Silence is Deafening

I would not sit silently by and watch YOUR children being torn away from you and locked in cages or sent far away.

I would not sit silently by and watch YOU get murdered by law enforcement.

I would not sit silently by and watch YOU work in unsafe conditions.

I would not sit silently by and listen to someone verbally abuse YOU.

I would not sit silently by and listen to someone tell YOU to go back to where you came from.

I would not sit silently by and let YOUR children be bullied into suicide or extremism.

I would not sit silently by and listen to them tell YOU to just get over it.

I would not sit silently by and listen to lies and conspiracies being spread about YOU.

I would not sit silently by and let them lock YOU up for fleeing your home and seeking safety.

I would not sit silently by and allow them to feed YOU poisoned food and water.

I would not sit silently by and let them house YOU in sub-standard housing or no housing at all.

I would not sit silently by and allow them to denigrate and dehumanize the Imago Dei in YOU.

I would not sit silently by and let YOU continue to think this is not for YOU, too.

These things that I would not do for YOU, I will not, am not doing for US.

Original Sins

Black Lives Matter protest march, 5-31-2020, Yakima, WA.

I hear it said often and from different sources: “Slavery is the original sin of this nation.” I 

wholeheartedly agree that slavery is a truly evil sin, absolutely, but I don’t believe that it was the original sin of this nation. If you want to talk about which evil action taken by European colonizers was the original sin, you would want to look at genocide before slavery to begin with. It is what paved the way for the enslavement of Africans. But I would argue that even genocide wasn’t the original sin of those who first stepped foot on these lands. Their sins were originally greed and racism and those sins, most insidious and far-reaching, are what led to genocide of millions of Indigenous people of these lands and then to the enslavement of those remaining Indigenous people and the Africans stolen from their homelands. Stolen people brought to stolen lands.

Names of slaves on a memorial at the Whitney Plantation.

 Since the first moments white Europeans set foot on these already fully inhabited lands, in what is now known as North, Central, and South America, those sins of greed and racism have permeated and guided not only those early actions/sins/crimes/beliefs hundreds of years ago but were embedded in the very foundation of the nation we know as the United States of America, and these evils continue to thrive throughout this nation today. They may have changed shape and be called by different names now, but make no mistake, slavery and genocide are fully operational today. The evidence is there right before our eyes for all to see, though most choose not to.

It is there in our “criminal justice” system.

It is there in the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

It is there in the child welfare systems.

It is there in our supply chains that feed the insatiable capitalistic system.

It is there in the attacks on our necessary natural resources.

It is there in the foundation of this nation and the systems built on that foundation.

It is there. It is here.

Until this country, firstly, recognizes these sins of greed and racism and how they have and continue to negatively affect every aspect of our systems and communities, primarily Indigenous, Black, and migrant/immigrant communities; secondly, acknowledges and confronts these sins openly and honestly; and, thirdly, repents and laments of these sins, we will never heal, we will never change, we will never progress, we will never see true justice and sacred lives, mainly of people of color, will continue to be ended prematurely and unjustly. We must confront these ugly painful destructive truths. We must repent of our actions, our silence and complicity, our ignorance, our greed and racism. We must lament the pain we have caused. We must change within ourselves and change these systems. Greed and racism have been integral parts of the foundation of this nation but healing and change, love and true equality, can be our lasting legacy. 

After all . .. 

Street art, Bangkok, Thailand.

Cat's 2020 Reading List

I like books. I like to buy them and put them on my shelves, collecting them for some day. Different kinds of books. Mostly non-fiction. Some fiction. Some Get Fuzzy. Some reference. Some travel. Some art & photography. Some childrens. Many of the ones on my shelves are ones I've read. Some I've started and never finished. Some I haven't started yet. They sit there patiently, collecting dust, waiting for me to give them some attention. Waiting for me to engage, to learn, to expand, to stretch, to grow.

This year, I'm challenging myself to read at minimum 1 of these books per month. They aren't easy topics but they are very important and relevant. Most of them. Some are for in between, for a mental rest, for a lighter type of fun. I enjoy reading, especially books that challenge me in ways that bring about growth. I prefer the serious topics. I always have.

The ones that people don't like to hear about or read about or look at.
The ones that bear ugly truths and painful stories.
The ones that tell the other side of history, the one that gets hidden, obscured, ignored, denied.
The ones that we should all read and yet many have not, will not.
The ones we try so hard to ignore with so many distractions. . . until they become about us. Personally. Our families, our friends. Our lives. Often it is only then that we seem to care, not realizing that when it's happening to strangers near or far, it truly is affecting our daily lives, whether we recognize it or not. We are all connected and it matters what's happening to others.

These are the stories we must read, the histories we must look at, the difficult we must listen to. They are what life is made of and broken by. They are the ones that bring about long-overdue, much-needed change, if only we engage. I don't read for only my own gratification, my own enjoyment, my own knowledge, but to share it and to have the info become a part of my life in ways that contribute to positive change and hard conversations. We spend so much time focusing on the nonsense, the minuscule, the foolish. Maybe sometimes we need that but when those things become the norm, the always, the only, we limit ourselves, we damage our societies, and we end up with a world full of all the ugly things we've been ignoring because we refused to face them, to acknowledge them, to address them, and to stop them.

So I'm starting this stack, in no particular order, and invite you along. If you want to join me in the reading, I'll let you know what I'm starting and I'll be sharing along the way. Maybe you want to start your own stack, begin your own challenge. I'd love to hear about it.

#Cats2020readinglist