CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS OF A GROWING KIND
One of the richest adventures I’ve had in my adult life is working as a resident chaplain in an urban setting. I worked for two years for a major hospital system in Houston, Texas. This hospital system had a mission statement of serving its diverse community and offering appropriate pastoral care. What I came to understand from this work experience was the incredible ethnic diversity as well as its diversity of faith traditions represented by patients in the hospital. I learned this as I made my rounds through the ER, ICU, Ambulatory Care, and other surgical units.
I have to say that I often learned (and still learning by the way) by my mistakes. I am a sixty-one year old European American male, so I’ve had lots to learn. I had already begun my multicultural journey in 1996, and by this time it was 2002-2004. I’ve been mentored and trained to be a co-facilitator in presentations to various groups and coalitions of individuals and organizations by Cherry Steinwender, the Co-Executive Director of The Center for the Healing of Racism in Houston, Texas (www.centerhealingracism.org), who has helped me to understand diversity in much more than just an academic way. She also inspired me to write a book about the “crazymaking” aspects of racism (see www.chrisbearbeam.com).
This was different, however. This was “down and dirty” experiential learning—sometimes of the most painful kind as I learned about my own Unaware Racism. One night, while on call all night, I met a young Asian woman in the cafeteria. I asked her if I could join her and introduced myself as the “on call chaplain.”
I began asking her questions about her background and where she grew up. She described coming to the U.S from Thailand with her family. She spent some time on a boat during the journey, and then tearfully described seeing a rape of a young woman by some robbers. As I asked her more questions, and listened to her story, trying to empathize with this horrendous experience, I realized I was doing so in some kind of clinical, non-verbal way, without much pathos or feeling. As I reflect on this, I can see that I knew so little about her culture, and what it took to get out of her country, I projected a kind of sympathy onto her, and she felt misunderstood and not really heard by me. She finally blurted out, through her tears, that I didn’t understand, and simply shut down in her conversation with me. Now, much later, I understand much better the reason for this.
We Americans are so narcissist and superior in our interactions with folks from a different ethnicity or culture that we come across grandiose and unfeeling. In many places in the world, there’s still the belief that Whites are the most superior people in the world. To a large degree this is accurate, because our separated isolationism keeps us closed off from the experiences of those of color, the majority of the planet’s inhabitants. As I view it, our denial keeps us from learning from the rich tapestry of diversity and the people who live in a culture so different from ours.
The hospital became host to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, (I even met a Zoroastrian one time at the hospital, and there were Roams there also), Muslims, Jews, and Christians, Eastern Orthodox Christians, New Age blends, atheists and agnostics. Each major sect or group has its own cultural milieu of how it deals with death (there was no lack of this at the hospital). They each have their own practices, rituals, prayers, use of authority, and customs related to death. The incident most poignant in my mind was being called to the death of a Buddhist person. I had just come out of the patient’s room, only minutes after the patient had died, and stood in the hall. I heard comments from the nurses behind me at the nursing station. I looked in the direction where they were looking, and I saw a huge group of Asian people walking towards me, very solemnly, and very sad. Apparently, in the Buddhist tradition, all of the friends and family of the loved one who died had to come as one group. Then there would be a number of prayers and rituals for the dead, and their custom was to wait near the dead person for a set space of time or until the soul had gone to its next resting place.
The Buddhists taught me the importance of honor, both to the living and the dead. They showed me the absolute belief in the afterlife of the soul and spirit. Finally, they taught me about the bond of community and family connection. In short, I was initiated into this diverse, Buddhist way of death and dying.
One more example comes to mind, and took place within a Christian, cultural context. One of my peer chaplains was a female, Catholic religious. She was very wise, and worked hard to understand the various cultures in which she worked. We were in ICU, and a patient had a very serious prognosis of death. The family’s priest was called, when we were in ICU, and we found he was an Eastern Orthodox priest. We got to the place and my female chaplain friend asked if they wanted us to pray with them, and they replied that they would. As she began to pray, the priest declared in a very patronizing way, that since he was the male he should be the one to pray. My friend backed off, and let the priest pray. Afterwards, she was one angry woman as she processed the sexism she had just faced. I was shocked as well, thinking that we were over this type of religious sexism, but then I realized that it was a shock back to the reality of the tenaciousness of patriarchal conditioning.
I’m grateful for this time of learning from diverse faith traditions, because it genuinely enriched me as a multicultural human being.
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
BOMBS BURSTING BARE
This poem is about the struggle of everyday, ordinary folks in a failed economy and with a government that doesn't really treat humans as 'real people' who have real emotions and needs just to survive. The chaotic mood in the poem is about human frustration in the shadow of power, and the need to take their own personal power back in the rousing trust of themselves:
Bombs busting bare
In the asteroid night air
In the stereo stratosphere
Through all your energy levels
Open your eyes/it’s time to hear
In the marching ahead
Of temporal dread
Sounds undulate blazing red
Red as the hair on Aunt
Maggie’s head
She wakens in night sweats
Her mouth pierced shut
By her anxious presence—surprise—
Sits up in bed without any
Proclamation of death/dream time
The raucous, indelicate sound
Has scared you sprinting bound
Doesn’t care about your feelings’ hound
Who has dashed off on a sugar high
Chasing the hare low and high
In the deep forest in his underwear
Wherever people look at
The people who say they know their book
They can not see their eyes hollowed and
Hallowed out, the retinas are on vacation
As the one great nation is blasted, broken
Brickbats fly through the air as people
Fight for a hill to stand on—blasting selves,
Ninja wash basins, silver nitrates, copper
Cowbells into one novena, the candle
Burns in a tiny house, the morning dew signs
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. May 2010
Bombs busting bare
In the asteroid night air
In the stereo stratosphere
Through all your energy levels
Open your eyes/it’s time to hear
In the marching ahead
Of temporal dread
Sounds undulate blazing red
Red as the hair on Aunt
Maggie’s head
She wakens in night sweats
Her mouth pierced shut
By her anxious presence—surprise—
Sits up in bed without any
Proclamation of death/dream time
The raucous, indelicate sound
Has scared you sprinting bound
Doesn’t care about your feelings’ hound
Who has dashed off on a sugar high
Chasing the hare low and high
In the deep forest in his underwear
Wherever people look at
The people who say they know their book
They can not see their eyes hollowed and
Hallowed out, the retinas are on vacation
As the one great nation is blasted, broken
Brickbats fly through the air as people
Fight for a hill to stand on—blasting selves,
Ninja wash basins, silver nitrates, copper
Cowbells into one novena, the candle
Burns in a tiny house, the morning dew signs
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. May 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
GENERAL SEMANTICS CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES FOR MATURITY
v WORDS DON’T MEAN, PEOPLE MEAN—words are only symbols that represent an idea. The same word doesn’t mean the same thing to all people (when people described car accidents, they describe it from their point of view). When we communicate, either to ourselves or others, it’s important to keep in mind that about 90% of our communication is sent and received non-verbally, and the rest are the words we say. People give meaning to words and communication.
v BE CONSCIOUS OF THE “IS” OF IDENTITY—someone may say “everyone with a mental illness is a criminal,” or “all African Americans are good basketball players,” or “all Asian Americans get good grades.” These are all examples of the “is” of identity principle. First of all, these are stereotypes. Secondly, any one of the examples mentioned above doesn’t define all of who a person really is. If I say, “I am so angry with you for what you did” am I anger in a human body? Has anyone ever seen anger as a person, place or thing? Facts tell us no. Listen to yourself to see how often you use the verb “to be” and practice using other verbs such as “I really got pissed off at you when you borrowed my bike and didn’t tell me.”
v THINK IN INCREMENTS—an increment is a smaller piece of the pie than the whole pie. When we have a lot of stress in our lives, we generally tend to see it as a large, overwhelming weight or obstacle, and we often feel like victims of circumstances without any power to deal with it. To think incrementally is to break down the huge pile of dirt that we have to move into smaller shovelfuls. Another way to state this is to use the phrase, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”
v USE THE PRINCIPLE OF DATING—no I’m not talking about going out to 6th street for a night on the town! Here’s what I mean: John Smith1958 is a different person from John Smith1984. One of the old writers wrote, ‘You never cross the same river twice,’ meaning that the river is always moving so there’s no way to cross the same water to get to the other side. Life isn’t stuck in cement, without any changes—we just feel like it is at times, because we see it through our eyes, and we may feel stuck in our lives. Dating helps us to remember that our lives, like the moving river, are constantly changing, and that we can use our own empowerment to make positive changes in our lives.
