The Patriarchy #5

The Patriarchy #4

White People Calling Cops Video 3

Patriarchy #2

The Patriarchy #1

Click on the link below to see my video #1 on the Patriarchy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdRtmsQlrI4

I also have some links to the news headlines of today.

The Guardian, June 3, 2018

Houston Chronicle, May 24, 2018

Prensa Libre, July 8, 2018

And from the Patriarchy:

New York Times, May 31, 2018

New York Times, June 18, 2018

Tyranny

View of Lake Michigan from Mackinac Island

Two nights ago, I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR) as I was driving home from an art opening. The program on air was a debate from Intelligence Squared about whether or not The President Has Usurped the Constitutional Power of Congress. 

While I was listening I could feel myself becoming defensive. The proposition side said that yes, President Obama had usurped the constitutional power of Congress when he made concessions (granting extensions, among other things) to the Affordable Health Care Act in order to make it more palatable to Republican members of Congress. The opposition side disagreed and said that, President Obama had not usurped the constitutional power of Congress. The opposition side made little headway against the proposition side and in the end, the audience agreed that President Obama had usurped the constitutional power of Congress.

I had to think about why I felt defensive. It wasn’t that I think that President Obama has never over-stepped his authority. It’s just that I disagreed with the examples that the proposition used. If I were one of the debaters I would have said that President Obama over-stepped his bounds with his use of drones. I am much more concerned when a president over-steps his authority in order to kill people than I am when a president tries everything possible to bring health care to Americans. The reality is that presidents have been over-stepping their authority in order to kill people for a very long time. It isn’t just President Obama.  

The proposition side said that the liberal left (my words) were hypocrites on this issue (again, my wording). They said that everyone would be very upset with a President Trump who over-stepped his authority.

I would argue that if President Trump were going to do everything possible to bring health care to people then I would applaud Trump. The proposition debaters were missing this key point when they harped on the insurance issue. If Trump over-steps his authority to try everything he can to bring human rights to people I will applaud him. But if Trump over-steps his authority to kill people—or to deport people—or to whip his followers into a violent frenzy then I will be very upset. But none of this made any difference to the proposition side debaters. They said that President Obama was guilty of tyranny.

The use of the word TYRANNY was especially troublesome for me. When I was listening to the radio program I realized that Republicans use this word all of the time and Democrats almost never use the word. Moreover, Republicans have a very good idea what they mean when they say TYRANNY and I believe that many Democrats have never really thought about the word very much.

So what is TYRANNY?

Merriam-Webster has several definitions of tyranny. Some of the definitions are aimed at a singular person—a tyrant.

“A government in which power is vested in a singular ruler.”

“The office, authority, and administration of a tyrant.”

“A government in which all power belongs to one person: the rule or authority of a tyrant.”

When a Republican uses the word TYRANNY, it would seem that they are always referring to the president of the United States (as long as he is not a Republican.)

However, Merriam-Webster has several more definitions of tyranny. These definitions do not refer to an individual. Rather, these other definitions refer to an abuse of power.

“Cruel and unfair treatment by people with power over others.”

“Oppressive power… especially oppressive power exerted by government <the tyranny of a police state>”

“A rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force…”

These last three definitions of tyranny give a somewhat different view of what tyranny could be. While it is true that the president could act as a tyrant, it seems equally true that the other branches of government could also exert tyrannical power. Thus, the Congress or the Senate or even the Supreme Court should be seen as having the ability to function in a tyrannical manner.

This then, is why I believe the Republicans talk so much about tyranny. By constantly referring only to the tyranny of the president they are hoping that no one will realize that other branches of government could do the same thing. Even state governments could operate in a tyrannical fashion. This leaves them free to do as they wish.

And this is what I believe is happening in our government today. All of our branches of government have been guilty of using tyranny in one form or another. 

The genius of the United States government is that no one branch is EVER tyrannical ALL of the time—that is unless we consider how our government has treated African Americans and Native Americans. Those two groups have been on the receiving end of tyrannical power since Europeans first came to this continent.

In general, however, federal and state governments have historically practiced situational tyranny and that is what I want to write about today.

When has the House of Congress acted tyrannically?
Congress has obstructed nearly every single thing President Obama has tried to do in the past 7 years. Bills have been blocked, proposals have been voted down, nominations for judges have been blocked and the government has been shut down. Other presidents have been on the receiving end of the Legislative Branch's tyranny; but no one to the extent that President Obama has.

When has the Senate acted tyrannically?

Hundreds of filibusters have brought the government to a standstill. Bills have been blocked, proposals have been voted down and nominations for judges have been blocked. The government has been shut down and the Senate fought to take down the debt ceiling. All of this, just during the time that President Obama has been in office.

When has the Supreme Court acted tyrannically?

àWhen the court decided in 2000 that the Florida recount was                          unconstitutional, making George W. Bush president.

àIn 2013, the Supreme Court invalidated Section 4 of the Voting Rights         Act. This meant that states can change their voter registration rules without obtaining Federal approval first.

When have states acted tyrannically?

àWhen they try to cut away at abortion rights.

àWhen they invalidated gay/lesbian civil unions and marriages.

àWhen they cut away at voter registration access.

