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…

The Teachings of a Free Man

¡Hola! Everybody...
Whatever happened to the art of the question? Whatever happened to why? These past two days have been very hectic, leaving me little time to write...

I have a series of blogs on the racist roots of the modern neoconservative movement half done. Those I will post next week... stayed tuned.

* * *

Freeman, 1959

-=[ Freeman ]=-

... Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

-- Langston Hughes, A Dream Deferred

My father’s best friend for a long time was a man named Freeman. Freemeng (as my Puerto Rican relatives pronounced his name) was an African American man from an upper middle class family. He was what we would call back then a bohemian -- a free spirit/ thinker. I often wonder if Freeman was his real name, or if he chose that name for himself. Or maybe his parents chose to name him so in order to emphasize the inherent right to freedom we all are entitled to as human beings. I never knew...

I did know he was a nice man, always kind and gentle. He and my father would engage in deep topics. Everything from Marxism to Castro, education to jazz -- nothing was beyond their reach. My music teacher, Mr. White, often joined them. Shoot, the poet Allen Ginsberg lived in our building, but I think my mother didn’t like him because he had a penchant for walking around naked Howling his poetry. LOL!

Sometimes my mother, not having enough to feed them, would feed them pegao. Pegao (literally meaning, “stuck”) is the rice that -- yup! -- gets stuck to the bottom of the pot. It more financially stable homes, pegao was usually thrown away. For Nuyoricans, it was part of our staple -- nothing was thrown out! Feeling somewhat embarrassed at not having enough, my mother would tell Freeman and Mr. White that it was Puerto Rican fried rice and they loved it! It got so they wouldn’t eat my mother’s real rice -- they would insist on the pegao. LOL!

I would learn a lot from these men even as a little boy, as I would sit on my fathers lap with my ear to his chest, so that I could feel the vibrations of his voice through my ear. This was the 60s and everything was fodder for questioning. Blacks and Latino/as were asserting themselves, challenging the racist status quo; women were questioning gender roles, gays and lesbians were beginning to implement the strategies learned from the civil rights movement and using it for their own cause; an unpopular war fought under false pretext was raging -- it was a heady time. Our ramshackle apartment was always filled with thinkers, artists, activists, my elementary school teachers, and all kinds of characters.

Yes, I am a radical progressive. I am left of anyone you know... those days, and men like Freeman and my father, shaped my worldview. Here’s something I learned from Freeman. And perhaps this explains why he was called Freeman...

The history of black Americans and other people of color is often presented in contrast to general (white) American history. Blacks are too often portrayed as passive victims in an otherwise brilliant display of democracy and American expertise.

Slavery, Jim Crow, and racism are issues that beg to be swept under a rug in Mississippi somewhere. It those crackers, the history books seem to be saying, or (better yet) it was the ignorance of a long time ago, but that’s old news, this is post racial America.

It was Freeman’s point that this compulsion to deny or marginalize the black American experience did harm to everyone in our society. To begin with, he explained, the black American experience was not an aberration. American Indians were slaughtered for their lands. Landless citizens (even white ones) along with all women were denied the right to vote for many years. Homosexuality is still a black mark against many of our citizens.

Freeman taught that the black American experience is the history of America. His position was that the struggle of the marginalized to survive in the face of blinding hatred is in part the key to the understanding how we all can escape the chains of modern America.

I think if Freeman were alive today he would say that white Americans are learning today what the black race learned long ago the hard way: not to believe the corporate hype. People of color have been hearing those lies for hundreds of years. We take the media with a pinch of salt, and we know that many of our social institutions serve the more fortunate. We know the word retirement means getting old means you’re going to get tired of trying to make ends meet.

After World War II ended, there descended an extended period of prosperity for the middle class. Poor people and people of color suffered more because there were few opportunities for us to rise above the level of manual labor. And so we were forced to keep the historical memories of survival alive while others got along with a newfound confidence in the value of the dollar and the fact of perpetual labor. While others looked forward to comfortable retirement and brighter tomorrows, the ghettos were busy studying survival and revolution.

These studies can benefit almost everyone today. At least I believe that’s what Freeman would say.

Love,

Eddie

Humility

¡Hola! Everybody...
I will be away from the office at a conference all day... I’m in a rush, but I will finish my “Jesus” series on Sunday. Some would say that the most important relationship is the relationship with your Higher Power. I disagree: anytime you perceive your Higher Power as outside your self, your disassociating yourself from reality. Today, a little on the most important relationship in your life -- the relationship you have (or don’t) with your self.

* * *

-=[ Spiritual Dignity ]=-

What we strive for in the effort to resolve the tension between our sense of inferiority and our grandiosity is not modesty but humility -- spiritual dignity.

