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Over the Cliff

May 25, 2015 by

OpEdThe world spins and each of us finds our center of gravity based on many different inputs, different sources of information and values gathered throughout our lives. We come to our beliefs, our moral centers through our experiences, our families and our communities. We judge the world around us, what is happening, who is doing what to whom based on our own emotional response to what we see, as well as, what we are fed through the various sources of information we absorb (e.g. media, friends, family). Some of us, because of our experiences fall far away from where we started others of us never take a road less traveled; never stray far from the path our parents, even grandparents before us trudged down before us.

What is the impetus for those who take the branch in the road that takes us away from our roots? Do we see the world differently from those around us? Is our vision different from birth?

I know for me, I was always different from those around me. My beloved stepmother said to me once, I was exotic, not just in my looks but my mind was unfathomable. This combination made me an outsider within my family, as a child and an adult. Keeping in mind I was adopted at birth I wondered sometimes if ‘exotic’ thinking was a product of biology, this was often the subject of my second mother’s rages against me. Needless to say, I am the one who always sought the road less traveled, the path hidden in the brambles and ran toward it, barefoot and with bells on to find the clearing in the woods and all too often the monsters awaiting me. Oddly, even after meeting my first family I find myself at odds with many of them as well; my conclusion is I am simply a product of my own thinking, my own strange mind, a combination of experiences and how I have processed them over the years.

I suspect this might be true of most of us, which takes me to the reason for writing today. First let me say this, I am not a Christian. I do not subscribe to any formal religion. I have nothing against those that do, but have an enormous issue with those who wish to force their religious dogma down my throat or in my face, either through legislation or through bullshit-rewritten history. I am not an Atheist, nor am I Agnostic. I am frankly not anything in particular. I subscribe to the idea there is something greater than me, something wider and broader than me in the universe, not that this something takes an overwhelming interest in me simply that it exists. I do not believe it is a White Man with a long white beard sitting in a cloud. I believe both Jesus and Mohammed existed as real live men of their time, I also believe they were both of Middle Eastern descent (thus Jesus could not be a Blue-eyed, pale skinned White man as depicted). I believe they were both great teachers, as were the other great teachers and founders of the other religions of the world. Finally, I believe religion corrupts and is corrupted by man; it is used to keep societies placid and ignorant.

I have been watching the news as it unfolds this week have you? I am disheartened by all of it; I am dismayed by the way we treat social injustice, police violence, racial inequality and most disheartening sex crimes within Christian cults. What do I mean by all this? Let’s take three specific issues and compare them, three specific media worthy events and compare their outcomes, both real and hypothetical.

Shootout in Waco, Texas: Nine Dead, 18 injured. Criminal conspirators, known motorcycle biker clubs, predominantly White males (infrequently a Hispanic will be allowed to ride with them). Police knew they were there and were on standby. No dead bodies shown on the ground, not once did the media show the after effects of the violence of the day, the blood running in the streets, the bodies strewn in the streets or in the restaurant. Not once did the media show the ambulances carting off the injured. Those flying their colors were not referred to as thugs, their criminal histories were not trotted out immediately to insure sympathy for the officers involved, oh that’s right there was no need there were over 500 guns found in bathrooms, potato chip bags and locked cars, these were not innocent and unarmed civilans being shot down in the street by the police. Those who were involved were milling about, sitting on sidewalks, crossing police lines, texting and talking on their phones. No teargas was deployed against them, no military riot gear on police.

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Compare this to the peaceful protestors of Ferguson, Baltimore, New York. Do you wonder what the difference is? I do not, I do not wonder for a single instant how the police would have responded had those ‘bikers’ been black what the response would have been.

Next up? How about the acquittal of Michael Brelo, he fired 49 times into the car of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams’, reloading twice before he was done. He wasn’t charged with murder only manslaughter, why was he acquitted? Because there was a total of one hundred and thirty-seven (137) shots fired into their car and it couldn’t be proven he fired the killing shots. Before his trial the other officers involved in the deadly shooting of the unarmed black men who did nothing more than drive a car that backfired, they refused to meet with the prosecutor’s office to review testimony. There was no jury trial, Michael Brelo waived his right thus having it heard only by a judge who found him ‘Not Guilty’. See a pattern? I surely do. Since the aquittal of George Zimmerman, the only ‘thug’ on the street that night, I surely do see a pattern.

josh-duggar_1Finally, let’s talk about family values or the distinct lack thereof. Let’s talk about why those who wrap themselves in the mantle of holier than thou Christianity are allowed the most heinous corruptions, while those who have done no wrong are accused of the ugliest of faults. Let’s talk about why it is perfectly acceptable for a serial pedophile to continue to live under the roof with his victims while his mother and father hide his crimes, while those who should be protecting the children turn away. Oh, that’s right they are Christian and he asked God to Forgive him. He went on to become a stand up activist against the rights of others, even going so far as to suggest those ‘others’ would be a danger to children (like he is).

We, those of us with a thinking cell in our brain are being ‘mean’ to suggest his actions are not simply childhood curiosity but something more, something terrible and should have been treated like Josh_Duggar_Mike_Huckabeethe criminal and deviant behavior they were. We, those of us who understand sex crimes, understand molestation and rape, we look at this family and wonder what else and how much worse was it than what we know. What we have instead is Presidential wannabe’s standing up for the poor mistreated deviant and his entire cult like family, because they are Christians. What we have is others from the far right of the flock, speaking out against anyone who questions, anyone who wonders, “what about his victims”; Josh Duggar and his parents are not the victims in this, the victims are the young girls he molested. Let’s get this right, the victims were his sisters and the other young girls he molested. He did not pay a price for his serial molestation of the young girls within his control. Young girls who did not receive counseling, young girls who did not receive justice for what was done to them.

See a problem here? I surely do. Yet there are those who defend this family. Why did Josh Duggar get away with his bad acts? I assure you, had he been a different skin color he would have been locked up and in one of the programs I speak in every month. I see boys as young as 11 years old, they aren’t considered too young, they also are Christian and have often asked for God’s forgiveness. Josh though, he got a pass, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves why?

I am disheartened by all of it. The media is training this nation to not ask the hard questions, like sheep we wander to the cliff and fall off.

 

I only ask of God
That i am not indifferent to the pain,
That the dry death won’t find me
Empty and alone, without having done the sufficient.

I only ask of God
That i won’t be indifferent to the injustice
That they won’t slap my other cheek,
After a claw (or talon) has scratched this destiny (luck) of mine.

I only ask of God
That i am not indifferent to the battle,
It’s a big monster and it walks hardly on
All the poor innocence of people.

I only ask of God
That i am not indifferent to deceit,
If a traitor can do more than a bunch of people,
Then let not those people forget him easily.

I only ask of God
That i am not indifferent to the future,
Hopeless is he who has to go away
To live a different culture.