Tyranny has brought our government to its knees. We must get rid of tyranny—by voting those who use it out of office. During President Obama's time in office it has been members of Congress, Senators and sometimes the Supreme Court who have been most guilty of using tyranny. 

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be vigilant against presidential tyranny. It just means that because someone yells “Tyranny” doesn’t mean that it is so.

Before I Continue

Cliff near Moonlight Beach in San Diego, California

When I first began writing this blog I wrote mainly about how orthodox religion is keeping us from having a society in which all may participate. I really like some of the articles I wrote—I particularly like my views on the First Amendment. But after my brother died, I wanted to write about how Americans of European heritage (Whites) are missing the ball because either we don’t see racism, we don’t want to see racism or we simply are racists. This is very bothersome to me and I don’t completely understand it. I want to live in a society that values everyone (#Black Lives Matter). I want to live in a society in which all may have equal access to the benefits and protections that are supposedly offered to all Americans.

The reality is that I live in a society where only some people have the protections and benefits of being an American. The reality is that I live in a society in which people are feeling increasingly more comfortable calling for violence, people are feeling increasingly more comfortable trying to keep others from their constitutional rights and people are feeling increasingly more comfortable showing more allegiance to a party than they do to the United States government.

Many of us do not realize where we are standing. We are standing on a cliff that is capable of breaking off at any moment plunging us downward—or burying us beneath tons of earth and rock.

The current political fight between Hillary, Trump and Bernie (and their supporters/followers) is a fight that encapsulates everything going on in America today. It is a fight of orthodox religion against liberal religion and science, of White privilege against everyone else and male vs. female. This is a fight. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to go down that road. We don’t have to fall off the cliff.

There are three very visible people in this struggle—Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The first thing to realize in all of this is that this struggle is not about those three people. This struggle is about the supporters and the followers.

Two of the three people have followers. One of the three people has supporters. I am sure that you can pick out which of the two have followers—Bernie and Trump. I am sure that you can see that Hillary has supporters. This difference is very clear, and it is very telling.

When I listen to the followers of these two people I hear the followers say that they think only their person can take our society to where we need to go. “Only Trump can save us!” “Only Bernie can save us!” The fact that no one is saying this about Hillary gives me a lot of hope.

The other thing that is telling about this election is that both Bernie and Trump are revolutionaries. Trump has upended things already--and it is anyone's guess as to how his time as president will actually look. Bernie is calling for a revolution. He want government to work again. I like what Bernie has to say. But then I look at his followers.

It’s never about the revolutionary. It’s always about the followers. Look at Hitler. Without his followers, Hitler would have just been an angry little man who hated people. With his followers, Hitler’s ideas became one of the greatest killing machines ever. So without his followers, Trump is just a man who likes to do business deals. With his followers, we are seeing cries of hatred and calls for violence. We don’t yet know what will happen if we continue on Trump’s declared path, but we can see that it won’t be anything positive.

Bernie's followers seem to be people who want social change but they are also people who think only Bernie has the ability to bring about that change. Strikingly, Bernie’s followers say that Bernie is the one who started this revolution. But this simply isn't true. Bernie’s followers want change and they want it now--and if it can't be Bernie that leads us then they are going to throw a fit.

Hillary has supporters. This is part of the reason her campaign feels so different. Hillary’s supporters do not think Hillary is our savior. Hillary’s supporters do not vilify Bernie’s followers as many of Bernie’s followers have done to her. And while we may think that we know how Hillary will act as president we won't know until she is president. Look at Lyndon Johnson. He was a man who was difficult to get along with--someone who sat on the toilet while he was having meetings. But when Lyndon Johnson was president, he embraced the Civil Rights Movement. Lyndon Johnson accomplished many things while he was president. I don't think anyone could have predicted what kind of president he was going to be. 

Our society will be able to heal--and to move forward--if we join together. We must stop fighting. We must listen to one another--and we must participate.

Looking Back

New Housing in Denver in 2009

I’ve mentioned that there were very few African Americans living in Boulder when I was growing up. I know why. When I was young—maybe 10 years old we went over to my aunt and uncle’s house. They lived in the neighborhood Keewaydin Meadows. I remember hearing my dad and my uncle talking about how an African American couple had just moved into the neighborhood. I remember we drove past the house—it was on a small cul-de-sac. My uncle pointed out which house was now owned by African Americans. They talked about how upset the people living around them were. I can imagine how much heat that family had to take. I can imagine how difficult it was for this family and I wonder how long they were able to live in that house.

When I was an adult I worked at a company that provided medical care to seniors. This company happened to be in Denver, Colorado. I worked at this company when Mr. Barak Obama was elected president. The excitement was palpable, especially from our African American patients. During the celebrations we all began talking about the history of racism—and our conversation turned to segregation. I asked what they remembered most about segregation. There were two answers that surprised me most. The first surprise came from a woman who said that the lack of public restrooms was especially difficult. She talked of travelling in a car and the inability to relieve oneself made traveling not only difficult but frightening. She said that driving within the city was just as bad as driving across the country. No bathrooms make for a very short journey.

