Amendment 4 Does not Fix Racist Constitution

Tuscaloosa News does not seem to like my letters.  None of the letters I have written in the past 3 years have been published.  The newspaper seems more interested in publishing such pieces as “President is inviting the wrath of God“  which reduces this column to an entertainment section equivalent to the National Enquirer than serious debate.  After a week of waiting for a response or for publication, I am posting my letter in response to their editorial.

To the Editor:

The recent editorial supporting Amendment 4 (October 18) to the state constitution  does not seem to understand how racism works. Amendment 4 claims it will remove racist language from our constitution which was established in 1901 with the sole purpose of creating a White Supremacist State. Removing racist language is only a cosmetic touch as it does not and cannot fix the institutionalized racism that is still embedded in the constitution. The paragraphs that will not be removed by this amendment because they are not explicit in their racism are still racist. This particular section was written in the 1950′s when it was believed by the White majority that Blacks were not educable but merely trainable and that language remains. These terms, education and training refer to the alleged abilities that Whites versus Blacks had. The belief was Whites could be educated while Blacks could only be trained. The only way to fix our 1901 constitution is not by deleting phrases but by a complete rewriting of the constitution. Alabama Education Association Executive Secretary Henry Mabry is right when he states Amendment 4 removes the guaranteed right to an education. That is how institutionalized racism works. It is so embedded into our state constitution that to remove racist language actually restores racist policies. Cosmetic fixes are not enough, we need a new state constitution if we are indeed serious about undoing our racist heritage.

Fred L Hammond

Minister, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

Postscript:  Since writing this letter, there have been  several conversations as to what the motivations or reasons are behind this amendment.  The author of the amendment claims it is purely to remove the stain of racism from the constitution.  Perhaps. One can never fully know what those intentions might be.

What is clear is this.  While removing racist language seems a laudable act;  this amendment REENACTS a provision that had previously been held unconstitutional that for racist reasons eliminated a right to public education. When actions to remove language is being undertaken within a document created specifically to create a white supremacist state then the whole constitution needs to be looked at to see where else racism is imbedded.  There are systemic aspects of racism  interwoven in the document that must be examined and rooted out.  For example; racism is also in the constitutional policies guiding the  actions of the governing body.  Removing racism demands not just a cosmetic touch but a full reworking from scratch in order to remove all forms of racial oppression.

Is Justice Defined by the Victor?

It is the end of October.  I am getting up to ten political emails a day now all asking me to support their campaigns.  There is usually also a spin of fear in these emails.  The most horrible thing will happen if the other person wins the election. Doesn’t matter the political party, the fear expressed is the same.  If the other party wins, our way of life, our values, our freedom will be compromised or worse stripped away.

Is this really what our democracy is about?  Is it really a warring game where the other is characterized as some evil entity prowling to destroy our values?  If you listen to the commentaries this certainly seems to be the case.

I want to believe that the arc of history is bent towards justice.  So I try not to despair when I see racism rearing its ugly head in our proposed legislation or when I see laws curtailing the rights of people.  I say to myself eventually the arc of history will bend towards justice.  Maybe it is not a smooth arc but the arc is there and justice will win out.  But then, I have to ponder on who defines this justice?

I have a definition of what justice is and isn’t.  But so do the people who are proposing legislation that I feel attacks my definition of justice.  Come November 7^th, barring a repeat of the 2000 elections, we will have either elected or re-elected a President.  Regardless of the winner, some will rejoice that the arc of history has moved towards justice.  And so I wonder is justice objective or subjective?

History it is said is written by the victors.  Is justice also defined by the victors?  Just as God can be created in our image and therefore love the people we love and hate the people we hate.  So too, is justice defined.  For 236 years, this nation has defined justice according to the words of white men.  There have been horrible atrocities in our nation’s history justified by white men in power. There has been genocide and slavery of entire races of people and these actions were justified by white men. The history books declare the actions were just or unjust depending on the victors.

Had the native peoples been able to prevent the white men from stealing their lands or the South had been able to defeat the North, the history of this nation would have justified the outcome differently. Here in the South, there is still a belief that the South was treated unjustly regarding the ending of slavery.  There is still a belief that state’s rights should have prevailed.

Today, there is a fear expressed by white people  that American history will soon be written by people of color; by people who do not share our religious doctrines; by people who have a different idea of how power should be distributed.  It is these fears that are the subtext in the political campaigns this year. The fear is that everything we thought we knew to be true will be considered false and rewritten. I would like to calm those fears and state that truth is never fully told by one side or the other. Truth is always a compilation of sides. It is by understanding the subjective angles of truth that we can begin to embrace our humanity and grow in compassion and love towards the other.

It seems to me that our freedom to vote for our leaders is even more crucial than ever before. For me, our leaders need to be the ones who will embrace the multiple sides of the truth as expressed by the people of our nation and begin to create justice with this recognition of the whole.  I want to believe that the arc of history bends forever towards Justice.  I want to believe that the positions I have taken are the correct positions. But perhaps the correct position is to have some humility and recognize that Justice as it develops may not be what I had in mind.  Blessed Be.

Changing Our Narrative

 by Rev. Fred L Hammond 7 October 2012 ©

Last spring I delivered a sermon on the Doctrine of Discovery, a 550 year plus old document that set in motion the underlying narrative of the United States of America.  I talked about this doctrine then because our Unitarian Universalist Association was submitting a resolution to our Justice General Assembly in Phoenix to renounce this Doctrine of Discovery and request that all laws that reflect this papal decree be removed from our governing bodies. The resolution passed with an overwhelming majority of those congregational delegates present.

The story of this country is cast with this doctrine as a preamble to our history and the majority of our country’s actions have the spirit of this doctrine imbedded within them.  To remind us what the Doctrine of Discovery states, let me quote again Pope Nicholas V who in 1452 wrote:

” We grant to you (King of Portugal)  full and free power, through the Apostolic authority by this edict, to invade, conquer, fight, subjugate the Saracens (Muslims) and pagans, and other infidels and other enemies of Christ, and wherever established their Kingdoms, Duchies, Royal Palaces, Principalities and other dominions, lands, places, estates, camps and any other possessions, mobile and immobile goods found in all these places and held in whatever name, and held and possessed by the same [...]and to lead their persons in perpetual servitude. ^[i]

Pope Nicholas V wrote another edict to protect Portugal from other Christian nations laying claim to lands already claimed by Portugal.  And in 1493, Pope Alexander XI expanded this edict to allow other Christian nations to also lay claim to lands not already claimed by Portugal and gave Christopher Columbus the right to lay claim to the lands he set foot on for Spain.

So the historical narrative of the United States essentially begins in 1492.  We know the poem entitled The History of the U.S[ii]. written in 1919, which begins with the stanza:

In fourteen hundred ninety-two,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
And found this land, land of the Free,
Beloved by you, beloved by me.

It implies that prior to 1492 this land was uninhabited, unknown to anyone, per se.  Columbus found it and introduced to this land European civility—or so we were taught in school.  Yet, there were people already here with a culture that was long established.  Howard Zinn[iii] writes in A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present   “These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.”

Another poem entitled In 1492 by Jean Marzollo first published in 1948 about Christopher Columbus contain these closing stanzas

The Arakawa natives were very nice;
They gave the sailors food and spice.

Columbus sailed on to find some gold
To bring back home, as he’d been told.

He made the trip again and again,
Trading gold to bring to Spain.

The first American?  No, not quite.
But Columbus was brave, and he was bright.

This isn’t exactly what happened after Columbus landed in the Caribbean but it is what we teach our children.  Some histories will make mention that the encounter of Columbus and his crew with the native peoples of the island went according to Columbus’ plan of enslavement and genocide but this mention is equivalent to a footnote.  While these histories do not deny the atrocities they do not make it central to Columbus’ mission. Columbus wrote the following to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand[iv],

“I took by force six of the Indians from the first island, and intend to carry them to Spain in order to learn our language and return, unless your Highnesses should choose instead to have them all transported to Spain, or held captive on the island. These people are very simple in matters of war… I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased… They are very clever and honest, display great liberality, and will give whatever they possess for a trifle or for nothing at all… Whether there exists any such thing as private property among them I have not been able to ascertain… As they appear to have no religion, I believe they would very readily become Christians… They would make good servants… They are fit to be ordered about and made to work, to sow, and do aught else that may be needed, …

To sum up the great profits of this voyage, I am able to promise, for a trifling assistance from your Majesties, any quantity of gold, drugs, cotton, mastic, aloe, and as many slaves for maritime service as your Majesties may stand in need of.”

