The Ten Commandments of Peacemaking ...

We Need Not Break Them

I am not a rule maker. Instead, I break them all the time. Love your enemies. Who can do that? Okay, I'm working on it because I now understand what it means. So can you. Over the next week, I will be posting the 10 Commandments of Wacky Peacemaking on Facebook. Interested? Need your feedback. Check back on the 11th and find them all right here. In the meantime, be crazy and go make peace.

P.K. McCary, Your Wacky Peacemaker

The Hard Conversations

"Your silence will not protect you ... for we have been socialized to respect fear
more than our needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for
that final language of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us." 

--Audre Lorde

Don't rock the boat. That is a euphemism that I started hearing (not always in those terms) when I first got interested in politics. When I was 14, Dr. King was killed. He had been in Houston a few months before, coming with Joan Baez and Aretha Frankin, and was told by the Black community, no less, that we (meaning Black Houstonians) did not need him and his ilk rocking the boat. So, when I got to school that Tuesday morning, April 5th, I noticed that every Black student was sitting in the cafeteria. Some were crying.
   "What's going on," I asked a friend.
   "Don't you know? They killed Dr. King."
   I hadn't heard. I usually left school earlier than my parents, walking the mile and half by myself. I loved to get to the library and get some studying in and then I would work in the office, a reward for those students who did well in school.
    "But why are you sitting out here?" I inquired, shocked by the news. And I was told that they would continue to sit there in the cafeteria until the principal lowered the flag to half-mast. They were told by the secretary that if they were not in class by the time the bell rang, they would all be expelled. They were ready to be expelled. I sat with them, asking if anyone had talked directly to the principal. No one had, so I thought that I would try. I liked the principal. He liked me. I went immediately to his office, no problem from the secretary. She liked me, too.
    Principal Herring was, I considered, a pretty fair man. However, I didn't consider every teacher at Madison fair and some of the parents were out and out racist, not wanting black people in their neighborhoods or schools--it was a time of white flight. I remember that my math teacher would offer me no assistance in class because your people don't have an aptitude for math. It wasn't until my father, a math professor at Texas Southern University, came and had a talk with him, that the myth was dispelled or maybe not dispelled. I was often seen as the exception to the rule I realized. But, I digress--admittedly, very easy to do.
    So, I told the principal that I had just come from the cafeteria and asked him if he knew that Dr. King was killed the evening before. He did, but didn't know what that had to do with him. I said that Lyndon B. Johnson, a Native Texan and President of the United States, had decreed it and that it would honor the work of Dr. King who meant so much to all of us. He listened. I really thought he listened. And then he asked, "Can you get your friends to go to class?" The bell had rung. I said that I could. He stood up and ushered me outside. His parting words were, "I will handle it."
    I ran back to my classmates and told them that he would lower the flag. We went to the first class, but when we came outside to see the flag, it was gone. No flag at half-mast. No flag at all. Everyone turned to me. Go back and tell him this is unacceptable. Don't just stand there, do something. Not knowing what to do, I did nothing. I said nothing. My friends walked away from me. I thought you were so important. Told you that they don't care about us. I called my mother and asked to be picked up. For two days I stayed away from school. Too ill, too upset, to understand. I finished my 10th grade year at Madison, but never went back after that. My political life, however, began.
     I want to know why. I will never understand all of the whys of Herring's decision. Interestingly, I told this story to a white friend, and she said, "Maybe it was the only thing he could do." It is a statement I did not accept, but today, maybe I should try and understand. We were less than 2% of the school population. Who was the principal going to listen to? It certainly wasn't us. It became the beginning of my political aspirations, to understand and to yes, gain some power. I started asking questions I never asked before. I didn't sit on the sideline any longer of the civil rights movement. I became a participant. History became very important to me--not just to pass a test, but to analyze and understand.
     Although I could not vote, I attended every after election and civic club meeting in my neighborhood. I went to a predominantly black high school and I was involved. My first real campaign came when students at Prairie View A&M University, an historical black college were not allowed to vote even after verifying residency. I spoke at the Texas Democratic Convention while only 16, but my voice was clear and my purpose sure.
    But I learned some hard lessons; that the don't rock the boat philosophy didn't just come from the supposed opposition. Sometimes it came from within our ranks. Those individuals whose purpose was my own, were often the voice of the be quiet and not yet. Sometimes it was men pushing the women to step back. It certainly happened to the younger people and after I got the right to vote and could become a delegate, I was often seen and not heard. I realized that don't rock the boat is used mostly by those in power or authority as a way to quell what might be more than righteous indignation. To quell the voices of those who might have a legitimate gripe--no, not gripe, truly suffering from injustices and it has never set well with me.
     Don't worry about the poor. They will always be among us.
     Health care? We'll end up paying for illegal immigrants.
     You can't possibly understand the Middle East conflict. Trust us.
     Let's put the discussion off until next month. Oh, has it been a year already?
     There will be peace in areas of conflict--but who get to define it? 
Politics became defined as concessions and often the people making the concessions were the ones least able to afford them. Someone always knew better and the trust me bellowing of politicians became an irritation. By the time I was 30 or so, I pretty much decided that politics was not for me. Instead, I would become an activist, seeking ways to strengthen the areas of society where I could, technically, rock the boat. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
     But I learned. Or am learning. Politics are everywhere in every structure throughout the world. After a while the strategists and the manipulators become one-in-the-same and what was ethical and what wasn't blurred. As I sit on board after board, as a citizen with one vote, and as friend and mentor to those who are being told don't rock the boat, I have an obligation to do just that. Those rules of safe boat navigation require someone at the helm and rocking the boat of injustice means capsizing it, disabling it. But, there is a next step. The next step is called righting. We cannot allow injustice to sail unabated. It will take due diligence on our part to acknowledge that is time to rock the boat and to do it so that Freedom rings. Rhetoric this is not. This is a challenge. I challenge you to analyze your commitment to a better world. I ask you to question your commitment to real peacemaking, standing up for what is right and just--in every segment of society, for every cause. Always.
     Peace? Rock the boat.

