Never Again is not Reserved Only For The Next Gas Chambers

While I was on vacation Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez referred to the detention centers on the US border as concentration camps and invoked the term Never Again.  Apparently those on the right lost their minds.  Saying she is trivializing the Shoah (Holocaust) by equating the detention centers at the border with the Nazi atrocities somehow is an insult to those who suffered in the camps.  

I personally find this argument ridiculous, in part because so many survivors have some out and said that what they see happening at the border has echoes of Germany in the 193os,  But also as a Jewish educator, who for years has taught young Jewish people that they have a special responsibility to call out injustice against others because of the Shoah.  While I understand the unique dimensions of the events of Nazi Germany and why comparisons can be dangerous and dismissive, I think drawing parallels is not out of the question.  Since the Congresswoman's statements have been made we have heard of children, living in their own filth, being care for by other children and struggling to have basic needs met.  We have also seen a government lawyer argue in court that beds, soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes were not necessary to maintain safe and sanitary conditions as required by law.  Think about this, a government official made a legal argument that children held in custody by the United States of America (for an act that isn't illegal in many cases) are not worthy of a bed, soap, blankets and toothbrushes because it isn't necessary.  Surprisingly doing that to your own children would get you a visit from child services.  

Ocasio-Cortez used the phrase concentration camps because by definition that is what they are.  Centers designed to house a particular group of people.  They have also chosen to separate families, forcing children to be in cages, apart from their parents.  People hired to watch over these individuals have be accused of sexual assault and people have died.  Meanwhile and effort is taking place to blame the very victims of this government policy and for some reason the democrats as the President and Vice-President both were in interviews today lying about the situation.  They are reaching their supporters, as one said,  "Quit trying to make us feel teary-eyed for the children. Yes, I love children a great deal, but to me, it's up to the parents to do things rightfully and legally"  I will remind everyone that many in these detention centers are seeking asylum which is not illegal. 

But the use of the phrase Never Again has caused some people to really go off the deep end.  Representative Steven King for Iowa, who has lost committee seats because he is an unapologetic White Supremacist attacked Rep. Ocasio-Cortez saying she should go visit the camps like he did.  On that trip King also took an interview with Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.  So there is that.  But let's think about what Never Again means.  The phrase was never intended to be only about Jews.  Never Again is a shofar call to stand up to injustice everywhere.  The Torah teaches us Tzedeck Tzedeck Tirdof.  Justice you shall pursue.  The repetition of word justice clue that this is not a sit back and wait for justice to happen, but to actively go out and make it happen.  Calling out injustice is a charge to all Jews (and I think to all humans) and so when we say Never Again, we mean no one should have to live what the Jews went through.  We can only do that when we call it out long before gas chambers are built or systematic killing is taking place.

The Shoah did not start with gas chambers, it started with the dehumanizing of groups of people.  People with disabilities being referred to as "Life unworthy of life" led some to allow themselves or family members to die for the great good of the country.  Once you can dehumanize a person it is easier to do it with others.  Soon we find that people who have been programmed this way will not only allow but cheer the deaths of others.  This is what happens in genocide.  By the time people become comfortable with the arrests, the beatings or the killing of others it is too late to stop it.  But early on, when people are still uncertain, calling it out can stop a direction that could lead to the same kinds of horrors that we saw in Germany in the 20th century.  I will remind people that even as the events were happening and it became known, there were many who couldn't believe it, not in a modern country like Germany.  That disbelief helps bolster the perpetrators.   When we say Never Again, we must use the strongest language to condemn acts that are dehumanizing people, just like what is happening on the border.  Representative Ocasio-Cortez was doing just that, calling it as she saw it.  In her mind and the minds of many the US is building concentration camps on the border, treating those held there in horrible ways and doing it as a punishment for seeking a better life in our country.  In part because the current leadership doesn't want them here.  Never again means we must act to stop this.  Not because we believe that it will lead to same kinds of murder as was done by the Nazis, but because we should never allow a system to get to the point where that is even possible.  Even if we believe as that one Trump supporter said that the parents acted illegally and that is true for everyone who the government is holding.  A good measure of the morality of a country is how it treats its prisoners.  By that standard we are failing as we are marching closer and closer to dehumanizing those crossing our southern border.  We can all look back to history and see at no time did that kind of dehumanizing end well, for victims and perpetrators alike.  Never again demands we act now before it goes to far and as a Jew, an American and a human being I have no problem with AOC's language and the phoney outrage on the right is sickening. 