In the short time after Columbus’ arrival the population of what is now known as Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Cuba was reduced from 3 million to 60,000.  The people of these islands died; some to European diseases like small pox and others through genocidal killing and suicide for not being able to secure the gold amounts desired.

Howard Zinn in his text writes[v], “To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves—unwittingly—to justify what was done.”

And this has been our stance in the Americas ever since. We called it by many names; Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine, and today American Exceptionalism. It is a part of our narrative that covers up or hides many sins that we have committed as a nation.  And it is this narrative that we teach our children in schools.  America is best.  America is the greatest.  America is the home of the brave and land of the free.  America can do wrong in its eyes.

Of course the question arises, who is this America.  From the earliest days of this republic it was white men who were America. This is a White supremacist narrative that is presented to the world.

Congress in 1790 enacted this law:  All free white persons who have, or shall migrate into the United States, and shall give satisfactory proof, before a magistrate, by oath, that they intend to reside therein, and shall take an oath of allegiance, and shall have resided in the United States for one whole year, shall be entitled to all the rights of citizenship.[vi]

Now in 1790 all the rights of citizenship only pertained to white men who owned property, white women were not granted all the rights of citizenship. And in many states Jews and Catholics were also not granted all the rights of citizenship.  The definition of who was white in America was narrowly determined. Benjamin Franklin gives a definition of whiteness in 1751:  “[vii]That the Number of purely   white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is   black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians,   French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call   a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only   excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People   on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased.”

Today there are texts written entitled How Jews became White Folks and How the Irish became White.  Our narrative as a nation was told from the perspective of Whites as the only sanctioned narrative.  To go against this narrative is considered sedition. That is a strong statement but it is a true statement nonetheless.

Especially if you listen to some of the conservative voices in this country going against the narrative is indeed seditious.  The narrative of America as told is being destroyed by having a Black president.  Te-Nehisi Coates[viii] in his article in Atlantic Monthly proposes that the furor over whether Obama has an American Birth Certificate or proclaiming him to be a Muslim is a means to maintain the white narrative of America.  If Obama is not an American or is a Muslim then he is not really the president of the USA and the white narrative of America is preserved.  There is a photo going around FaceBook of a poster at a Koch Brothers sponsored protest against Occupy New York that reads, “I’m dreaming of a White President just like the ones we use to have…”

Preserve the narrative of America at all costs.  Obey our laws, obey our cultural norms.  Do not disrupt the 550 plus years of white narrative that declares whites as superior over all others.   In 1635[ix], a native person allegedly killed an Englishman in Maryland. The English demanded the native be handed over to them for punishment under English law.  The chief answered how they would handle the native and refused, saying “you are here strangers, and come into our country, you should rather conform yourselves to the customs of our country, than impose yours upon us.”   But to do that would have made the doctrine of discovery invalid.  It would have changed the narrative of supremacy.

Arizona HB2281 which was signed into law and into effect December 2011 banned the teaching of ethnic studies in Arizona schools.  The ethnic studies specifically banned were Latino ethnic studies.  This law states that “School[s] in this state shall not include in its program of instruction any courses or classes that include any of the following:

1. 1.    Promote the overthrow of the United States Government.
2. 2.    Promote resentment toward a race or class of people
3. 3.    Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
4. Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

At the heart of this ban is a course of studies that were taught at the public schools in Tucson, AZ. Tucson is a community of about 47% Anglo, 42% Latino and the remaining 11% being Black, Native American, or Asian.  In the public school district the demographics change because many whites attend private or charter schools making Latinos to account for 62% of the student population.

The Mexican American Studies program was considered seditious because it taught the history of the indigenous people of the America’s from the perspective of the indigenous people.  History of the indigenous people did not begin in Europe with the Greco and Roman empires but rather with the Aztec’s and Mayan’s.  Columbus’ arrival was not the heroic event that unfurled the ability of Europeans seeking to breathe free but rather as the beginning of an invasion that destroyed civilizations and enslaved and ransacked human and natural resources. It placed the context of the land of Arizona in its thousands of year old histories of a proud people who lived in this land and had its resources taken away from them, first by the Mexican government and then by the United States government. The bumper sticker of the immigrant rights movement, ‘we didn’t cross the border the border crossed us’ is not just a sound bite it is an historic fact of a people living in the southwest.

Theirs is a narrative that highlighted the values of community that holds itself together. The sharing and generosity that Columbus found in the Taino tribe of the Arawak people is not seen as a weakness but as a strength of their heritage.    Yet, it is this ethnic solidarity in a community value that was made illegal by the Arizona law in favor of the strident American individualism. American individualism where the pursuit of capital gain is not to uplift the society but only to increase the privilege and power of the one receiving the gain.  This is not the society that neither Columbus nor any of the Europeans encountered when they arrived on these shores.  Europeans encountered the culture of Iroquois Chief Hiawatha, who said, “[x]We bind ourselves together by taking hold of each other’s hands so firmly and forming a circle so strong that if a tree should fall upon it, it could not shake nor break it, so that our people and grandchildren shall remain in the circle in security, peace and happiness.” A Jesuit priest who encountered the Iroquois wrote, “[xi]No poorhouses are needed among them, because they are neither mendicants nor paupers… their kindness, humanity and courtesy not only makes them liberal with what they have, but causes them to possess hardly anything except in common…”

And while I am not so naïve to think that the native cultures of the America’s was idyllic, these are narratives that need to be incorporated into the American narrative as a whole in order to sort out and sift the wheat from the chaff.  There are aspects of cultures found right here in these lands that could aid in the redemption of the American narrative that has spawned centuries of white supremacy and violent racism against others.

The Mexican American Studies program was one of those programs that sought American redemption through the telling of a history from the perspective of the native people’s point of view.  These students have the potential to contribute to our society if they are given the tools to understand where they fit in the narrative of this country.  They get to begin to rewrite that narrative to include their achievements, their cultural contributions.

The high school drop out rate of Latino’s nationally hovers around 56%.  The Tucson school district after implementing their Mexican American Studies program found the drop out rate decrease to 2.5% in the school district. Tucson students who attended this program did better in state exams as compared to their peers in other schools.  The students found that they found a reason why education was important for them to pursue. They discovered that education was relevant to their life experiences.

Clergy in Tucson[xii] wrote a letter in support of the Mexican American Studies program.  They wrote:

“As people of faith, we recognize how important our history and stories are to us. Scriptures are nothing more than the passed down stories of people who wanted their children and their children’s children to remember the ways in which God had moved within their lives and in the course of human history to bring forth freedom from slavery, forgiveness from retribution, love from hate, and grace from sin. The history of the people of faith within sacred scripture has never been the dominant history; our history is not the history of Egypt but the history of the Hebrew slaves, not the history of Babylon but the history of those carried away into captivity, not the history of Herod but the history of a refugee family who had to flee to Egypt, not the history of Rome but the history of a peasant named Jesus and his followers.” The same is true of the Mexican American Studies program; it is a history of a conquered people, the indigenous people of these lands.

Howard Zinn recalls a statement he once read that stated, “[xiii]The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don’t listen to it, you will never know what justice is.”

Yes, the story the Mexican American Studies program tells is counter to the narrative of this nation but it’s aim is not to raise up people with seditious acts but rather to honor the lives of those lost.  To glean from their stories the richness of their lives and the lessons their lives still have to offer us.

It may come as a bit of surprise to folks that tomorrow has two names as the holiday.  It is Columbus Day, a day in which Alabama anyway, seeks to honor those of Italian heritage. It is also American Indian Heritage Day, a day to honor the contributions of the native peoples from these lands.  It may seem odd that Alabama is only one of a few states and municipalities that honor the native people of this land officially. I hope Alabama gets why honoring Native Americans tomorrow is so important in our country.

This state also continues to honor Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Confederate Memorial Day.  And I think I now get why it is important for Alabama to honor and remember these people from a painful time in our nation’s history when ideologies clashed so brutally.

In order to fully live up to our potential as a people we need to understand our story as a nation. We need to change our narrative to include the fullness of our story; the good, bad, and ugly truths of our story.  It would be easy and it has been easy for parts of our history to fade away because they are too shameful, to painful to face.  We have done this in America.  We have tried to forget the Japanese Interment camps during World War Two. We have tried to forget the turmoil and unrest of the Civil Rights era.  We have tried to forget the brutal murders of sexual minorities like Matthew Shepard and the thousands who commit suicide because their sexual orientation is not viewed acceptable by society. And I am sure there are some of us who would prefer that the Undocumented remain in the shadows of America.

But if this country is to live up to its most sacred creed, then we must do its work to undo white supremacy and white privilege where ever it is established. It does not serve us well, it never ever did.

