Down the Trump Rabbit Hole - 7 February 2021

[Sent 7 February 2021 to my wife and our three daughters

Good afternoon. I have a few suggestions for your mindfulness and self-examination during Black History Month. This annual celebration of black culture and individual achievement was introduced in 1970 at Kent State University and had spread across the US by 1976 when President Ford recognized Black History Month as part of the nation’s bi-centennial celebration.

One source I read each week during the year is the St. Louis American, a weekly newspaper published continuously since 1928 that reports local and national news through an African-American editorial lens. I was deeply moved by the obituary in this week’s edition for Dr. Lee Blount, Jr. (1932-2021). Dr. Blount was a St. Louis general surgeon with a 30-year career after finishing his Homer G. Phillips Hospital’s surgery residency. And he was a highly respected civil rights activist, a remarkable community builder, an advocate for young people’s exposure to the arts/humanities, and a sports enthusiast. I encourage you to read the obituary for Dr. Blount. For more details about Dr. Blount, click on the following link --

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/lee-blount-surgeon-athlete-dies-at-88/article_12250052-5c0a-11eb-8f4a-fb8928847d81.html

I invite you to join me in pausing this month to be very intentional in identifying a Dr. Blount in your community you would otherwise not have seen/appreciated. I anticipate that our doing so can stretch our attentiveness and respect in each month of the year. To this end, I have inserted below a meditation I wrote many years ago in an effort to I hold myself accountable.

Be well and safe. Boundless love.

Doug/Dad

DISTURBED FROM PEACEFUL SLUMBER

To whom/where do I turn now that my eyes and ears have opened to the abused, the displaced, the disabled, the destitute. I had no idea how many and how near are my sisters and brothers who scavenge garbage cans in search for food, who cannot (or need not) read the list of ingredients on food cans, who steal to survive, who wake each day to a violent ordeal. I had no idea how surely my closets, my refrigerator, my diet, my choices for work, my recreation, my morning shower, my education all settle any question about whether I am affluent. I had no idea how entangled my lifestyle is with an economy that carelessly consumes the earth’s resources, that encourages selfish fantasies, that lures impoverished kids with ads holding out impossible dreams, that offers me an easy conscience by pointing to charitable gifts and taxes.

Why had I not noticed the family resemblance with these sisters and brothers of mine? Was it embarrassment? haste? fear? economic prejudice? the ease with which I allegorized ‘rich’ and ‘poor’?

I am without excuse. Endless blows dull these sisters and brothers of mine. I have added to the wind that has blown out the light in their eyes. I have only now realized that the task is not to make them materially rich, yet another form of slavery. No, the task is to make them free -- free to dream, to hope, to risk, to rest, to love, to choose.

May my conscience be disturbed by the loss of dignity ‘getting rich’ and ‘staying rich’ imposes.

May my self avoid self-serving values and habits.

May my lifestyle maximize the diversity of individuals who feel welcome in my home.

May my possessions be rid of anything I value more than “one of the least of these”.

May my introspection allow dis-ease with my being materially affluent.

May my responses encourage a way of being together that humanizes rather than exploits.

Down the Trump Rabbit Hole - 18 January 2021

[Sent 18 January 2021 to my wife and our three daughters]

Good evening. I trust you are all well and safe. Mom and I have spent much of the day on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day watching documentaries, comparing/contrasting our experiences with racism as we came of age in the 1960s South (Mom in Montgomery, AL; I in small town West KY), and resolving afresh to assign ultimate value to pursuing justice. It is simple enough to say “I am for justice”. It is much more complicated to be just. The primary barrier -- the sacrifices and the risks associated with following through on the resolve to be just. Consider an exercise I adapted from philosopher John Rawls’ ‘veil of ignorance’ to use as an ethics educational tool with physicians, nurses, and social workers as they clarify their priorities re access to and distribution of limited resources. 

 

 

First, visualize the range of possible life circumstances made vivid in the ring of photographs. Second, remember how fragile and unpredictable one’s life circumstances are. Third, imagine you do not know what your life circumstances (e.g., your age, ethnicity, health, work, education, financial resources, nationality) will be; imagine you are standing behind ‘a veil of ignorance’. Fourth, without knowing which life circumstances will be your lot, explain how you would propose limited resources should be accessed and distributed.

Martin Luther King, Jr. is best known for his 1963 ‘I have a dream’ speech. I have inserted below selections from two lesser known King speeches that have for decades been centering for me. May these selections be similarly centering for you.

Endless love, Doug/Dad

 [Closing to King’s 25 March 1965 address at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March]

. . . . I have a message that I would like to leave with Alabama this evening. . . . We know that it was normalcy in Marion that led to the brutal murder of Jimmy Lee Jackson. It was normalcy in Birmingham that led to the murder on Sunday morning of four beautiful, unoffending, innocent girls. It was normalcy on Highway 80 that led state troopers to use tear gas and horses and billy clubs against unarmed human beings who were simply marching for justice. It was normalcy by a cafe in Selma, Alabama, that led to the brutal beating of Reverend James Reeb. It is normalcy all over our country that leaves the Negro perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of vast ocean of material prosperity. It is normalcy all over Alabama that prevents the Negro from becoming a registered voter.

No, we will not allow Alabama to return to normalcy. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that recognizes the dignity and worth of all of God’s children. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy that allows judgment to run down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. The only normalcy that we will settle for is the normalcy of true peace, the normalcy of justice.

. . . . I must admit to you that there are still some difficult days ahead. We are still in for a season of suffering in many of the black belt counties of Alabama, many areas of Mississippi, many areas of Louisiana. I must admit to you that there are still jail cells waiting for us, and dark and difficult moments. . . . We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. . . .

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody’s asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody’s asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody’s asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth buried?" I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again." How long? Not long, . . .

http://okra.stanford.edu/media/audio/650325026.mp3

[Closing to a sermon King delivered 4 February 1968, two months before his assassination]

Every now and then, I guess we all think realistically about that day when we will be victimized with what is life's final common denominator—that something that we call death. We all think about it. And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. And every now and then I ask myself, "What is it that I would want said?" And I leave the word to you this morning.

If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.

I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.

I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.

I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry.

I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.

I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.

I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that's all I want to say.

http://okra.stanford.edu/media/audio/DrumMajorInstinct.mp3