On The First Part of the Journey

This trip has been a great experience and fun for both Dianne and  me.   I am glad Dianne got to see Paris, a place she has wanted to visit for a while.  But the trip did not start out as smoothly as I would have liked.  Best laid plans.  So as we were getting on the plane from Indy I got an email apologizing that the transfer I had booked from the airport had been cancelled.  Seriously we were group two and they had just called Group 1.  So I thought we would simply Uber when we get there.  Apparently they weren't allowing Uber to get to Charles Du Galle airport.  So we decided to taxi.  (Side note the direct flight from Indy to Paris is great and the I know since we left there was a problem on one flight, but ours was perfect.)  So we got on the taxi line.  Inefficient but okay we got a taxi.  Our driver spoke no English, no big deal, but his French was heavily accented so that was a problem.  Anyway he had GPS and I had the address.  If only he would use his GPS and follow it.  He kept turning down alleys ignoring the explicit directions from the TomTom.  Now I do this sometimes but only when I know where I am going.  In his case, he had no clue.  At one point I knew it was right around the corner and I tried to tell him.  He just kept repeating that it is "Tres difficile".  We got there.  Good.  We could now start our day.  We got on the subway but we soon learned transportation would continue to haunt us.  The station to change trains was being renovated.  Apparently Google doesn't know all.  So we got off the train about a mile or so from where we wanted to because I couldn't, on the fly, figure out the right connection until it was too late.  It was a nice walk though, we saw the facade of Notre Dame and the destruction from the fire.  We walked along the Seine and made it to the Louvre where we eventually caught up with the bus that we had tickets for to ride to all the sights and figure out what to do with our days.  We were beat so a quick meal and our first taste of wine in France and then off to bed.  Sleep came easily.  Since then everything seems like it was go go go.  We toured the Louvre.  Getting in early allowed us to quickly see the popular items with little crowds.  Mona Lisa and Venus De Milo were two amazing moments.  However the Louvre has so much to offer.  We have since been to the Catacombs, The Rodin Museum, The Chocolate Museum...where we had real Aztec style hot chocolate, Normandy on a 14 hour journey which was fun, tiring and thought provoking.   We saw the sights you would think, walking and shopping along the Champs Elysee and the Arch de Triumph.   Lots of rain thought dampened the days until today.  The neighborhood of the Catacombs were we were today was so alive with cafes, food markets and just a variety of people.  We ate a late lunch at one cafe and watched the world go by as people of all walks of life and races, creeds and nationalities moved down the street.  At times we were hearing 5 or 6 different languages.  After shopping for some fruit we stumbled upon a Scotch tasting the no one was particularly interested in so we spoke with the woman running it for a while and I tasted an Islay Scotch I have never had.  Caol Ila.  Wow.  Her dream was more French people would embrace Scotch. 

Things I have noticed though:
1.  I can read and understand a lot of French, but can't produce it easily anymore.  In fact I translated the name of a cafe earlier today and right this minute I can't tell you the name in French but I can in English. 
2.  Tipping is not common here.  We truly surprised someone when we gave them a nice tip that they deserved. 
3.  Motorcycles and scooters are everywhere and ridden by everyone.  I saw an elderly (older looking than I am) nun on a motorcycle. 
4.  A lot of bathrooms are gender neutral and some become them even when not marked so.  While there is always a form of privacy it is weird to wash my hands next to a woman who is a stranger putting on make up in a public bathroom.  At a ritzy shopping mall. 
5.  The reputation of the rude French not speaking English is way overblown.  In fact often my stumbling French has been met with a smile and nice English.  However, at the cheese shop, the non-English speaking owner, while very nice, was frustrated by our requests.  He wasn't rude, just wished we had a better idea of what we wanted. 
6.  The Metro is easy, even when crowded, and there are people to help you during rush hour. 

Overall the trip so far has been glorious.  We are about to go out to a light dinner and more wine, then bed.  An early train to London where I hope I have better language skills :) 

I feel blessed for being in this great city.  

Be Careful Making a Comparison to the Shoah

So today I heard that Rush Limbaugh once again has equated the medical practice of abortion is like the Shoah (Holocaust).  Some how the obtuse minds on the right link the two all the time.  So let's take a look at the difference. 

1.  Abortion is a personal CHOICE that woman should have when it comes to their decision to carry a fetus to term. 

2. The Shoah was the systematic killing of people simply because of who they were that the government decided were unworthy of life. 

