Perhaps Love

“Perhaps love.”

“Perhaps love is like the ocean full of conflict, full of pain**.”

It is, isn’t it?  We like to think, oh, no! That is not love.  Love is happily ever after.  Love is all roses and sunshine.  Love is all that and a bag of chips.

We need to face the reality … love contains conflict.  Love contains pain.

Now before I go too much further with this line of thought, let me clarify what I am talking about when I mention conflict and pain as being within love.

Let me separate out the pain and conflict experienced as the result of emotional/mental/physical abuse.  The sort of conflict and pain that arises from abuse is not about love, that is about power—control over another human being. Love is not about power over another person.  So when I state love contains conflict, love contains pain; I am not referring to abusive relationships.

I am referring to the pain that arises when someone is hurting, physically/emotionally/mentally.  I am referring to when a loved one is sick.  I am referring to when a loved one is being harassed.  I am referring to when a loved one dies—regardless of circumstances.

On a larger scale—I am referring to when there is injustice against people.  People who seek to love one another face conflict and pain when there is injustice.  I am referring to when pain and conflict arise because of a systemic condition of the hardening heart in the collective hive.

This has been a tough summer for those who believe that Love wins. I know for me it has made me seriously reconsider my calling as a minister who longs for the day when justice runs down like a mighty stream.  What am I doing here in Alabama?  What am I doing here in the United States? If I, as a minister, am not on the forefront of justice standing on the side of love with the people who are in pain, what am I doing?  I cry for justice to reign in this land.

Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson was only the tip for me.  I listened to my relatives defend his being shot and became nauseated.  His senseless death is an abomination to all of America’s ideals and principles.  But his death is not the only one, and we don’t really know how many others because our police and government do not track violent encounters^[i] between police and civilians. A law was passed by Congress in 1994 requiring the Attorney General to collect and track such events and give an annual report^[ii].  No such report has ever been submitted in 20 years.

There were at least 4 other deaths of unarmed black men in the month of August—their names must not be forgotten:  Eric Garner—Staten Island, NY; John Crawford—Beaver Creek, OH; Ezell Ford—Los Angeles, CA; Dante Parker—Victorville, CA.  How many more deaths are needed before America wakes up to the evil it is perpetuating?

This is the pain that love contains. The pain is greatest at the epicenter, with their loved ones who grieve senseless deaths at the hands of a corrupt system militarized by fear and racism. But it is a pain that radiates out like an earthquake and is felt far away by those who are sensitive to it.

How does a family live with such pain?  Where is their comfort to be found?  How do we respond to such an earthquake of pain?

There are other pains that love contains.  This past week Save OurSelves hosted a daily Jericho March around the capitol regarding the pains that our current state administration is enforcing on the people of Alabama—in total disregard of the pain and grief it causes their citizens.

These daily marches focused on Immigration Rights, Education & Youth, Women’s Rights/ Equal Justice, Worker’s Rights/Living Wage, Criminal Justice/Due Process, Medicaid Expansion and Health, and Voting Rights.

These issues all intersect with one another. There is a coordinated effort in our state to hold people down from their great potential by denying the ability to organize in the workplace, by removing funding from our educational budget, by taking away a women’s right of agency to address her own needs, by creating laws that unjustly increase incarceration and slavery in our prisons, and the grief experienced by loved ones who died because of no healthcare—when healthcare could be afforded to them with Medicaid Expansion.

Love is like an ocean, full of conflict, full of pain.  What does one do with the ocean so that Love wins?

We expand the ocean.  We support one another when pain occurs. We cry out together.  We let our wails be heard like the mothers in Ramah. We place our lives on the line when others are threatened.

Many of you know that I was arrested within the capitol building on Thursday for attempting to participate in a 24 hour prayer vigil for the expansion of Medicaid.   I spoke with our board president before I made my decision to do this but it was obvious that this was where my heart was leaning.  Too many deaths have occurred that could have been avoided if our governor, a doctor by profession, had agreed to expand Medicaid.  I could no longer be silent on this sanctioned death by denial of healthcare any longer.

The pain and grief he has caused 700 families this past year alone is unconscionable, not to mention the 300,000 people who are struggling and praying that they will not need medical intervention to save their lives.  My heart this summer has broken open and I am compelled to speak out in a way I have not before.

I see his refusal to expand Medicaid to be an evil act against the people of this state, people he was elected to serve.  Many of whom he defined as his brothers and sisters in Christ, since he has made it clear he does see non-Christians as his brothers and sisters in humanity^[iii].  With brothers like that, who needs enemies?

Our Governor is a victim of his own lies and deceptions.  And like Governor Wallace before him, he must be convinced of his betrayal against the people he was elected to serve.  The only way I know how to reach him and save him from his own deception is to rip the veil off on white privilege and supremacy which this administration has fought to preserve and strengthen and to fill the capitol with hundreds, even thousands of people demanding to see Medicaid expansion now.  And to insist laws put into place that expand rather than contract a person’s ability to reach their full potential.

This must be a concerted effort and a coalition of people broad and deep.  It means we must be motivated more by love than by fear of the stigma of being arrested. As the Rev. Kenneth Sharpton-Glascow said to me in the Montgomery County Jail, Jesus was arrested for his civil disobedience.  So was Gandhi, so was Martin Luther King, Jr. so was Annie Pearl Avery, who is one of the original SNICK participants in the 1960s and who joined me in being arrested on Thursday.

Ms. Avery is now 79 years old and told the police at the Montgomery jail that it was partly her actions in the 1960s that enabled them to have the jobs they have today. She enjoined them to recognize that we are fighting again for rights that are being denied Alabamans and join us in our struggle—not fight us by locking us up.

But these people I mentioned by name are all people of color.  We live in a nation where people of color are disproportionately arrested even though all people share equally in the crimes committed.  I realize that as a white person, I have been conditioned to believe that only bad people are arrested.  And in this country, bad people are conflated with being people of color because that is what White America is taught to believe.  There should be no shame in being arrested for justice.

I am also aware that in our Unitarian Universalist movement, the temptation is to make an arrest for a just cause to be some sort of an elite status symbol.  Across our denomination clergy arrests thus far have resulted in no time served, a small fine, and some court costs.  In Washington, DC, the arrests of 112 clergy and faith leaders were an orchestrated show against deportation of immigrants.  We knew in advance that we would be released with no further court cases, no threat of prison time. The risk was minimal. It gave us media publicity.  If we are serious in our quest for justice, we need to take larger risks that place our lives on the line, a few hours being arrested is not a personal risk.

While there was some media present at the rally on Thursday, the arrests that happened were no media stunt.  The Governor’s office did not want to arrest us and pleaded with us to leave. We stated we needed to pray for the governor to expand Medicaid and therefore would not leave.  We were charged with trespassing in the second degree which carries a $ 500 fine and /or up to 90 days in prison.  We could have been charged with trespassing in the third degree which carries a small fine.(In delivering this sermon, I misstated the penalties based on a website I found regarding these terms.  It is corrected here to Alabama criminal codes.)  My court date is Sept 15. I cannot predict the outcome.  Our governor does not want to become the next North Carolina with thousands swarming the capitol and over 900 arrests.  He is hoping this will deter others to follow.

We must not be deterred. Love does not stand back in the face of evil actions. It stands firm.  It holds the pain felt and assimilates it into more love.

I am committed to justice for the people of this state and therefore I must be willing to sacrifice the white privilege I am afforded.  If need be, to be arrested and bear the consequences.  The consequences I face do not even compare to the lives painfully lost because of denial of healthcare.

The evil that we face today is the same evil that Martin Luther King faced in the 1950s and 60s.  My actions are not the seeking of a status symbol, they are a call to action, to be willing to put our heart and soul into the belief that people need to be free to reach their full potential.

I realize some of you may not agree with the actions I have taken.  I understand. I have said this before and it bears repeating, I do not desire a congregation that follows their minister blindly. I do desire that this congregation will be informed of the issues.  Study them.  Read up on them.  Consider these issues a matter of faith development importance because they are indeed a serious matter of faith development. The future of our faith is dependent on how these issues play out. There are forces that seek to take away our freedom to practice our free and liberal faith.

I don’t know how many of you have seen the billboard out on University Blvd entering Cottondale.  It is a huge sign displaying the #Secede.  This group wants to recreate the confederacy in the form of a White Supremacist Christian Theocracy.  I have talked with some people who have experienced this group firsthand and they are a vicious and hateful bunch.  They are feeding off this country’s and state’s current hatred for our President. Be forewarned, there is very little difference between this group and the white elected officials in Montgomery with their declarations of a specific Christian theology that places women back into the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant and laws that place black and brown men into slavery through incarceration.

Perhaps love. Perhaps love is like the ocean full of conflict, full of pain.  The ocean is wide and deep. There are many ways to hold that conflict and pain. Some will grieve and wail uncontrollably.  And that witness of love is essential.  Some will share their stories of injustice committed against them. And that witness of love is essential. Some may do so by supporting those who stand on the vanguard. And that witness of love is essential.  Others may march, wave banners, and shout slogans.  And that witness of love is essential.  Others may stand with hands raised in silent protest in front of the guns and tanks pointed at them. And that witness of love is essential.  And others may choose to engage the pain with civil disobedience, risking their livelihoods, their freedom to enable others to be free.  And that witness of love is essential.

Peace is not the absence of violence.  Peace is the ability to remain centered and grounded while the world is raging threatening storms.  It is the ability to move forward in love because of the inner conviction that justice is the victor already. Love ultimately wins.

Love is large enough to contain the conflict and the pain on the journey towards justice.

Blessed Be.

This sermon was delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa on August 31, 2014 (c) by Rev. Fred L Hammond.

** This quote is from John Denver’s song “Perhaps Love.”

[i] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-ferguson-police-killing-african-americans-20140819-story.html

[ii] http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/08/12/dispatches-tracking-us-police-brutality

[iii] http://www.towleroad.com/2011/01/alabama-gov-elect-bentley-tells-non-christians-hes-not-with-them.html

Arrest is a Minor Inconvenience

In the state of Alabama, over 700 people die each year because they lack the resources to afford medical care.  They fall into the gap between eligibility for Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.  Venus Colley-Mims was one such person.  Unemployed in 2007, she didn’t have medical insurance and she discovered a lump in her breast.  She went to the Emergency Room, which is where many without medical insurance go to receive treatment.  It is often the only place that will see a patient who does not have insurance. There she was told don’t worry about it.  Six months later the lump had grown and had become painful.  She again went to the Emergency Room and was given medication for the pain. This went on for two years, when finally a doctor took one look at her breast and sent her to oncology.  She had stage four cancer. Treatment came too late for Ms Colley-Mims.  She died in 2013.

 

Venus Colley-Mims life could have been saved if she had access to health insurance.

This past week, Save OurSelves: A Movement for Justice and Democracy held a Jericho March and rally at the capitol of Montgomery in solidarity with the Moral Monday Movement of events in five southern states.  The seven day event focused on a different area where justice has been thwarted by the current State Legislature and Governor Bentley. The areas covered were Immigration reform, Women’s Rights, Education and Youth, Prison reform, Voting rights, Medicaid Expansion, and Worker’s Rights/Living Wage.

Governor Bentley, a doctor by profession, has refused to expand Medicaid because he opposes President Obama. In a state where the unemployment rate has risen in sharp contrast to the national trend, Medicaid expansion would have brought in 30,000 living wage jobs into Alabama in addition to saving lives and heartbreaking grief. This callousness towards the welfare of the people of Alabama for the sake of political posturing is evil, plain and simple.

On Thursday in an attempt to get Governor Bentley’s attention to the plight of the citizens he is elected to serve, I joined six other attendees of the final Jericho March and entered the capitol, before closing to hold a 24 hour prayer vigil for the state.  Within ten minutes after closing, we were asked to leave.  We thanked them but stated we needed to remain and pray for the governor to change his heart on the matter of Medicaid expansion. He is killing people with his refusal.

Faya Toure (aka Rose Sanders) Leading us in song: “There’s a River Flowin’ in My Soul” in the Capitol Building of Montgomery.

The Secretary of the Governor eventually came down to speak with us and pleaded with us to leave the building.  We stated we would not leave unless Governor Bentley expanded Medicaid and saved people’s lives.

We were arrested.  And in what appears to be an act from the Governor’s office, instead of receiving a trespassing charge in the third degree ** which is unlawful presence and carries a small fine, we received a trespassing charge in the second degree which carried a $500 bond.  Court date is set for September 15.

When the stake is the potential of saving 700 lives annually by demanding Medicaid Expansion to cover the 300,000 people in the state who fall in between the current eligibility and the parameters of the Affordable Health Care Act, a little inconvenience of being arrested is nothing in comparison. I will choose to stand on the side of love, every time.

 

**Corrected from an earlier post.  Second Degree Trespassing is a Class C Misdemeanor which if sentenced in full is a $500 fine and/or up to 90 days in prison.  Third degree Trespassing is a violation and up to a $200 fine.

 

From left to right: Alecha Irby, John Zippert, Faya Toure (aka Rose Sanders), Rev. Fred L Hammond, Annie Pearl Avery, Rev. Kenneth Sharpton-Glascow, Augustus Townes

Prayer for the End of White Privilege

Our hearts this evening are heavy.  They are heavy from crying out in grief and pain for yet another unarmed young man is shot and killed by those who are called to protect and serve.  How long shall this continue in our neighborhoods?  How long will people’s grief remain unabated?  How long will this injustice across our nation remain unseen, uncomprehended by White America? For too long, White Privilege has separated the people of this nation. For too long White privilege has covered the eyes and ears of White America so these actions by our police are not seen for what they are.

Transform our grief to righteous anger.  Let us have anger that rips off the scales of blindness so the eyes will see with understanding.  Let us have anger that like a skillful surgeon’s knife cuts out the gangrene of white privilege and racism to enable people to heal into wholeness.  Empower with a Mother’s love that will protect her children fiercely. Empower us with a Compassion that will reach out to intervene when we see abuse and injustice in our communities.

May our actions be a comfort to those who weep for their children. May our actions be our prayer to change our land into a land of freedom and justice for all its people.

In the name of the author of love, justice, and mercy, we pray.   Amen.

 

This prayer was offered by me, Rev. Fred L Hammond,  at a Memorial Service for Michael Brown at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Tuscaloosa, held in solidarity with Brown Family in Ferguson, Missouri. (c) 2014

Feel free to use with credit of author. 

Michael Brown

On Monday, August 25th, I conducted a memorial service as an act of solidarity with the Brown family in Ferguson, Missouri. Here are the words I shared with my congregation:

I speak as a white man who, while I believe I am fairly well educated regarding racism and white privilege in America, I confess I am not heart educated.  I could tell you logically and calmly the whats and wherefores of racism and white privilege in this nation.  But I could not tell you emotionally the detrimental effects of white privilege, because I am so well enveloped in it. Sometimes, I do not even know I have received it until much, much later. And only if, I am lucky enough to even reflect upon it.  White privilege is like an anti-body that automatically removes any social discomfort that might exist around me.  I don’t pay attention to the anti-bodies in my immune system until they no longer work.  And then, and only then, do I notice that I had anti-bodies working to keep me isolated from dis-ease.

White privilege is the anti-body for White people in this nation.   This is something that white liberals can talk about but don’t have the heart knowledge to develop the conviction to act against it.  And it is something that white conservatives deny for the same reasons.  When whites are held in the embrace of White Privilege anything that goes against that experience seems like a contrived falsehood.  Events like this are not in white people’s experience.

It is therefore vital for whites like me to listen to the stories and experiences of my neighbors who are people of color. To hear their first-hand accounts of not receiving the privilege that I am so very accustomed to. That is a struggle because human nature says; if it is not in our experience then it must therefore be false. This explains why people, white people in particular, were so quick to look for evidence, even made up evidence, to discredit the story of Michael Brown’s death.  The experiences of the people of Ferguson are not generally the experience of white people anywhere in the country—exceptions aside. It must be false, white’s state emphatically, because that is not our experience.

Michael Brown’s death is not an isolated event. As some would have us believe.  It is not a localized event as if there is some quirk in Ferguson that gave rise to his death. It is not a justified event as the Ferguson Police have tried to indicate by smearing Michael Brown’s character.

This is a frequent event. So frequent that children of Black parents are taught differently in how to respond to police than children of White parents.

One white mother wrote a blog about her white privilege as a mother of her three male sons.  If you are white, imagine if these statements were not true for you and what would you do about it as she describes her experience of white privilege?

“I will not worry that the police will shoot [my sons].

If their car breaks down, I will not worry that people they ask for help will call the police, who will shoot them.

I will not worry that people will mistake a toy pistol for a real one and gun them down in the local Wal-Mart.

In fact, if my sons so desire, they will be able to carry firearms openly. Perhaps in Chipotle or Target.

They will walk together, all three, through our suburban neighborhood. People will think, Look at those kids out for a walk. They will not think, Look at those punks casing the joint.

People will assume they are intelligent. No one will say they are “well-spoken” when they break out SAT words. Women will not cross the street when they see them. Nor will they clutch their purses tighter.  

My sons will never be mistaken for stealing their own cars, or [breaking and] entering their own houses.” [i]

This is the world that Michael Brown grew up in and it is the world that killed him.  This is our world, too.  The whiteness of your skin does not excuse you from responsibility in this world.  Being White is no excuse for not knowing that this is the reality our neighbors of color experience daily. And not just in faraway communities like Ferguson.  These experiences are happening in Tuscaloosa and across the state of Alabama as well.

When the Valedictorian of Central High cannot pass the entrance exam to enter the University of Alabama, we have a problem that screams injustice. When whites enroll their children into private academies instead of Tuscaloosa public schools, we have a problem that screams injustice. When police follow a group of black teens for no apparent reason in the West End we have a problem that screams injustice.  When a black student states that he dropped out of school at 16 because that was normal and expected of him, we have a problem that screams injustice.

It is up to us to determine what will be the legacy of Michael Brown’s disrupted life.  We can mourn his passing, say it’s a shame, and continue on, hardening our hearts to the reality that is demanding redress or we can get angry like the people of Ferguson have gotten angry.  We need some anger about his death.  We need some anger over the fact that he will not be the last unarmed person to be shot in 2014.  There will be others unless we stand up, Black and White, Latino and Asian, together to say no more.

Black lives matter.

Every faith group in Tuscaloosa should be screaming this from their pulpits as a conviction of their faith principles. We can no longer abide with white privilege and racism in this community, in this state, and in this nation.  Martin Luther King Jr. advocated for non-violent action, he did not advocate for calm as the clergy did in Ferguson.  There is a major difference.  One is an act of moral courage to evoke a response and change in the system of oppression and the other is a numbing drug administered by order of the system of oppression.

Which tact shall we take in honoring Michael Brown’s memory?  May we come together as a community to strategize how we are going to address these issues before another unarmed shooting happens and it is here in Tuscaloosa County.  Blessed Be.

