Bryan Stevenson: How To Change The World

If We've Fallen Down A Rabbit Hole, Does It Have A Bottom?

Maybe I'm just getting old. I mean I am 71. And it happens to everybody -- until they die. And I'm still producing more than the average person I know. After all, I taught six courses to three hundred students this spring, including one that turned ten students into social change agents and ended with a performance titled "Truth Be Told" -- on speaking truth to power (with no holds barred).

The end of May, I went to Havana, Cuba, for nine days to work on organizing a conference there for sociologist/activists from all over the world to meet, learn from, and network with each other for five days in November. I've taught two more rapid-fire Intro courses online this summer already while healing a broken foot, getting over a hellified parasitic invasion I dragged back from Cuba, and recording my book on race relations so people can buy an audio edition (it's been out as paperback and Kindle editions for two years). I'm still sending money to a family I know in Haiti, to Black Lives Matter, and to build an underground hospital where women can more safely birth their babies in Syria while U.S.-provided bombs fall often and without warning from the sky.

But it's never enough when reading your Facebook feed becomes an exercise in shock-and-awe, dead bodies all over the place with no repercussions, things just getting weirder and weirder in Washington, and the police reaching new heights in horror and new lows in morals daily. The prisons have become physical and emotional pressure cookers, where men, women, and even children are being par-boiled in their own juices in a summer determined to prove that climate change is real, with or without scientists to tell us so.

So everybody I know is either stumbling through their lives in a state of numb acceptance, doing what has to be done to pay the rent, but little else. Or they're careening through a tsunami of one kind or another trying not to wind up unemployed, incarcerated, or dead. I'm trying to soldier on, but what the fuck? I mean, really, what the fuck?

Let Me Make One Thing Perfectly Clear

When I first dropped out in 1970, hit San Francisco for a hot minute, and then proceeded on to join a collective in Iowa City, Iowa, committed to the prison abolition movement, I could not possibly have imagined that 45 years later, I would want to re-publish something I wrote in 1972. Yet here I am, more than a little disappointed that the call for unity, solidarity, and action I issued in the Prisoners' Digest International four and a half decades ago would still be pertinent -- and even sorely needed.

This is why I am still doing what I am doing, teaching what I am teaching, and writing what I am writing. Still trying to make our situation perfectly clear.

The Death of Innocence

We are standing on a precipice, contemplating our mortality, foot raised to take the next step and hoping it will not come down on a land mine placed there by our own previous hesitation. I walk into classrooms where the students sit in anticipation, dark pools for eyes, red rimmed from crying, or steely-eyed, defensively imagining that I am going to shame them for their choice.

I surprise them both by not talking about the election, but rather talking about the Power Elite, the history of our nation, the ideologies of White Supremacy and patriarchy and capitalism that have always guided both. I tell them this was inevitable and therefore predictable. ("You plant beans, you get beans. No matter what you thought you were planting, we know we planted beans because that's the crop we got.") Nobody did this to us. And we will all suffer.

The steely-eyed lose some of their belligerence and look more doubtful. It is a likelihood they hadn't considered. "Black people, Latinos, Native Americans, immigrants, Muslims, women, LGBTQ people, and poor people -- young and old -- are going to suffer even worse than ever," I say, "But they've suffered before. They know how to do it. They know how to survive physically, psychologically, and emotionally. They are prepared -- well and bitterly prepared -- to face and live through this. But unless you are part of the Power Elite, unless you were born into millions, millions, even if you don't belong to one of those groups, you are going to suffer, too. And you don't expect that. You aren't prepared to understand, accept, or survive it. And how you will respond to your own pain, we cannot know."

"I suspect that those who will suffer most are those like me who are White and professional and have of late been able to pay our bills. We have had the luxury of believing that we are untouchable and we are careening into a time when we will be forced to know in terrifying ways that we are not and never were.

"We are not the first people to face this in history. Read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States 1492-Present. Or Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano. Or The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. By the time you finish one of them, let alone all three, you will have long since quit reeling or celebrating and gotten a better perspective on where we are.

"Not only are we not the first people to deal with this situation, but we're not by a long shot alone. People all over the world -- and most particularly in Europe -- are suffering already under the boot of fascism. So this is not really a national dilemma. It is a global one. When there are 85 billionaires who own the same amount of wealth as three billion humans on the planet (the poorest half of the entire human race), would you really expect those 85 billionaires to care what happens to the rest of us? Eighty-five people would fit in this classroom with seats left over. How did they get that rich? What kind of system would allow 85 people to become that rich while the bulk of the human race starves?