I only ask of God
That i am not indifferent to the battle,
It’s a big monster and it walks hardly on
All the poor innocence of people.

Léon Gieco

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Race to the Bottom

May 18, 2015 by

OpEdWe are truly a nation to be reckoned with, if you are worried about your position at the bottom of the pile, the bottom of the world ranking in nearly all relevant areas; the United States is working hard to grab the title. We are international bullies, we stand up and are counted policing the world to do what we say not what we do. Our leaders condone torture; in fact, they are proud of their participation or at least their tactic approval of the torture of other human beings. Our nation enters wars, costing tens of thousands of lives, killing heads of state and civilians alike for no good reason but we want the natural resources of that nation, we want to destabilize that region, we want to break the world.

We spend billions, sometimes trillions of dollars in nations other than our own. Nations that do not need our money, that do not appreciate our interference, nations that do not align with our stated values. Meanwhile, here in our own country we have children going without food, shelter, education. We make some of the top lists, such as:

Homelessness, top fifteen cities the USA has the grace to steal six spots on the list, with an estimated total 212,579 homeless living on the streets of these cities alone.

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Once you let that lovely sink in, the idea we have so many on the streets consider this one, we haven’t had such a large income gap since 1928. In fact, the United States made another list; yes indeed, we made the list of nations with the largest income disparity, number 4 on the hit parade of 10. We should be wondering what the hell is wrong, only Chile, Turkey and Mexico are ahead of us on this list, the GOP isn’t doing their job if we haven’t made number 1.

Now while you are absorbing the thought of all your fellow citizens living rough; men, women and children living without shelter consider the findings of Transparency International, we aren’t doing so well on the issue of corruption. In fact, we are suck. Our perception of ourselves, as a nation isn’t great so how do we justify sending our military out to police others? Just asking mind you.

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Now let’s discuss the idiocy on the Hill, yes that hill Capital hill. While the nation falls down around our ears, the ijits on the Hill are busy writing twenty-four new anti-choice bills, well to be fair one of them is a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. You know they do this because they are afraid of women, they are afraid of our power if we should ever figure out we actually have a majority in this nation and we band together, breaking down all the false lines they have drawn to keep us apart. If the vast majority of us reach across the walls of race, religion, classism and poverty we will find we have far more in common than not. When we do this, we might find most of these Bills are intended only to infantilize all of us, stripping of us of our rights to both body integrity and economic freedom.

We could talk about so many other things, the education system in this nation and our lack of commitment to excellence. Our race to the bottom of the heap, our fear of intellectualism, our on-IgnoranceMapgoing outsourcing of innovation. Despite our great wealth we don’t even come in at the top ten of the Pearson ranking. In our race to the bottom though, we have achieved one top score, we are the second most ignorant country in the world, on the Ipsos Mori social survey only Italy is more ignorant that the US.

We could discuss the bulging prisons, the one thing we are number one in the world. With over two million of our fellow citizens within the Industrial Prison Complex, this is not something to be proud of. The problem of course is, the prison system is another capitalist scam, with well over one billion a year in profits to be made, no one is going to start dismantling it in favor of better justice, not when the favored few can line their pockets on the backs of the disadvantaged.

We could discuss the horror of joblessness and ask the question, why in the world this administration the GOP, along with several Democrats wants so badly to continue to destroy our future opportunity to grow through trade agreements. Trade agreements the citizens of this country are kept in the dark about. Trade agreements that do not favor us, but instead favor multi-national business. The Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement is not about free trade, believe me.

As we continue our race to the bottom, I ask myself where does it end? I wish we would all ask the same question. I continue to love this clip from the Newsroom, it says it all; we sure use to be.

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We Own It

April 26, 2015 by

OpEdENOUGH

It should be that and more. All of us, no matter which side of the aisle we claim, should be scratching our heads and questioning what in the hell is wrong with this country, with our moral center and ultimately saying, ENOUGH.

We aren’t, that we aren’t leaves me wondering why.

Far too many of us are walking by the murder and mayhem created on our streets by those sworn to ‘serve and protect’, we are looking the other way, pretending not to see, to not hear the voices of the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters as the cry out; ENOUGH.

Far too many of us are turning our backs on the women and children, hungry, homeless and without hope for a better life and begging, please, help us, no more, ENOUGH.

Far too many of us are shrug our shoulders at the tens of thousands of veterans returning from wars we should never have fought only to be thrown out on the streets, without jobs, without proper care for their physical injuries or their mental wounds, none of us says ENOUGH.

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Far too many of us are passively accepting the millions of men and women locked behind the walls of prisons for decades for non-violent crimes, because they couldn’t afford the cost of justice in America. We don’t question, we don’t challenge the profits made by the private prison industry, we don’t question the children sent to prison for decades, we don’t say ENOUGH.

Far too many of us watch as state after state pass laws to disenfranchise our fellow citizens, ‘Voter Rights’ and ‘Freedom of Religion’. We simply watch, we simply shrug and sometimes even justify these Jim Crow era laws, maybe because we don’t understand or maybe because they don’t apply to us, we have the right ID, we are Christian or we don’t fall into one of the other categories these laws are trying to attack, to brutalize, to keep out of active participation in our communities and our process. Certainly, the last election showed the level of apathy we are capable of, we failed to say ENOUGH.

Far too many of us shake our heads and ‘tsk tsk’, as our only acknowledgment of the racist animus leveled at this President, how it has changed the conversation in Washington and created even greater polarity, frozen our system, cost us millions if not billions. We refuse to say it aloud; refuse to acknowledge that we, as a nation, continue to be divided by racial animosities and segregationist politicians. While we might not all be racist, we vote for those who are, we allow them to make our laws, accept their leadership and refuse to say, ENOUGH and NO MORE.

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Far too many of us watch as SCOTUS perverts our Democratic Republic, we shrug and say there is nothing we can do. We fail to demand an accounting. We fail to demand change. We fail to vote, to get up off our apathetic and sorry asses and say ENOUGH.

What is it we are thinking? Someone else will do our job, that must be it. Someone else will stand-up for us, we don’t have to do it, we don’t have to risk it? We aren’t Gay, so their issues don’t affect us, is that it? We aren’t Black, so their issues don’t affect us, is that it? We aren’t poor, homeless, hungry so their issues don’t affect us, is that it? We aren’t women, poor, pregnant with no way to raise a child, a rape victim, so her problems don’t affect us, is that it?

There is a conversation we have to have in this nation, one that will be painful and ugly, without it though we will never heal and become what is possible. Until the day, we say Enough and No More, until the day we own what is wrong and start the conversation this nation will never be put to right, will never begin to heal. Until the day we acknowledge the true foundations of the United US-Constitution-toilet-paperStates of America and its continuing framework of racial bigotry, misogyny, colonialism and classism we don’t have a snowballs chance in Hell of moving toward the promise of our Constitution and The Declaration of Independence; they might as well be toilet paper.

