He With Gold Rules

“He with the gold …rules.”

That is a line spoken by Bill Moyers in his documentary: “State of Conflict: North Carolina.”

It is a fascinating but troubling documentary, exposing the right-wing takeover of government in North Carolina, bankrolled by one Art Pope, among others …which is resulting in an extreme erosion of rights of people in that state.

Specifically targeted are voting rights, women’s rights, and public higher education. There are consistent “snips” to social safety nets in the state. Medicaid was not expanded in the state, seriously affecting “the least of these” and compromising, if not outright preventing, the very poor to have access to health care.

There is a minister, Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter NAACP and a key coordinator of the multi-issue, multi-ethnic movement which has taken on the state. Barber began his public protest with a small group of people last year; that number of people has swelled to thousands, gathering in cities all over the state, protesting and fighting what is going on.

There will be a mass rally on Saturday, February 8, in Charlotte.

Those are the facts of what’s going on. Here is my gut-wrenching reaction about what’s going on.

This sucks.

I have long thought that “justice” comes most readily to those who can pay for it. What’s going on says that “government” is defined and shaped by those …who can pay for it.

At the end of the day, is there such a thing as a democracy, where, theoretically, there is “liberty and justice for all?” Is the notion of government “of the people, by the people and for the people” a pie in the sky? How can a select few of wealthy people be so cavalier about the lives and welfare of the masses? How can legislatures so blithely cut away services that will make live more bearable for so many people?

Somehow, a small group of wealthy people, and a larger group of not-as-wealthy-but-wanna-be people have gotten the notion that if one is poor, it’s because he or she is lazy. They have bought into the notion that in America, anything and everything is possible if one is willing to work hard.

Scores of people would refute that, people who are working two, three jobs to make ends meet and who still can’t make those ends meet. Scores of people who do have low paying jobs but with no benefits would refute that as well, stating for the record that they work as many hours as possible – at minimum wage, many of them – and are still living below the poverty level.

That the wealthy cannot see this, or perhaps more stridently, do not believe this or care about the truth of what’s being said and experienced, is troubling. It pulls at the very seams of a nation that prides itself on being morally superior to other nations.

A nation which forgets and exploits its poor cannot be said to be moral, not in any shape, way or form.

A candid observation …

When Dark Nights Come

My mother used to say, all of the time, that life isn’t fair.

It isn’t.

I keep thinking of the “newly homeless,” people who used to have jobs, good jobs, who are now homeless. I think of the parents and family of people who have been killed by senseless gun violence in this nation within the last year. I know a family whose son was a good student and athlete and was headed to college ….but who died during basketball practice. In a historical sense, I keep thinking of Solomon Northrup, the free black man who was stolen and sold into slavery, as depicted in the movie, Twelve Years a Slave.”

Talk about unfair. Dark nights do come, no matter who we are.

When I watched that movie, I kept wondering how Solomon did it? How did he …well, how did any slaves …make it through that horrific experience? How did he keep from going insane or losing hope? I wondered if he woke up every day thinking that this would be the day of his deliverance…and how he kept going when the day at hand turned out not to be that day.

What did he tell himself? What did he do with the feeling of life being unfair as he was beaten and almost killed and treated like a brute?

I can’t even imagine.

But stories like that are good to know; Northrup’s story is as compelling for me as was Nelson Mandela’s. How did he stay sane and hold onto hope for 27 years? I read his book, Long Walk to Freedom and was reminded that within us all there is that strength given to us at the moment we were created.

If we can remember that the strength is there…and if we can turn our attention away from our angst and toward, perhaps, the suffering of others, it seems that light begins to seep through.

Even the tiniest bit of light in the midst of darkness gives hope.

It seems that, when dark nights come, we need to look up and out…and remember that dark nights are not unique and that they are temporary – even if temporary is a long time. Darkness, eventually, is overtaken by light …which is always moving toward us.

As my mama would say that life wasn’t fair, she would also say, “this too will pass.”

So true, dark night, so true.

A candid observation …

Knowing Your Strength

The late Whitney Houston sang a song that moves me every time I hear it. “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength” is a powerful exclamation of self-affirmation, set to music, a kind of “in your face, tribulations!” rendition offered by a woman who had been through a self-created and self-imposed hell but had come out standing.

If only she had truly believed what she sang, enough to have left the drugs and alcohol alone.

Though I mourn her exit from this life, her song resonates with me. Several people I know have said that 2013 was a horrible year; the latest article in The New Yorker about President Obama written by David Remnick says that for the president, that was certainly the case (annus horribilis, writes Remnick).

That phrase apparently applies to more people than I originally thought. My best friend nearly died and was on life support for two weeks. Two good friends of mine lost their mothers; another acquaintance lost her grandchild in a tragic and horrible accident. A woman I know lost her husband of over 30 years suddenly. “I had no time to prepare,” she said to me one day, tearfully. “I don’t know what I will do …”

So many people shared with me how 2013 rocked their worlds…and my2013, well, let’s just say that “horrible” is an understatement.