v USE THE PRINCIPLE OF INDEXING—this is similar to dating because it can help us to understand our difference from others. A healthy person doesn’t let others define him or her. To be self-differentiated from others is a mark of a mature person. Setting up personal boundaries for ourselves and others enables us to be more self-differentiated. We know where we end, and others start, so we can keep ourselves from just blending into another group or person. For some people stressors, tension and anxiety has become a pattern so that we simply react in knee-jerk ways to what life throws at us or to how others in our families react or respond. It’s played out as co-dependency. Indexing goes like this: Mary1 is not Mary2 or Mary3. ©Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. July, 2009
v BE CONSCIOUS OF THE “IS” OF IDENTITY—someone may say “everyone with a mental illness is a criminal,” or “all African Americans are good basketball players,” or “all Asian Americans get good grades.” These are all examples of the “is” of identity principle. First of all, these are stereotypes. Secondly, any one of the examples mentioned above doesn’t define all of who a person really is. If I say, “I am so angry with you for what you did” am I anger in a human body? Has anyone ever seen anger as a person, place or thing? Facts tell us no. Listen to yourself to see how often you use the verb “to be” and practice using other verbs such as “I really got pissed off at you when you borrowed my bike and didn’t tell me.”
v THINK IN INCREMENTS—an increment is a smaller piece of the pie than the whole pie. When we have a lot of stress in our lives, we generally tend to see it as a large, overwhelming weight or obstacle, and we often feel like victims of circumstances without any power to deal with it. To think incrementally is to break down the huge pile of dirt that we have to move into smaller shovelfuls. Another way to state this is to use the phrase, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”
v USE THE PRINCIPLE OF DATING—no I’m not talking about going out to 6th street for a night on the town! Here’s what I mean: John Smith1958 is a different person from John Smith1984. One of the old writers wrote, ‘You never cross the same river twice,’ meaning that the river is always moving so there’s no way to cross the same water to get to the other side. Life isn’t stuck in cement, without any changes—we just feel like it is at times, because we see it through our eyes, and we may feel stuck in our lives. Dating helps us to remember that our lives, like the moving river, are constantly changing, and that we can use our own empowerment to make positive changes in our lives.
v USE THE PRINCIPLE OF INDEXING—this is similar to dating because it can help us to understand our difference from others. A healthy person doesn’t let others define him or her. To be self-differentiated from others is a mark of a mature person. Setting up personal boundaries for ourselves and others enables us to be more self-differentiated. We know where we end, and others start, so we can keep ourselves from just blending into another group or person. For some people stressors, tension and anxiety has become a pattern so that we simply react in knee-jerk ways to what life throws at us or to how others in our families react or respond. It’s played out as co-dependency. Indexing goes like this: Mary1 is not Mary2 or Mary3. ©Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. July, 2009
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
FEBRUARY WORKSHOP ON CONNECTION BETWEEN RACISM AND THE DEATH PENALTY
February 20, 2010, Austin, Texas
The Campaign to End the Death Penalty sponsored a presentation entitled Lynching Then Lynching Now: the Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America. The event was held at UT, and Alan Bean (founder of www.friendsofjustice.org) partnered with Lily Hughes (national board member of the CEDP, and local representative in Austin. The workshop also included a Q & A time at the end of the workshop followed by a panel discussion.
As the title of the workshop affirms, there is a direct link between those executed on Death Row and racism. Racism still permeates many levels of all our institutions, but there is no more glaring injustice to all people, especially to persons of color, than our criminal justice system. Just as lynching was an integral part of southern culture during slavery and the Jim Crow era, so has the incarceration of persons of color (and at every phase) become our new lynching, and for many the obscene presence of the Death Penalty as it manifests today. The fact is this is an insidiously covert part of our American way of life, and so much so that we are unaware or ignorant of its reality—a notable feature of European Americans.
This lack of the understanding of accurate and historically proven knowledge has continued to perpetuate the stereotypes of Latina (o) s, Arab Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and so many other cultures who live in the U.S. This maze keeps us (European Americans) transfixed in ignorance, yes; it breeds more of the same if we don’t substitute it with truth.
Another effect is that we so often fail to view the nature of life as systemic and interdependent. To use this kind of perception means to acquire the art of seeing how the relationships of various cells or families or groups or cultures intermix with each other, bump up against each other, communicate with one another, to observe cause-and-effect relationships and dynamics, make choices and distinguish among different options. To view the world around us without a systemic model or paradigm, is myopic, and will cause us to end up where we don’t want to go.
