The agony of the poor enriches the rich. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Billionaires add 1 trillion to net worth during pandemic as their workers struggle. The Guardian

Yes, things could continue to deteriorate here in the US after the past four years, especially the last two weeks: white nationalists’ insurrection at the Capitol in DC and the second impeachment of the current president, Donald Trump. And they can continue to get better-after the incredible grassroots organizing, local leadership representing in Georgia, and resultant win of two Senate seats. We determine where we will go from here-more chaos or Beloved Community.

It’s the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, January 15, and the country pays tribute by remembering and reflecting on his leadership in the struggle for justice. His last book, “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community” reads like it was written for these times. In that book Dr. King reminds the country that in order to heal white America must “reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance.” Like I said, it could have been written on January 6 2021.

The sad injustice of our situation is the collective ignorance that remains in white America, feeding white supremacy. On this year’s-2021- reflection of Dr. King, we could decide that we will finally begin to live into what is needed for change toward racial equity, class justice, and the end to militarism (and its broad effect on policing against Black and brown people). Individually and collectively we do have a choice if we will continue with chaos and injustice or build the elements of Beloved Community.

Dr. King’s vision of Beloved Community stated in a speech in 1957:“the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends. It is this type of understanding goodwill that will transform the deep gloom of the old age into the exuberant gladness of the new age. It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”

We have choice. We can continue the chaos by allowing: the rich to feed off the agony of the poor, the white supremacist system to feed off and entrench the inequity of Black, Indigenous and other people of color, the wealth of the country to feed the machines of war against the same nationally and internationally. Or we can organize for justice and build Beloved Community and do what we did in Georgia two weeks ago. We can do what Dr. King and the larger collective did during the Black Civil Rights movement to win the Montgomery bus boycott, desegregate schools, win the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. We can stand on their shoulders and the shoulders of the countless people who fought for the right for all people to vote, to be treated humanely and to live into their highest potential. We could love all the people.

We can live into justice by coming from a place of love for each other. This is not a love for the behaviors of hatred and violence against us. We can fight for justice with love for the humanity that still exists in all of us. Because it is the lack of inhumanity that drives the heart of someone to act out inhumanely by violating the rights of another: because their skin tone is darker than their own. Or because they love someone of the same gender, or because they are female embodied, or were born in another country. This ability to ‘other’ another person and justify violence against them comes from the chaos we carry inside ourselves. It needs to start inside our own hearts, to calm the chaos and heal the separation inside. This will allow us the spaciousness to know injustice and correct it, moving toward building Beloved Community.

What will you do in 2021 to honor Dr. King? Continue chaos or build Beloved Community? You decide!

The conduct of a sitting president of the US, which clearly demonstrates a sickness inhibiting them from making clear decisions and carrying out the duties of the office, should be addressed. The current President, Donald Trump, is not capable of being the commander and chief. He is suffering from the illness, the disease, of white supremacy.

Signs and Symptoms

This illness of white supremacy expresses itself with symptoms and signs unlike any other illness: violence in every form. These symptoms include thinking, speech, and actions of hatred of / and superiority over Black or African-descendant people, Indigenous people, and other people of color. This hatred and superiority takes the form of segregating from, violating, killing, treating inhumanely, marginalizing Blackness and their sisters and brothers.  

Cause

Trump’s disease of white supremacy has a cause; or as we say in science and medicine, a pathology. One of the causes or abnormal features leading to this disease is ignorance of why this doctrine of ‘white supremacy’ was instigated and how it settled into the body, feelings, perceptions, mind, and consciousness of the US populations since, becoming a disease. The existing different racial groups, socially constructed from cultural mannerisms, physical features, and skin tone, existed in the 17th century and the early days of colonization of Turtle Island by then white Europeans. This included the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island-now called the United States of America-, the enslaved African-descendant people stolen from Africa and brought by ship, and the white settler European colonists. The land-holding colonists perpetuated a doctrine of white superiority to assure that land-less and white indentured servants did not associate and build loving relationships with African-descendant and Indigenous peoples. This was not just a random separation into different groups. This was an extractive and exploitive separation that grew out of greed, aversion, and the delusion that feeds the first two. The white colonial land holders in the 17^th century had already brought enslaved Africans to the new colony of Britain, Turtle Island, to exploit their labor.

