My Article Published in SF BayView
| Juneteenth speech at Atwater Prison
On Saturday, June 10, I headed out to Atwater Prison for their Juneteenth celebration. I was invited to come and speak by the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley, where I am a graduate student. Initially I had no clue what I, a 23-year-old student, could possibly say at such an event, but as a Buddhist and a student of nonviolence, I decided to speak about what I know. When I got to the prison and was led through the long sterile halls that lead to the chapel where the event was taking place, I began to get nervous. Who was I to tell these men about peace? But it was too late to write about anything else, so I marched right into the event room intent on delivering my speech. The room was packed to the gills with African American men, intent on learning anything I, someone from the outside, could share with them. The event had a full lineup, from poetry and hip hop acts to speeches on the influence of Islam on the African American community. When it came my turn to speak, I knew that at the very least I would contribute a fresh perspective. My words were met with a warm, enthusiastic reception, and I took questions that related to nonviolence, reparations, the parole bill and AIDS in the African American community. It was so wonderful to see how open and active these men's minds were, reminding me that African American men don't go to prison to die; they continue to live, and it may behoove us on the outside to help them in their quest for self development and self realization and their pursuit of truth. The following words are what I read to the brothers of Atwater and are in celebration of Juneteenth: In 1865 slavery was abolished in the United States, which in some senses marked the most joyous year of African American history. The freedom that the African American men and women of the South had so long sought had finally arrived. No longer did they have to jeopardize their lives escaping to the North. Now they could be free on the same soil on which they were born and raised. There were new hopes that they might even come to own the land that their labor and their ancestor's labor had worked to cultivate. There were hopes that freedom would extend beyond a legal classification; rather, it would extend into their economic freedom, freedom to worship, freedom to gain an education, freedom to travel and explore the world. In fact, the first few years, a period called Reconstruction, when the South was reconstructed after the Civil War, was a great, albeit short, moment in African American history. During this period, literacy rates soared, many African Americans were elected to office, several were voted into Congress and two were voted into the senate. But unfortunately, fear and terror quickly began to replace feelings of jubilation, as lynchings and the institution of Jim Crow laws began to creep there way into communities throughout the South. Lynching skyrocketed after slavery and remained a common form of violence inflicted upon African Americans throughout the South. Almost 3,500 African Americans were murdered this way between 1889 and 1922, according to the NAACP. While this form of physical violence loomed in the air as a constant threat, Jim Crow segregation existed as a form of structural and cultural violence, inflicted upon African Americans every day. Laws and cultural norms arose which prohibited African Americans from attending white schools, living in white neighborhoods, eating at white restaurants, shopping at some white stores. As a form of structural violence, segregation brought harm to African Americans who sought help from white hospitals but were turned away to suffer or die. Segregation precluded African Americans from educational and economic opportunities that would have allowed them and their families to live healthy lives. Segregation forced African Americans to take on the most dangerous and health debilitating work, which affected African American health and the prosperity of African American families. Jim Crow functioned as both physical violence, as demonstrated in lynchings and beatings, as a form of structural violence as demonstrated in health, employment and environmental practices which tore at the wellbeing of African Americans, but it also functioned as a form of cultural violence. Cultural violence can be thought of as the dress rehearsal for the play - or the action of physical violence. The dress rehearsal - daily acts of dehumanization, humiliation, embarrassment and disrespect - affected both whites and African Americans at their core. For whites, this routine or "culture" drilled into their heads that African Americans were subhuman, inferior, not worthy of respect or dignity. For African Americans, this caused violent psychological affects. Many African Americans came to feel burdened by feelings of frustration, anger, hatred, depression, self doubt and inferiority. I suggest that this was a dress rehearsal because it prepared whites to act violently when conflict arose. By creating a culture of hatred and violence, enacting that violence on African Americans during conflict seemed logical. It in fact became part of the culture. The nadir, name of this moment in U.S. history after emancipation when lynchings proliferated and segregation was institutionalized and before the Civil Rights Movement, was a very low point in African American history marked by physical, structural and cultural violence. I am not someone who believes that with time comes progress. The environment for example, seems to be falling apart as time progresses and so I do not believe that race