An American Pentecost

I am not a great Catholic nor am I great citizen or ally. I often skip Mass or disagree with things. I don’t like evangelizing or bothering people with faith talk. I often stay home while others engage direct with injustice. I’m afraid of conflict and hard conversations.

But as these protests unfold into Pentecost Sunday  I can’t help but wonder if we are witnessing something very different and much larger than we have in our lifetime. We are all “together in one place”, in  tight communities as the apostles were—through quarantine or in solidarity in protest. We are all trapped in the horrors and pain unfolding in our nation, not just the pandemic but the defiant and seemingly indomitable specter of racism and authoritarian violence.

I am moved on a deeply, profoundly spiritual level in ways I have not for a several years. I see these videos of police violence and see the young people I’ve worked directly with in their place. Good kids whose lives are undervalued by the government and systems of society, who have been written off as thugs because of the color of their skin or the city they are from.

I don’t know what comes out of this movement, if anything at all. We’ve seen it all before. Ferguson wasn’t even ten years ago. I have often had the sense, in the last few years, that this country, this world has been in a state of agitation and pain in moving toward a new becoming. How long have our neighbors spent time fearing persecution in the upper room? I can’t see what comes after, I can only hope as the movement spreads across the country and the injustice is exposed over and over and over, we finally realize that injustice against some is an injustice against all.

On Pentecost, what is celebrated as the birth of the Church, when a cleansing flame of the Holy Spirit  came to the disciples and sent them out in the world speaking in many tongues about the justice, love, and salvation of Jesus Christ, what does the spirit tell us in this time? As flames of protest and police violence rise up in cities around the country, are we listening to the pain of our brothers and sisters being communicated to us?

We watched in horror as George Floyd was murdered in cold blood, restrained, begging for breath.

The Holy Spirit came to the apostles like the sound of a violent wind. God is in us and around us in the air we breathe, the air refused George Floyd by an abuse of power—a profound injustice. God speaks to us in the world, if we look for it.

We see the tongues of fire of the spirit, God’s beloved sons and daughters crying out in pain. They are risking their lives,  expressing their pain, and being persecuted for it.

In the celebration of Pentecost, the Church celebrates the coming together of the world as one community.

On Pentecost, 2,000 years later, we see that the promise continues to go unfulfilled.

There are forces that want this moment to divide us, to use the flames as a tool for destruction.

But as people of good will, what can we do to see the flames as a cleansing spirit? To forge ahead in solidarity and community?

I pray that my Church works toward justice. I hope that my nation works toward justice. And I will do my best to be better as a Catholic and citizen to help make this country a more just place. Because my faith compels it. My neighbors deserve it. There is no peace without justice. There is no peace in our nation without recognition that black lives matter.

May the Spirit enable us.

What Are We Doing?

Today at her daily press briefing (lol) Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the cruel separation of parents from children by saying “It is biblical to follow laws.”

Two things.

1. No it isn’t.

2. It’s not the law to steal children from their asylum seeking parents and stuff them in prison camps.

The Bible can be vague on certain things. Jesus speaks in lots of parables and word games, but on this, Jesus is explicit and clear:

Matthew 25:35

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed meFor I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

Luke 10:27

“And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

The Hebrew Scripture (Old Testament) is even more explicit:

"So you too should love the resident alien, for that is what you were in the land of Egypt." Deuteronomy 10:19

Furthermore,  it is explicitly not biblical to follow unjust laws, or to hide behind law as a smokescreen for other heinous actions. See: the healing of the man on the sabbath (Mark 3:1-6) and the exceedingly specific woes upon the Pharisees (Luke 11:37-54, Matt 23:1-39).

My point, here, however, is not to argue with the twisted fundamentalist distortion of the Christian scriptures. 

My point here is to ask:

What are we doing?

Kids—eight month old babies, being ripped away from their parents, separated from their siblings, and thrown into an old abandoned Walmart, shuffled past a mural of Donald Trump with a vaguely ominous and nonsensical slogans and given strictly enforced times to run around, eating in mess halls that look like prison cafeterias.

Children  have been “taken “by Border Patrol agents who said they were going to give them a bath. As the hours passed, it dawned on the mothers the kids were not coming back.””

