Violence in the Streets Won’t Help

Wreaking havoc in the streets in the aftermath of George Zimmerman’s acquittal is not wise, smart or needed.

It’s OK to be angry; it’s expected. But engaging in violence on the streets is counter-productive, to those who engage in it and to those who are affected by it.

I remember when, in the height of the Civil Rights Movement, riots broke out all over the country. I lived in Detroit. The riots began after police arrested a group of people who were in an after-hours club, celebrating the return of some men from Vietnam. Police apparently arrested everyone in the club. (http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/d_events.htm) After the police left with those who had been arrested, a couple of people, angry because the club was closed and they now no longer had someplace to go, broke a window at a clothing store which was next to the club. The riot erupted from there and lasted for 5 days. At the end of the riot, 43 people were dead, and close to 1200 were injured and nearly 7000 had been arrested.

The riot began on Clairmount Avenue. Clairmount was clearly in the black section of the city, and I knew the area well. My pediatrician’s office was blocks from there, on Clairemount and Dexter Avenue. What bothered me is that the rioters were angry but were taking their anger out on black folks! It was black business that was affected most. Black neighborhoods were devastated. After the riots were over, my parents took all of us (5 children) into the “war zone,” my father called it. The neighborhood was gone. Everything we had grown up seeing was gone, burned to the ground. It was as though war planes had come and dropped bombs.

It was counter productive then and it’s counter productive now. What we need, when there is injustice or something we perceive as being unjust, is strategy so that we can “speak truth to power.” We know that many youth in the streets are brilliant, even if their education has not been good. This is a time where their brilliance could be used to make a difference in the communities in which there is so much injustice. We need to figure out a way to stop black-on-black crime. Although the comments of Robert Zimmerman, George Zimmerman’s brother, sounded arrogant to me, I hated it that he could and did mention that scores of black youth are shot on a daily basis and nobody is ever arrested! That is a sad fact and it is up to us to change it. Anger is not a bad thing. It shouldn’t be suppressed, because suppressed anger converts into depression …We don’t need communities with any more depressed people …but we do need change and the anger that is “out there” now because of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin can be used to bring some real change in the lives of too many kids. I don’t care what the politicians say; there is a need for gun control in this nation, and there is a bigger need for gun control in black, brown and poor communities…and that’s only PART of the work we need to do.

On Sunday, the day after the Zimmerman verdict, I sat in a church service with a predominantly white membership. The occasion was celebration of Freedom Schools, an amazing program begun by Ella Baker in 1974 and taken up by Marian Wright Edelman, head of the Children’s Defense Fund. The CDF Freedom Schools program is a six-week program which takes kids in, infuses them with a love of and for themselves, uses college kids to teach them not only to read but to love to learn. Children come in with heads down, often, because of what they cannot do and leave with heads up, because they have learned that they can do more than they ever thought they could.

On Sunday, three of the college kids, teachers to the kids, called “Student Leader Interns,” spoke. All three, two African-American men and one Hispanic woman, spoke about the Zimmerman verdict and how it was a call to action. The Hispanic woman wept as she talked; I wept throughout the service. These three young people called for this to be a time for action, and they are right…not violence in the streets, but action so that those who are children now will have different struggles to deal with, not senseless gun violence in their communities, or laws that work to their detriment.

There is a song the Freedom School students sing, “Something Inside.” They sing the song every day. The opening words are, “Something inside so strong… I know that I can make it, though you’re doing me wrong, so wrong…” The hope, or my hope, is that those words “take” and become the propulsion for the kids and for those of us who love them …to become the agents for change we need in this world which has not been, let’s face it, fair when it comes to poor people and people of color.

Get off the streets, guys, and use that anger in a way that is going to produce positive change. Help turn a nation’s mourning …into dancing. It is so needed. Ella Baker said, when she was still alive, “Until the death of black men, black mothers’ sons, is as important as the death of white men, white mothers’ sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest…” We cannot rest, not yet. We have to value ourselves and our “sons” and the work needed is immense…and it is needed now…

A candid observation …

Out of Tragedy, New Life

“Jason Williams, the player, died.”