relations naturally get better over time. But I do believe that after winter must come spring, and out of the most trying times, great good can arise. In the case of the nadir and Jim Crow, seeds for a nonviolent movement were planted and began to bloom in the early 1950s. The seeds were planted by African American religious leaders and activists, including Howard Thurman, Benjamin Elijah Mays and Bayard Rustin, who were born in the midst of the nadir. They were all greatly inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, the anti-colonial movement in India, which spanned the decades between 1916 and 1945 and the teachings of satiagraha. Thurman, Mays and Rustin all knew about Gandhi and traveled to India to meet with him personally. They also knew about Gandhi's message of ahimsa (lack of a desire to harm) and satiagraha (clinging to the truth). Satiagraha is both a form of resistance and a way of life. It is a dedication to truth and a deeper level of meaning. It is a determination to be the change you want to see in the world. For Gandhi and his followers, this meant doing what was right at all costs, even when the costs were death, and many did die in Gandhi's movement. Satiagraha is about having principles and sticking to them at all costs. Satiagraha is a term that is interchangeable with nonviolence, because nonviolence is both a mode of social protest and a way of life, which works against violence at all levels. Nonviolence is a way of interacting with family members and peers; it is a way of demanding your rights without committing acts that are ethically disagreeable; it is a way of building peace in our own lives and in the world. Thurman, Mays and Rustin knew about satiagraha and began spreading the ideas of nonviolence during African America's deepest, darkest, most violent hour. One of their students who took their lessons to heart was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Like Gandhi, King wanted social change but primarily sought the changing of hearts. He wanted to change the hearts of whites who'd allowed their hearts to become full with anger and hatred. He wanted them to dispose of this negativity and embrace love. He wanted African Americans to change their hearts, ridding them of fear and disempowerment and filling them with hope and courage. Like Gandhi, King had a vision of mankind that saw him and her as creatures who had both the same capacity for violence as for nonviolence and needed some guidance to be led back onto the right track. They both saw that in order to put an end to the physical, structural and cultural violence of their respective countries, they would have to change the hearts of all involved. And the only logical way to do this was through nonviolence. To a large extent, King was tremendously successful. He helped build a people's movement that led to the dramatic drop in lynchings and the dismantling of Jim Crow practices and dramatically altered the culture of violence that existed throughout the South. In addition to the diminishing of violence in all of its forms throughout the South, this people's movement also brought meaning, courage and a renewed sense of hope to the lives of African Americans who had seen America at its worst. It brought hope that peace could one day exist in their lives and a sense of purpose that came along with the responsibility of creating the peace they wanted to see. Today we live in a world that is tremendously violent on all levels. Perhaps today seems like the nadir, the lowest point in world history. Children are abused, many of us hate ourselves and inflict violence on our own psyches, many countries are at war and nonviolence may seem like it died with Dr. King. But it didn't. In fact, today the seeds of nonviolence are being sown all across the globe. The anti-apartheid movement, which affectively dismantled apartheid in 1991, was largely a nonviolent movement and was inspired by both Gandhi and King. In the Philippines, nonviolent organizing and protest effectively ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos and installed democratically elected Corazon Aqino in 1986. In 1983 the Brazilian Landless Laborers' Movement began utilizing nonviolent civil disobedience for agrarian land reform and secured rights to over 20 million acres of farmland for poor, landless people. Closer to home, the Zapatistias of Chiapas, Mexico, a revolutionary group who seek among many things land rights, have adopted nonviolent principles because they know that violent means beget violent ends. By fighting for their land peacefully, they will have a peaceful land to live on, and a peaceful community to live with when all is said and done. The Zapatistas know, like the urban farmers in South Central LA who are currently engaged in a nonviolent struggle for their land, that there is no way to peace; peace is the way. By living every moment of our lives, from the ways that we communicate with each other to the ways that we treat ourselves, we can live in solidarity with this global nonviolent freedom movement. By learning how to love ourselves and live nonviolently with the people around us we become soldiers of peace, connected to all of the radical and revolutionary men and women around the world who also want out of the nadir, out of the darkness and into the radiance of peace. Jerlina Love is a graduate student at UC Berkeley who has publications forthcoming in Living Buddhism Magazine, Peace Power magazine and Callaloo Journal. Email her at jerlina@calmail.berkeley.edu. |  |
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posted by jerlina at 9:26 PM
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