OnLine With Zoe

Proclamation for Juana

Here is what did not happen last night.  The Long Beach City Council did not present Juana Melara a proclamation congratulating her on being one of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.  You might wonder why, let me answer with her quote from the speaker’s podium:

“Being #TIME’s person of the year is an honor that should be shared by the entire city, we shouldn’t be ignored and voted down by the city council” -Juana Melara  

That’s right.  On September 19^th, the council voted 5 – 4 against protecting the city’s hospitality workers, both on workload and assault protections.  There were many reasons, not the least of which was, ….well… Grand Prix.  I mean no one wants to see a sign in the hotel lobby that there is zero tolerance for sexual harassment and assault.  It would be a total buzz kill. 

When Agenda #20 came up for consideration and comment, several people from Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, LAANE and BHC lined up to speak.  As I told the council, item #20 would be a fine recommendation if this was 1999; a thought validated by the New York Times article this morning, (Sexual Harassment Training Doesn’t Work. But Some Things Do). 

One of the council women proudly announced that the answer is training women to defend themselves and that many hotels offer the very course taught to the police.  The assumption that a woman can even breathe through an assault in a closed hotel room while a man twice her size corners her or ties her up with the vacuum cord is outrageous.  It is immoral. 

The public commenters began, mostly women.  The last woman talked about her deep emotional response to the fact that her personal assault testimony on September 19^th had zero impact on the council.  In this context both Councilwoman Pearce and Councilwoman Gonzalez said the same thing.  As is mostly the case, two men spoke last.  One was concerned that with all these, “new genders,” he hoped this was not just about women.  The last speaker said he was particularly interested that we did not dismiss Police Chief Luna’s testimony that there have only been 1 or 2 reports of such workplace  assaults in 5 years.   

Councilwoman Price took the floor.  She began discussing bullying.  She accused the public speakers of bullying the council and that it is time for women to stand together. 

To break this down a bit,

BULLYING occurs when a person ridicules another, which may or may not result in the bullied person being thrown in emotional or physical danger, certainly made afraid.  Let me assure you, the commenters were not bullying the council. 

Speaking for myself, I was doing precisely what my social justice mentors taught me.  Alice Paul, Rosa Parks, Grace Lee Boggs, Ella Baker all taught us to EMBARRASS those in power by making the power differential clear.  Nothing could be further from bullying.  In fact, the bullying was in the opposite direction, as we were supposed to crawl away thinking that we better not offer proud and clear voices again.

Several of us begin speaking truth to power in the ‘60’s.  I began with George Wallace and my most recent was Barack Obama.  Frankly, the Vietnam war ended and DADT was reversed, the little pebble I offered in these massive mosaics validated my mentors’ methods. 

Secondly, Councilwoman Price made a plea for unity among women.  Don’t ask me to unify with those who are bullying me.  I would ask you to unify with me in standing in front of a hotel with a picket sign in solidarity with the Housekeepers.  Unity begins with supporting those who have the least power.  You have the direction in reverse.  Please bring your privilege and power to them, proclaim them the real heroines in the #metoo movement and join with Time Magazine in congratulating them on breaking the silence.  Bring them their City Proclamation. 

Finally, when the council chamber was almost empty, 15 or so people lined up with little pink signs to demand the recall of Councilwoman Pearce.  90% men listed their bullish reasons to demand this recall.  No one is fooled by this.  Silence.  Grave, deafening silence.  Where was the unity between women?  Was there too much to risk?  This was the time for women to unite.

 

I am a sanctuary person, you are safe with me.

I have not talked about it much. It is not something I felt like amplifying. It would not help me or anyone. So from November 8 through last week, my light was flickering. I suppose I don’t like talking about things which have no whisper of a solution.

February 1st, I dragged myself to hear Rev. Dr. Barber. I have written about him, watched him, love him; never heard him in person.

Occasionally, the spirit just takes over, makes the healthy decision which is a clear demonstration that it is still in there. It is still oiled and ready to go. It may be asleep but not dead.  And so I got on the freeway and hoped.

Going in, I felt that there was nothing I could do about the changed direction of government, about the demolition of human rights, about the backlash.  I felt that at age 68, the equality, the equity, the balance I had invested everything in was vanishing.  It was an unmanageable loss.  It was so much larger than the loss of Sec. Clinton.  In fact it was a growing deadly virus that was unleashed and unpredictable.

You would think after all these years of meditation and study, that the fundamentals of Buddhist practice would have kept me afloat.  It is exactly that seeming failure that made recovery feel impossible.  I wanted to reassemble.  I wanted to get new lamps, fill them with new oil and begin anew as it seemed the old had disappeared, fallen to the trash heap, never to recover and serve again. 

And so it began.  He brought his axe and pick.  He dug in. 

As I told the Long Beach City Council, ~

Last week I had the immeasurable good fortune to hear Rev Dr. William Barber speak.
He was here from North Carolina to receive an honorary doctorate from Occidental College.
He is one of the founders of Moral Mondays, The Forward Together Movement and Repairers of the Breach.

