Category Archives: justice

All Posts, Christianity, justice, race

WHY HAVE A BLACK HISTORY MONTH?

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We’ve all heard the reasonable sounding questions, “Why black history?” Why not a white history month?”  The public school history that I learned went something like this: Slavery was a very bad thing that we ended.  Lots of slaves and their descendants went north where they were free and equal.  The South resisted but the Jim Crow era ended with the Civil Rights Laws so now it’s all good and black folks can succeed if they will do the work.  Unfortunately, that version of history denies the life experiences of most black Americans.  The reality of history exists in those experiences, not in laws and textbooks.

To see the difference, come with me on a short trip to my home state and town, New Albany, Indiana.   Founded in 1813, it was once the largest city in the state and being directly across the Ohio River (which belongs to Kentucky) from Louisville, it was the first “free” stop for many fugitive slaves.  The Second Baptist Church, built in 1849-1852, sits on Originally built by a Presbyterian congregation and later sold to Baptists, this church has a long history as a first stop in a non-slave state on the underground railroadMain Street, not more than 300 yards from the slave-state waters of Kentucky.  The beautifully restored church features a marker describing its history as a stop on the underground railroad, a respite where refugees could hide in dirt floored rooms  or escape to the street through a tunnel before making their way to other states or to Canada.  Helping fugitive slaves was illegal but New Albany’s free blacks and anti-slavery whites risked violence and arrest to do that as early as 1821.

Also on Main Street, about four blocks away, is another historic marker. image It describes mob violence against blacks in the summer of 1862, about 15 months into the Civil War.    White mobs responded to a fight between white and black men with two days of attacks on black people and their property.  The historic marker is placed at the site of the Israel Boarding House, whose owner saved one black man by barring her door against the mob.  Similar mob attacks were reported that same summer in Cincinnati, Chicago and Toledo.

In 1851,  Indiana voters approved a new state constitution that banned black migration into the state and denied blacks the rights to vote, serve in the militia, bear witness in trials involving whites, and attend public schools.  Despite those provisions, more than 11,000 blacks lived in the state.  Thus began the tradition of “Sundown Towns”.  Northern states had very small black populations; and a majority of whites wanted to keep it that way.  Historian James Loewen lists nearly 300 suspected Sundown Towns in the Hoosier State.  Black folks steered clear of them and many remain mostly white to this day.  Some passed ordinances and posted signs such as “Whites only within city limits after dark”.  Other warnings were far more graphic.  Through the mid-1920s about 30 percent of white Hoosier men were Ku Klux Klan members.  So were the governor and the majority of the legislature who had learned that it was hard to get elected without a Klan endorsement.

Alabama Governor George Wallace (“Segregation now, Segregation forever”) received 30 percent of the vote in Indiana’s 1964 Democratic Presidential primary.  By 1972, the solid Democrat/Dixiecrat segregationist south abandoned the newly pro-civil rights Democratic Party.  Southern states have favored the Republican Party since it abandoned Lincoln’s legacy  in a quest for populist votes.  In that political turmoil the legal protections that black Americans had gained were inconsistently enforced. For example, despite laws requiring equal employment opportunity,  I recall a manufacturing plant tour in the late 1960s.  It was a thriving unionized company with excellent wages and benefits, but the union didn’t accept blacks so they could only have non-union manual labor jobs.  The black men who packed and loaded finished products were known as “bagger boys”.

The details that I’ve described won’t make it into history texts but they are the experiences that black grandparents can describe for today’s youth.  It appears that two generations from now, black children will be hearing about jobs with few benefits and wages too low to support a family, police shootings of unarmed black boys and men, fathers in jail for non-violent crimes, lead tainted water, and racially gerrymandered  voting districts designed to keep the creators of the status quo in office.

The flow of black history continues today.   It is closely related to the rest of the American story, but always distinct because of barriers that separate the two.  It is said that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it; and few of us want that.  If Americans of all races learn the realities of black history, we may finally be able to join it fully to American history.  And that is why black history matters to us all.

All Posts, justice, race, Terrorism

WILL ARMED OREGON PROTESTERS GET EQUAL TREATMENT UNDER THE LAW?

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Every statement but one the following story is true.

