Mother's Day of Action

Over the years that we've been together my wife has become increasingly interested in social justice. We sometimes joke that it was dating a tan-man that started her on this path, but the truth is it was always there. Since the events in Ferguson last year T has felt a stronger pull to go out and do what she can to try to help. This has primarily manifested in attending rallies and marches.

I have tried to support her as best I can. This past summer we drove 17 hours to Ferguson to join a march. Most of my support has been less dramatic. Often I do not attend the rallies, instead I support her by holding down the fort at home so she can go out.

This year T said that what she wanted for Mother's Day was to join the Million Moms March. So we did. The march was led by a group of mothers who had lost children to police violence, and some who had lost children to other gun violence. We rallied in the park, then marched down to the Department of Justice where the mothers presented a DOJ representative with a list of demands.

As we marched back to the park we witnessed an interaction that presented a perfect capsule for the divide in race and class relations in America. An African-American woman who had lost a family member in a police shooting was marching and speaking into a bull horn. She was giving the world her vision for the future and her demands of the justice system. There were a few other rallies and gatherings downtown today as well, including one along our parade route that included ringing a bell and reading out the names of people killed in the Vietnam War. It was a coincidence of timing that our march passed by the war memorial during the reading of the names.

All of a sudden an elderly white woman materialized in our midst. Her presence wasn't odd because she was white, or because she was older, it was diverse crowd. It was odd because of how she was moving, in the opposite direction of the marchers, sometimes turning around as if looking for someone. She seized upon the the woman with the bull horn, imploring her, "Please! Please be quiet! Stop it! This is a memorial!"

The woman with the bull horn wasn't having it. Not today, not during this march where people held signs that read "White silence = white compliance." She turned on the elderly woman and said, "Don't you touch me. Don't you talk to me. I will not be silent. You are not a black woman. You don't have to worry about them shooting your son down in the street. They shot my family down in the street. You're safe. Your kids are safe. Now get out of my way."

I wondered if this woman from the memorial didn't have to worry about her son being killed by police because she's white, or because her son had already been killed in Vietnam. That's our problem. We often fail to see that the kid killed in Vietnam 40 years ago, and the kid killed in Baltimore last month were killed by the same system. What the woman from the memorial may not realize is that the interruption of her moment is exactly what people mean when they cry out "No justice, no peace!" That phrase isn't a call to riot. It is a reminder that the disruption of other people's lives is sometimes the only way to get their attention. It isn't callous disrespect, it's both the calculated and collateral disruption of things other people take for granted.

I'll admit that I'm not totally convinced about how much change these rallies lead to. Not that I have any better ideas for those of us who do not roam the halls of power other than the old stand by of making sure we get out and vote. But I do see value in my wife and my family attending these rallies.

Other than my wife being able to fulfill her obligation to her beliefs I think these rallies are great educational opportunities for the kids. It would be easy to read that statement with cynicism and say that I am exploiting these events for disaster-tourism-home-schooler-field-trips. I don't think I am. I want my kids to see what I saw when I was kid growing going to marches in Berkeley.

I want them to see that diverse people can and will come together to rally behind an issue they feel is important. I want them to hear the stories of people who have been affected by violence. I want them to meet the people behind the news clips. I want them exposed to political action that extends away from the ballot box. I want them to see that all of these people came together for a common cause. Black women from Missouri and Maryland and Illinois, a group of white mothers pushing strollers and carrying signs that read "Tykes and Dykes for Justice," people in wheel chairs and walkers, all joining together to support a cause.

Most of all I want them to see that on a day during a weekend when she could have asked to do anything, their mother wanted to spend her time trying to help others. I want my children to follow an example that she is providing that I otherwise would not, at least not in this way.  I want them to see that the most important things they can give to others is their time, and their presence, and their passion.

I want them to see that Mother's Day isn't just about thanking mom for what she does for the family. It's about following her lead in what she does for the community.

Why I Went to Ferguson

It's now the end of March, 2015 and the DOJ has released their reports on the shooting of Michael Brown and their investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. The reports are mixed if you're a proponent of the "Black Lives Matter" movement. I'll admit, I haven't read the reports themselves, and I probably won't. I have read about them and the conclusions seem to be that while the department was rife with racism and rights violations, the shooting of Michael Brown was likely not the injustice we believed it was. Whether the DOJ report sways you or not is up to you. I personally believe in the DOJ investigation, in part because I supported the call for them to investigate and I feel like I have to stand by the result. That may seem weird given that I did not stand by the findings of the grand jury who examined the case. But I have more faith in a Federal investigation into this kind of crime. I also still believe that Darren Wilson is guilty of something, even if I don't know what that is, and I firmly believe that there could have been, and should have been options available to him in subduing a suspect under these circumstances. Though our understanding of the facts in the Brown case may have changed, that doesn't change the importance of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, which has become about more than just Michael Brown.

