Raising Cain...

Trekkin' to Jackson for Tennessee Justice

I'm psyched for Saturday when I make the trek to Jackson for the (3rd? or 4th?) annual Save Our Community Day. I was there for the very first one, and though it's a long way out there for an east Tennessean, I promised myself that if my friends in the Jackson Chapter of SOCM kept having them, I'd keep going to them.

I remember the first year of the event very well because I was tempted not to give up a Saturday to go all the way out there. It turned into one of those self-arguments in which my mind was coming up with all kinds of reasons to stay home and my heart wouldn't take "stay" for an answer.

I knew it wasn't just about the distance. That year was a big one for SOCM: the group had changed its name from Save Our Cumberland Mountains to Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment, and Jackson was the newest and first urban chapter to come to life following SOCM's committment to become a true statewide organization. That meant taking up a transformation process -- an anti-racist journey -- that would lead toward social, economic and environmental justice for all of the awesomely diverse people and communities of Tennessee.

Such a journey is not an easy one, for a person or for a group. It has taken me into territories of mind-body-soul that are uncertain and sometimes downright scary. But for me it's that good kind of scary that lets you keep inching forward, that promises more freedom at the end, and not so much the bad kind that stops you in your tracks. I think the argument I was having with myself before the first Save Our Community Day really had more to do with the uncertainty than with the time and distance.

So, my annual trek to Jackson really has roots in my life-long desire for justice -- for an end to exploitation and oppression of people and nature -- on planet Earth. Once I get there, I find all kinds of folks who want the same thing, for themselves and for many generations after us. And because of that, we have a really fun day together.

When I started writing this post, I thought about a book I keep back here in the room where I write and meditate. It's called The Four-fold Way: Walking the Paths of Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary, written by Angeles Arrien. Driving out to Jackson that first year, I thought about it too -- especially about the first path or principle that Arrien explores.

The first principle of this Four-fold Way -- that of the Warrior -- is about showing up, or choosing to be present. I was relating to this principle very literally: to be there in Jackson or not to be there was the question that year. At another level, the path of the warrior, says Arrien, is about the right use of energy to empower oneself and others.

This particular Four-fold idea is at the heart of SOCM's three-fold path of social, economic and environmental justice to eMpower people and communities in Tennessee, thus, it was a really auspicious principle to have operating in relation to my trek to Jackson for Save Our Community Day. The challenge of the Warrior has also been a very important one for me in this lifetime, and I feel very blessed to have found an organization and group of people with which my exploration of this path can be mutual in many respects.

So, no, I don't argue with myself about going to Jackson anymore. I'll be there. Here's a video featuring my fellow warrior, Martha, with an invitation for you to be there too. Use links with the video or use the linked image in the sidebar for more info.

 

Faces of Racial Profiling: A Report from Communities Across America | Rights Working Group

Thanks to TIRRC for links to this report and awesome video:

On September 27th,  Rights Working Group and local partners nationwide released a report demonstrating the need to address racial, ethnic, religious and national origin profiling (“racial profiling”) across the country and finding that the patchwork of laws dealing with racial profiling is too burdensome for victims of profiling to navigate. Faces of Racial Profiling: A Report from Communities Across America gives voice to some of these individuals by featuring testimonies from the Face the Truth hearings.

via www.rightsworkinggroup.org

 

 

Face the Truth: Racial Profiling Across America from Breakthrough on Vimeo.

Stuff White People Do -- In These Times

During the last two decades, “whiteness” has emerged as a field of scholarly study that examines what it means to be a member of the world’s dominant racial group. The resulting literature rarely leaves readers feeling rosy about whites and their ability to engage in meaningful racial justice work. Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism contends that blacks will forever remain at the brink of obliteration by whites due to a vested interest in anti-black racism. It’s tough to emerge from that feeling like there’s much that can be done—or is worth doing—to counter racism. Tim Wise’s White Like Me, a memoir exploring how the author has unfairly benefited from white privilege in his life, left this white reader in a mild state of personal crisis for several years after first reading it as a teenager.