[i] http://unamsanctamcatholicam.blogspot.com/2011/02/dum-diversas-english-translation.html

[ii] http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2274/where-does-that-1492-ocean-blue-thing-about-columbus-come-from  Poem written by Winifred Sackville Stoner, Jr.

[iii] A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (Howard Zinn)- Highlight Loc. 72-75  | Added on Wednesday, October 03, 2012, 04:41 PM

[iv] http://red-coral.net/Columb.html  from the poem Columbus in the Bay of Pigs by John Curl

[v] A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (Howard Zinn)- Highlight Loc. 214-16  | Added on Friday, October 05, 2012, 01:02 PM

[vi] As found in the article “Fear of a Black President” by Ta-Nehisi Coates http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/?single_page=true

[vii] http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2008/02/ben-franklin-on.html

[viii] “Fear of a Black President” by Ta-Nehisi Coates http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/?single_page=true

[ix] A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (Howard Zinn) – Highlight Loc. 456-60  | Added on Friday, October 05, 2012, 01:39 PM

[x] A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (Howard Zinn)-Highlight Loc 426-31

[xi] A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (Howard Zinn)-Highlight Loc 431-35

[xii] http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2011/06/21/faith-leaders-ethnic-studies-program-is-a-valuable-educational-program

[xiii] A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (Howard Zinn)- Highlight Loc. 252-53  | Added on Friday, October 05, 2012, 01:09 PM

Hallelujah!

Tommy was a very devout young man.  He was living with severe retardation and cerebral palsy.  His total vocabulary was at best 150 words but he communicated well with his infectious smile and easy laugh.  He enjoyed riding his adult tricycle in the parking lot of the habilitation facility where I worked for several years.  He would often be seen riding his tricycle and singing songs of praise to God.  Tommy viewed God slightly differently than most and yet his view of God might rival the leading theologians.  He would sing, “All praise God in Heaven.  All power glory to Him in de Highest.  Hail Mary and Dracula Power forever and ever. Amen.”  You see, Tommy combined good and evil into one source. And if good and evil were closely aligned then why not recognize that fact in worship.

I think Tommy was on to something.  We have all faced tragedies in our lives. And if we haven’t, I guarantee, that at some point in our lives we will deal with some level of misfortune.  Misfortune will come either to our beings personally or to someone close to us in our daily circles.  So if this is true, then wouldn’t it be better to accept this rather than trying to avoid and ignore the tragedies?  Is there a different way for us to approach and deal with tragedies?

Our story this morning about Joseph who was his father’s favorite had tragedy bestow upon him. Now perhaps he shouldn’t have bragged to his brothers about his dream of them bowing down before him, but he was a little kid after all.  He was probably tired of the taunting and sibling rivalry his brothers threw at him and so a little bragging, a little gloating, probably felt good but it did land him in trouble.

His brothers took things too far in putting him in his place in the pecking order.  Stripping him of the special coat made for him was humiliation enough, but then to toss him into the cistern and then sell him into slavery into an unknown, unsafe future is beyond the normal scuffles that brothers partake in.  And to then tell a tale of woe to their father was over the top injury because it was not just the father who would grieve, but each of the brothers as well for their part in a dastardly wicked and evil plot to place their brother in his place.

To act in such a manner requires the coldest of hearts, one that is impervious to feeling compassion for another. How they lived with their evil actions against their brother is not revealed in the story, only that they felt some remorse as the story plays out in Pharaoh’s palace.

Yet, Joseph also had a charming personality which gained him favor in the eyes of those who enslaved him. So he was over all well treated as a slave and even though he was imprisoned falsely, his personality gained him favor within the prison.  He used his talents well and eventually was placed in a position of power that enabled him to save not only himself but also his family who betrayed him.   Hindsight might suggest that providence was guiding these events to unfold so as to save the Hebrews from the famine and drought that was to descend on the region years later.

And whether providence was at work here or not herein rests an important truth.  If we are open to the process of life’s unfolding, life will always win out with new opportunities, new possibilities, new configurations that were unimaginable prior to an unfortunate circumstance.

In my personal life, I have witnessed amazing outcomes from tragedies that should have destroyed the spirit of a people.  In the 1980’s the AIDS epidemic struck with ferocity at the gay community.  People were being expelled from their homes, their schools, from hospitals, from employment when it was learned the person had AIDS.  I remember one mother who struggled with her faith community because her son was living with AIDS and needed someplace to die.  Her church family, where only a few years before he had served as an acolyte, told her to leave him to the judgment of God because this disease was a sign of God’s deep displeasure with her son.  How could she, who gave birth to him, deny him a mother’s love which is as eternal as anything in the human experience?  She chose love over the church and welcomed her son home where he lived his final days.  She was not alone in her response to choose love first.  A community of people drew close together to support one another, to fight for medications to be developed, to fight for justice.

The AIDS epidemic when it violently erupted in America was indeed a tragedy.  It was a tragedy that those who knew the teachings of their respective faith to love, allowed their hearts to grow cold with fear.  Yet, within that tragic unfolding, there were millions of people who said yes to love and welcomed people with AIDS into their lives.  There were people who were complete strangers to one another who felt their hearts expand with love for the other.  Tragedy created an opportunity for a response of love to develop and a new spiritual and compassionate awakening began to sweep over the land.

I saw it again in the days that followed the massive airline hijackings on September 11 2001.  The image of the planes being flown into the world trade towers will forever be etched upon our minds.  Many in the country responded with intense anger against a people of a religion that is not understood here.  And while anger in the short run is understandable that anger has hardened the hearts of many against people of the Muslim faith. Yet, there were a few who chose love over hatred.  A few, who recognized that the actions of a few does not mean this was done in sympathy of the whole of the Muslim world.

In my home town of Danbury, the United Jewish Center quickly responded to protect the members of the local Mosque.  The Jewish men would stand guard outside of the Mosque during prayer and the women would escort the Muslim women while they did shopping to make sure that no harm would come to these neighbors.  Two groups of people, who in the larger context are considered old enemies, came together to support one another during this tragic time in our lives.

This week as well as being the holy week of Easter is also the holy week of Passover.  The time when Jews remember that they were once strangers and slaves in the land of Egypt and therefore are commanded to welcome the other, the stranger so as to not cause the same atrocities they experienced on another group of sojourners. New opportunities to love arose out of those tragic days surrounding September 11th  So few in our country remember that their faith calls them to love anew when tragedy strikes.

Today a decade after those planes went down at the hands of radical extremists; our country has amplified our hatred towards Muslims and foreigners in our land. Instead of finding ways to bring our country together, there are forces that seek instead to divide our country, to segregate our country, to destroy the dream of E pluribus Unum; Out of many, One.

We are now witnessing yet another tragedy unfolding in our midst.  We have families who are being torn apart because of a broken system that encourages xenophobia, which encourages fear of the other, which encourages oppression.  For us here in Tuscaloosa, the passage of HB 56 was coupled with the devastation of a tornado that destroyed thousands of homes in our poorer communities.  Many in the state are responding in a manner that rivals the racist callousness of the Jim Crow era of the 20^th century.  The revisions proposed to HB 56 in the form of HB 658 seeks to placate the needs of the strongest opponents: The businesses, law enforcement, and clergy.  It does not address the injustice to a family that is torn apart.

I recently heard of a family where the parents are being deported to Mexico but their child, born in the US and therefore a US citizen has been denied to go with them by Alabama’s Department of Human Resources (DHR) because life in Mexico is no place for a young child.  The arrogance and racism of DHR is appalling and yet it affirms the reason why the family came to this country in the first place—to have a better life.

DHR is not the first institution to decree that children are better off without their parents.   This story was told in Australia in the last century where children born to an Aboriginal parent and a White parent were removed from the Aboriginal parent because the state could provide a better life for the child than the Aboriginal. These children were trained to be servants to white families which was deemed the highest vocation they could attain.  This current tragedy offers us an opportunity to rise up in love.

We are called to love our neighbor as our selves. I cannot imagine anyone of our families wanting the state to determine that our children would be better off in their care than in our care as the children’s parents, regardless of our social economic status.

Therefore, while the revisions to HB 56 would exempt immigrant clergy and missionaries who volunteer their religious services, I cannot in good conscience accept this law when this exemption comes at the price of families being torn apart for no other reason than immigrant status.  It still would be illegal for me as a clergy person to knowingly provide services that would encourage or support an undocumented citizen to remain in this country.  A law I will continue to break because as Martin Luther King, Jr. says, “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

What new opportunities, new possibilities to love the other are waiting to be discovered by us?  What doors will open up for us that had not this evil crossed our door we would not have these powerful choices to love before us?

