Raising Cain...

Bill Moyers: Haiti's Problems Are Rooted in Its Colonial Legacy | | AlterNet

Despite what Pat Robertson and David Brooks tell you, Haiti's devastation is the product of Western domination -- not regressive social norms or Satanism.

via www.alternet.org

Moyers counters opinions expressed by Robertson and Brooks, and outlines a few of the historical colonialist transgressions by France and the United States. 

t r u t h o u t | Homeless Often Hidden in Tennessee

"Tent City" is a place hidden out of sight and historically out of mind. It sprawls over a mud-rutted, brush-tangled acre of landscape nestled under a network of highway bridges along the Cumberland River on the outskirts of downtown Nashville, Tennessee. It is impossible to find unless one is directed or taken there. The camp is surrounded by a variety of chain-link fencing placed in different configurations that appear to have been installed in stages over many years.

via www.truthout.org

Raising Cain: rediscovering ancient roots of structural racism

Black and White Feather [Photo by Cathie Bird]

My inner call to an anti-racist journey did not come at some immediately recognizable, definable point in time, wasn’t really in the realm of epiphany. It was almost more retrospective, and maybe even more of a renaming or reframe or focusing on a narrower segment of what I’d been calling spiritual path.

In my spiritual tradition, the Biblical story of Cain and Abel is viewed, in part, as an allegory that reveals early spiritual history of the race of man on Earth. In particular, it encodes some specific information about ancient patterns of relationship that became anchored so tightly into the fabric of human life that we, as a human race, struggle with it yet today.  This relational pattern is — for the human collective — as enduring as what we might call a personality trait at the level of individual development and expression.

We know the pattern by many names: master-slave relationships, caste systems, haves and have-nots, privileged and oppressed — these are the coarsest terms for it perhaps, but I think there’s a wider arena of re-enactment than we think in 21st Century America. Not that this hurtful relationship doesn’t operate elsewhere on the planet, but some people involved in anti-racism work say that the situation in the United States is unique. For this and other reasons I’m focusing on what I see and experience here in the United States.

In the society in which this pattern became entrenched, an experiment to explore the denser material dimensions of Earth had gone very wrong, leaving a certain segment of that society unable to access powers and talents that we all have as spiritual beings. For those who retained access to these powers, there arose a question of responsibility to those who had lost them. Some believed there was obligation under spiritual law and principle to help their brothers and sisters find their way out of their entrapment. Others apparently were enjoying “privilege” and became more interested in maintaining the status quo.

This is where the “brother’s keeper” clue comes in. We have brother’s keeper questions all over the place today, one of the most urgent and visible of which is fair access to quality, affordable health care. And it’s not only about being brother’s (and sister’s) keepers — if we decide we are keepers, then how should we “keep”? Mighty questions, indeed. And harder to answer without getting deeper into the roots.

The ancients had eventually managed to structure their society so as to exclude the “have-nots” from any meaningful participation. I wonder sometimes if the brother’s keeper question can become a distraction that never really allows us to take a hard look at the larger problem of how our institutions are structured. If that structure serves one segment of society to the exclusion of another, then we can keep our sisters ’til we drop, but may fail to re-empower anyone to truly share in the adventure of nation-making and keeping each other.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the earliest structuring of institutions in the United States gave privilege of citizenship only to white males. Those ancient battles of the privileged Cains and Abels took place geographically on land that is now within the borders of the United States. We are at ground zero for prototypical systemic racism. What our society and its institutions reflect today is a re-enactment of a civil war that we will do over and over until we get to the old history, the hidden truths that will explode the delusion of privilege if they can be spoken.

So this is the spiritual history of Earth, as I understand it, that fires my enthusiasm for an anti-racist journey. It also fuels my interest generally in work for social and environmental justice. I thought this was an important piece to document as part of the journey because for me the spiritual dimensions are of utmost importance.