"I long to protect you all -- even the ones who don't like me, who don't think I know what I'm talking about, who evaluate me as 'retarted' and 'a traitor to my race,' who say I hate White people, that I hate men, that I make them feel 'uncomfortable' or 'bad about themselves,' that I wish all my students were Black. I long to protect you all from what is coming, but I can't. We are in this now together. We will be tried by fire and when this chapter ends, we will none of us be who we were. Whatever shred of innocence we each once had, whatever cloak of denial we have clung to, whatever desperate hope we counted on to allow us to feel special, will have disappeared forever and we will simply be the latest in a saga of lives unfolding.

"We will play our parts in history and pass on into oblivion with those who've gone before. We have rushed to embrace a time of horror and now we will learn what the cost of our arrogance is. May we meet our collective future open to learning -- finally -- that we stand together, honoring each other's humanity as full citizens or we will none of us be citizens at all."

Why Am I Not Surprised? 2.0

Yesterday, I wrote on Facebook about what it feels like to be me when I'm isolated. Which is a lot. Being a White person who thinks like me and talks about it the way I do puts me consistently on the outside all the time. This is what I wrote:

"After 45 years of fighting White Supremacy in every way I can imagine, I am getting more discouraged by the day over where we are in this country (and the world). I know that a few White people are not enough. I rant though my courses. I can hardly face my blog on race because I want to scream at the top of my lungs. People think I'm a nut case because I never let up for a minute. But what good does it do? I get some love, but most folks think I'm crazy or too over the top or pushing too hard or trying to be something I'm not or a "traitor to my race" or...other things too wrong-headed to print. I don't know what to do and I see what the White power structure is doing and it's a SYSTEM not a bunch of individuals, so it's like trying to collect smoke in a sack. 

"I've been depressed ever since Ferguson because I see that those with the power to define in this country have created a situation where Black people have to risk and lay down their lives for what already belongs to them and I am so angry, so hurt, and so helpless in the face of it all that I'm borderline suicidal off and on, but I can't quit because I'm needed. 

My only son was murdered two weeks before his 23rd birthday so I know what it is to lose a child, but every time a Black child is killed or incarcerated or beaten up or disrespected, everything Africans have suffered since the first slave ship left port for the Western Hemisphere rolls over me like an ocean wave of grief. All I know to do is to work, to fight, to stand, to write, to speak truth, and not stop -- till I die."

But this morning, I want to clarify something. This struggle is not about being a conscious White person who feels alone. It's about what the White Supremacist system does to People of Color in the world and most particularly for us, here in the U.S.

Vinne Paz: "Keep Movin' On"

Every cell of my mind and body has been focused on Albert Woodfox this past ten days. And I'm feelin' it. My hands are trembling, my glucose level is all over the place. I'm worried for him, still sitting in a closed front cell facing what he has to fear might be the last years of his life in solitary confinement. I'm distracted and depressed, which makes me ignore the seven piles of work -- some of it fairly important and much of it with due dates -- neatly arranged on the futon in my office at home. And the further behind I get, the more despair I feel about the issues that put me in this head in the first place.

When I drove up to the jail Friday, I was thinking, hoping, we might be driving away from the place with him in tow this time. But by the time I got there, the Appellate Court ruling had been announced. He will sit there until he is re-tried unless the State drops the case or a settlement is reached (the latter two so unlikely as to be pointless to consider). And several of the family members of the guard Albert was convicted of killing (without credible evidence and utilizing every White Supremacist trick in the criminal just-us book) were on hand putting on such a show for the media, you would have thought the guy just died yesterday instead of 45 years ago. Skip that the guard's widow released a 3-page statement Thursday calling the State a liar and begging them to drop the appeal.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty sorry for Albert and for all those in prison for their politics and for all those in prison generally and for all those who work so hard to support them, until I saw this music video today and was reminded that you don't have to have broken the law or gone to prison or pushed for social change to get hung out to dry in this country. When are we going to stop blaming ourselves and each other and refuse to move on? When are we going to realize that we look different and our lives don't all play out in the same way and some of us are doing better than others on the surface, but we're all in this together? When are we going to fight back?

Party for Socialism and Liberation: "Baltimore's Rebellion: What Happens to a Dream Deferred"

Statement from the Party for Socialism and Liberation:

If the young people of Ferguson had not rebelled, Mike Brown’s name would have been forgotten. The town would still have the same mayor and police chief. The cops would still be fining and arresting Black people for every conceivable thing, including “Manner of Walking in Roadway,” “High Grass and Weeds,” and even bleeding on police uniforms during a beat-down. There would have been no Justice Department investigations or presidential commissions. If the young people of Ferguson had not rebelled, the city would be, for most of the country, just another dot on the map; just another forgotten impoverished Black community.

Now the whole world knows Ferguson. The people who rose up declare their hometown with pride. And now the whole world knows Baltimore and they will remember Freddie Gray’s name.

