Who Are We?

[Guest]

.

[Jill]

I caught a show on TV last night, and just now, came across an article, both of which brought that question to mind.  
That question, Who Are We? and the questions:

Who do we want to be? Who do we want our children to become?  

What does it take, what would it take to convert our talk into walk?
 
And just how bad does it have to get, in whatever situation, to get us to step out of our relatively comfortable, relatively safe little worlds to take a stand and assert via our actions,  “ Uh, Uh. NOT in my backyard, oh no you don’t!”

I don’t have any answers, not about you, not about myself and not even any sanctimonious (or not) shoulds or shouldn’ts.  I only have questions.  And I have the realization, as many of the older KFs may have, that many many times, no matter what we might think or hope we would do in a particular situation, we really can’t ever know with any kind of certainty until we are put right smack dab in the middle of it.  We can't really know what we will actually do or just who we are or are not-- until we're there.


For me, the following excerpt from the show I saw last night, the article I happened on when perusing the news this morning, and a book that fascinates and scares me and that I open and read bits and pieces of every once in awhile, are wonderfully thought-provoking and important.  Check ‘em out if you feel like it.


From the pretty amazing TV series,  Primetime: What Would You Do?,
The August 6th segment on Would You Stop Muslim Discrimination?  
The segment is just under ten minutes long.  Have a look, and then try to think of how you might react, if you were "there"..
(Note: The guy behind the bakery counter and the woman ostensibly attempting to get service from him are actors.  It is only the customers who are the “real” people).

This Isn’t the America I Love

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

[Jill]

I posted the Not in Our Town video, and about the Not In Our Town website and movement, maybe a year or two ago here, when someone posted at KF with a couple of what seemed to me to be blatantly anti-semitic remarks which didn’t appear to generate much of a response or create much of a stir here.  Both the video and the website/movement seem, in these times, to be still so instructive, still so sadly timely that I decided I’d go ahead and post them again here for anyone who might not have seen them before and who might be interested.


The Not In Our Town Movement’s Website

[Kay]

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/06/the-real-ground-zero.html

Build the Ground Zero Mosque
I believe we should promote Muslim moderates right here in America. And why I'm returning an award to the ADL.

by Fareed Zakaria, August 6, 2010



Ever since 9/11, liberals and conservatives have agreed that the lasting solution to the problem of Islamic terror is to prevail in the battle of ideas and to discredit radical Islam, the ideology that motivates young men to kill and be killed. Victory in the war on terror will be won when a moderate, mainstream version of Islam—one that is compatible with modernity—fully triumphs over the world view of Osama bin Laden.

As the conservative Middle Eastern expert Daniel Pipes put it, “The U.S. role [in this struggle] is less to offer its own views than to help those Muslims with compatible views, especially on such issues as relations with non-Muslims, modernization, and the rights of women and minorities.” To that end, early in its tenure the Bush administration began a serious effort to seek out and support moderate Islam. Since then, Washington has funded mosques, schools, institutes, and community centers that are trying to modernize Islam around the world. Except, apparently, in New York City.

The debate over whether an Islamic center should be built a few blocks from the World Trade Center has ignored a fundamental point. If there is going to be a reformist movement in Islam, it is going to emerge from places like the proposed institute. We should be encouraging groups like the one behind this project, not demonizing them. Were this mosque being built in a foreign city, chances are that the U.S. government would be funding it.

The man spearheading the center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a moderate Muslim clergyman. He has said one or two things about American foreign policy that strike me as overly critical —but it’s stuff you could read on The Huffington Post any day. On Islam, his main subject, Rauf’s views are clear: he routinely denounces all terrorism—as he did again last week, publicly. He speaks of the need for Muslims to live peacefully with all other religions. He emphasizes the commonalities among all faiths. He advocates equal rights for women, and argues against laws that in any way punish non-Muslims. His last book, What’s Right With Islam Is What’s Right With America, argues that the United States is actually the ideal Islamic society because it encourages diversity and promotes freedom for individuals and for all religions. His vision of Islam is bin Laden’s nightmare.

Rauf often makes his arguments using interpretations of the Quran and other texts. Now, I am not a religious person, and this method strikes me as convoluted and Jesuitical. But for the vast majority of believing Muslims, only an argument that is compatible with their faith is going to sway them. The Somali-born “ex-Muslim” writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s advice to Muslims is to convert to Christianity. That may create buzz, but it is unlikely to have any effect on the 1.2 billion devout Muslims in the world.

The much larger issue that this center raises is, of course, of freedom of religion in America. Much has been written about this, and I would only urge people to read Michael Bloomberg’s speech on the subject last week. Bloomberg’s eloquent, brave, and carefully reasoned address should become required reading in every civics classroom in America. It probably will.

