Category: Rants

This Chanukah: New Dedication

Image: Eight candles, and the light that serves them. Photo by Saildancer/Pixabay.

 

Chanukah is a holiday with a complex history. For Jews today it’s usually celebrated as another of the “they persecuted us, we won, let’s eat” holidays, a simple story about Greek outsiders and Jewish patriots.

If you know the history, though, you know it’s more complicated than that. It was a civil war as much as a war against outsiders. The Books of Maccabees tell us that there was terrible bloodshed. At first, it was celebrated as a great military victory; a few hundred years later the triumphalist slant on the holiday was rejected for the miracle story in the Talmud. And much later, in the 20th century, the story was complicated again by the establishment of a Jewish State and the necessity of military power to defend that state.

I am left with the name of the holiday: Chanukah. It means “dedication.”

I ponder this holiday, and the present situation in U.S. politics. It seems to me that this is a time that calls for clarity in how we dedicate ourselves.

Amalek, those raiders who became the embodiment of evil in the Bible, made their first attack on the stragglers: the old, the disabled, and the sick at the rear of the caravans of Israel. So I take my cue from our scripture that one way to recognize evil is to watch for those who prey on the weak.

So I dedicate myself to quit the usual labels. I’m not going to use the old labels for “us” and “them.” I’m going to see who picks on the weak: the sick, the disabled, the poor, the disenfranchised, the “strangers” that Leviticus tells me to love.

I’m going to see who picks on the weak and I’m going to fight them.

  • I’m going to fight them by writing letters (old fashioned letters!) and making phone calls to my elected officials.
  • I’m going to fight them by showing up at rallies.
  • I’m going to fight them by helping to spread verified information via social media.
  • I’m going to fight them by giving financial support to organizations that fight them.
  • I’m going to fight them in the voting booth, the next chance I get, probably some local election.

I’m going to pay close attention to local politics. That’s where everything starts, and it’s where my efforts are going to pay off the most. And again, I’m going to apply the Amalek rule to see whom I will support. If a local politician speaks up for the weak, I’m going to support them. If they prey on the weak, I’m going to fight them.

The old labels do not serve us. We have settled into our camps, and it looks to me like outsiders, people like Vladimir Putin, are profiting off our automatic enmities. So if a politician calls herself a conservative, but she looks to me like a person who fights for the underdog, I’m going to support her. If a politician calls himself a liberal, but he serves the powerful, I’m going to fight him. I am done with party names, too. I will not automatically support anyone.

For those who serve only themselves, I ask Hillel’s question: What ARE you?

 

 

Common Ground on Gun Safety

Image: Gun trigger lock, available for sale on Amazon for $12.89. Yes, I’m giving them a free ad.

Today is an anniversary for the United States, but particularly for families in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Four years ago today, a deeply disturbed young man used his legally-acquired guns to murder 20 small children and six educators in what should have been one of the safest places on earth: their elementary school.

The agony of their families is beyond my imagination, because I haven’t lost a dear one to a murderer, and I was fortunate to see both of my sons grow up to adulthood. The agony of our nation continues; we are divided on the issue of guns and their place in American life.

Some gun owners worry that legislation on guns will set us off on a slippery slope that will make it impossible for their families to be safe.

Others worry, with equal fervor, that without some serious gun control, we will continue to see unacceptable numbers of deaths from murders, accidents, and terrorist activity.

Both sides tend to discount the concerns of the other, which makes for short, angry conversations that go nowhere.

Some creative people are taking a third path: looking for ways to be more safe that does not require legislation. Emergency room personnel at Mercy Hospital in Kansas City give out free gun locks, no questions asked, to families who ask for them. I heard on the radio last night (but failed to hear details) about an emergency room in another city that gives a gun lock to families who come in with any sort of injury related to guns.

Seems to me that programs like these should be “mom and apple pie” to both gun owners and gun opponents. All the gun owners I know insist that a person can own a gun, keep it at home, and handle it safely. Perhaps the low hanging fruit of this issue is gun safety: making it easy and cheap for people to lock their guns away from people who shouldn’t be touching them.

That will not prevent another Newtown. What it might do, though, is to get us talking with one another again. How could it hurt?

לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל-דַּם רֵעֶךָ:  אֲנִי, יְהוָה

You shall not stand upon the blood of your neighbor: I am God. – Lev. 19:16

The Ghost Ship Fire

Image: A woman grieving, black and white. Photo by unsplash/pixabay.

