REACTivists

The Jena 6, Megan Williams, Sean Bell: These are all the latest injustices which have enraged the Black American public and provided endless fodder for the network media. The injustices in these cases are all glaring and grave, but is our obsessive rallying around a few key causes each year hampering our ability to create real change in our society?

Each year these injustices come up- in 2006 it was Sean Bell, in 2005 Hurricane Katrina. Invariably those African-American issues which are on the forefront of American consciousness are those that can be packaged up nice and neat. The injustices are so shocking that they can almost be dismissed as the work of extreme racism so as not to implicate the overall American culture and government. But these cases are only the “highlights” in a miles long list of injustices committed against minorities and the poor in America. How many more cases like Sean Bell’s have there been? Where instead of being a devoted fiancé and father, the victim was a street hustler, instead of fifty shots, there was only one-- straight through the heart.

On his blog, Transform America, my friend Chester Asher writes:

“If we always wait for injustice before we act we will forever be limited. For once the injustice subsides the movement is over… Such an approach abdicates our roles as responsible humans… Doomed to serve as a check on the system rather than a creator of it.”

Also disheartening is the very nature of our responses to these causes. While media attention and raising awareness are absolutely essential to achieving justice, our responses seldom seem to make it past raising awareness. We send email forwards, join facebook groups (the groups for Megan Williams and Sean Bell have hundreds of thousands of members), email congress members, put buttons on our blogs. We write on message boards where narrow-minded trolls make conversations quickly turn inflammatory. At the end of the day we have either patted ourselves on the back for “signing up” for the cause or we’ve wasted potential positive energy on energy draining arguments.

How can we harness the power of virtual communication to make REAL, positive change?

How can we shift from always responding to injustice to actually CREATING the change we wish to see in this world?

An Excert from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Letter to a Young Acitivist During Troubled Times

Mis estimados:
Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for "good" in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, "the new normal," the grotesquerie of the week. It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people's worlds and beliefs more. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

...You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet ... I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is — we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised since childhood for this time precisely.

They're Bringing Home the Troops!

Only 5k by Christmas? Are you serious? So maybe, perhaps, there's a chance... that they are REALLY going to come home. You know dag-on well that they aren't. I'm sitting here watching President Bush's special report (it blocked out all local programming so I'm sure you saw it too) recite the words someone wrote from him and I'm thinking to myself "Are you serious?!" I mean, I'm glad that Iraq is safe (is it really?) and that they feel save on their streets, but what about my 'hood? Can I feel safe in my own country? He says they are finding the rebels and disbanding the gangs... does he realize we have gangs in our own military and that they are coming home and teaching military tactics to their fellow gang members back home? Hot mess!

Now he is giving shout-outs to the troops and everyone involved with his shennanigans. Justifying the deaths of the young lads. Fast-forward, he says goodnight and God Bless America.

Now the bantering from D-Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed stating that he has been against the war from the beginning. Aren't we tired of the fingerpointing? As Larry the Cable Guy says "Get-her-done!" Just get the job done. That's all we really want. Even the callers vented about the maddness and

If you are so moved, use these numbers to voice your opinion

Democrats: (202) 737-0002
Republicans: (202) 737-0001
Independents: (202) 628-0205

If you missed the chance to call or the program, visit: http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS

Until next time...

Be Seen at the Top!

The War Continues

I moved to the NYC area the year after the September 11th attacks (Even though almost everyone I knew thought I should reconsider I felt right about it. Still do btw) so I’ve been here for every remembrance. This year is the first year that people seem to have really moved on, of course people are still showing respect for the lives lost but there wasn’t that heavy sense of sadness in the local media and I didn’t hear people in the streets talking about it as much as I have in other years. Instead of mourning the news programs focused much of their coverage on the ongoing war in the Iraq, the overall turmoil in the Middle East and the United States dependence on foreign fuel resources.

Yesterday General David Petraeus appeared before a meeting of the members of the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees and detailed the war’s progress. Petraeus mentioned that troop withdrawal will initiate something in the next month or so in small amounts with the hope that as much as 30 thousand will be home by next summer. Still that leaves over 100,000 men and women over there battling in a war without a real objective.

After 9/11 there was such a wave of patriotism and there was this thought that America would be avenged for the attacks but here we are six years later and I don’t think any of us feel any real sense of satisfaction. Furthermore very few people buy the fact that the US is over there trying to build democracy. By now even the most consistent defenders of the war will admit that America’s main reason over there is the procurement of more and more oil. To control the marketplace to ensure that the US’s insatiable demand for fuel is met. Now why is this so important to the Bush administration? Because the big time Oil companies financed his career. And even in this day and age of environmental awareness few people have the balls and the power to combat them. Iraq has approximately 100 billion barrels of crude oil and Exxon, etc want a piece of it. And until we are able to control this area of the world we can’t get to it and so we stay.
Now how specifically does this affect us? Well for one it beneficial to keep pounding home the threat of future attacks and giving credence to certain stereotypes in order to fuel those generalities. Now are all Muslims involved in terrorism? Most people will say no but there are still a lot of people who say yes if only that they hear it so much. Now for those out there who have names like yours truly it can be a minor annoyance, one which I accept usually. The real problem with these stereotypes is that they lead to fear and that leads to voters putting in office the people who they believe will protect them. Whether that is true or whether that person is competent enough to hold office is another story. Just as long as the perception says they are that’s good enough for most people.

The real problem is that money that can be used to maintain life at home is going to waste. I understand the need for the military, as sometimes war is necessary. But when it is not it should not be used because real lives are at stake. In the meantime money is being funneled away from things like ensuring that our import market is well monitored (the situation with China right now and the lead paint covered toys is a great example of that). Not to mention immigration, gun control, health care, stem cell research, etc. Please remember all of this the next time someone is defending the war. Tell them they are full of shit.