Sunday Sermon [Human Dignity]

Hola mi gente,
As if you needed more proof that the war on drugs was just another way to lock up Blacks and Latinx and radicals, more and more key players at the center of the CIA-crack cocaine scandal continue to come forward. While things did not turn out well for Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb, who stunned the world with his “Dark Alliance” newspaper series (Webb’s top editor abandoned him, he was drummed out of journalism by the Times and Washington Post and other leading newspapers, and eventually committed “suicide”), it seems he will have the last word.

A documentary, Freeway: Crack in the System, by Marc Levin (released at the same time Hollywood version of Webb’s life, Kill the Messenger, was released)... 

“…  not only explores the corrupt foundations of the drug war itself, but also calls into question the draconian jail sentences the U.S. justice system meted out to a mostly minority population, while the country’s own foreign policy abetted the drug trade.”

Today's image is courtesy of the upcoming film, The Birth of a Nation. As one critic put it, it's like a “... punch to the gut.”

Seeing the Human

Not too long ago, a high ranking correctional officer admonished me for missing a workshop at this facility. It seems that my workshop participants, thinking I had been replaced, expressed their disapproval so vehemently, they had to call in reinforcements. I run workshops in Rikers Island, one of the most infamous penal colonies in the world at one of their most problematic facilities, Anne M Kross (“AMKC”). The captain asked me what was I did that created such loyalty. I just shrugged and said, “I treat them like with respect.”

Saying shit like that always gets me in trouble. 

I considered it a compliment, especially considering that the NYC Dept. of Corrections (DOC) bureaucrats who run these programs have huge problems with how I facilitate my workshops. The greatest compliment, however, is whenever I run into a brother or sister on the outside and they come up to me to hug me. I remember being in an isolation ward and telling one the brothers there, “You don’t belong here.” He said he would come see me when he got released and he did. He’s now involved in a campaign to do away with the torture of solitary confinement. 

Still, as I further reflected about my workshop participants’ “mutiny” I was reminded of the the thing I do that perhaps others don’t: I refuse to see them as criminals. I see them as human beings. I believe that all people, regardless of their criminal justice status, have the right, as we all do, to live with dignity and their humanity respected and valued. 

I have seen and worked with many people who had committed murder, but I have never seen a murderer. I have seen many people who had stolen from others, but I have never seen a thief. And here’s the hardest one for me. I have even seen and worked with people who had committed terrible sex crimes, but I have never seen a sex offender. Throughout the years, I have evolved enough to realize than any person is more than a crime. 

It is irrational to define people by their worst act or acts. It denies the existence of all the other deeds they have committed, the many good or even noble, acts. I recognize those other deeds, the other, good aspects of their personalities. I see people who had done a crime, not criminals, or inmates, detainees, or cons, or animals.

When I began to see the people instead of just the crimes, they also saw the good parts of themselves. In giving respect, they respected me, and as a consequence, respected themselves. They began to have self-respect without denying their crime

Unless you have been living under a rock, you most know by now that as a nation, The United States incarcerates more people than any other nation on the planet. We’re in the midst of a brutal social experiment in which we have enslaved black and brown people and poor people. We’re so hell-bent on retribution and punishment that we have lost sight of the humanity of our brothers and sisters and in the process, we have lost our souls.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Feeding the Wolves

Hola mi Gente,

I sometimes wonder if I’m too outspoken and if that’s the reason I have a hard time getting a righteous new gig. I think about it a little, and then I say, “Fuck that shit.” I am who I am. If I have to pay a price for that, I can at least sleep with a sound conscience.

Feeding the Wolves

One of the tragedies of 9/11, the one that never gets mentioned, was our collective response to the senseless violence. As someone who was there and who felt the earth shake as the Towers came down, as someone who witnessed human beings throwing themselves from the inferno, and who breathed the dust… Suffice it to say that as a nation we have not honored those who died that day.

As human beings we have this wonderful potential for transformative change and a way to disentangle ourselves from our karma. At the same time we also have this knack for falling asleep. Change is not an easy task. It’s as if we’re continuously facing a crossroads, continuously having to choose which way to go, what road to take.

If we’re honest, we would admit that much of our journey is like a sleep walk: the same roads taken, the circular, repetitive dysfunctional patterns of our lives. In order to make skillful choices, we need a way, a compass, a set of practices that work to challenge us and keep us out of comfort of automatic pilot. I think we first need to learn how to be gentle with ourselves. We need to develop compassion for our imperfections, and to embrace the not-so-pretty aspects that we work so hard to keep from others. This is not to say we work to co-sign our own bullshit, rather, it’s a way to recognize and honor our imperfections as well as our positive sides.