He was talking about Jay Williams, who played at Duke and went on to join the Chicago Bulls

Mike Krzyzewski, who coached Williams while he was a Duke, made the comment on a recent episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

He was referring to the tragic story of Jason Williams, who was a star college athlete and went on to join the N.B.A. with nothing but promise and prosperity ahead of him. Several years ago, he had just gotten back home from mentoring a group of college kids wanting to or already playing basketball. He was on top of the world and on top of his game. He had inherited the locker of Michael Jordan. He had gotten to Emerald City, so to speak, and had found himself, or perhaps affirmed the “self” he knew.

Then it all came apart. When he got back home from mentoring those students, he decided to take a ride on his motorcycle. To say that the decision to do that was one he will probably regret until the day he dies is an understatement , because on that evening, something went terribly wrong as he rode his motorcycle. He ended up in a horrific crash which resulted in his left leg being injured almost to the point of no return. While doctors worried about whether or not they could save his leg, young Williams, who was only 21 at the time, worried about whether or not he’d ever play professional basketball again.

His leg made it; his career didn’t. He retired from the N.B.A. at the age of 21, and began to be known by some as “the boy who threw it all away.”

Jason Williams, or “Jay” Williams, as he was called, the player …died …although he survived the crash. He was a dead man walking, going through the motions for a long time after the life-saving surgeries he underwent saved that leg. Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski was right. He was a dead man walking at the tender age of 21.

To say that he sunk into depression is an understatement, more probably made worse because it seemed that many blamed him for his own predicament. He shouldn’t have gotten on that stupid motorcycle; even his N.B.A. contract forbade it. Those who ran the business of basketball knew the dangers that could snatch star players off the court and out of contention. These were young men signing to play ball; they knew about money and fame, because we in America are surrounded by the quest for both. But as youngsters, they didn’t know Life, and how Life isn’t fair. Young folks are not too keen about listening to older folks, so the “older folks” of the N.B.A., those who make their livings by knowing how to make and keep profits, have to step in and do what they need to do to protect their interests. They know that the lure of excitement, for young folks, is sometimes hard to fight.

So it was with Jay Williams. For a moment of pleasure, he threw the life he loved …away.

Williams was depressed for years, to the point of being suicidal.

And then it began to dawn on him that life hadn’t ended, just life as he had known it. There were parts of himself he knew nothing about. He hadn’t died and so it occurred to him that he might as well begin to live again. Today, at age 31, he is doing that.

The job for us, when we goof up, is to keep on going, to reinvent ourselves. Sometimes, goofing up is the best gift we can give ourselves. No, it isn’t fun to look past goofs in the face and have to “own” that we were so …human…but the fact is that humans make mistakes, and sometimes, really bad ones. When that happens, we want to curl up and die, or settle down into saucers of despair and self pity …and worse.

That’s what Jay Williams had done.

But when we life Life a chance to be …what Life is …an opportunity to go in so many directions, we are pleasantly surprised to find out that, inside of us all, there is more than we ever imagined. Through the reinvention of ourselves, we grow. That’s what Life wants, ultimately.

Ask Jay Williams. Ask President Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, Anthony Weiner, for goodness’ sake.

Life “ain’t been no crystal stair,” as Langston Hughes, for any of us. It was never intended to be.

A candid observation …

One Group Forward, Another Group Back

The United States Supreme Court did the right thing, I believe, in striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), clearing the way for members of the LGBT community to get the rights they deserve as American citizens. As more and more states lose their resistance to allowing same-sex marriage, the rights of these couples will finally be treated with dignity and will be entitled to federal benefits that heterosexual married couples now enjoy. Some religious folks are decrying the decision, insisting that the Bible says marriage is supposed to be between one man and one woman but the decision of the Supreme Court really did make justice possible for one group of people who have been too long discriminated against.

But while the LGBT community enjoyed a victory, African-Americans suffered a serious setback. In effectively striking down the guts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court invalidated the work over the years by activists to make sure the right of African-Americans to vote was protected. The high court left the door and the way open for dishonesty and hate-based-on-race to have its way …again. The blood, sweat and tears – literally – of activists, black, white, Christian, Jewish – was dishonored by a court whose chief justice, John Roberts, said, “our country has changed.”

It brought me to tears.

Voting is about power, and from the outset, some people in some states, historically, knew that all too well. To allow the growing population of African-Americans in the South to vote would upset and challenge the balance of the white power structure. To guard against that, ridiculous, immoral, unethical and disingenuous “tests” were set up to weed African-Americans out. People were asked to tell how many jelly beans were in a jar; they were given literacy tests by many who were themselves illiterate. They were given tests on the United States Constitution. Some blacks would stand in line to register to vote for hours only to get to the registration point and either be turned away because they “failed” one of these tests or to find that voting registration was closed for the day.

