Another Victory Over Racism in San Diego Thursday, December 14, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Eracism, Immigration, Local Interest.1 comment so far
I can’t say much about the progress of the fight against the incredibly subversive racism that plagues San Diego from the border up through Carlsbad. However, today was a great day in the fight against institutional and structural racism in our region.
Now, I think the reasons for the decision were weaksauce (economic incentives trumping biblical morality and compassion), but the result is great. At least those who are undocumented aren’t getting smallpox blankets as ‘welcome back’ presents….not yet anyway.
Moses, the great prophet who himself was drawn out of oppression (as his name is transcribed), recorded the heart of how followers of YHWH, the God of the outcast, oppressed, and subjugated, are to respond to situations of systemic oppression and marginalization:
33′When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.
34′The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.
I find it so striking that we, a nation of immigrants, with our roots in this very soil stemming from our own distant (and at times very immediate) marginalization within our ‘homelands’, are so quick to kick the ladder out from the top of the wall over which we have, in the panoramic view of history, so recently hurdled ourselves. YHWH’s thundering exclamation at the end of this idea about treatment of foreigners is emblematic of the way He emphasizes the Law, Sabbaths, treatment of others, and His very nature throughout Scripture – one of the Liberator of the alien, foreigner, oppressed, and maimed – for those have consistently been characteristics of His ‘chosen people’ – and their seemingly only obligation was this: to never oppress, enslave, isolate, or disenfranchise others the way they had been treated as such in the past. For that was the embodiment of loving YHWH. For YHWH is the Lord their God. Their Liberator. Their Redeemer – the one who, quite literally if you read the rest of the Pentateuch, buys His people back from exile, slavery, bondage, and subjugation at the hands of other powerful ruling forces.
Could Paul really have been serious when he mentioned that whole ‘Breaking down the dividing wall of hostility’ bit that Jesus performed (Ephesians 2:14)?
12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 For He himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by setting aside in His flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility. 17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
So that whole ‘love your neighbor’ bit Jesus was talking about…..perhaps He actually meant it. Perhaps the day-laborer above, battling 117* heat in Fresno this summer, is our neighbor. As well as those who live in the canyons of Carlsbad and Carmel Valley. Perhaps those kicked out of opportunities for housing and into the hidden valleys of the apply named town of Escondido deserve better. Deserve a touch from YHWH. Deserve our obedience to YHWH, and thus our deserve to be recipients of our love. And though Esco’s motives were way off base, yet effective nonetheless, perhaps this can be an example for the rest of San Diego to raise the (finally quasi-visible) bar of compassion and orthopraxy (not simply orthodoxy) in the midst of citizens and representatives who would rather wallow in their xenophobia than help empower the most marginalized of our communities to come into the fold of the society they help benefit so much, which in turn kicks them, their families, and their dogs to the curb.
Kingdom Come Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Book/Music Reviews, National Interest.add a comment
Happy Birthday, Jay! (Sorry I missed it by a day – was too busy enjoying Kingdom Come) Yes, yes. This is a Jay-Z – oriented post. Look for book reports for the three books I read over Thanksgiving break coming sometime before 2007….hopefully this week.
But seriously, though the online reviews are ripping ‘Kingdom Come’ to shreds….I actually like it. Seriously. It has the typical pride-filled, “I’m the sh*t” Shawn Carter-ness to it. However there are some great lyrics piecemealed together, along with some sweet beats as well. Not the greatest rap album I’ve heard or own, nor the greatest Jay-Z album, however give the playa a break. He’s 36 and still trying to push his ‘crack music’. How many people go from selling crack to owning an NBA team? Yeah, I thought so.
Here’s the main track burning in my mind. Minority Report, featuring Ne-Yo, reflecting on Hurricane Katrina.
Intro: News Excerpts
The damage here along the gulf coast is catastrophic.
There’s a frantic effort under way tonight to find survivors.
There are an uncounted number of the dead tonight…
People are being forced to live like animals…
We are desperate…
No one says the federal government is doing a good job..
And hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people…
No water, I fought my country for years..
We need help, we really need help..
In Baghdad, they they drop, they air drop water, food to people..