[i] http://manicpixiedreammama.com/a-mothers-white-privilege/

Assumptions

Like many across our nation and the world, I am grieving the tragic events that have once again beset our country. The shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager by Ferguson, MO police is troubling regardless of one’s position.  I have been trying to make sense of it all–and I admit these shootings in our nation against our own people is increasingly hard for me to understand. I was chatting with a relative of mine who is in law enforcement and they said something that I found interesting. They stated that assumptions are being made before the investigation has played out and now the investigation is tainted.

Assumptions.  They are like the operating system behind this computer program.  They are running always in the background, informing the actions of the person, mostly unaware, until one takes a long hard look at them.  My relative and I are operating from a different set of assumptions. People have experiences and they try to make sense of those experiences. They develop assumptions about those experiences and then use those assumptions to predict / plan how to respond to future events. Sometimes those assumptions are spot on, and sometimes, more times than we would like to admit, those assumptions are wrong.

But it is through assumptions that we act and have our being.  My relative has explained to me countless times that police have to make a decision in a split second regarding their safety.  Is the person a threat or not?  They have to assess what is going on, observe accurately all that is going on and make a decision in a split second.  That split second may be all they have between surviving a violent assault. It is not an easy job being a police officer. How aware the officer is about their own assumptions seems to me to be an important necessary skill that they need in order to do their jobs professionally and ethically.

There have been studies that have shown repeatedly that we see what we want to see.  I haven’t shared those studies with my relative but it is true.  We will see things that weren’t there and we will not see things that were there.  Have you seen the video with the man in the gorilla outfit? We are given instructions to count how many times a basketball is passed.  During the ball passing a gorilla walks their way through the crowd.  Up to 40% of people failed to see the gorilla.  We were not assuming that something strange was about to occur so we didn’t see it.  Or when a traumatic event happens how very disparate the stories are in relating what happened.  Police officers are supposed to be trained to be excellent observers of their surroundings and one would hope of behaviors in order to make those split second decisions.  But even with such training, assumptions are running beneath the surface.

I tell the story of my first time in Georgia.  It is not a story that I am proud of but it clearly indicates how assumptions play in our actions.  This was back in the mid 1980s, I was heading up towards Dahlonega, GA with my friend Glenn.  As we were driving. I am seeing these gorgeous plantation buildings with these shacks next to them.  You could see through the walls better than you could through the windows.  I was in total amazement.  I had no idea that people lived in such poverty in the United States.  I lived in CT at the time, one of the richest states in the nation. I told my friend that I needed to have a picture of these shacks because no one in CT would believe me it I told them.  It was simply beyond my experience.  We find a shack that had stuff strewn all over the yard and hanging from the rafters of the shack porch were these brightly colored dresses.  We stop so I could take a photo.   I get out of the car and I realize that this is a yard sale and on the porch was a woman with a shotgun in her lap. I hesitate and then ask if I could take a picture of her house.  And she gave permission.  I told this story of the woman with the shotgun numerous times but I didn’t have the photo in hand.  Then one day I am going through some photos and there was the photo– the woman on the porch surrounded by these hanging brightly colored dresses.  But where was the gun? It wasn’t in her lap as I recalled it.  The gun was not on the floor of the porch either. It simply was not there. I had an assumption in my mind about folks who lived in the hills of Georgia so firmly planted, that I placed a shotgun into her lap.  Now she may have owned a shot gun but it was not with her outside.

Assumptions change how we see the world and then we shape that world to fit those assumptions.

It is hard to fight those assumptions as well because even when we have the facts that contradict the assumptions, those assumptions are being proved true in our heart of hearts.  Re-read the paragraph above about my first trip to Georgia.  The assumption that I had still plays out in the very last sentence.  I apparently accommodated it to fit the facts but the assumption is still being played out.  I am embarrassed about it as it is not how I want to live my life. We are taught assumptions from an early age by our families, friends, and church.

These assumptions may or may not be true, that is the thing about assumptions. Just because you have one deeply ingrained does not mean it is correct.  Some assumptions some people may have:

1. There is only one true religion. (Funny thing about this assumption is it is always the person’s personal religion that is the one true religion.)