If you can't see the difference you are willfully ignorant or mind-numbingly dumb.  It is that simple.  The state killed people in Germany in the 1930s and 40s.  Even if you believe that abortion is murder it is not the state killing people.  It is the choice of the woman carrying the developing fetus to legally terminate the pregnancy. 

Now if you want a comparison in the abortion debate to the Shoah look at Missouri.  While the state is trying to make itself the first state to have no abortions allowed by attacking the last clinic still performing this medical procedure.  They have instituted a 72 hour waiting period, using regulatory reforms to make clinics jump through hoops but the worst is an attack on women's bodies.  The Republican Governor's administration has decided that women who go to seek abortions must submit to a preliminary and unnecessary vaginal exam.  The state is telling doctors they have to put fingers and instruments inside of woman, which is a form of sexual assault.  So the only rational comparison to the Shoah, which used state sponsored sexual and physical attacks on people, is the current GOP in their zealotry to control women. 

Now some on the right who don't want to give women the choice over their own bodies are going to say that the exam is no big deal.  They would have to have one during the procedure.  However, here is the thing, the current wave of anti-abortion laws will kill women.  Women who need abortions to survive.  Women who can't afford to travel to another state and fall prey to butchers.  This is not pro-life in any form.  This is a government attack on the rights and lives of women.  Let's remember that this is the government, using the power of the executive, to force women to submit to an invasive attack in the most private way.  This is immoral.  Let's make sure everyone knows it. 

Remembering

 It was 41 years ago today that I lost my dad.  It was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, I was called home just in time to see him being taken in the ambulance.  I knew he was gone when I saw him, I didn't know how.  I was 13 years old.  He was 53 years old.  In a few weeks I will be 54, and it has been on my mind a lot.  You see, in a twist of fate this was a repeat of family history as my grandfather, my dad's dad, died early too, when my dad was 13 years old.  Both he and I share the story of coming of age without a father.

There is something fitting however that Memorial day will always be linked to my dad's memory.  As a teen, my dad joined the army during World War II fighting to liberate Europe from the Nazis and later traveling half way around the world to prepare for the invasion of Japan that never happen.  He did however get to Japan, and then Korea, where he fought and nearly died being shot, filled with shrapnel, and spent some time as a prisoner of the Chinese.  He did not die on the battlefields he fought on, but I feel like the totality of the hard life he had contributed to his early death.

We often think that each generation should have a better life than the one before.  I would have to say by every measure people usually use,  my life has been that.  While I have had both tragedy and struggle, nothing matches the years my dad had from his late teens through his 20s.  But I am proud my dad was part of what has been called the greatest generation.  I sometimes feel in awe of him, he fought to rid the world of the evil of Nazism and fascism.  He answered the call when the military was seen as a wall against Communist expansion.  His bravery and sense of duty is far more than I think I could ever muster myself.   I never got to talk to my dad man-to-man.  He was gone before I was a man.  I think the first thing I would do is thank him for dedicating so much of his life to preserving American values.  I am sorry I never got the chance to do that.

For me Memorial Day will always be linked to my dad's death.  I will always think of the conversations we never had, how I could never tell him how he influenced parts of what I became, to learn about the stories of his youth in the infantry, and of course to argue about my own rebellion.  But I take a minute every year to remember the man, his image is fading, more so since I lost my mom.  But he is still part of who I am.  Francis Oscar Kelley may not be a name that history will record with any fanfare, but for me, his short life was powerful, important and shouldn't be forgotten.  As we remember those that lost their lives in direct service, please indulge to remember a man who gave so much of his life to the country.  I still miss him.

Drawing a Line

There are partners of Indy Car drivers at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today wearing shirts that say "NOT Your Body, NOT Your Choice".  When we look at the abortion debate one of the things that often is said by the people who don't want to have abortion legal at all is that the embryo or fetus is not the woman's body.  They argue that it is a separate human being and thus has the right to live, even if that means a woman must carry it to term.  Recent so-called Heart Beat Bills have this at their center.  They do not exclude the prohibition even in the case of rape or incest.  In some cases it could mean a woman who miscarries has to prove she didn't cause it.  This clearly suggests that the life of the unborn developing embryo or fetus is worth more than the comfort of the woman who carries it, even if that is the result of a non-consensual act.   Despite what some lawmaker said the other day rape is never consensual.  There are provisions for the life of the mother, but that seems to be a difficult thing to adjudicate if someone like a zealous DA decides that he or she are going to second guess a doctor. 

