Changing the legacy of white violence

The Friday Photo
July 8, 2016

photo from Form Follows Function
photo from Form Follows Function

Deafening Silence: White Silence and Alton Sterling
Ryan Williams Virden, Form Follows Function

I want to start by being very specific about who I am talking to; this post is meant for people who look like me, those of us with white skin.

Many of you woke up this morning and heard the news about Alton Sterling, the 37 year old man who was shot and killed by the police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The sickening feeling in your stomach probably hit you hard as you watched the cell phone footage of a police officer charging and tackling Sterling to the ground. You knew what was coming next. And, within seconds you saw it: the police officer mounts Sterling like a UFC fighter. There is no confrontation. No struggle. Sterling is subdued and then another officer yells “Gun. Gun.” The officer on top of Sterling pulls his gun and within seconds fires multiple rounds killing Alton Sterling.

This morning my Facebook feed is full of yet another hashtag, #AltonSterling. So many of the Black and Brown people I’m connected to have no need to see the video. They say as much. They already know what happened, and, sadly, how this will play out. There is outrage; there is disgust; there will be calls for patience and to let the system work; what there won’t be is justice. And this is where I find myself this morning. Pondering my role in justice. What I’ve come to is overwhelming in its simplicity and crushing in it’s complexity. We are responsible for justice.

I don’t mean we in the vague and generalized sense that it is often used. I mean we, me and you, people with white skin. The reason this genocide against people of color continues is because far too many of us remain complicit in our silence. I thought about not writing this this morning. I thought about just retreating in my feelings of disgust, outrage, and grief. But that is not my job. Every time I, or anyone of you, retreats into silence we breath life into the killing machine. downloadEvery time we urge restraint or make apologies, or rationalize this brutality we are degrading our own spirit. And make no mistake this is a spiritual endeavor. Our souls are being crushed under the weight of whiteness. How much longer can we take it? How much longer can we acknowledge how broken our world is and ignore the weapon used to break it?

I also don’t mean justice as in jail time for the police. Though that would be something, I think. I mean justice as in creating a world that truly values the lives of Black, Brown, Asian, and Native people. I mean a justice that leaves no need for an Ethnic studies curriculum because truth-telling is already the curriculum. I mean a world where #BlackLivesMatter and Native Lives and Latinx Lives and Asian Lives. I mean a world where Donald Trump would be embarrassed to show his face, and my students wouldn’t chuckle at the idea of not having to struggle. I mean that kind of justice. We are responsible for ushering that world into existence.

The first step to creating this justice is to understand how it was sidelined in the first place. We must understand the way that whiteness — fitting into the Anglo-Saxon archetype –has been valued historically via formal avenues such as legislation and school curriculum as well as informal ones such as social customs,traditions and practices. Because much of this is passed down through generations, or happens away from public scrutiny, or is largely implicit it is necessary to learn and then unlearn this sordid history and way of being. Once we can come to grips with the ways whiteness keeps us from our own humanity and strangles our souls there is no other choice then to struggle for this justice. We won’t struggle because we are trying to help anyone else, or feel bad for them; we will struggle because our own freedom, our own humanity, is tied up with everyone else’s. As we continue to bear witness to whiteness destroying communities of color while cannibalistically devouring those of us with white skin this unlearning is the only choice we have if we ever hope for peace.

This last week a petition went around calling for the firing of Jesse Williams because his speech at the BET Awards was “racist.” When Shonda Rhimes heard about it she shut it down quickly, this is positional power, and it’s a real thing. Well, white folks have positional power in society. Once we have unlearned whiteness (and even before that) we need to be using this power not to simply name our privilege and then cower behind guilt, that is about as weak as weak gets; we need to use it to stand up and demand fundamental, radical, structural changes. To fail to do this is to betray humanity, it is to betray ourselves. There must be no compromise here. There is no compromise with the humanity of our brethren. This is especially true on days like today, days when whiteness has taken another life. Left another family fatherless. Left another community in mourning trying to survive loss. These are the days when our voices need to be the loudest, they must be clarion voices calling for the dismantling of whiteness.

The silence is deafening and it must be broken. Lives, ours included, depend on it.

Photo unavailable

The Friday Photo
December 11, 2015

I couldn’t manage a photo of what I saw this week, but it bears describing.

At an office supply store I watched an elderly man getting information for some type of technology problem he couldn’t solve. The young man at the service counter very patiently repeated what needed to be done, and assured the customer that if he brought the item in, the problem could be solved. The customer left to go get the item out of of his car.

