Black Youth Project 100 leader Charlene Carruthers (center, seated) reminds her comrades that they are there because the Chicago mayor wants to allocate an additional $200 million to Chicago police department.By Sarah Thompson, Executive Director of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT)
Local chapters of Black Lives Matter and Jewish Voice for Peace coordinated actions in Chicago, Illinois on the weekend of October 24-25, 2015. CPTers attended the events, employing our public witness, human rights documentation, and nonviolent direct action support skills. We’re in the middle of a month-long training of 10 new recruits; people from across the organization—administrative team, field team, and a trainee—participated. Continue reading “Not Another Nickel”→
Northwest Detroit on Rosa Parks Blvd.Some highlights from Eduardo Porter’s recent New York Times piece “The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor“…just more evidence that social analysis must always trump “conventional wisdom.”
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Today, almost 20 years after Mr. Clinton signed a law that stopped the federal entitlement to cash assistance for low-income families with children, the argument has solidified into a core tenet influencing social policy not only in the United States but also around the world.
And yet, to a significant degree, it is wrong. Actual experience, from the richest country in the world to some of the poorest places on the planet, suggests that cash assistance can be of enormous help for the poor. And freeing them from what President <a title="More articles about Ronald Wilson Reagan." Continue reading “American Myths About Poverty”→
For me, the challenge of decolonization and re-indigenization demands a giving up of all forms of supremacy, including that of Christian supremacy—the claim to having the one right formula, the ultimate trump card, the final word. I know of many Christians who struggle with the notion that the Christian story is only one story among many. But I am all too familiar with the damaging effects of the more typical insistence that the Christian story is the only true one—no matter the attempts to wrap it in benevolent and compassionate missionary work. Can Christians engage with others on equal ground without pulling out the trump card in the end? Can they give up the trump card altogether?
The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On a Wednesday morning last Spring, just a week shy of his 66th birthday, despite aching knees from decades pounding the basketball court, Bill powered up the three flights of stairs to my office in the old Episcopalian Church overlooking downtown Detroit. I knew something was stirring since he usually whips out his flip phone and sends me a text message if he needs anything while working in his makeshift cubicle downstairs—that, and his eye-of-the-tiger stare down he gave me when he arrived breathless. Obviously, it was game day. Continue reading “Arrested Development”→
From Daniel Rothenberg in With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today:
When we reach into a bin to choose an apple, orange or plum, our hands stretch out in much the same way as a farmworker’s hands—harvesting our nation’s fruits and vegetables, piece by piece. While the produce may have been mechanically sorted and packed, supercooled, chemically treated, waxed, and shipped hundreds, if not thousands, of miles, often the last hand to touch the fruits and vegetables we buy was that of a migrant farmworker. Through the simple act of purchasing an orange or a head of lettuce, we are connected with a hidden world of laborers, a web of interconnected lives, with hands on both ends.
Invited by a friend to respond to the recent blog of philosophy professor, Crispin Sartwell, “Should Miley Cyrus Wear Dreadlocks?” I would throw this into the mix. Yes, it is cultural appropriation “all the way down,” but as with ingesting spoiled food, some things come back up. The culture wars rage on, as globalization’s surface sign that something deeper is afoot. The question of taking someone else’s style cannot really be judged except in consideration of the entire regime of planetary “taking” writ large. Continue reading “Cultural Appropriation: Of Dreadlocks, Cell Blocks, and Stolen Rocks (like Plymouth)”→
God, help me to refuse ever to accept evil; by your Spirit empower me to work for change precisely where and how you call me; and free me from thinking I have to do everything. Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers (1992)
On the day we met Bill Wylie-Kellermann back in the summer of ’13, we naively asked him how many times he’d been arrested for acts of civil disobedience: “I stopped counting at 50,” he muttered matter-of-factly. Between sermons and sacraments, Pastor Bill is committed to hitting the streets, participating in what he calls “liturgical direct action.” Continue reading “Towards a Spirituality of Activism”→
From John Dear on this week’s marches, demonstrations, rallies and protests marking the International Day of Peace, Yom Kippur and the Pope’s dramatic visit to the U.S.:
Not only is it unusual to see a week of coordinated nationwide actions for peace and justice in the United States, it’s unusual that these events cover the whole gamut of issues involving violence and injustice. Millions of people are fed up with every form of violence, with the entire culture of violence, and want a new culture of nonviolence as Dr. King taught. Continue reading “Building a Movement of Movements”→
You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered . . .
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships?
Are you in right relation?
Where is your water?
Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community.
Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.”
Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time!”
“There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly. Continue reading “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for”→
From our interview with Dr. Lily Mendoza, the author (with her sister Leny) of Back From the Crocodile’s Belly (2013):
By Tommy Airey
From Daniel Rothenberg in With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today:
By James W. Perkinson, September 29, 2015
By Tommy Airey
From John Dear on this week’s marches, demonstrations, rallies and protests marking the International Day of Peace, Yom Kippur and the Pope’s dramatic visit to the U.S.:
