Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/the-law/page/15/)
At the age of eighteen years, four months, and six days, I was cast into the SHU where I stayed for two and half years, alone, without a window, a television, or a radio. How can I make anyone understand what it’s like to cling desperately to the hope of someday being heard because that’s the only hope left? That’s one reason why the hunger strike going on across California’s prisons matters.
Many progressive clergy have recently spent our entire discretionary accounts on travel to our state capitals. An experiment is occurring in North Carolina to reunite our spiritual souls with our political bodies. Instead of episodic lobbying, on Moral Mondays, clergy visit with their representatives as chaplains. They change the language from the pragmatics of the political to the hope of our God.
Gossip, hearsay, what we Jews call “lashon hara” – bad mouthing – is the weapon of choice against conscientious people if one can’t put them in the crosshairs – or crash them on the road (Michael Hastings). This has been true for Bradley Manning.
In light of Edward Snowden’s recent whistleblowing, Samantha Power’s message in this week’s Senate hearing appeared to be: Concern yourself with the rights and liberties of foreigners living under oppressive regimes, not your own rights and liberties.
We have two policies that are in conflict in the case of Ralph Seliger’s article about George Zimmerman’s killing of Trayvon Martin and resulting acquittal, which we have posted below–our policy to facilitate open debate, and our policy against publishing hate speech, racism, sexism, etc. We have decided to publish it with a response from a member of our editorial team.
You’re driving somewhere, in a perfectly normal state of mind, and suddenly, you see someone following you… after a few blocks, you see flashing lights behind you… police lights… how does it feel? Your heart races, even if you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. When I was around 17 years old I had a beat-up car, and almost every time I crossed the county line from Poor America into Wealthy America , I got pulled over. One day I stood up to the police officer. What’s the difference between me and Trayvon Martin? Beyond my living to be able to tell the story, there are actually a few more.
I’m not sure we’ll ever know who was crying out on the recording when George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin. But I am certain that millions of mothers in this country are crying out for something that our current justice system cannot give: the assurance that their black and brown boys will not be suspect before we bother to learn their name or their story.
President Obama’s Insider Threat Program has turned millions of federal workers into mandated, behavioral profiling specialists, ordering them to report colleagues whose actions raise supposed red flags. Security can no longer be a justification for these programs. Not just because they violate our rights as Americans. But also because they will not work.
Clayton Seymour, a 36-year-old IT specialist from Hilliard, Ohio, recently sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the NSA, curious as to whether any data about him was being collected. What he received in response made his blood boil. Seymour had his FOIA request denied by the NSA, and he isn’t the only one to have recently been denied – dozens of citizens have emailed me to say they’ve received a similar, if not identical, letter. And it’s clear from the exemption the NSA is using that every single American is having their FOIA requests similarly rejected.
This week my heart experienced incredible joy and deep sadness about the Supreme Court decisions. I am so thankful to God for the historic Supreme Court decisions on DOMA and Prop 8. But the Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act felt like a punch in my stomach. Race still matters. And as people of faith, we are going to have to keep testifying to congressional leaders, rising up, and saying “not on our watch.” Human beings, inspired by the still speaking Word of God, need to teach, preach, blog, tweet and testify about the need for a just world. Together, we honor our stories and work to write new ones.