The court specifically struck down Section 4 of the Act, which required specifically named states to get pre-clearance from the Justice Department before they made changes to requirements and procedures for voting, to change polling places, or redrawing electoral districts. Congress in 2006 renewed the act, extending the preclearance requirement for 25 years. Now, however, the states that were named have been released from the requirement that they be monitored and get preclearance (Section 5). Federal attorneys can go to individual states and see what they are doing, but clearly, states will have more freedom to do as they wish, hoping that they are not “caught.”

Politics is about power, not about people. In spite of our founding documents saying that government is “by the people, of the people and for the people,” the reality is that those words, that stated belief, is not really true. Far too many American people suffer from a democracy and democratic principles that do not extend to them. While the Congress gets up in arms about democracy needing to work and/or be established in foreign countries, democracy in America is in intensive care.

The Supreme Court this week pushed one group, the LGBT community, move forward while simultaneously pushing another group, African-Americans, back. The court showed notable sensitivity to the group, and familiar and painful insensitivity to another.

The struggle continues. It just never ends. Racism, and the inequality it metes out, is America’s cancer. It resists all efforts to get it out of the life-blood of American society.

A candid observation…

On Forgiveness

Some years ago, I wrote a book entitled, Forgive WHO? The book dealt with the difficulty of forgiving the people who have hurt us most, based on the directives by God to do so – not just once, but over and over. It was and is a dastardly “ask,” frankly, and yet God demands it. At the end of the day, we help ourselves when we forgive those who have ripped our very souls to shreds. Holding onto the anger and hurt at having been done wrong does nothing good for us. The need to be “right” seems to, be physically, emotionally and spiritually damaging.

So it is with interest that I have been watching the Paula Deen debacle. She has apologized…and is asking forgiveness from those whom she offended. The ball has been thrown into the court of the offended. What they do with it will determine their souls’ lives, not Paula’s.

I am offended by the “n” word; I do not for a moment believe that many white people have used it in public to refer to African-Americans because that word was a big part of American history. It was so much a part of our history that black people called themselves the “n” word, and continue to do so today. It is absolutely maddening to me to hear it used by anyone; kids saying to me to lighten up because it doesn’t mean anything makes me even madder. It is a horrible word and it came from a horrible place of hatred, arrogance and a false sense of superiority of one group over another.

So, I don’t really believe Paula or anyone who says he or she has “never” used that word at some point in their lives.

Some have said that Paula is not sincere in her apology; she is “sorry” only because she was found out, but isn’t that the case with most of us? When we do wrong, we hope we will get away with it. If we get caught, aren’t most of us first “sorry” because we got caught, and only after that “sorry” that we may have offended someone? So if that’s the case with Paula, she’s not all that out of the norm. And if she’s sorry because she is, as Today Show host Matt Lauer suggested, “bleeding financially, that’s understandable too.

But at the end of the day, Paula apologized, and that ought to be enough. For God-fearing, Christ– following people, none of whom are perfect, her apology ought to be enough. We ought to be able to forgive her because …she made a mistake. We all do. We ought to be willing to forgive her because …God demands that we do.

The “n” word is a horrible word; I wish it would go away. Worse, I wish it had never come into being, with all of the negative attachments it has. Nobody had the right to cast black people into such a despicable place, and brand them as less than human. But it was done…and the bleeding from that would has not stopped. We keep pretending that racism is gone, or that the tentacles that racism spawned have disappeared. They have not. The old thoughts, words and attitudes linger; they are like pus that will not stop bubbling beneath our wounds.

Paula Deen is not a bad lady. She is a product of how she grew up, as we all are. It would be good to get this pesky word completely erased from our history and from our present-day, but it is not likely to disappear soon. For what it’s worth, Paula Deen, I forgive you. It’s easier for me if I do. There’s too much work to do to stay stuck on what you said in a deposition. I forgive you and I believe you’re sorry.

Time to move on.

A candid observation …

God Ignored?

Religion, says Bishop Desmond Tutu in his book, God is Not a Christian: And Other Provocations, “…should foster sisterhood and brotherhood, which should encourage tolerance, respect, compassion, peace, reconciliation, caring and sharing.” To the contrary, however, Tutu notes that religion “…has fueled alienation and conflict, and has exacerbated intolerance and injustice and oppression. Some of the ghastliest atrocities have happened and are happening in the name of religion,” Tutu writes.