WASHINGTON NEEDS ...

Yes, they do!

The last few months, we have seen so much pontificating and grandstanding that I thought I was in a 1950s revival led by snake oil salesmen. And, yes, it was mostly the men--but there were a few women (can you say Michelle B.) who tried to make us believe that they actually care about Americans. Instead, they, along with Fix News and their lineup of No News anchors and talk show hosts, show us that it is time for some adult supervision in Washington. That means, fellow Americans, that we must step up to the plate and DEMAND that they stop acting like spoiled children, wanting their way and throwing those political proverbial tantrums that continue to put us all at risk. And--that if they don't, we will send them home! It means that we must stop letting them divide us along racial, political, and social lines. Okay, I'm a liberal, mostly moderate but other times flaming, and you may be a conservative, sometimes unrelentingly so--but we can agree that our country is in trouble, that we need jobs and that it is not the fault of this President, but that we all must step up to the plate and take some responsibility.
     I want to talk about the deal that was made on yesterday. I wasn't happy with it--no one was, but sometimes we don't get exactly what we want. However, we can do something different than we've done before. We can stop pointing the fingers across the aisles of our political leanings and think like citizens of one Nation. We can cease this talk of civil war and find ways--there are many of them--to lead instead of being led. We can stop preaching our rhetoric to the choir (those who agree with us) and figure out ways in which we can dialogue across those areas of discontent. We are grownups after all and if we aren't, we should grow up!
    We cannot change the fact that we spent money that we did not have for two ill-advised wars, and we cannot undo the decisions we have already made. We can however, rethink our decisions concerning Libya, for instance. We have time to stop and think and not make it as costly or time consuming by putting the brakes on now--but that's for another blog. We can look at what it will take to make a healthier and more prosperous America and utilize our resourcefulness to think outside the proverbial box and get busy using our creativity and ingenuity. We can insist that these guys keep their commitments to ALL Americans and not the select few that help them continue to support corporate greed and avarice, trying to fool us into thinking that the "rich" are job creators. We have to stop buying into the rhetoric and be a little like Don Lemon of CNN, who got tired of having our politicians, across all political spheres--Democrats, Republicans, Tea Partyers and others,  respond to questions with talking points, instead of with the truth and candor. They can't help it though, because they quit talking straight many moons ago. It is the quip, the one-liners that stir people's passion instead of hard hitting straight talk. Just once I would like to see a politician NOT defend his view, but candidly assess his or her own culpability in the current situation we find ourselves in.
     I believe the President did and does that. From the very beginning of his term, he wanted to work together. But truth is he came in at the end of an era. His first term started at the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and him up to bat. He's not gotten a hit, not really, because the throws have been high and outside. There are those who would rather not put it across the plate because Obama might just hit is out of the park! Okay, I'm not that good with sports metaphors, but it just seems that Obama came in with the deck stacked against him. Before anyone thinks we should give Obama a pass, we should not. He signed up for this and we have a right to analyze, but we should also serve by not taking sides, but urging all of our politicians to do what is right and stop pitting us against each other. Perhaps if the American people would cross the aisles themselves, we could be a force to be reckoned in. If don't do that, we all will lose.