In order to cover up other illegal activities, two African-American men set fire to federal property.  The fire spread, eventually consuming over 100 acres of land and property.  They were tried in federal court (because the arson was on federal property) and sentenced to five years in prison.  The length of the sentence was  upheld on appeal.  In response a group of heavily armed black men have occupied a nearby federal government facility.  They have defied orders to leave and are demanding control of a zone where existing governments would have no authority so that they can be free.  One spokesman has said, “It doesn’t have to stop here. This could be a hope that spreads through the whole country, the whole United States. Everybody’s looking for this hope because the government has beat us, and oppressed us, and took everything from us; they will not stop until we tell them no.”

The one untrue statement is that the men are black.  In fact, they are all white; and the story is evolving as this is written.  The original crime was simply hunting deer in a wildlife refuge.  Then the hunters set fire to the land to cover up their crime and burned 139 acres.  Arson on federal land carries a mandatory minimum five year prison sentence.  That may sound extreme, but arson is a very dangerous crime, especially in the Northwest where so many  wildfires have spread out of control.  Certainly arson is more dangerous than some of the drug possession charges that have sent other young men to prison.

Protesters have occupied the Headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife refuge.  Click here to see the protesters describing their  plan to occupy the facilities and land for the long term and their appeal for others to arm themselves, come to the refuge and take the wildlife refuge for their private use.  That constitutes advocating the violent overthrow of our government and treason.

Up to this point in time, law enforcement officials are standing back and hoping for a peaceful resolution – perhaps a wise move, but not one that would have happened in Ferguson or Baltimore.  Imagine the law enforcement response if black men protesting in those cities had armed themselves with assault rifles and occupied a federal building then called for supporters across the country to arm themselves and join the protest.

What if heavily armed Cherokees took over the headquarters of the Smoky Mountains National Park and demanded that the federal government turn it over to them?  (The Cherokees actually had a Supreme Court Decision saying that the land IS theirs.)  Would law enforcement just back away?

This treason is led by the Oathkeepers, a well organized and well armed  national movement with an anti-government history.  They were the heavily armed, military-clad vigilantes who showed up to patrol the streets of Ferguson, Missouri when they felt the police were too easy on black protesters who violated laws.  Clearly the Oathkeepers think that the standard of justice for them is different from the standard of justice for others.

Militia movements of this kind have been involved in far more American  law enforcement deaths than Muslim terrorists and they are near the top of the FBI’s list of domestic terrorist organizations.  Will our laws be enforced, or has right wing anti-government treason become acceptable in America?  We will soon know the answer.

 

All Posts, Christianity, Congress, islam, justice, religion, Terrorism, war

WILL PEOPLE CONSENT TO BE GOVERNED?

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Some Americans have begun to speak of the USA as a failing nation.  I don’t agree. Our internal divisions are nothing new; they have persisted throughout our history. We succeed because most of us remain committed to working out our differences for the common good. We are justifiably worried about anarchy and terrorism, but they too have always been present. From the British point of view, our Revolutionary War heroes were domestic terrorists.  From the point of view of many colonists, the war was a justified and necessary step toward freedom.  The principal difference between terrorism and a “just war” is which side you are on.

Anarchy and terrorism lost when colonists created a new government based on “the consent of the governed”.  Within it they argued, debated and compromised to create something that the great majority of them would support.  That kind of political struggle is at the core of “consent of the governed”.  Our constitution protects the rights of individuals over the wishes and whims of majorities but our government is strong enough to make laws for the public good. That balance makes consent of the governed possible.

Terrorism emerges when extremely angry people who don’t get what they want through politics decide to use violence instead. An early example was the whiskey rebellion of 1791. Congress levied a tax on distilled spirits to pay off war debts. Farmers who made whiskey from their surplus corn were so opposed to the tax that they banded together and killed tax collectors. President George Washington personally led an army of 13,000 to put down the rebellion and enforce the law.  Our civil war, the biggest threat the nation has faced, was organized by slaveholders because they knew they were losing their political struggle to preserve slavery.

Americans’ ever-changing attitudes bring debate, conflict and changed laws. There was violence (terrorism) in opposition to the constitutional amendment that allowed women to vote. Our electorate was once dominated by religious extremists who passed laws to ban birth control and racially segregate society. As attitudes and beliefs changed, those laws have been repealed or found unconstitutional. The same can be said of the Prohibition Amendment that banned alcoholic beverages. Examples of terrorists in those causes include organized criminal gangs (alcohol) and KKK (segregation). 20th century arguments over civil rights, union rights, abortion rights, and the Viet Nam War brought violence and uncountable deaths.  As the issues were addressed some very angry people resorted to violence.