What stories of these days will we tell our children’s children that when we tell it, it will seem in hindsight to have had the hand of providence guiding our path?  Good and evil are closely aligned.  It seems to me when Jesus said to not resist evil; he meant that we must find the opportunities to respond in greater love and in the process find the grace to create good.

The story of the Christian resurrection is about love prevailing over the power of death meant to end once and for all that messenger of love.  The disciples were given a choice in the tragedy of the crucifixion.  They could run and hide, some did. They could deny all knowledge of the man arrested and crucified, some did. They could despair of all hope of redemption and take their life, and some did that too. Or they could grieve the tragedy and choose to embody the message that the realm of love lives within us and ultimately change the world.  Some did that too. Hallelujah!

The Hallelujah they experienced was a cold and broken Hallelujah that Leonard Cohen wrote in the wonderful song Louise sang this morning.  Good and evil closely aligned.  May we have the strength to offer a broken Hallelujah and in the process embody love.  Blessed Be.

Conflating Fear with Disease

It is an old story.   We divide those who are different from us by categorizing them as stereotypes. And when those stereotypes are markedly negative; it makes the other, something to be shunned, something to be feared as a threat, something to control, something to be destroyed.  It makes the other into some thing instead of a person with dignity and worth.

It is actually a very dangerous game.  Someone somewhere is going to hear these opinions and decide it is time to make a stand against the other; especially if that someone feels themselves powerless in their own circumstances.  We have seen this scenario before.  The shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN was because a man was down and out.  He felt powerless to address his circumstances and he had heard on radio and TV that the blame was to be placed squarely on the liberal politicians in Washington, DC.  He didn’t feel he had a chance to exact revenge on them so he chose a group of people who he felt sure had placed those liberals in power.

So it is with alarm when I heard Leland Whaley of Leland Live on WAPI radio based in Birmingham, AL turn a story about one case of Hepatitis A in Northport, AL into a story about immigrants being vectors of disease.  It was pure speculation on his part.  The employee at the McDonald’s was never identified as being of any specific nationality or race.  Yet, Leland felt duty bound to proclaim immigrants as the cause for this one case of Hepatitis A.  He was “just askin’ ” the questions that no one was asking, he said. This is a disease that can be spread by poor hygiene, as in infected restaurant employees not washing their hands after using the restroom. He implied that immigrants, especially those from south of our border, do not have the hygiene skills to wash their hands after restroom use.  He went on to proclaim that Hepatitis is on the rise in this country and it is directly because of the millions of immigrants who have entered this country from countries like Mexico.

It isn’t true.  Hepatitis A infection rates are not on the rise in this country.  In fact, the health department reported that Hepatitis A is trending downward in this country[i], 90% decline of cases over the last 20 years.  Twenty Years!   And Western Alabama has about one or two cases of Hepatitis A every year. Not exactly an outbreak.  Not exactly something to get all freaked out about.

Leland Whaley further stated that TB rates were on the rise in the US because of immigrants.  Again, this is not true.  TB infection rates are also on the decline in the US.  And rates of infection among Latinos are among the lowest when looking at TB prevalence in ethnic groups in the US.[ii]

Yet, Leland Whaley suggests blame of one case of Hepatitis to an entire population of immigrants and then lumps in TB infections to further denigrate and label a population of people as vectors of disease. This is at best irresponsible journalism.  At worst it is hate-mongering geared towards driving yet another divide between us and them.  In this case the US are white people and the THEM are immigrants.  To make such assertions of a group of people being vectors of disease is to spread fear into the population to keep the focus off the real issues affecting the nation.

Whenever a nation begins to denigrate people living within its borders by associating people with diseases, with crime, with violent behavior that nation begins the path towards displaying the ugly side of humanity.  It is a step towards removing the humanity of these individuals.  When people are no longer seen as human, then it becomes easier to normalize behaviors of denigration and oppression.  It becomes acceptable to round people up like cattle, pass harsh criminal punishments for non-violent offenses, and justify these actions as a public health and safety precaution.   We can then turn our eyes away when self proclaimed crime fighters hunt down an unarmed teenager because the media reporters have already reduced black teens who wear hoodies into violent threats.  Now the media is trying to reduce Latinos into vectors of disease.  How soon will it be until someone comes up with a tried and true method of eliminating alleged vectors of disease?

Leland Whaley owes a public apology to the Latino community in Alabama.  We have already seen far too many times in this country when hateful rhetoric is heard by unstable individuals in this country.  Leland Whaley needs to be held accountable to his rhetoric on Alabama’s airwaves.

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[i] http://hepatitis.about.com/od/overview/a/numbers.htm

[ii] http://www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/factsheets/statistics/TBTrends.htm

When We Assume or Update on Public Hearing SB 256

Tuesday was the day for Alabama’s Senate to hold their public hearing on their version of the Arizona style immigration bill, SB 256.  This public hearing had a different feel than the house version of this bill.  It was located in a small cramped room of standing room only.   The senators instead of just listening to comments made their own comments in response.  It was these comments that were most telling regarding the mindset behind this bill.

All of the speakers who spoke to this bill spoke in opposition. Shay Farley of Alabama Appleseed confronted the assumptions that are written directly into the bill’s language.  It was the direction I would be going in my presentation as well when my turn to speak came.   She spoke directly to the assumption that “illegal immigrants” are the cause of lawlessness and economic hardship.  The responses from Senator Scofield and another senator whose name escapes me were of the anecdotal stories of gangs, of property values decreasing because of overcrowding, the costs to schools for Spanish translators where the population is 20%  immigrants, and of hospitals not being able to recoup full costs from births of immigrants.   Anecdotal stories based on assumptions that if “illegal immigrants” were rounded up and deported then gangs would disappear, overcrowding of housing would cease, the need for Spanish translators would no longer exist, and hospitals’ maternity wards would be paid in full.  Ms. Farley countered that hospitals are mandated by federal law to provide services regardless of immigrant status. Once the child is born they are citizens thereby making hospitals eligible for full reimbursement.  The senator responded that if the immigrants simply were not here in the first place the hospital would not have to worry about full or partial reimbursement.

There is another narrative that could be applied to these anecdotal stories. That narrative is one of extreme poverty but to apply this narrative would require a different solution where tax codes are revised so that corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes in the state enabling reinvestment into communities where poverty reigns supreme.   But in this state of Alabama where white privilege is institutionalized in its constitution, it is going to take more than retelling the story of immigrants.

The assumption that if 20% of a student population speaks Spanish then that same 20% must be here illegally or born to parents who are here illegally is a false assumption.  The senator stated that if these illegal immigrants were removed then the school could hire more teachers instead of having to pay for translation services.  It is a huge assumption that 20% native Spanish speaking children in a school equals 20% undocumented children.  How would the school district or the state for that matter  accomplish the removal of these students so that there would no longer be any need for the nine translators the senator stated this school now employs?

It is quite simple of course.  Begin by stopping every driver who appears to be of foreign descent.  Now it could be for legal reasons such as driving over the speed limit or failure to use turn signals but it might also be for such minor infractions like a cracked tail light.  Create laws that require every aspect of the immigrant’s  life is spent proving their right to be here.  Every new job, every new rental, every new medical procedure, every minor infraction, every time  a ride is hitched to work, every time a church provides transportation to attend worship, every time a driver’s license is renewed, every time a marriage license or a hunting license is sought, every time children are enrolled into school or college ; the immigrant is there proving their right to exist. This proposed legislation impinges on all of these aspects of life in this state and creates felonies for all who refuse to comply to it.  This is legal harassment.

The assumption that “illegal immigrants” are receiving services that they do not deserve is strong.  And since the state cannot know who is or is not here illegally, every one who is of reasonable suspicion is stopped. It is no longer about removing undocumented people, it is about removing immigrants from the state.

A young woman spoke and stated that she is the face of immigrants in the state.  She stated that her parents became citizens through the immigration act of 1986.  The opportunities created for her family has enabled her to pursue her doctorate  but because she is Latino she will be targeted under this legislation. By her looks  alone  it will be assumed that she is undocumented.  Senator Sanford replied that all she needs to do is show her driver’s license and be on her way as if the indignity of being targeted again and again is that easily resolved.  He added that he appreciates her putting a face to immigrants in the state but hers was not the face this bill is targeting.  Senator Sanford does not get it.  His response was smug and arrogant.  His response implied that he could tell what the face of an undocumented person looks like in Alabama.   How many times will a police officer see her brown skin and then create a reason to check her out?  How many time will this happen before she decides Alabama is no longer a safe place for her because of institutionalized white supremacy and privilege?

