The Struggle Continues - A Prelude

Sunday, November 16, 2008

11:19am
The irony has not been lost. In the wake of our recent tryst with history, many profound thinkers have been eager to juxtapose the significance of America electing its first African American President against the passage of California’s Proposition 8 legalizing a ban on gay marriage, and the bellowing demonstrations that have ensued across the country. The query has analyzed polling results, dissected campaign propaganda, and has sprinted to the finish line of laying blame and inflicting salt upon humanity’s gaping wound – our inability to see, validate and appreciate each other…our delusion of individualism…and the cataract which impairs our ability to recognize the interconnectedness of our fate.

This has led me to reflect on the concept of “struggle” – a construct in human experience that seeks to answer perceived wrongs endured and invokes yet another construct … “activism”. It makes me wonder what propels struggle forward toward the advancement of human thought. As I witness throngs of disenfranchised homosexuals and their allies protest in the streets and before the misidentified targets of their rage (the Mormon Church, the ultra-conservative right spurred by their evangelical ideologies, black voters incapacitated by their oppressors religion, et al), I beg the question: Is anger the operative ingredient for social change? Must it be? Moreover, do our interests really lie in social change or are we merely interested in adding yet another egoic layer to the status quo of human experience?

I am mindful of the adage which cautions: “When battling the beast, be careful not to become the beast!”

Barak Obama’s success has been tied to the unique values and skills associated with coalition building and community organizing. He set his sights high, cast his net far and moved intentionally toward changing the conversation in American politics, and in so doing, he shifted the energy surging through this country.

I propose we do the same. It is time for those of us who love justice to up-level our conversation from small-minded and immature discourse to a thoughtful dialogue where the goal is not simply to DO something, but rather to BE something. We must discontinue our addiction to performing within the confines of our limiting roles and self-proclaimed identities and move consciously into the embodiment of our collective purpose.

I am of the mind that when we busy ourselves with BEING present, BEING in conversation, BEING informed, BEING engaged, BEING enlightened, BEING communal, BEING in love, BEING HUMANISTIC!….our capacity for work is expanded and our vision for social change becomes crystal clear. For we know without vision, the people perish.

So now what? ....

The Dawning of A New Day

Wednesday, November 5, 2008 7:00am The sun has risen. It's a new day. I marvel at the sun's capacity to rise and fall in utter allegiance to its function – to give light; to shine without judgment; to remind us of infinite potential longing to be fulfilled. In the disciplined rhythm of time passing, the sun has always risen to illuminate the darkness. It gives us hope in times of despair. The sun has risen. It is a new day.

President Elect - BARACK OBAMA

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

6:12am
I'm still mesmerized.

On the Brink of History

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

3:33am
Today marks the convergence of so many realities that have distinguished the American experience. History – the long and the short of it… the brutality and the beauty of it…the mystery and the inevitability of it – prepares itself this morning to speak the familiar language of change in an unfamiliar voice. The change that we embark upon today has been the sleeping giant in a county that has for centuries lived beneath its ideal. We’ve awaited its awakening. We’ve yearned for its initiation. Today our course in history will change.

This is election day in America! We commemorate the struggle and we celebrate the triumph. Today we exercise the most fundamentally democratic right to express one's opinion with the VOTE!

VOTE FOR CHANGE!

Why I Voted NO on PROP 8

Monday, November 3, 2008 3:10pm "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." These are words of one of the foremost renowned Americans of the twentieth century, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As an African-American minister who was literally thrust onto the stage of history by racial injustice in the south, Dr. King was most clear about the insidious nature of hate and discrimination. Throughout the pages of our history we have seen time and again how the small-minded ideologies of one group of human beings have been allowed to oppress the lives of others. This is unfortunate. In California, there is such a proposition on the 2008 election ballot. Proposition 8 seeks to amend the Constitution of the State of California to exclude homosexuals from the right to choose and marry the person they love and enter into civil contract. (One group of human beings, in their small-minded ideologies, has set out to oppress the lives of others). Those in support of this proposition have framed the conversation in “defense of marriage.” My question is: Why does marriage need defending? The idea that marriage has been an unchanged tradition in the human experience is not supported sociologic- or anthropologically. Marriage has evolved from our earliest understandings of the agreement. These evolutions have followed the pattern of human progression in expanded thought and insight for centuries. Long gone are the days when 12 year old little girls of ancient times (and recent modern times) were bartered off in exchange for goods & familial reputation. No more do we experience in civilized society the occurrence of women, though “married,” being considered property and having their rights apportioned into their husband’s trust. No longer is it illegal in this country of expanded freedoms for members of differing races to enter into loving relationships and later marry, as it was some short forty-one years ago (Loving v. Virginia, 1967). We are grateful for evolution in human understanding. Now, we who love justice and equality have another battle to fight. It would be easy to base this decision on fear. The supporters of this proposition have offered us a heavy dose of that medicine. Even easier, may be the notion to decide based on religious beliefs. However, we’re a country of laws and principles and one such law is the separation of church and state and one of the founding principles of this country is the notion that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS; THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PRUSUIT OF HAPPINESS... Proposition 8 is discriminatory and discrimination is beneath humanity.