Freedom Is Never Free: It's Our Turn

In the last few days I have been so damn tired and discouraged and overwhelmed with sadness. I know I'm not alone. There was no justice for Trayvon, and there's not likely to be any. In the struggles for racial justice and reproductive rights, it feels like we're sliding backwards—and we are. A bit. Because freedom is never free, it's never safe, it's always under threat. If we are less than vigilant, our precious freedoms are eroded.

The events of the last few weeks drive home the reality that our freedoms are under threat. But this is nothing new. They are always under threat.

Many lives were utterly transformed by the civil rights and women's movements of the twentieth century. The work of those lovers of justice, their sacrifices, were not in vain. They accomplished so much. The recent Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act, the verdict in the Zimmerman trial, the NSA spying on Americans, the erosion of reproductive rights in states all over the country—none of these diminish the accomplishments of the brave freedom fighters who went before us.

Some of the best gave up their lives, went to prison, suffered horribly. Their sacrifices and dedication were not for naught. Many of us experience and remember the transformative power of those sacrifices. We have read and heard about them, studied and sung about them. We have ridden on the waves of those sacrifices to experience previously unimaginable freedoms.

Now those freedoms have been not only imagined but lived. We have lived them and tasted them and breathed them in, made them a part of the very fabric of our being. But we have also taken them for granted. We have fallen prey to wishful thinking that those wars were fought and won once and for all, that those battles are behind us, that those freedoms are secure. Sometimes we even forget the high price that was paid for them.

We naively thought that because we ourselves had been transformed by those freedoms, so too had the rest of the country. We failed to recognize the power and determination of the untransformed, the unconverted, the recalcitrant, the small-minded and mean-spirited. We failed to recognize that although progress has been made, our lives are still permeated by systemic injustice—it poisons and plagues our every breath, every step. No one is free of it.

It's time for us to step up and build on and strengthen the progress made by the freedom fighters who came before us. Although it may seem like a heavy burden, although we may have had other plans for our lives that didn't involve struggle and sacrifice, and although it may seem that the obstacles before us are insurmountable, in actuality, this work is a privilege. It's a high and sacred calling. It is the very stuff of life to build communities and networks of activists. We march arm-in-arm with all who have fought for justice throughout history and with all who fight for justice today all over the world. Not only are we not alone, we are in mighty, illustrious company.

For much of my adult life, I have felt wistful that I missed the glory days of the civil rights movement. I would have given just about anything to march with the throng to Montgomery and sing with the Freedom Singers. Silly me. I didn't miss my chance. My voice, my work, my presence are needed. Now. Not only is it not too late, but now is exactly the right time.

It will never be too late to walk in the footsteps of Harry T. Moore, Rosa Parks, Dr. King, Margaret Sanger, Mahatma Gandhi, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Nelson Mandela, and Susan B. Anthony. We still have so much to learn from them. It will never be too late to follow their example, to add our voices to theirs and our sacrifice to theirs. Not only is it not too late, but now is the time. It's our turn. The baton has been passed, and we must not fail to take hold of it. They are counting us, that mighty company, to continue their work and pay the price for freedom. Because God knows it's never free.

Capitol Police Observe MLK's Birthday with an Episode of Racial Profiling

January 15, 2013, was the day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. should have been celebrating his 84th birthday. (Was he really only 39 when he was assassinated? I was 11 at the time. I thought 39 was ancient then. Now it seems so very young.) January 15 was also the day of Scott Walker's annual State of the State address, and the day a troubled young man, Kvon Smith, posted on Facebook that he was planning to bring Molotov cocktails to the Capitol.

Having received a heads-up about Smith's plan, and having determined that it was a credible threat, the intrepid Capitol Police, those daring keepers of attendance for the Solidarity Sing Along, commendably notified the state police and, armed with a photo and their keen powers of observation, kept a sharp lookout for Smith.

Toward the end of the sing along, a horde of schoolchildren joined in singing "Solidarity Forever" in the rotunda (video). The video description says it was taken moments before the Capitol Police identified Smith, who was standing in the rotunda, just outside the frame of the video.

However, before that, another young man, Colin Bowden—who resembles Smith only insofar as he too is young, black, and male—was taken into custody by the Capitol Police. Bowden was handcuffed and detained without being told why.

However, state Department of Administration spokesperson Stephanie Marquis claimed that Bowden was taken into custody because he "had all the characteristics of Mr. Smith and was carrying a bag" (emphasis added).

Judge for yourself. Would you say that the young man on the left has "all the characteristics" of the young man on the right?

In a statement to friends and supporters on his Facebook page, Bowden had this to say about his experience:

I was told I am a spitting image of the person they thought called in a "serious threat." This is something I was used to in Chicago, not Madison. ... Perhaps the man in this picture looks like me. I doubt it, but I guess people who don't know black people might mix us up. You see, when you get the wrong person because you're looking at color before the facts, you risk losing actual perpetrators. If they had spent more time on investigating and trying to find the actual person instead of any ol' black boy, they might've caught him sooner.

Indeed, while the Capitol Police were determining that Bowden was not Smith, the rotunda was full of people, many of them schoolchildren and one of them Kvon Smith, with his backpack. The Wisconsin State Journal reports: "Marquis said that Capitol Police and State Patrol officers were posted at all the Capitol entrances, and that Capitol Police officers immediately identified Smith when he entered the Capitol" (emphasis added).

Yet there's no mention of why, if he was identified as soon as he entered the building, it wasn't until he was all the way in the rotunda, surrounded by children and solidarity singers, that he was apprehended, or even why the building was still open when a credible bomb threat had been made.



It wasn't until Smith's backpack was taken outside to Wisconsin Avenue that part of the Capitol building was closed. The offices facing Wisconsin Avenue were evacuated, and the Wisconsin Avenue entrance to the Capitol was closed.

The following day, the Madison Fire Department confirmed that the liquids in Smith's backpack were neither explosive nor flammable.

Had Smith's backpack actually contained Molotov cocktails, had he acted quickly to ignite them in the rotunda, the misidentification of Bowden could easily have resulted in a terrible tragedy.

Nevertheless, the DOA issued a press release gloating that "Capitol Police protected hundreds of people in the state Capitol by apprehending and arresting Kvon Smith." And the clearly self-satisfied DOA Secretary Mike Huebsch crowed: "A tragedy was avoided and our Capitol remains safe because of the actions of our officers yesterday."

I wonder how safe Colin Bowden feels "because of the actions of our officers" on Tuesday. Or how overjoyed the parents of the children who thronged the rotunda feel about those same actions. And I'm sure Dr. King would have preferred that the Capitol Police mark the anniversary of his birth in a way that better reflected the values that he espoused.


I would venture that the Capitol Police "protected hundreds of people" Tuesday in the same way that they daily protect the citizens of Wisconsin from the nefarious noon-hour activities of the Solidarity Sing Along, especially the oh-so-hazardous banners.

Update: Colin Bowden has started a petition on Change.org demanding an end to racial profiling in the Wisconsin State Capitol. Please sign the petition and ask others to as well.

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Thanks to Judith Detert-Moriarty for her photo of Colin Bowden. The photo of Kvon Smith was obtained from the public portion of his Facebook profile. Thanks to Arthur Kohl-Riggs for the video of Kvon Smith's arrest.

The Singular and Extraordinary Path of Nonviolence

Dr. King walked the not-always-popular and not-always-well-understood path of nonviolence.

Nonviolence is extraordinarily effective in demonstrating the rightness of one's cause. When the British attacked the nonviolent resistors in India, it was evident to the world that the resistors, many of whom lost their lives, were in the right and that the British were in the wrong. When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, it was clear that her cause was just.

Nonviolent resistance requires the willingness to lay down one's own life for the sake of the cause, so it better be a damn good one. You don't make this kind of commitment to something that's marginally important.

Violence debases us. Nonviolence elevates us.

Violence strips both the perpetrator and the victim of human dignity.

Nonviolent resistance clothes the oppressed with dignity and enables them to view the oppressor with compassion.

Nonviolent resistance empowers the oppressed.

Violence begets only more violence.

Nonviolence begets understanding and empathy.

We need more nonviolent resistors of hate in the world today.

For my part, I commit myself to a path of nonviolence and compassion. Care to join me?

--Mary

The Most Durable Power in the World

When I was a little girl, my father sat the family down one night to watch the Chicago Sunday Evening Club, a weekly religious broadcast from Orchestra Hall in downtown Chicago. My parents often watched that program on Sunday nights, but this was the only time they insisted that we watch it with them. I remember my dad said it was important; there was an earnestness in his voice. That was the first time I ever saw Martin Luther King Jr. on television.


My sister, six years my senior, still remembers what Dr. King spoke about that day and actually found the text of his sermon online: "Paul's Letter to American Christians," what he called "an imaginary letter from the pen of the Apostle Paul." Here are a few excerpts:

There is another thing that disturbs me to no end about the American church. You have a white church and you have a Negro church. You have allowed segregation to creep into the doors of the church. How can such a division exist in the true Body of Christ? You must face the tragic fact that when you stand at 11:00 on Sunday morning to sing "All Hail the Power of Jesus Name" and "Dear Lord and Father of all Mankind," you stand in the most segregated hour of Christian America. They tell me that there is more integration in the entertaining world and other secular agencies than there is in the Christian church. How appalling that is. . . .

As you press on for justice, be sure to move with dignity and discipline, using only the weapon of love. Let no man pull you so low as to hate him. Always avoid violence. If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in your struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

In your struggle for justice, let your oppressor know that you are not attempting to defeat or humiliate him, or even to pay him back for injustices that he has heaped upon you. Let him know that you are merely seeking justice for him as well as yourself. Let him know that the festering sore of segregation debilitates the white man as well as the Negro. . . .

I still believe that love is the most durable power in the world.

No wonder my sister remembers Dr. King's sermon, and no wonder it was so important to my father that we listen. I was 11 years old when Dr. King was shot, so I could have been anywhere between, oh, say, five and ten or so the night we watched that program. If not for my sister's memory, I wouldn't have the faintest notion of what he spoke about. But I think I still got the message my father was hoping for. It was my dad's sense of urgency that made me pay attention and remember how important it was to him that we listen.

Today my husband, Tom, and I went to the state capitol in downtown Madison to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observance at noon. My sister was there, sitting among the VIPs, right next to Mayor Dave. We had lunch together afterward, and we talked about the night we watched the Chicago Sunday Evening Club.

I'm so proud of my father for knowing how important it was—and is—to listen to the words of Dr. King. I'm proud of my sister for remembering the sermon we listened to together those many years ago.

Tom and I went to show our support for the Soles (pronounced "So-lays"), a Mexican mariachi trio whose members attend our service in Spanish at Grace Episcopal Church and who were part of the program lineup. We got there early because the Soles told us 11 a.m. instead of noon, which was good, because we had great seats and time to greet my sister beforehand. I hope we go early again next year.

It was a beautiful gathering and celebration, a wonderfully mixed crowd of young and old, of many races and cultures. We sat in the capitol rotunda, under the the portrait of Lady Justice.


We sang "We Shall Overcome" together and did a brief community greeting, during which I met Geraldine Reed, who was sitting in the row in front of me. When she greeted me, she gave me a hug and told me that she had come here from New Orleans three years ago. I could tell that being there meant so much to her. She proudly introduced her grandson and his fiancee (or was it her granddaughter and her fiance?).

It didn't even occur to me until later that Geraldine is black and the young couple she introduced me to are white. I love that it didn't seem strange to me at the time. I'm grateful to Geraldine for her kindness and for her enthusiasm for the occasion. It felt like we were all family, all of us with Katrinas in our past, all of us with a lot to celebrate and a lot to be grateful for.

So now at the end of this beautiful day of remembrance, I'm thinking of how far we have come and how far we have to go. I'm thinking about my father and my sister and Geraldine and the Soles. I'm thinking about Dr. King and St. Paul and what they would say to us today if they could.

I think Dr. King would tell us to continue pressing on for justice with dignity and discipline, to shun segregation and violence, and he would reassure us that love is still the most durable power in the world.