As well they had already exploited the land and were systematically decimating the native indigenous peoples. But this was not enough because they were driven by greed for more wealth and power, and the fear of loosing existing power. Establishing the hierarchy of whiteness at the top and African-descendant people at the bottom would assure that they maintained the power over land and that non-land-owning whites would distinguish themselves from Black and Indigenous peoples, with or without land-establishing a ‘so-called’ superior race. This cause or pathology of white supremacy, also imprinted into the phenotype or behavior and characteristics of white people (as displayed in the symptoms and signs described above). This belief, in the supremacy of whiteness, led to legally condoned racialized violence, then and now. So ingrained was this belief in the superiority of whiteness in the mind and hearts of white supremacists that even after the Civil War ended, white southerners and states with enslaved African-descendant people would not concede equality between whites and Blacks (Crenshaw). Since then, every display of social or political gain by Black people has been violently attacked by white supremacists, with the perception that it fulfills the accepted hierarchy of the superiority of whiteness. Today this is evident by the following statement by a white supremacist at the insurrection at the Capitol two days ago: “This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.” (The Nation)

INDOCTRINATION of WHITE SUPREMACY

Co-occurrence of two severe illness

Donald Trump suffers from the disease of white supremacy. And like some with this disease, he also has another illness: that of a mental illness. This assessment of his mental state as being unstable and likely to worsen during times of conflict and challenge was predicted by several renowned mental health professionals. More recently they assessed that he was “mentally unfit to qualify for the presidency or candidacy for reelection”. It was clear Trump was ill with white supremacy before he was elected president of the US. His unstable mental state was also assessed at that time. With the stress of the presidency, both conditions worsened. The co-occurrence of white supremacy and an unstable mental state has clearly exacerbated each condition. The result of these two illnesses affecting each other: a sitting president who incited people to act violently against the authority of the country on January 6^th  2021. He willfully encouraged people to act with violence to under-mind the authority of the country that would remove him from office on January 20^th 2021: sedition. Throughout his tenure as president of the US, Trump has consistently renewed the signs and symptoms of collective nationalist white supremacists in the US. Because white supremacy eventually leads to greater deterioration of mental status, and vice versa, it was inevitable that we would reach the outcomes we have been experiencing these past months and years of a growing nationalist movement of white supremacy illness.

Treatment or Remedy

The far-reaching effect of Trump’s white supremacy is continued exploitation and oppression of Black and Brown people and anyone who does not agree with his views. The first step in Trump’s treatment plan is to immediately remediate this far-reaching effect: removal from office. This first step in his treatment will have a beneficial impact by beginning to slow down his deterioration. Remove the stressors that are escalating the illnesses. It will also begin to treat the effect his behaviors have had on the population of white nationalists. It will especially benefit his followers- those white supremacists who were incited to violence two days ago. By treating the president for white supremacy we can hope to begin to stabilize others with this same illness. Removal from office is just the beginning. It will require more to heal all the harm that has been caused, to help those whose mental state became affected by white supremacy. This hatred and fear has spread across and beyond the US and can slowly begin to recede.

The second step is to treat the illness of white supremacy, in Trump and in his followers. This will require a deep dive into re-learning the history of the United States. This imprint of racism and its many effects is deep, generational. Yes it is a trauma. These white people have been traumatized to believe that they can harden their hearts against Black and Brown people. There is generational damage to their hearts and minds that will require time to undo. As the intellectual and emotional understanding begins to sink in, the systematic effect of white supremacy on all the structures of the United States will require change. Slowly, a movement toward justice for all people, and not some people will become urgent so that what happened at the insurrection can never be repeated: differential expectations of / and treatment toward white insurrectors and Black people protesting undue police violence. Remediating the harmful effect of white supremacy on all affected populations is a necessary step.