We need clarity when we look at Racism and the Death Penalty through a “systemic” lens. We are looking at consequences and outcomes when we examine the Criminal Justice System. There are rational reasons for the way things are in the status quo. Here are some more stats from www.publiceye.org that will give facts to show there is a connection between Racism and the Death Penalty:
q Our U.S. prisons contain 2.1 million people, and 70% are persons of color
q African Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population, but are 48% of adults in the prison system
q African American males, if the current trend continues, can expect a 1 in 3 reality of winding up incarcerated
q Latina (I purposely use this term for both men and women) Americans represent about 10% of the U.S. population, but they’re 19% of people who are incarcerated; they comprise 23% of those convicted for drug offences
q 1 in 25 adult Native Americans is under the jurisdiction of the nation’s criminal justice system—more than twice the number of White adults in the system
q About 43% of death row prisoners are African American, more than three times the percentage of African Americans in the national population
One of the presenters, Alan Bean, said, “We’re dealing with a new Jim Crow” in our contemporary culture; he continued to wrap up his presentation by saying that it’s possible to combat it with new narratives, and this is a way to win popular support. At the end of this portion, Lily and Alan answered questions from the participants.
A dictionary definition of racism is that it’s a way of prejudice and bias that stems from our belief that we are racially superior, as an individual or as a group, in relationship with others. Actually, I lied—this is not strictly a dictionary definition. It’s one that I have synthesized from various sources.
If we believe we (Whites) are superior, in every way, then we can justify actions that are against every ethical point, and punish them. Certain religious teachings beginning around the Nineteenth Century interpreted the Bible to say that Blacks, Jews and others were animals and devoid of a soul. On the other hand, the White line was pure and was the recipients of the riches of the world. Thus, a manifest destiny was created as a part of our fictional, national narrative.
A state-sponsored lynching now lacks the frivolity of lynchings in quaint little towns by those who claimed to “follow the Lord.” Those who are most concerned about laws and more laws carry out the law; we pick and choose and dispense with a law of compassion and justice. These serious people in all institutions, mainly those who usually are at the top, wield the power and collude with each other. Most CEOs are still white and male. 98% of DAs are European American.
Even though we have passed many laws dealing with discrimination, racism is still our national way of life. Racism has always been about Whites enriching themselves (such as in the privatized penal-industrial complex) at the expense of others who don’t look like us. Many folks think that racism is only about individual actions of putting those we deem inferior, but clearly there is a direct relationship between racism, imprisonment and the implementation of the death penalty.
Meanwhile, Whites remain invisible to themselves. Why is this? We wear our invisibility well, because we don’t see our part in the historical-psycho-social-economic problem.
Persons of color already see it, because they’ve lived with it for about four hundred years; they know it and feel it, but generally speaking European Americans live a life of denial when it comes to racism. How often do you see a group of White folks talking opening about the problem, with the intention of changing the causal factors? At the end of the day, we don’t want to abandon our White Privilege.
The use of the death penalty as a method whereby to continue to keep racism alive will be clear to those willing to open-mindedly and clearly examine the connection between racism and the death penalty. We, as those who have European descent, need to do our own healing and changing first. We can’t expect anyone else to do it for us, because it’s our responsibility. We may be inspired by our change, and other’s change, to fuel the movement of abolishing the death penalty.
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. February, 2010
The Campaign to End the Death Penalty sponsored a presentation entitled Lynching Then Lynching Now: the Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America. The event was held at UT, and Alan Bean (founder of www.friendsofjustice.org) partnered with Lily Hughes (national board member of the CEDP, and local representative in Austin. The workshop also included a Q & A time at the end of the workshop followed by a panel discussion.
As the title of the workshop affirms, there is a direct link between those executed on Death Row and racism. Racism still permeates many levels of all our institutions, but there is no more glaring injustice to all people, especially to persons of color, than our criminal justice system. Just as lynching was an integral part of southern culture during slavery and the Jim Crow era, so has the incarceration of persons of color (and at every phase) become our new lynching, and for many the obscene presence of the Death Penalty as it manifests today. The fact is this is an insidiously covert part of our American way of life, and so much so that we are unaware or ignorant of its reality—a notable feature of European Americans.
This lack of the understanding of accurate and historically proven knowledge has continued to perpetuate the stereotypes of Latina (o) s, Arab Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and so many other cultures who live in the U.S. This maze keeps us (European Americans) transfixed in ignorance, yes; it breeds more of the same if we don’t substitute it with truth.
