Raising Cain...

From Raising Cain to Resurrecting Abel

The quote is from MLK's 1967 speech, Where Do We Go From Here?  Photo credit: Wikipedia

 

Recently I changed the name of this blog (and another one at WordPress) from Raising Cain to Resurrecting Abel.

In my world view, the Biblical story of Cain and Abel is, in part, an allegory related to a specific episode or enactment in the early spiritual history of mankind on Earth. In particular, it encodes some specific information about ancient patterns of relationship that became anchored so tightly into the fabric of planetary life that we, as a human race, continue to struggle with it.  This relational pattern is — for the human collective — as enduring as what we might call a personality trait at the level of psychological development and expression.

And we see it every day. We know the pattern by many names: master-slave, racial caste systems, haves and have-nots, privileged and oppressed, structural racism. How those relationships play out, and the efforts of peace and justice activists to transform them, have been the focus of this blog.

What is it that draws people to justice work? For me there is no one answer, but, certainly, the notion that we are accountable to one another in some fundamental way seems to be at the heart of it. And with that idea has come a question: if we are accountable to each other (and to other species) how are we to be, know, and act in our lives to bring harmony for all life on Earth?

Hexagram 43 of the I Ching has some clues, I think...at least I seem to come back to it almost every time I ask myself this question. A major idea here is that one must "fight without quarter" if good is to prevail over evil. Then follows a pretty significant "however":

 

In a resolute struggle of the good against evil, there are, however, definite rules that must not be disregarded, if it is to succeed. First, resolution must be based on a union of strength and friendliness. Second, a compromise with evil is not possible; evil must under all circumstances be openly discredited. Nor must our own passions and shortcomings be glossed over. Third, the struggle must not be carried on by force. If evil is branded, it thinks of weapons, and if we do it the favor of fighting against it blow for blow, we lose in the end because thus we ourselves get entangled in hatred and passion. Therefore it is important to begin at home, to be on guard in our own persons against the faults we have branded. In this way, finding no opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil become dulled. For the same reasons we should not combat our own faults directly. As long as we wrestle with them, they continue victorious. Finally, the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good.[1]

I have long been curious how (specifically) ancient Cain consciousness won out ("Cain slew Abel"), setting the pattern for modern structural oppression. It seemed to me that knowing the details might be useful in very practical ways for justice work. When I put the question out to the universe, I got the sense that the original dynamics were in fact being re-enacted in ordinary affairs of humankind. So, for the past few years I've been looking at American politics -- as a ripe example -- to see what details are hidden in plain sight.

 

I'll tell the long story in future posts.

 

But here's the short story, and the reason I renamed my blog: Hexagram 43 is, for me, a blueprint for the core practice of justice work in a new Earth that is emerging -- cultivating awareness, intention and skillful means for making energetic progress in the good. And one thing this means for me is to focus on resurrecting Abel consciousness rather than raising Cain's.

---

[1] Richard Wilhelm (Translator), Cary F. Baynes (Translator), (1950, 1967). The I Ching or Book of Changes, Bollingen Foundation Inc., New York, N.Y.

 

Related Posts from this blog's archives:

Raising Cain: rediscovering ancient roots of structural racism

Cain and Abel in the 21st Century

See also: Shasta-Alaska 11 -- Resurrect Abel Consciousness (9/5/14, Healing Haven Under Hilarion)

Related articles

Anger, Privilege, and Invisible Injustice: What Cain and Abel Have to Do With Ferguson

The Genesis of Justice

Some articles on the Chicago teachers strike

Lots of interesting articles coming out about the Chicago teachers strike. Here are some I enjoyed reading:

Henry A. Giroux | On the Significance of the Chicago Teachers Strike: Challenging Democracy's Demise

The enemies of public education and other vital social services are committed to draconian cuts in education, while simultaneously refusing to increase state and federal spending. But this is not solely an economic problem. Rather, it is also a political issue wrapped up in the "gutting [of] vital social services such as education, health care, police and public transit services, spending for the disabled and other areas of state services and employment."[1]

Under the guise of austerity measures, the burden of deficit reduction now becomes an excuse to remove public education from the discourse of freedom and social transformation. Within this regime of repressive schooling, education for the masses now consists of a "dumbing down" logic that enshrines top-down high-stakes testing, vocationalized education for the poor, schools modeled after prisons and teachers reduced to the status of mindless technicians.