So we have a bit of an issue for me.  Where do we draw the line on this?  Let's take the argument that the fetus is a separate human who is entitled to life, thus the woman who is carrying it must continue to do so, even if against her will, and may put her health at risk though not immediately, for the purpose of the other life.  This would be true if the sex act that produced the fetus was consensual or not. 

So let's look at a person whose kidneys have stop functioning.  Chances are you know someone in this situation or someone who has a family member.  They need a transplant as dialysis is no longer working.  You are a young, healthy person, who has two kidneys and you match perfectly with the person in need.  You only need one kidney to survive so the right thing to do is to give your kidney to that person so they can live.  Many people do this, even for strangers and it is a wonderful thing as a life is saved.  But you are reluctant to give up a kidney.  What might happen in the future?  It involves surgery, that will cost you time at work, maybe a promotion.  You had a trip to Europe planned and now it is on hold if you save this person.  Can the government compel you to put your life on hold to save the life of another person?  If not then why should a woman, pregnant, have to do the same?  You could argue she is responsible for getting pregnant but there are many factors that excuse her from the responsibility.  Rape and incest are the most common and recent laws don't seem to care about that.  But there is also a partner who removes a condom without telling the woman.  Failed birth control, be that pills, IUD or other form.  Failed sterilization method which sometimes happens with vasectomies.  Why should the life of the fetus be more important than the life of someone needing a kidney? 

That is the real issue here.  We can debate about when abortion is appropriate or not.  I have never felt we should view abortion as a simple means of birth control. But as a man I don't think that I should have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.  I do think that I have a responsibility to speak out on what I think might benefit us all. 

We can have fewer abortions if we approached teaching about sexuality with the importance and dignity it deserves. I believe in comprehensive sexuality education, easy access to birth control and education on how it works, and a sense of body responsibility which includes helping both young woman and men understand consent.  We know this by studies that a good long-term sexuality education program, based on facts and reality, can delay first intercourse, help young men and women act responsibility when they do have sex, and can make the idea of abortion less important and necessary.  If only we would try it. 

But in the end the issue is still who can tell you that you must save a life?  An 11 year old girl, who was raped by her father, pregnant and scared should be able to terminate that pregnancy using the same moral judgement that allows a 23 year old man, healthy and strong, to ignore the call to donate a kidney, or part of a liver or even bone marrow (which he will grow back) or blood for that matter. If you demonize one, you must be ready to demonize the other.  And if you do that, I have to ask, when can we come over to get your kidney?
  

The Idiots are Coming

There are members of state legislatures around the country are making law about abortion from a remarkable wellspring of ignorance.  In Ohio a law was written to suggest the ectopic pregnancy (a implantation of zygote outside the uterus) can simply be plucked out and moved to the uterus for further development.  This is something that simply can't be done.  There is no medical technology to do that. But this ignorance is part of the thought process that leads to dangerous law. Another member of a western state house suggested that a woman could swallow a pill camera to take pictures of the developing fetus.  A right-wing noise machine voice said that if a father rapes his 12 year old and takes her for an abortion then the evidence goes away, but if she has the baby then there is something to convict the father about.  I am not sure how that makes sense but maybe he believes like the Alabama sponsor of the new Alabama law that basically makes all abortions criminal and all miscarriages suspect.  He said that you can still get an abortion BEFORE you know you are pregnant, in part because it takes time for the chromosomes to get together. There are also people making laws that think abortions require cutting open the uterus.   This level of ignorance that is driving some of the features of these laws is stunning.  I am reminded of little blue and pink groups in elementary school that showed us how the body works.  I then taught this at the university level and the in utero development section was quite simple and I wish these guys had taken my class.  I really can't get by the fact that there are people who think you can exam a developing fetus by swallowing a camera pill or that you can pluck a zygote that has implanted outside of the uterus and just re-implant it like a Lego.  I really can't understand how we have laws developed outside of facts and reality.  It would be like passing laws to make it illegal to own unicorns in the city or allowing your dragon to breath fire around children.  While there have been times in history where abortion debates were based on attempts to understand human develop and the cost/benefit analysis on how to restrict access while embracing life, today I feel the lawmakers who are trying to overturn the right to an abortion from the Roe v. Wade case care so little about facts and reality and that is dangerous.  This ignorance will lead to women dying, to women after the trauma of miscarriage having to prove it wasn't intentional, and to the rise is dangerous back alleys again.  This is wrong.  If you live in a state doing this tell them it is wrong.  If you want to debate abortion get an education and if you think these new laws are about sanctity of life you are being fooled. 