The first I knew about it was when my phone rang by my bed. It was my ex-father-in-law and still dear family, Jim Scott, asking if I’d heard from “the boys.” My sons are in their 30’s, but to some folks they’ll always be “the boys.” No, I hadn’t… why?

Friday night there was a terrible fire in Oakland’s Fruitvale district. I had heard about it on the radio before I went to sleep, described as a “warehouse fire.” I hadn’t thought much about it. By morning the building was being described as an artist collective, and there had been a party there, then a fire with many, many casualties.

“I am sure they weren’t there,” I said, on automatic pilot. “I’ll get back to you.” I phoned the elder son, the artist, and he was slow to answer (not a morning person – but neither am I.) He works in an artist collective, but in another part of town, and my mama-instinct told me he hadn’t been there, but we needed to hear his voice. He answered, thank God.  I ascertained that he was alive, and told him to call his granddad immediately.

I texted his brother the musician, and yes, he was fine. I told him to get in touch with Granddad. Then I began thinking about all the mothers and grandfathers and friends everywhere hearing about that fire. I looked on Twitter for news.

People, when something like this happens, remember that survivors and friends are combing social media and the news, hoping for information. Out of human decency, please DON’T:

ANALYZE the situation based on little information, and PLACE BLAME.

BLAME the victims for being foolish. (The things I saw used ruder words.)

MAKE JOKES. (I can’t believe I need to say that.)

SPEAK HATEFULLY about groups to whom the victims might (or might not) belong (in this case, African Americans, Californians, liberals, Oaklanders.)

MAKE GHOULISH SPECULATIONS (Again, can’t believe I have to say that.)

As I write, on Sunday afternoon, they are still searching for bodies in the ashes. So far, all my sons’ friends are accounted for, but as Aaron said to me, friends of friends died in that fire. This was close to home.

Think carefully before posting anything but sympathy in the wake of a tragedy. Please. It is a mitzvah to comfort mourners, but surely it is one of the worst of sins to torture them.

brothers

This is a photo of my sons that I took about a year ago. Good guys, both of them.

Update, 12/4/16, 7:34pm, PST: At this writing 33 bodies have been recovered from the scene, and 7 of them identified. I know of two people whose families and friends await news; I hope I don’t learn of more. 

Update 12/6/16, 3:46 pm, PST: 36 bodies have been recovered, and 90% of the building has been searched. The Oakland Fire Dept does not expect to find more bodies. I know of one family who expects bad news; they are still waiting for identification of the remains. I know that this is no longer fresh news, but keep in mind that families are still waiting for identifications, no funerals have yet taken place, and the criminal investigations are just beginning. California Governor Jerry Brown set an example for all of us when he declined to speculate on causes this morning.

Hack On, Hack Off

Image: A Broken Lock. Photo by Rohit Sharma, via pixabay.

Back when the world was young and I was a college student, the slang that young men used for angry was “hacked off.” Girls didn’t use it, but I remember guys saying, “I’m so hacked off about….” whatever it was annoying them. The phrase always comes back to me when someone says, “I’ve been hacked.” Now I’m the hackee.

‘Way back in 2012, someone who didn’t like my comments on You Don’t Mess with the Zohan deciphered my password and used it to mess up one of my blogs.  I wrote about it in You Don’t Mess With the Laughter.

Well, it happened again. This time someone didn’t like a post about the term “Old Testament.” They logged onto my account and got rid of that post.

I’ve repaired the damage, reposted the article, and gotten password generation software, so that I can have strong passwords without having to remember them. If you readers care about your data, I encourage you to do the same.

But I am still worried about the person who felt so strongly about that post that they went to all the trouble of prying open my account to get rid of it. That person was hurting, I assume, or they wouldn’t have done that.

To anyone unhappy with a post on this blog:

Please leave me a question in the comments, or tell me that I have offended you. Leave something like this and I promise you will receive a civil answer from me. It may not be the answer you want but it will take into account your feelings.

Rabbi Adar, your post The Jewish Bible ≠ The Old Testament was offensive to me. It was disrespectful of Christianity in the following ways: (1) (2) and (3). Please reconsider your offensive words.