The brave teachers in Chicago have had enough of this authoritarian and anti-democratic view of education. They have revolted in the name of a revolutionary ideal that inserts dignity and power back into teaching, and breathes vitality and substance back into the relationship between education and democracy. In rejecting the primacy of "the market as the sole principle of social and political organization," they have recognized that what is at stake in the current struggle they face is "a whole generation 's sense of the future."[2]

 

Chicago’s schools and the polite Pinkertons of educational reform

Rebecca Mead understands what too many of my friends do not. In an excellent blog post for the New Yorker, Mead warns that the neo-liberal education “reform” movement is not primarily about improving educational opportunities for poor, urban minority students. It’s about breaking teachers unions.

Chicago is currently ground zero for the so-called reformers, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel is their latest champion, picking up the same cudgel that Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee wielded in New York and Washington, D.C. Emanuel has provoked a strike by 29,000 school teachers, refusing to settle unless the teachers’ union gives in to high stakes testing.

 

Chicago’s Teacher Problem, and Ours, Posted by Rebecca Mead

The details of the dispute are peculiar to Chicago, but the general issues will be familiar to anyone who has an interest in education in this country. Teachers’ salaries and job security are part of what the teachers are asking for; but they are also trying to limit class size, calling for increased in-school counseling services, and questioning trends toward standardized testing, as well as questioning the assumption that low test scores are always and everywhere caused primarily by bad teaching. Many of Chicago’s schools, like schools in other big cities in the United States, are struggling, and this week the numbers will be presented to prove it: fourth-grade students scored low in math (224 as opposed to a national average of 240 on the standardized National Assessment of Educational Progress test) and reading (203 as opposed to a national average of 220). Only sixty per cent of Chicago students graduated from high school this year.

But the most compelling figure in the debate over education is that more than eighty per cent of students in the Chicago school system qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, which is usually taken to be a measure of poverty. (The number in New York City is about three-quarters.) One problem with Chicago’s schools—like schools in urban centers all over this country—is that their constituents, the students, suffer from the usual hindrances of poverty: having no place at home to study; having no support at home for studying; sometimes having no home at all. Another problem is that talk of breaking teachers’ unions has become common parlance among the kind of people whose kids do not live below the poverty line, polite Pinkerton agents of education reform, circling at cocktail parties. No doubt there are some lousy teachers in Chicago, as there are everywhere. But blaming teachers for the failure of schools is like blaming doctors for the diseases they are seeking to treat.

 

Teacher accountability and the Chicago teachers strike, Posted September 14, 2012 at 9:56 am by Richard Rothstein

It was bound to happen, whether in Chicago or elsewhere. What is surprising about the Chicago teachers’ strike is that something like this did not happen sooner.

The strike represents the first open rebellion of teachers nationwide over efforts to evaluate, punish and reward them based on their students’ scores on standardized tests of low-level basic skills in math and reading. Teachers’ discontent has been simmering now for a decade, but it took a well-organized union to give that discontent practical expression. For those who have doubts about why teachers need unions, the Chicago strike is an important lesson.

 

Items I wish the education pundits would read, Posted September 14, 2012 at 11:40 am by Lawrence Mishel

Four years ago, we published Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right. We surveyed national samples of adults, school superintendents, state legislators and school board members and concluded that they all supported a balanced set of goals for public education, including not only basic skills but also reasoning, social skills, preparation for civic participation, a good work ethic, good physical and emotional health, and appreciation of the arts and literature. Accountability systems based heavily on basic math and reading skills will undermine these balanced goals by creating incentives to shift instruction towards those aspects of the curriculum on which the school or teachers are being evaluated.