But in spite of bad (or horrible) times, it is amazing that all of those people I mentioned, as well as myself, are still standing. We have not lost our minds or our will and resolve to live and thrive. While every one of those people I mentioned could relate to my experience of being so hurt and shattered that it hurt to literally breathe, they made it through. They, as well as I, didn’t know our own strength. It is bad and/or difficult times that teach us that.

Some years ago, I heard Deepak Chopra say that “bad” times are not bad; they are actually “good,” he said, because from them we learn our most valuable lessons. It is from bad times that we become stronger and we recognize the strength within us that we just do not think about and therefore cannot tap into.

The more we push against the adversities in our lives, the more we push the unmovable, the more muscular our spirits become. Our spirits become “toned” by the hard work of pushing against that which wants to take us out. The late Nelson Mandela pushed forward, though he was imprisoned for 27 years because he dared stare apartheid in the face and become in a movement to bring it down. I talked with a young man who withstood being wrongly arrested and convicted of a crime he had not committed. “I made it, Rev. Sue,” he said. “I made it.” He doesn’t know what his life will look like from this day forward, but he withstood an experience which he would only say was “horrific.”

Life was never meant to be easy; unfortunately, we all learn that. Life is meant to shake us to our cores…Tears are necessary from time to time. Depression caused by bad times must, I think, help in the strengthening process. The good thing is that not all of the “trials” we are to go through come at the same time; they are merciful enough to spread themselves out. Theoretically, by the time the “next” trial comes, the strength we have gained from the previous one has kicked in.

When I think of Whitney Houston, I think that perhaps the strength she had within her hadn’t kicked in yet; it was new. She was coming face to face with it, and getting to know herself in a new way. She was a stronger Whitney who had faced the lions of adversity and come out standing. That was her strength …

But her legs were not strong enough yet. She could stand up but couldn’t remain standing.

My prayer is that the strength I have come to realize I have is sufficient to keep me standing …as well as the strength in every single one of the persons I mentioned above. Every single one of them were knocked down by life. What they went through took the breath out of them. They …and I …found out how hard it is to breathe, let alone stand, when a tsunami overtakes us.

Knowing the strength we have inside is only the first part of surviving trials and pain. What we must do …and perhaps what Whitney did not do …is nurture and feed the new self that emerges with new strength. Otherwise, we might fall down, like Whitney did.

That would mean that the pain we just got through was wasted. That, somehow, is unacceptable. The experience of annus horribilis, though distasteful and unpleasant, is a gift. To not stand up in spite of it …just doesn’t work.

A candid observation …

Fear Brings Silence

A friend of mine, now deceased, wrote a play some time ago called, “Our Young Black Men Are Dying and Nobody Seems to Care.” The playwright, James Chapmyn, composed this choreopoem which has the “voices” of young, black men, now dead, telling their stories. They are dead – some from police violence, some from black-on-black violence, some from HIV/AIDS …and nobody, it seems, cares.

I’ve seen excerpts of the work. What I saw was chilling; it brought me to tears. Young, black, men, crying for someone to hear them, care about them…Chapmyn’s work was spot-on.

And yet, in spite of this work and the truth it shares, the situation is still the same. Young, black men are dying and still, nobody seems to care.

The silence of everyone is troubling; the silence and lack of desire to become involved by black people is heart-breaking. Silence means we acquiesce to situations before us. We are acquiescing to the violence and the “reasons” that the violence is said to occur that we have been fed.

Just this morning, I read the piece about the young man in North Carolina, 17-year-old Jesus Huerta, who, while his hands were handcuffed behind his back and he was sitting in a police care, apparently shot himself in the head and died. (http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/police-say-teen-shot-self-head-while-hands-cuffed-behind-back)

How does one do that? How is it possible? And why are we who think the story sounds “off” so silent?

OK. So Huerta isn’t black …but he is a young man of color…who is dead…under suspicious circumstances…and he’s not the first one for whom this kind of story has been told. In 2012 in Arkansas, 21-year-old Chacobie (Chavis) Carter apparently managed to do the same thing. Sitting in the back seat of a patrol car, young Carter was found dead, a small caliber pistol found near him, and his hands were still handcuffed. (http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/police-say-teen-shot-self-head-while-hands-cuffed-behind-back) In 2012 in Texas, yet another handcuffed teen managed to shoot himself in the head while handcuffed. (http://www.salon.com/2012/12/06/another_handcuffed_young_man_manages_to_shoot_himself/)

It just doesn’t seem feasible that a person can shoot himself while his hands are locked behind his back …and yet that’s the bill of goods we are being told…and nobody is saying anything.

