You are the first white man to ever say or at least I have heard Ron to say such a thing statement (this writing below is from Dr. Tomas Pinkson) you are in a class all by yourself you really need to be sharing this understanding with your folks they don't get it. When you live in my skin you walk 365 days on a tight rope it's so much in our consciousness until it's like our arm or leg. When I am in the Caribbean or when I was in Africa I sincerely felt free, it was like a lick came off of my brain, for everybody looked like me, although I didn't know the language but what I did know I wasn't be judged by my skin color, I would be judged as MLK said by the content of my character, we as Blacks in this country are in a mental prison, some don't even know it, or recognize it. Than we raise our children in a bubble to protect them until they are old enough for the Talk.
I believe that any of us seeking to walk a spiritual path also need to be spiritual activists taking action steps to address the impact of centuries of slavery and its aftermath inequities of institutional racist policies that still oppress black people today. To not do so means we are passively supporting its continuation which benefits those of us wearing white skins and keeps a boot of oppression on all people of color. George Floyd’s death just caught a visual of its overt manifestation through police violence.
Suggested Action Steps:
number one, learn the true history of our country which has never been taught in our public schools.
number two, educate ourselves about the true workings of racist policies that oppress people of color while benefitting caucasian people without our having to lift a hand to make it be so.
number three, get educated about white privilege and how to use it to facilitate meaningful change.
number four, do your part to repair, transform and heal what has been done,
number five, take first steps towards making reparations to those who have suffered, and who suffer still under the yoke of daily acts of prejudice and discrimination while we white race people can go on with our lives privileged in ways most of us are not even aware of. Making reparations is not about guilt or shame. It is about justice. It is about doing the right thing. It is about doing the honorable thing healing our own souls in the process. There is a Hebrew expression, Tikun Olam, which means repairing the wounds of the world which each of us has a moral and spiritual responsibility to do. May we honor this calling.
Dr. Tomas Pinkson
hola relatives - i just watched the Netflix film The Trial of the Chicago Seven. I encourage you to do so as well. See what it brings up for you, history that many of us lived through. John Mitchell, Nixon’s attorney general at the time, through his Contempro program, had Fred Hampton murdered in his bed, murdered people i knew in the Black Panthers, and with his fellow hack, Mayor Daily of Chicago, waged violent attack on demonstrators protesting the carnage in Vietnam, then falsely prosecuted seven people who were all innocent of the charges and who were later acquitted of all of them when given a fair hearing which did not take place in the court proceedings shown accurately in this movie.
Watching this movie I felt anger, sad, furious, inspired and vindicated in the truth coming out about fascism in this country then and fascism in this county now. It made me think about the words of Martin Niemoller, a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany who was an outspoken public foe of Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Now it is our time to speak out, for freedom and justice for all people, for all life on our planet and for the Earth itself. If not, I fear that at some time in the not-too-far distant future there will be no one left to speak at all. It doesn’t have to be the way it is now, it can be changed if enough people stand up and work to make meaningful change. May it be so.
love, tomás  |
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