Stop!

"Protesting is when you see something wrong, and you want to stop it," I told my adult English students. "A march is when lots of people walk together in protest."

Born in 1959, I grew into consciousness as the Civil Rights Movement came to national prominence. The Vietnam War protests were the backdrop of my adolescence. By the time I went to college, Reagan was president. We signed petitions to pressure our administration to divest from companies with ties to South African apartheid. No one marched in the streets.

Since then I have used my voice. I wrote letters to the editor, a few of them published. I became politically active, as a donor and volunteer. I made countless calls to hostile strangers to defeat an effort to legalize discrimination in our state. I visited my state legislators to make sure they heard me. But I have never used my feet. I have never marched.

When I first heard of Black Lives Matter, it made sense. "Stand up," I thought. "Tell your story. People will listen." Because that has been my experience. I spoke up, and a mere four years later, my church became more inclusive. I gave a letter to my state senator and later she read it on the senate floor. I was heard. I am white.

Black Lives Matter wasn't heard. The killing continued. So they came to places where people were already gathered. They came to the Mall of America, and it didn't bother me. I hate shopping there. They came to the State Fair. I was annoyed. I love the State Fair.

"They're not doing it right," I said. "Annoying people won't change anything. They need to tell their stories. That's how we defeated the marriage amendment."

Then came Alton, Philando and Dallas. Black Lives Matter walked onto an interstate near me to stop traffic. It didn't go perfectly. Anti-police rage led to injuries. Many people were annoyed.

"They're doing it wrong. They shouldn't be allowed to disrupt so many lives. People need to be places."

I've been teaching American history this summer. It's English class, but we teach the language through a variety of topics. We began with the Native peoples, then European arrival. After studying independence from England, we looked at American expansion. Next came the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. We had just finished comparing Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr., when Philando Castile was killed fifteen miles away. I realized with a jolt that I had taught my students the history of race and violence in this country.

"Now you can understand why this is happening," I said as if that were possible.

But it's not possible. So maybe Black Lives Matter is doing it right. Maybe standing in the middle of an eight-lane highway and refusing to move is the only thing left to do. You may not stop the next bullets being unloaded into a man who is only frightening because he is black. You may not stop the next retaliation against a decent police officer. But at least you are stopping something. Even if it's only traffic.

And maybe it's time for me to use my feet. I won't join them on the highway. That's terrifying. But I might at the state fair. I'll be there anyway.

Safer?

Never!
(Received this in the mail post-Orlando.) 

 It's not uncommon for me to bring current events into my ESL classroom. They're all adults, and it's empowering for them to be able to voice opinions about their new country in their new language.

After Orlando, I wanted to talk with my students about it. But how? Most of them come from religious backgrounds that prohibit homosexuality. Their reaction to the subject tends to be about the same as a seven-year-old boy who hears the word "underpants". There is whispering and giggling.

I decided to approach it from the issue of guns. I asked the basic question that America is facing. Do more guns make America safer?

Many of these students have extensive experience with guns. They have seen chaos and bloodshed on a scale Americans can't imagine. After discussion, they unanimously expressed support for strict gun control. "Only the government needs guns. To protect us." Black Lives Matter would have squirmed to hear the naive trust these new black and brown Americans have in our institutions.

Then someone asked, "Teacher, can't the president do something?"

"Remember when we studied government? All laws have to come from Congress. And Congress won't do anything."

Their trust crumbled, just a little.

The House Democrats tried. They sat. They spoke. They shouted...Nothing.

Our representative, Eric Paulsen, who passes himself off as moderate because he never voices an opinion, voted to do nothing.

So it was ironic that the next week, the NRA sent a membership solicitation warning me that I am under attack. Especially by the "freedom-hating Hollywood elite." These moustache-twirling evildoers are plotting to take my guns. And my children's! How could they? Only the NRA can save me. Putting an NRA member sticker on my car will send tremors of fear through local politicians. Just $25 buys me this super power for one year. Or, if I'm a bargain shopper, I can get three years for $70 or even five years for $100. There are some nifty member gifts, too.

It's the NRA who keeps telling us that more guns = more safety. But we haven't heard much from them this week, when Philando Castile's gun made a police officer nervous enough to kill him.

It's easy to fault the cop for being nervous. It must mean he's racist. Black = bad must be at work in his soul. Like so many before him, he saw black. He killed black.

Dallas reminds us that police officers have a right to be nervous. Police are some of the first to say that the more guns = more safety formula doesn't work for them. It puts their lives at risk.

But this can't continue. 

     More guns

  Nervous cops 

+  Black is bad 

       More death 

"Teacher, can't the president do something?" 

"No." I said. "All laws have to come from Congress. And Congress won't do anything. But you can. When you vote, think about guns." 

Eid mubarak!

YESTERDAY

Family: How was your day at work?
Me: Very quiet.
Family: What do you mean?
Me: It's Eid.
Family: What?
Me: It's Eid. The biggest Muslim holiday of the year. The end of fasting for Ramadan. None of my Muslim students were at school today.