When I say we, I mean all those of European extraction, White Folks. It is us, we own the problem and we own the action of ripping the scab off the festering wound. We own the standing up first and saying Enough and No More. It is our actions, our elected officials, our filthy rich who drive the continuing wedge into this nation; we own this history and this future. We own SCOTUS, we own Congress, we own ALEX and all the legislation making its way into the States to destroy hope. We own the police departments responsible for killing citizens on the street without repercussion.

We, American White Folks, own the history of Slavery, of Native American Genocide and Land Theft, of Jim Crow, of Segregation, of community destruction through the War on Drugs and images (8)mandatory sentencing; the list goes on but every one of them attacks families and communities of color in this nation, we own it.

We own the conversation that must start and we own the cure. The election of Barack Obama did not indicate a shift, what it did was cause all the racial hostility to come out of the closet. What it did was create even greater polarization, now we know who they are and where they are. Some of them are running for President, by damn some of them are running ahead of the pack. We have a chance to say Enough and No More, will we? We own the elephant in the room of our nation, we have ignored it for far too long.

We have the chance to start the conversation, to start healing the nation. Will we? I wonder, truly I wonder.

I leave you with this question are we ready for the change necessary to heal ourselves and this nation, what say you?

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What I think, Where We Go

March 19, 2015 by

OpEd

This is a long one, I will apologize up front. Sorry

If one listens to the talking heads, whether Right, Left or somewhere in the Center it is easy to get lost in Ideology, rhetoric and frankly nonsense. There are times we can get sucked into believing the problems of this country are so large, so complex, so far above the intellect of the average person we shouldn’t even try to think about them let alone demand simple and straight-forward solutions, plans for resolution.

I am a Progressive Independent.

The following is my personal political stand or:

“How I Would Fix What is Wrong Without Regard to Liars, Thieves, Scoundrels or Other Politicians”

The Economy:

  1. Balanced budgets at State and Federal levels must be the law not just a campaign platforms. New Constitutional Amendments to be written and passed. Given some of the comments thus far I am compelled to add this caveat, a Balanced Budget does not mean states and the fed cannot take on debt, cannot examine need and determine what and how much debt is appropriate. What a Balanced Budget means is they cannot take on more debt than they are able to service through current revenue streams (tax, tariff, etc)
  2. Transparency in campaign spending must be the law at all levels and there must be limits on contributions of both private citizens and corporations. Citizens United must be overturned. No, corporations are not people, they do not have a similar voice or similar rights; they must not be treated as such.
  3. Regulatory laws must be in place to protect the consumer, yes there is such thing as predators and yes our government should protect consumers from them.
  4. Banking regulations must be in place including oversight on lenders, credit cards and market speculators. There was a reason why they were there after the first Great Depression, we shouldn’t have forgotten. There is no such thing as “To Big To Fail”.
  5. Reinstate Tariffs’, balance trade with our “partners” and do it within 12 months. No more weak ploys and pansy assed negotiations. Either there is fair and balanced trade with partners who
    Bill Clinton signing NAFTA, the first disaster He's no Huckleberry

    Bill Clinton signing NAFTA, the first disaster
    He’s no Huckleberry

    buy and sell in markets that are open both ways or there isn’t, it cannot be a one-way relationship. This will very rapidly begin to bring jobs back to the US. No more NAFTA!

  6. Jobs, we must repair our economy and bring jobs back to this country. Correcting the imbalance with our trade partners is just the start. While part of the sucking sound was manufacturing and the cost difference in fact this is not the entire story; millions of high-tech white and pink collar jobs have gone overseas since 1999, add to this the millions of H1B jobs that are on-shored displacing US workers. This must end! We must stop rewarding those US corporations sending jobs overseas. Stop all H1B’s for jobs that can performed by American workers. Stop all government contracts employing foreign workers until audited for cause. Stop all corporations (e.g. Microsoft, HP, IBM) from continuing to import technology and clerical workers until audited for cause.

Taxes:

  1. Tax laws must be simplified, no more loopholes. Apply the KISS method; tax all income on individuals and businesses. This includes both passive and active income. Taxes don’t have to be egregious they only have to be fair. To my mind the right strategy is to level the field by modification of the current system of graduated brackets. Eliminate all subsidies and credits available only to the very wealthy and corporations; reduce the number of deductions but increase the overall family deduction to a more reasonable amount. Incorporate cost of living into the annual calculation for marginal income (0% Tax rate on Net Income). Finally create 4 distinct brackets:

* 15% > poverty level to $90K

* 25% $90K – $250K

* 30% >$250K – $500K

* 35%>$500>

*Corporate Tax Rate flat 10% up to first $1B and 15% thereafter

  1. Stop Corporate Subsidies to the wealthiest corporations in the world. This should not be taken the wrong way, the government has a role to play in scientific advancement and we should encourage organizations to invest in partnership with government where appropriate; however it should not be with taxpayer dollars year after year where we will also being paying for the ultimate outcome as they sell us the products at inflated rates.

Government:

  1. Term Limits for all elected officials, especially at the Federal level. Three Terms and you are out of there.
  2. Stop all earmarks, as a matter of Law. Keep Bills straight-forward and simple don’t hide new spending for Arrow Fletchers or Ice Blowers in the bottom half where no one will see it. Don’t hide the fact that those shovel ready jobs in Michigan won’t require E-Identify to confirm citizenship or competitive bids simply to provide the biggest campaign contributor the ditch digging job.
  3. Stop all attempts to pass laws that are focused on personal decisions, choices or health matters where government is attempting to undermine what has already been decided (e.g. legality of Abortion). Stop using language in Bills that attempt to diminish the experience of more than half the population, redefinition of the word Rape is inappropriate, immoral and unethical.
  4. My father overlooking the Grand Canyon 1993

    My father overlooking the Grand Canyon 1993

    There are many reasons we pay taxes one of them is infrastructure! Ours are quickly eroding and we need to invest, our roads, levees and bridges are failing. We should also remind ourselves we pay taxes to preserve our heritage; our national parks, museums, arts and access to other facilities are maintained by the taxes each of us pay. I am happy to contribute my fair share each year to insure the wealth of this nations heritage is preserved and maintained for future generations, all members whether rich or poor. I want all of the generations that come after me to be able to read the words of Lincoln, to be able to walk the Vietnam War Memorial, to view and enjoy the Washington Mall, to see the California Redwoods in their glorious and natural splendor, to see the beauty of the Painted Desert or awesome desolation of the Salt Flats. All of these are maintained by our tax dollars, all of these are on the chopping block today if we don’t stand up, pay attention and crawl out of our apathy.