Why in the name of all that is good is that true?

It sometimes feels that God is absent, or perhaps lounging, watching His/Her children be as completely human as they care to be – meaning, God leaves us to our own devices. In many ways, we are like the Biblical prodigal son, who insulted his father by asking for his inheritance while his father was very much alive. Such an act in Middle Eastern culture was unheard of, and should have driven his father to wild rage, writes Kenneth Bailey in his book, Finding the Lost Cultural Keys to Luke 15. Instead, writes Bailey, the father swallowed his hurt and insult, and granted his son the gift of freedom. He watched …as his son made a horrible decision, alienated his family and community, and went off to be as completely human as he cared to be.

In that story, the son “comes to himself,” and decides to go back home, and his father runs to meet him, which prominent men of that day did not do, lifting up his heavy robes exposing his legs so that he could run faster, again, something which was not acceptable for him to do. One did not run; one did not expose his or her legs. This father did both.

Stories like that serve as reminders that God is not absent, but that God really does allow us to be free – even if our being free results in oppression and intolerance and unkindness amongst ourselves as squabbling children.

It makes me want to say to God, “God, please, can you be a little more strict? Can you please cut down or cut back on this free will thing? Don’t you want a good world?” God allows us, as His/Her children, to take our inheritance of love and go to a “far land.” Yes, we are free! But with our freedom, we are wildly irresponsible, causing so much chaos and pain.

Did God ask us to do things like love our enemy, or forgive folks, or …do to others as we would like done to us …knowing that we would never do it? That the way God wired us made it almost impossible?

Right now, there is a civil war in Syria – amongst religious people. Some of our lawmakers, like Sen. John McCain, seem to be pushing for our country to become involved militarily – like “boots on ground” involvement – in that country’s civil war. The Syrians are doing horrible things to each other, and some Americans want us to help them do it. Protestants and Catholics fought against each other in Ireland; Christians fought against each other in our own Civil War. In the case of Syria, I wonder if those who are fighting each other stop long enough for traditional prayers. My guess would be that they do.

What is it about religion that makes its adherents so incapable of doing what religion is supposed to foster, the things that Bishop Tutu raised in his book?

It seems that very few of us “get it.” The new pope, Pope Francis, seems to get it, that as a religious person, are all held to a higher standard. The other day he interacted with a young boy who has Down Syndrome, inviting him to sit in the pope’s seat in the pope-mobile. A small gesture, for sure, but one that made a profound impact on that young boy and probably changed his life. He’ll probably want to be pope one day so that he can pay forward what Pope Francis gave to him. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/pope-francis-down-syndrome_n_3465684.html) He has said that “Christianity is incompatible with anti-Semitism,” and says that he is going to work to deepen and improve the relationship between Catholics and Jews. (http://www.religionnews.com/2013/06/24/pope-francis-christianity-is-incompatible-with-anti-semitism/). He is not being a reticent prelate, and his determination to be amongst the people is not going unnoticed. That kind of involvement with “the least of these” would probably help us all be nicer to each other. People have a need to be touched, loved and affirmed.

Is it that religion, in general, is reluctant to mingle with “the least of these” that helps breed what Tutu calls “ghastly atrocities?”

We have God, but we are not all that interested in worshiping Him/Her – if worship means to honor God by following God’s directions. We worship the Bible, wrote the late Rev. Peter Gomes, chaplain at Harvard University; in fact, Gomes said, this “bibliolatry” has superseded our desire and ability to connect with God. Gomes writes in The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Head and Heart,” that “in the absence of a visible God, the temptation is always near to make a god of whatever is visible and related in some proximate way to the real thing.” Perhaps. Or perhaps we make a god of whatever is visible and related to our own ideologies and prejudices. Ideology kicks theology out of the game.

So, in the name of an ignored God, the late Osama bin Laden, purported to be a devout Muslim, plans and executes a plan to bomb the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, though that part of the plan failed thanks to the brave people on that flight. In the name of an ignored God, churches spew venom against gays and lesbians. In the name of an ignored God, racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism have flourished. So many times the oppression of people and groups have been the worst inside of churches and in spite of a professed belief in God.

God allows us to go to a far place …and stay there.

Maybe we’d do better with a little less freedom.

A candid observation …