I wonder how long it will take for America to add Eid to our collection of marketable holidays. I'm sure there are already greeting cards. The greeting card companies know what everyone needs to say long before they do. Eid is a big shopping time. New clothes. New shoes. Tons of food. How long before the newspaper ads have pictures of mouthwatering goat stew, enticing shoppers to get the best deal on halal meats in the Twin Cities? Because that's what America does to holidays. We sell them to people. Easter baskets, Black Friday sales, Hanukah and Christmas wrapped up.

Ramadan is harder to wrap because it's the absence of something. Food, water, sleep. For a month, my students dragged themselves to class hungry, thirsty, and sleep deprived. They weren't allowed to eat or drink while the sun was up, so this time it was particularly tough. Ramadan straddled the summer solstice. From a teaching perspective, this isn't ideal. It interferes with learning. By the time my evening students left class, they hadn't put anything into their mouths for over fifteen hours.

Or maybe they had. One of my students was still waiting for a ride when I came out to my car. "Have a great Eid," I said.

"Teacher," she said in a spontaneous confession. "I ate breakfast today." She looked miserable.

"Well, you have to take care of yourself," I said. Completely logical, but completely sinful according to her religion.

Another student came up to me during Ramadan and said, "Teacher, we're praying that you become Muslim!"

I took it as a compliment because if there's one very positive thing about Ramadan, it's that it creates a sense of community. You may be suffering, but you're not doing it alone. Not only does God notice what you're doing, but your fellow fasters do, too. So my student was inviting me into community.

(Which isn't what if feels like with some Christians. With them, I feel like the offer to pray for me is because I've failed to do it myself. I should know better. I was raised in a culture dominated by Christianity and shaped by its judgements.)

All of this Muslim goodwill during Ramadan makes me wonder about the violence we've seen. Orlando, Istanbul, Kabul, Dhaka... The fact that these occurred during the holy month makes it obvious that they weren't motivated by Islam, the religion that makes you feel guilty for eating breakfast when everyone else is hungry.

Eid mubarak, everyone. Blessed Eid.

Independence Day

It's Independence Day. A day to celebrate freedom. Americans live and breathe liberty. Independence permeates our red, white and blue souls.

My students, most not citizens yet, have become infected by it. Last week I put the First Amendment on the board. If you need a refresher, it includes freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, and freedom to petition. I asked them to discuss which was most important to them.

(Bear in mind that a typical conversation with a student might go like this: "Teacher, I no coming tomorrow. My wife she have appointment.")

I was astonished at the level of discourse. One group began to discuss gender roles and the rights of women in their respective countries. Another group talked about freedom of the press and freedom of speech.  A student pointed out that what people do is more important than what they say. A third conversation revolved around elections and term limits. Students wondered if they could be free without the right to vote for their leaders.

While I reveled my students' achievements in their new language, I was mindful that there are many in America who believe that freedom is finite.  If we give immigrants a share in our freedom, they reason, who knows what they'll do? They certainly won't appreciate it. They may even use it against us. America First! Immigrants never!

I have some good news for those people. Freedom is precious to your immigrants. They know what life is like without it. And they ask whatever god they worship to bless America.

Happy Pride!

I teared up a little when the flags went by today, which is strange because I don't normally feel quite so stirred by the stars and stripes. But I was at Twin Cities Pride.

If you've never been to a Pride celebration before, try to imagine "the happiest place on earth" minus the Disney stereotypes. But there is the same irrepressible joy.

When the flags came by at the beginning of the parade, I was proud. Of my country. Of my state and it's embrace of the LGBT community. It was lovely to see our senator, governor, and other elected officials waving at the crowd, not hunched in their offices, writing hate-filled legislation in the name of religion.

When I attend Pride, nobody wants to check my birth certificate. Nobody judges me for the excruciatingly boring clothes I'm wearing amid rainbows and glitter. Nobody stares at my sensible shoes. Instead I'm greeted everywhere with, "Happy Pride!"

This is the America I'm going to remember a week from now when we celebrate our independence. Not the hate in North Carolina and Orlando. But an America full of color and love. An America that welcomes me just as I am. And maybe I'll cry just a little.

Xenophobia

The sun has set in the UK, and I find myself re-evaluating the whole idea of voting. Sure, it sounds good. Give everyone a voice. Let them have their say. Be fair.

But then again we do have some limits. We don't let children vote, for instance. If we did, they would all vote for more candy, lots more TV and later bedtimes. Broccoli and spinach would be against the law, as would doing dishes, doing homework, and doing anything parents say. Above all, there would be no sharing!

Because sharing is really hard. It requires loosening your grip on something you have. Letting someone else hold on to it, too. But that is the basic lesson of childhood, a lesson preschoolers and kindergarteners have drilled into them. That "Mine! Mine! Mine!" is childish. Something you outgrow with maturity.

The Brexit vote was Britain at its most childish. Refusing to share. Grabbing toys away from others. Screaming "Mine!" at the rest of Europe. Those screams can be heard on our shores, too. People who pledge allegiance to he-who-must-not-be-named throw eerily similar tantrums.