-- Jean Hardy

A common mistake in the self-esteem movement is the mistaken belief that by merely feeling better about yourself, or simply being “positive,” will solve all our problems. Self-esteem is respecting the self. But what is it exactly that we are esteeming? If our sense of self is based on feelings of grandiosity it follows that that puffing that up won’t result with more effective ways of dealing with yourself and others. Put more simply, if what you’re esteeming are the same issues that are causing you pain, then how will that help you?

I see a lot of two types of people these days. I see a lot of angry people walking around these days full of self-esteem on the one hand and many ego-maniacs with low self-esteem on the other. LOL!

Maybe we need to adopt a different strategy...

I like this notion of humility as a “spiritual dignity” because true humility has nothing to do with putting yourself down -- or what could be called self-abasement. There is a certain elegance and internal dignity to genuine humility.

Grandiosity is the opposite of putting yourself down (self-abasement); it is inflating your ego (self-exaltation) in order to feel better about yourself. Humility -- spiritual humility -- is as much the opposite of self-abasement (putting yourself down) as it is to self-exaltation (puffing the old ego up).

Self-abasement -- which alternates with feelings of superiority and inferiority -- comes from feelings of guilt and self-loathing and has nothing to do with the spiritual quality of humility. When we operate solely from an ego perspective, we feel small and powerless. These feelings in turn have the effect of instilling fear and judgment. Look around at those who pass their days judging and ridiculing. Do they seem like “big” people? LOL!

When we respect ourselves and our place in the universe, then we are humble in the true sense of the word. Humility is about keeping ourselves in perspective, knowing we are connected, accepting how small and powerless our ego-selves are, but also knowing that we contain a spark of the divine -- of something god-like -- within us too. Spiritual dignity is knowing that beyond the ego, we are powerful and eternal.

With this spiritual feeling comes a sense of awe and respect for the world we live in and a feeling of gratitude for the life we’ve been given.

Love,

Eddie

Howling at the Moon

¡Hola! Everybody... Yesterday I went with some friends to see the Harvey Milk biopic titled Milk. It’s one of the best movies I have seen this year, with Sean Penn turning in a nuanced, compelling performance. Director van Sant has constructed a piece of work that avoids all the usual pitfalls of biopics (melodrama being one). His characters are human: they have character defects and sometimes make bad choices -- gee, they’re human just like the rest of us?!!

van Sant manages a powerful retelling a of an important story and while at the same time faithfully documenting a human rights movement.

The movie conflict revolves mostly around a 1970s California referendum, Proposition 6, which proposed making it legal to fire openly gay people. The irony is that the same excuses used by the religious right back then, were used to drum up fear for the recent Prop Hate (or Prop. 8 as it is better known).

Bigotry is bigotry no matter how much you try to dress it up as moral self-righteous indignation or religious dogma. What this movie is ultimately about is human dignity. Sean Penn tore it up...

Anyone interested in seeing the repeat of history (I kept thinking of the Santayana quote, “Those who refuse to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it”) and the parallel “arguments” against human dignity, should check out the 1984 award-winning documentary, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.

* * *

-=[ I’m Over the Moon ]=-

-- Brenda Shaughnessy

I don’t like what the moon is supposed to do.

Confuse me, ovulate me,

spoon-feed me longing. A kind of ancient

date-rape drug. So I'll howl at you, moon,

I'm angry. I’ll take back the night. Using me to

swoon at your questionable light,

you had me chasing you,

the world’s worst lover, over and over

hoping for a mirror, a whisper, insight.

But you disappear for nights on end

with all my erotic mysteries

and my entire unconscious mind.

How long do I try to get water from a stone?

It's like having a bad boyfriend in a good band.

Better off alone. I’m going to write hard

and fast into you moon, face-fucking.

Something you wouldn’t understand.

You with no swampy sexual

promise but what we glue onto you.

That’s not real. You have no begging

cunt. No panties ripped off and the crotch

sucked. No lacerating spasms

sending electrical sparks through the toes.

Stars have those.

What do you have? You're a tool, moon.

Now, noon. There’s a hero.

The obvious sun, no bulls hit, the enemy

of poets and lovers, sleepers and creatures.

But my lovers have never been able to read

my mind. I’ve had to learn to be direct.

It’s hard to learn that, hard to do.

The sun is worth ten of you.

You don’t hold a candle

to that complexity, that solid craze.

Like an animal carcass on the road at night,

picked at by crows,

haunting walkers and drivers. Your face

regularly sliced up by the moving

frames of car windows. Your light is drawn,

quartered, your dreams are stolen.

You change shape and turn away,

letting night solve all night's problems alone.

* * *

Love,

Eddie