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Activists thought they had scored a major victory in Ecuador forcing Chevron to pay $18.2 billion dollars for dumping waste into the Amazon, but “payback is hell” as they say. A U.S. judge has allowed Chevron to subpoena the IP usage records of over 100 environmental activists. The subpoena would not allow Chevron to read particular emails, but would allow it to obtain the professional and personal sites visited by activists over a nine year period.

Chevron is charging the activists with fraud, but the judge has allowed the corporation to go on a fishing expedition to discover other personal data about any who would challenge its actions.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/11-3

The following statement by Presbyterian clergy responding to the Zimmerman verdict is a call to peace and an end to gun violence that would have made the prophet Isaiah vomit.

Some have said a statement by UCC clergy went too far and assumed that George Zimmerman was guilty. Let’s place the Zimmerman decision aside and stop fighting over whether it was the right verdict in terms of Florida law. I don’t care about doing historical autopsies.  Could we please address the question our black brothers and sisters are asking? Could we please at least address the question of whether a black teen who does not dress up as white is fair game for vigilante stalking?

I don’t know or frankly care about the Zimmerman trial. I am concerned about the situation many black kids face every day of their life. I’m concerned about a nation that holds white up as paradigm for beauty, wisdom and historical significance and refuses to see those practices as white supremacy.  I’m concerned that my denomination is so imbedded in white privilege that we dare not mention the elephant in the room, which is racism. We do not have to condemn George Zimmerman to see there is something terribly wrong in our nation. Could we as a denomination not say so?

Isaiah condemned clergy making such statements as false prophets calling “peace” what is not peace. We all know what these comfortable clergy are saying. Their statement nowhere mentions, much less condemns, the epidemic of violence against black teens by the state and by other black teens who have internalized that oppression as self-hatred. By “peace” these clergy do not mean for whites to end our violent oppression of black people. They mean for black people not to shoot back.

http://www.pcusa.org/news/2013/7/15/church-leaders-issue-statement-george-zimmerman-tr/

I have posted a lot about the Zimmerman verdict this week. It seems an excellent opportunity to encourage my white liberal friends to explore our white privilege. Whatever one’s feeling about the verdict of this particular trial, this is a week when we can get in touch with how it feels to be a people who have suffered violence of body and soul since being brought here centuries ago. This week it may be possible for some white liberals to recognize that racism isn’t just the attitude of a few ignorant conservatives, it stains liberal and conservative alike so long as we defend the economic and legal system that gives us our white privilege.

What follows is a testimonial of a young black woman who is leaving America. Perhaps it will help us feel what our brothers and sisters of color suffer at our white liberal hands.

On the day of college graduation, I told my friends and family the news: I was leaving the country I had lived in since childhood.

“I just need a change,” I told them, but they knew there was more. Was it some romance gone awry, they wondered? Some impulsive response to a broken heart? And I was running from heartbreak. My relationship with the United States of America is the most tumultuous relationship I have ever had, and it ended with the heart-rending realization that a country I loved and believed in did not love me back.

 

Please do not trust your own perceptions. None of us can see our own prejudice. Assume that, if you were born in a nation that permitted slavery for hundreds of years, you have probably been infected by the disease of racism. I am not asking that you assume guilt from the crimes of earlier generations, I am asking that you advocate justice for generations here and yet to be.

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/16/goodbye_to_my_american_dream/

