Bloody Sunday

 

Yesterday was the ceremonial memory service of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama. That was when peaceful protesters wanting voting rights attempted to cross what was then the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965. The police beat them bloody. It makes me sick to think about it. I was 10 on that day and completely ignorant of it.  President Biden was there yesterday and gave a speech in which he said history shouldn’t be sanitized. I am very happy he was there and gave the speech BUT…

Reverend William J. Barber II was also in Selma. He was at Brown Chapel, where John Lewis and other activists started their march across the bridge. Rev. Barber said that they all returned to Brown Chapel, which had to become a field hospital for those injured at the Bridge. The bridge has since been renamed John Lewis Bridge after the late congressman.

I was so impressed and emotionally moved by Rev. Barber. He began with a Bible verse from Hebrews which stated something like, we are not of these who shrink back. We persevere for our salvation. So he said to the people watching, “Shrinking back is not an option.  We must stand up and push forward.” He had the congregation repeat those lines a couple of times and then turn to the right and repeat those lines to their neighbors.

Two of his points stood out to me. The first was that the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965 was gutted in 2013. Congress could have restored rights taken away, but they haven’t done anything. There was an attempt by Democrats after red states tried to gut the law further but the Rethuglicans voted it down—including so-called “good” Rethugs like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

Then Rev. Barber cited the poverty statistics in the red, southern, and midwestern states. In all of those states, governors refused the expansion of Medicaid to needy families. Barber said we’re not just talking about Black, Hispanic, and indigenous populations. White people are suffering too. It takes two full-time incomes to “maybe” afford a 2-bedroom apartment.

At presidential debates, he pointed out, no one asks the candidates “What are you doing to do about poverty?” Nothing ever gets done about it, that’s true. Instead, Rethugs convince marginalized groups to vote against themselves by selling a false story “It’s the Democrats who are keeping you in this lowly Position.”

It seems like 40% of the population is struggling. If those groups (and I would include the elderly and the disabled) would come together as a voting bloc, Rev. Barber is sure there would be enough votes to choose the President and the legislators in Congress. What a concept!

But how?

That’s why Rev. Barber was having the people repeat that they have to stand up and push back. Retreat is not an option. Being tired is not an option.

I signed up for his group, Repairers of the Breach. I want to stand up and push back too.

It doesn't feel like Black History Month

 

It’s day three of Black History Month but, to be honest, it feels more like Black Suppression Month to me.

Yet another Black man, Tyre Nichols, was on his way home and in his neighborhood when he was pulled over by Memphis policemen. Now why it was necessary to have 5 or 6 cops at a traffic stop is beyond me. Five of the cops were themselves Black and part of a special force called Scorpions, a rather deadly name for those who are supposed to be the “good guys.” And just like so many times before, Nichols ended up dead.

I was surprised that the killer cops were Black. I’m used to killer cops being white. Well, after I read a bit about systemic racism in our society and in the police force, I came to understand that Blacks can be racist against other Blacks too. That comes from a lifelong experience of being made to feel inferior, less human, than whites. Disgusting and sad, but I do understand.

Not more than a day later, Los Angeles police went after a double amputee in a wheelchair. A stabbing victim had accused the man, Anthony Lowe, of assaulting him. When Lowe saw the group of cops coming for him, he got down off his wheelchair and ran as quickly as he could on his two stumps. He was tased repeatedly and then shot in his upper body ten times. The police claim they feared for their lives because they thought he still had his knife. Riiiight, feared for their lives my ass!

Today I was ready about a Black state legislator, Rep. Travis Nelson, in Oregon who was stoppedby white policemen twice in the last couple of days. He says he’s been stopped by police over 40 times since he began driving. He thinks the Oregon police may be biased. I think he’s right.

Just as when George Floyd was murdered in 2020, there have been protests and calls for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act to be passed. That act passed the House twice and died in the Senate twice. The reason why it’s not passing is because the Act it would allow families of the victims to sue the killer cops. God forbid, say the Rethuglicans. And so, cops continue to kill Black men at traffic stops or Black women sound asleep in their homes (Like Breonna Taylor) invaded by cops going to the wrong place.

White supremacy reigns supreme and the Rethuglicans in Congress are working overtime to see that it stays that way.

The way to heal this country is for white people to face some ugly truths. First, there was slavery. There was the cruel theft of land and decimation of the Native American population. There was the unjust incarceration of Japanese Americans. These are horrendous things and white people don’t want to have to look at or learn about it. Americans refused to help Jewish refugees and many of them perished because we turned them away.

White people seem to think they’re the chosen ones; they’re the ones who must take charge of the inferior “others”. What they don’t recognize is that the Jesus of their faiths was Middle Eastern and not white. They don’t give credit where credit is due to the advanced civilizations of African and Asian countries.  An investigation just uncovered a couple’s agenda to spread Nazi teachings to white children, and they’ve attracted thousands of parents.