Ain't It Funny?

No. It Ain't!

I keep trying to get the joke. It must be a joke, right? It has to be because no one in this group of idiots can continue to think that we're that stupid. Right? Right? I'm a little frustrated here because I'm not getting any response from you. Sigh.
     Okay. I get it. It doesn't take rocket science to know that people must not be paying attention because if they were, we'd be taking it to the streets. Then that's just me. I've been looking for work in California for two years. Oh, I get a few hits every once in a while. People rave about my experience, but they just aren't hiring. So, where are all these rich guys who are getting tax breaks filling up the want ads sections of newspapers with job offers? Because they ain't. They weren't and they never will.
     All across the globe those 2% of the populace have held sway over everything that happens to us. They control 80-90% of the resources of this world and realize that they can't feed us all if they get to keep anything for themselves. So they don't and those who say or think otherwise, I got a bridge in Timbuktu I'd like to sell you--at a really low rate--say 4 or 5 trillion dollars. Just send the check to THINK PEACE INTERNATIONAL.
    Ain't it funny?
    Peace?
    No!? You tell me.

Wacky Peacemaking at Graduations and Weddings

Malik (my oldest), Eryon (Baby Girl), ME, Andrew (my nephew) and Jarian (Baby Boy)

Weddings and Graduations--A Family Affair

I have been spending a great deal of my time traveling back and forth between California and Texas. I have missed my family and truthfully, they have missed me. So, this weekend I felt like I got a couple of two-fers--you know--2 for the price of 1. One ticket. Two major events that are designed to make you happy and understand that time passes forward, ready or not.

A Graduation--Look out world, here they come ...

     My 18-year old nephew graduated from high school this past Saturday and his class was the largest graduating class in the history of his school. Waiting patiently, I listened to a great Valedictorian speech from this really beautiful senior. She talked about futures, but also inspired people to live in the now. Wow, such wisdom. It was heartwarming. I put up with the principle's efforts to inspire, but the true inspiration: those young people! Lately I have reflected on the future with our young people and realized how hopeful I am. Of course, I work with young people on a regular basis. Yes! On purpose. I like being around them. Babies, oh yeah. But teens and young adults keep me sane. When I hear about kids acting up, I think--why the hell shouldn't they? If I knew the world that I was inheriting 40 plus years ago, perhaps I would have rebelled more myself. I still believed that hard work was its own reward, that merit had value, and doing your best got you fame and fortune. Okay, not exactly fame and not exactly fortune. I just believed that there was an outcome that was measurable by the hard work.

