The Absence of War

I believe in compromise and bipartisanship. We have to live together; we can't separate ourselves into liberals, lefties, progressives, conservatives, tea partiers, libertarians etc. and each group stake out their own territories. As righteous as I think my beliefs are, I cannot force my neighbor to share them nor can persuade them to do so by telling them that their own beliefs are stupid and so are they.

Spinoza wrote in the 17th century, “Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.” I don't know that humankind has ever been at peace. We mistake rationality and thoughtfulness for weakness. Liberals are as bad as conservatives although all I read lately are protests to the contrary. I also read words that hold nothing but contempt for others, a massive disdain for those whom we determine to be less intelligent than ourselves. I'm not talking about blatant lying which is so often the modus operandi of the right. I'm not even talking about the public voices on the left. I'm talking about the blogs of the left; we regular folks who decry all who haven't reached our level of enlightennment to be virtually unworthy of existence. Those of us who refuse to recognize that most of the people who are swayed by the Tea Party rhetoric are just angry and scared and feeling adrift, and the Tea Party just offers them a convenient anchor. They aren't the enemy; provide them with another anchor and they might even jump ship. However, that's sort of impossible to do while you're calling them stupid. Most people just don't listen when you start the conversation with an insult.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no saint. I get angry and frustrated, and there are days when I really want to slap somebody. However, I'm not proud of my irrationality and I work to let the anger go and focus on what I can do to make the society in which I live a better one.

I've been an activist ever since high school when I refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn't feel that the final part about "liberty and justice for all" was even close to true. I still refuse to recite the pledge or stand when it's recited by others. I suspect that I may well go to my grave still having my personal little protest. I believe in taking a stand, being involved, doing something rather than just thinking about doing something.

I grew up in an age when being subjeted to blatant racism was just the norm for a black child growing up in America. My memories of racial discrimination, bigotry and cruelty from the larger white culture are intact but I let the anger go a long time ago. There was a time when I thought that white people in general were evil because my experiences had revealed the evil inside of far too many. But as I grew older, I recognized that humans are complex creatures and evil is an oversimplication of the motivations for any human action. Spending my life hating and mistrusting white people seemed an incredible waste and I chose to exhale and let my anger go.

My point is that holding on to hurts, no matter how real, is not productive; it's crippling. Anger is a temporary release and it can serve a purpose. However, holding on to and nurturing anger and despair only eats away at you until you become a bitter shell of a human being.

There is nothing wrong with disagreement. I do not accept racism. I challenge it whenever I encounter it and I have no qualms about calling people out on their bigotry. I am neither naive nor Pollyanna's twin sister. However, I do believe in working to find common ground and I don't think that we can give up because the ground is rocky.

We are at a crossroads as a country. We have had one civil war when competing ideologies grew until there was no chance for common ground. The aftermath of that war was the end of slavery but it was also the inception of more than 100 years of Jim Crow. Our unrest as to race relations in this country continues and is at the heart of much of the current Tea Party fervor.

Do not mistake my call for rational responses as a willingness to lie down and roll over. It's a given in my world that one speaks out loudly, and with clarity against injustice of any sort. When necessary, direct attack is appropriate. However, anger must be tempered with reason in order to develop an effective strategy for change. I don't have any admiration for the Tea Party. They have no idea what they really want. They have some vague platform about taking their country back, a meaningless concept. Ask them what it is that they need to accomplish in order to take back their country and about the only concrete action that they have is to remove Obama as president. So hopped are they on their irrational anger and fear that they don't even recognize that they have channeled all of their anger into a personal animosity for one man--Obama.They state with all sincerity that it is not about race but about his corruption of the constitution but cannnot articulate one specific action that constsitutes the aforementioned corruption.

My concern is that we need to think rationally and determine precise goals and methodologies for achieving those goals. I've never advoacated being nice because it's important to be nice. I have been consistent in speaking of reasonableness which is not a synonym for nice.

We have fallen into the trap of responding rather than intiating. The Tea Party comes out with some far right position and we decry their beliefs and pronounce them stupid. It accomplishes nothing. Those who are already TP supporters are just further convinced that they are correct in their beliefs. But those who are not so sure about the TP haven't been provide with an alternative path by us, instead they are left confused and looking for guidance.

We have to devise an action plan. We have to present a platform that refutes the TP and proposes an alternative view of the world. We have to understand how the political system works and how to effectively use the system to promote a progressive agenda. We can't do that while we're caught up in anger and frustration. It takes cool heads to strategize.

I have no problem with progressives bitchin' and complaining in house, but to the opposition, we need to present a united front. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I do have a problem with bitchin' and complaining and failing to offer any concrete steps that we can take to effect change. If that makes me a moderate, so be it. I'm also an activist and I never sit any battle out.