Keep in mind that if you write something with name-calling I will delete that; company policy. So this will not be allowed to stay on the board:

Rabbi Adar, you idiot, you commie pinko lesbo socialist…. blah blah blah….

Write that, and I will delete your message. However, you can rest assured that if anyone calls you an idiot, or any of those other names, or a fascist, or a toadcushion, I will delete their message with equal speed and enthusiasm.

Sigh.

 

 

To Friends & Family Considering Trump

Image: The White House, photo by skeeze on pixabay.com.

Normally I just go about my business teaching Basic Judaism but today I’d like to write specifically to readers who follow this blog and who may be considering voting for Donald Trump in November. Some of you are related to me by blood or marriage; some of you are old friends. Some of you may be my students.

I grew up in Tennessee, in a family of Republicans, and I get it that from the right-wing point of view my liberal opinions seem illogical. I accept that we see things differently. I honor those differences, because I believe that it is in the disagreements that democracy does its best work, pushing and pulling to find the best way for everyone.

I need for you to hear, though, that this election year is scaring the living daylights out of me and many people I love. We are genuinely afraid that a man who admires and is admired by dictators like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un may be elected. We are completely unnerved by the company he keeps. He is coy about white supremacist organizations, refusing to dissociate himself from them. Those organizations promote hatred of people who aren’t white, people who are Jews, people who are different. I am a lesbian Jew and I am not sleeping nights. Linda and I have a great-niece who is transgender, and she is terrified. I’ll let Jessica speak for herself, since she gave me permission:

I hear that Donald Trump is doing even better now that Bernie Sanders has been beaten. I guess a Trump presidency is looking more and more realistic… I hate to say… He may just win this election…

That being said, I researched immigration laws and other things in Canada. I come to find out that it’s a PAIN IN THE ASS to emigrate to Canada if you’re an American without a career and an American at risk for homelessness. It’s almost an impossible task for a poor and no career woman like myself to accomplish. Perhaps Mexico would be a better option? I know a ton of people that live there already.

I hate the feeling of me turning my back on my country of birth but I know without a shadow of a doubt that if Trump wins the election, my entire life as I know it will change for the worst. My civil rights are sure to be targeted (as an LGBT member), my only support for food (of which I cannot afford on my own) will be eliminated, my ability to obtain a good paying job might be an issue, and my sense of safety will be in jeopardy.

Donald Trump is a sharp and deadly guillotine blade that is ready to sever my head from my shoulders. I don’t want to stick around when the blade drops but I am shackled and can’t move.

So, my fellow American citizens, when you vote this season please vote SENSIBLY. Think of others when you vote; consider the needs of people who need help and who cannot make it on their own, consider the people who need an equal chance at success as the successful people had, consider the little person.

If you are thinking to yourself that a “poor and no career woman” has only herself to blame, stop right there. Jessica works hard every day at a job many of us wouldn’t take because she wants to better herself. Transwomen have a terrible time finding an employer willing to hire them even if they “pass.” I have known transwomen with engineering degrees and prior careers who found that everything turned to dust the day they began living as women. So just stop that. Trust me, she’s an upstanding citizen who is doing well in her circumstances.

As I told Jessica when I saw her facebook post, Linda and I are concerned, too. There is a hateful edge to this campaign that scares me in a way that no previous campaign has ever done. Under the Law of Return, Linda and I could move to Israel if life became untenable here as LGBTQ Jews, but we won’t. We are proud Americans, proud Californians, and we aren’t going anywhere, because we love this country and it is our home. If Trump is elected we will stay put and fight to keep America the place where all people have the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

We are worried, partly because of Mr. Trump, but even more because of his associations and connections, and the violence he has encouraged among his followers. Even George Wallace did not encourage his followers to “beat up” people who disagreed with what he had to say. Even he did not heap scorn on Americans who had been POW’s and on Gold Star parents.

I am begging you, conservative friends, if you care at all about the two of us, think really hard about your vote. I grew up conservative. Trump isn’t any kind of conservative I recognize. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan did not encourage violence at their rallies. They didn’t make fun of disadvantaged people. They sure as heck didn’t admire dictators, and dictators didn’t admire them.

If you can’t stand Hillary, I understand that. I couldn’t stand voting for Senator Ted Cruz. I think if it were between him and Trump as a Democrat, I’d just have to abstain. But that’s it: I’d abstain before I voted for Trump, no matter what party he belonged to. I’m begging you to consider abstaining, or voting for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson.

