Category Archives: social justice

Haiku, Nov ‘23 (first half)

11/1
Out with the mouth guard.
In with the flipper. If you
don’t know, you’re lucky.

11/2
Silver-haired driver.
“Now see here, Dumbledore!” Ha!
Not Robert Burns then.

Another one:

Catalpa leaves float
and sway on their way from sky
perch to rusty ground.

Birmingham

11/3
Today’s tough topics:
reparations, guilt, fear, shame.
And don’t forget: love.

11/4
A doom loop. App shows
one booking, then the other.
Never together.

11/5
There are those who love
the time change, even stay up
to watch it happen.

11/6
His name was Moses
and he called me ma’am.
Not in Boston now!

11/7
The actual bus
where Rosa Parks sat, displayed
in Montgomery.

11/8
For walking past a
house where a white woman bathed
they strung him up. Dead.

11/9
Storefronts boarded up
with plywood. Abandoned gas
stations. Weeds. Selma.

11/11

If the Black Bayou
could talk, what would it say? “Oh
sleep, sweet Emmett, sleep.”

Tallahatchie River
Cotton gin fan like the one the killers tied around Emmett Till’s neck. It weighs 70 pounds. They never expected his body to be found.
Miss Jesse Jane Demings
Refurbished Sumner courtroom where killers were acquitted in 67 minutes

 

Civil Rights Tour #1

If you’re short on time, here’s my texted version of the trip:

It was overwhelming. Sad. Hard to digest it all. DT and EL were easy travel companions. Most things in sync. Each museum built on the previous one, so it was good learning. I think the thing that will haunt me the longest is the murder of Emmett Till.

Birmingham / Montgomery / Selma / Jackson / Sumner / Memphis.

Day one: Birmingham.

Red Clay tour guide Mike Cornelius at Bethel AME

We spent three-plus hours with Red Clay Tours, part walking / part driving. It’s a father, son team. White. Initially, I felt disappointed that we wouldn’t have a Black guide but not only was Mike extremely knowledgeable, he often modeled language of acknowledgment and atonement, giving his white customers another level of learning.

Birmingham has a nickname: Bombingham. You probably know that it was the site of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four girls. A devastating act of terror.

But bombings were so frequent that one whole section of town is nicknamed Dynamite Hill. Birmingham is a mining town (or was), meaning that dynamite was readily available. (Also meaning that its decline resembles that of Rust Belt cities.) Bad actors often flung lit sticks out of cars while driving by.

Dynamite hit lower right part of house

On Dynamite Hill, we saw houses with blackened bricks. Others with five foot cement brick walls around them. We heard stories about cars blowing up. Stories about the valor of men protecting leaders by being the one to turn the key.

Photo from National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, see below for precise photo credit

We learned about how one of those leaders, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, pastor of the Bethel AME, emerged from the rubble of his bombed home, energized by his miraculous survival. He refused to rebuild the structure.

Photo from National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, see below for photo credit
Info board from the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis
Bethel AME

It’s quite astonishing that more people weren’t killed. It’d be tempting to sneer at the incompetence of white supremacists if it weren’t for the fact that even with minimal loss of life the bombings created pervasive and abject terror.

Display at Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson

That same morning we learned about the marches that led to Birmingham’s desegration in 1963, including The Children’s Crusade. Next post.

Photo at Selma Interpretative Center (one of them) of Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth

Readers: if anything here is wrong or needs refined/updated, please let me know. There was A LOT of information in a week and I’m bound to get things wrong here and there. And PS first versions of this post erroneously included a photo of Dexter AME, not Bethel.

My travel companions, DT and EL
Birmingham
Childhood home of Angela Davis

PPS I took that video above in our hotel, Hampton Inn/The Tutwiler. It took a lot of tries because often someone was waiting for the elevator (imagine their surprise) when the doors opened and I had to start over. It was worth it to me to look weird and possibly even suspicious to highlight the very cool black and white photos. They graced every landing and the inside of the elevator doors.

4/20’s new meaning

Giana Floyd, George Floyd’s daughter

From now on 4/20 will live on not just as a day to celebrate pot but as a day to remember that a murderous cop was held to account.

I cried when I heard that the jury found Chauvin guilty on all three counts. A choking ugly cry. Gasping.

While I know this is not the end of the war (Al Sharpton) and that the verdict was only possible because it was captured on video, seen the world over, followed by a year of protests and the collapse of the blue wall (Jason Johnson), I want to breathe the relief of a decision well made.

Yes. Yes we get how broken we are that the outcome was not certain here. But let me exhale with gratitude.

Thank you jurors! Thank you “bouquet of humanity” aka witnesses who took the stand! Thank you remarkable prosecution team! Thank you protestors! Thank you cops who took the stand and spoke the truth!

Tomorrow I will lament the fifteen year old girl who was shot yesterday. Tomorrow I will share my outrage at how swiftly Republicans are seeking to outlaw filming police and protests but today: relief.

I shared this 53 second video over on Instagram but I’ll share it here, too. Synchronicity turned the Vogue model’s outstretched arms into something reminiscent of a prone, injured body as the day went on. Unintended but fitting.

West Newton Metta

It got crowded. What was six feet became four and then two. It was hot. I started thinking about myself in ways I don’t normally, as old, as immune compromised. So just before it was time to kneel for nine minutes in silence, I left. I said metta all the way home.

May George Floyd be peaceful. May he be free of inner and outer harm. May he be cared for gently as he makes his passage home. May he know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May the young woman who filmed Floyd’s murder be peaceful. May she be free of inner and outer harm. May she be healed of recent and transgenerational trauma. May she be cared for gently as she walks upon this earth. May she know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May George Floyd’s family be peaceful. May they be free of inner and outer harm. May they be cared for gently as they walk upon this earth. May they know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May the people of Minneapolis be peaceful. May they be free of inner and outer harm. May they be cared for gently as they walk upon this earth. May they know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May the people of Houston be peaceful. May they be free of inner and outer harm. May they be cared for gently as they walk upon this earth. May they know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May all protesters be peaceful. May all protesters be free of inner and outer harm. May they be cared for gently as they walk upon this earth. May they know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May all members of law enforcement be peaceful. May all police be free of inner and outer harm. May they be cared for gently as they walk upon this earth. May they minister to the public gently and for the greater good. May they know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May all Americans be peaceful. May we be free of inner and outer harm. May we be cared for gently as we walk upon this earth. May we know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May all sentient beings be peaceful. May all sentient beings be free of inner and outer harm. May they be cared for gently as they walk upon this earth. May they know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

May the earth be peaceful. May the earth be free of harm. May the earth be cared for gently as it spins through space. May the earth know joy, wisdom, and compassion.

Tomorrow — a rant. I’ll bet you can hardly wait.

How is everyone doing?

Not just another day

It’s hot. “The news flattens one spirits,” is one way to put it. A neighbor uses chalk to #saytheirnames

She inspires me.

It is hot enough for the season’s first batch of gazpacho.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, a random act of kindness.

And a kitty looking Finn over as we pass.

And in case you didn’t already know that consciousness loves contrast, after a brutal catch up of the news this morning, look what greeted me to the East.