Path to recovery

The path to recovery is long and changing, more than 400 years in the US. We can start this journey of healing by first acknowledging the illness of white supremacy. And the state of mind that nourishes the illness of white supremacy and vice versa.

This sickness of white supremacy is not new. The January 6^th 2021 insurrection incited by the sitting president of the United States of America marks us all. Because he is still sitting, we are complicit. What will you do to address this? Non-action is an action.

Contact your federal, state, and local government representative and let them know how you believe they should represent you: remove Donald Trump as president. Talk about this with someone; share the clarity about sedition. Engage with calm and clarity and learn the facts so you can share the facts. Practice calming exercises that can keep our hearts open and mind clear and purposed toward justice and peace. Healing the illness of white supremacy requires healing not only the signs and symptoms of violence, but the root cause of privileged non-understanding, fragmented hearts, fear, wrong perceptions and the harm resulting from these on Black and Brown populations.

The optician at a community eye clinic decided I needed further testing so referred me for an appointment with the Wilmer Eye Clinic at the Johns Hopkins conglomerate. The assistant called and gave them the information and then after some back and forth, hung up, looked at me and shook her head in disbelief. “After all that….” she said. What she meant was that after giving them all my information, confirming that it was Veterans Insurance earlier in the conversation, the person on the other end of the line later said Hopkins does not accept my Veterans Insurance. After some of the usual comments like: ‘good enough to go to war but not to get health care’, ‘yes I went to medical school, and graduate school, and residency at Hopkins blah blah blah’ she apologized. As if she was the one representing the institution and its oppressive policies.

I walked to the car, mindful of my steps, breathing in the air, fresh. Thinking, what if I was in northern California, no fresh air. There was no disbelief. Just acknowledgment that yet again, capitalism exploits those with decreased income. And who has the highest risk of decreased income and wealth? Black people. Brown People. Period!

This time there was little anger. Just acceptance that large capitalist institutions like the Johns Hopkins conglomerate discriminates against people with decreased income.  And a continued resignation to do something about it. My activism and research over the last 30 years has focused on the role of the Johns Hopkins conglomerate and its continued expansion through the taking of land from low income Black people in East Baltimore Maryland: displacement and gentrification. Why would I be surprised that they also discriminate in provision of health care? I knew this already. And now I get to be another data point.

There is no legal requirement that a hospital system which receives millions of dollars in public support over the years for research and continued land acquisition, must serve its community.

Public funding supports the institution in conducting research aimed at discovering cures for diseases once perceived as incurable. But the same hospital and research institution has no obligation to provide these cures, discovered through public funding, to a veteran living in their neighborhood.

In 2016, Johns Hopkins University received the largest amount of dollars ($2.10 billion) from the federal government for research and development. That year 86% of their total expenditure for research and development ($2.43 billion) came from these federal dollars. The conclusion: 86% of the benefit from their research should be returned to the public.

This is not about me. This is about people who, because of their income and the color of their skin, continue to be treated as second class citizens. Take a peek inside a Veterans Administration hospital to get a sense of who receives care there and use Veterans insurance for care outside of the hospital. For those of us who cannot afford additional health insurance, this is it!

Hopkins is not the only institution that discriminates against veterans. But it is one of the institutions which receives the largest subsidies from the government. And for this reason alone, it has an obligation to provide greater benefit to the public. Shame on Johns Hopkins conglomerate. And shame on the federal government for not holding subsidized universities and hospitals to a higher standard of accountability to the public.

The government built the systems that continue the exploitation of low income Black and brown bodies by ignoring the racist and classist behaviors in health care delivery that has contributed to health disparities. Racial and class disparities exist in all sectors, including the criminal justice system. Like the criminal justice system, hospitals and universities will continue to oppress and cause harm until held accountable. The government must hold itself accountable, or we the people will.

Organize, Organize, Organize…remember your freedom and sovereignty inside and out, and vote out the corrupt politicians! Register someone to vote who is not yet registered.