  5. End illegal wars and the massive spending on the war machine that is the beltway bandits aka The Defense Contractors. End all non-compete contracts. End the palm greasing within the Pentagon that cost the US Taxpayer billions every year.
  6. Cap Federal Reserve ability to print money. Yes, I said it there must be a check and balance and the government must be held accountable. We have never defaulted on our loans; however we must maintain our rating in Capital Markets. We must stop spending and begin paying down our outstanding debt, stop printing money to service the debt.
  7. Close foreign military bases immediately or charge the host nation to maintain them! With the exception of South Korea there is no legitimate reason for the United States to maintain a military presence in any foreign nation.

Humanities:

  1. Education, we are the only free nation in the world that doesn’t invest in our youth! We must give our young people the tools to be competitive in the market of tomorrow. We cannot continue on the path we are on, this isn’t about feel good methods rather it is about changing the manner in which we approach education and funding. We must give every child a fair start in life, the same access. We have to extend the same opportunities and make available the same tools. Public education should not ever be reliant upon the wealth of one’s parents! This isn’t about passing a child through where they don’t show aptitude but rather about giving every child the opportunity to advance based upon intellectual stimulation, capabilities and desire. Education should be consistently provided no matter the wealth of the neighborhood, teacher pay should be consistent no matter the wealth of the neighborhood, schools should be safe, children should not be hungry. Children should not be the scapegoat or the victims of society. Our system must change to meet the demands of the future.
  2. Stop the militarization of our police. Stop allowing them to murder. Stop defending their actions by creating an entire devaluation of men and women who don’t look like you, that is don’t look like you if you are Caucasian. This has to end, twelve year-old children responsible for their own murders because a White cop mistook him for a ‘scary’ adult.

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  3. Stop attempting to define this nation as a Christian nation in direct conflict with the United States Constitution! It is not, it is a Democratic Republic and a Secular Nation as it was intended to be by the Founding Fathers and as it has been clarified by case law several times by several different US Supreme Courts.
  4. Stop limiting Civil Rights based on religious views, Nationalistic views or other narrow views that have nothing whatsoever to do with actual Civil Rights of individuals born or naturalized as citizens of this nation. Civil and Human rights apply to all members of society no matter their Race, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Gender; if they don’t apply to all members equally they apply to no members.
  5. Stop the war on Drugs! It was ineffective and truly focused primarily on the inner city with imbalanced sentencing (e.g. powder vs. crack cocaine). The War on Drugs created the highest prison population in the free world with no real end in sight.
  6. Stop the war on the Middle Class! Focus instead on how to repair the most vital part of our nation’s economy. It isn’t Teachers, Fire Fighters or the Police causing States to bankrupt. It isn’t Unions causing the problems. It isn’t those earning $50K per year that is the problem today; they are paying their fair share in taxes across the board. Yet all eyes are on them as they struggle to pay their mortgage, worry whether they will keep their jobs, struggle to pay health care bills and keep gas in their 10-year old cars.
  7. Hold this nation to the same standard we hold others. I said it. We have to hold ourselves to the same high standard; it isn’t a matter of feel good but a matter of Law. Our law-makers must begin to respect the laws of the land; that means all of them starting with the Constitution. We must hold Trials for those held in Gitmo, we must hold accountable those Bankers and Speculators who broke the financial back of this nation, we must bring to trial war criminals no matter who they are. We cannot afford as a nation to continue to ignore the liars, thieves, war-mongers, torturers among us as if they either didn’t exist or worse, are above the law.
  8. Invest in science and our future. Stop the madness of religious holy wars against progress. Invest in clean energy sources, stem cell research, technology, high speed rail and anything else images (2)that will move this nation ahead of the competition!
  9. Get out of my bedroom, my medical decisions, my marriage choices and all my other personal decisions as a matter of law and morality. It isn’t your business and frankly shouldn’t be all that interesting to you. As a matter of Law, afford me the same rights as anyone else. As a matter of morality keep your opinion off the law books as it doesn’t belong there.

I am a progressive and proud of it. I believe in the ingenuity of people and most of the time the greatness of the human spirit.

I am a capitalist in that I believe a free market is the best market for entrepreneurs, perhaps the difference is that I believe all markets must exist with trade regulations and restraints to work properly in a global market.

I am an American first but I am a citizen of the World, perhaps more so than most Americans having lived and worked abroad on and off most of my life.

I am I believe a moral and ethical person though I profess no religion. I am a social Liberal and believe strongly in the rights of all members of society to be free and respected for who they are and their ability to contributed no matter their gender, race, religion or sexual orientation.

I believe our nation is failing; we have set ourselves up for failure. We are creating a society that will exclude most members from ever achieving anything beyond the minimum while those in the upper tier stand on their shoulders demanding greater effort, more of their labor for less. What boggles my mind is the number of people who believe they will somehow make it into that stratosphere someday, make it out of the muck and the mire and so vote against their best interest and the best interest of their children.

I am a progressive not because I want a welfare state, not because I want the country to pay for my care or the care of my children from cradle to grave; no I am a progressive because I want future generations to have the same opportunities that my parents had.

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Sadistic Nation Revealed

March 15, 2015 by

OpEdEmpathy, a wonderful leveling of the field when we actually feel the pain of another being and thus act with some care or compassion towards them, setting aside our personal interest in favor of helping another person. Yes, in their best interest, or at least with kindness and care towards them. It doesn’t have to be a big gesture, doesn’t have to take you out of your head, your comfort zone; just has to be something small, something simple, a touch or a cup of coffee on a cold morning. How many of us think we can make a difference in the life of another? How many of us try?

I am more than certain there are those of us, that is members of humanity, who are not completely selfish and self-serving. The problem is, for the life of me I can’t find them in great abundance. My breath is knocked out of me right now, on every single level of my being, I look around and I think this nation has sunk to a new level of assholery and we are without a single overarching redeeming quality. Our failures, as a nation and a people pile higher than Mt. Everest, our disregard for our impact on the world a phenomenon I continue to be stunned to my soul by.

With each revelation of just how badly entire bodies of government are behaving, Ferguson or the 47, I am moved further toward a belief we are a nation in its final death throes. We are choking on our hate, on our fear and on the absolute ugliness brought out of the closet by the election of Barack Obama. Let’s not pretend otherwise, let’s not insult each other’s intelligence. The election of10801513_10153167396029255_486623207564289575_n this president, not once but twice threw a wrench in everything, brought all the animus boiling up to the surface and caused usually reasonable people to show their true colors; they couldn’t help themselves. Compassion and empathy flew out the window in favor of hate and destruction at any cost.