Even with that exhaustive introduction, I'm not actually here today to discuss the merits of the DOJ reports or the case itself. I know that while I have outrage and consternation, I don't have any insight into that aspect of the case. Instead I'd like to go back to August of 2014, when I went to Ferguson.

I'll be honest, even after the decision was made I didn't know why I was going.  Well, I knew why I was going. I was going because my wife had decided that the only thing she wanted for her birthday was for us to go to Ferguson, to march, as a family. In a way I understood. We had been sitting watching things unfold with a feeling of total helplessness. Posting on Facebook to an audience that was largely already on our side wasn't very satisfying. We wanted to help, but I didn't know what going to Ferguson would accomplish. There were already people there, what good, what difference, would the four of us make? But I am notoriously bad at giving gifts, so when my wife proposed this trip I agreed without hesitation. I wish I could say I made the decision for a more noble reason, but initially it was really just so I could give my wife something she really wanted for her birthday. So we decided to make the seventeen hour drive to Ferguson on a Friday night (so the kids could sleep the whole way and feel less of an impact) and come back Sunday night.

In the days leading up to the trip, and on the drive we talked about our goals for being there. My biggest fear was that we would end up as "Disaster Tourists." My wife's feeling was that she wanted to go for several reasons. She wanted to show that non-Black people care about these issues. She wanted to be a white face in the crowd in order to show that this is an American issue, not just an African American issue. She didn't mean that in the tone deaf manner of the misguided "All Lives Matter" people. She wanted to show that people of different races, and from different places, care about what's happening in a small suburb of St. Louis that most of us had never heard of before. She also wanted to show the kids that activism is important. We had been talking with them about Ferguson for a couple weeks at that point, and she wanted them to see that you can get involved in world events, rather than just sitting back and watching them unfold. I agreed with these reasons, but I was still uneasy.

I didn't actually do any marching in Ferguson. I dropped off my wife and daughter at the march and went off to secure our motel and get some sleep, as I'd done the bulk of the over night driving. Later on I drove to pick them up at the same McDonald's where police had harassed journalists in the early days of the protests. Driving down W. Florissant Ave. past the burned out gas station and the boarded up BBQ place that had a Clerks-like "We're open" spray painted on the outside was surreal. The thing I noticed though, was that at that time Ferguson had the most polite drivers and pedestrians I'd ever seen. Whatever was happening in that community had either created, or maintained, incredible civility towards each other. The McDonald's parking lot was packed, but no one was frustrated. People waved other drivers ahead, merged efficiently, and allowed pedestrians to pass. The pedestrians checked and made eye contact and acknowledged the drivers. It was astounding. The sense of community was palpable.

I started to figure out why I was there as I started to interact with people. The 900 mile trip meant we needed an oil change while we were there. While sitting in the car at the Valvoline on W. Florissant the attendant asked us why we in town. She was clearly surprised by the answer that we were there to protest. "Why?" she asked. At that moment, in that conversation, it was clear that we were there to do more than just show up and observe and be seen. We were there to meet people and talk to them, and to show that the media attention had an actionable result. The woman at the Valvoline and many others we met seemed both surprised and appreciative of the idea that the protesters could inspire a family to not only agree with their message, but to come down to hear it first hand. We were there to represent people from other parts of the country. We were there to show the community that they were not alone, that their message was being heard.

We went to church at St. Stephen's the next morning. The priest, as we expected, discussed the on-going situation in his sermon. The parish welcomed us and wanted to hear our story. They asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday, and I outed my wife who was given a cross on string as a gift. We saw what the church had been doing in the weeks since the Michael Brown shooting. They had an overwhelming pantry of donated food and clothing. The parishioners told us they had been serving many hundreds more people since the protests began than they did during calmer times. They were also re-donating food to larger shelters and congregations. People had come to them saying that there were older people in the Canfield area who were in need of food and toiletries but couldn't go out for them because they were either afraid, or because the stores were closed. The church was trying to find out how to identify these people and get them supplies, while also being unobtrusive.



Talking to parishioners helped to understand another reason for me to have made the trip. I was there so that people could tell me their views, and I could bring them back to my community. The view of the people I talked with was that they were with the protesters, and against the rioters who they saw as being an outside element. They wanted people to know that their community was generally peaceful, but that they were all fatigued by the kind of injustice later revealed in the DOJ report. They wanted people to know that they were a normal community going through a tough time, and pulling together, and supporting each other.

That's what I witnessed. That's what I brought back with me. That's what I told people in conversations about Ferguson. The people of Ferguson are ordinary people, just like people in any other city in America. All they want is to be able to get up and go to work and live their lives without being harassed, or beaten, or shot. They are people who decided they'd had enough and rose up and said so.

Regardless of how their community is portrayed, or reported on, they just want the message to come through that they're us. So that's why I was there, to internalize the experience, and the message. To try, in a small way to remind the rest of us that the people of Ferguson are just that, people. Regular people, who were put into an unusual circumstance, who helped shift the national focus and the national conversation, but who want us to know that they're really just us.