As people of faith and as the United Church of Christ, the ground upon which we stand is the presence of the kin-dom of heaven in our midst.  We hope and work for the Beloved Community where all of God’s children thrive and live abundant lives, free from violence and hatred.  Our foremost thoughts and prayers today are with members of Trayvon Martin’s family, who have lost a beloved child to racially motivated gun violence and who now must bear the additional weight that the perpetrator of this crime will not be held accountable.  May they be blessed with courage, endurance, and the assurance of God’s continuing love and care. The acquittal of George Zimmerman exposes once again the deep wounds of racial polarities in our society and the imbedded flaws in our criminal justice system. As national leaders of the United Church of Christ, a denomination that has long stood for justice and racial equality, we are compelled by our faith in a Stillspeaking God to ask how many more innocent lives must be sacrificed, how many more Trayvon Martins or Amadou Diallos or Emmett Tills, before it becomes clear that our nation’s judicial system is neither just nor inclusive when the lives of people of color are at stake.  How long must our children and communities fall victim to the violence of a gun culture and gun laws that that sanction vigilantism?  This is not only a disturbing historical wrong, but a stark living contemporary reality, rooted in racial bias and racial profiling. It is terribly frightening that an unarmed teenager walking home from a routine errand, in his own neighborhood, could be confronted and ultimately killed.  That his attacker would initially face no charges whatsoever and now has been subsequently acquitted of any responsibility, sends shock waves yet again through this nation’s African-American community and all those who are committed to overcoming racism that justice is not served equally when black persons are the victims of perpetration and violent crime. We must respond as a church to the profound realities before us if we are to be faithful to our calling as disciples of Christ.  We have joined our voice with those calling for stricter gun laws.  We recently expressed our outrage with the Supreme Court Decision to gut the Voting Rights Act.  We continue to speak out against the prison industrial complex and the harsh truth that African American males are vastly overrepresented in prison populations.  We work diligently to end poverty and the racial profiling of immigrants and other people of color. Now we must act — as local congregations, as individuals, and as a denomination — to engage fervently in our own sacred conversations on race and racism to expand solidarity with our sisters and brothers who, out of sheer necessity, must teach their children how to walk, how to talk, and how to behave so that they don’t become targets of violence and racial hatred.  Now is the time to act.  We must challenge our lawmakers and court systems that continue to make racially-biased decisions. We offer our prayers for all the persons affected and impacted by this closely watched court case, especially the residents of Sanford, Fla., including George Zimmerman and his family, whose lives have been forever altered.  We pray, too, that our church will continue to be a bold, public voice for the peaceful realm of God, where none are injured or harmed, but where love and compassion prevail. The Collegium of Officers of the United Church of Christ: The Rev. Geoffrey A. Black General Minister and President The Rev. M. Linda Jaramillo Executive Minister, Justice and Witness Ministries The Rev. James Moos Executive Minister, Wider Church Ministries The Rev. J. Bennett Guess Executive Minister, Local Church Ministries

Truthout has a nice summary of important Supreme Court rulings that were largely ignored by the press. I will summarize that summary and provide the link below.

1. Monsanto won its case claiming it can patent a seed.

2. The court ruled there is no right to an attorney during federal appeals, nor a necessity to be mentally competent

3. Minor drug usage is not grounds for deportation for non-citizens.

4. The court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1991 did not cover employer retaliation.

5. Employers cannot be sued for sexual harassment unless they have the power to hire and fire.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/17558-five-important-scotus-rulings-you-didnt-hear-about

Phyllis Dunham was a mentor to me when I was trying to think out the issue of abortion. At the time I was working with survivors of rape and felt a conflict between my Schweitzer type reverence for life and a dawning awareness that I was oversimplifying what pregnancy might mean to the woman. At the time Phyllis was E.D. at the Texas Abortion Rights Action League and I asked her to help me think about the issue. Instead of trying to persuade me, she simply recommended that I explore where the “right to  life” groups were getting their information as well as where “pro-choice” groups were getting theirs. That simple research project was life changing for me.

Yesterday, we were having a conversation on my Facebook page whether the Zimmerman verdict was an expression of our culture’s racism. A dear friend of mine disagreed with my opinion that the verdict was a result of racism. Late in the day I received the following post, I noticed it was from Phyllis Dunham:

“Jim, may I take a crack at this one? Mr. ____, I appreciate your thoughtful, prudent attitude. I didn’t have an opportunity to follow this case closely due to my own time constraints, so I can’t speak to the racism or the lack thereof on the part of these particular jury members. I can, however, speak to the hardships (and the dangers) that my dark brown sons face every day in a racist culture. Because I am white, I’ve had a fascinating window into white American culture’s comfort with overt and covert racism. I have seen a woman refuse to sit in her assigned seat next to my oldest two on a commercial flight. I have seen another visibly shudder when my eight year old stood too close to her (in her opinion) in a grocery store line. I have seen white parents call their children over to them when my sons (whom they presumed to be unaccompanied) were playing together with their children at a neighborhood playground. I have seen a judge completely change his tune when I stood up next to my son in court. My sons have all been stopped by police for driving or walking while brown, and yes, once at least, it happened because my youngest son had pulled his hood up over his head in the cold while coming home. The officer, who happened to be a friend of mine, apologized to me later but suggested that I advise the boy not to ever use the hood on his jacket in our mostly white community. Please know that EVERY time my sons left the house when they were growing up, I felt uneasy given what I had been priveleged to observe when people didn’t assume I was their mother. So, I cannot say for certain whether or not the killing of Trayvonn Martin was caused by racism, and I probably couldn’t tell you that even if I had followed the case more closely. But I can tell you this: his family and his community will always wonder about it. And so will I. And I will still regret that just being black or brown, whether we white liberals like it or not, is, indeed, still dangerous in my country.”

Thank you Phyllis. You still haven’t lost your touch.

Robin Kelly has written a powerful analysis of the Zimmerman verdict from a black perspective. What follows is a condensed version followed by a link to the entire article. Thanks to Karalei Nunn for the link.

Where was the NRA on Trayvon Martin’s right to stand his ground? What happened to their principled position? Let’s be clear: the Trayvon Martin’s of the world never had that right because the “ground” was never considered theirs to stand on.

Martin could have run, I suppose, but every black man knows that unless you’re on a field, a track, or a basketball court, running is suspicious and could get you a bullet in the back.

In 2012 alone, police officers, security guards or vigilantes took the lives of 136 unarmed black men and women — at least twenty-five of whom were killed by vigilantes. In ten of the incidents, the killers were not charged with a crime, and most of those who were charged either escaped conviction or accepted reduced charges in exchange for a guilty plea.

Martin died and Zimmerman walked because our entire political and legal foundations were built on an ideology of settler colonialism — an ideology in which the protection of white property rights was always sacrosanct; predators and threats to those privileges were almost always black, brown, and red; and where the very purpose of police power was to discipline, monitor, and contain populations rendered a threat to white property and privilege.

If we do not come to terms with this history, we will continue to believe that the system just needs to be tweaked, or that the fault lies with a fanatical gun culture or a wacky right-wing fringe. We will miss the routine character of such killings: according data compiled by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, a black person is killed by the state or by state-sanctioned violence every 28 hours. –Robin D. G. Kelley

Racism is the original sin or our nation. From our Declaration of Independence referring to indigenous people as “merciless Indian savages,” to our history books referring to black Americans as “slaves” instead of “enslaved people.” The demon of racism is buried in a very shallow grave and is evoked by coded language. When Reagan spoke of “welfare mothers” he was evoking in his hearers the Demon Racism. When Republicans questioned whether Obama had an American birth certificate, they were evoking the Demon Racism. When people from Texas or Arizona use the phrase “illegal alien” they are evoking the Demon Racism.

The death of Trayvon Martin was tragic but it need not be in vain. May his young hooded face break America’s hardened heart until we have ears to hear the coded language of racism, the eyes to see the mask with which we allow it to hide in our sacred halls of justice, and the courage to exorcise once and for all the Demon Racism.

I woke up this morning feeling like I had been beat up. After a week of activism along with thousands of other people trying to stop a bill intended close abortion clinics in Texas, I am dehydrated and tired. The funny thing is, my primary feeling today is of a returning hope for Texas politics. I am eating breakfast in a restaurant overhearing a conversation of people who saw the march last night and are genuinely curious to learn more about a woman’s right to choose.