Why cant they do that to their own people?
The same idiots that can’t get a bottle of water to a major American city
In less than three days are trying to win a war…
[Verse 1 - Jay-Z]
People was poor before the hurricane came
But the downpour poured is like when Mary J. sang
Every day it rains, so every day the pain
But ignored them, and showed em the risk was to blame
For life is a chain, cause and effected
Niggas off the chain because they affected
It’s a dirty game so whatever is effective
From weed to selling ‘caine, gotta put that in effect
Wouldn’t you loot, if you didn’t have the loot?
Baby needed food and you stuck on the roof
Helicopter swooped down just to get a scoop
Through his telescopic lens but he didn’t scoop you
The next five days, no help ensued
They called you a refugee because you seek refuge
The commander-in-chief just flew by
Did he stop? No, he had a couple seats
Just proved Jet Blue he’s not
Jet flew by the spot
What if he ran out of jet fuel and just dropped
That woulda been something to watch
Helicopters doing fly-bys to take a couple of shots
Couple of portraits then ignored ‘em
He’d be just another bush surrounded by a couple orchids
Poor kids just ’cause they were poor kids
Left ‘em on they porches same old story in New Orleans
Silly rappers, because we got a couple Porsches
MTV stopped by to film our fortresses
We forget the unfortunate
Sure I ponied up a mill, but I didn’t give my time
So in reality I didn’t give a dime, or a damn
I just put my monies in the hands of the same people that left my people stranded
Nothin’ but a bandit
Left them folks abandoned
Damn, that money that we gave was just a band-aid
Can’t say we better off than we was before
In synopsis this is my minority report
Can’t say we better off than we was before
In synopsis this is my minority report
[Verse 2 - Ne-Yo]
So many times I’m, covering my eyes
Peeking through my fingers
Tryin’ to hide my frustration at the way that we treat
(Seems like we don’t even care)
Turn on the TV, seein’ the pain
Sayin’ such a shame
Then tryin’ to go on with my life
Of that, I too, am guilty
(Seems like we don’t even care)
So we send a lil’ money, tell ‘em it’s alright
To be able to sleep at night
You will pay that price
While some of these folks’ lost their whole life
(Seems like we don’t even care)
Now it wasn’t on the nightly news no more
Suddenly it didn’t matter to you no more
In the end almost nothing changed
What the hell, what was that for?
(Seems like we don’t even care)
[Outro: News Excerpts]
…(Bush) Buses are on the way to take those people from New Orleans to Houston
…They lyin’
…People are dying at the convention center
…Their government has failed them
…(Kanye) George Bush doesn’t care about black people.
Seems like we don’t even care
Seems like we don’t even care
***************************
And since our history forgetting and re-writing and culturally myopic society has already passed by devastation of Katrina in favor of partisanship and character attacks on heads of State, perhaps a refresher is in order.
This is Katrina:
AIDS Day Follow-Up Saturday, December 2, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Global Interest, Health.2 comments
My heart is still burdened by the weight of this pandemic that affects us all. Simply because I recently overheard a conversation where by a particular individual expressed their interpretation of a reality in which they weren’t responsible or affected by the crisis, and that it was something relegated to “niggers and white niggers”. I couldn’t believe what I heard. I asked this individual what made him say such a thing, and he could only respond with “that’s the way it is.” My nonviolent resistance side prevented me from punching him in the face. He summarily walked away before I could pursue the conversation much further.
So in response I would like to submit the following from two of my favorite speakers/writers/authors about the interconnectedness of human life, integrity, and our role in fighting this pandemic: one from the present – Barack Obama, and one from the past – John Donne.
Obama:
With an estimated 1.1 million HIV- positive individuals living in the U.S., and approximately 40,000 new infections occurring every year, the U.S., like other nations around the world is deeply affected by HIV/AIDS. Women of color account for 80 percent of all women estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS.
We can turn away from these Americans, and blame their problems on themselves, and embrace a politics that’s punitive and petty, divisive and small.
Or we can embrace another tradition of politics – a tradition that has stretched from the days of our founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another – and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done for the people with whom we share this Earth.
