The Day After They Called the Election: A Subdued Jubilation

 

"What Makes America Great." Artist: Michael D'Antuono

 

On Saturday, November 7, 2020, they called the win for Biden-Harris.

A quiet relief filled me, followed by the sobering certainty that most Americans - no, wait - followed by the sobering certainty that a majority of white Americans will fall back into a comfortable somnolence, relieved that things will return to the old normal.

In the old normal, many of us white Americans walked in the special dream state that families of alcoholics or emotional and verbal abusers live in. Where a frothy fog of amnesia settles in, even just a day after our abusers vomit their vitriol on us. Where we want (need!) to dismiss, discount, and deny how wounded all of us are - the targets, the abusers themselves, the bystanders, and the upstanders, so that we can avoid the pain of change from the known to the unknown, in addition to the inevitable, virulent backlash from our abusers (or their proxies).

With Trump dethroned, COVID will still be with us, to be sure, but all the rest of the stressors - Black Lives Matter, children in cages, Karens and Kens, the Wall, Defund the Police, protests (riots!), imprisoned refugees, all those things that make us feel uncomfortable, they will submerge into a dormant state, like a chicken pox virus, the itchiness gone, the red spots faded, thus ignorable. Won't they?

Besides, didn't we settle on Biden because he represented a comforting familiarity? Didn't we approve his selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate?! We are pro-woman! We are anti-racist! We did our duty by going to the polls or mailing our ballots and voting Biden in, and now we can relax, right? 

We need the answer to be yes because it is so hard to stay awake, and so easy to follow old scripts. We're mentally and emotionally exhausted after 1500+ days of unrelenting emotional and verbal violence rained upon us by the garden-variety abuser at the White House.

We need the answer to be yes because change - systemic change - that raises the water level so that all of our boats can rise - demands discomfort, uncertainty, fear of losing the security of our accustomed spot at the table, having to listen to voices we didn't hear before, of having to learn new rules, and of making mistakes while learning new rules.

It's a truism that most of us don't change until our backs are against the wall and the wall is on fire. 

Our wall is on fire. To go back to sleep is to miss our appointment with history to change the future. 

 

Tucson, AZ: Casa Alitas: "My Name is Elenita"

I was cleaning out a room at Casa Alitas. A family had passed a night or two there, and had since departed to a city somewhere in the United States, into the arms and home of a sponsor, a temporary-permanent place. Safe, presumably. A place to take some deep breaths, maybe get the kids into school.


Among the used bedding, the towels, an errant toothbrush, I saw atop the mattress a notepad.

On the cover, in a blend of letter styles: "Mi nombre es Elenita."

My name is Elenita.



I thought immediately of Hushpuppy, the valiant wee girl who lived in the drowning Louisiana community called The Bathtub, in the movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Hushpuppy said:

I see that I'm a little piece of a big, big universe. .... In a million years, when kids go to school, they gonna know, once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her Daddy in The Bathtub.

I smoothed the palm of my hand across Elenita's claim for her seat in the universe.

I thought, this little girl doesn't know it - though maybe she will one day - but she is a little piece of a big, big human wave of other little girls, and of boys, women, and men who are taking part in a natural process, eons old, to lay claim to their places on the planet, to survive and thrive as we all wish to survive and thrive.

Once there was Elenita, who passed through Tucson, Arizona, on her way to her future.

Word of the Year 2019: Action: A Refugee Shelter

Casa Alitas in the old monastery. Tucson, Arizona. July 2019.

Casa Alitas is a shelter for refugees in Tucson. It's a beehive of hope administered by Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, overseen by a handful of paid staff, but kept buzzing by a swarm of volunteer worker bees.

When I hit Tucson in the spring, Casa Alitas was in an old monastery on Campbell Street.

Casa Alitas in the old monastery. Tucson, Arizona. August 2019.

Orientation


At the volunteer orientation I attended in early June, I heard these statements from the presenters (some paraphrased by me) about the women, men, and children who arrive at Casa Alitas. Assume that any factual errors are mine, due to misunderstanding on my part, and not the presenters' errors.