Bloomberg’s speech stands in stark contrast to the bizarre decision of the Anti-Defamation League to publicly side with those urging that the center be moved. The ADL’s mission statement says it seeks “to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” But Abraham Foxman, the head of the ADL, explained that we must all respect the feelings of the 9/11 families, even if they are prejudiced feelings. “Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted,” he said. First, the 9/11 families have mixed views on this mosque. There were, after all, dozens of Muslims killed at the World Trade Center [my emphasis]. Do their feelings count? But more important, does Foxman believe that bigotry is OK if people think they’re victims? Does the anguish of Palestinians, then, entitle them to be anti-Semitic?

Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation.

[Jill]

“You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.” ***

About the proposed construction of an Islamic Community Center and mosque a couple of blocks away from what, before September 11, 2001, had been the site of the twin towers of the World Trade Center,”  President Obama said:

"… Recently, attention has been focused on the construction of mosques in certain communities -- particularly New York. Now, we must all recognize and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of Lower Manhattan. The 9/11 attacks were a deeply traumatic event for our country. And the pain and the experience of suffering by those who lost loved ones is just unimaginable. So I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. And Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground.

    But let me be clear. As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure….”
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/08/obama-makes-proposed-mosque-in-new-york-a-national-issue/1

*** This quote, modified from the actual observation by Abraham Lincoln, where he used the word, “fool” instead of “please,” I’m including to make a point.  Unfortunately, and really sadly to many of us, it’s starting to feel like our president can hardly please any of the people any of the time, anymore.


In this instance, although I do have some sense of what a complicated and emotion-laden issue this is, I agree with the stand he decided, finally, that he needed to take and verbalize.  This troubling issue reminds me of a time when I was in law school when the big news was that the American Nazi Party wanted to and had received a permit allowing them to march through the streets of Skokie, Illinois, the home, apparently, of a substantial population of Holocaust survivors.  

At the time, I couldn’t help imagining how painful it would be to those survivors to have these “people” flaunt themselves and (what, for me was) their sicko beliefs in front of them, in front of the whole world.  It took me a fair amount of time and reflection to arrive at a conclusion, the same one I’ve come to in this case, that the American Constitution must apply to everyone here, and not just to the people we like or can identify with, if it’s going to have any real value, (and, for me), any real beauty and hope, at all.  But, this, still, is really really a tough one, and I’m not coming even close to suggesting that it isn’t.  People, even here, are going to disagree, and guess what, they/you get to.

[David2051]

the American Constitution must apply to everyone here, and not just to the people we like or can identify with, if it’s going to have any real value

 

[Jill]

Strange mind, this one.  

For whatever reason, while I was finishing off that last post about Obama’s remarks on the building of the Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero, I found that a young woman by the name of Keshia Thomas came to mind.  I couldn’t believe I remembered her name.  

Anyway, I googled her, and it turned out that the incident when I’d learned about her had actually taken place fourteen years ago.  She was the young African American high school student who flung herself over a KKK supporter when Anti-Klan protestors started beating on him at a rally.
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20141729,00.html

I was so affected by the story that I'd saved the Life magazine where I first saw it, and, of course, I used it every opportunity I could find when I was teaching.  When I just now saw the time frame of the incident on the Internet, I went poring through my old magazines, hoping I would still have it. Following, except for the first photo which I got off the Internet, are some pictures from that Life, August, 1996 article that I just took so I could show you.


EDIT: Unrelated, or maybe not all that unrelated at all, when you think about it, when I was just posting, I had the TV on, mostly, apparently, for background noise.  My ears perked up, though, when I heard the name, Greg Mortenson, mentioned.  The moderator of, I think it was, Face the Nation, (the show that follows CBS Sunday Morning on CBS), said that next week their guest would be Greg Mortenson, who will be talking about the advice he's been giving to the American military....

[Jill]

For me, this was a particularly interesting article, so I decided to post it and excerpt just a few of its parts.  Really, though, if you have any interest in the subject at all, you should go to the link and read the entire thing.  And after that, you might want to read a whole bunch of articles and opinions on the subject and written from a diversity of perspectives, so that you will be able to arrive at your own “truth” about what has been going on.  It feels important.

Reviving Us-Versus-Them Politics
“… The animosity toward Muslims is worse today than it was after 9/11 when President Bush worked hard to limit the blame to Al Qaeda and not spread collective guilt throughout the Muslim world….

… A new poll from the Pew Research Center finds that nearly one in five Americans (18 percent) says Obama is a Muslim, up from 11 percent in March 2009….