The second surprise came from a man who had lived in Denver in the 30’s and 40’s. He talked about the Red Lines. These were the streets which demarcated where African Americans could live. I remember that the man told us what the boundaries were but I had to look them up for this article. I found the information in a pdf from the Department of the Interior, and the National Park Service entitled “Historic Residential Subdivisions ofMetropolitan Denver.” On page 87 and 88 the document states that in Denver, African Americans were confined to the Five Points neighborhood, with York Street being the eastern boundary until 1954. After 1954 the boundary extended a few blocks to the East of York Street. (Denver Suburbs, p. 87 and 88.) At that time, the South Platte River was the western boundary for African American communities while 17^th Avenue was the southern boundary and the rail yards were the northern boundary. I have not yet found when these red line restrictions were lifted but the conversation between my uncle and my dad happened in the early 70's so I think red lining existed much longer than white people realize.

Other racial groups were reportedly not exempt from housing restrictions. The Historic Residential Subdivision document states that “Hispanics” were offered inferior public housing options at 12^th Ave and Federal Boulevard. Japanese Americans also had difficulties after being released from the internment camps of WWII. The Japanese Americans were forced to live in the same small neighborhood (Five Points) that the African Americans were crowded into.

Most damning of all (in my opinion) is the following paragraph (p.85):

Discrimination in access to well-built, affordable private housing was common in the metropolitan area during the years before the war. Denver-area black leaders, like those at the national level, possessed few options with which to counter unfair practices. In 1940, the Colorado Statesman, Denver’s African American newspaper, discussed the impact of red-lining, noting that housing choices for the community were limited to dated properties in need of extensive repair and improvement that sold for $2,500 to $3,000, and charged that: “Conversely, the real thing can be seen upon the fringes of our City, in the hundreds of new and attractive homes, containing all of the modern features, and priced at 4000 dollars.” Money for new houses could not be obtained to build houses “within this racial zone” due to deterioration of the existing properties and low wages of residents. The Statesman concluded, “Some months ago, the FHA offered citizens within this zone of racial encirclement an opportunity to rent and live in ‘new homes,’ the same as other people do, but a group comprising realtors, and others having selfish interest, blocked this movement.”470 A year later the Statesman noted the housing situation remained a “grave problem” due to racial restrictions.

Every African American that ventured outside those boundaries must have experienced something similar to what that Boulder family experienced. White people exercising their “right” to bully and intimidate those who they did not feel should live in their communities.

The neighborhood that I now live in has a little local newspaper that is published about once a month. A couple of years ago I remember reading a short article—just one paragraph in length. The article was asking people not to call the police when they saw an African American man walking down the street. The article reminded people that “African Americans live here too.”

This part of America and American culture needs to be healed. People should be free to live where they want to—and they should be free to live without others’ intimidation and threats of violence. Until we are able to heal this, I will feel deeply ashamed of this part of being an American. 

The United States Constitution

The constitution of the United States of America does several things.

1.) It defines human rights for citizens of the United States.
2.) It sets up the organization for the US government.
3.) It provides for a way to pay for the federal government.
4.) It provides for a way to protect the US from being invaded.

It really is a simple system. As it is designed, it is a good system.

Beware when people talk about the federal government as if it is an evil entity. It is not. It is a governmental system "of the people, by the people and for the people."

A government which is concerned with human rights is a very limited government.

There really isn't much power or prestige for a government which is solely concentrated on human rights.

Beware the people who are trying to limit the power of the federal government. These people are trying to limit the federal government's ability to serve the people.

It really is true. States' Rights People are always campaigning to pull human rights out of the federal government and put them into the state government. The problem with this, is that state governments are not concerned with human rights. State rights people are conerned with giving more power to the individual--they just use fancy language to state their point and most people don't realize what they are trying to do.

Look at the following issues. They are all things that deal with human rights:

Birth control
Abortion
Defining marriage
Prayer in school
School vouchers

I would also put access to voting in this category because states have tried to control access to voting and every four years we see what a fiasco they have made of the system.

Gun control. Yes. This is a human right.

Now I Can See It

Poison Ivy--picture taken in Traverse City, Michigan by author

I grew up in Boulder. When I was in elementary school there were no African Americans in my classes--not a one. When I was in junior high (back then there were no middle schools in Colorado) I remember a couple of African Americans. Then in high school, there were a few more--maybe four people in the whole school. I remember thinking to myself, "I can't see any racism--it must not exist any more." Looking back, I can easily see the racism, but back then I couldn't.

In high school the afternoon bus would come to pick us up really late. School got out around 2:30 in the afternoon and the bus wouldn't pick us up until 4. To pass the time we would go to the rec center and play basketball. It was there that I met some African American boys. One of the boys, James, liked a friend of mine--Amy.

James had no interest in me whatsoever. But he really liked Amy--and so I got to know James a little. It just so happened that I worked at McDonald's and they had one of those loyalty things going on where the customer got a scratch ticket with every purchase. James really liked those scratch tickets and he really liked me to give him a few extra tickets each time he came in.

As time went on, the number of tickets that James wanted increased until I was handing him a stack of tickets every time he came in. This made me feel very uncomfortable and so I searched for a way to tell him I didn't want to give him tickets any more.

I remember I handed James the tickets and then said, "Now listen boy..."

James' face changed. He became extremely angry and he threw the tickets back at me. James said, "Don't you ever call me boy!" and he stormed out of McDonald's never to return while I was working.

I was baffled. What had happened?