Dee-1 on Jay, 50 and Weezy

Music, literature, food, clothing, and language (including slang) are all part of our shared and very popular culture. Pop culture bobs and weaves, shifts and changes, adds and subtracts, reaches back and jumps forward in all directions and constantly. And in doing so, it continually spins our human tale of woe and glory. Here's one man who believes it's time for us to take a hard look at where we are and where we maybe need to be instead.

An Open Letter To Chokwe Antar Lumumba

I know we're not connected in any personal sense, Mr. Lumumba, but writers sometimes feel compelled to wax eloquent or even intimate to and about humans they probably will never meet. I make no apology for butting into your business. I love you from a distance and I'm going to tell you why.

Step Up! Be the Change!

Sniffing around on YouTube, I found this by Amir Bilal and the Pakistan Youth Parliament. The desire for a better world. It's everywhere. It's everywhere.

Hopeful Note #2: Guerilla Gardening

Creative thinkers like Ron Finley are prepared to lead us to a different world. A world I can hardly wait to see. Even if it's in another life.

Hopeful Note #1: The Election of Chokwe Lumumba

I'm opening my ninth year blogging on White Supremacy and the socially-constructed, political notion of "race," by referencing some truly hopeful notes at this point in our history. The first hopeful note is that Chokwe Lumumba, former Vice President of the Republic of New Afrika and co-founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, was elected Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, last June. The event registered not only nationally, but around the world. And The Jackson Plan is now capturing the interest of a wide range of knowledgeable people -- experts and otherwise -- who want to imagine the possibility of forward motion to a better community and a better world for everybody.

Posted above is a YouTube video of Larry Hales of the Workers World Party offering his take on the historical context and the importance of Lumumba winning the election and the possibilities inherent within the Jackson Plan.

Racism, Who's Your Daddy?

Two years ago today, Angola 3 icon Herman Wallace sat on his bunk in the solitary confinement cell where he had spent nearly 40 years of his life and penned me a letter in which he wrote:

"If we are to teach our children the need for social change, then we must ourselves have some understanding of what is taking shape – not only on Wall Street or in states around the country – but the fall of Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, and now the threat points at Syria. It is capitalism that is in a financial crisis, so what makes people think more capitalism or imperialistic rule is best for the world?

"There are people out there demonstrating and, for the life of them, cannot tell you what they are demonstrating for. That is because they lack real leadership. Conditions will create their leaders and the 1% is going to be in a world of trouble.

"It is hard for people in America to accept positive change since we have benefited from the exploitation of underdeveloped countries for nearly 300 years. It’s going to take a lot more than peaceful demonstrations to make change. Americans don’t want change; they want reform. Big difference."

When he was released from prison and almost immediately passed to the other side last month, I spent a few weeks grieving and then began looking through the stacks of A3 papers in my office for a message Herman may have left me after the fact -- something he sent me before, but which might now take on a stronger meaning. I found it in the form of this handwritten missive which I'm posting here today in memory of Herman and his long-standing commitment to true justice for all. But I'm also posting it to give me an opportunity to discuss in fuller detail what he wanted us to consider about the connection between the socially-constructed, political notion of "race" and our current global economic system: capitalism.

Here's To Making The World A Better Place

Just got back from spending three days visiting Albert Woodfox, one of the Angola 3, who's been in solitary confinement for forty years. Ordered a fancy ham to share with my daughter who'll visit me from New York City for the holiday. And heard from a young relative who has four months sober after years of sneaking up on the decision to try it.

Maybe next year, Albert will be eating Christmas dinner out here, money from In-Your-Face Women will be rolling in to bankroll projects I dream about funding, and the Occupy movement will have occupied Wall Street for real. The world can be a better place, you know. But we gotta include everybody.

Getting Down To Business

I originally intended to embed a video produced by a group in Boston on how to beat back the bank attacks. Unfortunately (and I can't imagine why), they chose to disable embedding for some reason. Normally, I don't post music videos I can't embed, but I was so impressed with the production -- and the message -- of this one, I'm doing it anyway. So, much less dramatically (and I'm sorry about that), I give you  Twice Thou with "The Bank Attack".

After you watch it, visit The Billfold to learn about how to do something about our student loan debts. And after that, jump over to The Rolling Jubiliee to learn about how some folks are working to wipe out other folks' debts. (Apparently, that can be done.)

The election is over. Problems abound. Let's get down to business, shall we?

Power to the Online People

As many of you know, I live 45 miles north of New Orleans, so this has been a tough week. No lights. No air-conditioning. No internet. So having the folks at OpenSite send me this graphic really struck home. The only reason I'm able to blog right now is that I've crawled out to an empty office building that has power. Mother Nature is nothing to fool with. But our Auntie Internet's pretty damn powerful herself.

Thank Goddess.

Justice Roars!