Since 1976 one side of the house has had it in its mind they would control the economy and thus the nation at all costs, they have run a game on us all. The very wealthy have controlled the direction of our nation through control of one party with little concern for a vast majority of its citizens. With the dogma of smaller government translated into cuts to services and paid for by constant cuts in taxes for those at the top of the earnings bracket our nation has become cruel, sadistic even. Until recently, until the election of this president these changes were small, incremental and went nearly unnoticed. Now though, now they are out there for all to see, no longer incremental but instead entire programs focused on those who can least afford to lose even ten dollars a month, let alone a hundred or more. Worse still, that same party has become adverse to science, adverse to facts and given to fear mongering, leading us into wars throughout the world.

Empathy and compassion cannot even be found from the pulpits of our churches, today. Instead, many of those who lay claim to the mantle of Christianity, instead preach against those in the most need, preach against compassion, preach against this president, preach against all that Jesus stood for. Many in the government who run on a platform of Christian morals, family values they also fail to evaluate what this means, fail at compassion, fail at empathy and of course fail at the greatest lesson of all, this is a nation of diverse people, diverse beliefs and a Constitution that guarantees us the right to live our lives without interference of Church in our homes, bedrooms or state run institutions.

We are destroying our greatest asset, our people; by making education out of reach for all but the wealthiest, we are undermining our future. By cutting funding to public education at every level, we are destroying our future for generations. By shipping our manufacturing off-shore and bringing in from elsewhere those who have the education to fill our white collar jobs, whether it is high-tech, science or medicine we have cut huge swaths across the American opportunity prospective, now and in the future. Soon we will not have a problem with immigration from Mexico or elsewhere to fill the jobs ‘no one else wants’, these will be the only jobs Americans are qualified for. Soon, we will be a nation of serfs in our own country; unqualified for anything but picking fruit and vegetables, cleaning toilets and begging for scrapes.

As a nation, we are without mercy, without compassion for our own. We have no sense of justice, no sense of right and wrong. It fascinates me, always; how we can point to Iran, call them a terrible Theocracy, or ISIS, and call them Terrorists when we have no space in either our distant or current history from which to hide. We who marched into sovereign nations and murdered, tortured with complete disregard for their right to self-governance. We who within our own borders have entirely ignored the rule of law, treating our own citizens to injustice, torture and even murder to enrich a criminal justice for profit system that has broken families and communities. No, we have no right to cry foul at injustice abroad when we only gloss over the offenses in our own backyard.

One where the police are free to murder twelve-year-olds in parks and blame them for their deaths, is this the nation we want? One where schools are crumbling and children cannot learn and the likelihood is if you are poor you will not graduate from high school, is this the nation we want? One where if you are a Black Man you have a one in three chance and a Latino Man a one in six chance of being imprisoned during your lifetime, compared to a White Man who has only a one in 17 chance; this says nothing about the crimes committed only how sentencing is handed down, how justice is served. Is this the nation we want?

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We as a nation are in descent. Falling rapidly into a fiery pit from which there is no way out unless someone steps in, someone with enough will to offend and enough backbone to stand up to all the old white men and women who have stayed on their happy asses in Washington and elsewhere in seats of power for far too long. Someone needs to start calling this out; someone needs to start saying no more, enough is enough. All of us need to start asking ourselves, is this truly the nation we want to pass on to our children?

I can honestly say it is not the nation I want, this nation disturbs me frightens me even.

Filed Under: Op Ed Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Our Apathy Pays Dividends

March 4, 2015 by

OpEdMy great and dear light at the end of the tunnel, Deborah over at Monster in Your Closet, reminded me today there are many ways to look at a problem, many angles to hold a prism to the light. When she wrote about panic attacks in the air here I burst out laughing, I remember well feeling exactly the same panic at wheels up. What I was really thinking about while reading her piece though is why I have not touched my fingers to my keyboard, why I haven’t wanted to write for weeks. I considered why what I have been thinking hasn’t been making its way from my brain to my blog. My normal righteous indignation has hidden under a tree, whimpered and cringed from the light of day like a beaten dog.

Here is the thing; this nation is descending into a morass of ignorance and no ignorance is not bliss, not by any stretch of any imagination or any measurement, we are growing stupider and we seem to like it that way. I am finally at a loss for words; I finally after all these long years am without the language necessary to say what is needed. I must admit to not understanding the people of this nation any longer. There was a time I understood, I even believed there was a necessity for both sides of the aisle to exist, it kept us all honest. Elyse over at FiftyFourandaHalf just today reminded me of that not so distant past in her piece on the suicide of Thomas Schweich, a contender for the office of governor in the not so great state of Missouri. I was reminded, once upon a time more than half my family were staunch members of the GOP, yet they were not Racist, or against public education, or against public assistance, or against Social Security, or against immigration; nor were they ignorant of the Constitution and what it really said about Guns or Religion.

I am without words, truly. I remember arguing with my father over the dinner table about real issues of the day he was a staunch Republican by the way nearly his entire life, he bled the party line of fiscal conservativism, he could not understand how he could produce such a hippie, such a ‘blasted Liberal, dammit’. The one thing about my father was he saw clearly and he hated across the DAD&Meboard; he hated LBJ, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Bush Jr with equal intensity and all for different reasons. He voted for Barack Obama and was very proud of that vote.

Today, those members of my family who retain their GOP card do so without any real understanding of what the party truly stands for. When called to the table to defend the latest horror story, the latest idiocy, the latest dumbass thing to come out of the mouths of those who would rule, they cannot do so only relying upon the sound bites, they picked along the way to defend their position in Right Wing LaLa land. When presented with facts they sniff and rock back, scramble for purchase on the quicksand of their position.

We get what we deserve, whether it is the government we deserve or otherwise. This time we truly did get what we deserve, those of us who wanted more and better we stayed home in droves. What did we think; others would pick up the slack of our apathy? We listened to those who said we wouldn’t go to the polls and thought to ourselves, well it is a lost cause so why bother; we stayed home. That is exactly what they were hoping for and they won.

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Ignorant really; GOP majority in the House and the Senate, the ability to make the next two years sheer hell for this nation and this President and we sat on our asses and handed it to them through our apathy. The absolute genius of it is astounding and we fell for it, not for the first time even we know the game and we fall for it every single time. This time though, we are going to pay and pay big, it is our fault and we should be ashamed of ourselves. We handed the keys to the nation to a bunch of low intellect know-nothing, bought and paid for members of the extremist coalition who are intent on destroying the nation and handing the remains to those who would rule without the will of the people.

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Congratulations citizens of America, you have finally succeeded in showing your true nature and intent. What you really want is to be second class citizens of the world, ruled by those who don’t give a damn if you live or die, if your children are ignorant so long as you have them for their wars, if you live in poverty so long as you labor for their benefit you will be given enough to drag your azz to their crumbling factories for another day and when you are too old to do that, better hope someone loves you enough to take you in, cause there won’t be a safety net left to catch you ass.

