Reflections on a Week of Action in a Life of Action

I've never been one to shy away from a good protest. I've been going to protests and rallies and marches and sit-ins and vigils and celebrations for a very long time. I've walked, I've shouted, I've sat silently holding a candle, I've signed petitions, I've passed petitions, I've written letters, I've written blogs, I've made phone calls, I've knocked on doors.

In High School, in the late '70s, it was mostly anti-Nuke and No War in Central America. Then No War for Oil, No More Wars for Oil, Not Yet Another War for Oil... Clean Air & Water, Gay Pride, No On 8, Occupy, Overturn Citizens United, Women's Rights, Memorial for the Pulse, Memorial for the Tree of Life, No Kids in Cages. I'm sure I've missed a few here, even from just the last few years.

This last week has felt a bit different. How do you protest in a pandemic? How do you go out when you're supposed to stay in? How do you shout when you're winded from the non-stop horrors? But then again, how do you not? How do you remain silent following the murders of George Floyd, Brionna Taylor, and Auhmaud Arbery (and so many more), and just say, "I'm doing the pandemic now. I'll get with you later"?

I took my cues this week from the Movement for Black Lives "Week of Action" website. Each day had a demand, and suggested actions for each day broken down by Safe (yes, you can do it from home, during a pandemic), Medium, or High Risk. I've taken actions each day - some private (such as donations, petitions), some public (social media), and some truly public: yesterday, I did join a rally and march with hundreds of my neighbors.

Today (Saturday)'s theme is Making Meaning from Crisis. This reflections blog is part of my action for the day.

Now I've written this part before, but let me say it again: My life has been probably 98% privilege. I've had my share of incidents with anti-Semites - a lost job (or maybe two), a bloody nose (or maybe three) - but these are rare. In school days, long ago, my preference for longer hair and lack of skill or interest in sports led to a certain amount of anti-gay bullying (despite my not being gay).

But overall, my life has been one of middle-class, white privilege. I've driven away from traffic stops with only a warning and never thought "this is how I die" when I was being pulled over. When shop owners have kept an extra close eye on me I've had the luxury of thinking "what a paranoid ass" instead of "what a racist."

But I also know that justice cannot exist, that all lives will not matter, until we all stand shoulder to shoulder with our neighbors - even in a damned pandemic - and say loudly Black Lives Matter! And say their names: George Floyd, Brionna Taylor, Auhmaud Arbery...

In Memory of Jim Harris

Jim Harris was a computer consultant, a software developer & programmer, a teacher, a union organizer, president of a trade school, a gifted musician, and a social activist. It is in that last role that I became aware of Jim, soon after he and Pat Murphy co-founded Progressive Secretary in 1997.

Progressive Secretary was not the first organization to see the potential for using email and the net and what we now call "social media" to encourage activism, and bring people together for progressive causes (MoveOn.org had them beat by at least a year), but they were certainly early in the line.

And, for all the changes and advances in technology in the last fourteen years, Progressive Secretary has remained true to their original, simple concept:

Progressive Secretary sends out progressive email letters to Congress, the President, and other officials on peace, the environment, civil rights and other issues.

The letters are suggested by participants in the cooperative and are sent to you as a proposal. If you tell us to "send", then the letters are sent ... over your signature and return address.

Whether or not you consider yourself a "progressive" or not, and whether or not you agree with Jim's politics is not my point here today. It's the simple elegance of the concept of using email to organize cooperative grassroots campaigns. So obvious today; not so much in 1997.

Today, the flip side is that such efforts have become so commonplace that they are derided as "slacktivism" - faux activism designed to appeal to the lazy. But Jim Harris was no slacktivist. He worked for social justice all his life, was part of the Civil Rights movement, going to Mississippi with SNCC, and later working with Cesar Chavez and the UFW. When he co-founded Progressive Secretary in 1997, he was recovering from leukemia, and considered it part of his healing.

Jim finally passed last Friday, June 3, of glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. There will be a Quaker memorial service today at the Sacramento Friends Meeting House. He was seventy-years old. Progressive Secretary lives on.

Blog Action Day: Water!

An old adage in California politics, dating back at least 150 years, is, "In California whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting." And, indeed, battles between the northern, water-rich mountain regions of the state, and the arid, desert south have shaped our politics, and our maps, with laws pitting agriculture against industry, and a massive system of aqueducts crossing the landscapes. But California's water situation is nothing compared to that faced in much of the world.

Just a few statistics to begin to paint the picture:

• African women walk over 40 billion hours each year carrying cisterns weighing up to 18 kilograms to gather water, which is usually still not safe to drink.
• Every week, nearly 38,000 children under the age of 5 die from unsafe drinking water and unhygienic living conditions.
• Many scholars attribute the conflict in Darfur at least in part to lack of access to water. A report commissioned by the UN found that in the 21st century, water scarcity will become one of the leading causes of conflict in Africa.
• Every day, 2 million tons of human waste are disposed of in water sources. This not only negatively impacts the environment but also harms the health of surrounding communities.
• The problem is not just in the "Third World" - Today, 40% of America's rivers and 46% of America's lakes are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.
• The problem is not just "other people's" issue - The cotton t-shirt I'm wearing right now took 1,514 liters of water to produce.
• The iPhone sitting on my desk is currently using half a liter of water to charge up for the day. Multiply that by over 80 million active iPhones in the world, and that's 40 million liters.

What can we do about this?

• Be aware of our water footprint; think of ways you can conserve.
• Donate to a charity that's building clean-water wells in Africa.
• Educate yourself and your community about the issues.
• Volunteer to clean a local stream; be aware of your effect on your local watershed.
• Click the widget below to sign a petition to the U.N.

For a related post, please see my recap of a presentation by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the topic of Crimes Against Nature (April 2009).

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