I told someone who worked there what had happened and he said, "Boy is a term that whites used to use with slaves." I was stunned, embarrassed, and very remorseful all at once. I didn't understand how it was possible that I could have used a term like that without realizing what I saying.

I began to look for examples of people using the word "boy." I was astonished at how many instances I could find. On television I saw white men calling black men "boys" more times than I could count. I read books where white men were calling black men "boys." It was everywhere. Slowly, I began to realize that I had known exactly how to use to word "boy" when I was speaking with James. Even though I hadn't consciously picked up on what it meant, some part of knew exactly what I was saying. Racism was in me whether I wanted it to be or not.

Beginning to Write Again

My last blog entry was posted in January, 2013. I stopped writing this blog because in April, 2013 my brother killed himself. He was a police officer. He was a multiple veteran, having fought in the Gulf War and also in Iraq multiple times. It is difficult to know exactly why my brother killed himself, but he had been denied a return to Iraq due to a difficulty he had been having with cholesterol medicine. The last time I spoke with my brother he said he had been devastated about not being able to return to Iraq with his unit. I heard the word "devastated" but I didn't realize how much he was devastated until I got the phone call about his suicide.

I haven't felt a need to return to writing since his death--until now. 

At this moment, I want to change the focus of this blog. I will now write about my own experiences with racism. In essence, I will be giving witness to racism in our society.

I am doing this because I have been feeling for some time now that I want to take an active role as an ally. I want to be an ally for experiencing racism. I know that living in a world where everyone does not have freedom of access is a world that I feel uncomfortable living in. 

 I spoke with two women at the grocery store this morning about my need to be an ally and they said I "should just speak up wherever" I am. So I am going to do that. I am going to be a witness to all of the racism that I have seen in this society.

Civil Unions Are A First Amendment Issue

I have written about gay marriage before. Today I will write about Civil Unions because yesterday the Colorado Senate passed a bill allowing Civil Unions.

As usual, there seem to be a large number of Christians (fundamentalists) who say they are against this. In fact, these "Christianists" as I am going to call them from now on, are boo-hooing that their First Amendment rights are being trampled on. These Christianists argue that the state is making a law which is against their religion and that because of this, the law is illegal.

But this is a perverted twisting of the First Amendment.

The First Amendment disallows any federal law which is made IN FAVOR of a religion because otherwise that religion would become favored in the eyes of the law.

The Christianists make it seem as if anyone who is in favor of Gay Marriage or Civil Unions is doing so based on their own interpretation of religious law--that in effect the federal government is favoring the "Gay Religious Movement" over the Christian Religious movement.

This is not what is happening.

Allowing Civil Unions and Gay Marriage is not an attempt to impress one religious view over another. Rather, by allowing Civil Unions and Gay Marriage we are breaking the bonds that religion holds over our society.

This is a wonderful thing.

Breaking the bonds that religion holds over our society means that religion will now be about GOD and not about CONTROL.

What a wonderful thing to do--both for our society and for religion.

And those people who still want their religion to be about control?

They can still be religious in that way. Go ahead. You're free to do it. You just can't use your religion to control other people.

Way to go Civil Unions!

Constitutional Rights Are For All Americans

Once again I am returning from a trip to the rec center and I find I must write a blog post. I was listening to Fox News while I was riding a bicycle. I wanted to sit where I could watch a different channel but there were no machines available, so I was stuck.

Fox News was talking about President Obama and Guns Rights. They had some people on who were very upset because they believed "this president" was trying to redistribute wealth--taking wealth from the "middle class, upper middle class and upper class" and letting the poor people have it.

At the same time they were talking about how wrong it was for President Obama to redistribute wealth, they were talking about constitutional rights. Specifically they were very concerned because they saw President Obama as restricting their "constitutional rights" regarding the 2nd Amendment.

Let's get this straight. The Constitution of the United States is for all Americans. It is not just for "middle class, upper middle class and upper class" citizens. Where citizens of other, lesser economic classes do not have complete access to public institutions we must expand access to everyone.

People who are economically disadvantaged do not have the same access to public institutions that other citizens do. I am talking access to jobs. I am talking access to public health care. I am talking access to adequate housing. There is one other big area I am talking about, and for that I will need the preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

There is a group of people within the United States who are being denied access to domestic Tranquility and general Welfare.

Who are these people? They are the people who live in the inner city--specifically they are communities made of up of largely African Americans and Hispanics.

This is where the conversation turns to guns--specifically to gun violence.

The Far Right and the Republican party want to argue that guns are about defense. These groups are saying that they have a right to defend themselves. But the Constitution does not give anyone right to defend themselves from other Americans. Rather, the Constitution provides for defense against other countries and it provides for defense against the government. There is no RIGHT to defend yourself against other Americans.

If you need to defend yourself against "the bad people" this is a matter of Justice, not defense.

So when white people are talking about gun rights, they are really saying they want to defend themselves. They are saying they want to defend themselves against the large numbers of bad Black people and bad Hispanic people.

Guns are a big problem in the inner city, it is true. But guns are a big problem in the inner city not because the inner city is filled with lots of bad people. Guns are a problem in the inner city because we have lax gun laws and because access to public institutions has largely been cut off.

This is what happened last night in my neighborhood (9NEWS). Well, not exactly my neighborhood. It happened across the park, across the expanse of prairie dogs. It happened in the horrible and awful place that is Aurora, Colorado. Here is a picture of the crime scene--from my neighborhood.