… campaign attempts to portray Obama as “the other” and a stranger in our midst weren’t enough to derail voters from electing Obama, but those negative sentiments have since taken hold in the context of economic anxiety and Obama’s activist approach to government. “The first black president is upending the old order,” …. “and to people who feel threatened by Obama, it’s comforting to see him as the other. It’s a category baked into the American culture—us and them….”

Check out the slideshow of Mosques in America: Faith and Anger, where I got the image I’m posting, below.

I have seen too, too many faces of self-described freedom-of-religion-espousing, patriotic Americans contorted with the same kind of ugliness and vile that I've seen in photographs, from the '60's, of the faces of supposedly loving, church-going white southern mothers who were threateningly surrounding little black girls who were all dressed up in their Sunday School finest, and who were trying simply to go to school.  The intensity of the antipathy and fear that has been stirred up in all of the current protesters, who purportedly are just trying to protect the sensitivities of the families of victims of 9-11, well, it really scares me, and it makes me inexpressibly sad and worried about just what seems to be happening in this country of mine that I love.

[Jill]

What’s wrong with this picture?
Several hours after I posted in this thread about an article I’d seen via Google News, I was actually reading one of those old-fashioned newspaper things and came across this article.  The resolution that the Islamic Cultural Center in Fresno, California, felt compelled to reach, which resolution I highlighted in the third paragraph, below, well, you might guess that even though I could understand it, I didn’t like it that they had to reach that resolution-- at all.

Muslims fear backlash as festival falls near Sept. 11
Citing a growing atmosphere of distrust, especially since the issue of the Islamic center near Ground Zero erupted, some plan to tone down celebrations of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan.
“For nearly a decade, the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno has held a carnival on the Saturday following the end of Ramadan, during a festival that has been called the Muslim equivalent of Christmas. With pony rides, carnival attractions, games and Middle Eastern food, it's a popular event for the community's children.

This year, the center's leaders had a sense of foreboding when they noticed the date on which the carnival would fall: Sept. 11.

This week, after listening to escalating rhetoric over plans for an Islamic community center within blocks of the destroyed World Trade Center site in New York, the Fresno center canceled the carnival…..”
(I’d recommend that you read the entire article if you have any interest in it).


EDIT:You know, it never was my intention or my desire to somehow end up as this one, somewhat persistent (and very likely to some, quite irritating) nagging voice here, who is seemingly forever highlighting stories about discrimination, intolerance, and inequities in our daily world.  I really would have thought, because the KivaFriends community, in a way, is but a microcosm of the larger world community, that more people here would have taken this stuff more “personally,” or more “worrisomely,” something, I don’t know. That people would have wanted not only to highlight it but to talk about it here to try to figure out if there were anything that, as a community, we might be able to do about it. 

That is, whether there might be something that we could do to immunize ourselves and the people with whom we come into contact against the insidious effects of that Us against Them mentality.  It’s so tragically easy to fall prey to.   I’ve even seen it happen here, if to a much lesser, but still sad and frustrating degree.  I’m talking about that familiar if so troubling division into opposing and ineffectually-communicating camps of “we’re the good guys” and “they’re not!”.

“Camps”, sides, what have you, where people tend to be driven further apart, especially when they’re constantly being supported by like-thinking individuals, further apart rather than anywhere near toward reaching any kind of mutual civility, acceptance, or possibly even the beginning of understanding with that “other”  or “other side.” 

Anyway, I find I can’t help but take all this enmity, all this tribalism, all this contrived division and chauvinism in our world very personally.  Everytime I read or hear about it or witness it in my everyday life in acquaintances, family or friends, it hurts me.  It hurts me because it’s hurting the dream of the worldwide peaceful other-supportive community that I crave and hold so dear.

[Kay]

Yes, this is tragic, because more and more, "Muslims" are being equated with "terrorists."

[Kay]

(excerpted from) http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/08/19-11

The Center Cannot Hold:  Why the Mainstream Media Can't Stop the 'Ground Zero Mosque' Hysteria

by Richard Kim

Those of us in the "professional left" often lament the timidity and fickleness of our more establishment colleagues. If only they had been more resolute in their self-proclaimed roles as arbiters of truth and reason--the country wouldn't have fallen for weapons of mass destruction or gone berserk over death panels and deficits. But the furor over the so-called "Ground Zero mosque" should shred whatever faith we have left in the mainstream--not in its integrity, but in its power.

The list of establishment voices who have spoken out--often forcefully--against the plainly bigoted crusade against Park51, aka the Cordoba House, should be daunting. It includes the editorial pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and (grudgingly) the Wall Street Journal as well as CNN's Fareed Zakaria (who returned an award from the ADL in protest), NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, Post columnist Kathleen Parker, the American Jewish Committee, J-Street and Iraq war boosters Christopher Hitchens and Peter Beinart, whose recent Daily Beast columns put him somewhere just slightly to the right of Noam Chomsky. This honor roll even included, for a brief moment, President Obama, who is now twisting himself into knots trying to retract his retraction of his refudiation of the smear.