We Have Become Uncomfortably Numb

Last week I began writing this in light of the shooting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and the fact that as I was learning about the shooting from Twitter, major news organizations were simply ignoring it for the most part in favor of another story about Washington.  While that was important, the fact that 2 people were killed and 4 injured on a college campus seemed to be relegated to a crawl on the screen.  Within a few days of that April 30th incident, here in Indianapolis on May 4th, four people were injured in a night that found many victims of gun fire.  Then yesterday, in Highland Ranch, Colorado.  A Denver suburb only 7 miles from Columbine High School, two young people entered the school and started shooting.  One student was fatally shot and eight others were injured; two suspects were taken into custody by police.  The dead student like on of those in Charlotte, ran toward the gun to save others.  A child in 2nd grade said she heard gun fire and knew what to do because she has been trained since Kindergarten.

What is amazing is that these stories come and go and we move on. There have been 105 events where guns have injured or killed more than 4 people in a single event.  How many do you remember hearing about?  Did any happen near where you live?  They happen everywhere.  What is amazing is that while some are criminals killing criminals during criminal behavior or acts of passion fueled by drugs or alcohol, some are clearly premeditated acts of terror.  We have grown used to them being part of the background noise that is our culture.  As I woke this morning to find out more about the Colorado shooting it was easier to find articles being critical of the Met Gala and the misunderstanding of the concept of Camp and virtually dozens of predictions on the Game of Thrones finale.  Not to mention the special report on a baby in England who the vast majority of people will never meet. 

The media will pick at the bones of survivors, doing interviews with family and friends, but rarely do they maintain the story as the public health crisis it is.  When the ratings fall the news will move on and it will be another story people will only slightly remember.

I understand that it is hard to keep hearing stories of horror in the real world and retreat to the fictional one, or the pablum of human interest, I am so often struck by the lack of care so many have when it doesn't directly touch them.  But children dying in school settings should not be the price we pay for freedom.  Kevlar jackets, blankets and backpacks should not be lauded as important innovations in the growing security industrial complex but met with sadness.  Children as young as 5 should not have to learn sing-sing lessons about what to do if the shooter is in the school.  We cant' grow numb to this.  It is a national crisis.

Beefing up security, armed guards, armed teachers, metal detectors, etc. are band-aids on a gaping wound and while we might find the aesthetic more pleasant it doesn't address the issue.   We must find a way to keep violence as an easy answer to a problem and we must not resign ourselves to this being the way it has to be.

We also don't have to give up our freedoms to do it.  There is space for providing road blocks for people who shouldn't have weapons to get them as well as change the culture we live in so that gun violence is not seen as a regular solution.  It has happened in other places.  We can move forward to make the country safer.  To do that we must recognize the problem.  After Sandy Hook and the death of all those 5 year olds I thought we would change.  What we did was get numb to the deaths.  For me that is uncomfortable.  

What Game of Thrones Teaches about Diversity

There will be spoilers here but seriously...catch up and watch the episodes we can't all wait for you.  



The Last of the Starks, the fourth episode of the eighth and final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, was another shift for the series as we come to the final two episodes.  In it there was a lot of post-Night King threat set ups for the coming end.  For many the show has already jumped the shark as the build up to the attack of the dead ended with such an abrupt event (Arya killing the Night King and the dead just crumbling) that people feel everything else will be anti-climactic.  I will note here that many rushed to attack the show runners for having Arya kill the Night King calling her a Mary Sue, a term I had to look up.  It refers to a female character who suddenly becomes a hero without flaws.  This is often an attack on a competent woman who acts in a way that seems to grow out of no-where.  (Rey's talent with a lightsaber for example).  However Arya was a well-trained assassin who had already managed to kill and entire house so........  But to my point.  



In this episode we see Sansa Stark, the lady of Winterfell, tell the Hound that she would still be the meek little girl of season one if she hadn't been, traded like chattel in two marriages, one from a family that caused the death of her father, her dire wolf, her brothers and mother.  Been manipulated by a man who claimed to love her but killed her aunt, sold her to a sadist and basically used her for his own purposes.  And of course that she was brutally raped and tortured by the Ramsey Bolton, who she was forced to marry.  She said that is what made her strong.  