I’ve been blogging into the wind long enough to have no illusions that this will be read by more than six people, but what else can I do? I sit here and I see what is happening and I am at turns terrified and furious. This is systematic oppression of a minority. It is a cruelty explicitly instated at the federal level that is unprecedented in the modern era.

I see people constantly say “This is not who we are.”

But isn’t it?

Isn’t this exactly who we are and who we have been for years? 

I know that we’ve been keeping immigrants, including children, locked up in detention centers on the border for years. Not too long ago, I spent an evening flooding my congressman’s Facebook page with images of ICE detention centers, trying in vain to get the racist entitled old white man to back a humane immigration system.

This is a country of racism—institutionally and culturally. We throw black kids and black men into jails over minor offenses, and leave them there for the rest of their lives. Around 13% of the population of the United States  is African American. They make up 35% of jail inmates and 37% of prison inmates. Back in 2009, almost a full 5% of all African American adult males were incarcerated.

And this is what we do to kids on the border, just because they’re brown.

Donald Trump and his Republican Party continue to criminalize all non-white Christians. They’ve banned Muslims from coming into the country, made social media checks a standard practice, want to crack down on minor drug offenses that inordinately impact black men, they scapegoat Mexicans as murderers and gang members. “Animals,” they say, then get defensive and clarify they’re just talking about MS-13, even though everyone knows they only use MS-13 to mask their virulent racism. In defense of the White Supremacist killing of a protestor, Donald Trump said there were “Good people on both sides.”

There was a time it almost seemed like we were getting better, right? But the sheer hate for a black man being in charge caused the racist underbelly of this nation to erupt and claw its way into the mainstream of American society.

He was born in Kenya.

He’s a Muslim who wants to overtake the nation and throw it into Sharia law.

They cloak their hate in Christ and St. Paul. They dare us to “defy” the leader at our peril. They want to put in place a Theocratic Authoritarian state wherein their conception of Christianity (one that defies all calls toward mercy, service and preferential treatment of the poor) is the law of the land. Where being an immigrant is a crime, where to be Muslim is to be second class, where being black defines you as less worthy of decency and respect.

Listen, I am Catholic. I am not against your faith being an important part of your political life, and informing your views. 

But this is not the same thing. 

Jesus lays it out clearly for us:

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

We are meant to support the broken and battered and beaten. We are meant to share our wealth with the poor, to literally share our table with the outcast.

We dance around these threats of authoritarianism and say “it can never happen here,” but it has happened and continues to happen before our eyes as we sit and watch children ripped away from their mothers at the border. Mothers escaping violence, fearing for their lives, who come to this country because we have told the world: You are welcome here.

The Trump administration is doing damage to a lot of things. It is ostracizing us from our global allies, throwing money away at corporations, flirting with authoritarians abroad.

As a nation, we can come back from economic downturns. You can fix broken international trade relationships.

What is much harder to come back from is this moral rot at the center of this country, the one we have ignored for over 250 years, that has returned to remind us that we are a nation of delusion. 

We are fed American exceptionalism. We are fed the lie that we are the “Greatest country in the World.”

All as we imprison black men at alarming rates. As we lock up children on the border. As we penalize the poor and rip healthcare away from the sick. As they cloak it in lies and twist their religious texts into justification for their cruelty and their greed.

This country is battered and bruised and sick and we all sit here on our phones and our computers. We balk and laugh at the antics of a foolish, racist man and his cronies of racists, oligarchs, and authoritarians. We have ignored the clear signs of a broken political life, content to assume that others will vote for the right person, or lying to ourselves that “all politicians are the same.” These things don’t affect me. They won’t be as bad as everyone says.

What are we doing when we sit and see the horror of broken families, broken because we fed them a lie, and we do nothing? 

What will it take for the dam to burst, for things to be so morally repugnant and unacceptable that we are shaken from our apathy? What will it take me to do more than sit here and type words into the void? 

We are at a moral tipping point. This is beyond politics as we have ever known it in this country. This is egregiously abnormal, and we are lied to at every turn and told we are overreacting. This is beyond political parties and even religious vs. nonreligious. How do we come back from accepting, as a society, forcing severe trauma upon innocent children? All to benefit the engines of war and oppression? 