Maybe it's the establishment, so busy lecturing the masses on the Constitution and Islam, who should be sent back to class instead. Lesson one: the hysteria over the "Ground Zero mosque" did not happen in a vacuum. Lesson two: when you permit and foment the indiscriminate dehumanization of Muslims in the name of 9/11, it is not one bit surprising that the public would view lower Manhattan as the frontline of a global religious war. Lesson three: the reason you don't have any power now--when you've decided that enough is enough--is that for so many years, you cheered the bullies on. It is not enough to demonstrate occasional courage. In order to regain your authority and honor, you have to show up to more than just one fight.

[Jill]

Good ol’ Nicholas Kristof.  

Friend of Kiva, Friend of the Oppressed, Friend of Women.  Wish He Were a Friend of Mine. (Well, since he speaks my heart, maybe in some kind of way, he is).  Leave it to Nick Kristof to write a column with the almost-irresistible title of Taking Bin Laden’s Side that says what I wish I could have said but could only feel.

No promises, but I’m pretty sure that with Nick Kristof having said what I felt needed to be said, that that’s (I’m hoping, hoping, hoping it will be) the last you will be hearing from me on this subject.  
Read his column if you feel like it.
Peace.


EDIT: A few hours later, came back to tack this article onto my earlier post, having just now come across it and thinking it was especially interesting.  I didn’t want to add a new post, because as I wrote, I’m hoping to leave the conversation up to some of the rest of you from now on.  In that light, so long as I’m here, I’d like to say publicly what I just wrote Dan, privately.  That is, that I very very much appreciated his willingness to take the risk of grappling, openly, with some of the issues that for many of us are anything but absolutely clear and unambiguous.   Okay, here’s the article:

Islamic center debate stupefies Muslim world
"The heated debate across America over construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero is reverberating across the globe…"

[David2051]

No promises, but I’m pretty sure that with Nick Kristof having said what I felt needed to be said, that that’s (I’m hoping, hoping, hoping it will be) the last you will be hearing from me on this subject.  
Read his column if you feel like it.
Peace.

Wow, thanks for sharing that.  If you're really done posting that kind of thing here, maybe you could send me a thing or two offline?  It's times like this that I miss my retired Episcopal priest the most.  He was always very supportive of our local mosque.  Even when someone felt the need to drive their car into the side of the building...

[AccountAbility]

Jill - You may have gotten your neighbor to the north into a rambling mood, trying to articulate what is difficult even among people who know and trust each other much more than an online forum can ever replicate.

Perhaps for different reasons, I am deeply disturbed by the rhetoric against the proposed mosque near "ground zero".  First, I will admit to knowing little of the facts which MIGHT be used to conclude one way or the other. 

One is the question of whether the proposed location is within any zone which has been specifically designated to be a memorial for the World Trade Center tragedy.  These zones do exist and within them the determination of appropriateness for any building will be based on a much narrower focus than what would normally be legally allowed.  (Historical districts, certain trade zones, etc. come to mind.)  None of the diatribes against this mosque have raised such an issue, so I doubt one exists.

A more thorny issue for me is that I value religious freedom extremely highly.  I want our country to have in its bedrock values and precepts a constitutional guaranty of religious freedom.  Erosions are not easily corrected.  However, I also know that religion frequently gets commingled with cultural and even nationalistic mores, so that actions taken "in the name of religion" are sometimes more closely identified with cultural or nationalistic mandates than on any religious faith.  I believe these actions can be taken too far --beyond where I am willing to grant freedom based on religion.  I know there is a line.  There was a cult in southern Florida who exercised cruelty and slaughter of chickens, claiming they were religious observances.  They lost in an uneasy court--uneasy because the difficult question is "where do you draw the line?"  If there are no objective standards, any strongly held religious belief system can lead to actions which the majority--and the courts-- can reject as unacceptable.  That is one slippery slope.  For this reason alone, I would hesitate to reject any group desiring to build a mosque anywhere. 

Although not a popular thought, I would suggest that there is a certain commingling of religion and culture (or whatever) in the islamic faith that results in jihad and suicidal martyrs taking innocents with them to "paradise".  This aspect, however much a minority view of the general muslim population, crosses that line.  Herein lies the one grain of credibility the naysayers have on their side.  They are at least claiming that the leader of the group desiring this mosque either advocates these things or refuses to separate himself from these things.  IF they are right in any substantive way, there is I believe legitimate cause for concern.  These things are a bit more dangerous to society than anything the Branch Davidians were up to, or Jim Jones even thought of.   And lest anyone think I am picking on Muslims, I should be quick to add that Christians have been just as notorious at commingling their religion with extraneous standards and conduct.  I would equally hope that nothing like the Spanish Inquisition could ever even begin to materialize in our country.