Well, Twitter had none of that.  Women all over Twitter, in real time were outraged.  How could this be a line that Sansa would utter?  Yes we are all the culmination of our experiences but survivors of rape have told us that we have to stop pretending that rape and abuse make women stronger.  They are survivors because they were already strong and endured.  



The point is that in the writers' room a woman could have pointed this out.  (That and the fact that a couple times in bed with Jaime turned Brianne into a puddle when he was leaving).  And this is an argument for diversity in many places.  You see a perspective of a woman, who can see that her strength doesn't come from what men do to her but from her ability to endure and conquer could change the narrative.  That doesn't mean experience doesn't play a role, it is just not a total external thing.  This simple change could be a big difference.  



Too often we here that diversity is about political correctness.  If a white man is best for the job then he should get it.  What is missing is asking what "best for the job" truly means.  Having a voice who sees the world with different eyes can in the long run be better than a more educated person who thinks exactly as everyone else.  Once in her past, Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor said ""I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life,".  She was trying to inspire young students but the point is that life experience does influence how you see the world.  That is true in court cases, boards of directors and of course television writing.  Letting someone in whose background is radically or even slightly different than your own can easily help you see the things you can't see.  It isn't that you choose not to, but that you don't focus on what you see as important.  To be truly honest here I didn't see Sansa's speech as problematic until the first rape survivor tweet said something about it.  When the 10th came through I realized I needed to rewatch what she said and rethink my own biases.  It is a difficult thing to look beyond your own bias and so we seek others to point them out.  If Game of Thrones, a college campus, a corporate board or Presidential cabinet want to see more of the world in front of them, engaging people who are different in a lot ways, but especially experiences, is important.   So when someone tells you it is unfair, politically correct, or somehow racist, sexist etc. to engage diversity tell them simply, we only have a limited way to see the world, diversity brings in colors we don't normally see, shows them to us and helps us find a way to understand them.  Diversity gives us a super power and we are all worthy of that.  

Not One of Us???????????

One week ago today a man, driven by ignorance and hate, radicalized by the din of the irresponsible, and possessed with the will of a zealot, killed 50 people and injured many more at to mosques in Christ's Church New Zealand.    His reasoning was the often cited idea that immigrants, especially those of color and non-Christian religions, are on a mission to destroy the so-called White Race.  He felt a sense of duty to attack, terrorize and kill as many of the others he could. 

A foreign body

And a foreign mind

Never welcome

In the land of the blind

We see the ideology that permeated this man's thinking daily, coming from the talking heads on the news and even from leaders in our own country.  They call for a wall to keep out the invaders from south, a term that the killer used as well when describing his victims.  This sets up a real sense of US and THEM and makes the THEM an evil force destine to destroy the US. 

There's safety in numbers

When you learn to divide

How can we be in

If there is no outside

The fear that is being developed in the onslaught of rhetoric is driving a rise in white nationalist hate and we are now in the business of exporting it.  The New Zealand attacker cited Americans including our President as people who are to be emulated.   When one speaks for the identified other in this separation of people they too become the enemy.  So often the language of some has risen to inspire terror against the upstanders in politics and the media.

You may look like we do

Talk like we do

But you know how it is

You're not one of us'

But there is hope.  Today I stood with dozens of Jews at a mosque in Indianapolis as the prayed their Jumu'ah.  We held signs in solidarity and shared stories and frankly learned about each other.  The interesting thing is that this mosque, established by Black Muslims in the 1970s now draws from a diverse group of Muslims from many countries.  I met people from East Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq and Europe.  All Muslims coming to pray.  As Jews we were honored to stand up for them, to show the world we accept them as our human family while their path to the Divine is different. 

All shades of opinion

Feed an open mind

But your values are twisted

Let us help you unwind

Yesterday I went to the Indiana State House as clergy leaders from across a variety of faith traditions shared words of consolation, hope and yearning, and even words of demand that the state lawmakers take Indiana off the short list of 5 states without a bias crime bill.  As each person rose to express their traditions vision of the issue of hate in our community they all cited when another had been attacked for being different.  The goal was to show our elected officials that religious communities see you and we will take care of the praying, it is time for them to act.  If only they would. 