Ross Gay

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

In. From Enforcers to Guardians: A Public Health Primer on Ending Police Violence. 2019
Cooper, Hannah L. F., Fullilove, Mindy Thompson

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jogdwcuta9e6zxp/AACWxPy7h9lS7pOsSHFwMr9Oa?dl=0

For a free PDF copy of this book, use the contact form.

“To protect our young people, those who work in these facilities, and the broader community, we must immediately reduce the number of young people in custody as quickly as possible.”

https://campaigns.organizefor.org/petitions/djs-secretary-abed-it-s-time-to-bringourkidshome?share=68400c86-4955-446e-bbbf-86bb0f4adbbf&source=email-share-button&utm_source=email

Pausing in the midst of the storm allows us to ground ourselves, root into the solidity of the earth, remain calm. This pause allows us to reconnect inside, remember who we are and the depth of goodness and generosity we are, to be present. Then, only then, can we turn this attention to those around us. Our solidity becomes the beacon of light for others near and far. In that moment we reconnect with all of our planet. This is justice, inside and out.

Because this too will pass. And what will we remember about this time? Will we talk about how we lived in fear? Or will we remember how we remembered to love? Will we talk about the moments we remembered the elderly person living down the block and sent kindness to them? What we do today becomes the foundation for how we continue tomorrow. And if we are aware, today already contains tomorrow in it. So remember, this will pass and how will we remember this time, what actions will remember us?

It’s a difficult time yes. Yet there is an opportunity for us to evolve toward a greater humanity. To secure our wellness and safety and stay focused on how much benefit a calm mind brings to society, instead of a distracted, fearful, impatient, or angry mind with no awareness. We may be practicing social distancing if this is an opportunity for us. Or taking the preventive care we can so we stay well in the midst of working. Some may be practicing breathing, staying calm and sending that energy near and far to maintain a more calm world. Some of us will share information via social media. Others of us are on the ground delivering food or serving take-out food. Others are on the front line engaging with those of us affected directly by the virus. Others are driving some to work. Whatever we are doing, the collective consciousness of our society is one-pointed at the moment. Consider the power of one-pointed kindness, in body, speech, and mind.

In these moments of focused awareness, we can also turn our attention to kindness. For every thought of ‘the virus’ we can also remember to breathe. Or send a thought of kindness to a stranger tucked away in China, or Venezuela, or Italy, or Haiti, or Australia. Maybe send an email to that friend we haven’t talked to for a couple years: ‘Hello there, hope you and those around you are well’. This is taking care of the collective consciousness.

It is time to balance our thoughts and intentions toward a positive outcome for all. Time to not run away from our worry or fears; to hold them, acknowledge they can be there, right along with the hope, kindness, and compassion.

So while we think about this pandemic, its effect on the world, the disproportionate way it is and will affect our most vulnerable populations (Black, Indigenous, and people of color, the poor and low income, homeless and those living in group settings, incarcerated, immigrants at risk, elderly and immunocompromised) remember to balance these thoughts with kindness. Kindness for yourself and kindness for others.

Remember something you are grateful for and write it down: at least 5 times during the day. Each morning write down what you will do to enjoy yourself that day, and do it. Rest and do not feel compelled to: produce (that’s why we’re in this mess now!). If you feel the social anxiety to produce maybe take some time to reflect: “where does this come from? Can I start to let some of this go?”

Because this is the time friends. This is the time for us to evolve into the beautiful and noble next iteration of who we can become. Do not let this moment escape. Tomorrow may be too late, so remember now.

Some resources to stay inspired and informed.

“Sending You Light” by Melanie DeMore

National Mutual Aid Map for supporting immunocompromised people in need (View as MAP)

https://hosted.ap.org/article/c0e58c2e0de70169ef000ce3666c285a/democratic-lawmakers-call-racial-data-virus-testing

“Lean on Me” Playing for Change/Song around the World

Robert Wallace and others: COVID19 and the Circuits of Capital. Summary: Capitalist-oriented industrial agriculture and its destruction of habitat are the upstream causes that led to this pandemic as well as other past and future pandemics of devastating, emerging viral pathogens. COVID-19 may trigger a collapse of global capitalist system but it is not the cause.Health-care and public-health systems organized around capitalist principles don’t do well in pandemics, compared to those not organized around capitalist principles. The current economic collapse, triggered by a pandemic, opens a door for revolutionary transformation.