He lives and breathes on the acute intersection of social justice and examined Christianity.
He told us many things that night.
He even got me to sing and clap.     He is irresistible. 

First he captured my mind with his deep understanding of how this moment in history predictably unfurled.
Then he nourished my soul with a call to care for the poor, disenfranchised and marginalized.

But most importantly, he lifted me from a spiritual dark despair by explaining that ~
This is not democrats vs GOP
This is not rich vs poor
This is not thugs vs righteous people

This is a crisis
This is a moral crisis
This is a moral crisis that has been born over centuries and lives in systemic racism, classism and sexism.

Today we are called to mind the light.
Today we are called to be the light.
This is the ultimate call to be a moral society, a moral people, beginning by being a moral person.

This is the moment when we demand morality from ourselves and let that morality pour forward as a beacon to light the way for others to find safety with us.  

Being a sanctuary city is the very least we can do.
To be a Sanctuary City does not just mean protection of those at risk.
To be a Sanctuary City is not just a public statement that we can proudly bear. 

To offer sanctuary to all who love freedom and liberty,
Opens our hearts,
Restores our souls,
It lifts our intentions and prayers above the law
And begins to repair our broken spirit. 

Let us be a sanctuary city.
Let us be a sanctuary to one another.
Let us be a sanctuary to ourselves.

To start, I am a sanctuary person, you are safe with me.

Fast for Families ~ Beginning Third Week

http://fast4families.org/

Every eating day, the body has a big task.  It is the most sophisticated food processor imaginable.  Blood rushes, the brain signals, the muscles squeeze and churn.  There is food to be deconstructed, transformed and mostly sloughed.  It is a very full time job.  In fact, every moment while this complex task is happening, it is a challenge to think, to compute, to read, to collect ones thoughts; as evidenced after lunch at work.

Fasting is the most counter-intuitive, unnatural, stern, delicate thing one can do to their body. It is a slow and painful pulling the plug on your food processor.  Headaches begin shouting, where is my food?  (loudly for sugar eaters).  The whole body is slowly and unwillingly going into stasis.  It is literally pulling away down from its primary activity.

But as the processing of food decreases many, many, many things escalate.  By day 12, you can hear as never before.  You can smell a pickle, a tic-tac, dirty sox and, mostly, bad breath as never before.  The feel of your blanket is articulated; scratchy or soft.  And feeling is now far beyond fingertips; as reception is amplified through one’s entire body and some radiating distance around it.  Clumsy, shrill, insensitive actions are now razors that cannot be explained, as even explaining it is too hard.  Such a statement, any self-serving statement is too painful to one’s conscience.

That is all that is left now - the body has fallen asleep and the spirit is fully awake.  Possibly one’s spirit is always as awake but the shouter, the stumbler, the thinker, the food processor is now asleep.  Tread softly around fasters, not just because they hear and feel as never before but because they are awake. 

  SIGN THE PETITION 

The Shore of Change

I went to a meeting last night of many groups discussing immigration issues with specific focus on LGBTQ people.  Speakers were an Attorney, organization leaders and community organizers (a meaningful distinction).  I went, not just to support some very special people in my life, to learn about the deportations locally and express my support for a fast path to citizenship.  Hell, I just would like to change the entire border to a welcoming platform for people going in any direction.  More specifically I want to encourage protests, demonstrations and NVDA here in the O.C.

A young man who reminded me of many in GetEqual spoke.  “There is a short window for action as Congress will only be in session about 25 more days in 2013.”  At the Q&A, I said I would really like to meet him and made the observation that it means that these uber conservative men will be in their home offices here in the OC, prime for protests and I mentioned Dana Rohrabacher.  The Atty on the panel said, “He is a waste of time.”  I suppose that is his POV but it sure isn’t mine.  (and I don’t appreciate being dismissed like flicking an insect.  He might have asked, what would that achieve?).

Changing the mind of a blind conservative is never the point of protesting at their home office.  Gov. Brewer, Gov. Walker, Rep. Campbell, Rep. Hunt, Senator Cruz are never the mission.  They are used on one side of the tension between change-makers and conserve-atives.  It irked me to no end that an atty would just dismiss this fundamental in the Civil Rights, Human Rights movement. 

I waited for the meeting to end and approached the org leader who made the original comment and said, I am very interested in your work, the congressional vacations are great time to protest and how can I help.  He proceeded to tell me his org facebook page and said I could check him out there.  I continued asking about NVDA and protests and he said, “you can check me out here, while he was checking out the guys in the room.”

I thought, dude you should check me out.  I could not stop thinking about it.  I woke up today thinking how much could be gained if we integrated the shore of change – where the progressives in each group on the matrix of oppression stand.  There is so much to be gained by integrating the minorities who have the very same opponent – SAMENESS.   And, obviously it would be the progressives who would go first.  I hope most understand the crackling splendor of watching Representative John Lewis being arrested at an immigration demonstration last week. 

One thing that was truly new news for me last night was how much the repeal of DOMA assists in immigration rights.  It is an intersection to be proud of.  A little old white lady, Mrs Edie Windsor did that.