Core

We Can Manifest a World…

“As a society, we are vastly overdue for a more profound definition of safety, one that is not shaped by fear but by compassion.”  – Mark Gonzales

picture courtesy of the Alan Blueford Center for Justice

I headed out into the morning fog to catch a bus downtown to the plaza, where another bus was waiting. I was joining a group of activists heading to Sacramento climbing onto a bus usually used to ferry revelers to football games. Though the bus was filled with music, laughter, the sharing of apples, and drinking of coffee and tea, it was not a party we were heading to, not a game. We were riding because too many people are dead, killed by those we collectively pay to protect us.

Across from me was the grandmother of a dead teen. Sitting next to me was the sister of a woman killed by six officers after a call to get her to the relative safety of a hospital psych ward overnight. In talking about the case, she occasionally tripped up, calling Kayla “my brother” in her distress. She’s been fighting for justice for her sister for two years.

As I stood on the capitol steps in Sacramento, I couldn’t help but feel a combination of deep sorrow, heart break, and anger. Too many memorial signs. Jeralynn Blueford, whom I’ve written of many times, spoke, just one out of fifty families gathered to speak for their dead fathers, brothers, sisters, and husbands. This gathering represented a fraction of those killed by police. Reports come in each month of unarmed citizens killed by tasers, guns, and beatings. The police are rapidly becoming more militarized, relying on violent force as the first line of intervention. Yet police culture dictates that those officers concerned by or opposed to use of excessive force and extrajudicial killings not speak for fear of ostracization.

As we were marching in the state capitol, a thirteen year old boy was killed by sheriffs less than two hour’s drive away. He was playing in his yard with a toy gun.

My latest book and much of the work I do with clients examines how desire helps us to step into our purpose, creating the lives – and the world – we want to manifest. I thought about that, while marching under the hot sun.

I was in Sacramento not only to stand with and march with these families – mostly working class, mostly people of color – I was in Sacramento because:

I want to manifest a world in which we don’t police one another to death. I want to manifest a world of mutual aid. I want to manifest a world where racism and class oppression don’t dictate who gets to live and who dies. 

photo courtesy of the Alan Blueford Center for Justice

En route back to the capital building, after marching to District Attorney Kamala Harris’ office to deliver a coffin and some letters, I was talking with a woman whose feet hurt. Her black patent dress sandals were inappropriate for marching. She’d been heading to the courthouse to file some papers, saw us, and joined the march. Her mentally ill son was in jail with a $250,000 bond and no access to his medication. Yet another case where mental illness was being criminalized. I asked if a lawyer was helping her. No. Quickly, I ran back to the local representative of the National Lawyers Guild to ask if he could get a contact for her. Last I saw, they were exchanging information, using the hood of a parked car as a desk.

The poor have a hard time navigating systems set up by and for the rich. I know this, from my own struggles trying to figure out how to go to college. Read that first line again: The poor have a hard time navigating systems set up by and for the rich. Why are our systems set up by and for the rich? What kind of world have we made manifest, and why?

I want to manifest a world of mutual aid, where we truly care for one another: A world where art, music, and beauty are valued. A world where the dignity of all is recognized. A world where we value trees, and air, and oceans. A world where our cultural differences enrich rather than impoverish and divide us.

I want to manifest a world where we recognize that Love is the Law and do our best to live accordingly.

What sort of world do you wish to manifest?

____________________                     __________________                   ___________________                  _____________________

Tomorrow in Oakland the Urban Shield conference starts. I intend to be out, meditating on the sidewalk, joining the community picket, and helping to read a litany of the names of those killed by police in California. 

It has been a week of re-arranging my work schedule. But all of this is my work as well.

#AlanBlueford #DayAgainstPoliceBrutality #Manifestation

On Tragedy and Healing

The person in the dark denim jacket was collapsed on a table in the dining room.

Another worker went over to check on them. I thought to myself, “How unusual. I haven’t seen a heroin addict in here for a long time” assuming they were nodding off. At that point, I was more concerned with the fact that there were two small children eating in the house of hospitality that day. It always hurts when the kids come in.

I continued to do my work: scrubbing the sixteen burner stove, washing dishes, clearing tables, greeting people. Then I saw the same guest collapsed across the counter near the salad station. I walked over, leaned in and said quietly and gently: “I need you to move.” Turns out they felt sick. They were nauseous. I asked someone else to get extra help. Asked the person if they needed a chair. Understand, I needed to help them, and I needed to get them off the food counter. We finally got them in a chair. Did they need us to call 911? Yes.

On the phone, the question came, does his stomach hurt? I asked. We asked. The person was hunched over and rocking by this time, in pain. “I’m female” came the voice. I leaned down. “What’s your name?” She looked up at me, eyes blood shot, clearly in distress. I could see then, a butch woman who had been living hard on the streets. We had all mis-gendered her, seeing only the short tousled hair, the loose denim, the hard planes of the face, the missing teeth. “I have HIV and haven’t been taking my meds.” Back to rocking.

When the paramedics came, they asked her a few questions. She requested that she be able to take her food to go. I quickly packed up some bread and salad, but couldn’t find an extra jar for soup. Some other guests at her table helped. When I returned with the food, the paramedics were getting her up, one on each side. This next part is what killed me, and is the reason I’m writing this down:

She immediately put her hands behind her back, wrist over wrist, awaiting handcuffs.

One of the paramedics said, “You don’t have to do that. We’re not the cops. We’re paramedics.” I followed behind, with her food bag, talking with one of the women holding a clipboard. I explained about the HIV and meds. I gave her name. The entire time I walked behind her, she held her hands in that handcuffed position. She had asked for help the only way she knew how –  by laying across the food counter. She had wanted the paramedics to come. Yet part of her knew, just knew, she was being arrested.

Hands behind her back. Wrist over wrist.

It felt like a tragedy to me.

What sort of life has she lived so far that even in asking for and receiving help, she expected punishment?

And how do we do this to ourselves? What boxes are we living in? What shadows? What do our bodies know that we can’t even speak of? What punishment, or rejection, or pain waits coiled inside?

How can we help ourselves heal? 

Philosopher Michel Foucault tells us that we have become our own jailers. He was right. We can also, however, help one another to become free.

What is your story, of pain and imprisonment?  What is your story of healing?  How are you learning to unlock cell doors?

We need to listen and to look, in order to change. And yes, the implications here are large.

Later that day, a blind man sat at the piano and played for us. It sounded wonderful. The dining room shook with applause.

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Thank you to everyone who gave me a birthday present by donating toward ceiling fans for the soup kitchen! You helped a lot – $325 worth – and three fans are now installed.

#Foucault #healing #soupkitchen