Aunt P.K. and her neice, Chance

Then reality--or the alternate reality--set up shop in my living room. Know what I found out? Life ain't fair and equity is a dream. However, you guys know me! I'm the wacky peacemaker and I'm crazy enough to believe that while not always fair or equitable, justice will prevail. In the end, we all pay the piper and life goes forward. So, weddings--meet my new niece-in-law--are a way to unite families and remember our vows, those kept and yes, those not kept. We are given a vicarious second chance at weddings. All I know is that it brings out the hope of life, a knowing that we must still take chances with one another and for another.
     This wedding, however, was about coming full circle. They had the wedding at this fabulous interfaith chapel called The Rothko Chapel. I was once program director and I had loved the job. It felt like something I had been called to and everyone I know was introduced to the Chapel with programs and events that helped to bridge those areas of discord, and of unknowing. When I learned that my nephew was having his wedding there, I was happy that something I introduced to them long ago was remembered. For all the reasons of family and sharing, love and hope--this was our chance and so was she.

Fear Erases Hope

ERASE THE

All of it!

When I was a little girl, 5 or 6, I lived in New Mexico. There were a few whites and even fewer blacks, but there was a huge Latino population. I remember in the first grade, translating for my friend who didn't speak English so that she would understand the instruction our teacher was giving to the class. The teacher it seems resented that girl who couldn't speak English well was in the class and ignored her. So, I helped her with her homework after school, too.
     I was privileged, only I didn't know what that was then, but looking back I can see it. I had my own Chevy pedal car and a playhouse made of bricks. My father owned a construction company and hired people, mostly blacks and Latinos and I played with the children of those workers. All the children came to our property. My father and mother encouraged it. In fact, my father built the first cinder block home down in the valley area, different from the small adobe homes that dotted the landscape. However, I also entered another world--obviously different. In the mountains were better homes than the ones in Alamogordo with patios that went around the house, near springs and much, much cooler than down where we lived. I played with those children as well, never really understanding that I was considered special and different or even that I was different. Children were children to me. My parents had a diverse group of friends. I didn't know that I was probably the token black girl being allowed into those small, all-white communities. I simply lived my life. I was fairly happy.
     I know now that my father moved us to New Mexico because he was looking for a haven different than the one he grew up in. He had wanted to give us--my sisters and brothers--an opportunity to be considered equal and I guess I did. My first boyfriend was blond and blue eyes, not because he was white, but because he was the only boy as tall as I. No one said, "You can't have a white boyfriend!" More, just like other girls, he was my boyfriend because I decreed it and he didn't know it. But, I digress. The reason for this part of the story is that I had no color fears, no race fears. I didn't stop to think if I was better or inferior. I was a kid with other kids. I never heard the word "nigger"--not once in my early years and it wasn't until I was about 8 or so when I read the word for the first time and asked my parents about it, that I knew it was a word that denigrated the Negro, who I knew myself to be.
     From there we went to live in Oklahoma for a couple of years when my father went back to teach math at a historical black college (Langston University). I was 8 and the joy of it was having teachers who looked like me (which I didn't have in New Mexico). I think it was here that I started realizing some fundamental differences about race. I was always liked by my teachers. I was a good student. My first and second grade teachers were white. I don't remember the first grade teacher's name, but I thought her mean. I realize now that she was a bigot, treating the Mexican kids differently and with disdain. I didn't know what that was then. I just felt protective of my brown-skinned friends who were hurt by her insensitivity. I didn't know it for what it was. Mrs. Sharp, who I do remember, was my second grade teacher and I liked her because she was tall. I think there was a kinship between us, but again, she treated the Mexican kids pretty bad.
     I didn't understand any of this until I was being taught by black teachers. There was definitely a difference in their nurturing of learning and because of them I wanted to teach. There was discipline, true, which I believe both my first and second grade teachers were adept at doling out, but there was a genuine caring that comes from teachers who love not only their work, but their students. Still, it wasn't until I was fourteen and living in Houston that realities slammed into my consciousness about those subtle differences and it was perhaps here that these incidents chipped away at that place that there was a fairness that was for all. Fear took hold in subtle forms that I must now acknowledge and erase.