Anyway, I first heard the following shortly after 9/11. Perhaps you know of it. For me, this story really brings it home. Perhaps this has some application in your life, right now, this very moment… If you ever get a chance pick up anything by the teacher, Pema Chodron (click here). Believe me, you will thank me for a long time.

There was a story going around a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001. An American Indian grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty in the world and how it comes about. He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, the other understanding and kind. The young boy asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. The grandfather answered, “The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.”

And this is our challenge in a nutshell. It is the challenge we face as individuals and as part of this world gone slightly mad. How can we draw upon our inner potential to see what helps and what harms, what escalates war and aggression, and what lessens suffering. With the precarious nature of the current times -- a planet in financial chaos and the environment at the precipice of destruction, the time for sitting back has long gone. And though you might feel there’s nothing you can do, know that even the slightest gesture toward feeding the right wolf will help. Now, more than ever, you need to understand and act on this human potential for transformation.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

U-Turn

Hola mi Gente,

This is the longest I have been without regular work in 20 years. Sometimes it’s hard to keep sight of the light of the end of this dark tunnel. Still, every day I wake up, I wake up a winner. I already won today. Besides, regardless of my employment status, there’s this beautiful thing called life happening all around me. Gotta grab it by the throat while I still can. LOL

On another note, I am hoping to attend the Sanders rally in the South Bronx later today at the South Bronx’s St. Mary’s Park. More info here. I am not a Sanders’ supporter, but there is no question in my mind that he offers a viable and pragmatic alternative to the corporate democrat, Hillary Clinton. Some have even accused me of exercising my “privilege” clearly ignorant of my Puerto Rican heritage. My response is, you need to recognize your privilege if you think can afford a possible eight years of Hillary Clinton and the status quo. Because I don’t know about you, but I clearly understand that eight years of more fracking, more mass incarceration and the private prison industry, eternal war, and the military takeover of democratically elected foreign governments, is untenable.

* * *

The Life You Were Meant to Live

Life is change, growth is optional, choose wisely.

 -- Karen Kaiser Clark

I once read a book that asked the question, “What if you woke up one morning and realized you were living the wrong life?” LOL! I love it!

While people won't say it explicitly, in my work I get the sense that most people feel as if they're playing a starring role in a drama they never intended to play. I get this sense from so many people that they are somehow living the wrong life.

The thing is I see people do complete about faces all the time. In fact, I'm one of those people. About 26 years ago, I was a hopelessly addicted addict in solitary confinement -- sick, suffering from years of malnutrition, totally defeated -- it doesn't get any more hopeless than that. But something clicked right before then and many times after. My turn-around -- my about face -- happened in small increments until I evolved into the life I feel I was meant to live.

Others change in a flash. Gandhi and the French painter, Gauguin, changed overnight and undertook causes at a great price. Gauguin was a stockbroker leading the perfectly normal middle-class life and he just left one day. Left his wife and children and decided to become a painter. What's more, he painted in a style that was totally misunderstood by the public at the time. He lived most of the rest of his life in abject poverty and in the process condemned his wife and children to a life of destitution. Gauguin is today considered one of the greatest of the post-impressionists. I doubt that in his lifetime, Gauguin ever sold a painting for a significant sum of money. Eventually he died of syphilis and penniless. But he painted until the end of his life.

That was his passion. What's yours?

Gandhi, a chameleon if ever there was one, coined the term, “Be the change you want in the world.” He too was living a comfortable life until one day he was confronted with racism and it changed him forever. Whatever you might say about his inconsistencies, he was probably the single most influential pacifist in the 20^th century. His work influenced such people as Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh and countless others.

People do about faces all the time. People change political parties and careers, people give up their jobs as doctors and become poets, mothers quit their families to pursue careers and athletes quit their careers to spend more time with their families. There are passive people who become revolutionaries for a cause they didn't care about the day before.

I guess the message is that you can change at any time, no matter what your external circumstances. The people mentioned above are no different than you in many cases. We like to say, Those people were different, they were special. We're just plain folk. Well, if you look at the history of these change agents, you notice that they were just plain folk too. In fact, some had tasted failure numerous times before they found their calling.

What will you do when you get your wake-up call? Will you just turn over and fall asleep? Or will you heed the call? Because I can assure of this: you will be called. Perhaps you have been called already. 

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization...