Save Us from the Madness

In a segment of her show Thursday night, Rachel Maddow focused on Senate Chaplain Barry Black, whose morning prayers aren't pulling any punches:

Arlette Saenz on "The Note Blog" at ABC News says that "from the onset of the government shutdown, Black has turned his prayers into punditry, urging Congress to find a way to reopen the government. I would suggest that prayers may often sound like punditry. When we pray for peace, we're opining that peace is better than war. As a resident of Wisconsin, "save us from the madness" is a prayer I've uttered many a time.

Like many others, I find the shutdown extremely disheartening. Sickening even. I'm tempted to write that the inmates have taken over the asylum, but I don't want to cast aspersions on inmates in general, who are undoubtedly saner than the Tea Party Confederates currently holding the country hostage. At the New York Times, Timothy Egan comes right out and calls the GOP the "Party of Madness":

About 30 or so Republicans in the House, bunkered in gerrymandered districts while breathing the oxygen of delusion, are now part of a cast of miscreants who have stood firmly on the wrong side of history.

In considering Joan Walsh's assertion that the shutdown is the culmination of 50 years of GOP race-baiting, Andrew Sullivan suggests that the impeachment of Bill Clinton was

the first sign of madness when the Democrats first truly wielded power after the Southern Strategy bore fruit under Reagan. ... In the end, I could only explain the foam-flecked frenzy of opposition to Clinton and Obama by the sense that the Civil Rights Revolution of the 1960s was the defining event for a certain generation, that the backlash to it was seen as a restoration of the right people running the country (i.e. no minorities with real clout), and that Clinton’s and even more Obama’s victories meant this narrative was revealed as an illusion. This is compounded by racial and cultural panic—against gays, immigrants, Muslims, Latinos etc—and cemented by a moronic, literalist, utterly politicized version of Christianity. This mindset—what I have called the "fundamentalist psyche"—is what is fueling the rage. ... It is inherently irrational.

This irrational "foam-flecked frenzy" of racism and cynical race-baiting has plagued us as a nation for far too long. Enough already with the Southern Strategy. It has hurt all of us. Deeply. It's time for those of us who are offended and horrified by the madness to put our collective foot down, to rise up and speak up and keep doing so until sanity prevails. There is no refuge in silence. Silence = complicity = a never-ending reign of madness. Listen to the beautiful resonance of the chaplain's voice:

Have mercy upon us, oh God, and save us from the madness.

Can I get an Amen?

Immigration Uproar

An editorial on CNN Opinion purports to explain why the uproar over immigration has gone nationwide, but the authors, Audrey Singer and Jill H. Wilson, both at the Brookings Institution, left out some key factors. The factors they cite are the economic downturn and the increase of immigrant populations in urban and suburban areas from 2000 to 2010. "The friction in places unaccustomed to or unprepared for new inflows of foreigners, particularly those who are assumed to be present illegally, manifests itself in different ways."

Scapegoating is common when there's an economic downturn, because those who are actually to blame for the country's economic woes want to divert attention away from themselves. Fanning the flames of racism and xenophobia is a time-honored method of deflecting blame toward those who have the least power:

History is full of irrefutable evidence that when the economy gets bad, scapegoats are targeted, and the worst instincts of humanity reveal themselves. Alabama has asked its citizens to cross invisible boundaries of humanity—waging political battles on the backs of school children, cutting access to the most basic human needs, like water. —Ilyse Hogue.

Although most Americans favor reasonable, comprehensive immigration reform, the small percentage of those who don't are the ones who are the most vocal. They believe they have a personal, vested interest in driving people of color out of their communities. Their fear and hatred compels them. That hatred is validated and reinforced by the terrorizing raids of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

On the other hand, few of those who favor reasonable reform are as compelled or as vocal. Because they may not feel that they personally have a vested interest in the outcome, they keep silent while the xenophobes freely and prolifically spew their hatred.

Another reason anti-immigrant uproar has gone nationwide is that there's a lot of money being funneled into it. And capitalism, whose great golden calf is the bottom line unhindered by any moral compunctions, is always in favor of cheap, exploitable labor with no legal protections. Just ask the booming prisons-for-profit industry.

The Immigration Policy Center dispels the notion that immigrants are the cause of unemployment:

Immigrants are not the cause of unemployment in the United States. Empirical research has demonstrated repeatedly that there is no correlation between immigration and unemployment. In fact, immigrants—including the unauthorized—create jobs through their purchasing power and their entrepreneurship, buying goods and services from U.S. businesses and creating their own businesses, both of which sustain U.S. jobs. The presence of new immigrant workers and consumers in an area also spurs the expansion of businesses, which creates new jobs.

We have to realize that we do indeed, all of us, have a stake in what happens to the immigrants in our midst. We must raise our voices above the uproar and advocate for common sense and compassion. The immigrants among us are our brothers and sisters, and in answer to a very old question, we are indeed their keepers.

Strange Fruit and the Execution of Troy Davis

I am numb this morning. I woke up to learn that Troy Davis was killed last night. I know that for a long time black men have been put to death for flimsier reasons than those given for Troy Davis’s execution. I know we still have a long way to go in the struggle against racism. I suppose it was naive of me to think we were past such racial barbarity, even in Georgia. But still the news comes as a dreadful shock.

Author Tim Wise objects to the “I am Troy Davis” meme when repeated by white people: “To most all white folks and folks with money generally, please stop saying ‘I am Troy Davis.’ No, no you are not. Nor would you ever be. If you don't understand that, you understand nothing.” True. There is a great chasm between my experience and that of Troy Davis. I may very well understand nothing. But I still assert that “we are all Troy Davis.” Because to accept the chasm between us is not an option. The things that divide us are temporal and insignificant. The things that bind us together, whether we acknowledge them or not, are eternal. Although my meager ability to identify with such a one as Troy Davis is paltry, my weakness, my ignorance, doesn't change the fact that in truth Troy Davis is my brother. Jesus died for him as surely as he died for me. We are all Troy Davis, because the hatred and injustice and indifference behind his execution diminish us all.

Strange Fruit (lyrics by Abel Meeropol)

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

"Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." May God have mercy on us all.

Fear, Loathing, and Babies

Why on earth does anyone waist their time targeting the most powerless and disadvantaged among us--unauthorized immigrants and their children--while the most powerful and unscrupulous--greed-driven corporate hegemons--continue to run our civil rights, our government, and our economy into the ground not only with impunity but with hardly a blip on the collective radar? Isn't it just possible that many who focus on the supposed threat posed by the powerless and disadvantaged are being manipulated into misidentifying who should be held accountable for our current economic and political morass?

Might it be that those who are running away with the wealth and power of this country, those who control the language and focus of the mainstream media--who know that calling people "illegals" will stir up resentment and mistrust--bank on being able to take advantage of deep-seated prejudices to distract us from the very real damage that they themselves routinely and cavalierly cause? Allow me to remind you that until very recently the word illegal was used only as an adjective, not a noun, and it was never used to modify people, only actions. Calling people "illegals" dehumanizes them, allowing us to feel that our attitudes toward them are justified.

The arguments used against the current wave of immigrants are the same as the arguments used against all the previous waves of immigrants: "they don't learn the language," "they don't pay taxes," "they don't assimilate." It's true that adult immigrants to this country find English a very difficult language to learn (think about wrapping your mind around "though," "through," "tough," and "cough"), especially because they are preoccupied with procuring employment and providing for their families. But their children never fail to learn English and never fail to assimilate and are very often tremendous assets not only to the immigrant community they grew up with but also to our country, the country that is their own, their home country in every respect.

The claims that unauthorized immigrants don't pay taxes and that they take advantage of our oh-so-abundant (not!) social services is absurd. It's next to impossible to get a paycheck in this country without taxes being taken out. And those who get paid "under the table" often find that they are not paid as much as they were promised or are not paid at all, and because of their status they have no legal recourse. The effect is that we have a subclass of cheap laborers with no rights, no legal recourse when they're exploited, and no political voice or representation. And these are the people we find so threatening? This is what causes outrage when the middle class is disappearing at an alarming rate while our civil liberties are blithely eaten for lunch by greedy fear-mongering corporate hegemons?

And what about the so-called anchor babies? Just what threat do these babies pose exactly? Unauthorized immigrants who bear a child in this country are still subject to deportation. They gain no legal advantage by having a child except the advantage of U.S. citizenship for the child, while they run the risk of having their family torn apart should one or both parents be deported. In what way, exactly, does this pose a threat to anyone, except that it means a continued shift in the ratio of nonwhite to white babies being born in this country? If these babies truly pose a threat, then it's a threat only to those invested in maintaining a homogeneous white majority.

And what would we have these children do, the ones who grow up here and are far more at home here than they could possibly be in their parents' country of origin? We should deport them to a country of which they are not citizens that would be very nearly as foreign to them as it would be to us?

When, oh when, are we going to learn that cultural diversity is a great blessing and strength, that every wave of immigrants has enriched this country in countless ways? We need these newcomers who are being reviled and terrorized because they have the temerity to want to come here to work when work isn't available in their home country. We need them, because the poor--not the rich--form the basis of our economy. The poor spend every last cent of their income because they have no choice to do otherwise. Some may be fortunate enough to have a modest amount to send home to family, but most of what they earn is spent right here. The same cannot be said of the fabulously wealthy, who make far more money than they can possibly spend and do more to weaken our economy than strengthen it.

We need these immigrants not only for economic reasons but also because many aspects of their cultures are antidotes to the most problematic aspects of our own culture, such as extreme individualism, task-orientation, and rampant materialism. We need them because the mixing of cultures and ideas results in stronger values and communities.

When I first started working with my church's Latino congregation, I would arrive a half-hour early every Sunday to practice and prepare for the service. But I soon learned that although the tasks I had in mind weren't unimportant, it was more important to greet the people who arrived early. In other words, people are more important than tasks, which also meant that I was more important than tasks. It was my presence--and theirs--that really counted, not my performance or preparation. It didn't matter if I made mistakes. What mattered--and still matters--is that I love and cherish the people of my faith community. This may be a simple lesson, but it's a profound one, and only one small example of how I've been blessed by coming to know and love my Latino sisters and brothers.

The children of immigrants are quick to see the virtues and attractions of both their parents' culture and the majority culture that surrounds them, and they're very often brilliant at interweaving the best aspects of both to come up with a fabric that is stronger and more beautiful than either of the original threads. Yet these very children--the "anchor babies"--are the ones we find so abhorrent that we would consider altering the Constitution to prevent them from becoming citizens? Not only do these children not pose a threat, but they are the bright promise of tomorrow. What does denying them citizenship accomplish? And what does it say about us as a country? If such a law had been put into effect in the eighteenth century, the founders of this country would not have been citizens. I submit that altering the Constitution in such a way would signify that we have lost our way, that we have refused to learn the lessons of past generations, and that we are a nation guided not by wisdom and compassion but by fear and ignorance.

--Mary (my first blog post in well over a year!)

Tear Down This Wall

Paul Krugman today: "The driving force behind the town hall mobs is probably the same cultural and racial anxiety that’s behind the 'birther' movement.... Voters who can be swayed by appeals to cultural and racial fear are a declining share of the electorate."

The belligerence of the minority that constitutes the birthers and the town hall mobs is an indication of their desperation. They cannot accept that the country is disassembling--however slowly and tentatively--the wall of quiet, under-the-radar racism and white privilege. Many of them may not even be aware of the underlying racism that is driving their fear. That is the nature of fear. It does not want to be brought out into the light.

These fearful people are not only alarmed to have a black man in the oval office, but they are terrified that he will actually succeed. In their minds, it is much worse to have a successful black president than a weak, ineffectual one, because the death knell of white privilege rings louder and louder with each step of progress Obama's administration makes.

Not surprisingly, the flames of desperation and fear are being happily fanned, yet again, by those who stand to benefit from the death of health care reform, a very, very small minority indeed. Those flames are being fanned with no regard for the likelihood of violent consequences. They know exactly what they're doing, and consequences--and the country--be damned.

The fanners don't care, so long as the corporations in which they hold a stake continue to make over-the-top profits for substandard health care. They don't care that those profits come at a crippling expense not only to millions of individuals and families but to the entire nation. They don't care that they are further entrenching those who hide behind the wall of white privilege and inciting them not only to do all they can to undermine health care reform but also to unleash the violence of their fear.


It's time for the supporters of health care reform--not to mention the supporters of civil liberties, free speech, and human dignity--to raise our voices, not in anger and hatred, but in determination and resolve. We need health care reform. It's long past overdue. And we need to move on from the era of white privilege to an era of multi: multicultural multiracial multiorientation multigenerational progress.


We need not only to contact our representatives and let them know how fervently we support health care reform, but to organize and mobilize and use all the resources available to us to counter the cynical manipulators selfishly inciting racial violence in our midst.

Remember the famous line "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall"? In the United States we have been living with worse than the Berlin Wall for as long as we have been a nation. The wall of white privilege causes all of us to suffer, on both sides of the wall. It's time. It's long past time. Tear it down.

Lessons Written in DNA

There is no question that the New York Post cartoon depicting two policemen shooting a chimpanzee while one says to the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill" is blatantly racist and sickening.

The history of racism in this country is vile in the extreme. Although the New York Post cartoon is horribly offensive, it should come as a surprise to no one. Racism is deeply ingrained in our national psyche, and we still have a great deal of work to do to exorcise its demons from our midst.

But there is more to this image than racism. Underlying the cartoon and all the other efforts to conflate blacks and apes is the assumption of human superiority and ape inferiority. These assumptions are even more deeply ingrained than racism.

An editorial in the New York Times yesterday by Brent Staples chronicles the use of the ape as a racist invective throughout American history.

The effort to dehumanize black people by characterizing them as apes is central to our national history. . . .

By defining Negroes not as human beings but as beasts, the nation rationalized subjugation and cruelty—and justified laws that stripped them of basic human rights. The case for segregation itself rested heavily on the assertion that animal origins made Negroes feebleminded, smelly and intolerably offensive to white sensibilities.

In point of fact, we all have "animal origins." We are, indeed, all animals, and the chimpanzee is our closest evolutionary relative. You would think that that knowledge would garner the chimpanzee some respect, especially as we are so fond of seeing ourselves as vastly superior to "beasts." But we cling to the notion that we are set apart in every respect from other animals.

It is time for us humans to view ourselves with a modicum of humility. Of course we are unique among our fellow creatures, but the same could be said for every other species on the planet. Each has its place and its special brilliance, if only we have the eyes to see it. In our planet's complex ecology, none is superior or inferior or of greater or lesser value. Not only do we share most of our DNA with chimpanzees, but we also share much of it with protozoa, plankton, trees, and cows. We are one, inexorably intertwined and interrelated.

It is not only time for us to recognize that "race" is a notion entirely fabricated by humans, but so is the notion of human superiority. We are not the be-all and end-all of evolution. We are one among many, each with our own special brilliance and value.