To Grit with Grace, Episode 2 — Bruce DeBoskey: The Two Sides of the Human Coin

Bruce DeBoskey was a bearded, camera-toting 21-year-old when he first came face to face with inhumanity. It happened in a remote part of Turkey. Bruce faced a choice that day that would change the course of his life.

RANDY: Hello, I’m Randy Kaufman, and this is “To Grit with Grace,” stories of perseverance to jump-start your month.

In 2016, I was asked to speak with my guest today, Bruce DeBoskey, at an industry event. As is typical at these things, we met about 15 minutes before we were set to go onstage. Bruce, tall and thin, has a never-ending twinkle in his eye, and a big, booming voice, befitting of a trial lawyer. I heard Bruce’s bio, was immediately awestruck, and decided, for once, to stand by and shut up, as I guess that the story of what led him to a life of community-building and social change would be riveting. I was right. You will hear it today.

It’s a pleasure and an honor to introduce Bruce to you today. After a long career as a trial lawyer representing the underserved and the underprivileged, he became the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Mountain States region. In 2010, he founded the DeBoskey Group. It helps people, businesses, and foundations organize, strategize, evaluate, and maximize the impact of their philanthropic initiatives. Or, as I often say, he helps make the world a better place, a day at a time.

Bruce writes a regular, syndicated column in the Sunday Denver Post business section. I highly recommend you follow him on your social media platform of choice and read his columns. It’s with great gratitude that I introduce my dear friend, Bruce DeBoskey as the first guest on my podcast, “To Grit with Grace.”

BRUCE: I was twenty-one, traveling by myself in a remote area of Turkey. Lotta hair. Beard. Backpack. Camera. And I was awakened one morning by the sound of a crowd. I could hear cheering — and laughter. 

So I quickly got dressed, and I got my camera, and I followed the sound just a block or two to the center of the village in which I’d spent the night. What I came upon that morning changed my life.

There was a crowd, a mob, I think about 100 people, men and women, standing together in a circle, and looking down three steps into the very center of the village — the proverbial village square. And in the center, surrounded by this mob, was a young boy, a young man about my age, late teens, early twenties, who was clearly and obviously mentally disabled. 

And he was confused, because the crowd was throwing rocks at him and sticks at him and cans at him. He was trying to defend himself, and he was turning in circles, and every time something hit him, the crowd just roared with laughter, and I was aghast at what I saw. And then somebody came up from behind him and put a paper bag over his head and spun him around, and he fell to the ground. The crowd erupted in delight.

Cheering, and laughing, and joking. They were having the time of their lives when he was having one of the worst times of his. 

As I stood there on the outside of this crowd, of this mob, of this circle, I looked around, and Iw as the only westerner in sight. Maybe the only westerner within hundreds of miles, for all I knew. Every cell in my body cried out to me, and said, “Go in there! Help this young boy, protect him, defend him, he could get killed!”

But I knew, as an outsider, that if they were willing to do that to one of their own, they might be willing to do worse to me. And so I stood there, agonizing over the decision I had to make, and I made a decision, to turn around and walk away. 

And that’s what I did. I turned around, I walked away to go get my backpack and head out of town. And as I walked away, I could hear the crowd roaring with laughter, even the few blocks to the place that I had stayed. Although I never knew, I feared the worst of what had happened to that young boy. 

I said a prayer. I said, “Please God, please help me to never have to be a bystander again.”

It took me over 40 years to tell that story. I kept it to myself. Except for my parents when I came back to the states, I told nobody about it. I think in part it's because I was embarrassed and unsure about the decision I made. Even to this day, I wonder, if I’d intervened, if it would have made a difference.

But I’ve since found the power in that story, both within me, and hopefully for others that hear it, to realize that all of us have a responsibility not to be a bystander. To not be a witness to the things that are happening in our world that we might be able to have an impact on. 

I think that whether it’s that incident in Turkey, or even what we’ve witness in this country over the last several years, people’s capacity for inhumanity is astonishing. We’ve seen it time and time and time again over our lifetimes — just our lifetimes — let alone history going before us. There’s something in the human heart that allows fear, hatred, ego, and to witness it firsthand as I did in Turkey, that day now over 40 years ago, people get caught up in it and I think they lose a little bit of themselves to the mob, and become part of something bigger than themselves that may not even reflect who they are.

For the last decade, I have served as a philanthropic strategist. It’s funny, because philanthropy comes from the Greek term, “philos anthropos,” which means “love of humanity.” So, the exact opposite of “inhumanity.” And it’s more — it’s my belief, it’s been my belief, that the more that people make philanthropy, love of humanity, a cornerstone of their lives, the more they can find the joy, the meaning, the purpose of living. 

It’s ironic that we’re talking about inhumanity when what I get to do now is help people express their love of humanity, and all living things, for that matter. Those two are the opposite sides of the same human coin.

You just keep doing the work. I had a conversation last week with a dear friend about racism and privilege — we can commit to doing the work, the work of pursuing justice, the work of finding the love, diminishing the fear. It’s about doing the work. I guess if I wished for an epitaph, it would be, “Here lies a guy who did the work.”

RANDY: Thanks so much to Bruce for sharing his story and his insights. We’ll be back next month with another tale of struggle and perseverance. As always, with grit, grace, growth, and so much gratitude.

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