Maybe the truth should hurt, but it’s difficult to find one’s bearings after getting slammed with the overwhelming reality of white racism—which makes Mark R. Warren’s new book Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice (Oxford University, September) a heartening read. Warren, a professor at Harvard, interviews 50 white activists who share a commitment to uprooting racism in America, and examines the experiences that led them to work for justice.

via www.inthesetimes.com

Giroux | Racialized Memories and Class Identities - Thinking About Glenn Beck's and Rush Limbaugh's America

I was cleaning out my email inbox today and found this great article by Henry Giroux published a few weeks ago. You can read the whole (long but worth the read) article here.

Excerpt: As a young kid growing up in Providence, Rhode Island, I was always conscious of what it meant to be a white male. Whiteness was a defining principle shaping how I both named and negotiated the class and racial boundaries that my friends and I traveled when we went to school, played basketball in gyms throughout the city and crossed into "alien" neighborhoods. Whiteness and maleness were crucial markers of our individual and collective identities; yet, we were also working class and it was largely the interface of race and class that governed how we experienced and perceived the world around us. Of course, we hadn't thought deeply about race and class in a critical way; we simply bore the burdens, terrors and advantages such terms provided as they simultaneously named the world and produced it. We were immersed in a culture infused with the markings of a racially and class marked society, but had no language to either name it or reflect on it in a serious way. We simply accepted the notion that such divisions were part of human nature, something we had to both live with and negotiate in the limited terms given to us by the dominant society.

via www.truth-out.org

A Perfect Storm of Prejudices | Who's Afraid of Social Democracy?

Recently I discovered a great blog -- Who's Afraid of Social Democracy -- by psychoanalyst Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. Today she posted an article on the subject of prejudice, and I thought I'd say a few words, toss in some quotes and post a link to it here at Raising Cain.

On her blog, Young-Bruehl writes about current affairs and reflects on contemporary political issues and questions. Prior to her psychoanalytic training, Young-Bruehl was a doctoral student of the political philosopher, Hannah Arendt, and eventually wrote her biography. Young-Bruehl has also written many papers and books on gender issues, as well as a book very relevant to her blog post today, The Anatomy of Prejudices.

Since I formalized my anti-racist journey by becoming an activist in organizational anti-racism transformation, I've spent much time integrating what I'd previously discovered about human relating and relationships from my psychoanalytic training and practice. The intersection of the individual psyche and the collective mind of society has become an edge of tremendous interest and discovery for me personally and professionally.

That edge is not an either-or space: we need to know a lot about how people come to be who they are AND how the collective mind and societal systems come to be as they are if we want to get beyond racism. The individual and society co-create each other psychologically just as, in a parallel process, a baby and her mother co-create each other. If we would like to change ourselves and the systems in which we live, I believe we'll have to become aware of these complex dynamics.

I have a sense that Young-Bruehl's last two blog posts have opened doors and moved my thinking about all of this forward.

Speaking about a changing view of the nature of prejudice after World War II, Young-Bruehl says:

That decade of psychoanalytic work was extremely important because it opened up for exploration the whole domain of unconscious motivation. But, to my mind, it was also very flawed and replete with misleading generalizations. For example, in Adorno’s and Allport’s books, there is no prejudice against women because all prejudice is against minority groups and women are not a minority group. (By the same crazy logic, there would be no prejudice against blacks in South Africa because the blacks are not a minority group there…) During the Civil Rights movement of the late 1950s, the ethnocentrism synthesis began to unravel under pressure from people whose victim experience it misconstrued or overlooked. People of color pointed out that racism is not just like anti-Semitism. Look, they said, did the white people who invented tests to show the inferior intelligence of people of color also try to show the inferior intelligence of the Jews who supposedly masterminded the international Jewish banking conspiracy?

She follows the evolution of this notion further into the feminist "gender-race-class" discussions of the 1970's, but notes:

Meanwhile, prejudices continued to flourish in ever-changing appearances. Nonetheless, many hoped to be able to interpret America as a nation marching in the direction of being “post-racial,” and many hoped a “post-feminist” era was dawning because women have made considerable social progress. These hopes, it seems to me, reflect the still-prevalent confusion about prejudices and how they operate. Even if the acts and appearances that are typical of a prejudice do abate or ameliorate, the needs or unconscious purposes served by the prejudices remain –and can rise up again or reassert or take new directions as circumstances change. There’s not much lynching going on now, but huge numbers of black men are hung up in jail, and that is not very “post-racial.”