Building Grassroots Power to End Racism: The 2012 Elections and Beyond | Catalyst Project

I found lots of exciting ideas in this artile from Catalyst Project. They have developed a grassroots toolkit to help people take some of these ideas into their communities:

Catalyst Project believes we need to create a new world, where all people are free from all forms of oppression and are able to live in sustainable relationship with the earth. We envision a world based on global justice where everyone has housing, income, water and food, relevant education and healthcare. Creating this type of material change is no small order and will require a fundamental transformation of power on a global scale. It will require vibrant, massive, multiracial social movements that unite the 99% around the world, and build power at the grassroots. Another way to say this is we want global revolution that liberates all people from oppression.

Read more at collectiveliberation.org

Jeff Biggers: Arizona's "Barrio Defense" Rises for SCOTUS Decision on SB 1070

Jeff Biggers writes a lot about environmental justice issues related to coal mining, but he also has ties to Arizona and has been contributing a lot of articles for the past couple of years. Here's one on resistance efforts in Latino communities to SB 1070 and its impacts...

With defiant Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer growing more emboldened as the Supreme Court readies to unveil its ruling on the state's SB 1070 "papers, please" immigration law, Arizona human rights group Puente and their national allies are bolstering their "Barrio Defense Committees," as "neighbors link with neighbors to learn their rights and make collective plans to defend themselves."

They are also asking their fellow Arizona neighbors and politicians to take a stand.

"Within Arizona we're ready to pose the question to every individual and institution, police department and school district, what side are you on?" Puente executive director Carlos Garcia wrote in an email. "SB 1070 can only function if individuals allow undocumented people to be singled out, if school districts allow their security guards to double as immigration agents, if businesses refuse to offer us safe haven, and ultimately if Obama's administration agrees to deport whoever Arpaio turns over to ICE."

Read the rest of the story at www.huffingtonpost.com

More thoughts about Trayvon Martin and what it is that must not be named

Well, I think there might be another word to add to my list of stuff that can't be named: lynching.

In Trayvon Martin and the Deadly Legacy of Vigilantism, Jamilah King interviews Koritha Mitchell about her book, Living with Lynching. Mitchell talks a little bit about Without Sanctuary, James Allen's collection of lynching photographs:

The history of lynching in the U.S is really horrific and painful for a lot of black Americans. Why was it important for you to tell this story, in particular?

As painful as it is, we have not necessarily shied away from it — which I think is a good thing. One of the ways we haven’t shied away from it is through our support of and our facing it through the “Without Sanctuary” exhibition — those gruesome lynching photographs which had a stint at the Martin Luther King, Jr. center in Atlanta. That was one of the bigger moments where people really remarked upon how much black families were coming to it and using it as a way to grieve losses through generations.

What I found is that by using those photographs only as our way of trying to grapple with what lynching meant in our nation’s history, we really did ourselves a disservice. We weren’t able to engage with what black people who survived this violence had left us in terms of understanding what the violence meant.

The “Without Sanctuary” photographs are a big reason of why it was important for me to tell the story through the lynching plays because the lynching plays tells us exactly what the photographs cannot tell us because the photographs are from a white perspective. You needed to be somewhat safe at the lynching to take those photographs. You’ve got this isolated black victim surrounded by a mob of righteous-looking whites and that is all that we knew about lynching. But the construction of those photographs is very specific: it’s to make sure that you think this was an isolated man who didn’t have any connection to community. The plays give us a sense of just how connected to community and family those victims were.

via colorlines.com

I happened to see this exhibit when it was at the King center in Atlanta. A few years later I tried to write about it in the post that launched this blog...but I couldn't do it...I couldn't find the words. So I was very interested in Koritha Mitchell's comments on it, and generally how the interview connects some dots between Trayvon Martin's death, and a broader issue of the collective, historical trauma that vigilante actions imposed on African Americans as a group.

What Mitchell says about the photographs representing a white perspective, and the intention of the photos to make us think that "this was an isolated man who didn’t have any connection to community" added some critical pieces to my reflections on Trayvon Martin's murder. This is exactly the point I was making about the power of worldview in relation to maintaining broken systems. The photographs reflect a belief system sees the world as fragmented, isolated parts without connection to the whole. And such a world is deadly.