This is not even the worst of it. Literal camps are coming, “tent cities” built by our government to house kids stolen from their parents. Tent cities in the triple digit summer Texas heat. We'll find euphemisms to avoid calling these encampments what they are. We've seen it before. 

I have no answers. We have sat by and allowed a federal police force to round up and detain immigrants with no due process in inhumane conditions for years.  We have let this fester because it is easier not to think about. Are we too late? 

You can call your representatives—but banking on a Republican politician to care about institutionalizing racism is like asking a tiger to change its stripes. It just does not happen. But what else is there for us to do? 

We can vote -- and the only moral vote to put an end to these deeply racist, deeply dangerous, and deeply immoral policies is one to remove every Trump sycophant and enabler in Congress.

But these heinous attitudes do not end whenever Trump and his kind are out of politics. They are a part of the American fabric. Is there any coming back? Is there redemption for the American soul?

What are we doing?

What are we doing?

The Questing Beast

The morning of September 11, 2001 I was in my seventh grade geography class. Our teacher came in a few minutes late, and announced very simply, “Well, it's a bad day for this country. Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center.” A room full of 12 year olds was silent. We were too young to process this. But we tried. My first thought was, “the same one we were just in last year for a field trip?” I had to contextualize it in my life. A thing that I had been in fairly recently had just been destroyed. The why of it all was completely beyond me at the time. It continues to be beyond me. The shock of it was clear on Mr. Forney’s face. Like many things in my young life, I had experienced far too little to realize how abnormal it all was. I just took it as a fact.

Somehow, we went through a full day. Some people were taken out of school early. I was not. I am not sure how our teachers made it through the day. I cannot conceive of what it took for Mr. Forney to step into that classroom, knowing that a world changing event this was, how horrific these events were. How do you walk your young students through hearing and digesting news you yourself cannot fathom? How do you explain terrorism? I have grown to admire Mr. Forney for his handling of this event. As the days went on, he continued to help us through it. I suppose he figured that, as the person responsible for teaching us about the world in which we lived, it was his responsibility to help us understand this strange moment. He walked through the fear, anger, and confusion with us. When a student suggested that when the people responsible were found (did we know it was Bin Laden yet?) we should put them in an airplane and crash it. Forney shut this down. We as a nation were better than that, he told us. We do not partake in cruel and unusual punishment. He empathized with the anger this student felt; I am sure he felt it too.

Following the events, he decided he was going to change the curriculum. When it was clear that this was terrorism, and war was, for some reason, called on Iraq, Mr. Forney felt  that it was important for us to understand the culture of the Middle East. He did not want us to demonize the region, or to hate and fear it for no reason. It was critical that we had some kind of knowledge about this area of the world that continues to impact our foreign policy and world events. It was not something he had to do--but as an educator, he decided it was his moral obligation.

Immediately, the rhetoric was that the world was changed. But I felt the same. My world was not changed. I felt ashamed that I did not buy into the sudden surge of patriotism and renewed flag waving. One of my teachers had us sit and listen to the maudlin song “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?” by Alan Jackson. It was too on the nose, too simple. I was embarrassed by it.

I did not feel that I had been personally affected by this day. I did not know anyone in New York that day, I did not have a connection to the city at all. Not until very recently did I realize I was and continue to be touched by it every single day. So was every other adolescent who came of age in a world scarred by the sudden absence of the Twin Towers in fire and smoke, like the world’s darkest magic trick.

I see it every day in the fear that is peddled about those who are “other.” I  see it in the bombardment of stories of veterans torn apart and disembodied, who return home only to be without home. I see it in the ever further encroachment of our privacy and civil liberties. For those who were teenagers then, the last generation to have lived life before cell phones and the internet, we have seen the promise of infinite knowledge and connection become the looming presence of corporate and government interests sorting through our most private information. I see it in the continued empty flag waving patriotism that demands more war, more martial law, more freedom for the white man to do as he pleases, at the expense of every brown man, woman and child. The cooption of national pride and the national anthem as some kind of slavish devotion to white identity--because ever since 9/11, to be brown, to be turbaned, to be anything but white and Christian and moneyed is to be an affront to American hegemony and its unique brand of Exceptionalism.