This man better run for President. I hope my meager personal letter sways him to run, at least.
And from John Donne’s Meditation XVII (the single greatest essay of all time, in my humble opinion):
And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all.
…
all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.
…
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
As part of the Body of Christ, and of world society, particularly in an increasingly globalized city, state, nation, and world, what happens to one affects us all. We are not to be boastful of our progress when our Body’s weakest members go hungry, naked, or ravaged by the most invasive of diseases. We are called to compassion. To suffer with those who suffer. To join with those in prisons of every sort. To sit beside those who are sick, dirty, broken, and dying. And to find Jesus in them.
Commemorating World AIDS Day, 2006 Friday, December 1, 2006
Posted by Lars Almquist in Global Interest, Health, Local Interest.2 comments
Today is World AIDS Day. December 1, 2006.
8,000 people will contract HIV/AIDS today. 6,000 more will die from the pandemic.
Today is a day for remembering those who have contracted the disease, for those who are in high-risk communities greatly affected by the disease, and for everyone striving to find a cure, hold a hand, and advocate for children and families ravished by the biggest humanitarian crisis of our generation. Bigger than terrorism. Bigger than nuclear arms proliferation. (In fact, Muslim cultures and countries have much lower AIDS proliferation rates than their “Christian” neighbors.) Just something to be aware of – but not the focal point of this day, this post, or even the heart of Jesus.
Today is a day to celebrate life, mourn death, and to work for a more compassionate world.
It is to move beyond charity into compassion. To see names, faces, and human beings created in the image of Jesus instead of simply a package of statistics.
It is to remember the suffering of 4 year olds, 11 year olds, and 80 year olds who contracted this disease, more often than not as no fault of their own.
I met the young man on the right, Eyob, – the Amharic equivalent of the name Job – during the summer of 2003 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He was born with AIDS, and at 11 years old, seemed to be in great health when I met him. Of the 32 children between the ages of 4 and 11, Eyob seemed to have the greatest chance of making it out of the AIDS orphanage and into greater society, against all the odds and obstacles blocking his passage into his teenage years and into the hope of his being the first child to leave the orphanage in enough health to engage in wider society, and perhaps even to have a family of his own one day.
I prayed for his healing from AIDS, from the viscious attack on his body, his immune system, and his emotions. From the disease manifesting itself even upon his very face. I prayed for the healing of each individual growth on his forehead and face. I shooed away the flies that amalgamated around Eyob’s eyes and ears. I watched Eyob thank God for his small snack during ‘break time’ with a faith that I’m not sure I have seen anywhere else. A complete thankfulness to Jesus, on his own initiative, in the midst of being affected by this consuming, invasive, and yet deceptively subversive disease.
That was July 8th, 2003.
Eyob passed away on July 18th, 2003.
This Day is for him.
The Prayer in the ‘Poetic Justice’ section is for him.
My life has been forever branded, marked, and turned upside-down by him. Ever since I was considered a betam tilik wundumi ferenge, a big white foreign brother, for an afternoon, by him. Ever since I realized that the minimal privilege I could offer to Eyob, my two arms to hold him and two feet to play soccer with him, was simply enough. That he didn’t require anymore. Because I was family. Because my God cared enough about Eyob that he would send me ten thousand miles away for a summer to meet him, to hang out with him, and to hold him while this pandemic incubated in the epicenter of his immune system.
So, this is a call for us followers of Jesus, but particularly for us as Americans. It is a call to join the campaign to end extreme poverty and abolish the scourge of AIDS worldwide.
It’s a call to be better stewards of the resources we have been given. To prioritize life for the weakest of the world’s citizens over protection for ourselves. Time magazine put it well this week:
Ironically, it is increased CDC funding mandated by Congress for high-profile threats like bioterrorism and flu pandemics that has drained money from areas of public health that may actually be more pressing. Among the hardest-hit programs: AIDS prevention (down 19%), tuberculosis control (down 16%) and preventive-health block grants for outbreaks of West Nile disease and other unexpected events (down 17%).
And it’s a call to prioritize people over profits, and global health over big business interests.
Will you consider joining me?