• The City of Tucson opened two shelters for a few days, and stopped the sending of refugees to Casa Alitas, but after about three days, realized it was out of its depth. 
• Border Patrol (BP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) used to give Casa Alitas advance notice of numbers and a list of names of incoming refugees, but sometimes now we might only get 15 minutes advance notice of incoming guests and no idea of how many people to expect. 
• BP/ICE make a LOT of mistakes on the paperwork they give to the refugees they process. Sometimes the year is wrong, for example.
• We didn't used to need security guards at the shelter, but anti-immigration activists have entered the monastery campus for intimidation purposes.
• [At the time of this early-June orientation] the shelter transfers out 50-60 refugees per day toward their destinations within the US.

"[Upon arrival], we remove the Border Patrol (BP)/Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bracelets because they are not numbers anymore; they are a person."

"We reassure them they are in the United States. Often they have been moved from one place to another by BP/ICE, without being told where they are going, so they don't know if they were taken back to Mexico or where they are."

"[Upon arrival] we give them chicken soup, because often they have had little to eat for a long time. They will get sick if we give them flour (which they are unaccustomed to) or if we give them too much to eat too soon."

"Some adults enter the US for asylum not only with their children, but nieces or nephews whose parents were killed. Often they don't have the 'right' documentation to prove their relationships. So the nieces or nephews are separated from their guardians and taken to other locations."




The overarching message I received from orientation was this: The refugees are our guests and we shall treat them as such.

Casa Alitas in the old monastery. Tucson, Arizona. July 2019.

Volunteers come from around the US

One day when I reported for a volunteer shift, I met a group of women and men who'd come down to Tucson from Colorado Springs for the sole purpose of volunteering at Casa Alitas for a week. All day, every day, they volunteered.

I also met a registered nurse from New York. She and her husband were semi-full-time RVers who, while they lingered in Tucson, volunteered at the shelter a few months earlier. They eventually returned to their New York home base, but she couldn't stop thinking about Casa Alitas. So she came back alone, this time making her temporary home in a room at the monastery. 


A herculean operation

Some days, more than a hundred refugees arrived at the shelter. 

I so admire the coordinators who somehow make it all work. And the volunteers who donate goods and time, who cook and who serve meals, and who sort clothes, and who help guests find the clothes and shoes in the right sizes, and who provide medical care, and who drive people to the bus station, and who offer a safe place for guests to fall asleep with one's family. And who honor their dignity.


The monastery closes and a new shelter home opens

At the end of August, Casa Alitas moved to a county-owned facility. More on this in another post.

By the end of its tenure in the old monastery, the shelter's security had to be tightened almost to a lock-down mode because of the threatening presence of anti-immigration activists.

Tucson, AZ: Samaritans Introduction

Border Patrol on watch in desert near El Paso, Texas. December 2016.

"[Our mission is to] hold our government accountable for policies that kill people."

Samaritans training

Every month, the Samaritans present training related to human migration from south to north.


The training occurs at the lovely Southside Presbyterian Church, which was the locale for the Melanie DeMore event sponsored by the Tucson Threshold Choir.

At the Samaritan training, a series of people speak about the Samaritans' work and its context within the history of borderland and migration issues.

Speakers included

1.     Margo Cowan, JD

• Public defense attorney for Pima County, Arizona (since 2004)
• Co-founder, No More Deaths
• General Counsel, Tohono O'odham Nation (1993-2003) 

2.    Guadalupe Castillo, Founding faculty emeritus, Pima County Community College

• 2001 YWCA Lifetime Achievement Award 
• Why We Need Mexican-American Studies: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (2013)

3.   Dorothy Chao, RN

• Volunteer with Samaritans, Kino Border Initiative, and No More Deaths (Nogales comedor)

4.   Ed McCullough, professor emeritus, University of Arizona

• Mapping migrant trails to save lives

Near Antelope Wells, New Mexico. US-MX border. March 2013.