Ultimately your vote is your private business, but when you vote this year, think about those you admire in U.S. history, and compare Mr. Trump’s behavior to theirs.

P.S. – As John Scalzi says on his excellent blog, “The Mallet is out.” Please avoid name-calling in the comments, even if you are quite sure that the person you want to name-call really IS a “doodoo head” or whatever it is. I will delete messages that name-call or make ad hominem attacks.

The Stealth Rabbi Strikes Again

Image: Nine Jews demonstrating against Trump’s racism. Three people in this photo are rabbis – can you tell which ones? Photo courtesy of Bend the Arc, a great social justice organization.

If you say “rabbi” to most people, the image that comes up is a bearded man. I don’t look like that rabbi.

Actually, I look like my grandmother: Irish-American, round, soft, motherly, maybe grandmotherly. My haircut (a buzz cut) disrupts the effect a bit, but it doesn’t make me look more like that mental image of a rabbi. I usually wear a hat, which might be a kippah (looks like a rabbi) or an A’s baseball cap (not so much.)

As a result, I often surprise people; I’m a stealth rabbi. “What do you do?” someone will say to me, as Americans do, and I will reply, “I’m a rabbi.” If they identify as Jewish, this may produce a panicked response:

“Oh! I’m Jewish. Well, I’m a bagels and cream cheese Jew, you know, not religious. Seinfeld. …” And then they will tell me why they haven’t been to synagogue, or what’s wrong with synagogue, or who drove them from synagogue… I listen. Usually it’s a long speech.

They think I’m going to pass judgment upon them, and I’m not. Depending on the story, I’m sad that Jewish community didn’t work out for them, or appalled at what drove them away. Mostly, I’m sad that they have no idea what Judaism is for; their Jewish identity is a ball and chain they drag along through life.

What I’d like to say to them, if we had longer for a real conversation, is this:

I’m not here to judge you. As a rabbi, it’s true, I sometimes function as a judge, but only in very limited situations. Mostly I’m a teacher, because learning is at the heart of Jewish life. So relax: I’m harmless!

Would you like to take that ball and chain, and turn it into something a little easier to carry around? Maybe into a walking stick, something to support you when you are tired and afraid? Or maybe into a beautiful box of treasures, an inheritance of marvels?

All you need to do is open your mind and heart to learn. You pick the topic: what’s bugging you about life? There’s are several Jewish approaches to it, I promise you. Or, if you are really adventurous, what about Judaism bothers you? Let’s look critically at the tradition, and find new bits of it. Let’s debate! Let’s play with it, have a good time!

There’s the wide world of social justice work that Jews have been doing forever. There are great organizations just waiting for you. Whatever is your passion, you can pursue it as a Jew, with other Jews, amplified far beyond your social media or letter to the editor. You can tap into the riches of the tradition to support you in that work, too.

If food really is at the heart of Jewish identity for you, let’s look at that. There’s more than bagels out there for you to enjoy. There’s the myriad of Ashkenazi and Sephardic cuisines, and Middle Eastern food. There are chef/scholars like Michael Twitty, who explores the places where African and Southern and Jewish foods intersect. There’s Tami Weiser, who will give you beautiful recipes and invite you to think about them.

My role as a rabbi is to be a resource. I have spent years cramming my head and heart full of Torah, and learning the sources so that I can make them available to you. Some rabbis, congregational rabbis, create and maintain environments where Jews can be Jews – where you can be Jewish. Not all those environments are like the synagogue you remember. Some rabbis are chaplains, committed to hanging in there with people who are suffering. I’m a teaching rabbi: I am here to help you learn.

And yes, we’ll have bagels.

Throwing Myself Into the Arms of Shabbat

Early this morning, after staying up to hear the news about the UK voting to leave the European Union, I posted this message to friends on Facebook:

This (Brexit, Trump) is what comes of the obsession with deficits post-2008 and the growing disparity in incomes. The 90% feel enraged and abandoned, looking for someone to blame, voting their fears.

I don’t know when I have felt so pessimistic. Time for Shabbat.

Then I did a bit of housework, always good therapy. I saw messages from friends, including an exhortation to “Look for the good, it’s still there” from a friend who sees much more of the trouble in the world close up than I do, a nurse who spent much of the last week watching over the victims of Orlando.  These good angels made me rethink my bad mood.

