21 October 2004, Salt Lake City, UT
Red Sox win. The curse is on its way to being lifted. I asked Brooke, Steve, and my father, if there had ever been a "Bird World Series." The looks on their faces said this question didn't even deserve an answer.
"You know, the Cardinals vs. Orioles."
No response.
4:15 a.m.
Our alarm didn't go off. Luckily, Brooke's internal alarm did. We are out the door in fifteen minutes for an early flight to Cleveland, Ohio. I am putting on my boots in the truck as we speed down the freeway.
6:00 a.m.
Made the plane in plenty of time. Now, I think we could have had thirty minutes more of sleep and dreaming.
Reading Lewis Lapham's book, "Gag Rule." He speaks powerfully on the nature of dissent.
"Dissent consists of nothing else except the right to say no to volunteer a second or third opinion, defined as another word for liberty, it is the freedom to conceive of the future as an empty canvas or a blank page..."
Lapham reminds us "dissent is not a synonym for anarchy."
Teddy Roosevelt disagreed with President Woodrow Wilson's thoughts on World War I.
Roosevelt said, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
I cannot stop thinking about Florida, what to say to the students. First and foremost, I want to listen to what the students have to say, what they are feeling, what they have learned.
One of the most insidious forms of oppression is self-censorship, created by the "oughts and shoulds" of the collective. Fear. Fear permeating all aspects of our culture. How we make decisions. What we say and do not say publicly. And if we do not dare to name the problem, to let it sit in the room like the proverbial elephant, we all are diminished, part of a fairy tale that is truly grim.
What are we afraid of?
I keep mulling over the word, "postpone." What it means to wait. Why we wait. Yes, there is a time to be patient, to wait until the right moment presents itself to act. But in terms of justice and social change, to wait can be another form of turning one's back on crucial principles crucial to a civil and open society.
Martin Luther King writes from the Birmingham jail in 1963, "For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied'."
He goes on to say, "...I have reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action'."
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."
Acts of civil disobedience can wait?
Words that make power uncomfortable can be postponed?
Justice must be patient?
I do not agree.
We must not forget that not so long ago, Attorney General John Ashcroft suggested after the bombings in Madrid, that elections in America could be postponed due to terrorist threats. Not even Rush Limbaugh could stomach such an outrageous statement. It was quickly folded back into their portfolio of fears.
Political awareness that grows into a political awakening evolves into action. We must exercise our voices, our vote, now.