Obama vs. the Status Quo

A blogger friend wrote a thoughtful blog post on the number of Americans who eagerly believe the flat out lies masquerading as news tossed about in the media and cyberspace about President Obama, his wife Michelle, and his administration. I think that he is correct about the people who orchestrate the lies and misinformation; they are not stupid and they act with well thought out deliberateness. The problem is that their target audience functions on a mix of fear and ignorance, a dangerous combination.

If their beliefs weren't so destructive, they would be laughable. Their litany goes something like this: Obama is a Muslim, who since birth has been laying the foundation to become president and destroy America and its Constitution that's why he faked his birth certificate. Michelle hates the United States and as a bonding exercise, the two of them burn the American flag. Presumably to diminish any opposition or just to strike terror in the hearts of Americans, the president supports using death panels to kill grandma.

Why would sane people fall for any of this? I have a theory and a lot of people won't like it. Ultimately I think it is because they perceive Obama as "other." It's not as simple as racism; most of these people would never think of themselves as racists and are genuinely appalled at exhibitions of racist beliefs. However, Obama makes them uncomfortable in ways that they can't quite fathom. It's not a new discomfort. They've always been uncomfortable with dealing with issues of race head-on. These are the people who believe that the most non-racist assertion that they can make is, "I don't see color. All people are alike."

They become defensive when there are those of us who tell them that being colorblind is not a desirable end. If you don't see my color, you don't really see me. All people are not alike; we are all of value but every group or subgroup has its shared cultural norms and beliefs that make the group unique. What I value most about my diverse group of friends is the diversity. Who wants a box of crayons of all one color?

Obama, who is both black and white, creates cognitive dissonance in many people. They can't admit that they are uncomfortable with his perceived race--black, so they are quick to adopt any other theories offered for their distrust of him. He lies; he's not really one of us; he's anti-American; any theory other than that an intelligent, articulate, well-educated black man scares the hell out them.

These people easily embrace black professional athletes, black performers, because they don't feel threatened by them. Black people who achieve in accepted categories are fine.

So how did Obama win? Because there was a massive get out the vote campaign. People who were desperate for change saw hope embodied in Obama. People went to the polls in record numbers, but it was a momentary fever of involvement; the thrill has long faded and the general apathy has returned in record numbers among those who were inspired to vote to put Obama in office. In addition, many of Obama's strongest supporters have succumbed to disillusionment. They read Obama's message as a promise to implement sweeping change with all deliberate speed. Unrealistic expectations engender disappointment. In spite of all that the Obama presidency has accomplished, there is more attention focused on complaining about what is yet to be done rather than being enthused about what has been done.

As the vocal support for the Obama administration has diminished, so has the criticism become louder. The more outrageous the allegations made against the president, the more that they are believed by those predisposed to fear what his election means to their way of life. Obama's election has rocked the fundamental beliefs of many Americans in the myth of Euro-ancestry superiority that has served them well since the beginnings of America. The country that they want back is the one that existed before the election of Barack Obama as president capsized their boat. What they fear most is the very thing that Obama made the cornerstone of his campaign--change. When the status quo serves your interests in maintaining your perceived superiority, the last thing that you want is someone suggesting that the times will be a-changin'.

Ignorance & Arrogance: The American Legend

With all of the things in the news from oil spills to bombs in Times Square, I really thought that I was done writing about those tea party folks. However, it's like when you're a kid and can't help but pick at that scab on your knee. A friend posted this March video from a tea party protest of the health care reform bill, which prompted another friend to comment, "I'm so over America." This in turn prompted me to think about my own feelings about this country.

I've never been one for love of country. I know that this upsets a lot of people, heaven knows Michelle Obama got all kinds of flack for suggesting that she hadn't always been proud of this country. I just find it somewhat absurd to love things. I love my friends and my family, but I don't love my car or my table lamps. Besides, love of country leads to patriotism which segues into nationalism, which I think of as akin to patriotism on PCP.

I don't think that we are the worst country in the world but neither do I think that we are as great as we have deluded ourselves into believing. This is a country founded in blood, built on taking over the land and forcing the native population off of their land. We made laws to justify this usurpation of property (the Discovery Doctrine), declaring that the Indians had never owned the land but merely occupied it until it was discovered by Europeans. It was the Europeans,who cultivated the land and fenced it in, that created ownership. The Supreme Court case, Johnson v. M'Intosh, 21 U.S. 543, L. Ed 681, 8 Wheat. 543 (1823), espousing this view is standard reading in every first year property law class. Then there's the whole slavery thing, building a country on the backs of a kidnapped and enslaved people. Emancipation of those slaves was followed by 100 years of Jim Crow--legalized, government sanctioned discrimination based on skin color that denied basic rights of citizenship to Americans having or perceived as having "one drop of black blood."  There's the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, robbing people of their property and their dignity. Reparations finally were paid for the property but how do you provide reparations for stripping people of their dignity? Another question to ponder is why there was no such internment for German Americans, also our enemy in WWII? Then there is the new Arizona state law, that legalizes racial profiling. Arizona is a single state but at least seven other states have already announced that they are considering following Arizona's lead.