     I got called "nigger" my first day of school entering the 10th grade. It wasn't just that this white student called me that word in a dining room full of people, but that not one teacher took him by his ear and told him that it was unacceptable. I handled it. I mean, I knew I wasn't what he called me--and I knew even then that it was his ignorance, yet no one came to my rescue. No one stopped him. My courage was in full force as I said to the table of white girls I was sitting with, "Perhaps if we move real slow to the left, we can leave whatever he is talking about here." There was relief, even a few giggles. The sister of the boy glared at her brother and walked away with me. I won! Didn't think much about it until the other incidents. A teacher letting me know that "you people don't have an aptitude for math" as an excuse for not answering my questions or helping me with the assignments. There was the UIL competition where I, a good singer, practiced for weeks with the best pianist only to be told the day of the competition that she would not be accompanying me because her father forbade her playing for "that nigger"--(Sharon cried that day, she was so upset) and, of course, the day after Dr. King died when the principal of the school refused to fly the flag at half-mast as ordered by President Lyndon Johnson. I handled them all. But, my armor was being chipped away very slowly--imperceptibly so.
     I demanded that my father allow me to attend a predominantly black school near the campus. There I was nurtured by teachers and counselors who had my best interest at heart and I was exposed to art and literature on a major college campus, something my father bestowed on my for more than two decades after we left New Mexico. But, my father was smart. He also made sure that I still competed and learned in environments where I was the only black person--the one they let in. He felt that it made me more well-rounded and it did. I excelled in competitions of debate and other learning endeavors. I was a so-so athlete, refusing to be a jock when I had a good brain. And I thought there was hope and that the work of those in the Civil Rights movement was paying off. I never had to look for a job, people came to me, and I would tell my Black friends that we were making strides overcoming the racist mentality of those who would blow up a church or sic dogs on marchers. I was wrong. That same structure these days exist like never before, and this time armed with intellectual mumbo-jumbo rather than bullets or bombs. The rhetoric is just as dangerous. While I consider myself a chipped vessel, I know that it in no ways compares to the kinds of attacks on little brown and black boys and girls who are being targeted for prison as we speak (http://www.childrensdefense.org/programs-campaigns/cradle-to-prison-pipeline/) where "1 in 3 Black and 1 in 6 Latino boys born in 2001 are at risk of imprisonment during their lifetime. While boys are five times as likely to be incarcerated as girls, there also is a significant number of girls in the juvenile justice system. This rate of incarceration is endangering children at younger and younger ages." That's just one aspect of this structure, but also these days, merit is becoming a far removed advantage for people of color. Doesn't matter if you're the best anymore and for us we know that it never was the case. Maybe one or two, but the odds are against people of color still. STILL?
     This could strike fear into the hearts of many, but the truth is that the fear is more invasive as what this type of fear does is erode hope! You have a whole new generation who thinks that being the best rapper or playing the best ball will help them overcome. For those who do, where does it benefit the communities. The disparities are to be overcome, but it will take some new thinking.
     Psychology Today and the death of Gil Scott Heron has brought some reflection time on my part. I know that dialogue is a weapon against imperialism when people come together for genuine dialogue and conversation, but I also know that the venues for these discussions are limited. Social networking is bringing about a change, but I have to believe that until we can create a type of parallel universe in answer to this structure that refuses to topple. Oh, there are some bandaid fixes, but the need for invasive surgery is at an all time high. There are not enough Tim Wises and Robert Jensons to topple these structures and perhaps they can never be toppled. Instead, we must build the better structures, the better vehicle for peacemaking and equality, the better structures for addressing injustices. New Media. New Institutions. New policymaking organizations, strengthening the ones we have, but building, building, more. I decided that fear is not an option anymore and so I am going to build that better structure. For me it is media: Think Peace Media and Communications Network. After working in media for more than a few years, I realize that I am equipped to develop better programming. There are ways to facilitate peacemaking, peacebuilding and peacekeeping--parts of the whole, creating and designing, implementing and making it work!
     There is one answer to fear and that is hope--because hope does not disappoint. Remember that and join me in building new structures for our future. What structure will you build?
     Peace.