This is not the time to succumb to the blues. There is important work to do in this world. There are things that CAN be made right. We can fix our broken institutions here in the U.S. It isn’t too late to have a functioning Supreme Court, a Congress where they actually vote on bills that matter, and an economic system that brings a decent life to everyone, not just to the wealthy. 

I am tired right now. That SCOTUS non-result that has hurt immigrants hurt my heart. Brexit hurts people for whom I care very much. The reaction of those well-meaning people at the local Republican HQ – “Trump isn’t ours, please go away” – chilled me. Orlando shocked me to my bones.

And yet:

Last weekend I saw my youngest married to a good woman. I saw a new generation of my family begin. I saw that my sons are grown and they are good men. So I refuse to give up hope in the world.

Last weekend I was reminded what a precious and wonderful “family of choice” I have. The people who have chosen to love me and my children are a tribe of our own, built from what seemed, 30 years ago, to be the wreckage of my life. I have children of my body and adopted children, a brother I adore and adopted siblings who would walk through fire for me, ex-in-laws who have been dear to me ever since I met them in the fall of 1973. I have my beloved and beshert, Linda, and to our mutual amazement, we are legally married! So I refuse to give up on the world.

Last week I saw an outpouring of support for the gay men and other Q people and allies murdered in Orlando. There were a few haters. There were people who used it as another opportunity to demonize Muslims. But the vast majority of people saw those gay men as human beings, and saw the shooter as what he was: a hate filled individual who used Daesh/ISIS as his excuse. Even ten years ago, the reaction would have been quite different. So I refuse to give up hope in the world.

Last Monday night I was the guest of Muslim neighbors at their iftar. I saw the earnest seeking after true spiritual growth. I felt the welcome of generous spirits, and I listened to fears and worries that were very much like my own. I am convinced that the Holy One at the center of our attention is the same One. Their love for our country is the same as mine. I refuse to give up hope in the world.

I’m going to keep Shabbat, and let Shabbat keep me this week. Shabbat shalom, my friends. We will still do good in this world, whatever happens.

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period—I am addressing myself to the School—surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. –Winston Churchill, October 29, 1941

Some Queer Thoughts after Orlando

Image: Rainbow flag, tattered, from Pixabay.com.

I wrote a post about the Orlando massacre (Stop the Hateful Cycle.)But I have to say that when I first heard the news about the shooting I wasn’t thinking about Torah. I heard the news as a person who’s been out as a lesbian since 1987, and it kicked me in my LBGTQ kishkes [Yiddish for “gut.”]

I heard the the news just as I went to bed. I deliberately switched off the radio and went to bed because I could not bear to hear about another shooting in a gay club. I knew that if I listened for even one moment I’d be up all night at the television, identifying with the people in the club and the people who love them. It was Shavuot; I had no business at the TV. It was Shavuot, and anyway I could not bear it.

I came out as a lesbian after I had children, so I was never much of a partier at clubs. But I knew the power of those places in the gay rights movement, how none of us were taken seriously until a riot at the Stonewall club in NYC, how many of the lesbian leaders in San Francisco met at Maud’s back in the day. I knew that the clubs had bulletin boards long before the Internet. They had a long history as places where lesbians, gay men, and everyone under the umbrella of “queer” could come to organize or just try to figure things out.

Bars and clubs have always been a hunting ground for the people who hate us. Watch the film Before Stonewall for more about that, or read Let the Faggots Burn: The Upstairs Lounge Fire by Johnny Townsend. My reaction last night came from a sick feeling that I’d seen this movie so many times, so many times that it would break my heart to hear it again. Usually the victims were “just” one or two individuals leaving a club, murdered by some coward in the bushes who’d decided he go get some of us because he thought the Bible said we deserved to die. Usually those murders didn’t make the broadcast news, and I heard about them much later from the LGBTQ press.

I could not bear to hear about one once again, and I couldn’t do anything about it anyway, so I went to bed.

The first good thing I heard the next day was in President Obama’s speech from the White House:

“This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends — our fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live. The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights.” – From President Obama’s speech, 6/12/16

I love that the President gets it that a “gay nightclub” is not just a place to drink and dance. I love that he or someone in his Administration knows our community and its history that well, and that he’s willing to talk about it on a day when the news media seems obsessed with ISIS.