Since that day, this America that I love and do not love, has been at perpetual war, has seen the lives of countless men and women taken based upon lies and the premise that the white American Republican virtues of commerce, consumption, and righteous anger should be spread. Our major export has been drone strikes and ammunition--and the lives of our soldiers.

I struggle with the concept of patriotism, because I know that for some it is identified by maudlin country songs about the day the world stopped turning and beer and the idea that we can kill more brown people than any other country--and fuck you, I do what I want. That is American patriotism that we cherish. It is the American patriotism of Donald Trump and Paul Ryan

America’s ideals were not founded upon this idea that might makes right. But we have become King Pellinore--and war is our Questing Beast. War is our eternal hunt, and so we have had to define an “other” to oppose. Over and over. War on drugs. War on terror. War on poverty. War on Christmas. War war war. Just as Pellinore's search for the Beast spanned generations, so too does ours.

From our earliest days, our founders viewed America as a haven for the outsider, George Washington himself opined, “the bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions.”

How can one be proud of a nation that has betrayed every promise it has made? These truths that we claim to hold as self-evident-- that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-- these truths do not hold. When patriotism is conflated with blind loyalty to morally reprehensible status quo and the premise that strength is to be admired above all, then patriotism has no meaning. This American patriotism is synonymous with American masculinity--it is fragile, aggressive, threatened by that which betrays vulnerability.

Perhaps I cannot buy into this brand of American masculine patriotism, because I have struggled with this toxic masculinity for much of my life. I have stood outside it, wondered at it, been hurt by it, tried and failed to attain it, and been destroyed by it. This toxic masculinity is fueled by the persecution of the weak by the strong. This masculinity is affronted and appalled by that which it does not recognize in itself. Because this masculinity is embraced by men who have never been betrayed by their bodies, by their society, the sick and the poor disgust them. To be sick or to be poor or to be Muslim or gay is simply the result of weakness and disorder.

This masculinity views justice as a set of transactions which presuppose they deserve to be rich, to be powerful, to be strong. And when they see those who are not rich, or powerful, or strong, they oppose it. Not as an abstract set of societal forces, but as a group of people who must be set opposite of them. And because these men have never felt their bodies fall apart and weaken them, have never had their stomach cut open and their insides removed, they see it as justice for the sick to pay their own way. These men received the strength and the health that they deserved, and so they do not need to worry about the cost of a failing body. They work for their money, and how dare the sick and poor who do not deserve their money insist that the health of the individual is the burden of the nation.

Their money is their strength, and those who are on the street deserve their lot. By God, they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and bought a house and got a job. So woe upon the millennials born into the worst economic downturn since the second World War, for they are not responsible enough to afford a home. They do not deserve it if they couldn’t afford to pay for their unjustifiably inflated college tuition. 

And damn the poor black man, condemned to Camden and Kensington, Watts and Compton, who did nothing but be born the wrong skin color in the wrong part of town. Damn the heretic Muslim, for their religion is a religion of death. Not at all like their supply side Christianity, that tells them, “woe to those who are poor, for the rich shall inherit the earth.” Their Christianity is the religion of the Chosen, and those who are not Chosen are enemies--and their Jesus compels them to hate their enemy, not to love them as they themselves wish to be loved.

This patriotic masculinity founded upon the idea that men should be strong and opposed to anything that is not is the same force that empowered the boys who locked me out of school in the rain and laughed when they finally let me in, wet and ashamed. It was their masculine duty to  be opposed to me because I was weak and small and did not like sports. I was an unacceptable reminder to them that their health and strength was not deserved, and so they tortured me, reminded me every day that I was different and less than them. My body did not work correctly, though they did not know that, and so I was marked at an early age and set aside as a different breed. I was not tough or masculine, and so I was defined as tiny and short and weird. Those masculine boys set the rules, and so the girls followed, and so I was alone. This masculinity meant that those boys who reveled in my quarantine were not punished, because that is how teenage boys behave, and so the teachers and the counselors and the principals confirmed that might, indeed, does make right.

And so our country enacts laws and conducts diplomacy in this masculine way and calls it patriotism. Strength is the same as knowledge, might the same as justice.

