Sister Letetra's Plea for Change

 At the age 29, Jacob Blake was shot by Kenosha police who were arresting him in connection with a domestic dispute.

Now he is paralyzed.

Of the seven shots fired at Jacob, four struck his back, as he was opening the driver’s door of his vehicle.

The shots ripped into his flesh as three of Jacob’s sons were sitting in the back seat.

In the aftermath, in the after-wrath, two days later, among the many words spoken surrounding this incident, were these, spoken at a news conference . . . the message of Letetra Widman, Jacob’s sister:

 

“I am my brother’s keeper, 

and when you say the name . . . Jacob Blake,

make sure you say father

make sure you say cousin

make sure you say son

make sure you say uncle,

but most importantly, make sure you say:

human.

Human life—let it marinate in your mouth, in your minds

a human life just like just like every single one of y’all . . .

and everywhere.

We’re human, and his life matters!

So many people have reached out to me,

telling me that they’re sorry that this happened to my family.

Well, don’t be sorry, ‘cause this has been happening

to my family for a long time . . . longer than I can account for.

It happened to Emmitt Till; Emmett Till is my family . . .

for Orlando, Mike Brown, Sandra . . .

this has been happening to my family,

and I’ve shed tears for every single one of these people that it’s happened to.

I’m not sad. I don’t want your pity. I want change.”

 

Letetra’s call for change is now added to the mounting groundswell of demand for justice in the treatment of minorities in this country, especially in matters of law enforcement.

In these United States, 

we have Constitutionally- mandated principles that prescribe how justice is to be administered by courts of law, and by officers of the law. 

We have legislated laws and judicial precedents that prescribe legal procedures for arrest of suspected criminals and offenders.

For too long . . . since the days of their emancipation from slavery, black citizens have endured constant neglect of our lawful procedures of arrest.

In recent months, especially since the slaying of George Floyd, our national attention has been directed by active citizens on systemic neglect of legal procedures.

As everybody knows, the passion and frequency of organized protest has intensified steadily. Now we have another national incident in this continuing string of bungled, shot-up, seriously injurious, improperly violent arrests.

And it is true in this case and in many recent law enforcement mishaps. . . that violent, law-defying, depraved extremists of both antifa and bugaloo ilks have taken it upon themselves to jump on board the protest bandwagon and divert it, by their own violence and destruction, toward their own anarchic purposes.

There are extremists on both sides whose intention is to ignite a civil war between Left and Right in this nation.

We, the law-abiding citizens of these United States, must not let them.

Republicans—God bless ‘em, I am one of them—are too damn focused on their own comfort and privilege to allow their own eyes to see the weightier matters of the law. 

Neglect not, brothers and sisters, the weightier matters of the Law: 

Justice, and Mercy and Faithfulness.

We need to work together toward the “change” of which Jacob’s sister, Letetra, speaks.

But even more potent than her well-chosen words are those words found in the counsel of Jesus. They go way back . . .

“. . . for I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited me in; naked, and you clothed me. I was in prison, and you came to me.”

And those who heard these words said . . . say what? when did we do all that stuff ?

“. . . whenever you did it to them, you did it to me!”

So all ye comfortable goody-two-shoes g.o.p. types out there, don’t forget to heed all the words of the ancient Book.

Quit obsessing about peace and safety. If you get too bent out of shape about peace and safety, sudden destruction will come upon you.

Don’t allow the fringified crazies that you’re so obsessed with blow this whole democratic-republican experiment all to hell!

Listen to the voice of one crying in the flyover wilderness, concerning yet another illegally-shot-up arrest:

“I don’t want your pity. I want change.” 

King of Soul

Death to Derek

I have been a Christian since 1978; that was the year that I fully realized the moral limits of my own judgements about this life and what is important, or not.
Since that time, I have read the Bible and learned some truth about our human condition, and how we can justifiably deal with our own failures, and the failures of others.
I say failures because I think it is a more appropriate term than the old over-utilized “sin” words that we Christians generally employ in referring to such acts as hurting other people, or stealing from them, or killing them.
Throughout the world, a truth is generally accepted that killing a person is wrong, and should not be done. In fact, murder cannot generally be tolerated if a just society is to be maintained by any people group.