Some notes I took

Note: Any errors that may exist below are mine and not the mistakes of the presenters

Clamping down

• In the late 1990s is when the border clamped down. 
• The government started to prosecute people who gave rides across the border, when in the past, that had been a common practice, especially on and near the Tohono O'odham Nation: A Mexican national along the border might need a ride into Arizona, and when they finished conducting their business, they'd get a ride back home in Mexico. 
• It was during this time that people began to die because they had to walk through the desert.

Near Antelope Wells, New Mexico. US-MX border. March 2013.

In response to the rising death toll, humanitarian groups came to life along the border

• Humane Borders (founded 2000)
• Samaritans (founded 2002)
• No More Deaths (founded 2004)
• Colibri Center for Human Rights (founded 2013)

The dynamic of ensured group compliance

One of the speakers said (and I'm paraphrasing): "You might wonder why a group of people, when they outnumber the Border Patrol agents who've detained them, don't resist or run away. This is because the Border Patrol employs techniques to ensure group compliance."

From the document, Culture of Cruelty: Abuse and Impunity in Short-Term U.S. Border Patrol Custody, published in 2011 by No More Deaths, based on hundreds of interviews with formerly detained migrants: 

Verbal abuse was particularly common with 1,699 incidents being reported. It demeans and intimidates detainees and may compound  feelings  of  confusion,  helplessness  and  terror  for those in custody. Verbal abuse includes racial and sexist epithets, in addition to threats of sexual violence, used to subjugate and degrade detainees. Furthermore, verbal abuse may include violent threats made credible by public examples of physical abuse and assault. Verbal abuse appears to aid in creating an environment of intimidation, fear and compliance among detainees. Typical forms of verbal abuse included:
• Derogatory racial, ethnic, and sexual epithets
• Profanity
• Yelling  and  screaming  for  no  apparent  reason,  both  in  the field and in processing centers

[I added the highlighted emphasis.]

An example of a public assault by a BP agent in front of a group: Throwing someone into cactus.


When encountering people on the move

1. No, we cannot "aid and abet" with transport "in furtherance of illegal presence." 
2. No, we don't let someone use our phone, but we can get the number of the person's family so we can call the family when we return home, assuring them that we saw their family member alive
3. Yes, we can share water and food with people on the move. 

But what if we encounter someone who is very sick or injured?

• Let the person know where they are
• Give them the best information we have re: likelihood of making it to their destination in their condition so they can make an informed decision about our calling for medical rescue

Border Patrol has a permanent presence in every ER in Arizona. 

Some historical context that affect the borderlands

"American exceptionalism has replaced 'manifest destiny'"

Guadalupe Castillo

American exceptionalism is one or a combination of three ideas:

1. American history is substantively different from other countries' histories;
2. America's mission is to transform the world; and
3. America's history and mission makes it superior over other nations. 

Based on my limited research into this, it appears that our so-called exceptionalism presumes a starter yeast of White Protestant Christian and White Western European culture.

Ms. Castillo proposed that the strictures against migration are not just about color, but about class. "The borders are open if you are the 1% or the middle class."

History.com offers a succinct definition of manifest destiny: "... the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent."

Despite the bleakness of some of Ms. Castillo's history narrative, she ended with a powerful thought:

"These people who are in movement are the ones who are going to change the world."

Notice the absence of the word "the" before "movement." In other words, she refers to the people who are part of today's migration, not to an organized activist movement.


Counting deaths

The Border Patrol only counts the remains of those it finds, which is only about half the number that Pima County has had in its morgue.

The Border Patrol's accounting method reminds me of the controversy over the Vietnam War body counts.

Word of the Year 2019: Action: Lipstick and Salvation

Adelita comics, Museum of the Revolution, Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. February 2017.

Curious juxtapositions.

A security contingent for President Bush the Younger breaks a homemade, Pray for Peace, sign that my friend, Kate, brought to a protest.