All I can think is, rise up before it is too late. Do not allow this once great dream of a free nation to crumble at the feet of your apathy. Look around; do not allow what little progress we made toward unity be destroyed by the hate and fear of a shrinking minority. Rise up and look around, stand up and take back the power we own as citizens. Stand up and demand accountability of those in public office, whether they are elected officials, bureaucrats or the Police.

Honestly, look around and ask yourself is this the country you want? If the answer is no, what are you willing to do to change it?

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

On this Day, Dream

January 19, 2015 by

bvwcku1icaapeh“Well, you know, you can’t change what’s in the hearts and minds of the white folks in the South. You can’t legislate what’s in their hearts.” He says, “Well, you can’t legislate what’s in their hearts, but I tell you what: If you can just stop them from lynching me, that’s progress. That’s a pretty good thing.” And over time, hearts and minds catch up with laws. That’s been the history of progress in this country.

Dr. Martin Luther King

Honestly, I have been trying all week to find the heart and the voice to write. It has felt as if my heart has been stopped in my chest and my voice has been silenced. Today is the day we honor Martin Luther King, many say we should treat this day as a day of service in honor of those who marched and served the cause of Civil Rights, worked to eliminate the egregious Jim Crow Laws and broaden Voting Rights Laws for all citizens. Imagine, there are those who do not know this history do not remember a time when our fellow citizens could not vote, could not sit at the counter or share a table in a restaurant simply because of the color of their skin. Despite how recent this history, there are those who wish to erase it from our school books and our memories.

Many today say it is better then when the brave men and women stood upon the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday, 7 March 1965 and faced down State Troopers and civilian posse’ armed with tear gas and clubs wrapped in barbed wire on Bloody Sunday. There are those, including some who were there that say 2015 is better than 1965, we have made progress. I am hard pressed to find this much discussed much vaunted progress in light of the tragic and terrible across this nation. Is it me?

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Someone asked me yesterday if I thought it was getting better or worse. I had to consider the differences and the changes since 1965, what the meant. Have things really improved, as some would have us believe? Are some of us simply overreacting to the news cycles, which is what some say to those of us who follow and write about the issues of Race in America. Or are things regressing, going backwards having never truly changed only gone into hiding until the all clear signal was sounded the election of Barack Obama bringing out all the fears and fury of the dwindling White majority.

I had to think about it, consider my answer carefully. Ultimately, my answer was option three (3). Maybe it got better for a little while, things moved forward and improved on the surface. As a nation, we took seriously ending segregation, ending Jim Crow, ending lynching, ending the disparities in education and access to jobs for fifteen years before the disaster of Ronald Reagan and his War on Everything. Yes, I said it, the nation began a slow decline with his election, he was in my humble opinion the worst thing that could have happened to anything slightly resembling progress. We need only look at what he ushered in or who he attacked on his road to the White House, with his ‘Welfare Queen’ meme. Then his War on Drugs and the disparity in sentencing laws, started during his time in office, which have only begun to be addressed by this administration. Finally, we need look no further than the the slow disintegration of our infrastructure, education systems and the rise in poverty to understand what he started has finally come to fruition. If there is an afterlife, Saint Ronnie must be gleeful.

Has it gotten better?

What could possibly lead any of us to believe it is better? Truly, the scales over our eyes must be iron plated that we believe it is better. But let’s examine so maybe I and others can be convinced of this ‘better’.

Voters Rights, the act was originally authorized in 1965 and until 2006 was reauthorized as required with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress and signed by the President, no matter the party. In 2006, thirty-three members of the GOP House voted not to reauthorize the Voters Rights Act, they went on record as being against protecting the rights of all citizens to exercise their fundamental right to vote. In 2013 the Supreme Court gutted, in a vote of 5-4 the most critical portion of the Voters Rights Act Section 5, freeing states to change their voter laws without oversight by the Justice Department; in essence paving the way for a return to pre-1965. For a good synopsis of the Voters Rights Act and Voting in America, go here.  Since the gutting of the VRA, multiple states mostly in the South, have enacted new voting laws including Voter ID, changes to hours, changes in the availability of voting equipment primarily in minority districts, reductions in early voting, changes to mail in voting and a host of other ‘conveniences’ that predominately impact minority voters.

Extrajudicial killings, we even have a name for it now this murder by cop, sounds all official and everything, like somehow these murders are somehow acceptable within a civil society. Well based on outcomes apparently they are, no police officer is being prosecuted for murdering an unarmed man or woman, in fact they are being protected by the public servants we pay to protect us, from cops to district attorneys all the way up to Governors. There was a time in this nation when at least people had the courtesy to murder in the dark of night, with white sheets covering their shame. Now? Not so much. Now police, in their uniforms murder unarmed men, women and young boys in broad daylight and the middle of the street knowing they will get away with it. Hell, the media will help them by digging up every minor flaw in their history, painting their victim as the aggressor despite the truth, using language to convince an ignorant and unthinking public to be afraid of the ‘other’, language like ‘criminal’, ‘thug’, ‘gang member’, ‘hulk like’, ‘monster’ and ‘demon’. We heard terms like these about every single unarmed person the police murdered, every single person some citizen murdered, every single unarmed Black child, man or woman; they were other and somehow deserving of their death.

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We have the highest prison population in the free world. Now there is something to be proud of. This country has divided families, created horrific poverty, destroyed communities and developed a de facto slave economy with their for profit prison solution. We have men in prison for decades, men who did not commit the crimes but who were railroaded by dishonest cops and DA’s into prison. We have Black and Brown men and women in disproportionate numbers filling our systems up with far longer sentences than their White counterparts for the same crimes, oh wait we have the Affluenza Defense for White Folks, kill people, rape children your own or others, but don’t go to jail if you are White.

These are just some of my observations. I wish I could say I thought it was getting better. I don’t think it is getting better at all. I think perhaps, there are some of us out here who have shed our bigotry and bias, but we are not doing enough, we are not speaking up, we are not lending our support and standing up with those who need us to stand up with them. What we are doing is allowing those who would like nothing better than a return to Jim Crow and the day’s pre Civil Rights, pre Loving-v-Virginia, pre VRA and pre Integration to be voted into Congress at a state and national level, to remain seated on the highest courts of the land and what they are doing is dismantling every single protection and piece of progress ever made.

Do I think it is better? No, I don’t think it is better. I think in many ways it is far worse. I think it is worse because I know it could be better but we are sitting back and allowing our nation to falter through our apathy. I weep for all of us, for the loss of life and the loss of our promise, for the loss of a great dream.

Filed Under: Series: Race in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I Don’t Believe You, I Do

January 11, 2015 by

OpEdSince the beginning of the Bill Cosby fiasco, I have remained silent; I have chosen not to speak. I did this for a reason, not because I had nothing to say or because I believed one side or the other; no that wasn’t it. It also wasn’t out of respect for Bill Cosby or the women who were coming forward, this wasn’t in my mind, as I watched all the media, social and regular rip both sides of this story to shreds.