Assumptions about the anecdotal stories is what is driving this bill.  Not facts.  Not concrete data.  But assumptions on the anecdotes.  Assumptions that are developed through the lens of a constitution that was never dismantled and discarded after the civil rights movement struck many of its provisions federally unconstitutional.  A constitution that still declares itself to be a white supremacist document and still institutionalizes white privilege through out the state.  The white senators do not get it.  They sat there and in the face of facts and in the face of evidence that proved their assumptions wrong, they smugly stated they were in the right.

I will post the text of my presentation in a separate post.

Acceptance vs Tolerance

Acceptance v Tolerance

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

13 February 2011 © Rev Fred L Hammond

 

There was a long pause on the phone.  Then, “What did you call me?” I was flabbergasted, I had to think; did I say something derogatory and not realize it? “I called you Sir.”   He sputtered, “No one has ever called me sir.  I am not a sir.  I am called lots of things but Sir is not one of them.”  “Well,” I replied, “I just did and therefore you must also be, a Sir.”

Keith was many things in the eyes of the world.  He was a convict, a violent criminal, an addict, a street bum, a con artist, abusive to his girlfriend, and infected with HIV/AIDS. All of these labels were met with fear by most everyone he encountered. This is the person parents warn their children about. Good people do not associate with the likes of him. He was the other to everyone he met.  At best he would be tolerated by the social service workers who would help with food stamps, clothing vouchers, rental assistance.  Rarely would he be accepted for his essential self, a fellow human trying to find his way through this maze called life.

The definition of tolerance has broadened over the centuries but its earliest meaning had to do with enduring, endurance as in something painful or abhorrent.  A newer connotation of the word is to offer a permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, culture, race; sexual orientation is different to ones own.  But the underlying denotation of enduring or forbearing something abhorrent remains.

Accept is the root word of acceptance and it has many definitions as well, including “to receive or admit formally, as to a college or club; and to regard as normal, suitable, or usual.” So the matter of acceptance means to welcome in as one of us or to consider as typically everyday normal.

The difference between tolerance and acceptance reveals a strong contrast:  endure something painful or welcome as one of us.

There is in our society lots of conversation about tolerating our diversity.  We are asked to be tolerant of gays, lesbians, and transgender folk.  We are asked to be tolerant of our religious differences.  We have heard specifically to be tolerant of Muslims in our country.  So given the definition of the word what are we really asking when we ask for tolerance of those who are different from us.  Are we asking to simply put up, endure people that we do not like, whose very presence might be painful, offensive to our set of morals or cultural mores?

It could be said that in the 20^th century Euro-Americans were tolerant of African Americans as long as African Americans remained in their scripted place of being at the back of the bus.  As long as African Americans remained in their prescribed societal role of a second class citizen, then Euro-Americans could tolerate them.  Tolerate them with total indifference. This was not acceptance of African Americans, but it was tolerance. When African Americans refused to remain at the back of the bus, tolerance of African Americans went out the window and the south went up in flames, quite literally.  African Americans wanted acceptance as equals.  They no longer would stand for the tolerance of indifference which on a good day is what they received. We all know what happened on the bad days.

Martin Buber, 20^th century philosopher, wrote a ground breaking text called I and Thou.   He describes the person who declares I as having two basic word forms, I-It and I-You or I-Thou.  We experience it. What ever that something is, it is experienced by the I.  He writes, “I perceive something.  I feel something. I imagine something. I think something. …The world as experience belongs to the basic word I-It.”

We do not experience You, instead I-You is in the realm of relationship. There are no boundaries, no borders to the I-You basic word form.  There is a border with the I-It experience.  The I-It has shape, it has definition, and it may also have a past tense.    However, the I in the I-You dyad impacts upon the You only in the present, in the here and now, likewise the You impacts on the I.  The I-You relationship must be dealt with; the relationship cannot be ignored or placed into the background like an I-It experience.

In the movie Avatar there is within the Na’vi culture this notion of seeing the other.  The Na‘vi do not experience their world in the I-It sense but rather in the I-You relationship.  They see their world in the full essence of life unfolding. Their world embodies an entity of being.  They do not experience their world they are in relationship with the world.  In the movie it is stated that the skypeople, the humans, cannot see.  When Jack Sully finally embraces the culture of the Na’vi he and his Na’vi mentor say to each other, “I see you.”  They are finally in an I-You relationship.  Buber suggests that in these moments the I-You relationship is also addressing the eternal You.  I see you.

The skypeople, the humans, are not in relation with the world Pandora.  To them the world is an It.  They experience the world.  They know what the world can offer them in resources and in potential experiences.  But the world is an It and all the beings living on the world are an It, as well.  Pandora to the skypeople is of no consequence to them. They therefore are blind and do not see Pandora.

Extrapolate this not seeing the other as a You to the United States stance and quest for oil in the Middle East or our stance on immigration and undocumented citizens.  Or our long embattled history with the indigenous people of this land. All of these are I-It experiences.  This is not simply a political analysis this is as spiritual as it gets.

 

There is a Hindi word that also expresses this I-You relationship, Namasté.  It has been translated in many ways from the simple “The god in me recognizes the god in you.” To “I honor the place in you in which the entire Universe dwells, I honor the place in you which is of Love, of Integrity, of Wisdom and of Peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are One.”  Saying Namasté, the person is acknowledging the I-You relationship.

In the last 18 days we have seen something remarkable happen in Egypt.  We saw a people rise up, realize that they are people of worth and dignity and peacefully remove a dictator who saw them only as his objects. They claimed an I-You stance in this revolution and demanded that their government see them for who they are.

In the 1950’s, when Rosa Parks sat down in the bus, when the college students sat down at the lunch counter, when Ms. Lucy walked into the University of Alabama, they were declaring an I-You stance and demanded to be seen as the same as any other person.  They were to be known as the I-You and no longer as an I-It.  There is a lot of courage and fortitude to insist to be in relationship with another who does not see you but only tolerates you as a piece of landscape in the background.  Tolerance as experienced in America is an I-It paradigm.

There is a video that has been making the rounds on Face Book. It is sponsored by a bible church in Arkansas. It opens with a young man in a hurry to work and he is complaining about every inconvenience, the kid next door on his skateboard that isn’t paying attention to cars, the traffic, the car that cuts him off, and the long lines in the coffee shop.  He is handed a pair of glasses and as he puts them on he suddenly sees the problems that is weighing down on each person. One person is fighting addictions; another just had a blow up fight with their spouse, the single mom working two jobs to make ends meet, the man who just lost his job and trying to save face with his kids.  Suddenly these people are no longer in the I-It experience.  No longer are they barriers to his getting to where ever he is rushing to but I-You individuals that if he so chooses might serve as a difference in their lives.

Does acceptance mean embracing the opposing behaviors, values, and beliefs to our own?  Contrary to popular argument, no.   I can accept the person before me as one with dignity and worth and still not like their behaviors or belief system.  Acceptance is not carte blanche.  Parents can accept their children universally but this does not automatically mean they accept their children’s behaviors that are disrespectful or harmful to themselves or others.

What it does mean is that we are seeing the whole person as a person of worth and dignity. Before us stands a person who deserves to live their life as fully and as abundantly as possible. We are in relationship with them instead of simply tolerating their presence.   This is spiritual work.  When all the forces around us insist on making others I-Its in our landscape, it takes a disciplined soul to see the other as I-You.   And when the person is oppressed by society, it takes even more fortitude to insist on being recognized as part of I-You.

Unitarian Universalist Zach Wahls, whose testimony before the Iowa state legislator on the zero impact of his parents being a lesbian couple on the development of his character was an I-You testimony.  He declared that his family is not so different from any other family in Iowa.  Their sense of worth as a family is not derived by the state declaring his parents married. “Sense of family comes from commitment to each other, it comes from the love that binds us,” Zach told the chambers.  Acceptance of his family as equal partners in contributing to the positive development of Iowan society is far different than tolerance of his family.  Zach told the council that not one person in his 19 years of life ever independently deduced that he was raised by two women instead of a heterosexual couple.  He was passionately arguing that his parents were not I-It but were worthy of being I-You because he could declare, I see you to his parents.  He was asking the council to join him in seeing, truly seeing his family as any other family in Iowa that receive the fair and equal treatment from their government.

Remember Keith, the hardened street criminal I called sir?  He died many years ago just before Thanksgiving.  At his funeral, his older brother told me that I was able to reach Keith in a way that no one in the family could.  He thanked me for seeing Keith for who he was at his core being.  He suggested that this made the difference in how Keith chose to live his final days surrounded by family, welcomed and accepted home.