So I'm re-thinking this whole voting thing. If we refuse to let children vote, should we also refuse to let people who act like children vote? Maybe the kids who've been to preschool and kindergarten would make better choices.

Farmer's Market

It seems like every time I'm wearing a t-shirt that announces my advocacy for gay rights (I have quite a collection), I run into my Baptist neighbors. They're wonderful people who may very well support gay rights themselves, but we don't discuss it, and I'm left to wonder what they think of me.

Last Saturday, I went to the Farmer's Market. The first of the year. My expectations for produce were low, since it's still early in the growing season, but I headed out to see what could be harvested. I was wearing one of those t-shirts—the gay ones—though I'd thought momentarily about changing, given the possibility that I would run into one of my adult ESL students, who snigger every time the subject of same-sex marriage comes up.

Sure enough, while waiting to cross the street to the market, I stood behind a woman whose t-shirt bore the names of local mega-churches and organizations that had tried so hard to make sure no gay couple would ever wed legally in Minnesota. I know, because I worked hard to help defeat them. Across the street, Jehovah's Witnesses stood on the sidewalk, over-dressed for vegetables. They would have been happy to answer any questions I may have had about my eternal damnation. Inside the market, Somali families carried bags of food that they couldn't touch until sundown because it was Ramadan.

This was one day before the carnage in Orlando. In the aftermath, people who worship guns—for having, not hunting—have claimed once again that only more guns will make us safe. But if all of us who wear our conflicting identities so publicly, backed up our differences with weapons, going to the farmer's market would be as dangerous as going to a movie theater. Or an elementary school. Or a community center. Or a Bible study. Or a nightclub.

#Orlando

"Be careful!!" I texted my son yesterday, June 12, 2016. As if he were a five-year-old about to cross the street. As if my words could somehow keep him safe in an America completely saturated with guns and hatred. I made him text me when he got home. He probably sighed and rolled his eyes.

The men at Pulse were young like my son. Their mothers would be about my age. They would know how little they could do to protect their children from another person's anger. The days of hand holding while they cross the street are long gone.

It has to be up to all of us, then, to protect them. To be sensible about guns. To be tolerant of others. To reject any religious or political justification for hatred. Because no mother should have opened her eyes this morning knowing that she has outlived her child.

Veiled

It was startling. Only the eyes.  I tried not to stare at my new student. I'd seen others like her before, who chose to cover their faces, but never in my English class. She was tall and thin and so timid that I could barely hear her voice through the veil. She was late the first day because she got lost. She seemed a little lost the whole term. 

At the beginning of the next term, a Latina woman and a woman from Ethiopia came in and sat down. I began to try to learn their names the way I always do. Large post-it notes with their first names on them went on the table in front of them, facing me. “So I can see your name. Face. Name. Face. And remember,” I said. My hands moved from the table to their faces, up and down. 

Just before class was supposed to start, a woman in a hijab walked in and sat in the back. Another new student. “And what’s your name? I need to write it on this paper,” I said. 

“Teacher, it’s me.  I’m not a new student.”

I stared at her face. It was true. The eyes were right. The voice was right. But I had never seen her face before. For the entire previous term, she had covered it with a veil. 

The fascinating thing was I had created a face for her. Her eyes were beautiful. Huge and trusting. Her long lashes used to get tangled in the top of the veil. She constantly pulled it down to see. I assumed that the veil was hiding unparalleled beauty, that those who gazed upon her face would be struck dumb by it’s radiance. 

Unveiled, the thing that struck me about her wasn’t her eyes. It was her crooked teeth. She was beautiful, to be sure, but not in the way of goddesses. She was a mere mortal, who—had she grown up in Minnesota—would have spent her adolescence dreading trips to the orthodontist to tighten her braces. 

 

Invasive Species

It's raining, and soon my suburban sidewalks will be covered with worms. They may have been carried there by rising water or crawled there to escape drowning.

When the sun comes out, they will be stranded, unable to find their way the few inches to the grass-covered soil that would save them. They will shrivel and die where they are.

I used to rescue worms after a storm. It made me feel extra-good about myself to pick up their squishy, squiggling bodies and put them back onto the nearest lawn. Then my niece, an ecologist, explained that they were an invasive species, and didn't deserve my kindness. Uninvited, they had become ubiquitous. Now I step over them.

When the sun comes out, the trees in my backyard will grow a little bit, stretch their roots and branches wider. They will consider forming seeds to reproduce themselves.

We bought this house partly because of the "woods" in the backyard that screen us from our neighbors. It took several years for me to realize that it was buckthorn, also an invasive species, that granted our privacy. I began tearing the young ones from the ground and bought a weed wrench for the bigger ones. The huge ones, resembling trees, had to be left for my husband and his chain saw. But it was a battle we couldn't win.  Now I ignore them.

I have read the news every day for decades. As Chinese earthquakes and Indonesian tsunamis swept the world, I used to comfort myself with the idea that distance equals difference. Because those people were from another place, they must be affected by tragedy differently than I would be.

Then I began to work with immigrants, and I had to face the truth. Distance is meaningless. There is no difference. They are not an invasive species. We uproot them or leave them to struggle at our peril, because they are us.