It's only water

In a stranger's tear

Looks are deceptive

But distinctions are clear

We all cry the same tears when sad.  We are share the same emotions, regardless of the color of our skin, the words we choose to call on the Divine or how we dress, wear our hair or cover ourselves up.  We should be and always will be a country and a world of distinct differences.  Differences of thought and tastes.  But in that vast difference we should all strive to not only see the beauty of diversity but point it out to others.  We must also challenge those whose words and actions try to make the distinctions something to fear, not something to embrace.  While every group will have bad actors, we cannot define an entire people by the actions of a few.  We are at a dangerous time, those who hate seem to have found a new and louder voice, here in our own country and across the world.  So we must focus on the actions of those that stand in the breach.  We must educate those who spread the vitriol and when that is not possible, be ready to respond to their rancor.  The time is now to squash the nonsense and replace it with a possibility of growth and even love.  We are better when we all come together as people, from many paths but with the same journey.  To create a brighter world for those who come later, our children, our grandchildren and beyond.  Don't let those who see the world as better when monochromatic win.  Our progeny will never forgive us.

*Words in italics are from Peter Gabriel's Not One Of Us  

Vaccines and the World of Social Media

I just saw a report that there are an army of anti-vaccination believers have made death-threats to doctors who support vaccinating children, causing a recent Centers for Disease Control program to require high levels of security.  Imagine that, a group of doctors reporting on disease spreads and the solution that is proposed required armed security with automatic weapons.  This is where we are today as people seem to not be able to trust, in some cases, long established science, often using debunked research that asserted as fact things that were not found. 

This is not a partisan issue.  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a Democrat and a loud voice in the so-called anti-vax movement.  He often speaks out against government requiring vaccines and citing nonsense opinions about the link between vaccines and autism.  However so are many on the right.  The current President has been a vocal supporter of this debunked idea going back many years.  He has stated publicly and linked to alternative websites that continue to say there is a link.  Besides politicians there are tons of celebrities and just ordinary people who live in a place where they are more likely to believe these false ideas and put their children at risk than really research the history of vaccines. 

Vaccines can cause harm, to an extremely small percentage of the population.  It is a terrible thing when attempts to help cause harm, but medicine is still an art, there are no perfect solutions.  But children who have been harmed by vaccines are being exploited by the anti-vax crowd, up to and including lying about how they have been harmed. 

The mass distribution of vaccines like the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccine (MMR) have only been around since the 1960s and world-wide distribution since the 80s.  In that time deaths from these disease have dropped from more than 2 million a year to less the 200,000 and most of those are in the developing world.  Millions have received these vaccinations and most have no ill effects.  While there is a rise in diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders in the last few decades but I am certain that it isn't the result of vaccinations and probably, in part, due to recognizing it more. 

I personally welcome science to explore any questions about vaccines or aspect of our public health experiences but this has been done.  People who have published stories about vaccines and autism, for example, have been found to be faking the data.  While the medical profession that is supposed to be in on some kind of vaccine conspiracy openly acknowledge that sometimes vaccines cause harm.  But like many things the benefits outweigh the risks.  A car seat can save your child's life in an accident, but it can also trap them if the accident causes a car fire.  But you are more likely to be in an accident that can throw your baby from the car than one where they are burned, so using a car seat is a good idea even though there are risks.  Same with vaccines, there is a chance of causing a form of harm but it is so tiny the benefits are far more important.

But the worst of the anti-vax crowd are those that attack parents who have children who died even if receiving a vaccine.  When a two-year old died of the flu the anti-vax crowd attacked.  The crowd even suggested that the mom murdered her child.  This is disgusting.  The woman vaccinated her child against the flu, but it didn't work and her son died.  We should simply be sad that science isn't perfect but that is not what science is meant to be.  In fact the idea that we continue to make vaccines and other ways of helping are always being revisited.  Science doesn't settle on it laurels, it probes further, it looks for more connections.  People are alive today because of the vaccines that took a long time to develop and be successful.   The polio vaccine made it so I have never met anyone who had to use an Iron lung, and my guess is that there is an entire generation in college today that would have to google Iron Lung to know what it is.  But that might not be true in 20 years.  We are seeing measles outbreaks around the country.  We are seeing other diseases make a come back after huge declines in the last 50.  Some say they are harmless childhood diseases but we know people have died or have suffered significant side-effects because of the disease.  Even vaccinated people are at risk as vaccines are not 100% effective and thus rely on diseases not getting a stronghold in a community especially a tight knit one.  So while some anti-vax people feel that it is their choice, they are putting others in danger. 