The other process that speaks to me through Mitchell's words is that of healing and transformation. In the social healing of oppressor-oppressed relationships, there is work that has to be done by each group within itself, and work that will not be complete without collaborative effort. Both pieces are essential. To collaborate effectively, I as a member of the oppressor group have to come to terms with my ancestral linneage and the ways in which I still am consciously or unconsciously identified with the oppressor's worldview. Through collaboration, all of us share dreams, stories, art, action and community that brings valuable new insight to the worlds of self and other, oppressor and oppressed.

I'm still not sure what to say about my experience viewing the "Without Sanctuary" exhibit, but I'll start with this: There is a certain trauma that comes with the realization of horrors perpetrated on another human being by one's own group. Opening up to that is difficult, and I think one thing "Without Sanctuary" represented for me is a point of no return. I can't go back to ignorance of what happened. I can only keep moving forward as fast as I can stand it.

In my practice of healing (working on my own stuff and helping others do the same), I've learned that perhaps the best thing any of us can do for healing the whole of humanity is to find and embrace our shadow selves, rather than to continue to project them onto someone else. As we have the courage to own who we are and where we came from -- no matter if we are the oppressed or oppressor -- we break the chains that have keep all of us bound together in hate and fear rather than love.

"Right to Bully Bill" in Tennessee links...

Thanks to an email from the Tennessee Equality Project, I finally found some links to language of the "right to bully" bill now being considered in the Tennessee legislature:

Bill information on HB 1153 (a page at the TN General Assembly website)

HB 1153 (pdf)

SB0760 (TN senate version of HB 1153)

 

I have been relying on TNEP for news on LGBTQ issues in Tennessee...and there are many. I find this state to be pretty homophobic (as well as Islamophobic and xenophobic), and racial injustice is pervasive...lots of reasons to "Raise Cain" in Tennessee.

The Tennessee Equality Project works to promote equality throughout Tennessee and to serve as advocates of change by:

• fighting any legislation in the State of Tennessee that would endanger the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens
  
  
• actively pursuing measures that would provide protection for the GLBT community at both the state and local levels
  
  
• educating citizens on the importance of lobbying their elected officials
  
  
• providing the resources and training to assist through statewide initiatives

 

TNEP is organizing action against the "Right to Bully" Bill as well as last year's "Don't Say Gay" Bill. Here is the "take action" section from the TNEP email today, in case you are interested:

Take action today to promote safety in Tennessee Schools:

1. Send a message opposing the License to Bully bill to the House and Senate Education Committees.
2. Send another message to lawmakers to vote against the Don't Say Gay bill in the House Subcommittee on Education.
3. Become a sustaining donor to the Tennessee Equality Project by participating in the 12+12+12 campaign. Donate at least $12 for 12 months in 2012 to promote safe schools and promote equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their families in Tennessee.

 

Tonight on PBS: ‘Wham! Bam! Islam!’ on ‘Independent Lens’ - NYTimes.com

I am really looking forward to watching this documentary. I've checked out the trailer and several other video clips, and I've read an introductory issue of The 99. This project has great heart resonance for me. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I have no doubt that The 99 came from the heart of Naif Al-Mutawa, the Kuwaiti psychologist who created it.

The story is grounded in principles that may be identified with specific religious teachings, but these principles also are universal ones, and ones that are especially useful today. The heroes are 99 young people from around the world, each of whom has a access to a specific superpower, but they must work together to bring the full potential of those powers to bear on problems they face. If they are to succeed, they must cooperate rather than compete.

This is a truth that is so fundamental to continuation of life that it is even embedded in nature itself: when natural systems come under stress and can no longer sustain themselves, species evolve toward cooperation with one another. There is no aspect of life on Earth right now in which this challenge isn't pretty much in our face.

If we look, listen and feel our way into the chaos of modern life, we may get a glimpse of what is trying to be born from the suffering: a new life for all based on unconditional love and cooperative, co-creative, conscious evolution.

I hope people will use heartful projects like The 99 to stimulate discussions on how we can evolve humanity in a way that allows for a planetary going-on-being.

Daniel Diaz

An image from “Wham! Bam! Islam!” to be shown on PBS's “Independent Lens” series beginning Thursday.

via www.nytimes.com

 

Related links:

Wham! Bam! Islam! on Facebook

Naif Al-Mutawa fights to bring THE 99 and its message to wide U.S. audience (Washington Post)

Wham! Bam! Islam! trailer on YouTube

Wham! Bam! Islam! Where Mississippi meets the Middle East (YouTube video)

The continuing saga of THE 99 (my recent blog post with TED Talk video of Naif Al-Mutawa)

 

Documentary on the work of Naif Al-Mutawa: Wham! Bam! Islam!

WHAM! BAM! ISLAM! tells the story of Naif Al-Mutawa and his venture to create the first team of superheroes from the Muslim world called THE 99. Following the tumultuous journey of THE 99 from concept to reality, from international acclaim to censure by cultural gatekeepers, Al-Mutawa pursues his vision to bring new heroes to Muslim children while re-introducing Islam to the West.

This documentary by Isaac Solotaroff airs on PBS's Independent Lens on October 13th. WHAM! BAM! ISLAM!

 

You can get a free preview issue of The 99! -- see the Wham! Bam! Islam! film page on Facebook for details.

Naif Al-Mutawa has an undergraduate degree from Tufts University (with a triple major in clinical psychology, English literature and history), and a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University. In addition, he holds a Masters in Organizational Psychology from Teacher’s College, Columbia University and an MBA, also from Columbia University.

Dr. Al-Mutawa has worked with former prisoners of war in Kuwait and the Survivors of Political Torture unit of Bellevue Hospital in New York. Having witnessed the trauma of people who have been tortured because of their religious and political beliefs, he decided to write a children's story that won a UNESCO prize for literature in the service of tolerance.

Here are some other links if you'd like to learn more about Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa and his work:

New Film Captures Struggle to Create First Muslim Superhero Comic (24 September 2011 at Branford Patch blog)

Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa's website

Article by Dr. Al-Musawa at Huffington Post (17 May 2011): The Future Depends on What the Meaning of "Was" Was

The 99: the Islamic superheroes getting into bed with Batman (Carole Cadwalladr, 23 October 2010 in The Observer)

 

Violence Interruptors bring a cease fire to American streets

I came across this awesome group today:

 

 

Here are some links to more info:

CeaseFire website

Article on a documentary about the CeaseFire project: The Interrupters

DOJ Evaluation of CeaseFire

CeaseFire on Twitter

CeaseFire on YouTube

 

I have major objections to the "disease model" approaches and "learned behavior" explanations on which CeaseFire is constructed. But as a former EMT, I also know that when our kids are dying in the streets, you stop the bleeding first. Then you (or people who focus on how to shift collective worldviews) can attend to the evolutionary theories and long term solutions that will clear the planet of violence altogether.

It takes love, courage and a clear sense of "life threatening emergency" to work on the frontlines of American violence. I think the Interrupters of CeaseFire are real heroes.

Jeff Biggers: Arizona Senate President Pearce Has Been Recalled

Jeff Biggers -- who I first connected with via his writing on coal mining, mountaintop removal and environmental justice -- has been staying in touch with significant racial justice and immigrant rights issues in Arizona. Biggers has personal connections to Arizona that give his coverage an implicit, if not explicit, viewpoint. Here's an excerpt from his report  yesterday that Russell Pearce, who has been serving as  president of the Arizona State Senate, has been recalled:

In a swift affirmation of Arizona's fast-growing and powerful new political movement, Secretary of State Ken Bennett notified Gov. Jan Brewer that the once seemingly invincible architect of the state's controversial SB 1070 "papers please" immigration law has officially been recalled. Bennett confirmed that the recall petitions delivered by the Citizens for a Better Arizona "exceeds the minimum signatures required by the Arizona Constitution."

"Let's make no mistake about it," said Randy Parraz, co-founder of the Citizens for a Better Arizona. "Russell Pearce has been recalled."

According to Bennett's statement, Pearce has two options: Resign from office within five business days, or become a candidate in the recall election. Either way, Pearce becomes the first state senate president in recent memory to be recalled in the nation.

"No one expected this or picked up on this political earthquake," said Parraz, one of the main organizers behind the extraordinary grassroots campaign, which electrified a bipartisan effort in Pearce's Mesa district. Parraz credited a "dramatic shift" over the past six months due to Pearce's often extremist leadership in state senate.

via www.huffingtonpost.com