Federal Government Terrorizes Protesters - A Study in White Fragility

An Op Ed Piece

Unlawfully unmarked Federal Troops have invaded the city of Portland Oregon to provide a show of Federal force with which to threaten and bully other cities in other states into suppressing protests supporting societal change for equality and justice for people of color in the United States. Now the tide of bullying extends to other states as well.

The true message of Portland and what is going on these days is one of white fragility in its most eloquently elevated condition. The greater the push for equality the greater the use of force to keep that change from taking place, once again reinforcing the underlying purpose of law enforcement in this country as being that of protecting the institutions and systems that keep white privilege in place. As the voices of change call out for equalization, those steeping in the security of white privilege feel threatened, become extremely alarmed and call for help to keep their institutions in place.  After all, says the white privileged person, we are all good people. We mean no one any harm. Please protect us from these irate and disturbed unhappy people. Please make them go away so everything can stay the comfortable same. Call in the military if needed! Do not let our way of life perish! Taking no responsibility for the systemic suppression they live in that directly harms huge portions of the population and therefore they are able to claim innocence and cry for protection. The use of force is then justified to protect their very white way of life and the systems they are comfortable with. 

Does this somehow not remind one of the French Revolution? The simple happy playing of the days by those with income, wealth and the means for a happy life that allowed the aristocracy to ignore their responsibility to the people upon whom their way of life depended until an uprising of what finally became utter hatred was spawned that brought them to their death and ushered in a military coup? Is this not the basis of white fragility? The heart-felt fear of loss of those with privilege? And is not that fear the basis of class war and revolution? Is it not the lesson of history – that those who ignore the cries of their brothers and sisters do so to their peril? That the innocently guilty cry innocent on their way to the guillotine? That a whole class of people is punished for its blind existence in and dependence upon the privileges it refused to acknowledge and felt entitled to?

Can we not learn anything from history? Must we repeat the blindness over and over again? Will we not listen – listen to the voices crying in our streets and take a second look at ourselves? True disaster will be heralded by the deaf and the blind. The very worst that they fear and fight to keep from happening will come upon us all collectively unless we begin to move toward change. Toward equality. Toward true freedom for all. The human spirit will not suffer constant suppression and oppression. The blood of our brothers and sisters killed through oppression, repression, and violence calls to us from the streets. The cries of those standing for them call to us from the streets. For all the Evangelicals out there – God is listening. Not to your prayers and cries for help, and remonstrances of innocence, but to the cries of the blood of the dead and their brothers and sisters calling to Him in the street. Wake Up.

Tell your dog to lay off. Quell his military trained private forces sent to defend and preserve your  way of life and your dominance and supremacy by attacking and suppressing "others",  and put your hearing aides on and listen. We are all hanging in the balance waiting for you to wake up. Sitting on the precipice of your disaster. This whole society with all its light and freedom will go down the slide into autocracy and military dominance with you, if you, the good white people, choose to stay deaf. The light of freedom will go out in America because of you. And you will think it is everyone else's fault. You will not even see it happening. It will feel like "the right thing" to you....until it is far too late. Wake UP. 

The Voices of Peace

I found this poem lurking in a notebook I was about to throw out...there are lots of these little gems I have scribbled down in moments frozen in time. They are little nuggets of preciousness I unearth in my fits of organization...this one was obviously written several years ago when Isis made its first noxious appearance, but the message and the question are as relevant today as they were when I penned this...

Where are the voices of peace?

While Isis roars with fright and might

Shaking its fist and killing on sight

While tempers roil and protests boil

Where prejudice reeks and fills our streets

Where are the voices of peace?

The Dali Lama’s of the Christian faith

The voices of Islamic peace and harmony

The spiritual leaders who call for truth in the inward parts

We watch the voices of war and military might roar across our screens

And fill our sight

Looking to leaders to join the fight, protect us from our fears

Injustices, terrors and fright

But where is the spiritual guidance that calls us to look within

Take responsibility for our own hates and fears and sin?

Where are the leaders to guide in prayer, meditation and spiritual care?

Where are their public voices for all to hear?

The voices that remind us who we are

That power resides in spirits united in love

That peace is worth praying and acting for?

Dzhokhar: Facing the Enigmatic Truth?

Michael Thurston/Agence France-Presse 

— Getty Images

Okay – I’ve heard about how upset we are at Rolling Stone for putting Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on their cover from every corner. Facebook posts, street protests, news articles and reports, even people actually talking about it!

But here – here! Listen – read – think for a minute about a point of view other than one that agrees with the particular emotional, and understandable, general public reaction. Let’s talk about another emotional reaction we are not as quick to face.

This kid’s face – this kid’s face – could be any of our children’s faces. His is not a hardened, easy-to-hate looking face. He was a student at our own UMass Dartmouth. He could be anybody’s son. That is the corker here.

We have seen countless faces of the victims, honored and mourned the lost, fundraised and supported the recovering. There is a huge effort going on to heal. And it will continue. But part of healing is dealing with the root cause, while healing the resulting damage.

We do not want to take a second look at the face of terrorism. We do not want to see an innocent looking young man’s face, look to see where this madness and pain came from and how it can hide so well behind the mask of normalcy. We do not want to be made to look at causes and roots so that we become more aware and better able to intervene and prevent. We do not want the responsibility of caring for society and our own safety and health by being involved and proactive when and where we are able to see risk. Let the “professionals” do that we say…and yet, the professionals do not walk the streets every day. Change does not come about from professional intervention, it comes from personal recognition. It is when the people on the street wake up and get involved and take responsibility for their future that we as a nation, town or community, change.

And so the need to understand and perceive, to look at this face once again and acknowledge it could be anyone’s child. To become familiar with the story behind the face. To be able to see the disgruntled, the lonely, the overwhelmed, the angry and in pain before they are at the point of explosion; and to be able to bring some healing, relief and help to those in silent screaming need before they seek self-expression and self-destruction through the destruction of others.

Look at his face. Pray for his soul, that it may not leave this earth in the same maniacal torment that expressed itself on April 15^th. And let us learn. Learn how to see lonely, unhappy, overwhelmed people and young people. Learn how to defuse the human bomb before it expresses itself in outward violence, mass shootings, terrorism and murderous hate. We have a lot of societal growing up to do and responsibilities to learn. Let’s not shy away from the reflection needed to assimilate the lessons being taught by these increasing incidents of mass violence. Incident response always includes a review process for the purpose of improved prevention. This is more than friends and relatives shaking their heads and saying they are shocked and don’t understand how this could be the person they knew. It involves the community, not just the family. And the first step is learning to see where we have been blind. Looking at what we don’t want to see; the simple young face of a boy who could be anybody’s son, and yet he killed and maimed many people. We need to be learning the signs and developing ways to defuse wounded souls before they explode, and then be willing, when it is our turn, to use what we have learned to relieve, heal and change the course before harm is done.

Let us look at Dzhokhar’s face once again with sorrow and compassion for the whole of society’s pain, both perpetrator and victims; read the story, search for answers, and make some changes in how we live our daily lives – not those of fear and self-protection – but changes of love and compassion that reach out and prevent the need for violent expression in others. Let us face and deal with the root of these horrible happenings and not turn away so quickly that we do not learn from them anything more than fear. Let’s fight terrorism on two fronts, inward and outward – through protection and prevention for all from any future instances, and by early recognition and compassionate intervention  for those who would be the source.