Everyone taking sides, everyone with an opinion, everyone prepared to judge, everyone no matter their knowledge or qualifications prepared to render a decision.

I watched and I listened. I read the comments on the various stories. Some of the comments caused my heart to shrivel, others made me want to jump into cyberspace and hunt down the anonymous person without a soul who felt a need to spew their bile. Mostly though, I watched and I listened; to friends, family and complete strangers as they dissected the story of Bill Cosby the public persona and Bill Cosby the man and his legacy. On the other hand and from the other side of the debate I watched friends, family and strangers discount, disregard and disparage the twenty-four women who have come forward to accuse Bill Cosby, not Cliff Huxtable but Bill Cosby the man of drugging, assaulting and raping them.

hero to zero

I do not know the truth. The only ones in this entire tragedy who know 100% of the truth are Bill Cosby and the twenty-four women who have accused him of horrific acts of violation.

As I listened and I read, I struggled with my feelings. When Phylicia Rashād said, ‘forget those women’, I became enraged, I could only think to myself, ‘how could any woman say this about victims of sexual assault?’ Is it possible for anyone to be this free of empathy, this lacking in compassion?

Forget those women.

Then my friend and hero, Deborah at The Monster in Your Closet wrote this, encapsulating so much of what I wanted to say but didn’t have the words.

Victims of sexual assault do not report, all too often we do not report. There are many reasons for this, but the sad truth is the number one reason is how a victim of sexual assault is treated by the system that is supposed to protect them. Every single person, with rare exception, from first responders, to hospital personnel, police, DA’s and yes sadly, family members and loved ones tend to blame the victim, fall into the trap of wondering what the victim did to create, invite or otherwise cause herself to be raped.

I do not believe you.

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When society plays the blame game, protecting the rapist no matter what the reason; high school football star, politician or beloved television star every excuse is trotted out for why they could not have possibly done what they are accused of doing. The ultimate result of this cover-up is, their bad acts were caused by the victim, it was the fault of the victim for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, wearing the wrong clothing, accepting a drink from them and tempting them to bad behavior. We don’t report because we already know the outcome, there are names for women (girls) like us and none of them are kind.

I could not understand, truly my heart and mind simply stuttered. How can any of us sit back and cast aspersions on victims brave enough to step forward into the light of day, allow their names and faces to be seen knowing what they would they would face; Golddigger was the kindest appellation I heard applied.

Then as if reading my heart and mind, again Deborah at Monster in Your Closet wrote another stunning analysis, this time her words brought me to my knees.

I believe you.

What all of us, every victim of sexual assault needs to hear.

I believe you. I trust you. I love you. I will protect you.

That is what most of us never hear. Never, not from our parents, not from our friends or loved ones, not from first responders or doctors, not from the police or DA’s; we just want to be heard and believed, protected.

Why don’t we report? Can you imagine having to tell the story of your sexual assault to one stranger? How about ten strangers? How about a room full of strangers? How about a room full of strangers who don’t believe you, who don’t want to believe while your rapist sits staring at you with a smirk on his face knowing he will be free soon while your heart and soul is being destroyed, your reputation shredded.

Why does our story change? We don’t remember. It is nearly impossible for us to remember ever detail in what for most of us was the most traumatic event in our lives. We don’t want to remember, for most of us we spend a lifetime trying to forget.

Effects of Rape

Am I taking sides? No, but I have a tendency to believe the victim especially where there are twenty-four. What people fail to realize, Bill Cosby isn’t going to be arrested and thrown in jail most of these accusations are over a decade old. Might there be some Civil Suits, sure but even they may get thrown out or settled so we never hear about them. In the meantime, Bill Cosby is still doing his stand-up act and making jokes to women about not drinking around him. He doesn’t appear to care to much about the gravity of the situation or his legacy, why should we?

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

You Lived

January 2, 2015 by

OpEdWhat do we gain if we hang on to anger? That is a question I am asked frequently when I speak in Victim Impact and other venues. Why do I withhold ‘forgiveness’ rather than offer it freely, without limitations or a requirement for acts / signs of true remorse. Why do I believe forgiveness is a gift to the repentant, rather than a gift to ourselves. These are questions I have been pondering lately with a different frame of mind than in the past.

Last year was a year of turmoil and upheaval, not just for me personally but for the nation. Oddly, though what happened in the nation is very different from my own experiences, I can’t help but draw parallels and then my heart cracks. Even while I feel paralyzed and unqualified to speak, I am and have been drawn, sometimes simply as a witness to the terrible and other times to lend my voice, to demand change and justice. Even when my voice is unwelcome in the cacophony that has greater right, greater knowledge, greater principle still I felt the need to try to make sense and add my voice.

No, it isn’t about me or about me being heard, it is simply to raise a voice to demand change in what is so horribly wrong, what is intolerably unjust. It is a voice raised not because it has weight, but instead because silence is no longer an option. What does any one of us bring as our voices are raised, our pens put to paper, our feet to concrete but the entirety of our life experiences, no it isn’t about me. It is simply one more voice demanding change.

My worldview is based solely upon my personal experiences, what has formed me as a human being and a woman, this is all I have, it is all any of us have from which we can view the world around us and form opinions. Our experiences, they are what each of us carry into the world to form judgment, to balance compassion, to create empathy, to allow love to flow freely or to dam it behind walls of fear and mistrust. What we learn at the knee of our parents, in our homes, our schools and sometimes more importantly through our adult experience; this is all we have to form us as complete adults. My life experience is the only thing I have from which I am able to measure ‘right vs. wrong’ and ‘good vs. evil’, my perspective may be from a different place but it is all I have, the only prism I can see through.

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It is impossible for any one of us to compare our individual experiences to another person and say with certainly, ‘I understand, I know how you feel’. We don’t, we never will. We might have compassion for what they are feeling, empathy for what they are experiencing; we do not know what or how they are feeling. We cannot know, we are not them and thus it is impossible for us to know. When you layer on all the differences including personal experiences, culture, education, generation and yes, even religion and race it becomes nearly impossible for us to put ourselves in the place of another. At best we can be compassionate in the face of terrible loss and to show solidarity in the face of gross injustice.

Why is it so important, that any of us speak out, that we evaluate our premise and speak from our hearts whether we have the ability to walk in the shoes of those wronged, we nonetheless must have empathy and compassion, if we don’t have these, we are not fully human. What has brought me to this brooding walk through a philosophical position on forgiveness (I will get back there), compassion and empathy? December was a month of heated discussions, unfocused wretchedness and soul searching.

Demonstrator, Boston Commons Reuters/Brian Snyder

Demonstrator, Boston Commons
Reuters/Brian Snyder

“Not about you”, “You lived”, and “You are still White” were all said, they are also all true.