You can see that the "illustrious"neighborhood of Stapleton is separated from the "horrible" neighborhood of Aurora by only a few rodents. The shooting that was reported on 9NEWS last night took place near the red building on the right side of the photograph.

I woke up last night around 2:00 in the morning. I heard a steady drum beat of loud shots--boom, boom, boom. I didn't count the shots but there had to be at least 20 shots. It was enough that I incorporated the shots into my dream and then I woke up and realized that I wasn't dreaming. The shots were real and they were VERY CLOSE.

Here's the thing:
There was no way to protect anyone from these shots. They occurred in the middle of the night. I could hear the shots, but I couldn't really tell what direction they were coming from.

The news only talked about the shooting at 11:00 that night--we couldn't find anything about the shots at 2:00 in the morning. This is also another problem. We rarely hear about what is really going on. But that's another issue. For this blog post--I want to say that there is NO WAY to protect yourself from this type of gun violence. No Way.

We do not need guns. We do not need guns. We do not need guns. We do not need guns.

Guns are destroying us. And listening to White people talk about how they want to protect themselves from the awful Black and Hispanic people is really, really horrible.

We are all Americans. Our society needs to be for all people. Where someone is restricted in their access to our society we need to take steps to allow their participation. This is the meaning of the Constitution of the United States. Anything less is simply blah, blah, blah.

Religious Right is Wrong When it Comes to Guns

I have written before about the large numbers of Bible-believing Christians who are advocating against any governmental control (link here) of guns. Anyone standing outside the walls of the fundamentalist community might find it strange that people who strongly profess to have a loving God (Jesus) would also strongly profess their governmental right to kill people with very powerful weapons.

I have watched this debate with some interest—scanning the talking heads out there for any evidence that SOMEONE in the Bible-believing community finds the whole gun rights argument to be outside the purview of religion. I have not yet found anyone, although I am sure that they exist. However, I did hear of a Christian pastor who gave a reason why the fundamentalist community is so strongly in favor of killing people with very strong weapons.

This pastor said, “The biblical basis for this is the Golden Rule.” He then continued; “Do unto other what you would have done unto you.”

I was momentarily taken aback. I do not want someone to murder me, how could I then go out and murder someone? Surely this was not what that pastor meant.

That pastor was talking about protecting other people. The fundamentalist Christian community uses The Golden Rule as their reason for being “The Great Protector.” They want the right to carry powerful weapons because they feel that no one else is going to protect them.

This may be a philosophy, but it’s not a good religious philosophy. In fact, using the Golden Rule as the basis for killing people with very powerful weapons is the ANTITHESIS of good religious philosophy. Let me state this more clearly.

One of the passages in the Hebrew Bible which gives Christians the foundation for their Golden Rule is Leviticus 19:18—“…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Do unto others is related to loving other people as yourself. This makes sense. But there is nothing in Leviticus 19:18 about using powerful weapons to kill people. Nothing.

Leviticus 19:18 has a sentence before "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. This sentence is even more strongly against using powerful weapons to protect oneself. The first part of the verse in Leviticus 19:18 is as follows: “Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.” The verse also has a stunning ending: “I am the L-RD.” Thus, Leviticus 19:18 isn’t just any verse for a Bible-believing Christian. Leviticus 19:18 is a verse in which we listen to the word of G-d. This makes Leviticus 19:18 a very important verse for the Bible-believing Christian community.

Here it is in its entirety:

Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. I am the L-rd.

***

This brings us to a very big difference between The Golden Rule and Leviticus 19:18. One uses the word "other" while the latter uses the word "neighbor."

Is there a meaning of the word “other” which would lend credence to the Christian perspective of using powerful weapons to kill an “other?”

The word in Hebrew which is commonly translated as neighbor is "rei-acha." Not surprisingly, the meaning of the word "rei-acha" is not the word you would use to refer to your neighbors in Modern Hebrew. It is a word which you might use to refer to "the children of your people." 

In a society like ours, who are the children of our people? Who are the people about whom we should concern ourselves?

Do we consider all Americans to be “our people?”

or

Do we only consider people of similar religious backgrounds to be “our people?”

This is important because we must ask the Christian fundamentalist community exactly who they are protecting themselves from?

I have heard more than one gun enthusiast say they are protecting themselves against “the bad people.”

This to me seems to be the “NEW” meaning for the Golden Rule. In other words, the fundamentalist Christian community is protecting themselves from “OTHERS.”

Let’s read the Golden Rule one more time:

Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

And here's the Golden Rule as it is interpreted by the Fundamentalist Christian community:

Kill others as you would have wanted to be protected.

This doesn’t sound like good religious philosophy to me. It sounds like a bunch of really scared people who are taking the law into their own hands. It seems they are terrified that our violent culture will come for them next—that we will reap as we have sown.

But saying that G-d is on your side does not make it so.

And making our culture more violent doesn’t solve anything.

So we must work together to get rid of the guns and to search out the sources of violence in our society. We are all in this together.

The Way We Speak About the 2nd Amendment Matters

I grew up in a home where my dad went hunting every year. I remember the elks hanging from the ceiling in our garage and I remember the freezer full of elk meat every winter. I understand the need to hunt.