So in my rambling, I show my ambivalence in this area.  I truly value religious beliefs and observations highly, but find a distaste for actions, beliefs and standards of conduct that claim to be based on religious belief but flow from cultural and other influences.  This current controversy just sharpens that dichotomy for me.

Dan

[Jill]

A couple of hours ago, I saw this article, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.  

For US Muslims, a 9/11 Anniversary Like No Other
I’d be Major Major surprised but gratifyingly so if anyone took me up on this, but…..


After reading that article and imagining the possibility that things could get a little intense next weekend, I found myself flashing back to that “Not In Our Town” video clip that I posted in the second post of this thread on August 7th.  The story in that video apparently had a pretty profound and lasting effect on me, very most likely because the way the people acted in Billings, Montana, that time, just struck me as being so right.  


In connection with all that,  I found myself, once again, thinking about the KivaFriends that I’d thought and have always visualized that we could be.   And so, I had this probably pretty crazy idea go through my head.  It was something along the lines of what an old-fashioned KivaFriend world community-loving kind of thing it would be if those of us who live anywhere, say, in a 30-60 mile radius of a mosque, somewhere, if we chose to make Saturday, September 11th a kind of KivaFriend meet or reunite day.  The idea was that we’d sort of be banding together in our various communities, meeting at and standing in solidarity with the members of those local mosques,  just because.  

Just because, when the bell is tolling for them, we know it’s tolling, or it could be tolling for us.  And we recognize that some of the same reasons that have made us respond to and want to help Kiva’s entrepreneurs, well, some of those same reasons obtain in this context, as well.


Anyway, I just thought I’d throw the idea out there.  Since I think a lot of our one-time much more active and committed KF members, for the most part, have chosen to leave KF to do their connecting on Facebook and elsewhere, I’m not going to be holding my breath, waiting for a deluge of a response on this.  


But on the off chance that any of my neighbors up on the Seattle side of Puget Sound might be interested in exploring the possibility of, at least, our trying to do this, you can contact me by sending me a lender message at my FriendofFella account: http://www.kiva.org/lender/friendoffella8662
I hope to be back in town towards the beginning of this coming week.


Either way, may this upcoming September 11th go down in history as a day when people sought and discovered their better selves, when they decided they wanted, we wanted to choose PEACE.

[Jill]

As some of you know who have been around here for awhile, I’m a big believer in a community’s “policing itself” by using the coming together and asserting itself methods that are employed in a "Not in Our Town" approach.  That being true, it probably won’t be all that surprising that I felt this morning’s bit of pleasure when I just now came across this.

Brazil Sports Fans Turn Stadium Pink After Rivals Chant "Faggot"

http://harvardcrcl.org/2011/04/17/gay-brazilian-athlete-harassed-by-crowd-but-supported-by-team/

http://blog.mattalgren.com/2011/04/brazil-stadium-turns-pink-after-faggot-chants-shock-community/

NOTE:  Many Of You Have Already Seen This Video Either Here Or Elsewhere.




Why does it often feel like the world is becoming less tolerant instead of more so?

[David2051]

Thank you, Jill.

[Jill]

Stonewall Uprising

Sterilization, lobotomies, being administered a drug that was known to bring on a chemically induced sensation of drowning (chemically-induced "waterboarding"), being condemned to institutionalization for the crime of being mentally ill, these were some of the sanctioned responses to the sin of being gay in the United States as recently as the late 1960's.*  I suppose for young people, that that seems like it had to have been a million years ago.  For some of us, though, it feels a bit closer to just past yesterday.


I'm supposed to be a relatively educated person, but the truth is that I'd had no idea how bad things were (and, we can surmise from some of the hate crimes still taking place, how bad things still are) for GLBT people til early this morning when I started watching a PBS American Experience program I'd taped the other night.


A lot of us became justifiably appalled when we learned, last year, of the anti-homosexuality bill that was under consideration in Uganda.  If you watch the program that I'm watching as I write, you'll understand that there still is some fair amount of cleaning up of our own "house" that remains to be done before we start throwing too many stones at someone else's.


I haven't finished watching it.  Truth is, it's a hard show to watch.  But, if you're interested in civil (read, human) rights, and not just the civil rights for this particular group or that but for all people, this show may be available for watching for free, online, for only a limited period of time, but it's available now.   And I'm thinking, it probably will be for at least the next several days.