I cannot love this nation. I cannot wave a flag or support a government that conflates patriotism with the domination of the weak by the strong.

But if patriotism is linked to the values that were laid out in those earliest days--values that even those who wrote it knew that they could not live up to--then patriotism means questioning and dissent. It means standing outside of this destructive code of masculinity and saying that our nation’s strength has always been in its unfinished promise that those who reside in this place deserve the liberty to live their life without persecution. This justice--a justice that says our resources are to be apportioned so that those who are born with less can provided an opportunity for more--this justice is worth calling patriotism. It is a patriotism that says this is the land of the free, and I have the right to speak out against policies and politicians who try to make it otherwise.It is a patriotism that says “America is better than this, we do not believe in cruel and unusual punishment.” And that does not make me Unamerican or less of a man; it makes me patriotic, and it makes me fully human. And you cannot call me, or my fellow Americans--the black, the Muslim, the Latino, the homeless, the gay, the woman, the sick-- less than. You cannot wage your endless war upon us. We are this tapestry of a nation just as they are, and that is an America that I can love. That is a maudlin song that I can sing, even if it may never be in my lifetime.

Anger, And Everything Else.

In 2000, Lex Luthor ran for and won the presidency. Growing up, it seemed like a ridiculous plot. How could a billionaire criminal, an enemy of every American value, win the presidency?

Life, it seems, is like a bad comic book plot.

I'm angry. And a new day goes by and I think tomorrow I won't be so angry. And I get angrier. Because every day that has gone by this last week  I see more people dismissing Donald Trump like this is just any other election. Like people who are upset, or hurt, or scared are overreacting.

I'm angry that there are so many people unwilling to recognize that this election was a win for racism, religious persecution, and hate. I'm furious that good people put the shortsighted promises of a career conman ahead of basic human decency.

This is not a regular election. People aren't sad because their candidate lost. This isn't Mitt Romney. This is not John McCain. This is not about disagreements on economic policy. Donald Trump and his entire cabal represent the worst of American bigotry. Trump opened his campaign with a sweeping declaration of Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals. He continued with a promise to ban all Muslim immigrants.

Replace "Muslim" with "Jew." Replace "Mexican" with "Black." Does any of that sound familiar? This kind of speech is intolerable. It is cruel. It is unconstitutional. It has whipped a small but despicable group of people in our country into a frenzy, it has empowered white supremacists to spread their message of hate. And not just in words. But through violence.


I'm angry because today, the Ku Klux Klan is happy.

I'm angry because so many people are incapable of empathizing with those minorities that are the target of these hate groups. Just because your rights are not in danger, just because your world may not change, does not mean these hate groups do not exist, and it doesn't mean the inconvenient truth of racism and hate isn't festering just because you're not looking.

Our country was founded on the backs of slaves and murdered indigenous peoples. We as a society have failed to reckon with it, and that makes me mad, too. Any time some small progress is made, we celebrate, clap ourselves on the back, and ignore the deeply-rooted injustice that still goes on. So for a moment, if you are still not realizing just how incendiary and horrible a Trump presidency is, just imagine you're a Mexican mother who fled a town ravaged by drug cartels to save the life of your daughter and son. Imagine seeing the president of this country--the country that you dreamed would save you--tell you that you do not belong here. That your very presence in society is a crime, and that you and your kids are going back to the town you came from, where you very well may die in the crossfire.

This isn't an abstraction. It's the honest to God truth.


Imagine you're gay, and you are already afraid of coming out to your parents, who may not understand the reality of who you are. Imagine that you wake up and find out that your new Vice President thinks that who you love makes you worthy of electro shock therapy. Imagine your Vice President is repulsed at the idea of you having a family, of adopting a child that you know you would love and care for.


Maybe you didn't know that Donald Trump's campaign manager and top choice for cabinet position was a raging anti-semite who published articles with headlines like this:


I'm disappointed that we have not learned lessons from countries like South Africa and Germany, who instead of trying to pretend that they have just moved on from the painful truth of their nations' pasts, forced themselves to confront it. We are not brave enough as a society to do the same.