I don't understand the huge need for guns that our society seems to have developed. Everywhere I read some guy is apoplectic because "his guns are being taken from him." I read about the CEO who talks about guns as his birthright. This is nonsense. Something else is going on, but the conversation has become so convoluted that almost nobody can figure it out.

Let's get this straight. Guns are not a birthright. As it stands, our conversation should be about the 2nd Amendment. But gun rights advocates are taking the argument to a whole new level. In effect, they are saying it is their right to murder people.

This is nonsense. There is no"birthright" to kill or murder people. It really is that simple.

We need to talk about whether we need the 2nd Amendment.

We also need to stop talking about the 2nd Amendment as if it only applies to White people. When I hear people talking about the "Right" to defend themselves I hear White people saying they need to defend themselves from all of the people of color who are ruining our country. This is a conversation that needs to be changed. We do not need to allow the Constitution of the United States to protect racist ideologies.

One more thing. There may be a need for people to hunt and they may need to use guns in order to hunt, but the 2nd Amendment does not deal with the right to hunt in any way, shape or form. The 2nd Amendment talks about militias. The only way to solve this huge issue is for us to talk about guns and our supposed need for guns in a very clear manner. Ideology will not get us anywhere.

Keep Guns Out Of Schools

I just got home from the rec center because my daughter and I recently started an exercise program. While riding the bike in the weight room I found myself listening to the Ed Schultz show on the television. His guest was an elementary school teacher in Utah who wants to get a concealed gun permit so she can carry a gun in her classroom.

This teacher said that she had a big emotional reaction to the Newtown shooting and wanted "options" for what she could do as a teacher to protect her students. She then said that didn't want armed guards in schools, but felt that concealed gun permits were the best option. According to this teacher, for the past 12 years Utah state law has allowed teachers to carry guns in Utah schools.

The teacher being interviewed by Ed Schultz used typical Republican terminology to refer to people who use guns to kill others. She said the shooters are the "bad guys." This of course means that she is implying that teachers are "the good guys." But this isn't always true, and things that happen at school are not always so clearly defined as this teacher seems to think.

What about all of the teachers who have sexually assaulted students over the years?

What about if an elementary school student brings a knife to school?

I can think of many concerns I have about teachers carrying guns. In one school I taught in, there was a teacher who was a little odd (my opinion). One day, the students came into my class telling me that this teacher had just become so mad at them she slammed the classroom door on them. The students said she slammed the classroom door so hard that the door's handle fell off. Days later, the students came in telling me that they had found a "huge 6 inch hunting knife" in her closet. The students said that she had told them the knife "was for cutting watermelon." Neither the students nor I were convinced that she needed a knife like that to cut watermelon and neither did the principal once she found out. The teacher was gone that day, never to be seen again in that school.

In another school, we used to have a problem with high school students circling in cars. They would do this just as school was letting out and the middle school kids were getting onto the bus. Occasionally we teachers on bus duty would see one of the high school student brandishing a gun as they drove by. Teachers are not trained in how to handle this type of violence. Teachers are trained in teaching and this is how it should stay. Asking teachers to carry guns in school is asking our society to mask a very serious problem.

It does not surprise me that we are asking schools to treat our very serious gun violence with band aids.

This is what we have been doing for years in the inner city, where gun violence has been wreaking havoc with our youth for decades.

I saw guns at almost every school I taught at. First there were the gang bangers, who would drive around at lunch time, brandishing their guns from their cars. Then there were the repeated fire drills one year. Dutifully the school would file outside and we would watch as the gang bangers drove around looking for some particular kid. The school district took care of that particular problem by changing the alarms--no longer could anybody simply pull the alarm. This stopped the fire drills but it didn't stop the violence.

Another time, there was a group of ROTC students standing in the hallway outside my classroom. They were banging their wooden rifles (fake) up and down in the hallway, making a great deal of noise. I stepped into the hallway to ask them to move away from the classroom and one of the students came at me with one of the rifles.

In this same school there was an attempted murder one day. One student, (she happened to be one of my students) beat up another student at lunch time. Reports from people in the lunch room that day said that my student threw the other student to the ground. She then held the girl's head and bashed it over and over into the ground. The girl who was beaten up ended up in a coma. I'm not sure that she ever returned to school.

Inner city violence has historically been dealt with by dress codes. Back in the early 90s (and maybe earlier) schools began issuing edicts which stated what a student could and could not wear. Sagging pants, head gear, including hats and bandanas and certain colors were prohibited as were all professional sports wear. The use of dress policies did not solve the problem of inner city violence--it simply drove it outside the school walls.

Now we are watching the white, middle class community as they are forced to look at our problem with violence. The mass shootings we have seen are committed largely by white people against mostly white people. But instead of dealing with the issue, we are once again wanting to keep it at bay. This policy is short sighted and will only lead to more violence.

Gun violence is destroying us.

Gun violence has been taking the lives of huge numbers of Black and Hispanic young men for years and now it is taking the lives of of little school children.

We should have been doing something when it was our inner city youth who were being killed--but now that the violence has spread, we must take action. We must get rid of guns. We don't need them.

We don't need to kill other human beings.

It really is that simple.