See, also:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/stonewall-intro/

* And that's not even talking about losing your job, being thrown out of the military, being ostracized by your church, and worse, by your family and one-time "friends" which were common, almost reflexive responses of the times.


Not related to anything in particular, but perhaps, to everything in general, as I was finishing writing this post, it just went through my head to wish that people would think about and care about Native Americans more than most of us seem to do.  I guess, just thinking about, caring about civil (read, human) rights....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


EDIT: This show, Out in the Silence,  filmed in 2009, so, not so many eons ago, apparently followed Stonewall Uprising on PBS the other night.  I evidently taped it, too.

"Out in the Silence captures the controversy that ensues when filmmaker Joe Wilson's same-sex wedding announcement is published in the newspaper of the small Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago. Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school, Wilson's journey dramatically illustrates the challenges of negotiating the morally charged issue of sexual orientation and the potential for building bridges when people with differing opinions approach each other with openness and respect."
http://www.hrw.org/en/iff/out-silence

[CelticHarpist]

"Out in the Silence captures the controversy that ensues when filmmaker Joe Wilson's same-sex wedding announcement is published in the newspaper of the small Pennsylvania hometown he left long ago. Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school, Wilson's journey dramatically illustrates the challenges of negotiating the morally charged issue of sexual orientation and the potential for building bridges when people with differing opinions approach each other with openness and respect."
http://www.hrw.org/en/iff/out-silence[/size]

Things are definitely more recent than 1960 here in the USA. With 2 other therapists, I formed a citiwide support group for GLBT kids in midwest Omaha, NE in the late 80s early 90's. The school board was voting on a wording amendment or some such thing/clause about nondiscrim regarding gender in the early 90's. We asked them to include gender orientation by polling each board member individually. A few agreed but most didn't want to.

An incident occurred at a local high school where a young intelligent teen was outed by peers in his gym class spraying/marking on his lockered gym clothes homo/queer, etc. He was upset and his teacher made him come to class in them rather than letting him not attend or wear something else. He stopped going to school, became suicidal. We supported him and his parents.

We decided to attend that school board meeting and testify before the board prior to their vote. This remarkable young man came to that board meeting with his parents. He emotionally testified to what he went through, along with others. He noted if a girl had a similar t-shirt sprayed with the word tits or slurs, she wouldn't have been made to attend class in front of peers' snickers. He made an impact. They voted to include gender orientation in their anti-discrimination clause. The Advocate even wrote a blurb about a little while later. Hard to believe that was still the case in the 1990s, let alone today.

I have lived in the Middle East and found similar issues to what the USA is dealing with regarding GLBT issues. Things were tough in Turkey, in Saudi Arabia for these folks. It is definitely in our backyard and across world space. Let's hope and pray Uganda votes for inclusion not discrimination.

[Amy-in-PHX]

Things are definitely more recent than 1960 here in the USA. With 2 other therapists, I formed a citiwide support group for GLBT kids in midwest Omaha, NE in the late 80s early 90's. The school board was voting on a wording amendment or some such thing/clause about nondiscrim regarding gender in the early 90's. We asked them to include gender orientation by polling each board member individually. A few agreed but most didn't want to.

An incident occurred at a local high school where a young intelligent teen was outed by peers in his gym class spraying/marking on his lockered gym clothes homo/queer, etc. He was upset and his teacher made him come to class in them rather than letting him not attend or wear something else. He stopped going to school, became suicidal. We supported him and his parents.

We decided to attend that school board meeting and testify before the board prior to their vote. This remarkable young man came to that board meeting with his parents. He emotionally testified to what he went through, along with others. He noted if a girl had a similar t-shirt sprayed with the word tits or slurs, she wouldn't have been made to attend class in front of peers' snickers. He made an impact. They voted to include gender orientation in their anti-discrimination clause. The Advocate even wrote a blurb about a little while later. Hard to believe that was still the case in the 1990s, let alone today.

I have lived in the Middle East and found similar issues to what the USA is dealing with regarding GLBT issues. Things were tough in Turkey, in Saudi Arabia for these folks. It is definitely in our backyard and across world space. Let's hope and pray Uganda votes for inclusion not discrimination.

A DonorsChoose.org project description:

My Students: Help us learn to knit and knit together a strong community of GLBTQ students. Our building of almost 1,500 students has no Gay Straight Alliance.
Our students are inner city African Americans, many of whom live in homophobic environments. Students and I would like to start a Gay Straight Alliance and have knitting be our cover. We like to knit and can teach others to knit, but also we think that knitting is a relaxing activity that makes people feel comfortable with each other. There is a gay junior who is an avid knitter who is willing to lead this club.

My Project: Imagine that you are a gay teenager in a school where you hear adults use homophobic slurs regularly. Imagine that your family is convinced that homosexuality is a sin. You see other gay students being picked on by their peers or you yourself are bullied.