Every now and again, I blog about a blog. And that's what I'm doing today. I had been vaguely aware of The Louisiana Justice Institute for some months, having run across some of its activists here and there in the course of doing the work I do. It's not like they're low profile folks. In fact, Institute Co-Director Tracie Washington was named this month by The Root, the daily online magazine published by the Washington Post, as one of its twenty Leading Black Women Advocating Change. And somewhere along the line, I started noticing links on my Facebook site to posts on Justice Roars, the blog of the Institute. But you know how it is, you're moving at the speed of light through your own life, trying to stay on top of the 419 plates you have spinning, and who has time to really pay attention, right?

Then, one day (this morning, obviously), you wake up knowing you don't have to leave the house before you have your coffee (for a change) and you somewhat arbitrarily read a post from one of those links and get blown the eff away. Now, I'm asking myself, how did I avoid realizing the nature of these folks' work all this time? (*shakes head ruefully*)

What Freedom Looks Like On A Human Face

2011 is turning out to be a very energetic year already. In one country after another, there is motion. In South Sudan, 99% of the voters favored secession and they will become their own nation July 1st. Since the first of the year, the population of Tunisia has ousted their authoritarian government. And this week, in Egypt, in what appears to be, at least partially, a response to what happened in Tunisia, the Egyptians cast down a tyrant who has held them captive (with the help and encouragement of the United States) for thirty years.

The man in the YouTube video below was interviewed yesterday at a protest in front of the Egyptian embassy in London. He tries to contain his emotion, but ultimately gives witness to what it is like to taste freedom after a lifetime of waiting. Who else in the world would like a taste of freedom, I'm wondering tonight.

Obama's got jokes?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stepping up pressure on a stalwart but flawed Middle East ally, President Barack Obama said he personally told Egypt's Hosni Mubarak Friday night to take "concrete steps" to expand rights inside the Arab nation and refrain from violence against protesters flooding the streets of Cairo and other cities. The White House suggested U.S. aid could be at stake.

"Surely, there will be difficult days to come, but the United States will continue to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people and work with their government in pursuit of a future that is more just, more free and more hopeful," Obama told reporters in the State Dining Room after speaking with the long-time leader from the White House.

Somebody better tell the Egyptian protester in the photo above what Obama said. The teargas canister he's holding was made in the United States and he looks pissed.

Also...I guess...somebody oughta mention this to Obama so he can stop making himself look foolish in the international mass media. If he really wants the world to believe that the United States intends to "stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people," he might should ask Mubarak for the teargas back. I'm just sayin'.
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NOTE: I found the photo above on the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition website, along with a list of U.S. cities where protests are about to be held in solidarity with the Egyptian people.

Vision on February 2010

A young man I know, who has taught me much in the last couple of years as he sought, himself, to learn, wrote this recently and gave me permission to post it here. As Arundahti Roy suggests, "Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."

~~Vision on February 2010~~

by Gregory Esteven

Memory is the mortar which binds us to time,
Like red bricks in columns stretching up to the sky.
Memory is heavier than air, water or any other element.
And yet, it is as elusive as a vapor.
We wade through it, as old hunters
Wade through water and mist out in canoes past Manchac,
Traversing the mystery of the Louisiana wetlands,
Spanish moss tickling the tops of their heads.

I hear an old Johnny Cash song playing in the distance
While I sit in the window of my apartment.
“Get rhythm when you get the blues,” he sings.
What advice!
Well, maybe we should take it.
It’s not over yet.
We can make the revolution now.
Memory and the past weigh down on us
Like heavy, stinking swamp mud.
But in every human being,
Increasingly—more and more!—
I perceive a beam of light, as if coming from the future.
“You can’t light a candle and hide it under the bushel,” they say.
I’m prepared to believe them.

Even in this place, where wealthy planters once kept black slaves
Separated from poor white workers
(while keeping the power and riches for themselves),
Even in this place, where migrant laborers from America Latina
Are worked like slaves by gigantic corporations,
Even in this place, where you can still get killed
for fucking someone of the same “sex”,
Even in this place, I see hope for revolution.

Where the mouth of the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico--
this is none other than the vulva of the United States of America.
Ships come in, pollution goes out like menstrual blood
As people sing and dance in the streets of the city.
They shit and fuck and get drunk and get high and make money
and waste away from lack of funds.
In the eyes of the folk in the Ninth Ward

and the Bywater and the Marigny,
In the tacky streets of Baton Rouge steaming amid refineries
and humidity on the Banks of the Great River,
In our heads as we think of our sisters and brothers in Haiti…
I see a light which is coming forth and cannot be held back.
The Moment is eternal, the past a vast stage —

meaning lost, actors dead.
This white light blots it all out and, suddenly,
All the old distinctions — color, sex, object of desire — do not matter.
We are the revolution/God is nowHere.