“What the World Needs Now” Playing for Change/Song around the World

The Food Chain Workers Alliance’s support to Organize your Food Workplace

“The Prayer” Heather Headley and Andrea Bocelli http:// https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7MD7f1MsGs

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resources for Undocumented Communities by state

A Zen Master’s tips for staying sane in challenging times

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/index.html

Today, the wealthiest 1% of Marylanders — those earning more than $535,000 per year — pay a smaller share of their income in state and local taxes than the rest of us.

Orr and Deschenaux. Baltimore Sun Jan 19 2020

Amongst the many recognitions -civil rights leader, author, spiritual teacher, non-violent activist, orator, engineer of the arc of justice, thinker- Dr. King was a ‘thought leader’. During the period in which he lived, one with great turmoil affecting the civil rights for Black people, Dr. King was an innovative leader in moving the agenda for racial and economic justice forward, taking risks in speaking truth to power, and in general motivating the masses to find in themselves the courage to stand up for love and justice. He told us 60 years ago that militarism, racism, and poverty were interconnected and fueled each other then…and today.

Today in Baltimore the cogs of the wheel that drive our charming city remain militarism, racism, and poverty.  It is clear that the violence that plagues our city stem from racism and poverty and drives racism and poverty. These three evils and institutionalized behaviors continue to feed each other, live off each other. It will require all three to be addressed simultaneously for us to see a shift in any one of them.

Each year we pay tribute to Dr. King on the day commemorating him. Big private and public institutions have community events, invite speakers for award ceremonies. On those same days the machine that drives these institutions continue perpetuating extreme wealth and income inequalities, bringing violence against the very people inside their institutions and those they claim to serve outside their institutions. Such false tributes to Dr. King stem from leadership that think narrowly about themselves and the profit they make. Meanwhile the gap between them and the lowest paid worker grows along with the budget for policing away crime and poverty. They can all do better, and must if they insist on celebrating Dr. King’s legacy of love and demand for concrete structures leading to justice.

Looking at the way government and private partnerships continue to perpetuate structural violence against the poor and people of color in our city is evident in our taxing sector. The rich for-profit and non-profit businesses pay little or no taxes while using government services. Meanwhile, residents and small businesses pay their share of taxes. How is this an antidote to the three evils of poverty, racism, and militarism? Instead these institutionalized practices feed these evils.

This taxing violence perpetuated on our working class and poor citizens and small businesses is evident in both the for-profit and non-profit taxing strategies in Baltimore. In the violence perpetuated by wealthy businesses, a recent article from the Baltimore Sun:

            “…Let’s begin by ending loopholes that allow large, profitable, multistate corporations   to use accounting gimmicks to avoid paying income taxes in Maryland. About one-third of the largest corporations in Maryland pay no state income taxes in a given year.  Closing two of those loopholes may generate $135?million annually, according to state  analysts. Ending or reforming a variety of ineffective business tax credits would net the state another $40 million each year. Neither of these steps would affect average  Marylanders, but would ensure that the largest businesses in the state are contributing to the services they benefit from in the same way small, Maryland-based businesses do. We should also address the state’s upside-down tax system. “

A similar analysis of how the non-profit sector violates our city by not paying their fair share of taxes is seen in this recent Baltimore Brew article:

            “…The finance department estimates that 11 nonprofits use about $47.6 million worth   of municipal services a year after deducting for community benefits and contributions that they make to the city. By this calculation, the four universities and seven hospitals   (see chart [in article]) are underpaying the city by $41 million a year – $47 million worth of services minus the $6 million of PILOT payments. Not surprisingly, the city’s biggest nonprofit, Johns Hopkins, gets the most “free” city services under this estimate – $26.1 million in services versus $3.25 million in PILOT payments.”