The elderly man was wearing Confederate flag suspenders and a replica Confederate battle cap. The polite young man at the counter was black.

The irony was almost more than I could stand.

 

 

 

Every Campus a Refuge

The Friday Photo
November 20, 2015

photo by Guilford College studetn Kat Miller
photo by Guilford College student Kat Miller

The Guilford College Community practices its cornerstone principles. #everycampusarefuge

Update on today’s “Anonymous” list

The content below  the photo was posted on Rural and Progressive just before noon today (EST). Several news outlets had the same link and list attributed to the activitist/hacktivist group Anonymous, which claims to identify elected officials who are members of the KKK.(I have removed the links and video so they no longer work).

Senator Johnny Isakson and his wife were included in a list purported to out elected officials who are members of the KKK. I called Senator Isaskson’s office to get an official statement from them, which was a s firm “No,” neither of the Iskasons are affiliated with the KKK.

Late this afternoon Anonymous announced that in fact the list is not theirs. It is widely anticipated that the list they have drawn up will be posted this Thursday, November 5th.

Major news outlets such as Huffington Post have not updated their site about the denials from @OperationKKK,  the project name for the list of names expected to be revealed on Thursday. During the 6:30-7:00 state news update from Georgia Public Broadcasting, GPB also reported the same answer from Isakson that I got from my call earlier today.

I don’t know who will be on the Anonymous list on Thursday if it comes out that day. What I do know is that if I am especially interested in someone who is on that list, I will certainly give that person an opportunity to address their inclusion on it,  just as I did today.

I stand behind my last two sentences from earlier today: “The issue of racism, and who is hiding under white hoods, is very real in our country. This issue isn’t going away.”

nonanymous KKK
Anonymous has begun releasing names of elected officials who are members of the KKK, according to their research. Anonymous, an international group of activisits/hacktivists, includes Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson, and his wife, Dianne Davison, on today’s list (internet reports have put the total number to be released at upwards of 1,000 names).

A video released this morning states that the Isaksons are affiliated with the Original Knight Riders Chapter of the KKK.

Betsy Dietz, an Isakson staffer in his Washington, DC office, denied the Iskason’s memberships when I called. I’d like to believe her, but exposure by Anonymous isn’t something to take lightly.

The issue of racism, and who is hiding under white hoods, is very real in our country. This issue isn’t going away.

 

Update on the Anonymous list

The content below  the photo was posted on Rural and Progressive just before noon today (EST). Several news outlets had the same link and list attributed to the activitist/hacktivist group Anonymous, which claims to identify elected officials who are members of the KKK.(I have removed the links and video so they no longer work).

Senator Johnny Isakson and his wife were included in a list purported to out elected officials who are members of the KKK. I called Senator Isaskson’s office to get an official statement from them, which was a s firm “No,” neither of the Iskasons are affiliated with the KKK.

Late this afternoon Anonymous announced that in fact the list is not theirs. It is widely anticipated that the list they have drawn up will be posted this Thursday, November 5th.

Major news outlets such as Huffington Post have not updated their site about the denials from @OperationKKK,  the project name for the list of names expected to be revealed on Thursday. During the 6:30-7:00 state news update from Georgia Public Broadcasting, GPB also reported the same answer from Isakson that I got from my call earlier today.

I don’t know who will be on the Anonymous list on Thursday if it comes out that day. What I do know is that if I am especially interested in someone who is on that list, I will certainly give that person an opportunity to address their inclusion on it,  just as I did today.

I stand behind my last two sentences from earlier today: “The issue of racism, and who is hiding under white hoods, is very real in our country. This issue isn’t going away.”

nonanymous KKK
Anonymous has begun releasing names of elected officials who are members of the KKK, according to their research. Anonymous, an international group of activisits/hacktivists, includes Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson, and his wife, Dianne Davison, on today’s list (internet reports have put the total number to be released at upwards of 1,000 names).

A video released this morning states that the Isaksons are affiliated with the Original Knight Riders Chapter of the KKK.

Betsy Dietz, an Isakson staffer in his Washington, DC office, denied the Iskason’s memberships when I called. I’d like to believe her, but exposure by Anonymous isn’t something to take lightly.

The issue of racism, and who is hiding under white hoods, is very real in our country. This issue isn’t going away.