If only these small, close-minded people were willing to learn about “others” and accept them as equals.  We are never going to be united at this rate.  Here is what will happen: open-minded people are appalled and tweet and complain and post for a few days. Then they move on to the “next thing” and forget about social/racial injustices until another Black man is killed at a traffic stop. Rinse and repeat.

There was an effort to introduce Advanced Placement African American Studies in Florida high schools. The A/P classes give high school students college credits while they learn from a rigorous program they take when they’re juniors or seniors. What a great idea, I thought. This A/P course was going to cover true history, not the white-washed watered down non-version you get in high school history or social studies.

But wait! “Woke” comes to Florida and dies there. Gov. Death Santis loves to brag about his “Anti-Woke” legislation. Therefore, the A/P course was rejected because it would cover topics that might hurt the feelings of white students. In Florida, we mustn’t have that.  To appease Death Santis and the other Rethuglican legislators, the College Board watered down the A/P class, eliminating topics and the mention of people deemed offensive and too “woke”.

Crickets from the Floridians.

Are they OK with this then? Are they all racist, or are they too scared to speak up? And so, Fascism marches on. One article I read compares Death Santis to the Fascist Benito Mussolini from the WWII era.

Do people read? Do they think? Or is complacency the easy, comfortable way out of confronting the truths of our bad behavior toward “others”? In Germany, people were complacent and forgiving of Hitler’s awful policies because they felt comfortable—they had more money, more food, and more fun things to do. So, what if the Gestapo pushed a few Jews around and broke windows?

Here we go again, this time in the red states of America.

Red states have begun passing legislation to restrict voting rights of minorities. They haven’t come right out and claimed to be reviving Jim Crow laws. They hide behind redistricting and making it harder for people of color to vote.

The tRump leaning Supreme Court can totally turn our voting rights upside down. The Voting Acts Right that President Johnson signed into law almost 60 years ago has already been stripped down. SCOTUS tRumpers have shown that precedent doesn’t matter to them. If they can make it hard for people to vote and impossible for women to decide what to do with their bodies, why wouldn’t they go about dismantling other fundamental rights under the 14^th Amendment?

Justice and the police clamp down hard on “regular” people, including whites and people of color. If any of us had done what tRump and legislators like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, Kevin McCarthy, and others had done, we would all be languishing in jail. Not them. They not only continue to walk free, but they’re also still in office. Clearly, law and order doesn’t apply to them.

So, it doesn’t feel much like Black History Month this year. Books are banned. True history is forbidden to be taught. Black men and women are erased from history when their stories need to be told. It’s sickening.

But where is everyone?  I know there are others who feel this way. Where are they? I’d like to find them. I don’t like to feel this way, that I’m in the dark, just talking to myself.

There was a voice and it said something moving and meaninful. It was Dan Rather's Race Matters.

Becoming Aware

 

Happy Heavenly Birthday, Dr. King.

Although it’s officially celebrated tomorrow, Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this day in 1929. This Day in History provides a recounting of his involvement in and impact on the civil rights movement, beginning more than sixty years ago. Ancient history? The 1940s seemed ancient to me when I was growing up.

I was completely unaware of who Dr. King was until the day of his assassination in 1968. I was 13 years old and completely unaware of the civil rights movement and racial unrest against discriminatory practices based on the color of a person’s skin. If I looked at the newspaper, it was only to read the comics or to clip a world news article for current events day. In school, there was never any discussion of the unrest and discord in our country.

When I came downstairs, I had a few minutes before I needed to leave. I turned on the news to see if there was any other exciting world news I could report on. The coverage was all about Dr. King; that he had been assassinated. There were clips of men standing on a balcony, pointing. They were showing police where the shots had come from.

My parents were sitting at the dining room table, having coffee, and reading the paper. They didn’t watch television much because captioning for the Deaf on Line 21 was years away. They could not lipread the news or most programs because the speech was too fast for them to be able to decipher words. They got their news from the paper.  I thought they’d know who Dr. King was.  I took my time, slowly mouthing the gist of the story.

My parents’ reaction surprised me. They were happy and exclaimed, “Oh, good!”

“Why?” I wanted to know.

“He is trouble, a troublemaker.”

What did that mean? Was he a criminal? Was he doing something wrong? Their response was that he was making Black people angry and that was wrong. Their joy turned suddenly to seriousness. That means there will be trouble.

Trouble? Why?

They didn’t give me a straight answer but warned me to be careful in school. In fact, they would drive me.

That day, I became aware. All day, all we talked about in all the classes was who Dr. King was, what he’d accomplished in his short life, and the social injustices that were still going on. I had been totally unaware that life was harder for Blacks in terms of employment, housing, and everything I’d always taken for granted because I am white.