These three evils, the three cogs in the wheel of how our city operates, account for why our city continues to suffer from high crime, homelessness, lack of sufficient affordable housing, lack of appropriate rehabilitative services in incarcerated populations, and health and wealth inequality. Dr. King’s practice of Mahatma Gandhi’s system of non-violence included the clarity that those with more essentially are robbing from those who have insufficient: “In a real sense all life is interrelated. The agony of the poor enriches the rich. We are inevitably our brother’s keeper because we are our brother’s brother. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” (Where do we go from here: Chaos or community?).

Our wealthy corporations and the individuals with greater incomes have not yet realized that the agony of smaller corporations and lower income people who pay their fair share of taxes enriches them. Or they are sleepwalking in a reality of their own making shutting out the signs visible all around them of the effect of their wealth on the backs of the poor.

While this type of extreme and exploitative materialism driven by a white supremacist system fueled by militarism (all rooted in violence) continues in our city, there is reason for optimism on this day of remembering Dr. King. There is greater activism around changing these injustices in our city. There is also more understanding of the root causes of injustice and the intersections even while different groups work on individual parts. And every now and again we see examples of the type of Beloved Community Dr. King envisioned was possible. For example, the increase in worker-owned businesses or cooperatives, the increase in locally/community-owned land and businesses like the solar collective and other local low-dollar investment projects.

More humane business practices like meaningful sharing of profit to staff is also glimpsed every now and again, like when this real estate business, St. Johns Properties, shared $10 million in bonus amongst its 198 employees. To help us wake up, Baltimore could consider a mandatory bonus to employees, not unlike India’s Payment of Bonus Act requiring mandatory bonus payments, up to 30% of wages dependent on salary; or mandatory profit sharing plans that help secure all employees, not just the management. We have more steps to take to fulfill Dr. King’s dream of Beloved Community. Today we celebrate the legend of this great leader and aspire to walk in his steps.

We’ve continued to lean toward justice for all in 2019. This year has seen much happening in Baltimore and beyond (nationally and internationally) around movement building toward equity. We have been bringing healing into our justice spaces as we acknowledge the trauma in our minds and bodies requiring transformation for a transformed world. We talk more about love as the basis for justice calling back to Cornell West’s quote: “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public”.

In a country that espouses justice in its Constitution, it will remain our work to live into such a nation. The ignorance of the founding fathers assured a limited vision of justice for some. It is therefore our obligation as citizens to embrace our Constitution with wisdom and translate justice for all. So of course this means we accept struggle as our birthright: those whose ancestors did not look like or come from the land-owning race and class, and those who did. This requires us to be radical in love: wise, and more daring to be loving and inclusive than we know.

We also live in a country that has negotiated, through violence, for equal rights. Our violence does not exist only in the more obvious verbal and physical injury to our persons; it exists in all the systems that violate our personhood. These systems are framed in a capitalist economy that violates the rights of human beings to have fair wages, health insurance, adequate housing and education, safe neighborhoods and recreation, and healthy foods. Violation of the environment and all types of beings directly and indirectly feeds this system of greed and injustice. The transformation of these systems and structures built on greed and hatred will require a similar transformation in ourselves.

Concurrently the commander in chief of the country of the past 3 years unleashed a blatant push back toward a conservative nationalism and separatist ideology of white and wealth supremacy. His white wealth and power pulpit makes it more widespread and further entrenches and embodies this value of the nation, particularly in the weak, small-hearted, and ignorant. These last three years then have served to embolden us who seek love inside and outside of ourselves to uncover our hearts and find ways to bridge the separation between differences. Because like Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Dr. Martin Luther King, and other peace and spiritual activists have encouraged: it will not be violence that stops violence, but radical love and radical kindness.

Each year we move the pendulum a bit more toward justice by being courageous enough to love beyond our comfort zones, forgive, and see the complexity of ourselves in those we easily dismiss. In a country built on the ideology of exploitation, discrimination, greed, and ignorance what else can we expect but to spend our lives undoing these root causes of injustice: in ourselves and in our systems?  As we step mindfully into the new year, let’s pledge to continue our walk toward freedom. Our steps must be deep and steady enough for the little feet coming after us to safely, confidently, and joyfully step into.