 

White people playing dress up

The Friday Photo
October 9, 2015

I am so worn out with re-enacting the Civil War. We know the outcome of the war, but we still have work to do concerning the persistent racism and income equality stemming from the enslavement of Africans. 

The needle hasn’t moved much since last year

This was originally posted last year on September 11. We continue to be a badly broken country in too many ways. No photo today.

How we have failed since September 11, 2001

Tonight President Obama will address the nation about ISIS and any actions that we may take in response to the horrific murders of Americans and innocent civilians at the hands of terrorists.

Tomorrow there will be an observance in my community, and many others, to honor the thousands of lives lost to hate and terrorism, and to support the families and friends who knew someone they loved would never return home again.

Since September 11, 2001 we as a country have talked a lot about being kinder to one another and being a better country. Yet 13 years later this is what consumes us as a country:

  • fighting about allowing two consenting adults of the same-sex to legally marry each
  • failing to take care of the thousands of veterans who have defended our country, many of whom returned with horrible wounds from the Middle East since September 2001
  • allowing private corporations to decided which forms of legal birth control they will cover for employees through company based health insurance because some corporations should have the same privileges as churches
  • granting corporations the same rights as citizens so businesses can pour money into elections and our representatives’ pockets
  • making it harder for citizens to exercise their right to vote
  • subsidizing corporations with huge tax breaks while their employees working full-time never earn enough to break the poverty barrier
  • denying the hard facts of science because profits should come before cleaning up the mess we’ve made of the entire planet
  • deporting children
  • complaining about failing schools while slashing teacher pay and testing our children to death
  • sitting by silently while racism and sexism are displayed proudly
  • being sure we can take our assault rifles into the grocery store
  • we pay for and support violence on playing fields, in the movies we watch, video games we buy, music we listen to, and television shows we watch, but we react with horror when students are sprayed with bullets in their classrooms, women are drug from elevators by their hair, students are bullied, children and women are raped as well as being forced into prostitution
  • too many among us are convinced that their brand of faith should be followed above all others, and if necessary the rights of other citizens should be denied because they choose to worship differently, or not at all

We absolutely should remember and honor the victims of September 11th’s violence. I’m just not convinced we are a country that is a better reflection of the democratic values and freedoms which terrorists intended to destroy 13 years ago.

Gun-toting Confederate flag wavers

A group of white people held a demonstration at Stone Mountain yesterday to support continuing the display of the Confederate flag at the state-owned park. Based on the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s photo gallery, people who think being armed to the teeth in public are hate flag wavers too, or they thought this would be a good place for showing off their weapons. Photos tell the story better than words.

photos from the Atlanta Journal Constitution
photos from the Atlanta Journal Constitution

 

 

Where’s The Friday Photo?

I didn’t post a photo last Friday because I didn’t think I had anything that was worth posting. What I did think about a good bit on Friday, and other days, was about putting Rural and Progressive on hiatus to figure out if I should continue.

It takes me A LOT of time to crank out posts that are heavy on politics. Fact-checking, reading a variety of sources, double checking, proofing, maybe asking for a review before posting, and triple checking take time. When I worked at home and my schedule was flexible I could pick up and put down posts throughout the day.

And then today Hillary announced. So I signed up and donated to her campaign.

This election isn’t about electing the first woman POTUS (even though we’re behind the curve on electing women to national leadership in America). This election is about children, women, seniors, people of color, my LGBTQ friends and family, the middle class, the working poor, our veterans, energy production, peace, public schools, rural communities, national infrastructure, the arts, health care, housing, food shortages, and our natural resources.

So I ‘m figuring out what Rural and Progressive will be in the future.

Got a suggestion? I’d love to hear it.

 

Nikki Haley has no time for poetry

Newly inaugurated South Carolina’s Governor Nikki Haley didn’t have time for two minutes of poetry written for her second swearing-in yesterday. Marjory Wentworth, South Carolina’s poetry laureate, has written poems for the last three gubernatorial inaugurations. This year Haley decided that two minutes couldn’t be spared for an original poem written by Wentworth.

Marjory Wentworth
Marjory Wentworth

In the past, according to NPR, Wentworth chose themes of nature and animals for previous ceremonies. For Haley’s second ceremony Ms Wentworth penned a poem focused on elements of South Carolina’s history, including its ports where slaves were shipped in for sale. And where the Confederate flag still flies next to the state’s flag at the state capital.