2. There is not enough to go around, so get yours before anyone else.

3. Those people are destroying America.  (those people is whatever the group du jour is. For Westboro Baptists they are Gays, for Tea Party folks they are the undocumented and Obama, for anti-abortionists it is Planned Parenthood, For Democrats it’s the Republicans and the reverse is true.)

4. Racism is a thing of the past.  (If only those Socialist Liberals wouldn’t keep bringing it up.)

There are assumptions being played out in Ferguson.  These assumptions didn’t start with the shooting of Michael Brown.  And that is another assumption that is being made by some people, that this shooting is an isolated event that has no contextual environment in which it grew into being.  My relative wants me to keep this event separate from the hundreds of unarmed young black men who were shot by police across this nation.  There are reasons for attempting to separating out each individual event.  Some of these reasons are good ones.  One good reason is that there may be some unique aspect of this case that would be lost when forced into the conglomerate of all the others.  Some are not so good.

There are also reasons to look at this horrific event in the context of what is happening in the United States. As another blogger wrote:  “There are reasons why white gun’s [sic] rights activists can walk into a Chipotle restaurant with assault rifles and be seen as gauche nuisances while unarmed black men are killed for reaching for their wallets or cell phones, or carrying children’s toys.”  There are assumptions of who is dangerous and who is not.  Whether we want to agree or not, being white in the United States in 2014 still carries privileges.  One of these privileges is carrying an automatic rifle into a Chipotle or a Target and not being seen as a threat despite the fact that all of the mass shootings in recent history have been committed by white men. That is some powerful assumption we are carrying and they are tilted towards perceived race.

Since 9/11 there has been a steady increase of militarizing our police force.  There is also an assumption at work here–what is it?  My hunch is that the assumption is that United States is now a battlefield.  Many cities are applying for federal grants to purchase military grade equipment in preparation of possible terrorist attacks on our soil even in small rural communities where the biggest threat is the pumpkin festival being rained out.  They are using this equipment in SWAT offenses for drug raids, storming houses with a no-knock search warrant in full military garb.  They have used it in ICE raids of factories where suspected undocumented personnel may work.  When the police are militarized it is small leap of thought to begin seeing towns as battlefields to be conquered rather than homes to be protected.  Ferguson is one such community that has militarized their police force and the pictures show they have turned their town into such a battlefield.  But they already saw their town as one long before the shooting of Michael Brown, long before the riots after the police responded with nonchalance and disregard of this event. Is it any surprise that increased militarization of police increases the anxiety level of the citizens.

When you treat people like they are enemy combatants, you are going to get enemy combatants. People do not respond well when their personal safety is threatened.  When peaceful demonstrations are met by militarized police, what is the assumption the police are operating on? The assumption is not that demonstrators are going to remain peaceful.  It is an agitation towards violence.  When police tell demonstrators, like they did last night (8/18/2014)  that they had to return home,  and the demonstrators attempt to do so only to find the way home is blocked by different police, and so they dutiful turn around as told and go back, to be met again by the first group of police telling them to turn around, this is an invitation to escalate. And it did.  The assumption is that the demonstrators are the enemy and not the police officer’s fellow citizens, an assumption that the trapped citizens couldn’t refute by their failed attempts of compliance. And the police would not listen to them when they asked how can they get home when roads are blocked. Such a response was considered non-compliance and arrests ensued.

I realize that I am operating on a set of assumptions as I write this piece. My assumptions tell me that our government is moving towards a police state unless someone speaks up and stops it.  My assumptions tell me that there is fear of the other in this country against one’s documented status, race,  class, sexual orientation and gender identification, and religion.   Prove me wrong.

Set aside fear of the other and begin listening to one another, without judgement, without critique, just listen to the very real pain people have experienced here.  We all share that pain.  Set it aside to listen to someone else fully attending to them.  America, prove me wrong and rise up to your ideals of Liberty and Justice for all.