Kate and presidential security at protest in Jefferson City, Missouri. Photo credit: Jenna Isaacson. April 2006.

A devilish dilemma between celestial salvation and the earthly decadence of pie, in tiny Rodeo, New Mexico.

Salvation or decadent pie? Rodeo, New Mexico. March 2013.

The promise of cookies to munch while talking of oppression and privilege at UTEP in El Paso.

Brown bag lunch for privilege and oppression series, UTEP. El Paso, March 2017.

In today's post, it's about action and lipstick. 


There is a little 12-step treatise that guides the reader how to manage a day. In one section, it goes like this:

Just for today: I will be agreeable. I will look as well as I  can, dress becomingly, keep  my voice low, be courteous, ...

Which takes me to good counsel from my mother many years ago about the value of making one's bed every day and cleaning off the kitchen counters. "These are small and easy tasks," she said, "but they make a tremendous impact" on how a room looks and how you feel.

There are so many unmanageable events, conditions, and people around us. I can give myself a little quality-of-life order in a chaotic world by making my bed, wiping down a kitchen counter, wearing clothes that I feel pretty in ... and putting on lipstick.

It's not only about me.

In one of my past lives, I was a cog in a government program designed to help low-income dads find sustainable work so they could better support their kids financially.** At one program design meeting, a colleague proposed that we refer to ourselves and our dad-clients by our first names so the men would "feel more comfortable." It rankled me then; it rankles me now. It bespoke a fundamental disrespect for the men, unintentional on its surface, but deep down, a presumption that there was a lack of honorifics in the men's personal communities.

This might seem to veer away from a conversation about lipstick and salvation, but for me, there's a connection. Because, sure, when I apply lipstick, it is about me, and my desire to "look as well as I can, to dress becomingly, ...." But when I apply lipstick on my way out the door to support, or protest, or walk in alliance with someone, it is also me giving that person or group the same kind of respect that I give to a companion if we were to go to a fine restaurant or a party or out dancing.

(A man once lamented to me how his mother puts lipstick on for the arrival of his brother, but never for him, which, in his mind, proves that their mother values his brother more than him.)

So I had to smile a few weeks ago when I did my first water run with Humane Borders. Our group of four bounced and bumped on a rutted gravel-then-dirt road in a big ol' truck to places only visited with any frequency by Harris hawks and jack rabbits. At one of the water barrel stations, we took a snack break, after which one of my fellow volunteers shared regretfully, "Oh, I left my lipstick at home, and now that I've had a bite to eat, I can't re-apply any." I laughed appreciatively. Yes! I knew exactly the disappointment!

A week later, I answered an urgent evening call for volunteers to welcome the arrival of 30 new refugee guests at the Benedictine Monastery-cum-refugee shelter. As I approached the main door, another volunteer met me. She informed me that the guests had been successfully absorbed into the shelter, so neither of us were needed, adding, "And here I'd put on my lipstick and came over as soon as I could!"

And I laughed, and exclaimed: "Me, too!"

I'm no Adelita with stiletto heels and cinched waist, but lipstick, oh yes. Bring it to the revolution.

I'm pretty sure she's wearing lipstick. La Batalla Por Juarez, Carlos Flores, Chamizal National Monument exhibit, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

** Tee hee hee. "Sustainable work." That's how things began, but they soon segued into funneling folks into low-paying, low-to-no-benefit jobs in chicken and turkey processing plants.

Word of the Year 2019: Action: Escaping Despair

Benson Sculpture Garden. Loveland, Colorado. May 2016.

It seems unreasonable to confess the despair that pulls me out to the deep water sometimes, like a riptide; hard to escape, easy to drown in.

Benson Sculpture Garden. Loveland, Colorado. May 2016.

After all, I have sufficient food, clothing, and shelter, income, and a general expectation of predictability in what will happen in my life tomorrow and the day after, inshallah. I am healthy. 

"Long Walk," by Shonto Begayl. Bosque Redondo Memorial, New Mexico. September 2013.