Live with an attitude of acceptance, of welcoming in people where they are instead of an attitude of tolerance, of putting up and enduring the pain of life’s diversity.  By so doing you may enter into the realm of I-You and even encounter the eternal You in the process.  Namasté.

A Dream Deferred

A Dream Deferred

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

16 January 2011 ©  Rev. Fred L Hammond

Langston Hughes poem was first published under the title “Harlem” in 1951.  Sixty years ago.  Oh how things have changed since then and yet, oh, how things have remained the same.   In many ways, the dreams of people in America remain deferred.

When Langston Hughes wrote this poem, Martin Luther King, Jr. was not yet a household name. Brown vs the Board of Education had not yet been ruled on by the US Supreme Court.  His dream for equality was not yet vocalized to the masses.  Voting rights were denied.  Jim Crow laws were in full force in the south and the slick-smile- to-the-face-and-quiet-stab-in–the-back racism was in the north.  Dreams were deferred and they were drying up like a raisin in the sun and they were festering like a sore and they were crusting over like a syrupy sweet and sagging like a heavy load.  They were about to explode.

Martin Luther King came on the scene and for the first time gave real hope and real promise to African Americans not only of freedom but freedom to achieve the American Dream; where their children would have opportunities of education, of employment, of a life that was unimaginable to their parents.   After years of struggle laws were passed that removed the Jim Crow laws, restored voting rights, and desegregated schools.  Affirmative Action was put into place to remove the institutional barriers to opportunities for African Americans and other minorities.

But something happened along the way.  After King’s assassination, a new despair began to seep into our country. We began to see the destruction of many of the programs that lifted us out of the depression of the 1930’s.  And the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest of us at its narrowest in 1968, the year of King’s assassination, doubled in width by 2009.[i]

Yet America’s productivity has grown during that same time period.  The gains of productivity have gone towards corporate earnings and profits instead of the employees who labored.  So who are the people who have suffered during this widening gap?  The top 20% of Americans earn 50% of the income generated in America. The fastest growing income segment are those in the top .01% of Americans with 22% of the income generated in America[ii]. The bottom 20% of Americans earn 3.4% of the income generated.   These individuals who are earning the least amount of income tend to be those without a high school diploma.  They tend to be people who live in rural areas of the country[iii].

Edward Wolff of New York University when looking at net worth of people in America discovered that 20% of Americans own about 85% of the wealth and 40% of Americans own near zero percent and in fact have a negative net wealth[iv].   I don’t know about you, but I certainly fall into that 40% category.

Martin Luther King’s dream went beyond the abolishment of racism, he saw the abolishment of poverty.  Towards the end of his life, life, poverty became an important piece of his message. He saw the programs against poverty that were in place in 1968 and their current versions 40 years later as being uncoordinated piecemeal efforts.  Housing programs, educational reform, welfare assistance all being done in piece meal fashion and all fluctuate at the whims of legislative bodies.   We saw what the well intended deregulated housing programs have wrought in 2008. It was thought that home ownership was one of the factors that would lift America out of poverty.  The largest mortgage default in American history that nearly collapsed our economy continues at record rates as we enter the New Year.

Martin Luther King stated the simplest solution to abolish poverty would be a guaranteed income.  He stated there are two groups of people in America who currently have a guaranteed income, the wealthiest with their security portfolios and the poor with their welfare assistance.

King wrote that John Kenneth Galbraith, considered one of the most influential economists of the 20^th century, estimated that $20 billion a year would effect a guaranteed income, which Galbraith describes as “not much more than we will spend the next fiscal year to rescue freedom and democracy and religious liberty as these are defined by ‘experts’ in Vietnam.”  If my calculations adjusting for inflation are correct, $125 Billion a year in 2010 dollars would effect a guaranteed income which is less than 1/3^rd what the war in Afghanistan[v] is costing Americans and 16 % of what the alleged post war costs in Iraq are slated for this budget year.

King believed that such a guaranteed income needed to be placed in the median income of Americans, to place it at the floor level would only continue the stagnation that welfare recipients currently experience.  He believed this guaranteed income needed to be dynamic and be adjusted annually with the productivity of the nation’s total income.

King wrote that a “a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his/her life are in his/her own hands, when [s]he has the assurance that [her]his income is stable and certain, and when [s]he knows that [s]he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.[vi]”

Today we see marriage in decline in the United States as people struggle to develop economic viability.  The number of married couples dropped to a record low of 52 % in 2009 as compared to 57% in the year 2000.  And this does not include those marriages that are staying together only because they cannot afford to divorce at this time[vii]. King is suggesting that couples esteem would increase if economic woes did not define who we are as human beings.

King writes: “The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the middle and upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent. We are wasting and degrading human life by clinging to archaic thinking.

“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.[viii]”

In a survey done by Michael Norton and Dan Ariely on income equity in the United States, they found “a large majority of every group … surveyed — from the poorest to the richest, from the most conservative to the most liberal — agreed that the current level of wealth inequality was too high and wanted a more equitable distribution of wealth. In fact, Americans reported wanting to live in a country that looks more like Sweden than the United States.”[ix]

The last time such huge disparity between the wealthy and the poor existed in America was during what was called the Gilded Age, the period towards the end of the 19^th century.  It was met with labor unrest and political agitation and it was toppled by the second worst depression in American history.  The current time in our society is being called the second gilded age.

American Conservative magazine suggests: “In the course of the 20th century, there were several eras of growing economic inequality. On a few occasions, they came to an end in a relatively gentle way, with democratic elections and more egalitarian legislation. More often, however, they were ended by a catastrophe, such as the Great Depression, a violent social revolution, or a world war. When the rich went out, it seems, they normally did so with a bang, and not with a whimper. The way things are now going, it is likely to be so in the future[x].”

So here we have King’s dream of a society that has not only abolished racism but also abolished poverty.  He believed it was not only doable but achievable in his lifetime.  Forty years after his death, we appear to be further away from either part of his dream from being fulfilled.  We have the gap between the wealthy and the poor growing to widths that were pre-cursers to some of the most heinous governments in our world’s history.  We have scapegoated our economic woes on the backs of immigrants and Muslims.

I spoke with [a member] on Friday.  I told her I was doing this sermon and wanted to know her thoughts about Martin Luther King.  [She] said something to me that made me stand up and take notice.  She said her mother used to ask why Martin Luther King couldn’t just write his words and not show up for these events.  Her mother was aware of the physical danger King faced every time he made a public appearance somewhere. As we now know, it was his appearance for the sanitation workers strike in Memphis that culminated in his assassination.  Why not just write and not show up.

Could King have had the same effect if he simply wrote his views and not shown up in Selma, not shown up in Birmingham, and not shown up in Montgomery?  Would his “I Have a Dream” speech be remembered if he had not shown up to deliver it at the March on Washington but merely had it published in the Atlantic Monthly?

Dreams do not come true if we choose not to show up in our pursuit of them.  If we stand back, nod our heads in agreement, but do not show up to place our words into living action, then what have we accomplished?  It is easy to do arm chair justice.  We can sign all the petitions on MoveOn.com or rant all we want about injustice on the Tuscaloosa News Forum but if we hide behind the comfort of our screen name, what have we really accomplished?  We remain unseen.  We remain voiceless.  We remain without strength to make a difference.

Now I do not know if King’s economic justice dream of guaranteed income can be easily applied given our current political tension.  There will be shouts of socialism or worse.  It could be seen as reparations for slavery even though it would benefit everyone.  But imagine knowing that regardless of the work you are doing, you would receive at least a base pay of say $40,000.   Additional salary would be based on the performance of the company producing whatever it is they produce.  For some of us that amount of salary would answer many problems.

But this sort of dream can never come true if people do not show up to advocate for it.  The majority of people in America want some form of equalization of income, so says the survey.  The survey indicates the ideal they want is Sweden.  According to the CIA Fact book, “Sweden has achieved an enviable standard of living under a mixed system of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits. It has a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications, and a skilled labor force.[xi]” Sweden does not have a poverty level ranking in the CIA Fact book; it is listed as not applicable.

We are called to show up in the pursuit of our dreams, in the pursuit of a just and equitable world.  Mahatma Gandhi is oft quoted as saying, “be the change you want to see in the world.”  In President Obama’s closing words at the memorial for those who were killed in Tucson last week, he said, “I want us to live up to [Christina Taylor Green’s] expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.[xii]” If we seek to do that we will be fulfilling Martin Luther King’s dream for all of us.  Blessed Be.

