The scar on Professor Baldwin’s right wrist was unavoidable. The twisted dark purple keloid prompted more questions than honest answers. It's snaked along the top of his radius bone, resembling a repulsive earthworm forever digging up his past. By all accounts, Kai Baldwin should be dead. Who survives a plane crash and walks away with a two-inch scar?
Kai wasn't intentionally trying to hide the scar, but his African bracelets provided convenient cover. The loose-hanging bangles were a mixture of artisan-colored beads, glassy Tiger’s eye, and hand-stamped silver on braided elephant hair. When asked by curious students what happened, he typically deadpanned, “Back-alley knife fight.”
He likened the scar to a cattle brand claiming ownership of his life and the troublesome events beyond his control, even toying with the idea of tattooing two words on each side...
Before | After
“Pay attention,” his psychiatrist tried to remind him. “Every scar tells a story.”
This was the one story Kai preferred not to tell.
Waiting on stage, he checked his phone’s messaging app as first-year students trickled in late to the Woodson University lecture hall for Introduction to Human Rights. Heavy rain still pounded the Fairfax, Virginia campus, offering several stragglers a needed excuse for being late to class instead of the previous night’s partying. Kai seized the moment. He quickly tapped a text.
Hey Brooke, you get my last message?
A guy in a hoodie pushed through the double doors, complaining out loud to a friend, “Who schedules a class this early? What about my human rights?”
Kai took no offense at the student’s sarcasm. The stragglers bought him needed time. He hit send, set down the phone, and stared at the overhead projection screen. Perplexed, he toggled his laptop’s trackpad again. The hard drive made a sluggish, grinding brrrrr. Nothing but the abhorrent spinning rainbow wheel of death. Damn technology.
He rubbed his eyes and waited, willing the laptop to life. After another fitful night, he regretted going off the sleep meds. Com’on, he urged himself. Suck it up.
For months, he’d been telling himself to buy a new laptop. He pushed back a loose curl over his ear and glanced at the stadium seating. A constellation of luminous screens radiated across the darkened hall. Fifty or so students sat in plush theater seating, their glowing tablets and laptops illuminating their faces in bluish hues.
These first-years are way ahead of me, Kai thought.
“Hey, Prof,” shouted a guy in a black beanie. “That thing’s vintage. My dad swears by his ThinkPad. It even does this thing called ‘email.’”
Hoots and laughter rang out.
“I promise you, Old Faithful here was working earlier this morning,” he replied with a sheepish grin. “She's endured monsoon rains, spilled Turkish coffee, and militia insurgents. Please be patient with the elderly.”
He restarted the laptop and ran a hand over his wrinkled white Oxford. The shirt matched his rumpled Gap khakis. An old Brooks Brothers blazer lay draped over a nearby chair. Standard professor apparel, except for the bracelets he’d collected from his travels abroad.
The students chatted, waiting for Professor Baldwin to pull it together. Two young women huddled over an iPad in the top row, reading his faculty profile. Olivia Brown wore a saffron beanie and silver-framed glasses; Cassie Hightower, a blue Quiksilver cap.
“Dr. Kai Baldwin, a graduate of Harvard Law,” Olivia began, “also holds a master’s degree in international law. He served on committees for the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court. He was a
lead investigator for the South Sudan genocide. He is...”
“Gorgeous,” Cassie replied. “Too bad about his engagement. Heard she broke it off.”
“And I heard he’s trying to get her back. Could be his most difficult case. That makes him the world’s most eligible human rights attorney.”
Olivia raised her eyebrows above her glasses. “Dr. Baldwin is also an award-winning author with several bestselling books on peacemaking. His advocacy work includes producer credits for documentary films with Hollywood’s top celebrities.
“The guy’s a human rights rock star. Maybe he can get us an internship with Brad Pitt?”
Olivia touched her heart. “What dreams are made of. Professor Baldwin’s peacemaking work puts him in major conflict zones throughout the world. Guess where he grew up?”
“Birthed from a pure white block of Michelangelo stone?”
“A shadow of divine perfection,” Olivia said, quoting the master artist. “Check this: his dad and mom were medical missionaries. He was raised in the Congo.”
“Sounds exotic. Where’s that?”
“Somewhere in Afric—”
“Listen up,” Kai called from the stage. “Plan B.” He popped off the cap of a red dry-erase marker and went to a whiteboard. The bracelets slid back as he began to write, revealing the jagged scar. He tapped the single word scratched on the board.
DILEMMA
“Can anyone tell me what a dilemma is?”
The students shouted quick answers and weak jokes. “Late for class!” “Bad cafeteria food!” “Your laptop!”
“What else?” he asked, raising his voice across the hall. “What characterizes a dilemma?”
“Student loans!” “Painted in a corner.” “A Catch-22!”
“Excellent, Joseph Heller’s war novel. You’re getting closer, but I’m interested in a dilemma’s situational dynamics.” He pointed to an athletic young man in the second row. “Mr. Garcia, what say you?”
Chris Garcia shrugged. “I dunno, suppose it would be like forgetting you asked out two girls on the same night?”
More laughter across the hall.
“Many guys might consider that a good problem. Let’s take a closer look,” he said, then wrote three numbers under his word for the day.