Social media has made it easy for people to portray themselves as experts and promote all manner of things.  In the 90s, when the internet was just getting to a majority of people I showed how easy it was to my students to find websites that said the earth was flat and that lizard people controlled major governments (Bill Clinton apparently is a lizard person).  They looked like well researched websites with images and details that looked legit.  Things really haven't changed and with social media you don't even need a website, just a link to RFK, President Trump or any number of famous people who promote anti-vax nonsense and you look like you have done research.  So I will say to you what I said to those students.  Don't believe everything you read, including this blog.  Do your own research, but remember, when doing so, look for facts.  Oh and if you are under 60 years old, chances are you are here and well in part because of a vaccine. 

See The Other.......

At a recent town hall Howard Schultz, the Starbucks founder who is thinking of running for President, uttered the nonsensical phrase, "I don't see color".  This kind of faux-liberal idea that we can have a color-blind society has been problematic for decades.  The reason is that when you say you don't see color, first you are lying, second you filter everyone through a white European lens.   You look for a flat cultural and social expression that you see as a standard.  It erases the diversity of experience of people of color and other minority visions that are part of our country.  We saw this laid bare when Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was nominated.  Early in her career Justice Sotomayor gave a speech in which she included the line "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."  Her quote, taken out of context, was attacked as suggesting she was saying Latina women were smarter than men.  What she was doing was pointing out in some cases people of color and she included women have a different vantage point to understand a situation, specifically she was talking about from the bench, but it is true in the board room, the campus and the factory floor.  Justice Sotomayor, in the speech, said:

"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice [Benjamin] Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like professor [Steven] Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge [Miriam] Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown .




We can see that what she is saying that one's experience is not necessary but history teaches us that the different perspective of a person of color can move our understanding along faster and with more justice. 



We have always been a country that valued and accepted diversity.  In the 1780s when the United States was recently established there was an idea that the new country would be a melting (some said smelting) pot.  The idea that we would welcome people from around the world and with each new culture they would add their distinction to what it means to be an American and being American would change.  But it didn't take long until people wanted the immigrants to give up who they were and become the Western European standard which was white and Protestant.  America became like the Borg of Star Trek, we wanted full assimilation and that our culture would somehow just use what we wanted from each wave of immigrant culture.   This is seen in the "speak English in America" crowd who still go out and get drunk on Cinco De Mayo.  Color blind ideology wants to people to be the same and that is never going to happen.   


But what is more insidious is the way some people blame the problems of race on the victims of racism.  Earlier this week when Michael Cohen was testifying about his role in the actions of President Trump, things he will go to prison for, he called the President a racist.  Let's be clear, the President has shown clear signs of racism over the many decades he has been in the public eye.  But Representative Mark Meadows decided to parade out a black woman who works for the Executive Branch (a woman that used to be the Trump party planner and is now at HUD) to suggest the President can't be racist.  He was challenged by Rep  Rashida Tlaib.  She called what he did a racist act.  Meadows, who has been connected with racist acts in the past like his fervent birtherism, was appalled.  Since the exchange (again she called what he did racist and not him racist, a distinction that is important) she has been attacked for playing the race card.  Again the idea that we shouldn't see color comes up.  But this is an example of why seeing color is important.  Let's assume the Rep. Meadows did this without trying to cover for the President.  Maybe he truly believes that if you hire people of color in position of authority you can't be racist.  So for him just bringing her out as a prop is a fine thing.  Except the vast majority of people of color don't see it that way.  They see the tokenism that it represents, something Meadows never has to deal with.  There was a joke at the universities I have been associated with that a black woman professor is the hardest working person on campus.  She is asked to serve on every committee and be in as many campus photos as possible.  The reason Meadow's act struck a cord is because that kind of tokenism often is specifically designed to cover up a failure to embrace real diversity or out-and-out racism.  Rep Tlaib may have been trying to educate Meadows and by extension the American people on how not to do it.  But in the end it continues to shine a light on the ignorance of so many, that in the last month (Black History month no less) has seen Democratic politicians who admit to black face, use the n-word and not understand how to respond to a black woman running for President simply being black. 


We are all ignorant and one of the reasons is that we can't see the world through someone else's eyes if we haven't lived their life.  Rep Tlaib learned that when she used an anti-Semitic tome recently.  We all have something to learn and one thing is not to try to white wash society.  I hope Tlaib and Meadows learned something.  Hope is something t