Another effect is that we so often fail to view the nature of life as systemic and interdependent. To use this kind of perception means to acquire the art of seeing how the relationships of various cells or families or groups or cultures intermix with each other, bump up against each other, communicate with one another, to observe cause-and-effect relationships and dynamics, make choices and distinguish among different options. To view the world around us without a systemic model or paradigm, is myopic, and will cause us to end up where we don’t want to go.
We need clarity when we look at Racism and the Death Penalty through a “systemic” lens. We are looking at consequences and outcomes when we examine the Criminal Justice System. There are rational reasons for the way things are in the status quo. Here are some more stats from www.publiceye.org that will give facts to show there is a connection between Racism and the Death Penalty:
q Our U.S. prisons contain 2.1 million people, and 70% are persons of color
q African Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population, but are 48% of adults in the prison system
q African American males, if the current trend continues, can expect a 1 in 3 reality of winding up incarcerated
q Latina (I purposely use this term for both men and women) Americans represent about 10% of the U.S. population, but they’re 19% of people who are incarcerated; they comprise 23% of those convicted for drug offences
q 1 in 25 adult Native Americans is under the jurisdiction of the nation’s criminal justice system—more than twice the number of White adults in the system
q About 43% of death row prisoners are African American, more than three times the percentage of African Americans in the national population
One of the presenters, Alan Bean, said, “We’re dealing with a new Jim Crow” in our contemporary culture; he continued to wrap up his presentation by saying that it’s possible to combat it with new narratives, and this is a way to win popular support. At the end of this portion, Lily and Alan answered questions from the participants.
A dictionary definition of racism is that it’s a way of prejudice and bias that stems from our belief that we are racially superior, as an individual or as a group, in relationship with others. Actually, I lied—this is not strictly a dictionary definition. It’s one that I have synthesized from various sources.
If we believe we (Whites) are superior, in every way, then we can justify actions that are against every ethical point, and punish them. Certain religious teachings beginning around the Nineteenth Century interpreted the Bible to say that Blacks, Jews and others were animals and devoid of a soul. On the other hand, the White line was pure and was the recipients of the riches of the world. Thus, a manifest destiny was created as a part of our fictional, national narrative.
A state-sponsored lynching now lacks the frivolity of lynchings in quaint little towns by those who claimed to “follow the Lord.” Those who are most concerned about laws and more laws carry out the law; we pick and choose and dispense with a law of compassion and justice. These serious people in all institutions, mainly those who usually are at the top, wield the power and collude with each other. Most CEOs are still white and male. 98% of DAs are European American.
Even though we have passed many laws dealing with discrimination, racism is still our national way of life. Racism has always been about Whites enriching themselves (such as in the privatized penal-industrial complex) at the expense of others who don’t look like us. Many folks think that racism is only about individual actions of putting those we deem inferior, but clearly there is a direct relationship between racism, imprisonment and the implementation of the death penalty.
Meanwhile, Whites remain invisible to themselves. Why is this? We wear our invisibility well, because we don’t see our part in the historical-psycho-social-economic problem.
Persons of color already see it, because they’ve lived with it for about four hundred years; they know it and feel it, but generally speaking European Americans live a life of denial when it comes to racism. How often do you see a group of White folks talking opening about the problem, with the intention of changing the causal factors? At the end of the day, we don’t want to abandon our White Privilege.
The use of the death penalty as a method whereby to continue to keep racism alive will be clear to those willing to open-mindedly and clearly examine the connection between racism and the death penalty. We, as those who have European descent, need to do our own healing and changing first. We can’t expect anyone else to do it for us, because it’s our responsibility. We may be inspired by our change, and other’s change, to fuel the movement of abolishing the death penalty.
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. February, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
ANGELA DAVIS, EVER THE REVOLUTIONARY
I heard Angela Davis recently, speaking at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Lecture, at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Ms. Davis’ speech and comments brought back many memories of the early movement during the Sixties. It also enflamed other ideas that perhaps had lain dormant within my mind.
Her words and presence brought back to mind my own time spent in Berkeley and San Francisco during the Sixties. During those times of political foment and resistance, Angela Davis was prominent in forming the rhetoric of the movement. As I listened to the speech, Ms. Davis’ presence and words, gave off an air of humility, however, about the movement’s composition of ‘all the people,’ not just those up front on the stage. For me, it was her inspired articulation (as one of the spokespersons of the Freedom Movement’s ideology) that helped me in a personal way to focus on what this shaking of the energies was really all about. She was eloquent in her revolutionary framing of the struggle that included this entire nation, whether they knew it or not.
As I listened to her thoughtful and philosophical enunciations, in my own being I honored her, because I realize that I stand on her shoulders, as well as the many, unnamed and ordinary people who took up the struggle at that time.
If the truth were told, we all stand on the shoulders of the Abolitionists who fought to end slavery, and the Abolitionists who fight to change the U.S. Prison/Industrial Complex. MLK, Jr. galvanized the Civil Rights Movement because his rhetoric and actions challenged the white-structural, institutional racism in the nation with our common desire for pragmatic justice. Whether it was for tenant’s rights in Chicago, the garbage collector’s strike in Memphis, or his vehement denunciation of the Viet Nam War his imposing posture against ALL injustice.
It was King, who said that if we find injustice in one place, then we find that it affects all of us—or as he said elsewhere, all humans are bound inextricably into the fabric of all. He was very blunt about the need to have a just healthcare system, and that perhaps this was one of the greatest injustices of all. The center of this fabric consists of the sacred dignity of each human on the planet.
Ms. Davis illustrated a key point to elucidate that the movement wasn’t about celebrity, or who was up front on stage. It was indeed all of us. It had to be all of us to get the nation’s attention and bring about change the way the movement did.
This reminded me, very affectionately, that I stand on the shoulders of my soul mate and mentor, Cherry Steinwender, also Co-Executive Director of The Center of the Healing of Racism, Houston, Texas. Cherry has taught me that my job as a human being is to internalize oneness, and the empowerment that emerges from speaking one’s truth from the source of self-trust and inner beauty.
When Cherry lost her five-year-old son in his battle with Leukemia (most likely sometime in the Fifties), she went to her Catholic Church, in the State of Louisiana, and asked the priest for a plot in the cemetery to bury her son. The priest told her that African Americans couldn’t be buried in the church’s cemetery. Sometimes the cost of death is too great—if you have to choose to give up your dignity.
After this incident, Cherry vowed never again to trust anyone who claimed to speak for God, or some Higher Power, if they mixed their communication into some kind of ‘half-right and half-wrong’ kind of doctrine. She told me that when she made this decision, she left feeling more empowered. The incident sparked a deep trust in her own intelligence—something she had known for a long time.
Later on, Cherry and friends would sit around a kitchen table and openly lay the issue of racism out for open discussion. Their group was diverse, and they found that they could take the risk to talk about a subject that most folks in this nation (most notably European Americans) just won’t talk about in some kind of productive way.
From this point of collective need, they became a community that went on to begin The Center for the Healing of Racism, founded in 1989; since that time individuals and groups, from places around the world, have been impacted in a very positive and healing way. Angela Davis made this point also. She emphasized that community built on trust and respect is the only thing that will keep a movement moving forward to achieve its goals. In her speech, she made sure to tell us that all of us there that night were a community as well. We were the movement.
© ChristopherBearBeam,M.A. 1/28/10
Her words and presence brought back to mind my own time spent in Berkeley and San Francisco during the Sixties. During those times of political foment and resistance, Angela Davis was prominent in forming the rhetoric of the movement. As I listened to the speech, Ms. Davis’ presence and words, gave off an air of humility, however, about the movement’s composition of ‘all the people,’ not just those up front on the stage. For me, it was her inspired articulation (as one of the spokespersons of the Freedom Movement’s ideology) that helped me in a personal way to focus on what this shaking of the energies was really all about. She was eloquent in her revolutionary framing of the struggle that included this entire nation, whether they knew it or not.
As I listened to her thoughtful and philosophical enunciations, in my own being I honored her, because I realize that I stand on her shoulders, as well as the many, unnamed and ordinary people who took up the struggle at that time.
If the truth were told, we all stand on the shoulders of the Abolitionists who fought to end slavery, and the Abolitionists who fight to change the U.S. Prison/Industrial Complex. MLK, Jr. galvanized the Civil Rights Movement because his rhetoric and actions challenged the white-structural, institutional racism in the nation with our common desire for pragmatic justice. Whether it was for tenant’s rights in Chicago, the garbage collector’s strike in Memphis, or his vehement denunciation of the Viet Nam War his imposing posture against ALL injustice.
It was King, who said that if we find injustice in one place, then we find that it affects all of us—or as he said elsewhere, all humans are bound inextricably into the fabric of all. He was very blunt about the need to have a just healthcare system, and that perhaps this was one of the greatest injustices of all. The center of this fabric consists of the sacred dignity of each human on the planet.