The tea partiers are the culmination of generations of Americans reinforcing a belief in the superiority of America simply by virtue of its existence. There is really nothing surprising about the birth and growth of the tea party; it is the expected progeny of a country that feeds ignorance to its youth and revises history to fit our notions of who we think we are with no regard for the truth of the past.


I think that the biggest problem with the tea partiers is that they reflect the pervasive ignorance and arrogance that characterizes this country. As a whole, we can be a pretty narrow minded and provincial lot. We have no sense of history, we view ourselves as morally superior to all other nations. Because we choose not to remember the past, we don't understand our present. In our minds we have always been great, always on the side of right, always behaved in a noble fashion. Every other nation pales in comparison. America is a legend in its own mind.  Like most legends, there is some truth in ours but our delusions of grandeur are mostly the result of smoke and mirrors. Nonetheless, we cling to the legend and meet any attempt to disavow us of that legend with anger and self-righteous indignation.

Talking My Truth

There has been so much in the news over the last couple of weeks that I find it difficult to choose a single topic. As you may have noticed, I'm an inconsistent blogger. I tell myself that I will blog at minimum once a week but the best laid plans....

I ran across a link posted on Facebook to an article proclaiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling for "crippling sanctions against Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear weapons capability." I read the brief article and there were no surprises; Iran and nuclear weapons capability is not at the top of the wish list for most nations. What caught my eye were the 30 comments following the post in which the overwhelming majority's views are summed up in the comment, "I urge crippling sanctions for him," referencing Netanyahu.

One commenter suggested that if the players can't get along in Jerusalem, the UN should just nuke it. I think he was kidding. Another declares that Israel has been playing the anti-Semitic card since its inception. (Somehow that reminds me of something.) Yet another declares that he doesn't want his tax money to support Zionism. One lone woman protested that Israel had to defend itself because it couldn't trust anyone else to do so. She was soundly attacked and dismissed for her alleged Zionist views.

Interesting comments, however it seems to me it's like arguing which is worse, a scorpion bite or a bite from a black mamba. Nuclear weapons capability in the hands of Iran, Israel, the U.S. or any nation is as scary as hell. That some of us already have that capability doesn't mean that everyone else should get to have it. No new profileration and disarmament with regards to current weapons should be the focus, not a bitch session about Israel.


I confess that I have empathy for Israel. I don't agree with its policies towards the Palestinians but I can understand the impetus that drives those policies. I think that Israel mistrusts that anyone will look out for its interests with the same diligence that it looks out for its own interests. I actually understand that position. I understand because I find myself having problems trusting that the white majority in this country has the best interests of black people at heart. I understand exactly why Reverend Wright talked about chickens coming home to roost. I fully comprehend Michelle Obama's statement about being proud of her country for the first time; I still haven't been able to say that. I work on being a rational person as opposed to giving in to my anger and frustration, but they are still a part of me.

I was 11 years old when I read The Diary of Anne Frank. When I finished the book, I knew that she died, but I didn't fully understand the larger backdrop of the war and the concentration camps until my 10th grade history class. Mr. Sewell was an amazing teacher and what our textbook left out about WWII, he filled in with supplemental materials.

I recall how betrayed and bewildered I felt as I learned the full horror of the Holocaust. I couldn't understand how the world allowed this to happen. I couldn't forgive the world for allowing Anne Frank to die. I became a student of the Holocaust at the age of 14 and I'm still bewildered by it. I've visited the Holocaust Museum in D.C. twice. The first time, (1991 or 1992) I didn't make it all the way through.

I began crying out loud at the "Tower of Faces," a three-story room that contained photographs of an entire community of Jews that were murdered over a two-day period in September 1941. The train car filled with the tiny shoes of children and the fragile high heels of women, mingled with the work shoes of the men, all of them victims of the gas ovens, strangled me and my sobs were more like gasps. When we reached the level with the medical experiments I was no longer able to speak. I held my friend Becca's hand as if it were a lifeline.