So no, you're not a racist. You're not a homophobe. You don't hate Muslims. But your acceptance of Donald Trump and Mike Pence and Steve Bannon means that you are willing to let those things go. And don't you see the problem with that? They have no problem with defying civil liberties for the many non-white, non-straight, non-male people in our country. You have the obligation to be angry, too.


I'm so incredibly angry that a human being who bragged about his wealth affording him the privilege of sexually assaulting women, who boasted that he would walk into the dressing rooms of beauty pageants he hosted to spy on the undressed contestants, who constantly body shames and makes women feel bad for their appearance, now gets four years to remind us of how little he values half of our country. I'm disgusted that little girls who lived through this election now have to grow up knowing that a person who thinks and acts this way gets to be the leader of the free world. I'm in shock that now young boys are getting the message that it's okay to treat women like garbage, because they can still get everything they want without consequence.

I'm genuinely scared that the Republican plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act will negatively affect my quality of life. That one day I won't have my insurance anymore. That I won't be able to afford the medicine that has helped to give me a normal life. That if I need another operation some day that might save my life the doctor will look at me and tell me there's nothing we can do. And I'm furious that you are giving them the chance to do it.

I'm angry at the Catholic Church, an institution that I have dedicated the better part of the last five years to. I'm mad that they spread so much fear over a single issue that more than half of American Catholics voted for Trump--a man who defies every value that Catholics claim to uphold. I am angry that there was no condemnation for Donald Trump's unabashed hatred, while there was plenty of condemnation for anyone who dare step out of line when it comes to their pet issues.

But I'm not just mad at Donald Trump, a sexist, racist, narcissistic lying conman, and the Republicans.

I'm mad at the United States and all of our politicians who have ignored the reality of poverty in this nation. I'm mad as hell that America has the worst income inequality of any major developed country. I'm mad that the gap between the rich and poor is worse than at any point since the 20s. I'm furious that 58 percent of all wealth generated since the '08 Wall Street crash has gone to the top one percent. I'm sick that Americans are working longer hours for lower wages, and countless numbers of our fellow citizens are working below the already laughable minimum wage.

Do I sound familiar?

The Democratic Party ignored this reality. They ignored the very valid and very real anger that, ultimately, won Donald Trump the presidency.

I'm angry that the working class can't afford to put food on the table. That jobs are getting shipped overseas and that as manufacturing jobs and jobs in the coal industry have shut down and automated, there has been no investment in the infrastructure and education that could have helped these communities stay afloat.

I'm enraged that the situation has gotten so bad that the working poor throughout this country were so desperate that they let themselves get manipulated into believing that a man who was born into privilege, who blew his first million, who has never wanted for a damn thing in his life, who regularly stiffs his workers, who proudly shipped jobs overseas, who pays less taxes than the hated "illegal immigrants," was going to save them.

Because, let's be honest, we both know the manufacturing jobs aren't coming back.

I'm sad for every immigrant kid and family I got a chance to briefly know in my time in Los Angeles. I'm heartbroken that their struggles are deemed as less important than traditionally white manufacturing hubs. I'm sick about every LGBTQ friend and mentor I've known in my life who now sees in this country a place of rejection and hate.

I am disconsolate that governors and congressman of coastal states said, "Yes, please," to a man who denies climate change--a catastrophic danger that poses very real threat to their constituents' safety and the livelihood of their tourist industries, and thus, the economy of their states. I cannot believe that our politicians deny science and forsake my future, and the future of any children I might have.


I'm mad at myself for doing nothing but smugly thinking that America was "better" than this. That we were smart enough to see through Donald Trump.

I underestimated the real anger, and real hurt that so many in this country feel. I was as blinded by my privileged place in American society as anyone else. And I was blinded to the depth of hatred of minorities and women.

But I refuse to believe this election is a referendum in favor of the worst of America. Yes, the white supremacists had their voices heard. Yes, they got the man they wanted--a puppet who would do and say anything to grovel at their feet just so he could win and stick it to all those people who never gave him his Emmy. But I believe when they realize that Trump doesn't care about them, when they all realize they got conned by a two-bit carnival barker, they'll feel as sick and angry as I do for the thing that they helped give birth to.

So if you are not angry, if you are rejoicing today--just know that I and all the others like me are not going to "get over" this. I am not going to stop being angry.