Wentworth is invited to read her poem at a ceremony organized by the state’s NAACP chapter on Martin Luther King, Jr Day next Monday, which she will do. In the meantime, U. S. Rep James Clyburn, who represents South Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, read the poem yesterday from the floor of the House of Representatives. Wentworth’s poem is included in NPR’s coverage.

Why Ferguson is burning

IMG_1473.JPG

Racism and hate are too deeply embedded in our country today. They are ignored and denied, like other difficult problems, that will, if acknowledged and fully addressed, change the way our country’s people, businesses, and institutions work.

This opinion piece in the Washington Post by Emory Professor Carol Anderson explains a critical part of the foundation of racism in our country today, and why we are certain to repeat Ferguson if we continue on the current path.

How we have failed since September 11, 2001

Tonight President Obama will address the nation about ISIS and any actions that we may take in response to the horrific murders of Americans and innocent civilians at the hands of terrorists.

Tomorrow there will be an observance in my community, and many others, to honor the thousands of lives lost to hate and terrorism, and to support the families and friends who knew someone they loved would never return home again.

Since September 11, 2001 we as a country have talked a lot about being kinder to one another and being a better country. Yet 13 years later this is what consumes us as a country:

  • fighting about allowing two consenting adults of the same-sex to legally marry each
  • failing to take care of the thousands of veterans who have defended our country, many of whom returned with horrible wounds from the Middle East since September 2001
  • allowing private corporations to decided which forms of legal birth control they will cover for employees through company based health insurance because some corporations should have the same privileges as churches
  • granting corporations the same rights as citizens so businesses can pour money into elections and our representatives’ pockets
  • making it harder for citizens to exercise their right to vote
  • subsidizing corporations with huge tax breaks while their employees working full-time never earn enough to break the poverty barrier
  • denying the hard facts of science because profits should come before cleaning up the mess we’ve made of the entire planet
  • deporting children
  • complaining about failing schools while slashing teacher pay and testing our children to death
  • sitting by silently while racism and sexism are displayed proudly
  • being sure we can take our assault rifles into the grocery store
  • we pay for and support violence on playing fields, in the movies we watch, video games we buy, music we listen to, and television shows we watch, but we react with horror when students are sprayed with bullets in their classrooms, women are drug from elevators by their hair, students are bullied, children and women are raped as well as being forced into prostitution
  • too many among us are convinced that their brand of faith should be followed above all others, and if necessary the rights of other citizens should be denied because they choose to worship differently, or not at all

We absolutely should remember and honor the victims of September 11th’s violence. I’m just not convinced we are a country that is a better reflection of the democratic values and freedoms which terrorists intended to destroy 13 years ago.

 

The Peach Pundit gets it right on Jody Hice

I don’t agree with the Peach Pundit very often, but yesterday he got it all right on Jody Hice, a Baptist minister vying for the Republican nomination to run for Georgia’s 10th Congressional District (which is my district).

Hice thinks the rights guaranteed and protected in the Constitution don’t really apply to all Americans. He has some scrambled ideas about “geo-politcal” constructs that allow for denying First Amendment rights of free speech for Americans who are also Muslims.

Hice also has Neanderthal ideas about women holding political office, but I digress.

The Peach Pundit spells out why voters casting ballots in the Republican run-off should take a hard look at Hice’s politics. The Pundit is wise to urge voters to consider the potential damage beyond the boundaries of the 10th District.

 

 

Why carbon pollution is a B.F.D.

Over the weekend The New Republic posted an article, “Obama’s New Rules are a B.F.D. The Ensuing Political Fight May Be Even Bigger” about carbon pollution rules (Greenhouse Gas or GHG) the Environmental Protection Agency will release On June 2 next week. These rules will be directed toward existing sources of carbon pollution, the majority of which are coal-fired power plants.

Recognizing and acting on carbon pollution has been a long time coming in the United States. We’re the last car on the train of developed countries acknowledging and acting upon the mounds of scientific and economic data pointing to the damage that has been done, and continues to grow, by unfettered coal fueled carbon pollution.

There’s another story to tell about coal plants, but it isn’t be told often enough, or loudly enough. Why?

Coal plants aren’t found in gated communities, middle class neighborhoods, or private schools campuses. Coal plants aren’t problems for elected officials or businesses unless the issue is air quality or water resources, or until those who bear the weight of coal show up at government or shareholder meetings demanding action. Coal plants are stashed away in communities of color, low income, low education levels, poor health status, and rural America.