More Bad Theology from the Far Right

I have some strong observations to make on the public debate surrounding gun control. Before I make those observations I would like to share an essay and a video from Dr. Anthea Butler, a religious studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Butler, as usual, has stated her position in a thoughtful manner. I like listening to what Dr Butler has to say, even if I don't agree with everything she has to say. Thank you Dr. Butler!

Here is a link to Dr. Butler's comments. This link goes to an article at Religion Dispatches, December 19, 2012.

God Has Answered the Republicans

And the answer is "No."

This must be what happened. It is at least the theology that Far Right Christians use on others. God punishes those in the midwest with a tornado for not praying enough. God punishes the east coast with Superstorm Sandy because of the Homosexuals and God wants babies to be born from rapes. This is a pretty vengeful God, but apparently God only punishes liberals and Democrats because I haven't heard one word about how God  is showing approval of liberal policies since the election went our way and every one of the "Rape Politicians" lost their seat. Surely God has spoken!

But Democrats don't tend to have this type of theology so nobody has even been looking for the Far Right Christians to make this admission. I work as an interpreter however and so I have interpreted what the Democrats would be saying IF they had the vengeful theology that Far Right Christians seem to have.

Since I don't believe in the type of God who punishes I want to change the subject a little bit.

I have heard or read statements from Republicans which say that they consider America to have irreparably changed after the election. I find this stunning because to me the world is exactly the same as it was the day before the election.

I wonder, are we even looking at the same things?

I know I am looking at people's access to public institutions. I see the Republicans as trying to restrict access to certain governmental institutions. But I think the Republicans are looking at something else.

What are they looking at?

At work last month we had a couple of people come and talk to us about 401k plans. The woman who was presenting told us a story:

"When I was 18 I realized that my parents were not going to take care of me forever. I realized that if things were going to get done, I had to do it. And so I had to take responsibility for myself. So I'm standing here today as your mother, telling you that you've got to take responsibility for yourself. Nobody else is going to do it for you."

If I hadn't heard Mitt Romney talking about the 47% I would have not understood what this woman was saying to us. She was saying that she didn't want to have to pay for people who haven't saved enough money to retire.

The problem is that she was talking to several people who were CNA's. On the pay scale, CNA's are on the bottom. Some of our CNA's have two jobs, just so they can make it.

This woman who came to my work place to present 401K plans to us was a Republican, and it would seem that finances are the bottom line for many Republicans.

The question is, how do we reconcile finances with increasing access to governmental institutions? Can we hear each other? Or is the only way through this to keep saying awful and hateful things about each other?

I hope we can listen to each other, but to do that we must have understanding for each other's theologies and we must understand that each of us is a human being. So God doesn't enter into our disputes in order to punish one side and we should understand that we are all trying very hard. I may be a Democrat but I am also an adult and I contribute to society. A human being's value comes from being a human being. My value does not depend on my job, or my race or my gender. This is where we must begin.  

All This Talk About Rape...

It seems that everywhere there is some man talking about rape. When I read them, or hear them, I see men talking about rape as if it is something very cavalier. They stand up in front of people and give their opinions on rape.

 

Some describe rape as legitimate or not.

 

Others say not to worry about pregnancy from rape because it doesn't happen.

 

Others say just shut up and enjoy it.

 

Or, that it is just a case of buyers remorse.

 

I'm sure there are more horrible comments from public men in our society giving us their opinions on rape, but I think the above examples are enough. The above examples show that these men have been talking about rape for a while--because two of the above links are from past years. Nevertheless,

 

 

STOP IT!!

 

STOP IT RIGHT NOW!!

 

It's disgusting. And it shows that rape has something to do with these men's sense of themselves. They seem to have an entitlement to rape.

 

LET ME BE VERY CLEAR!

 

Being a man and being masculine should have NOTHING to do with the ability to rape someone! It is not masculine to rape someone, no matter what the Bible says. We need to find a new definition of masculinity. One that does not destroy people. In the meantime, all of these men should be voted out of office. They don't need public pulpits anymore. They don't need to be allowed to hurt people just so they can be leaders.

 

RAPE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED!!

 

And the fact that they have linked abortion to rape means that abortion must be legal and access to abortion must be unencumbered!

 





Biblical Ideas about Male and Female Roles Are Not Especially Helpful

Unless you think Bronze Age notions should be dictating our public policy in 2012.

Over two thousand years ago, the Hebrew Bible set up boundaries between the Israelite community and neighboring, non-Israelite communities. The Bible concerned itself not just with geographic boundaries; much of the Bible is concerned with placing limits on behavior. In this way, the Bible was able to define the limits of biblical society—keeping that which was inside society’s bounds pure by limiting contact with that which was outside society’s bounds and therefore impure. 

Much of what was defined as the masculine role in society was protected in this way from the feminine role in society. Deuteronomy 25:11, 12 illustrates this: “If two men get into a fight with each other, and the wife of one comes up to save her husband from his antagonist and puts out her hand and seizes him by the genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.”

Thankfully we no longer cut off women's hands, but other biblical laws that restrict women's rights made it into modern times. One such law was a law that restricted women from inheriting land. Numbers 27 presents an act of petitioning whereby Zelophehad’s daughters were able to gain limited inheritance rights. One could draw an unbroken line from the time of Zelophehad’s daughters through history, clear into the twentieth century, to see how women’s rights to inherit and to own property were severely restricted. In the Bible, male and female relationships and roles were maintained through rigid enforcement of boundaries.