Fortunately, the despair hits only sporadically.

"Long Walk," by C Ortiz. Bosque Redondo Memorial, New Mexico. September 2013.

What is almost a constant, though, is this new-to-me chronic anxiety that pulses as it sips at my thought life, a surreptitious leech.

Child of slavery, by Woodrow Nash. Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.

Have I grown more sensitive to caffeine? Not eating enough kale? Eating too much wheat? A part of the natural aging process? Maybe I'm dehydrated? Am I yoga-deficient? Delayed reaction to vaccines of my childhood?

No. I know from my research into and delivery of burnout and stress management seminars that we, as humans, tend to deny, discount, and dismiss the contributing factors, the extent, and the effects that prolonged stress has on our mental, emotional, and physical health.

"Coming Home," by Rod Moorehead. Slavery Museum, Whitney Plantation, Louisiana. March 2015.

There are those among us in the United States - some of our own family members, neighbors, colleagues, faith leaders - who want to justify crimes against humanity, both domestic and international. These folks want to blame the women, men, and children who seek to rescue themselves from danger, who want to claim their unalienable rights to liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness.

Dia de los Muertos, Mesilla, Las Cruces, New Mexico. November 2012.

The Americans who stand at the bridge and block escape or who actively hunt down children, men, and children to imprison or expel them, or who criminalize people who are using their good sense and courage to save themselves and their children from untenable conditions .... these Americans think their actions affect only those they block, grab, detain, or expel.

The Wall, Columbus, NM-Puerto Palomas, MX. April 2013.

But these actions by our fellow Americans are toxic clouds that rain poison upon all life, including themselves, their mates, their children.

These actions change us, whether we are perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, or upstanders.

So. Sometimes I get pulled into despair.

Action is necessary to escape despair and to alleviate chronic anxiety

The riptide model


I borrow from this fine video on riptides, which offers a summary about surviving a rip current:

1. Stay calm. 
2. Conserve energy. "If you attempt to fight the current, you will just expend all your energy and strength. Which will lead to tragic consequences."
3. Just relax and go with the flow. (Note: In the context of these dark days, I translate this as it being my role to walk alongside those who suffer - not to "save" or "solve," but to take actions as an ally to support others' self-determination.) 
4. Keep afloat, weigh your options, and don't exhaust yourself.

"The 187," by Carlos Flores, Chamizal National Monument, El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

Remember my place

It is an action of mindset to honor others' self-determination and self-rescue. It fixes my role.

In El Paso, I learned from a group of Catholic sisters that:

As sisters (they said):

• It is our job to go where no one else wants to go and do what no one else wants to do.
• We work on the margins.
• We try to live as though there is no border. Those of us who can cross, should cross and behave as if there is no border.
• We need to tell the stories to those people in the country who don't have the privilege to live here, on the border.
• It's not important to [the mothers at the Santo Niño Project] that we solve a problem; it's important that we accompany them. 

Recently, I received this open letter from the IFCLA in St. Louis. It came on a day of despair. Excerpts from the text:

I know that many of you are worried, scared, angry, confused, and eager to take action in light of all of the news and information circulating regarding threats of increased immigration enforcement. .....

It is important that we actively work together against the fear and hatred that are already traumatizing our communities. ....We must not contribute to fear, panic, chaos, or trauma. We must remember that immigrants and their families are the ones who should make decisions for their own lives. Whatever those decisions may be, as allies, accomplices and people of faith and good will, we are called to honor their integrity and liberty in ways that are supportive, respectful, and selfless. This is how we honor the dignity of all, especially in times where our own drive to be saviors, fixers, helpers and healers can misshape our good intentions into harmful impacts.

In the St. Louis region during the last several decades, immigration enforcement has not stopped, waned, or ceased to impact immigrants and their families, loved ones, colleagues and friends on a daily basis. Raids are not new. Targeting immigrant families is not new. Threatening massive deportations is not new. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is present in St. Louis, in Missouri and in Illinois. Local police regularly collaborate with and facilitate immigration enforcement in our region every single day. The latest flurry of public statements, news articles and social media turmoil regarding the Administration’s call for mass deportations in the coming days may be indicative of a new wave of enforcement operations in select cities, but this is a continuation of everything we have been fighting against for decades .....

..... Please be prepared to show up, support, interrupt, and disrupt whatever may happen. .... make sure you are spreading accurate information about your rights and the rights of immigrants. Trust your relationships, trust your colleagues, and trust the individuals and organizations that are in deep relationships with immigrant communities in St. Louis. Trust that if there is a need and an opportunity for allies and accomplices to show up, you will be informed and instructed, and that call will be rooted in the needs and demands of our immigrant neighbors.

As we consistently have done for years, we still urge you to speak out against ICE, against all immigration enforcement, and all actions that violate our shared values. Please call your elected officials at all levels of government to denounce the targeting of immigrants and their families. Please call your members of Congress (210-702-3059) and demand they cut all funding from the Deportation Force. Please call the national office of ICE (888-907-6635) and denounce the Administration’s statements, any operation that would destroy families and individual lives in our communities. .....

Please do not spread fear. Please do not sensationalize tactics that are always present in our communities - regardless of when the news, the President, or other leaders speak of it directly. Stay the course, my friends. Our community needs our calm, non-anxious presence now and always. Our community needs you to commit to changing the systems every single day, not just at the moment of chaos.....

I read a quote from Scott Warren, in which he referred to "self-rescue." That the women, men, and children trekking into the United States are rescuing themselves from insupportable conditions at home. The moment I read this, it solidified further what the sisters and IFCLA say.

It confers full respect and dignity in the individuals and families making the best decisions they can based on the information and the resources they have on hand.

My bouts of despair and worry do nothing to serve others. To paraphrase a quote I hear via 12-step meetings:

"It's easier to act myself into new ways of thinking than to think myself into new ways of acting." 

Word of the Year 2019: Action: Penpal

The mail goes on. Roots n Blues in Columbia, Missouri. September 2007.

Many years ago, while attending university, I met an Ethiopian post-graduate student named Taye Woldesemayat. He was a TA and a student in the school's political science department, which is where I did my work-study job.

Taye made a big impact on me by way of a story he told while we shared a pizza one day:

In Ethiopia, as land was handed down to sons by their fathers, their descendants - subsistence farmers - owned smaller and smaller pieces of land as it was divvied up with their brothers. The plots of land were becoming too small to support cattle, the traditional livestock of choice. Some smart people, perhaps with USAID, had a great idea: Encourage the subsistence farmers to switch from cows to goats. The goats provide meat and milk like cows, but take up less space and consume fewer resources.

Upon hearing this, I said, "Hey, that is a great idea. Creative!"

And Taye said, "No, it's forcing the farmers to do all the changing. The oligarchy doesn't have to change anything. They keep their wealth and vast properties. What needs to happen is land reform."

Years after we both left the university, I learned that Taye had been imprisoned by the Ethiopian government. The government accused and convicted Taye of treason, which was just one of the usual covers that governments use to quash contrary citizens.

I began to write Taye monthly letters. My goals were to:

• Offer a friendly voice to someone in an unfriendly situation;
• Let Taye know that another person on the outside was thinking of him; and
• Put the jailers on notice that Taye had another ally on the outside. 

Penpals for people imprisoned in US detention centers
(including actual prisons with actual convicted felons, which immigrant detainees are not)


There are a number of organizations that sponsor letter-writing to detainees. The group that sponsored my penpal training yesterday is AVID in the Chihuahuan Desert. AVID is an affiliate of Freedom for Immigrants.

A primary goal of correspondence with detainees is to offset the isolation they feel due to the forced separation from their loved ones, their homes, jobs, communities, and from the routine of their lives outside the detention camps.

I can be a penpal regardless where I live, so this will be an ideal action for me to participate in.