Facing South said this about who we are:

  • Number of Americans who live within three miles of a coal-fired power plant, which coal-plants-wastetypically stores toxic coal ash waste in unlined pits that aren’t currently subject to federal oversight: 6 million
  • Their average per capita income: $18,400, average per capita income for U.S. residents overall: $21,587
  • Percent of people living within three miles of a coal plant who are people of color: 39
  • Number of the nation’s 378 coal-fired power plants that received an “F” in a 2012 report because they’re responsible for a disproportionate amount of pollution in low-income and minority communities: 75
  • Average per capita income of the 4 million people who live within three miles of those failing coal plants: $17,500, percent who are people of color: 53
  • Average per-capita income of people living within three miles of Duke Energy’s Dan
    photo from Catawba Riverkeeper
    photo from Catawba Riverkeeper

    Plant near Eden, N.C., where a Feb. 2 coal ash spill has contaminated the waterway  for 80 miles downstream: $15,772

  • Percent of the residents of Danville, Va., a community downstream of the spill that draws its drinking water from the Dan, who are people of color: 53.3
  • Risk of cancer for people living within a mile of unlined coal ash pits: 1 in 50
  • Number of times that exceeds what the Environmental Protection Agency considers an acceptable risk: 2,000
  • Number of times more likely it is for someone living near a coal ash pit to develop cancer than someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes per day: 9

Coal plant communities didn’t choose to be the dumping ground for America’s dirtiest energy source.

The renewable energy revolution and putting the brakes on climate change won’t be led by industry and government alone.

We’ve had enough. And we’re making it a B.F.D.

 

 

 

How to tell time like a man

The flack over L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s racist comments is well-deserved. While the players, fans, media, and public chew the NBA team owner up, Sterling is guilty of much more than being an anti-Semitic racist.

Sterling is also a bastion of sexism. He tells his girlfriend ((he’s had several according to news reports)  that he can, “find a girl who will do what I want” if she won’t. Add the condescending tone he uses in the recording making the rounds, and it is clear that women are disposable goods to him.

Sterling is making headline news with his hate-filled views, but sexism is still all too prevalent in our world, in both blatant and subtle ways. This ad appears in the May issue of the Georgia EMC magazine:

men's watchWritten in the first person, the ad copy includes,”This watch doesn’t do dainty. And neither do I. Call me old-fashioned, but I want my boots to be leather, my tires to be tread monsters, and my steak thick and rare. Inspiration for a man’s watch should come from things like fast cars, firefighters, and power tools.”

I checked the Stauer site and fortunately they have watches designed for women complete with flowers on the watch face. None of the watches include digital choices. Is this code for “digital isn’t for women, just manly men?”

 

The flowery women’s watches didn’t include a description of what a woman who owns one of their fine timepieces might eat or drive. I’m guessing Stauer’s target market is women who drive hybrid cars to luncheons, where they fuss over tiny tea sandwiches and petit fours. Then they check their watches so they can get home and have dinner ready for Ward, Wally, and the Beav.

 

 

 

 

It isn’t about honoring heritage. The war is over. Really.

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Georgia has issued a new car tag featuring the Confederate flag, with $10 dollars of the $80 fee going to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who will use the revenue for “educational activities” and preservation efforts.

What century is this Georgia?

January 30, 2014

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You can watch the shouting matching here or read about it. And by the way, we don’t get paid what we’re worth and we ought to be.

that-39-s-right-but-where-39-s-my-dinner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This piece from The Weekly Sift, The Distress of the Privileged, is worth a read too (It’s long but will be time well spent).

UGA and Emory journalism professor Rebecca Burns has a keen piece in Politico on why Tuesday’s snow was such a disaster. Burn’s points here also hold true for the multitude of problems that will occur when the Braves move to Cobb County (add heat and humidity to the picture then).

Jay Bookman  writes about Georgia’s bare bones budgeting, and what it means for our state.

A year’s worth of happiness

The Friday Photo
January 24, 2014

20140123-222816.jpg
I don’t keep a diary or journal. As 2012 was winding down a friend suggested collecting the high points throughout the course of the year, writing them down, and keeping them in a container. At the end of the year it could serve as a reminder of happy moments that were worth writing down. This is what my 2013 container looked like.

On January 3rd I recorded my first contribution for 2014: New Year’s Day with Brenda, Diana, Maia, and Karrie (close in my heart).

Rural and Progressive

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