There is a Young Adult book called "The Geography Club" about a group of gay students who have a GSA but are not ready to call it that in their setting. We are similar to that - we want to have a knitting club that is a GSA. This idea comes from a gay student and I (librarian) together. I'm concerned about the homophobic conditions the gay and lesbian students suffer with in our building.
We do not have any funding.

We have ideas about how we can get knitting needles but we need a supply of yarn because that get expensive. Both the gay student and I have the expertise and can teach the others to knit.
Our building has no GSA and there is anti-gay bullying going on every day. This is not only among the students but adults as well. Our gay and lesbian students need a safe place to come together, discuss their problems and learn about their rights. We will refer to it as a knitting club (and we will knit!) because we are in the beginning stages of awareness in our situation.
 
My students need a supply of yarn for knitting projects. The student and I who are planning this club can get knitting needles but the cost of yarn really adds up.

(Nearly $300 of yarns were donated by the DonorsChoose community, to this club in a Chicago high school, as of January 28, 2011.)  We may be "enlightened" enough not to have an officially-sanctioned death penalty for homosexual behavior in the US, but gay young people are hounded to the point of committing suicide every day here.  Changing attitudes takes time and effort, and I think we need to approach Ugandans or others with an attitude of humility on this subject.  We can't claim to be doing all that well in this area, ourselves, IMHO.

[Jill]

China Releases Artist Ai Weiwei On Bail
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110622/ts_afp/chinaartrights_20110622144245


The Story of Colombian Teacher’s Biblioburro to Be Featured on PBS’s POV show on July 19th (and probably will be available for free viewing, afterwards, on PBS’ website for those of you outside the U.S. who would like to see it.)
http://www.pbs.org/pov/biblioburro/


Memory of Colors
http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,5729.msg89227.html#msg89227
Got an iPad, immediately downloaded the app, Memory of Colors. It cost $2.99.   Can’t get over how beautiful it is.  If you have an iPad or, if not, even a friend or a relative who has one, spend the 3 dollars to see this.   You’ll be glad you did, I GUARANTEE IT.


Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist Outs Himself As An “Illegal” Immigrant

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/magazine/my-life-as-an-undocumented-immigrant.html
http://defineamerican.com/
http://newsmobius.com/2011/06/pulitzer-prize-winning-journalist-outs-himself-as-illegal-immigrant-to-abc-news/
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/journalist_jose_vargas_says_hes_an_undocumented_immigrant_will_fight_for_dream_act.php

Colette, Florence said she will be sending you photos of MCC crafts, soon.  Don't give up.
Jill

[CelticHarpist]

"Show us thy Divine Light which is hidden in our souls that we may know and understand life better. Raise us above the Distinctions and Differences which divide men. Teach us thy Loving Forgivess." - Khatum (Sufi prayer)

[Jill]

Just because I remembered it to be compelling, I came back here early this morning and among other things,  (“re-”) watched the video, just above in this thread, of Jose Antonio Vargas telling his story.  Quite by chance, since I no longer read the local newspaper, a few minutes ago I came across a headline, when checking at Google News as I often do, that read, “State DOL cancels driver's license of ex-reporter in country illegally.”  


Not really thinking it was going to be talking about Vargas, but since just earlier, I’d had cause to think about his story, I clicked on the link and read beyond the headline.  I know that there is and that there will be a diversity of views, both here and elsewhere, about the rightness or wrongness of what the article contained, but for me, personally, both as a resident of the state of Washington and as a citizen of this country that I want to stand for all things good and hopeful, I was not pleased at all.


I originally put Jose Vargas’ video in this particular thread that I’d named, “Who Are We?” quite purposefully.  That’s a question (along with “Who Do We Purport to Be?” and “Who Do We Aspire to Be?”) that I think is worth our constantly asking ourselves whether it’s as members of this world forum, as citizens of our respective countries, or simply, as caring, striving, and hopefully, reflective and honest human beings.


Ha!  I just now came *that close* to inadvertently pasting the link for Isabella Rossellini's really wonderful Green Porno videos (which I wrote about in my last post here and just sent to my sister and brother) instead of the driver's license story I'd intended to include.  That would have been pretty funny if you had clicked on the link, above, thinking you were going to be reading about drivers' licenses and instead found yourself watching one of Isabella's videos replete with references to penises and vaginas and other such fun things.

[Jill]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5b5ob4VCwFIG4b64a2tpvWIX2cw?docId=4e454a39df23415695d7e40843a3c6d1
 
Spend a moment with me in Fantasyland and imagine a world where there was no such concept as “them,” where everybody understood that every other human being was, always has been and only could be part of “us.”  