[i] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/income-gap-widens-census-_n_741386.html

[ii] http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06132008/profile2.html

[iii] This information is based on this report: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec10/income_09-28.html

[iv] http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10318/1102841-109.stm

[v] based on military budget figures found at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

[vi] Martin Luther King  “Where do we go from here?”  as found in the text The essential writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. edited by James M. Washington.

[vii] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032103139.html

[viii] Martin Luther King  “Where do we go from here?”  as found in the text The essential writings and speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. edited by James M. Washington.

[ix] Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10318/1102841-109.stm#ixzz1B8foXmFG

[x] as found at : http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06132008/profile2.html

[xi] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sw.html

[xii] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20028366-503544.html

Institutionalized Racism

Institutionalized Racism

by Rev. Fred L Hammond

Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa

12 December 2010 ©

Reading: “In a rational, logical world,”  From the The Anniston Star Editorial Board November 5 2010

In a rational, logical world, Anniston would be able to resume paying for college scholarships for graduates of the city’s public high school.

It’s a case of local people having a say in what their city does — or should do, at least. In Tuesday’s election, Anniston residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of using city money to send eligible Anniston teens to college. The tally wasn’t close, 63.6 percent to 36.4 percent.

But this isn’t a rational, logical world.

Thanks to the state’s archaic 1901 Constitution, voters in Anniston and Calhoun County both had to approve the local amendment, even though people who don’t live in Anniston have no dog in the fight over how Anniston’s City Council writes the city’s checks.

Anniston residents passed the amendment.

Calhoun County residents didn’t.

Thus, Anniston can’t resume its worthwhile college scholarship program because state law foolishly requires that such amendments be passed both by the city and the county — even though only Anniston money would have gone to the scholarships. It’s an Anniston deal, for Anniston students, and people who don’t live in Anniston barred its rebirth.

Thanks a lot, 1901 Constitution.

Institutionalized Racism

The tale of Anniston not getting to decide what to do with Anniston money is not a unique tale in Alabama.  It isn’t just some quirky archaic law left over from a bygone era that no one pays attention to anymore like it being illegal in the State of Alabama to impersonate Clergy[1].  By the way, impersonating clergy comes with a very hefty penalty, $500 fine and/or up to one year in the county jail.  I know you all are just itching to break that law so I am keeping my eyes on you.   The law that kept Anniston, a community that demographically is about 50% black is codified in our constitution so that Calhoun County, which is 77% white can keep them in check.

No one ever states it quite like that but that is how the Alabama constitution is written and for that purpose.  In the convention hearings of 1901, there was expressed fear of “negro domination” and the response was to “establish White Supremacy in this state[2]” of Alabama.  The state legislature was to hold the power over local communities to prevent them from directing their own local destiny. This was done in two ways. The entire state had to vote on an issue occurring in a county of the state or the county had to vote on an issue occurring in one of its municipalities, even though the rest of the state or the rest of the county could care less about a new sewage treatment plant being built that would be paid for by the residents of the specific community.  The Alabama constitution is a prime example of what institutionalized racism looks like in America.

Someone could say, but Fred, all those laws in the constitution that were directed against blacks were made null and void by the federal civil rights act in 1964.  In fact, this is the rebuttal by “Citizens Against Constitutional Reform” to the “Alabama Citizens for Constitution Reform’s” claim that the 1901 Constitutional Convention “disenfranchised poor whites and Blacks in that memorable document.”   The Citizens Against Constitutional Reform state, “No one in Alabama is disenfranchised from full participation in today’s society or prosperity[3].”   Not true. In fact there is still on the books a section of the constitution that legalizes segregation of schools. While Brown v. the Board of Education made the law unconstitutional, it still remains active on the books. The offending words that are still active in the constitution are “Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.[4]”

An amendment to repeal this amendment of racial segregation failed.  “Nearly all organizations opposing the repeal of the segregation measure pointed to a provision stating that the state did not provide a right to a state financed education. Groups opposing the repeal of this amendment claimed that repeal would lead to court decisions requiring the state to raise taxes.[5]”

This defeat happened, not in 1954 when Brown v Board of Education decision was made, not in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was passed but in 2004.  Fifty years after the ruling that unequivocally determined that separate but equal was only separate and certainly not equal. This repeal was defeated because there was a fear of taxation, not because people didn’t abhor segregation, not because they didn’t see this section of the constitution as wrong but because they feared an increase in taxation.  I’ll come back to taxation and how it plays its part in racism later.

The constitution of 1901 was written with the sole purpose of disenfranchising the Blacks. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s there was a lot of voting fraud happening.  People would appear to have voted who didn’t show up to vote. Ballots would be stuffed. So when the vote came regarding the question to hold a constitutional convention and to the vote to ratify the new constitution, a curious thing happened according to the press.

The majority of the state of Alabama, where the majority of white voters lived, the question to ratify the constitution was defeated, 76K to 72K against.  But in the region where the majority of Black voters lived in Alabama, ironically known as the Black belt for its black top soil, Blacks apparently, or so we have been told, voted for the new constitution knowing that the outcome of this new constitution would disenfranchise them.  In Hale, Dade, and Wilcox Counties the vote was 18,000 for ratification and 500 against.  The White population in these three counties alone was only 5600 and the Black population was 12,400.  Anyone doing the math on this?  It was the vote in the Black Belt that swung the majority of votes to ratify a new constitution to create a white supremacist state.

The headlines of the day read, “Negroes not interested; in many places voted the Democratic Ticket.[6]”  With widespread stealing of the votes as the practice of the day, it is most likely that these votes were stolen.  Even in the records of the convention the stealing of votes was publicly acknowledged.  “But if we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law–not by force or fraud. If you teach your boy that it is right to buy a vote, it is an easy step for him to learn to use money to bribe or corrupt officials or trustees of any class. If you teach your boy that it is right to steal votes, it is an easy step for him to believe that it is right to steal whatever he may need or greatly desire.[7]”

Now again, the right to vote was restored with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The poll tax and the literacy requirements to vote were struck from the state constitution. Therefore, the constitution is no longer a racist document, right?  Wrong.

This is the thing with institutionalization of any premise.  Once something is institutionalized it is in the fabric of how we do things to the point of not recognizing why we are doing them or who they may be affecting and hurting.  It simply is so.  For example, on a much smaller scale, when I asked my mother why she scraped the pork chops before cooking them, she replied because her mother did it.  Why did Grandma do it, because great grandma did it.  Why did Great grandma do it; because when she got the pork chops from the butcher they often had bone chips in the meat so she was scraping them out.  The behavior of scraping the pork chops was institutionalized into how my family prepared pork chops.  Now there is no harm in this small illustration of institutionalizing behavior.

But let me ask you why do we have the residents of this state vote on a matter that only pertains to one small locale?  And why is it important for that matter to become an amendment to the constitution?  The answer to both of these questions is because at one point in time, these actions maintained white supremacy rule.  To have the white majority of the state vote on whether a predominantly black community can offer educational scholarships becomes a very important question for the state seeking to maintain white supremacy.  Education presented a risk to the White majority.  And it still does today in Anniston, AL where the White Calhoun County voted no to Anniston offering scholarships to their almost 50% black, 50% white student population.   But today, we have no reason to continue this practice that was institutionalized over 100 years ago.

The definition of institutionalized racism is patterns in societal structures, such as those found within governmental institutions that result in imposing oppressive or negative conditions on identifiable groups of people on the basis of race or ethnicity[8].  So while the laws that blatantly oppress people of color in the constitution have for the most part been removed, the very structure of the constitution remains to uphold institutionalized racism.

The Anniston example given earlier is an example of this institutionalized racism.  It is the perhaps the hardest to eradicate because the patterns have become so common place, so everyday, that people do not see its impact racially.  While the vote in Calhoun County to deny Anniston the right to spend their money as they see fit might be argued as not being racist, but when looking at who is going to be disproportionately impacted by not having Anniston scholarship money available to them, it is people of color.

The process from conception to amendment to ratification vote by the people in the state can take several years because the bill can get bogged down in committee or not get passed in the house and the senate within the given session.  So even though the local government has passed this ordinance or resolution they are barred from implementing it because the state was not able to get the amendment ready for the ballot.  The wheels turn ever so slowly when seeking to control the destiny of other people deemed unable to determine their fate.

These structures were put into place to maintain white supremacy of Alabama. But it isn’t only this structure; the constitution also has set the tax codes as a means to maintain white supremacy of the wealthy.  Constitutions generally should not be setting the tax code.  Constitutions should authorize the state legislature to levy taxes but not be the holder of the tax code.  However, Alabama was reacting to re-constructionists and the carpetbagger’s who sought their fortune and built railroads and public schools through hefty property taxes. So in the constitution of 1901, income and property taxes were given set limits which resulted in sales taxes as being the only other source of revenue that could be levied with less restriction.  Alabama’s sales tax codes are the most regressive in the nation because they adversely affect the poorest of the poor while benefiting the wealthiest of citizens and special interest groups.