Just prior to the discussion that generated those statements I received a letter from the State of Texas Board of Parole, one of the three men who shot me, leaving me for dead because they, ‘Wanted to kill White People’, is again up for parole. He has been back in prison for just over two years having been paroled once before. That letter is sitting on my dining room table; it stares up at me every morning with my first cup of coffee, sometimes I run my fingers over the words. On 7-Feb -2015 it will be twenty-three (23) years since that near fatal night. The night three young men changed my life and their own forever, simply because they hated the color of my skin. They didn’t hate me, they didn’t know me; they simply hated what I stood for, what I represented.

For twenty-three years, I have lived with the consequences of their actions, so have they. Last month my seizures started escalating again; my epilepsy is one of the gifts that keep giving from the shooting, one of the consequences. Now that I live alone my seizures scare the hell out of me. Yet I stare at that letter and I wonder, do I really need to respond, do I truly need to demand my pound of flesh in the remorse that will never be forthcoming from someone who had all the reasons in the world to ‘hate white people’.

FCI Fort Worth, Enterance

FCI Fort Worth, Enterance

I got the first letter eighteen years ago, I responded with a demand they hold him to serve a greater part of his thirty-year sentence. I questioned how they could consider parole where there was not a shred of remorse for his actions against any of his victims. Then, I cried for days. For the next eighteen years, every single time I received one of these letters I responded the same way and I cried for days after, like clockwork every two years. I didn’t cry when he was paroled, I cried though when he was returned to prison.

I do not forgive him or his partners, I think I might have too many reminders. I watch the grace of those who have lost their loved ones to violence, I wonder is it that I do not have grace or that I am simply vindictive and mean spirited. I do not know the answer, I know I am not angry at them but I am angry at the system, the society that created them. I am angry at all of us, who let them fall through the cracks, who didn’t save them and all the other young men just like them who lost hope before they had a chance to live.

So yes, I lived and no it isn’t about me; I hope though I can find a way to lift my voice, put pen to paper and make it matter, make it count. I hope I have enough compassion to fill in the cracks, that I live long enough to see a change and that in some small way I can be part of that change.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Sit Down Shut Up

December 11, 2014 by

tears_of_sadnessWhat do we do? What do we owe?

Those of who still make up the majority of this nation, who are still walking through the world with a certain privilege bought by the lack of melanin in our skin; we owe something. You might not think so, but we owe something. Oh, I know I have heard the song and dance many times before I could likely put it to music and do a soft shoe shuffle:

  • I didn’t own slaves
  • My family didn’t own slaves
  • My family fought for the Union
  • I have Black Friends, it isn’t me
  • I voted for Barack Obama, I’m a Liberal it isn’t me
  • Slavery was 200 years ago, racism is dead

The list goes on, sometimes ad infinitum. So, I ask the question again, what do we owe those of us privileged not to walk through the world in fear, what do we owe?

There are those who would answer nothing. To them I say, leave my sight, get out of my space, don’t breathe my air, please. Yes, I try to say it nicely.

There are those who would say, little; maybe, they could send money because money soothes their conscious and allows them to continue with their comfortable lives unencumbered with the dirt xbckx8mqslodq9a6j3fa84xfixqc9lj5and grime of what is happening outside. To them I say, well make it a big check and remember your children might someday ask what you did, where you were and how you made a difference. How will you answer them?

Then there are those, like me who struggle with the question. Who struggle with how to reach across the chasm of righteous fury, who can no longer find the words to express our own fury at the quagmire of injustice, blood and brutality that is now in the light of day. There are those, like me who are not the enemy, but we surely do look like them. What can we do, even as we stand up and try to reach across the abyss of mistrust and fury, what can we do? Our empathy is shallow, we who cannot walk in the shoes, cannot slip into the skin; we cannot fully empathize because we cannot place ourselves even for a minute in the position of the mother mourning her dead child, the father who cannot find work simply because of the color of his skin, the youth stopped and frisked one hundred times before he is eighteen for walking on a city street; we cannot feel what they feel, not even for a minute.

What can we do, our compassion seems almost misplaced, sometimes more like sympathy or pity both of which are unwelcome and most especially as we barely move from our comfortable chairs. What can we do, our anger at the injustice seems unfocused as we sit contentedly ensconced in suburbia, nodding our heads and listening to other people telling us, ‘it is terrible out there’. There are those like me who are at a loss, our voices silenced by our inability to speak coherently our own rage, our own fear, our own pain; despite our inability to walk in shoes already filled, some of us, many of us are enraged and want to find our place in a fight that should be ours as well. What do we do, when we can only speak from what we know and who we are, from our own experiences and our own hearts and minds, how do we bring that to a table brimming with righteous pain, rage and mistrust.

 

Featured Image -- 94374What do we do? What do we owe?

I don’t know the answer to either question anymore. I know we must stop trying to over-write and invalidate the clarion call of the movements for justice.

#BLACK LIVES MATTER            ≠              #ALL LIVES MATTER

I know we would all like to think ‘All Lives Matter’, it has a pretty ring doesn’t it? The fact is, right now, it isn’t a movement of ‘All Lives’, some of our lives have always mattered, some of us have always had a preferred position, a front seat on the bus. This right now is a different thing, it is not all about ‘All Lives’, it is not about us or you, it is a movement for Justice, for Equality in Justice and it is focused on a community of people who have not received justice since the first sale of African Slaves, known as the ’20 and odd’ in 1607 on these shores.

Historical Arch

From 1607 through centuries of slavery, Jim Crow to today with institutional and structural racism built into every corner of our social, cultural and geo-political foundations we have proven ‘all lives’ do not matter, only some matter. What can we do? We can stop hijacking movements, stop being insulted when ‘we’ aren’t included as a matter of principal, stop arguing that we matter; we have mattered for four hundred years, get over it. For once, we can honor the call of another movement, rally to a call that is not specifically ours, be foot soldiers instead of officers, if the movement for justice is to be cohesive and acknowledged, we can simply repeat the call rather than change it.

What do we owe?

I don’t know. Maybe we owe our bodies on the front line, standing in front of police in riot gear protecting those who have been without shields for far too long. Maybe we owe that. Maybe we owe our voices, our demands added to theirs for justice, for equality; maybe we owe that as more than lip service.

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I don’t know, what we owe. I don’t know what we can do. Maybe we ask and if we are told nothing, we have done enough; just maybe we should take it, accept it sit down and shut up and wait until we are invited to the party rather than demand our voices be heard.

Perhaps we see ourselves as something other than the enemy, but you know maybe it is just too damned late, maybe it has gone on too damned long. Perhaps, we have allowed by our inaction, our blind indifference the disparity of our systems to corrupt our nation to such an extent, even those of us who wish to reach across the chasm can’t find the right bridge.

What is the answer? I wish I knew.

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