Vote for Joe

I gave a talk to some 40 people at the Open Door Community   in Atlanta, Georgia, today.   The gentleman who introduced me, prefaced the talk by reading from Proverbs 30: 7-9.     The crux of the passage was “…let me be neither rich nor poor.”     I, in turn, said that that was the essence of our platform.   That is, many Americans have the wherewithal to cut back lifestyle wise and help much more than they do.   And it’s about tapping into that spirit of sacrifice…   After the talk, our family volunteered helping serve a meal to the homeless here.   I was assigned to the front yard where I picked up coffee cups among those waiting to get in.   I also struck up a number of conversations.   One was with “John” who renovates houses, but had fallen on hard times because of the bursting of the housing bubble.   He hadn’t worked for awhile, lost his own place and was staying in a homeless camp underneath a cloverleaf of highways.   “It’s a way to stay dry,” said John, who sleeps in a sleeping bag below a tarp he turns into the wind…   Then there was James, who was volunteering here this morning.   He grew up in a Black ghetto in Atlanta (“Close to where Martin Luther King Jr. grew up,” he said.) and was a good high school basketball player.   Out of high school (1963), he was drafted.   “Drafted or not,” he said, “the military was one of the few ways out of the ghetto.”   James went to Vietnam where he saw fighting, developed a case of post traumatic stress syndrome, and a drug habit.   Back in Atlanta, there was little work and the drug addiction persisted.   He eventually ended up in prison.   When he got out, there was still little work and he found himself homeless, sort of.   Engineering students at Georgia Tech University here designed and built small 6ft. by 8ft. wooden “huts,” complete with small, vented fireplaces.   James lived in one of a cluster of eight huts.   (He said these hut encampments don’t exist anymore in Atlanta, simply because almost all of the land has been developed now.)   James would often come to the Open Door for help.   Some 11 years ago he got into recovery. And as his life started to straighten out, he began regularly volunteering here.   And he still does…   Note: Another of the volunteers approached me after my talk on everyone having enough.   She said there was an author speaking tonight in nearby Decatur, Georgia, who I might be interested in hearing.   The title of her book:   Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide (‘Cause I need more room for my plasma TV).

In remembrance of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday 1965, which was honored today in Selma, Alabama, my son Jonathan and I went to the King Center in Atlanta.   A tribute to the life of Martin Luther King Jr., the Center is highly interactive, with a series of montages and a set of videos about King and the Civil Rights Movement.   In one video it was explained that in the South “separate but equal was a myth.”   What’s more, segregation sent a strong psychological message that Black people were inferior to Whites and should be kept separate.   There were “colored” restrooms, “colored” drinking fountains, “colored” motels, “colored” diners…   And even after segregation ended (at least some of it), there was still a tremendous financial disparity between many Blacks and Whites.   King Jr. recognized this and stridently took on poverty, calling for a “radical redistribution of wealth.”   Yet that chasm still exists today and is poignantly displayed on the walls of the Open Door Community   in urban Atlanta, where we are staying for the next few days.   The Open Door is a Catholic Worker House of Hospitality that attends to the homeless and others on the margins here.   On the wall are some 70 random photographs of various homeless people, and of other urban poor in the area.   Some 90% of the pictures are Black people.   We still, indeed, have segregation in our cities, as we still have slavery.   That is, many of these people have been caught in trans-generational poverty loops and are ‘slaves’ to the streets.   President John F. Kennedy, in addressing segregation, once said that we can’t have true freedom in this country until “…everyone is free.”   Not everyone is free, even yet.   Not by a long shot…   Dr. King grew up going to Ebeneezer Church in Atlanta, a Black Baptist Church.   His father was a preacher.   I interviewed another Black preacher at the Open Door Community today.   Rev. Ron Lister and his wife Ann are on staff at the Open Door.   Ann is also working on a degree in theology at nearby Emory University.   When she graduates, the Listers are planning to open the Center for World Spirituality.   Rev. Ron told me this would be an “ecumenical inter-faith collaboration,” with a commitment to enhancing one’s faith and social justice outreach.   One component will be in-depth studies of various world religions in order to break down stereo-types, look for common denominators, etc.   As an example, Rev. Ron said that in the Muslim faith the work “jihad” has been co-opted by extremists to justify terrorism and war.   Rev. Lister said, based on his studies, that the word “jihad” is really meant to connote the ‘war’ between the “spirit and the flesh.”   The same consistent theme, for instance, that is expressed in Christianity.