In fact, before I left the training, AVID gave me a list of detained folks who'd expressed the desire for correspondents. I selected an individual who speaks English. He is from East Africa.

A small act for the cost of a little time, a stamp, some paper and printer's ink. But an act, nevertheless, and one which might shine a little light on both the sender and the recipient.

Word of the Year 2019: Action: Legal Observers

At immigrant family-separation protest in Troy, Missouri. June 2018.

Yesterday I attended ACLU Texas' training for volunteer legal observers.

The ACLU's role definition of a volunteer legal observer:

Legal observers act as legal witnesses to political demonstrations and document the events of public protests, including any incidents of police misconduct or violations of the rights of protesters. Legal observers are committed to defending free speech in a way that is as objective as possible so that their documentation can be used as evidence if police misconduct or obstructions to constitutionally protected free speech are challenged in court.

Police with crowds awaiting the arrival of the Georgian Orthodox Patriarch. Rustavi, Caucasus Georgia. August 2011.

The presence of ACLU legal observers at a public gathering:

1. Carries the political and legal gravitas of an organization with high name recognition and a history of successful and very public litigious actions.
2. Alerts law enforcement that eyes are on them, encouraging appropriate behavior.
3. Reassures participants that there are witnesses present who are documenting actions.
4. Demonstrates a "best practice" in a system that espouses civil rights - keeping honest people honest.

The presence of ACLU legal observers bolsters the voices of law enforcement officers on the ground who strive to "protect and serve" everyone in a public gathering - but whose voices might be drowned out by peers who abuse their law-enforcement authority.

My friend, Kate, the rabble rouser, having her sign broken apart by law enforcement prior to visit by President Bush, presumably because of the wooden sign bolster. Credit: Columbia Missouri Tribune.

The three main tasks of an observer:

• Monitor
• Record
• Report

Until I went to the ACLU training, I didn't know about the National Lawyers Guild. Since its founding in 1937, the NLG has existed to "put human rights above property rights."

NLG launched its legal observer program in 1968! NLG's legal observer program is one component of its larger Mass Defense Program, which "is a network of lawyers, legal workers and law students providing legal support for political activists, protesters and movements for social change."


Here is a link to the 2003 version of NLG's Legal Observer Manual.

Police presence at protest in Tlaxcala, Mexico. February 2009.

Although I'm leaving the El Paso area shortly, I'll try to hook up with an ACLU legal observers group at my new home ground. To take action.

Word of the Year 2019: Action

Mural about the Mine-Mill Strike by the Local 890 and the 209. Bayard, New Mexico

2018 was my first venture into a "having a word of the year" as a guide for living. That word was courage.


For 2019 the word is action. 

A subset of words underneath action includes:

• Effectiveness
• Focus
• Discipline
• Risk 
• Responsibility
• Accountability
• Mission

... and courage.


But I can also borrow from the 12-step world and use this: 

• Awareness
• Acceptance
• Action

 ... and courage.


Why "action" this year? 

I've spent a lot of years learning shit, finding and collating pages of that Rule Book to Life that most of us are born with, but some of us - like me - are not.

I've found the learning sometimes on a positive path, sometimes on a terribly painful path, sometimes on a scary-good path, sometimes on a scary-bad path. At a certain point, it's time to integrate one's learning and apply it with intention. The year 2019 seems to be that time.

Last year, I came across a factoid - true or mythical, dunno - that proposed:

In social media, we humans fall into a false sense of having Done Something when we  like or share or follow a page or meme that allies us with or against a cause. When we relax into the belief of having Done Something, we tend not to take any follow-up, real-life action that involves time, money, or putting one's ass out there on a street, in a building, on a border, on the air, in a newspaper. All too often, the societal result is like the adage: The dogs bark, but the caravan keeps on moving.

This idea nettles me.

In recent years, I witnessed women, men, girls, and boys who stepped out from the safety of the crowd to assert plainly - in words and deeds - that our society must act on the just beliefs it espouses. I wish to emulate them.