I wonder if we are afraid to speak up and speak out. Do you remember how, in the movie, Twelve Years a Slave, that nobody said anything, did anything, while Solomon Northrup was hanging from that rope? For hours, he hung there, and people looked…and then looked away. Only a few were brave enough to offer him a drop of water. And I have read how, even during the height of the Civil Rights movement, though everyone knew horrible things were going on, few people had the courage to say or do anything. They had reasons; they were threatened with loss of life, home, job …or all of the above…and so they kept silent. The Civil Rights movement brought about change because young people and children …who had little to lose economically, refused to be silent.

Is it that we are still afraid to speak up against injustice because we feel we have too much to lose? Nobody wants to be labeled…you know, called a “radical” or “trouble-maker.” Everybody just kind of wants to go along to get along…and to hang onto what they have. The threat of economic and social ostracization is real. Many good people have remained silent, trying to hold onto their piece of “the American dream” and what little status they have. Fannie Lou Hamer, I remember, was beaten nearly to death and lost her home when she dared speak up for voting rights for black people. Nobody wants to be beaten or thrown out into the street for standing up for justice.

But what about the children? What about the modern-day lynchings that just keep happening? How in the world does a person with his hands in handcuffs behind his back manage to shoot himself in the head? I don’t get it. Are more of us questioning … but are afraid to “make a stink” about it” Is it that we feel like we cannot afford to speak up and speak out?

Is that why our young men are dying …and nobody seems to care?

A candid observation …

The Hole Caused by Loss

It is the week before Christmas…and for many, a very sad time.

Normally I write about social justice issues; helping, reaching out to, telling the stories and explaining the plights of “the least of these”is a passion of mine.

But today, I woke up thinking about people who this year will experience the pain of loss as the holy season – the “holy-day” season, comes to its climax.

People who last year had daughters or sons, husbands, wives, mothers, fathers, partners …or even beloved pets …will feel the sting of loss in a season of plenty.

I remember the first Christmas I experienced without my mother. It was, put quite simply, horrible. It was as though there was a hole in the house. The tree was up, but I really didn’t care about it. There were gifts under the tree, but the gifts didn’t matter. What I wanted was my mother. I was mad that she was gone. She had been my rock. It was mama who had made the holy-days special and fun; it was her laughter, filling the house as completely as did the scents of the food she would cook, that made Christmas special. It was mama who had urged us out of the house on Christmas Eve to go Christmas caroling with the church youth group to “spread some joy to someone else,” no matter how cold it was, only to greet us at the door when we were done with hot chocolate and something warm to eat.

There was not a lot of money, but there was always a lot of fun. My four siblings and myself knew that we would not get a slew of Christmas presents; we knew that. But it didn’t matter. For years we had gone out with Daddy to pick up a Christmas tree and we would have an absolute ball decorating it. Mama teased us when we pouted as the live Christmas tree tradition came to a screeching halt and we got a ridiculous-looking aluminum tree with a rotating light (red, yellow, blue, green) because Mama got tired of vacuuming pine needles all year. We were not impressed, but Mama loved us through our disappointment and somehow, that wonderful, familiar feeling of love and fun remained with us, aluminum tree notwithstanding.

The house was always filled with the smell of food. Mama said, “The smell of food means love …” If that was the case, we were not lacking.

When she got sick, when cancer invaded her body and took her out so quickly, it was a blow from which I don’t think I’ve ever completely recovered. The Christmas before she died, she had been in the hospital for a month as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with her. That year she missed Thanksgiving. There was no smell of food in the house, nothing that said “mother love.” I mean, there was a turkey, but it didn’t taste good. Nothing was right. The hole created by her absence was too deep and too dark.

The next Christmas, she was gone. The hole became an abyss. Not even the lights of the Christmas season were enough to give me light enough to see past my pain.

So, I know what some people will experience this Christmas. The hole caused by loss will be in the living rooms or family rooms of so many families. There will be gifts and some laughter, but real joy will be elusive for many this year. It’s just too soon. The wound caused by the loss is too fresh.

Last week I talked with a young woman who will experience loss in yet a different way. Her parents, her family, has disowned her. She will spend Christmas with distant cousins. She’s glad to have a place to stay, but the wound …caused by her loss, will pulsate. Here in Columbus, there is a family who lost what appeared to be a perfectly healthy son to sudden death; he dropped dead after basketball practice. A local sports reporter lost his daughter in a horrific crash. Two friends of mine lost their mothers this year; another friend lost her best friend.

I woke up thinking about people like that …who are putting up a good front, but who see and feel that hole caused by loss. The pain passes, but that dratted hole sticks around. The holidays will not be the same (have not been the same) this year. There is a loneliness that goes deep and begs for a balm.

It gets better. Believe that.

A candid observation …