Three young couples from Texas, Iowa and Ohio, respectively, have come to LaGrange, Georgia, as part of a MissionYear   Project.   They are volunteering for the Alterna Community here, which is a cluster of homes set up for immigrant families in the area.   These couples have set up a community garden for Alterna, help with after school tutoring for immigrant family youth, help out with house repairs, etc…   In addition, these young couples are active in the community volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, coordinating a church youth group, working at a home for single mothers…   One of the volunteers, Dustin White, has become a vocal advocate for better housing among the low-income throughout the community.   As part of his advocacy work, he takes people on tours of the town’s ‘other side of the tracks,’ literally.   During a tour he gave me, White said primarly low-income Blacks and Hispanic immigrants, for generations, have lived in rough housing settlements on the south side of the tracks.   He took me down hardscrabble street after street of small, one-story, run-down houses.   Patches of missing roof shingles, peeling paint, single pane broken windows, clap board walls with no insulation, rusted appliances (many not working)…   Dustin took me in one small home where the floor tile was broken up, an old rusty bath tub lay on it’s side, many of the appliances didn’t work, a window was broken… “This one is advertised as ‘ready to rent,”‘ White scoffed.   He said while seemingly totally unsuitable to live in, a new immigrant family (because of finances) would be forced into such a dwelling — and might well live in it with another family.   Close by this home is the rather bare bones Williams Griggs Recreational Center.   We took our kids there to play some hoops.   We, it turned out, were the ‘token whites’ there this day.   Dustin White had told me that although the “Colored” signs have been taken down on the third gas station bathrooms, and the like, here, the community was still fairly segregated.   Note:   White told me there was a non-profit organization in LaGrange called DASH, which helps renovate homes.   White, and his wife Jamie, have recently published a book called Disguised in their Eyes.   It’s about the inner city poor.   They suggest at one point in the book that those more well off convert their garages to apartments and take the rent money to fund programs like DASH, so more people can have access to adequate housing.   Good idea.

I was interviewed by the LaGrange Daily News the other day.   I said to reporter Joel Martin that in some areas I would be viewed as quite liberal, while in other areas I would be viewed as quite conservative — like with abortion.   And speaking of abortion… I just read in the New York Times that Utah has legislation pending that would criminalize “illegal” abortions.   For instance, a 17-year-old pregnant girl in Utah paid a man $150 to beat her up with the hopes of inducing a miscarriage.   The Utah bill’s sponsor, Representative Carl Wimmer, said:   “A woman going out to seek any way to kill her unborn child, no matter how heinous or brutal, couldn’t [currently] be held liable.”   Heinous?   Brutal?   In a “legal” abortion, the baby is dismembered and suctioned out of the mother’s womb.   Have we as a society gone mad?   I mean, the whole   abortion thing — both legal or illegal — is absolutely insane!   As is this nuclear weapons thing.   I told Mr. Martin that our daughter Sarah posed to me one day.   “Dad, America has enough nuclear weapons to blow the world up 200 times.   Why not have enough nuclear weapons to just blow the world up: once.”   Good question.

We met with a group of Hispanic immigrant families who are all part of the Alterna Project in LaGrange Tuesday night.   They live in a cluster of homes on Jefferson Street here as part of a “housing co-op.”   Social justice advocate, and former La Grange College professor,  Anton Flores bought these homes and has entered into a cooperative agreement with the immigrant families.   Flores has structured it so these families are paying for these homes basically at cost.   Flores told me what motivates him is “Christian love…”   This evening our family heard a tremendously poignant story from a family who came to  La Grange  some 10 years ago.   Farm working jobs had dried up in Vera Cruz, Mexico, and the family had moved to crowded Mexico City for work.   The father began working for a distribution company and was making a mere $50 a week.   They lived in one room,  not much larger than the size  of a typical American storage shed.   His salary was just enough to make rent and food each month in Mexico.   He had a wife and a six-year-old son.   They were desperately trapped in a poverty loop, with seemingly “no way to get ahead.”   And they lived in an area infested with drugs, violence and gangs.   “We were continually afraid to go outside on the street,” the wife said.   There were regular robberies, homicides, child abductions…   They were torn.   While the family  didn’t want to leave their extended family, their homeland, their culture… “Besides the danger, we weren’t even able to afford shoes for our child,” said the mother.   They decided to come here where the father got a job as a house painter and eventually started making enough to “get ahead a bit.”   They also had another child  and are quite involved with the Alterna community now.   “Here there is safety for our children — and they never go without shoes,” the mother added, a tear coming to her eye.