We shouldn’t expect today’s challenges to be easier than those faced by prior generations. Terrorists continue to attack both freedom and the government that protects it.  A majority of us now see marriage equality as a right, and our Supreme Court has determined that it is protected by our Constitution. That change was preceded by decades of homophobic violence. In 1973, women gained the legal right to control their own bodies, including the right to make their own decisions about ending a pregnancy. “Lone wolf” terrorist Eric Rudolph bombed the Atlanta Olympics to protest abortion rights and government protection of homosexuals. Timothy McVeigh, a “Christian” white supremacist, bombed the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City as revenge for government support of civil rights.

Today we still have angry people who think their needs are not being addressed.   That includes Americans who lack adequate education and skills. They face a bleak economic outlook; suffer from depression and die younger than previous generations. Many African-Americans think that new voting laws are designed to reduce their influence. Some religious conservatives say their nation has been stolen by a majority that won’t accept literal interpretation of scripture as a basis for laws. Readers can probably add to the list of reasons why people are angry. In Biloxi, Mississippi a restaurant customer was enraged when a waitress told him that smoking was not allowed.  He shot her dead on the spot.  She might be angry too if she could talk to us.

So much anger makes it difficult to listen, to understand, and to accept our differences.  It also feeds the desire to control others through laws or violence rather than nurturing the individual freedoms that we cherish. Our “culture war” will continue in legislatures, courtrooms, and in our streets. Yes, there is terrorism, but there is also hope.  I remain optimistic that we will listen, learn, acknowledge our differences; and then find sufficient agreement for future “consent of the governed”.  Then we can move on to argue about another set of issues.  It’s what Americans do.

 

All Posts, Christianity, justice, north carolina, race

Making Racism Visible

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Today I am publishing word-for-word nine responses to last week’s column about “Silent Sam” because they reveal white supremacist beliefs that persist in our community and nation 150 years after our Civil War.  I’m doing this for two reasons.

  1. We can deal effectively with racism only after it is visible.
  2. Our best hope to successfully deal with racism lies in developing personal acquaintances and friendships with people of other races – bonds strong enough to tolerate frank discussion of personal experiences.

Maybe a few readers will share this with friends and use it to begin a dialogue.  If so, I would be pleased to know about your experience doing that.

I must add that there were readers who agreed and others who did not and who made civilized responses.  What follows are only the ones written from a white supremacist perspective.

WARNING:  Much of what follows is both racist and inflammatory.  Continue reading Making Racism Visible →

All Posts, justice, north carolina, race

Silent Sam needs company

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The lady justice is depicted urging Sam to drop his books and his studies and go to war for the Confederacy. He looks victorious despite losing the war.
The lady justice is depicted urging Sam to drop his books and his studies and go to war for the Confederacy. Sam looks victorious despite losing the war.

While walking across the University of North Carolina campus, I paused to see the controversial statue of “Silent Sam“, a memorial to students who joined the Confederate army.  Some North Carolinians want it removed because it seems to celebrate the causes of racism, slavery, and rebellion against the United States.  Others want to preserve it and similar monuments across the Tarheel state that recognize those who served the Confederate cause.  They say that removing the monuments is tantamount to rewriting history.  The argument raises two questions.  What is the purpose of the statues?  Why did we fight a civil war?

Julian Carr, a wealthy Civil War veteran who delivered the keynote speech at Silent Sam’s 1913 dedication, made it clear that the monument was erected to honor and perpetuate the cause of white supremacy.  Here are a few of his words.  “The present generation…scarcely takes note of what the Confederate soldier meant to the Anglo-Saxon race…the purest strain of the Anglo-Saxon is to be found in the thirteen Southern States —  Praise God…One hundred yards from where we stand, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted…a southern lady…”  Today, a century after the statue was erected, that speech is proudly displayed on the website of the Durham Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The reasons for the war are evident in the reasons for secession declared by the legislatures of Confederate states:

Texas:  “…the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations…”

Mississippi: “There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union…”

Southern state governments claimed slavery as a legitimate social structure that was vital to their economies and they saw the election of President Lincoln as proof that slavery would be ended in the United States.  Underlying slavery and the war was greed that justified ownership of humans, theft of their labor, sale of their children and accumulation of wealth through brutality.

