Judea, then I am sure he meant:
“Can you who are accustomed to doing evil ever do good?”
He never believed in his heart that he people of Judea were capable of changing their spots or jumping over their shadow.
Events of the past few days make me feel bit like Jeremiah when I look at the US. I despair and wonder if the leopard can change it’s spots. It does not help when one hears the unscripted words of the President. His words confirm his dark spots and prove what kind of human being he is. One wonders if he speaks for the majority of White America and I wonder if the US can ever escape it’s bitter history of slavery, Jim Crow laws, lynchings and segregation or will that past always find a way to tag along like a shadow? Is the national psyche capable of inducing the nation to jump over it’s shadow once and for all? Then it feels like the leopard is still spotted.
It is evident that the President is neither going to be the leader nor the moral authority to champion such a cause. If one argues that the President speaks for most of White America, then despair rolls like the waters and hopelessness like a mighty stream.
Ever being the believer in the good in humans, I chose to believe that the majority, unlike the President, reject the bigotry and hate. If that is the case, maybe we may have it ourselves to attempt the jump over the dark shadow of our history.
As I pondered that possibility, I had a string of thoughts. Perhaps the leopard will never change it’s spots but it will learn to live with what it’s spots make it. Maybe what really matters are not the spots but what the leopard believes.
Perhaps the US will never be rid of those who believe in the supremacy of one race over the other or will seek to subjugate the other race. Of those who hate and discriminate. Perhaps there will always be pockets of racism and bigotry.
Yet if the national psyche is one of a concerted effort to jump over this dark shadow that haunts us, then when Jeremiah asks, “Even you who are accustomed to evil can find it yourself to do good?”, we can all answer, “Yes, we can!”