DILEMMA
1 2 3
For emphasis, Kai tapped each number with the marker. “A dilemma is when you must make a difficult choice between two or more equally undesirable alternatives. Asking two girls out on the same night is problematic. However, a true dilemma occurs when your options are undesirable. If one option is desirable, you don’t have a dilemma.” He tapped the numbers again. “Behind Door #1, Door #2, and Door #3 are no
desirable options. Think paradox. Contradictory conditions. Limitations. No good choice at all.”
Kai circled the word in a bold stroke.
“Dilemmas are the hard soil of human rights work. Working for peace and justice in conflict zones involves the perpetrators, the victims, the protectors, and other minor stakeholders. When a stalemate occurs, or
peace negotiations break down between the protectors and perpetrators, a third party is often brought to mediate a peace settlement. That’s the role of a peacemaker.”
“That’s what you do!” Olivia waved from above. “You’re an international peacemaker!”
Kai shielded his eyes from the stage lights. A lump rose in the back of his throat before swallowing. “Well, international peacemaking is what I used to do, Olivia,” he said and ran his hand through his curls. “All my
work is stateside now.”
Unaware, he pushed his "fingers beneath the bracelets and rubbed the scar. He hadn’t hopped on an international flight in a long time. With no travel, he had no new bracelets and no new stories. The truth was, he was tired of telling the same old stories. He didn’t care if he ever few on a plane again. This created an unanticipated dilemma of his own making.
Brian James, his best friend and law partner in their small human rights firm, had borne the brunt of the firm’s travel for the past year. Married with two kids, Brian insisted he could no longer travel to conflict zones where peacemaking deliberations often dragged on for weeks. Kai’s “temporary” refusal to work overseas was getting old. The last time Brian mentioned it, Kai pushed back hard in an angry outburst. So much for peaceful negotiations.
Chris Garcia’s voice brought Kai back to the present. “No disrespect, Prof, but my dad always says, ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.’ You kinda retired now?”
Kai chuckled. He took the comment in stride and did his best not to sound defensive. “And my dad says there’s a season for everything. Who retires at thirty-eight? I still do a lot of things. My work involves speaking, consulting, research, and advocacy. All stateside.” He shifted into an upbeat tone. “I compile all the data from crime victims and paid informants like you see on television. I'm a CSI guy, but different. Enough of me.”
Kai walked back to the board. He tapped it again. “Peace negotiators do their best to make things right between nations and rebel armies. With difficult choices, lives can still be lost. In certain—”
BOOM! The lecture hall door thundered open.
A young girl rushed in with a panicked expression, seeing Kai and dozens of students stare at her. She froze. Out of breath, her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were wet with tears.
A leather tote slung over her shoulder, she wore a baggy green sweater with blue jeans. From where Kai stood, her close-cropped hair and the thick, colored scarf around her neck gave her away—an international
student. Eyes frantic, she held up a small piece of paper. “Excusez-Moi. Introduction to Human Rights Law?”
Kai opened his hands in a welcoming gesture. He responded to the frightened girl in soft, flawless French, “Oui, vous êtes au bon endroit. Bienvenue.” Yes, you’re in the right place. Welcome. He pointed to an open
seat next to Olivia in the top row. “Tu peux t’asseoir là-bas.” You may sit there.
Relieved, the girl wiped her eyes. She hurried up the stairs and eased into an open seat.
Kai returned to the stage and glanced at the projection screen. Application icons slowly dotted the screen one by one. “She’s alive!” he exclaimed. “Here we have a vivid example of ‘The human spirit prevails over technology.’ Thank you, Mr. Einstein!” He clicked the PowerPoint icon and selected the first image.
An appalling photo of small African children in a deep pit appeared on the screen. The children stood in knee-deep watery orange mud. They hacked at earthen walls with crude tools and had despairing faces far deeper than the mud.
“Sobering, isn’t it?” Kai said, then announced. “Please hold up your devices.”
The students complied, raising a glowing array of cell phones, tablets, and laptops.
“These children work for you and me. Every cell phone you and I own contains five to ten grams of cobalt. Laptops contain an ounce. If you drive a Prius or Tesla, every lithium battery contains ten to twenty pounds of cobalt. Who can tell me what 3TG stands for?”
A few students twirled pens on their fingers. Others expressed sadness or indifference to the photo. Kai reached for his cell and waved it.
“Come on, people. 3TG is also in every device you’re holding right now.” He pulled a small card out of his back pocket. “I have a twenty-dollar Starbucks gift card for a lucky winner! 3TG? Anyone? He scanned each row with hopeful eyes. Nothing but shrugged shoulders and blank stares. “No takers? So, I pivot. When you were a kid, how many played the dilemma-ish game, Would You Rather?”
Half of the students raised their hands, followed by enthusiastic shout-outs: “Oh yeah!” “I love that game!”
Kai aimed a laser pointer at the screen and waved the red dot around the image, “These are child laborers. They are forced to mine for cobalt in illegal artisanal mines for less than a dollar a day. Before I move on to the next photo, ask yourself: Would you rather work in the pit or at the top?”
Cassie waved her hand high in the air. “I hate mud! What’s at the top?”
“I can assure you,” he said, putting his finger on the trackpad. “Both are undesirable options.”
He clicked and advanced to the following image.