Ms. Davis illustrated a key point to elucidate that the movement wasn’t about celebrity, or who was up front on stage. It was indeed all of us. It had to be all of us to get the nation’s attention and bring about change the way the movement did.
This reminded me, very affectionately, that I stand on the shoulders of my soul mate and mentor, Cherry Steinwender, also Co-Executive Director of The Center of the Healing of Racism, Houston, Texas. Cherry has taught me that my job as a human being is to internalize oneness, and the empowerment that emerges from speaking one’s truth from the source of self-trust and inner beauty.
When Cherry lost her five-year-old son in his battle with Leukemia (most likely sometime in the Fifties), she went to her Catholic Church, in the State of Louisiana, and asked the priest for a plot in the cemetery to bury her son. The priest told her that African Americans couldn’t be buried in the church’s cemetery. Sometimes the cost of death is too great—if you have to choose to give up your dignity.
After this incident, Cherry vowed never again to trust anyone who claimed to speak for God, or some Higher Power, if they mixed their communication into some kind of ‘half-right and half-wrong’ kind of doctrine. She told me that when she made this decision, she left feeling more empowered. The incident sparked a deep trust in her own intelligence—something she had known for a long time.
Later on, Cherry and friends would sit around a kitchen table and openly lay the issue of racism out for open discussion. Their group was diverse, and they found that they could take the risk to talk about a subject that most folks in this nation (most notably European Americans) just won’t talk about in some kind of productive way.
From this point of collective need, they became a community that went on to begin The Center for the Healing of Racism, founded in 1989; since that time individuals and groups, from places around the world, have been impacted in a very positive and healing way. Angela Davis made this point also. She emphasized that community built on trust and respect is the only thing that will keep a movement moving forward to achieve its goals. In her speech, she made sure to tell us that all of us there that night were a community as well. We were the movement.
© ChristopherBearBeam,M.A. 1/28/10
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Saturday, December 19, 2009
PERPETRATORS OF AFGHANISTAND AND IRAQ OCCUPATIONS USE FLAWED LOGIC
Patriotism is a funny thing. It’s often used for a hyper vigilant cover for ignorance and fear. The current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq follow the same, sick pattern of thinking we’ve always followed when conflicts are the result of the imprisoned, colonized mind, consumerism, racism, and power. It’s unconscionable that President Obama has just ordered 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. This on the heals of pious promises to the American people that we would drop troop occupation, bring the troops home, and focus on the real problems: universal healthcare, insuring all Americans a living wage, and prosecuting members of the prior Administration for war crimes or crimes of lying and falsifying information.
Patriotism may be a bias that creates a commitment to denial and the glory of imperious empowerment at the expense of smaller countries that are rich in natural resources, like oil, and have suffered under the jackboot of occupation and injustice. These occupations are wars of the rich, the connected and the elites, and the rest of us who oppose them aren’t being listened to. One organization, March Forward, urges all troops to refuse orders to go to Afghanistan. A sad result is that more troops back from Iraq have committed suicide than have been killed in battle.
Those claiming to be patriotic appear to have cases of selected memory. They will claim to be loyal to the U.S. Constitution, following the Commander-in-Chief’s orders on blind faith, but they ignore the constitutional imperative that both Houses must declare a legal war.
They intone that recruits signed a contract to unthinkingly follow all orders. They say that those who refuse to go to war, after experiencing the reality of way, should have never signed those contracts, and have full knowledge they’re now breaking the law.
This is an example of Western, white-based, linear reasoning; it’s rigid and doesn’t allow for any change on the part of Conscientious Objectors to military service and war. The way the world works is that it’s in process constantly of change, death, and growth. It’s dynamic is cyclic, not linear. The fact that a soldier has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, seen the death of innocents, participated in interrogation techniques that may be torturous, and have known the racism and injustice firsthand has every right to respond like an intelligent human being and change his/her mind from a political, philosophical, or spiritual motivation. This is dissonant to the super-patriots’ tunnel-vision view of patriotism and sacrifice, so it cuts no ice with them; in fact, it creates division within themselves, and all they can do is to push back with paranoid, parroted, reactionary ideas, given to them by their social conditioning and the corporation’s cry for help!
I would argue that dissenters and COs are living out the real definition of patriotism. A loyal person isn’t one who never rocks the boat. True loyalty is born out of living out one’s truth even when under attack; true allegiance is not found in a ‘go along to get along’ philosophy. It’s found in the minds and actions of the nitty-gritting saying “no” philosophy in order that truth and justice has a tangible and demonstrable example of a person who believes that an illegal war will take more life in the end.