Sons of Confederate Veterans hold ceremonies at the Smiling Sam statue.
Sons of Confederate Veterans hold ceremonies at the Silent Sam statue.

There are “heritage groups”  (a polite description) who regularly honor their ancestors’ loyalty to the Confederacy at its monuments, making speeches and waving battle flags while dressed in Confederate uniforms.  Siding with them this year, Republicans in North Carolina’s legislature made it illegal for local governments and state institutions to remove state-owned memorials; and they rejected repeated requests to stop issuing license plates featuring Confederate battle flags.

It is necessary to acknowledge history before we can rise above it.  Rather than rewriting their Nazi past, Germans acknowledged the holocaust and other horrors of the Third Reich with new monuments alongside Nazi concentration camps and symbols.  An alternative to moving Confederate memorials or preserving them would be to update them by adding a 21st century perspective.  Americans should support victims of Jim Crow laws and descendants of slaves in creating monuments documenting the evils that the Confederacy fought to perpetuate and erecting them beside those of the Confederacy.

Some will deny the comparison of the Confederacy to Nazi Germany, but they have much in common.  Eleven million people, six million of them Jewish,  died in the holocaust.  I can’t find an estimate of how many humans died as American slaves, but approximately four million were  emancipated in the aftermath of the Civil War.  Any estimate of the number who died during more than two centuries of pre-emancipation slavery would produce a count larger than the number of holocaust victims.  Is slavery a fate better or worse than a holocaust death?  I like to think that most humans would fight to avoid either one.

Now is the time to cease government sponsored glorification of the Confederacy, either by removing its monuments or by supplementing them with the values that we have learned in the century and a half since emancipation.  Republican legislators have not yet taken away the authority of local governments and universities to create new monuments alongside old ones.  We are the generation and now is the time for Americans to unite across lines of race and geography into one nation.  If not now, when?  If not us, who?

A victorious Union Soldier looks down in sorrow at fallen comrades

Urbana, Ohio's monument to returning and fallen Union soldiers comrades.
A Midwestern monument to returning and fallen Union soldiers

 

 

 

All Posts, Congress, health, justice

GOP vs Planned Parenthood – New revelations

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My previous post argued that charges against Planned Parenthood are false.  Click any of the green links for added evidence.  Investigation of allegations that Planned Parenthood sold fetal tissue for profit has shown that

  1. The charges are baseless.
  2. The videos used to support the accusation were carefully edited to mislead viewers.
  3. Fetal tissue is vital to medical research and it is governed by appropriate rules.
  4. Carly Fiorina’s horrific claims about Planned Parenthood in the second GOP Presidential debate were false.  Yet she recently complained about other candidates creating their own facts.

The situation reminds us of an important life lesson: What we don’t know is often less dangerous than what we think we know that turns out to be untrue.  Congressional Republicans and GOP Presidential candidates are now so heavily committed to actions based on lies about Planned Parenthood that they can’t (or won’t) admit their error.  Where is Republican outrage at being deceived by anti-choice radicals?  Are they so committed to their current course of action that they’re unable to see that it is based on lies, or are they just unwilling?  Either a terribly dangerous state of affairs.

 

All Posts, Christianity, islam, justice, religion, Terrorism, war

Who is the stranger at my door?

There are times when it can be unpopular, expensive and even dangerous to practice ideals that we cherish and preach.  Those, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Paine, are the times that try men’s (and women’s)  souls.  Responding to millions of refugees from war, repression and poverty who seek survival and opportunity in western democracies will try the souls of Americans.

Before the 20th century, most national borders had little security and they were not major barriers to migration.  Sometimes borders themselves moved.  Californians and Texans lived in Mexico until  wars and treaties moved the borders, instantly making them Americans.  Other than Native Americans and involuntary-immigrant slaves, we are a nation descended from immigrants looking for freedom and opportunity

How will western nations respond to 21st century refugees fleeing from conditions arguably worse than those faced by the Europeans who settled colonial America?  Germany has committed to receive 800,000 mostly Syrian immigrants very quickly.  The great majority of them will be Muslims.  In a recent conversation, I asked a German acquaintance who lives in the US her thoughts about how Germans will respond.  I’ve paraphrased her answer as follows. I’m proud of my country and optimistic that most Germans will welcome refugees and help them assimilate.  But Germany has a significant right-wing population that Americans refer to as neo-Nazis and skinheads who don’t want non-whites or Muslims in Germany.  They will try to intimidate immigrants and some of their tactics may be violent.  Among 800,000 immigrants, there are sure to be a few bad actors, so some conflict is likely.  If even a few Muslim immigrants commit violence that looks like terrorism, it will  frighten many Germans. Public support won’t last long if that happens.    It seemed that she could have been describing America.  Her words and the refugee crisis raise a lot of questions.