And we should not stop being angry.

I am not going to stop fighting against hatred and fear and the blatant lies peddled by this national disgrace. I am not going to stop being a voice for the marginalized, who now risk being even moreso. I will be a voice for compassion, and not just for them--but you too.

I'm going to stay angry, and I won't forget that we are all in this together--and that we must find a way to heal all of our gravest national sins: poverty, racism, sexism, and hate in all its forms. If this election has taught me anything, it is that I can not be complacent in the assumption that things will work themselves out on their own.

A Mass for Peace

Today at Dolores Mission (the best and most life-giving parish church I've ever been to) there was a held a very special liturgy. DM is a parish in Boyle Heights, a community that has for many years dealt with violence. Today they held a liturgy in remembrance of those who have died as a result of gun violence. They had names projected at the front of the church. Several people in the assembly (too many) stood up and were invited to the altar to remember loved ones who have died because of gun violence. One parishioner shared his story of grieving for and coping with the death of his brother; the wounds may heal temporarily, but stories of other killings reopen them. It is a scar that will forever haunt him.

Father Scott gave a sermon about our country's addiction to violence (and that's what it is). He explained the need for a change in attitudes about guns because they so often find their ways into cities (and increasingly, suburbs) where so many are killed by guns annually around the country. This is so often forgotten: how common killings are. Sadly, it takes a string of deadly mass-shootings to bring this harrowing problem to light. Around 2009 research showed that more than 30,000 people are killed by firearms each year in this country; more than 30 shot and killed each day. 1/2 of them are between 18 and 35. Homicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds. These are the statistics that were read to us in mass. Additionally, Father Scott read this powerful letter to the editor he sent into  and was printed in the LA Times.

As the nation wrestles with the question of whether to ban assault weapons, people in our inner cities know a simple truth: There are too many guns on our streets, and this can be directly linked to the high numbers of homicides that are sadly a regular part of our lives.

This past summer there were four homicides within a span of 62 days within a square mile of Dolores Mission Parish, just a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Since 1980, when the Jesuits came to this parish, we have experienced the deaths of some 200 community members to gun violence.

Though not the only angle on the issue, I have to believe that if there were tighter gun control laws in our country, fewer guns would find themselves on the streets of our inner cities. And more of my parishioners would be alive.
The Rev. Scott Santarosa
Los Angeles

 I truly wish that so many people who claim that guns are not a problem could see this side of things. Yes, you live in the suburbs and in this wonderful world where the chances of violence are incredibly low, but there are so many--SO MANY--who are simply forced to live in areas where gun violence is rampant. They suffer threats of violence as simply a fact of life, and have to deal with the death of loved ones. And why? Because there are too many guns. Because they are minorities with low income. Hard working people, who simply have no other options. There is no reason for the most dangerous automatic weapons to be out there and so easy to access. There is no reason for it to be so EASY for guns to end up in the hands of those who would harm others.

Gun violence is not just the rare mass-shooting. It is a terrifying reality for people in low-income areas. For some of the students at Verbum Dei, for the parishioners of Dolores Mission. The children of Dolores Mission. One of my students for one of his college submission personal statements wrote about one day being mugged at gun point because he happened to be walking through a park that belonged to a gang that hated Mexicans. That isn't terribly uncommon in parts of this city and many others around the country.

I'm not going to bother rattling off statistics I actually did look up and research for this blog post. I don't want to be too political. But the fact is there are almost as many guns in this country as people. How that is OK with people I don't understand. How it is OK to suggest that to solve this country's violence problem we need MORE guns is horrifying.

Too many people are killed. We need a change in attitude in this country, a push for peace, not a push for more "self defense" that will, as many graphs, charts, statistics and surveys show, will most likely only increase the violence and cost more lives.

But hey, these killings aren't white kids en masse, so it isn't really happening, right?

Normal Activity

Today, the director of Paranormal Activity came to Verb to talk to the Film Club. I'm not a particular fan of that movie (in fact I rather dislike it) but I wasn't going to say no to an opportunity to hear someone speak about the film industry.