I know. I was a Vietnam Era Vet who became a CO. I was a CO when I was ordered by my local draft board in 1969 to be inducted into the U.S. Army. Did I remain the same throughout my entire military experience? Absolutely not. I grew as a human being in my core beliefs. In the final analysis, this is what it’s all about. I was a human being first, and a soldier second. I took personal responsibility for my own life, and the position in which I placed myself in: would I be a mindless, subservient killer, or a thoughtful person who had to consider whether any form of violence, abuse, or colonial domination would save lives. The ethical adage of do no harm was one guideline I followed, and almost forty years later I’m glad I did. Patriotism that feeds off illegal wars has never worked and it never will.
If you aren’t military or ex-military, you as an ordinary citizen must decide how you come down on this issue. If you decide or have already decided that we must get out of these racist, illegal conflicts, you must act. You can partner with other anti-war groups in their efforts to stop the war machine, or you can act alone by whatever means you choose. This is your choice. This is our choice, and choose we must. Do not let your speaking truth to power be shut down. Life is the most sacred essence we have, so we must take life by the horns, and pass it along in whatever form of protest we think is best.
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. December 2009
Patriotism may be a bias that creates a commitment to denial and the glory of imperious empowerment at the expense of smaller countries that are rich in natural resources, like oil, and have suffered under the jackboot of occupation and injustice. These occupations are wars of the rich, the connected and the elites, and the rest of us who oppose them aren’t being listened to. One organization, March Forward, urges all troops to refuse orders to go to Afghanistan. A sad result is that more troops back from Iraq have committed suicide than have been killed in battle.
Those claiming to be patriotic appear to have cases of selected memory. They will claim to be loyal to the U.S. Constitution, following the Commander-in-Chief’s orders on blind faith, but they ignore the constitutional imperative that both Houses must declare a legal war.
They intone that recruits signed a contract to unthinkingly follow all orders. They say that those who refuse to go to war, after experiencing the reality of way, should have never signed those contracts, and have full knowledge they’re now breaking the law.
This is an example of Western, white-based, linear reasoning; it’s rigid and doesn’t allow for any change on the part of Conscientious Objectors to military service and war. The way the world works is that it’s in process constantly of change, death, and growth. It’s dynamic is cyclic, not linear. The fact that a soldier has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, seen the death of innocents, participated in interrogation techniques that may be torturous, and have known the racism and injustice firsthand has every right to respond like an intelligent human being and change his/her mind from a political, philosophical, or spiritual motivation. This is dissonant to the super-patriots’ tunnel-vision view of patriotism and sacrifice, so it cuts no ice with them; in fact, it creates division within themselves, and all they can do is to push back with paranoid, parroted, reactionary ideas, given to them by their social conditioning and the corporation’s cry for help!
I would argue that dissenters and COs are living out the real definition of patriotism. A loyal person isn’t one who never rocks the boat. True loyalty is born out of living out one’s truth even when under attack; true allegiance is not found in a ‘go along to get along’ philosophy. It’s found in the minds and actions of the nitty-gritting saying “no” philosophy in order that truth and justice has a tangible and demonstrable example of a person who believes that an illegal war will take more life in the end.
I know. I was a Vietnam Era Vet who became a CO. I was a CO when I was ordered by my local draft board in 1969 to be inducted into the U.S. Army. Did I remain the same throughout my entire military experience? Absolutely not. I grew as a human being in my core beliefs. In the final analysis, this is what it’s all about. I was a human being first, and a soldier second. I took personal responsibility for my own life, and the position in which I placed myself in: would I be a mindless, subservient killer, or a thoughtful person who had to consider whether any form of violence, abuse, or colonial domination would save lives. The ethical adage of do no harm was one guideline I followed, and almost forty years later I’m glad I did. Patriotism that feeds off illegal wars has never worked and it never will.
If you aren’t military or ex-military, you as an ordinary citizen must decide how you come down on this issue. If you decide or have already decided that we must get out of these racist, illegal conflicts, you must act. You can partner with other anti-war groups in their efforts to stop the war machine, or you can act alone by whatever means you choose. This is your choice. This is our choice, and choose we must. Do not let your speaking truth to power be shut down. Life is the most sacred essence we have, so we must take life by the horns, and pass it along in whatever form of protest we think is best.
© Christopher Bear Beam, M.A. December 2009
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