Biblical gender roles are not something that we left behind in the Bronze Age—many biblical notions about gender roles are still prevalent in today’s society. We must ask ourselves if American society should be more concerned with maintaining boundaries or if it should be more concerned with creating a society where every citizen has equal access under the law. While our Constitution is very clear on this matter, our society remains confused. Because of this, we need to examine how we define gender and how this definition has been influenced by religious ideas. In this way we will be able to create new roles for men and women—roles that are constitutionally based and roles which enhance each person’s ability to participate in our society.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a good illustration of biblical gender roles. In the story (Exodus 19:5-10,) Abraham's relative Lot received two angelic visitors. The people of Sodom were unaware that the visitors had been sent by G-d and only knew that the two visitors were from afar. After the visitors entered the city, the townspeople became angry and they began banging on Lot's door, demanding to rape the visitors. Incredibly, instead of telling the townspeople that their behavior was despicable, Lot offered his daughters as fodder for the rape in an effort to protect the visitors.

This story is abhorrent, and very difficult to understand from a modern perspective. Why were the townspeople wanting to rape the visitors? Why did Lot offer his daughters instead of trying to protect the visitors? In an effort to understand this story, many people have attempted to explain Lot's actions.

Some commentators explain that Lot offered his daughters because the homosexual demands of the townspeople were too disgusting to countenance. Other commentators explain that the town of Sodom was destroyed by G-d because the townspeople were not hospitable to the angelic visitors. Dr. Rachel Havrelock, of the University of Chicago, has a different explanation which makes more sense[i]. Dr. Havrelock, argues that the townspeople of Sodom wanted to rape the angelic visitors as punishment for transgressing the city's boundaries without permission. In other words, the townspeople of Sodom wanted to punish the visitors through the humiliation of penetration (rape) because the visitors had penetrated the town’s borders. For Havrelock, Lot offered his daughters as fodder because it was more preferable to have his daughters penetrated (raped) than to allow his male visitors to be “humiliated” in this way.

 Our society must examine how we view “penetrators” and how we view “the penetrated.” All my life, I have listened as men told one another “to not be like women.” When I was a kid I heard boys say to one another, “You throw like a girl,” or “You’re a sissy.” Now that I am an adult I have heard many men express concerns that women are going to emasculate them. I have always wondered why men are so concerned with being emasculated—as a woman I have no experience with testicles and do not understand the relationship men have with their testicles. But if I view the fear of emasculation through Dr. Havrelock’s hypothesis, then I begin to understand. Men are afraid that a woman will somehow make it impossible for them to penetrate—they are afraid that a woman has the power to make them impotent. The biblical role of man as “penetrator” is alive and well—as is the biblical role of women as receptacles for penetration (and humiliation.)

           

 The story of Sodom illustrates how males can also be humiliated through this rigid definition because men are especially vulnerable when they allow themselves to be penetrated. Society views homosexual men as a group of humiliated penetrators—men who accept the societal role of women—that of being receptacles of penetration. I say it this way, because gay men have always been special targets of anti-homosexual groups. Many gay men have been murdered simply because they were gay. As a Lesbian, I have sometimes felt invisible as a homosexual person. But now I see that women are already humiliated because we can be penetrated. I also see that women’s issues and LGBT issues are one and the same thing. A gain for one group is a gain for the other and the story of Sodom illustrates how this is so.

Recently, some state governments have attempted to pass legislation requiring a trans-vaginal ultrasound as a gatekeeping mechanism for anyone trying to access abortion services. This is an attempt to establish government-sponsored rape (via the trans-vaginal wand) as punishment for out-of-bounds sexual intercourse. (The fact that women who have had sexual intercourse outside of the bounds of marriage are the biggest targets of this legislation cannot go unmentioned.) The state legislators who are supporting these efforts are acting in a way that is reminiscent of Lot and the townspeople of Sodom. The Far Right Christian community is banging on the door, demanding that women who have sex outside established “bonds of marriage” be brought to justice and the legislators who are in favor of raping women through the use of the trans-vaginal wand are Lot—they are offering up their daughters to be raped in order to satisfy the demands of the crowd.

This type of legislation must not be allowed. Women and men have the right to live in freedom from religious law and from religious norms and controls. This right is given to us by the First Amendment which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” It does not matter if a woman has sex outside marriage and it does not matter if a man is homosexual—First Amendment rights still apply.

Those of us who are in the LGBT community must begin to view women’s issues and LGBT issues as First Amendment issues—precisely because today’s notions of gender roles are biblically based. Gender roles need not be rigidly maintained or regulated in our society because American society stands on Constitutional principles—not on antiquated, Bronze Age religious notions of male and female roles. American society is great because we allow our citizens to participate in society. American society is great because our constitution allows each citizen to have equal access to public institutions. Keeping homosexuals from accessing marriage and keeping women from accessing healthcare does not make American strong. Rather, rigidly maintained gender roles restrict a person’s access and ability to participate in society and tear America apart. By cutting out segments of our population, we are in effect cutting our own necks. We are all in this together.

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[i] Havrelock, Rachel. River Jordan: the Mythology of a Dividing Line. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2011. p. 43-45.