To Kill a Mockingbird made a deep impression on me. I realized that my parents were also racist, picking up patterns and bigoted ideas from their families, teachers, and friends. They were wrong. Dr. King wasn’t a troublemaker. He was a hero.

After Dr. King, discussion of racial injustice in school stopped. I went on reading, learning more awful truths I’d been totally unaware of before.

Today, I am angry that Dr. King’s inspiring words are twisted by the conservative politicians in Congress, the ones I’ve relabeled Rethugs and GQP. They are made up of many traitors who were involved in the January 6^th insurrection and coup attempt at the Capitol. Recently, The Conversation had an article in their newsletter called “How the distortion of Martin Luther King Jr. ‘s words enable more, not less, racial division within American society.” Please read the article. It explains how the conservative right wingers began sanitizing and misusing Dr. King’s quotes.

I also get a newsletter called Now This/Know This. There are so many links to follow, I thought I would just copy and paste the whole thing. I hope citing this and giving credit to the reporter will be okay:

“Reclaiming some of Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous quotes

MLK weekend is upon us once again. In addition to most of us getting a well-deserved Monday off and time to spend with friends, family, or other pursuits, it should serve as a time to reflect on the man himself and the role we all play in forging a more just society. It’s also a time for Republicans to really, really, REALLY remind you that they apparently love Martin Luther King Jr., too. But the way they go about showing it is usually just taking his most famous quotes out of their original contexts and using them to defend preexisting conservative worldviews. From Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) co-opting Martin Luther King Jr.'s depiction of “The Other America,” to former Vice President Mike Pence inexplicably finding similarities between MLK and former President Donald Trump, there’s nothing disingenuous people love more than misusing King’s words to support their own ideas and goals. Or, as the folks at The Recount once aptly put it, “If you only listen to Republicans, MLK said exactly one thing one time.” So in honor of MLK weekend, we’re taking a look at a few of the civil rights leader’s most famous quotes and putting them back into their CORRECT context.  “I have a dream that my 4 little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” This quote is often used to promote a “post-racial” agenda, criticize affirmative action, and silence those who advocate for race to be taken into consideration while working toward a fairer and more equitable America.  The quote is taken from Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, which was delivered before a crowd of more than 250,000 people on August 28, 1963, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That march was organized because King and his collaborators recognized the racial inequalities and injustices that persisted in society. They did not seek a “post-racial” existence; they sought equity.   “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” This is another quote that’s often used to condemn people who fight for racial justice and equity. When misused, it insinuates that those who advocate for an end to white supremacy are the real people who harbor hate, not the ones challenging it. In July 1962, King was arrested while holding a prayer vigil outside Georgia’s Albany City Hall during efforts to eradicate racial segregation and discrimination in the area. During a short stint in jail, King drafted sermons for what would become “Strength to Love,” a landmark collection of religious writings that was released in 1963. It became the first volume of its kind made available to a white audience. This quotation can be found among those sermons. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” In April 1963, King was arrested for leading civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham. On the day of his arrest, 8 white Alabama clergy members published a criticism of King’s methods of pursuing racial equality in the Birmingham News.  In response, King penned “Letter from Birmingham Jail” from his cell, denouncing white liberals and moderates who he said were “more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice,” underscoring the immediate need for racial justice. This quote comes from that 21-page-long publication. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”  Almost as if MLK knew his fate and wanted to leave his followers with words of encouragement, he spoke these words in his final Sunday sermon before his assassination. The sermon is titled “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” and was given in the Washington National Cathedral on March 31, 1968. 4 days later, King was killed. In short, Martin Luther King Jr. had a beautiful way with words, and anyone looking to show reverence for his memory should do their homework before borrowing a quote for a cause he would have never co-signed. — Luria Freeman, NowThis Correspondent  ⭢ KnowThis

 

2023 marks the 37th year Martin Luther King Jr. Day will have been observed in the U.S. since it first gained federal recognition in 1986. The AP put together a roundup of several rallies, town halls, and other events set to be held in cities across the country in honor of the occasion. President Joe Biden will also be traveling to Atlanta this weekend to visit Ebenezer Baptist Church, MLK’s former parish. Biden will be the first sitting president to speak at Sunday service in that space, doing so on what would’ve been Dr. King’s 94th birthday.” I stand with those still dealing with inequality and justice. I am an advocate, a role I took on as a young adult. I have carried signs and marched, and I sat in support of disabled people seeking equality in all areas. I will always be an advocate.  Finally, this old gray mare is still learning. I love Dan Rather’s article called  Music of a Movement. I had no idea, and if you read all the way through, then maybe you'll learn something new too.