Wouldn’t that be something….

[Jill]

Who are we?  Who do we want to be?  Who might we have the capability (or the danger) of being?

Savage killing of Iraqi woman in California investigated as hate crime
Killer beat Shaima Alawadi to death in family home and left note that said: 'Go back to your own country. You're a terrorist.'
It was her 17 year old daughter who came home to find her mom, just lying there......

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then, there was this, as different from the preceding as it could be.  I came across it early this morning when I was checking out different videos about the Buskaid Soweto Strings people we’re going to have the joy of getting to meet.  

I couldn’t help but be struck with the contrast of the different sides of America that are daily presented to all of us.  
Bias Alert: I love Michelle Obama.

Travels with the First Lady: Africa (South Africa & Botswana)


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related to both of the above in a mind that keeps seeing connections, I finally was able to find a march that was to be taking place in Seattle this past weekend.  Since I’m leaving next Saturday for the better part of a month and am slightly overwhelmed by how much there still is to be done, I really didn’t have the time to go across the water and go to it.

But I needed to go.  I needed to go, especially after seeing that documentary I mentioned about the global anti-apartheid movement.  It was only AFTER people of all colors, hues, religions and geographical origins took the abuses that were being heaped upon the South African blacks, personally, it was only because they chose to stand together, and ultimately, to work together, that they were able to bring the system down.

So, it didn’t matter a whole lot if I had too much to do.  It was one of those, “If not now, when?” kind of deals.

And of all that happened that day, what stood out for me most was one of the “call and response” chants we did, one of them, in particular.  I’m talking about the one where the one of the organizers walking alongside us called out,  “I AM……..”  

And we were to sing back, “TRAY-VON  MAR-TIN!!!”  

I got as far as about the 2nd or 3rd syllable, and then, I choked.  I totally choked.  My eyes welled with tears as my mouth struggled to get the rest out.  I became overcome with all the associations, with my own and with so many other people’s hearts’ great yearnings, with all the sorrow and hope of it.  

In a flash, I saw the picture of cute kid, Trayvon, joy-filled as he stood with his family on some skiing venture up in the snow.  I felt his fear, his incredulity that this could actually be happening to him.  I felt his parents’ grief, their own disbelief that their boy had been ripped away from them.  I felt his girlfriend’s haunted last memories.  I even felt a little of George Zimmerman’s confusion, the pain I actually believe he surprised even himself (in his responsibility) for inflicting not only on Trayvon and Trayvon’s family but on his own family, not to mention on himself and countless others.

I thought to myself, yes, I am Trayvon.  We are all Trayvon.  We are all Trayvon’s parents and his girlfriend and all the people like them.  All the people who have suffered, before and who, tragically, will suffer after .  And we are all George Zimmerman and his family, too.  And we are all Shaima Alawadi.  And her daughter.  And her family.  I believe that.  Deeply.

And it went through my mind that until people actually start understanding and accepting that, until people start realizing that the time-celebrated dichotomy between “Us” and “Them” is not only a false dichotomy, but a pain-generating, grief-breeding, fear-resentment-and-hatred-inviting construct that keeps us divided, that keeps us hurting, there can be no end to this waste.  To this horrible horrible sad waste of lives, of possibilities, of a peace that has to be out there, somewhere.  

Somewhere.  

Waiting.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT: I’ve been hearing today, as I’m guessing that a number of you have also heard, that there have been a significant number of “leaks” today in the case, very possibly from someone connected with the Sanford police.   I’m not sure.  The implication, the message they’re intended to convey, was that Trayvon was not the pure-as-driven-snow choir boy depicted in the portraits of him that have been wallpapering the media stories.  

A person can’t help but wonder, and wonder with some great and I think, justifiable sadness, whether a further unstated but intended implication might not have been that if that information, conveniently disseminated without attribution, is true, then Trayvon Martin somehow “deserved” to be killed.   Or, as was suggested by that twitter-happy New Orleans policeman who was unable to suppress his delight, that Trayvon’s death was something to celebrate.  

Sometimes, it feels like a daily challenge trying to fend off the despair.  Don’t want to be able to even begin to imagine, if it feels that way for me, what it must actually feel like for people whose daily life experience this story represents.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm going to wrap this all up on a significantly more positive if mostly unrelated note. 

By sheer chance, I only just now learned about the new Nelson Mandela digital archive that only this week became available online.  I haven’t and I won’t have time to really check it out anytime soon (not even to see if they might have an image of Mandela wearing a hoody), but it pleases me tremendously just to know that it’s there.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2012/mar/27/inside-nelson-mandela-digital-archive-in-pictures#/?picture=387931506&index=0
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/27/nelson-mandela-archive-digital-treasure?intcmp=239