Most of all, I love that with his speech the President reminded me that this is not the same old horrible movie once again. The FBI is investigating. The news organizations are reporting. No one is publicly crowing that the victims deserved it. (Well, nobody except Daesh/ISIS, who are busy trying to take credit, they who are in the business of hate.)

My rabbi and mentor once told me that the real test of whether to worry about local acts of antisemitism was to watch for the response from local law enforcement: did they show up? Did they take it seriously? Did any local politicians dogwhistle about the Jews bringing it on themselves? He said that if the cops responded, if they took it seriously, if the politicians talked solidarity and walked their talk, then it was upsetting but not to panic.

Now there has been an awful event – a mass murder at a gay nightclub – and I see the responders. CNN and all the news services are covering it. I see local law enforcement showing up promptly and taking risks to save gay lives. The FBI is on it. Political leaders (yes, even Senator Ted Cruz!) are taking it seriously. The President gives a speech in which he clearly cares, clearly understands the context that makes this especially horrifying and triggering to the victims’ community.

We have come a long way. We have a long road ahead.

This week, we mourn our dead.

Stop the Hateful Cycle

Image: Sign with “Violence” and “Hate Speech” with “No” symbols over them. Photo by John S. Quarterman, some rights reserved. Cropped for use here. 

I’ve been listening to the news organizations do their endless “special report” drill on the massacre in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando Florida. I finally turned off the television.

The so-called news had devolved into a cycle of speculation: hate crime? terrorism? domestic? ISIS? wash-rinse-repeat…

Let’s get something straight (pun intended): Hate leads to Terror. The magnitude of this particular act of violence is unprecedented, but there is ample precedent for the hate that inspired it. Someone failed to teach the murderer that violence against anyone is unacceptable. Maybe his parents tried to teach him, but over the years acquaintances listened to his verbal violence against LGBTQ folks and said nothing. Someone heard homophobic words and said nothing. Others encouraged him, all those voices that said “someone ought to do something” or that said that “killing LGBTQ people is God’s will” bear responsibility. That includes ISIS, along with voices closer to home.

I believe in free speech and I also believe in the absolute necessity of challenging hateful speech, whether it is justified with a quote from the Bible, from the Quran, or from someone’s sainted grandma. It doesn’t matter how it is justified: it’s still hate. 

 לֹא-תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל בְּעַמֶּיךָ, לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל-דַּם רֵעֶךָ

Do not go slandering among your people. Do not stand upon the blood of your neighbor. – Leviticus 19:16

This verse has two parts. (1) Don’t slander. (2) Don’t stand on the blood of your neighbor.

These two commandments are side by side because they are related. Hateful speech leads to violence, and when we listen to hateful speech and do not challenge it, we stand in the blood of another human being. We do not remain clean.

(By the way, if anyone is thinking about arguing that “slander isn’t slander if it’s true,” please stop right there. Rechilut, the Hebrew word in question, may also be translated “gossip.” It may be either true or false.)

When we listen passively to anyone (elderly uncles included) talk about what “ought to happen” to a group of people, we stand in the blood of those human beings. This is equally true whether the targeted group is a group we like or a group we don’t like at all.

Let’s resolve to speak up every time we hear hate speech against:

  • LGBTQ people
  • People of color
  • Jews
  • Muslims
  • Christians
  • Palestinians
  • Atheists
  • Mormons
  • Persons with disabilities
  • Fat people
  • Thin people
  • Mentally ill people

… and anyone else.

To do less is to stand in the blood of another.

Addendum: I write this as much for myself as for any reader. I, too, have let hate speech pass when I have written off the speaker as beyond learning. I was wrong to do that. I teach not only with my words but with my silence. Whenever I let hateful speech pass unchallenged, I teach the speaker that I think it is OK. I was wrong to do that.

 

 

 

Vote!

Do you live in California, North Dakota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, or South Dakota?

Have you voted today?

Well, why the heck NOT?

Voting is our opportunity to voice our opinions, not only about candidates for president but for all the downticket issues and potential leaders.

Those state reps, local judges and yes, small town mayors make a big difference in our everyday lives. Bodies like the School Board are where the big politicians get their start.

Some will say, “It doesn’t make a difference” but I assure you, when people vote, it does make a difference. The best evidence I can offer for that is the energy that certain parties and politicians have put into keeping certain groups from voting.

So VOTE!