Our Sacred Duty ...

Image Source - America's Library - Original Draft of Declaration of Independence

As citizens – as patriots – we have the obligation to be educated and informed: to come to our civic responsibilities with seriousness, with our homework done and in a thoughtful manner. We’ve allowed our political process to take on the most despicable aspects of a sporting rivalry. Too often we don’t think, we just scream our team’s name and talk trash about the “other side.” The problem with this is that it’s the kind of thing that leads to the horrors of history. If we vilify and dehumanize one another then we run the risk of repeating those histories. We create an environment where people feel justified in participating in the Kristallnacht, the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing or the attacks in Dallas or Orlando.

Bear with me –

We’re responsible. We allow and propagate shaming and hate baiting.

If we don’t want body shaming or people derided because of how they look, then we can’t participate in that. If we say we believe in religious freedom then that means for everyone. If we want our candidate or our ideas considered on their merits – then we have to do the work.
If we ridicule Trump for his appearance we perpetuate this practice.

If we accuse Obama of being a secret Muslim, …

If we deride someone through memes or ugly pictures – we perpetuate that practice. I’ve seen terrible pictures of Melania, Michelle, Hillary and Donald.


If we demonize, if we vilify, if we use foul terms to refer to one another, if we engage in name calling and lose sight of our mutual humanity, we perpetuate, cultivate this kind of culture. When we lose sight of our individual humanity, when we demonize groups and refuse to engage in the harder work of taking us each on the content of our characters (King) – then we lose our empathy. Empathy is what holds us back from violence. Empathy knits us together and cultivates caring. Let us try to imagine into one another and understand where we are coming from.

I beg you to take a pledge to not participate in hate baiting – to be a bit more forgiving, a bit more kind …

Do the thinking. Discuss what bothers you, your fears, your hopes, how we can together achieve a better world. Do comparative research. Do the work of having real exchanges. Let us privilege a conversation of ideas and policies. Let us take seriously the future of our nation. Let us cultivate the “angels of our better nature.”

A few words for Trayvon Martin and the world we live in …

Statue of Liberty from National Geographic




It is not possible to directly feel the incredible grief this young man’s family, his mother his father and his friends must feel. I can only come to it by remembering my own grief from my own losses. I cannot imagine the rage they must feel at the senselessness of this loss. It doesn't matter what you or I believe the circumstances of his death were. His death is tragic.

What does the loss of Trayvon, and our nation’s reaction to it, give us? Have we gained anything from it? Is there something we can do better?

I think a great deal about bias and prejudice. I think it is hard-wired into us. Some would say it is “natural”. Some would argue that “nature” is right. It is the “right” way to be. I have heard this argument often. My answer to this is: “are we not human?” Are we not by definition at once a part of nature and outside it? Is it not our ability to operate outside our animal natures, or should I say natural condition, that makes us human? Is it not our obligation as human beings to know ourselves and resist those “natural” impulses that would cause us to repress or harm one another?

Am I not my “brothers’ (sisters’)” keeper?

Let us be honest with ourselves.

Ariel Castro’s treatment of three young women, his ability to see them as objects that he had the right to bend to his pleasure, is an amplified symptom of a lingering social understanding of women. The fact that society as a whole has a bias against women is borne out by simple statistics of leadership, pay and frankly perceptions of how women should act, should speak, should be. – Bias pervades our country, no doubt the world, few escape its presumptions, but the consequences for the individual vary widely.

Trayvon’s death is no less a symptom. The jury found that George Zimmerman had reasonable fear for his life – but they were not tasked with considering the assumptions that put him in that situation and that ultimately lead to an innocent young man’s death.

Meanwhile Marrissa Alexander is sentenced to 20 years for trying to protect herself.

Bias – prejudice – makes assumptions about groups of people rather than seeing an individual. It produces templates of identity that are then projected onto “the other.” A prevalence of bias assures that individuals must work to overcome, sometimes without success, these imaginings of who they are. These templates impede their success and by extension the progress of the whole of humanity.

The main systems we have for promoting opportunity and protecting civil rights – leadership, education and the judicial system – depend on your access to wealth and influence in order to access them.

Current statistics paint a clear picture of the patterns of privilege. It is undeniable and why in a country where we elect or reject leaders based on their religious affiliation don’t we have the political will to do something about it?

… And what is that we can do? What is that we should do? What is our responsibility to one another?At least let us begin with compassion and concern. If we see social ills, if we see struggle or lack – then less us take seriously how we can affect for good the lives of those afflicted.

We must at some point move away from assumptions, anger, mistrust and move toward conversation, dialogue and exchange. At some point we must take seriously what it means to “love one another.”

The New York Times: Reports Find Racial Gap in Drug Arrests

ABC News experiment having to do with profiling

The Wage Gap, by Gender and Race

Slate: Gender Inequality by State and County

American Bar Association: Domestic Violence Statistics –