Alabama further altered the way property taxes are applied allowing for exemption of taxes to special interest groups who can assert that their property has an agricultural use. The loss in revenue to the state through these special interest group exemptions is estimated to be $40 million annually[9].  This is money that would have been used to fund rural public schools in the state making them among the poorest in their ability to offer a quality education.  The most affected by this institutionalized structure are the poor in the state increasing the chances for their remaining oppressed.

There are also schools in the state that use sales taxes to fund their services.  The problem is sales taxes are dependent on economy ebbs and flows more so than the other two.  When the state is in a recession, like it has been, people tend to purchase less and therefore sales tax revenue drops.

It is hard to fathom people understanding that their increased sales tax on the purchase of Doritos is going to keep little Johnnie and Mary in school.  Whereas it is easier for people to understand that their local property tax will ensure their children receiving a quality education.  But who are the people who pay the most in sales taxes?  By percentage it is people who are poor pay more of a percentage of their income on sales tax than people who are wealthy.  The wealthy tend to spend their money on services which are not taxable.

There is a need to rewrite the constitution so that 1) local governments have a greater ability to serve the needs of their community and 2) so that the tax code can be adjusted to be equitable to the abilities of its citizens.  For example tax codes that offer sizable exemptions to the paper mills vast forests from property taxes increases the burden on the rural residents of those counties to raise the needed funds to support the education of their children.

What can we do?  Our sister congregation in Birmingham has passed a resolution that will be sent to legislators in the state endorsing the idea of constitution reform.  We can write and pass a similar resolution to join with theirs.  We can write our state representatives and state senators and tell them that constitution reform is not just about home rule and taxes but also undoing the structures that maintain the institutional racism embedded in the current document. It will reduce the cost of government by having local resolutions, local ordinances, local revenues kept to the local level.  Reform will free up those resources so that our state reps can deal with state issues like job creation, transportation infrastructure, and improving our public education.

We can help create a better Alabama where all people benefit from the resources that are available and lifted up to reach their full potential as citizens.  So may it be.

---

[1] Acts 1965, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 273, p. 381; Code 1975, §13-4-99

[2]http://www.legislature.state.al.us/misc/history/constitutions/1901/proceedings/1901_proceedings_vol1/day2.html

[3] http://www.fa-ir.org/alabama/constitution/ACCRSecretFilm.htm

[4] Section 256 as found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Alabama

[5] Ibid.

[6] as found in the video, It’s a Thick Book  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4332178818631634021#

[7] http://www.legislature.state.al.us/misc/history/constitutions/1901/proceedings/1901_proceedings_vol1/day2.html

[8] Based on definition offered by About.com for institutional racism

[9] http://www.alsde.edu/Academy/Finance/MODULE%2007%20STATE%20AD%20VALOREM%20TAX.pdf

Alabama Constitution Reform

Alabama’s Constitution is a document that is over 100 years old. While the most blatant racist articles in this constitution have been struck down by the US Supreme Court, it is still an institutionalized white supremacist document with its fist-ed control over minority-majority counties and cities.  The attempts in the past for constitution reform have been blocked repeatedly by special interest groups and the wealthy who enjoy the power this constitution privileges them.

The Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham passed  a resolution on September 16, 2010 declaring that congregation’s intention to seek constitution reform.   Having this unjust document be overhauled and modernized to meet the needs of the 21st century would be continuing towards the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of equality and justice for all.  I encourage other Alabama congregations, Unitarian Universalist and others,  to pass their own resolutions urging for constitution reform and then to send these resolutions to their state representatives, state senators, and to Governor Bentley.   Here is the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham’s resolution on Constitution reform.

Resolution on Constitutional Reform, Endorsed by the UUCB Board

September 16, 2010

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

Whereas, as Unitarian Universalists, we envision a more caring, just, productive, and prosperous Alabama, governed under a new constitution that promotes a better life for all Alabamians, and

Whereas, the chief agenda item of the Alabama State Constitutional Convention of 1901, as articulated by John. B. Knox, in his presidential address to the convention, was, quote: “And what is it that we want to do? Why it is within the limits imposed by the Federal Constitution, to establish white supremacy in this state…But if we would have white supremacy, we must establish it by law—not by force or fraud.  These provisions are justified in law and in morals, because the negro is not discriminated against on account of his race, but on account of his intellectual and moral condition.  There is in the white man an inherited capacity for government, which is wholly wanting in the negro.” (Official Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Alabama, May 21, 1901 to September 3, 1901, 1:538-42), and

Whereas, the 1901 constitution’s provisions to enshrine Alabama’s large rural land-owners and large sector operating in Alabama, and

Whereas, Alabama’s constitution is the oldest, longest, and most complex in the nation, with 827 amendments (compared to the national average of 116), with more amendments pending each year, as Alabama’s governance continues to become more complex, and

Whereas, Alabama’s state government is so restricted it cannot meet the needs of modern society, as shown by studies published jointly in 1999 and 2001 by Governing magazine and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, ranking Alabama’s governmental performance last among the 50 states, and

Whereas, Alabama’s constitution demonstrates profound distrust of democracy and self-reliance, failing to enable counties to plan for their own economic development and growth, imposing severe restrictions on municipal home rule, disallowing use of the gas tax to support public transit, and causing half the legislative agenda to be focused on issues of strictly local interest, so that more than 70 percent of our constitutional amendments apply to a single city or county, and

Whereas, Alabama’s constitution enshrines an unfair and ineffective tax system, ranking it among the bottom three states in its unfairness to our poorest citizens (Governing magazine, Feb. 2003), forcing local governments and school boards to rely on fickle and regressive sales taxes because of constitutional restrictions on property and income taxes, and requiring nearly 90 percent of state funds to be earmarked for specific uses (higher than any other state), thereby destroying fiscal flexibility, and

Whereas, oligarchical control continues to prevail not only in Alabama’s government but also through its corporatist interlinkages with the business sector, resulting in a prime regional location for anti-union corporations, very poor educational resources, increasingly changing and dangerous climatic conditions, a deeply polluted environment, and large numbers of people being driven from the state in search of better economic opportunity and more friendly places, and

Whereas, a modern corporations in the position of oligarchical white supremacy over all aspects of governance are well documented by Wayne Flynt, Bailey Thomson, Harvey H. Jackson III, and in Melanie Jeffcoat’s film for the ACCR, entitled, Open Secret, which reenacts portions of the 1901 constitutional convention, and

Whereas, redrafting of the Alabama constitution must begin with frank recognition of the oligarchical and racist provisions of the 1901 document, in order to support mutual trust and the successful collaboration of all constitutional convention delegates in reformulating those provisions, and

Whereas, a reformed Constitution based on democracy is necessary for the proper discharge of governmental responsibilities, and for the assurance of broad social benefit generated by the business constitution for Alabama would, by contrast, establish broad principles for governmental operations without imposing restrictions on good lawmaking, recognize that local and metropolitan problems need to be solved at home and not in Montgomery, organize government into efficient branches, protect citizens rights, authorize appropriate types of taxation rather than imposing a state-wide tax code (extending to the level of motor vehicle assessments), encourage the people’s aspirations for democratic instead of oligarchical control of government and the business sector,  encourage people to become well-educated, collaborative, and productive citizens, and

Whereas, past attempts at constitutional reform in Alabama have been blocked by organized special interests whose unique privileges, wealth, and political power corrupt both the democratic exercise of governmental responsibilities and the conduct of business in Alabama, and

Whereas, there is an Alabama-wide grassroots movement calling for a constitutional convention of democratically elected citizen delegates from each House legislative district, as evidenced by newspaper editorials and a statewide petition drive, signed by approximately 75,000 citizens throughout the state of Alabama, calling for such a Constitutional Convention, and

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham, through its ordained and lay leaders, members, and friends, will actively seek, educate, support, and advocate on behalf of a Citizen’s Constitutional Convention for the purpose of writing Alabama’s 7th Constitution, and

BE IT RESOLVED, IN ADDITION, that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham will seek to enroll the other Unitarian Universalist Churches throughout the state of Alabama in support of this resolution, or similar resolutions, according to their individual preferences, and

FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED, that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham strongly urges action by the members of the State Legislature, the Governor, and other elected officials of the State of Alabama to support and pass the enabling legislation, which will be introduced in the House and Senate in the 2011 session, that will allow the people of Alabama to vote on whether they desire a Citizen’s Constitutional Convention to be called.