  • Are borders that keep out refugees morally defensible?  The EU is confronted by hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees cutting fences and crawling under barbed wire with their children.  Should the EU admit refugees?  Watch them starve at the “wall”?  Shoot them?  The soul of the EU is on trial with such questions today.
  • President Obama has proposed a small increase in the number of refugees to be accepted and wants money budgeted for screening candidates.  Should Congress support that?  Should we do more?  Less?
  • By removing Saddam Hussein as dictator, we spawned civil war in Iraq and removed Iran’s regional competition.  We undermined Assad as dictator in Syria.  ISIS evolved and thrived in the power vacuum that we created in Iraq and Syria.  In this anarchy, there is no western-style democratic movement for us to support.  Do our past actions impose a moral obligation for America to assist the EU by accepting large numbers of refugees?
  • What would refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other Muslim nations be like as Americans?  Would they accept our freedoms of speech and belief or want to limit them?  Would most accept our limitations on the practice of religious traditions like forced marriage and polygamy? Would some isolate themselves; as a few extreme Christian and Mormon sects have done?
  • Will the 83% of Americans who profess to be Christians “love others” by welcoming Muslims or will they be divided?  What about the other 17%?
  • Should the US just get out of Muslim nations or is there something we can do or undo to turn around the anarchy and brutality that make ordinary families into refugees?

If we accept thousands of refugees, regardless of their race, religion, or national origin, we can expect that most of them will become law-abiding and constructive citizens.  Regardless of screening or religion, we can also expect that there will be a few criminals and radicals in the mix.  (Irish immigrants who self-identified as Christians became our terrorist “Irish Mafia”.  It can happen in any religion.)  Are we willing to accept a few who would behave badly in order to help thousands who have no home, no way to support themselves and no possessions beyond what they can carry?  Do their religion and national origin rule them out as immigrants, or are the refugees the ones Jesus described as “… the least of these my brethren…” to be loved and accepted just because they are human?

Answering such questions may indeed try the souls and consciences of Americans.  The time for decisions is upon us.

All Posts, budget, Christianity, Congress, deficit, economy, justice, medicaid, poverty, public education, taxes

STICKS STONES AND STEREOTYPES

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Election campaigns are under way and the name-calling season is open.  Names, labels and stereotypes can influence our opinions and our elections so it’s important to be aware them. Continue reading STICKS STONES AND STEREOTYPES →

All Posts, justice, north carolina, race

SHOULD OUR FUTURE BE A HOSTAGE TO HISTORY?

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As of July 23, North Carolina law prohibits cities, counties and state institutions from relocating any state-owned monument, statue or “object of remembrance” even if it is on city or county property.  Work on the bill began many months ago amidst growing public demand for removal of monuments to the Confederacy and racist heroes.  Calls for removal of monuments have grown since the Charleston, SC murders.  Rather than having open and intelligent discussion of the concerns, legislators made change nearly impossible by passing a law that denies local governments the authority to respond to the will of their citizens. Continue reading SHOULD OUR FUTURE BE A HOSTAGE TO HISTORY? →

All Posts, Christianity, environment, justice, religion

IS POPE FRANCIS ALSO A PROPHET?

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On June 13 of this year, Papa Franciscus (Better known as Pope Francis) sent a letter  (encyclical) asking each of us who share Planet Earth to attend to its deteriorating condition; discuss it among ourselves; and make decisions about how to maintain it.  Acknowledging that only about a third of humans claim to be Christians and about half of Christians are Catholic; he crafted his letter to speak to all of us about caring for the Earth – and ultimately about caring for each other.

Francis described Creation – our planet and our universe – as a gift to mankind that we will pass on to successive generations.  Using biblical language, he pointed out that, “…the Genesis account which grants man ‘dominion over the earth’…” does not warrant “the unbridled exploitation of nature…” Continue reading IS POPE FRANCIS ALSO A PROPHET? →