As I get older, I can see more clearly the purpose of law in the societies of men. Law is generally a good thing, insofar as it enables men and women to live together in community or in society without tearing each other apart.
When l became a Christian those many years ago, I learned from the New Testament scriptures about a divine gift which we call grace.
In cases of human sin-guilt, or crime-guilt, grace means the offender receives a sentence of some earthly punishment such as prison, instead of the ultimate sentence of death.
We Christians have generally separated ourselves from the older root of our faith—the Judaic one that was so dependent on law for administering justice in cases of man v. man, such as . . . let’s say, murder.
With the advent of Jesus, and his ultimately sacrificial death—in spite of his innocence—a new way of judgement was brought forth in the annals of civilization: grace.
His ultimate sacrifice ushered in a new age in which grace is often recommended instead of strict judgment; this application of grace in some legal matters may take up some of the slack of human society-building, instead of enforcing a constant insistence on the  strict application of law.
Within that “Law,” brought forth by Moses many centuries ago, is a prescription of how to deal with murder. Recorded long ago in Exodus 21:12, it reads like this:

“He that strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death.”

In my churchified associations with people since I joined the ranks of Christianity, we have generally emphasized this grace of which I speak. Insofar as we are all sinners—we all screw up in some way or another (do you know anyone who doesn’t?)—we Christians lean heavily on that grace of God to get us off the hook when we screw up.
Personally, I have greatly appreciated that divine grace when dealing with the consequences of my own sinful shortcomings.
Furthermore, I advocate the application of grace toward any person whose response to their own sinfulness includes sincere repentance.

Recently however, a certain heinous offense against our civil law has risen to the forefront of our collective American consciousness. As a people who strive collectively and nationally toward a just society, we would do wrong to excuse Derek Chauvin’s apparent murder—should he be found guilty of same—of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Now I am realizing the practical value of the death penalty in human law. In this case, a merciful sentence would not be appropriate; nor would it prove beneficial in the restoration of our national law and order.

In this present homicidal offense against God and a man, I believe the application of the death penalty to that offending cop’s life would be a necessary element in dispelling our present disruption of law and order in this country.
Therefore I urge the District  Attorney in Minneapolis to bring a charge of murder, in the first degree, against Derek Chauvin, in the killing of George Floyd.
Such justice is the only thing that could even come close to setting things right in this country again.
I just don’t see any other way that the shock and disgrace of this murderous act can truly be dispensed with.
If and when he is found guilty in a court of Law, Derek Chauvin ought to be executed.

Glass half-Full

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor, former Justice of the US Supreme Court, told Terry Gross that her first job as a lawyer was taken without pay. Furthermore, Mrs. O'Connor had to occupy a desk in the secretary's office of that law firm, because she was a woman at the time. Still is, and a woman like no other.

Justice O'Connor, with admirable pioneering chutzpah, had blazed a trail, way back in the1960s and '50s, for women in the legal profession, as well as for all working women generally. She was the first female US Supreme Court Justice. Three more women have been set on the Court since her unprecedented appointment by President Reagan.

But for the cowgirl lawyer from Arizona, the chauvinist humiliation she had to endure along her career path was just an obstacle to be overcome; it came with that frontier territory. Hearing her accounts, it almost seems to have been no big deal. Her primary objective seems to have been, all along, justice for the people of the United States, and not necessarily blowing some loud feminist horn.

She is a great leader in our nation. Nevertheless, she is a humble woman--a wife and mother who happens to be an attorney. One key element of her personality--I think you will hear it in the interview--is humility. Humility can carry a person a long way in this life. Justice O'Connor, like Rosa Parks, had to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous sexist prejudice. But she remained constantly humble, and determined. She would not be denied her destiny. Humility enables a talented person to endure untold subtle and blatant persecutions, because passionate vision can trump all that difficulty. Sandra Day O'Connor's life is, in my view, a testimony to that principle.

Listening, via radio, to the testy interaction between Terry's edgy, progressive politicism and Sandra's prickly, accumulated wisdom is fascinating; it is an aural telescope into the generation gap of the edges, as well as the no-woman's-land between push-the-envelope liberalism and bootstraps conservatism.

I have admired both women for a long time, although for very different reasons. This interview was an amicable match between two titans of public disccourse. Check it out:

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/05/172982275/out-of-order-at-the-court-oconnor-on-being-the-first-female-justice

CR, with new novel, Smoke, in progress

On the limitations of humannness

Law built his kingdom upon a foundation of strength,
hefting beams of order upon discipline length
while
Progress made her society of perfectible members
teaching reason and freedom among liberty timbers.
Then
Love set up a clinic of hope and of healing
upon sacrifice and sweat and their warmfuzzy feeling
till
Truth tore it down, and sent all of them reeling
'neath a sky that is falling and a chicken in every debt ceiling.

Cluck cluck Selah
whadya think about that
Thanks for the doughnut hole, so long.

Glass half-Full