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.

The Baltimore City Office of Civil Rights and Wage Enforcement held its inaugural ‘Civil Rights week’ this past week. It began with a talk by Reverend Jesse Jackson and featured 9 events highlighting civil rights activities in the city. This unique week culminated with an award ceremony on Saturday night. It was great to see this office raise up the necessity of the work of civil rights activists and remind us of the work still needing to be done to assure justice for the oppressed. Roland Martin, the keynote speaker at the ceremony, again reminded us that we are the ones needing to do this work. While I enjoyed participating in the ceremony, as I left the Baltimore Convention Center in my ‘evening attire’ I couldn’t help but wonder if I was doing enough as I passed homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks of Charles Street. Continue reading →

‘We who believe in freedom cannot rest’. Sweet Honey in the Rock

It’s another sad moment in our history of freedom in the US. My heart breaks open again. This violence of deportation is forcing the separation of families in an attempt to save the ‘purity’ of America.

Trump wants to make America white again, fearing the projections of the US Census bureau showing an increase in mixed-race Americans and more than 25% of the US population being Latinx/Hispanic by 2060. This translates to a co-occurring decrease in non-hispanic white Americans which diminishes the ‘purity’ of America, something that has been the bedrock of a white-supremacist America. The ‘send them back’ chants of Trump’s constituents are the manifestations of the fear of an ‘impure’ America. This is no different from the sentiments and actions of Americans in 1942 when more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly displaced from their homes and incarcerated in camps. Then there was also the chant of ‘one-drop of Japanese blood’ being sufficient for incarceration, the impurity of America. Continue reading →

Some of the neighborhoods targeted for increased policing, through the Johns Hopkins Private Police force being considered before the Maryland

Five Baltimore city police officers ‘arresting’ one man, North Avenue.

general assembly this Friday February 22 2019, are communities of increased fragmentation and abandonment. These neighborhoods are prone to increased police violence and health inequity. This is not new news… that certain populations: homeless, black and brown people, transgendered people, drug users, those who appear to be poor, those who appear to be immigrants… the marginalized people without power- are targeted by police. (1,2,3,4)

We know also that Baltimore’s police department is currently under a consent decree due to excessive police violence.

We know also that the city of Baltimore has a problem with crime. That neighborhoods with increased fragmentation when violently policed results in stress and poor health contributing to the severe health inequities in our city. These are often neighborhoods with increased poverty,  decreased household income, increased boarded housing and decreased investment and housing inspectors, decreased employment, and increased crime. Continue reading →

‘Giving an intoxicated person the keys to a car is contrary to the safety of all those in their path, and to themselves. This is analogous to allowing the Johns Hopkins institutions to have police powers.’

The Johns Hopkins institutions in the city of Baltimore wants to have its own police force. It proposed legislation for police powers to the Maryland legislation last year 2018, with no success. It spent the time since and leading up to the 2019 legislative season ‘working’ on its game plan. The president, staff, and supporters such as BUILD (Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development) held community meetings to ‘invite’ in neighborhood voices. In the meantime, it has again demonized the communities surrounding its institutions and offered itself as a police power as the solution, the savior. But as one East Baltimore resident said of the meeting convened by the university president Ron Daniels: ‘this is not about us, about this community…this is about the new community they built, the Hopkins staff, and students, their people’. Continue reading →

Baltimore has yet to enter into innovative or courageous community rebuilding. Its community development processes and outcomes continue to gentrify neighborhoods, craving a larger population of the so called ‘creative class’ to right itself. It’s intention is not focused deeply enough on remedying the social and economic situation of its distressed neighborhood. Yes it wants to ‘get rid of them’ but it wants to get rid of the people in them not figure out how to assure that people living in these abandoned neighborhoods are able to participate in the rebuilt areas, better yet own part of the development. And this is where Baltimore continues to lack innovation and courage. Continue reading →

Several weeks ago, I posted about non-violence in our movements of the past and asked how does this look in our movements today. Sometimes, we need to remind each other, as activists, organizers, and advocates, that we too must adhere to principles of justice inside ourselves and within our movements, as we look outward. We can only manifest healing and justice outside if we ourselves are healing and justice. Check out this call to our activists’ community at change.org and join us as we support each other in finding justice inside and outside! Continue reading →