I wanted to finish all of the levels but "Voices of Auschwitz," the room with the recorded voices of survivors, was the one that did me in. Voice after voice telling of murdered mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. I was no longer crying, I dissolved into an uncontrollable sobbing that I could not stop. Realizing that I was disturbing the experience for others, I got up to leave. Becca, always a good friend, took my hand again and we descended and exited together. I cried for Anne Frank, for the millions that died, for the forever scarred survivors, and for a world that could allow such horrors to happen.

The Holocaust wasn't about the atrocities of Germany, it was about the whole world turning its back on Jews, the disabled, the mentally ill, gays and lesbians, and all the other groups deemed unfit and massacred by the Third Reich. If you are not fully familiar with the history leading up to the concentration camps, do a little Internet research.

Start with the S.S. St. Louis, a ship allowed to leave Germany in 1939, bound for Cuba, with more than 900 Jewish refugees on board. When Cuba refused to grant them asylum, they sought permission to land in the United States but were denied. Canada also refused to grant them asylum. The killing of Jews in Germany was already underway. Eventually the St. Louis returned to Europe where England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands admitted the refugees. Nearly a third of them eventually died as part of the Final Solution as the Germans overran Belgium, the Netherlands and France within the next few months. The strands of anti-semitism reached far, including deep in the belly of the U.S. The signs read, No Coloreds, No Jews Allowed in the North as well as the South. The same country clubs, golf courses, businesses, and other groups and organizations that did not allow Black people also didn't allow Jews.

Does the suffering of a people justify inflicting suffering on another people? I think not, but it does explain the source of the mistrust and the anger. My purpose is not to evaluate the conduct of the modern nation of Israel. The complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are way too deep to be sorted out by me.

My attention was captured by the comments on the article because of a personal identification that I've had with the Holocaust since I first read the diary of a young girl with whom I strongly identified. The more that I've learned over the years, the more that identification has gone beyond a child's identification with another child's suffering.

I see the nation of Israel as fighting desperately to keep its truth in front of us.
I identify with this need for truth because I see the same desperate struggle in my own experiences as a Black woman, especially amidst the current climate where racism has pulled off its white hood and is riding across the country announcing its resurrection.

I never believed that racism was dead, but I did believe that it was on life support. I wanted to believe that Obama's election was a sign that we were entering a post racial era, but the revisionists are at it again. The Governor of Virginia has set aside an entire month to honor the Confederacy under the guise of, "We are just honoring our ancestors."

Well it doesn't fly. Those ancestors treated my ancestors like cattle; they branded them, sold them, divided families permanently, raped the women, beat and abused men, women and children. Now, comes the ultimate insult, a new level of abuse--it wasn't about slavery it was about the economy and states' rights. The right to do what? To continue to make slavery a part of the economy.

The highest court in this land ruled conclusively in Dred Scott [60 US 393 (1857)] that slaves were chattel (property). Slaves, as well as people who had been slaves, or who descended from slaves, were not protected by the Constitution and could never be US citizens. Without citizenship status, African-Americans were denied access to the courts, and couldn't sue for their freedom, even if they had a contractual agreement granting them free status. The Supreme Court also ruled that Congress had no right to prohibit slavery, nullifying the Missouri Compromise. It would take the 13th amendment to overturn Dred Scott.

My first year in law school, like 1st year law students across the country, I had to take a course in property law. One of the assigned readings was of a case in which a landowner had sold two female slaves to a buyer and then died before the slaves had been transferred to the new owner. The son and heir of the landowner argued that the sale was null because the slaves were a part of his inheritance. He wanted to return the money and keep his property. I don't recall the outcome of the case. I only recall reading a legal case arguing ownership of the property at issue--two Black women.

I don't write about this stuff because I want pity or sympathy. I write about this stuff because I think that lies are dangerous; because I believe that if we misrepresent the past we compromise the integrity of the present.

I write about this stuff because I get so angry sometimes that I have to find a way to vent that anger and writing is preferable to cussing out strangers who cross me. I write about this stuff because I am tired of hearing people attempt to wipe out the past with the declaration, "I've never owned slaves;" or "My family never owned slaves." I'm never certain what response is desired to such statements. Thank you seems a bit much. Let's try a little substitution. "I've never abused a child."  Gee, thanks a lot!

Really want to move forward? Then recognize that slavery was just the tip of the iceberg. Black codes, Jim Crow, the denial of civil rights, segregated schools, and the current manifestation in the guise of states' rights aka the tea party are all part of the white privilege that accrues to the White majority regardless of whether you seek it out or not.

The first step in healing the past is acknowledging the full truth of the damage that arose from that past, no matter how distant. The harm that oppression does to the victims is passed from generation to generation. Healing cannot begin until truth is acknowledged.  

I write about this stuff because it is my truth.