I don’t remember what side I was on back then but, today, I’m casting my lot with the Abels, the ancient ones who argued on behalf of helping their fallen brothers and sisters back into full spiritual consciousness. Part of my anti-racist journey is about raising Cain — first and foremost, that of Cain consciousness that still lives in me. I don’t think it’s ever about killing some part of yourself off, but raising it up to a higher level of expression.

I hope to get back soon with more blogging on how I see Cain and Abel alive and well in the 21st Century USA.

I wrote in a little more detail about the historical Cains and Abels on another blog. If you are interested and open-minded, you can read it here.

An afternoon in Atlanta...

Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia [Photo by Cathie Bird]

I went to a workshop in Atlanta several years ago and went down early just to see some sights. I had planned to go to the Carter Center for sure. When I got to the hotel, I looked through some of those what-to-do-while-you-are-in-town things they always have in the room. I was especially interested in sites close to the hotel so I could squeeze in as much as possible. Honestly, it had never occurred to me that the Martin Luther King Center was also in Atlanta, nor had MLK popped into my mind when I thought about my trip. When I saw the information, I felt very strongly that I had to go there.

I did end up going to the Carter Center first. Interestingly, the current exhibit there included a bunch of U.S. historical documents from the Library of Congress — I think there was a Louisiana Purchase paper and a letter or draft of something that Abraham Lincoln penned, among other really, really old stuff. Being in the same room with these things brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts about being a U.S. citizen…a stronger feeling of connection with the nation’s past. After I looked at the exhibit, I went out on the grounds — very beautiful with flowers, trees, water, open space. I sat on a bench to meditate but could not focus, and felt like I had to move on to the MLK Center.

I got majorly turned around and confused by the Atlanta street system, so lost a few minutes there, but finally found the parking area for the Center. On the way to the building I passed by the statue of Ghandi on the grounds. The path to it was all pavement and concrete and, unlike my visit to the Carter Center, there was no question that I was in the heart of a city.

Once I scoped out the grounds and all the things to do there it was clear that I did not have time to do everything, so I just tuned into my heart to see where it would go. I settled on a walk up the street to the King family home, then down to Ebenezer Baptist Church and finally back to the main visitor’s center to check out exhibits there.

Of all the things I experienced within these few blocks of Atlanta, two things are very present in mind, body and soul even today, seven years later. The first was my visit to Ebenezer Baptist. Inside you can sit in the pews and listen to a continuous audio presentation of various speeches by Dr. King. Just hearing his words in his own voice was awesome, but the other thing that impressed me so deeply was what I would call the spirit of the people who’d sat there before me. I think something leaked into my soul and out into my heart from that place that day: a desire to be truly free of the mental and emotional chains that I know I will feel as long as any other person on this planet is oppressed by another.

The second extraordinary experience of that day happened across the street at the MLK visitor center. I’ll save it for a later post. Quite frankly, I’m not sure yet what to say about it.

On the path...

Thanks for dropping by!

I believe that the desire to make one’s life matter is shared by all people. And thank the heavens that each person has her or his own story about mattering. I realized on my 12th birthday that making my life matter had a lot — and maybe everything — to do with contributing to peace, justice and liberation of the true self of every person on Earth. At the time, of course, I did not necessarily put it in those words. In time, I came to realize that the only life I can truly liberate is my own.

I’m more than a little bent out of shape about the fact that some five decades later, I am still unearthing pieces of history that I needed back when I was 12 (or younger) but never got — information that would have gotten me to where I am now a lot quicker. I’m going to talk about those pieces of history on this blog. And I’m going to talk about what I am discovering about institutionalized racism in the United States, my indoctrination into that system as a person of privilege, and the process of liberating my true self — a self that I believe is, among other things, inherently anti-racist.

I will also post links to related articles, books and videos, and may include brief notes about any thoughts or reactions I had.

I am finally beginning to understand just how important this is to me, and I’m ready to raise a little Cain.