The Past is a Place to Visit

The Past, Present and Future

Once upon a time there was a place that held the past in its present waiting for its future.

One of my writing students wrote about a place. He described it brilliantly. Then he got stuck. Where was this place? What was its time? The grass was green, the breeze was light and yet it was a hot day. A time, yes. And also a place. But, the minute he wrote about it—described it, the present story became the past. The period at the end of the sentence. The Past. But the story? Somewhere between the first word and the last. Lots of periods, though.

 Funny thing about the past. Oddly enough it is always there. Its presence is not always consciously acknowledged. In other words, we are not always aware of it and yet its influence is ever present. Get it? In some ways I believe that our past and present are so tightly interwoven that we are locked between them. Which means—there isn’t a clear future, stuck as we are.

Some would say that we can’t move forward until we acknowledge our past, but we do move forward every day. What we don’t do is move past the past. Without a clear understanding it is said that we are doomed to repeat the past and it seems, without fail, we relive the past over and over again.

I am a peacekeeper and it seems that I can be nothing else. I see sorrow and have to address it. I can’t ignore it nor can I dismiss it. However, I do find that I have a somewhat objective stance towards the sorrow in that I have to look at from every aspect, every angle. The sorrow comes from some place and that place is usually rooted in the past.

The problem with trying to understand a particular area of the past is that sometimes you weren’t there. It wasn’t your reality or your story. It was, instead, something that happened and the effects are seen in the present—seven generations out will reap either the benefits or the consequences of that moment.  It pays to know about the past. Like any story, however, the narrator gets to tell it. The thing about stories is that if there is more than one person affected in it, the results become a plethora of stories seen through the lenses of those who were there. Not all get to tell the story either, so the story takes on selective meaning. Therein, says Shakespeare, lies the rub.

I can’t forgive what I don’t understand—or can I? The idea of moving forward requires some peculiar and unusual processes because if truth be told, we just don’t know it all. The past looms over us because the whole story is not told and sometimes lost so as to never be told. But, I don’t believe that—not exactly.

The first time I went to Atlanta I drove. I had my children with me and they were sleep when I past through Mississippi and later through Alabama. As I reached the border of Alabama the sun was coming up. Its rays were extraordinarily subtle—twilight with a touch of color. The rays landed across a lush green valley of trees where kudzu twined up to the sky. I thought it was beautiful, but then an overwhelming sorrow took over. I didn’t just start crying, I was sobbing. Wracking sobs that made me think that my heart would break. I had to pull over because I hadn’t been sad until that moment and yet the grief was overwhelming and I could not stop, nor did I understand why. Frightening. It took until the sun was fully ablaze that my sobs stopped and I could drive again.

What was it?

It was a couple of years later that I understood what happened to me. At some juncture of my drive, I passed through the past. That wonderful and beautiful sight of greenery and a beautiful sunrise that greeted me was also a time when some black woman was finding the charred remains of her husband, brother or son. I believe that at that moment the bloody soil of Alabama spoke to me. I can’t prove it, but I can tell you that I believe it without question. I know because as I learned the stories of that place from people I got to know later that year, it seems that the dry bones did and do cry out.

Did you know that kudzu is a weed and that it literally chokes the life out of other plants? It is beautiful, though. And I know that I can never think of that beautiful plant without feeling the heartbreak of some person grieving and the injustices that never saw the light of day. I can, however, show mercy and now I know when those times come upon me, when I don’t understand or know the story, I can stop and pray, stop and listen/acknowledge that moment, whatever the complete story is and ask for peace on that spot or land.

I now know why those moments come and they have come to me in Brazil, India, S. Korea and the Caribbean and other places as well, that I stop—give over to the spiritual insight that these moments are times for healing. The grief doesn’t overwhelm me anymore because, after all, I took this job of peacekeeping. Those places of the past beckon to us and we should take time to visit them in our present in order to strengthen our future.

Peace.