Ann Richards used to speak of a “New Texas.” I loved those years because, as a native born Texan, I too dream of a Texas not equated with ignorance. Texas Republicans have come to perfectly exemplify everything I hate about the Old Texas. I hated it as a child and I hate it now. They slash funding for public education. When confronted with scientific data on issues like abortion, they simply ignore such findings as if they were a kind of conspiracy of the elite. I have never thought such willful ignorance was the real Texas.

I dream of a Texas not equated with intolerance. Texas Republicans have come to exemplify the cruelty of the Old Texas. They call undocumented workers “illegals,” they lay out voting districts intentionally to deprive people of color equal representation, and they have historically seen gay and lesbian people as an aberration of nature. For Pete’s sake, the word “Texas” means “friendly.” I have never thought such narrow mindedness was the real Texas.

Finally, I dream of a Texas not equated with fundamentalism. I want the religious freedom not to have anyone else’s religion crammed down my throat. As a child I resented teachers sneaking their own religion into the classroom. As an adult, I don’t want Texas children to have to learn the biblical story of creation in a science class. I have never thought Texas belongs to any sect. I have always thought our state belongs equally to Texas Christians and Texas Jews and Texas Muslims and Texas Atheists as well as all the other wonderful faiths of Texas.

This morning I had a flashback moment. On the evening of Ann Richard’s election as governor of Texas, I was invited to her hotel suite to celebrate. As a pro-choice clergy I was something of an oddity and so I would find myself in all kinds of strange places I did not deserve to be. When I arrived at the hotel suite, the room was dark. Only one of her staff had arrived and I was surprised to see her crying. When I asked her why, she lifted a weary head and sobbed, “I just realized that now that abortion is safe we can focus on reducing teen pregnancy.”

It was a naive hope, but that statement, even today, represents my hope for the people of Texas. Whatever else one thinks of the Richards administration, she allowed an inner circle of her staff to work for the poor, for education, for women’s health care and to lay a foundation for marriage equality. To me, they were the New Texas.

So I awoke tired this morning in a state that is dominated by Republicans who war against everything I care about. But I woke up feeling hopeful. This week I have seen social workers, and teachers rise up to be heard on behalf of women’s rights. I have seen activists of very different causes come together in solidarity with women’s rights. I have seen a crowd of pro-choice women supported by a huge group of very dedicated pro-choice men.

This week we weren’t just dreaming of a New Texas, we were being the New Texas.

10 Questions for “Right to Life” Activists

Here in Texas an anti-choice bill is supposed to pass today that will close down all but 5 of our reproductive clinics. It will be a sad day for poor rural women in Texas. I realize that the people behind this bill are sincere and have no idea of the pain they are unleashing, but if I could I would ask “Pro-life” activists the following questions:

1. Where were your “Right to Life” protests when these Texas Republicans slashed social programs that might actually make it possible for a poor woman to raise a child? How can you call yourself “Pro-life” if you are against providing the necessities for life?
2. Have you ever noticed that almost all of the physical violence in this struggle comes from your side? When someone is shot, or a building is bombed it is almost always by a “Pro-life” activist. If your movement is really about promoting life how is that possible?
3. Did you know that red curtain on your abortion poster is actually the uterus of a woman and from that angle, you don’t know anything about what she is going through in her life?
4. You always talk about your religious freedom, have you ever thought that the rest of us might have a right not to have your religion crammed down our throat?
5. Have you ever noticed that religious denominations teaching that a woman should not be allowed to make her own reproductive decisions, also teach that she should submit to her husband and should not be a leader in the church? Is it possible you have control issues?
6. Did you know that, if Jesus didn’t mention a subject, you are being dishonest to say it is a Christian issue?
7. Do you not realize that when you stop trying to restrict a woman’s right abortion, prochoice people will join you trying to make abortion less common through education and birth control?
8. Do you know that when abortion is made illegal in any nation, septic abortion becomes a number one killer of women?
9. Did you know that contrary to much of your literature, raped women actually do get pregnant?
10. Did you know that to be genuinely “Pro-life” we must affirm life not as we wish it would be, but as it actually is with all it’s ambiguity and agonizing choices.