With that, I'll leave you to your own investigation of Young-Bruehl's ideas. I get uneasy sometimes excerpting from pieces that seem so coherent as Young-Bruehl's impress me, so I hope you'll read her entire article.

She references her previous post as well, and you can access that one here.

Bishop Gene Robinson Speaks: From Tolerance to Empathy

The idea of moving from a position of tolerance toward one of empathy is an important notion for all human relating. Lauren Reichelt at Tikkun Daily Blog interviews Bishop Gene Robinson for his thoughts on this idea. Read the whole article here.

"I think first, we have to talk about tolerance not being enough. I have a friend who says the only thing you really have to tolerate is hemorrhoids.

And that kind of says it. You tolerate something that is unpleasant, unwanted but you have to learn to put up with. So when we talk about greater tolerance, whether it be around racial lines, or gender lines or sexual orientation lines, you know, its not much of a step forward. I mean, tolerance beats violence and negativity by miles! But tolerance is not the end that we’re seeking. I believe that we need to celebrate the diversity of races and gender and sexual orientation, and so I will never settle for tolerance only because I think that is far short of what we can do and far short of what is needed."

via www.tikkun.org

Supporting Leadership That Promotes Racial Justice « SpeakEasy

How do we as a society develop leaders for a more just future for everyone in the United States? The way "we" -- the dominant culture of white folks -- have approached this question for decades is based on a belief that individuals all have equal opportunities and are individually responsible for our achievements or failures.

A great article by Deborah Meehan, executive director of Leadership Learning Community, includes links to a report, How to Develop and Support Leadership that Contributes to Racial Justice, that suggests a different paradigm is needed if we're serious about preventing tragedies like the killing of the young African-American BART passenger, Oscar Grant, in 2009:

The report recommends that to help promote racial justice, organizations and individuals need to adopt leadership development approaches that explain how a system of culture, policy and structures produce and perpetuate differences in access to life opportunities. These leadership approaches should provide the analysis, tools and resources that will help young people and communities change the system that put a young man like Oscar Grant at risk and then failed to deliver justice in his killing.

WHY what’s happening to Muslims in America Affects YOU - Jack & Jill Politics

I'm posting this before I start writing the next piece in my series, World as Dream, World as Mirror, because this post today from Jack and Jill Politics was a piece of somebody else's lived-experience-dream that I needed in order to move forward in mine. Please read the whole post for appropriate context because I am just excerpting the part that wired the connection for me.

Excerpt from the end of rikyrah's post:

We know what they mean when they talk about the ‘ Muslims’….

we know the dogwhistles…we’ve been taught to recognize them a mile away.

What’s the difference between a torched mosque in Tennessee and a string of torched Black churches throughout the South?

You honestly think they’ll stop with Muslims?

Please.

You’ve been Black in America longer than 3 days.

via www.jackandjillpolitics.com

Awesome video: My Faith My Voice

Thanks to Keli Goff at Huffington Post for the heads-up on this video. See her great article -- Three Ways to Prove You're Not a Bigot This 9/11.

Excerpt on the video from Keli's article:

To address concerns regarding rising hate speech and crimes directed at Muslims, days ago the campaign "My Faith, My Voice" created a public service announcement featuring American Muslims making the case that they are real Americans who we don't have to fear. You can watch it here. (Perhaps I'm getting softer as I get older but I find it hard to watch it without becoming emotional that our fellow citizens felt compelled, by fear for their lives, to do this.)

Here's the video:

The 99 Names: Allah is not He nor She -- Religion Dispatches

While I continue to work on the next installment of World as Dream, World as Mirror, I thought I'd share a link to this article by Amina Wadud. It speaks to the balance of male and female principle on Earth, and also brings up questions about language in general.

It is also a great illustration of how diverse language can enrich and enliven our shared experience of life on Earth. This is yet another reason why I don't condone burning Qur'ans, or requiring "English only" or robbing any person of the right to speak the language of their culture or religion. Read the whole article here.

Excerpt:

The Qur’an says: “to Allah belongs the most beautiful names al-Asmaa’ al-Husnaa’, so call upon Her with these.” Some one asked me why I used ‘She’ with Allah so here is my chance to explain. First of all, we should all note that using the word ‘She’ invokes a question. Meanwhile, why is there no question when I use ‘He’? Because I use that too.

via www.religiondispatches.org