So in general it was pretty interesting, the way Paranormal Activity was made and distributed is very strange and uncommon, but as a whole there was nothing particularly noteworthy. In fact, the guy seems like a one-trick pony (he hasn't made anything since the first one, really). I already don't remember much of what he said.

But at the end of his Q&A, one of the students asked what he would change about the film industry. He said he'd want to see less people in it just to make lots of money at the expense of the art. Then the student was asked what he would like to see changed, to which the young man responded, "More diversity. There's hardly any African Americans in movies."

Well, that really struck me. I was taken aback by the fact that this student is already incredibly aware of the disparity in our society between those of us who are white and minorities. Working here has already made me much more sensitive about the need for change in our society in terms of economic opportunity, yes but even just in the way we promote what is normal through TV, and movies, and every other facet of pop culture that feeds our cultural view of what is "normal," or preferred.

I've noticed the race-gap in TV and movies, (I'm well aware that there haven't been any black superheroes on the big screen, yet.) but it doesn't affect me very much so I don't really think about it at all. I never realized how prevalent and obvious it must be to people who aren't white (or straight, or have disabilities). It's something that people must pick up on quickly. There aren't very many famous people to be role models because the entertainment industry is so primarily white and we just tend to display that as normal and ignore, and I'm not saying it's purposeful, the fact that America is so diverse.

And many of the most prevelant African Americans in pop culture tend to be rappers and that whole culture isn't exactly a positive message for young people, and there are times in my day-to-day where I can definitely see that desire to identify with that part of culture crop up. Part of it, too, comes from the neighborhoods in this area that are so filled with crime and gangs and things of that nature, but there is an air around so many of these boys that they have to put on a tough face and have an attitude and be difficult.

I was reading a few personal statements for college apps recently, and one student wrote about  how growing up he thought he had to be a tough guy to be popular, to meet girls, and be successful.  He grew up in Inglewood, which has a lot of gang activity. He talked about how all he cared about was getting girls like the gangmembers and tough dudes in his school. He went on to explain, however, that there was a local gang that had a problem with latinos and one day walking home from the bus he was mugged. Deciding he had to keep his tough guy image, he wasn't willing to cooperate and wound up with a gun to his head. He explained that this experience changed his entire system of values, and he realized that his perception had been skewed and that if he really wanted a good life and a successful life he should focus on his academics, go to college, and then become a positive role model for other people like him from areas like his. I'm sure this young man isn't the only one with a story like this, and the opportunity Verb provides is simply amazing.

Back to the original observation about lack of diversity...it's such a simple, obvious thing, and yet I never really considered the ramifications of it. Obviously I have known that this was a thing that existed, I've talked about it, I've read about it, I've observed it, but knowing it in my head is a different thing than being here with young people who are very aware of it, who live with those implications and point them out. I never really understood how much it plays into people's lives. That, and what the kids on the Urban Plunge observed about noticing the number of minorities  that were coming in for food really make me feel that inequality for the first time.

And it really angers me. There is no reason that someone should feel abnormal or less important than anyone else just because they're from somewhere else, because their skin color is different. Why should that be such a factor in your economic future? Why should it be a yardstick for how much you are able to think you can accomplish simply because there are less people like you who are successful? Or at least not as many depicted as being successful. There needs to be a change in the way our society functions, the way we consider our economy and the people who are poor, because we all deserve to have the opportunity to never have to consider yourself abnormal.

And as this is election day I can't help but wonder what tomorrow brings. Because I firmly believe that if one of the two candidates is elected then these boys and millions more like them will feel even more marginalized, it will be even more difficult for smart, passionate, good kids from poor  neighborhoods to succeed, and why? Because their parents need food stamps and can't find a job. And that's their fault, according to so many people in this country. This is not the way we should treat others. I wish everyone could just see what I see every day...there is no rich or poor or middle class person. There are only people.

A Step Along The Way

At orientation we had prayer or reflection every morning. One day we read through one of my very favorite prayers, the prayer of Archbishop Oscar Romero, sometimes titled "A Step Along The Way." You can see the full prayer here. It's worth your time.

I reflected about it and related a lot to the commitment to social justice that has been instilled in me at Cabrini and that I am looking to strengthen in the year to come, in light of a lot of what they were saying to us at orientation.

We cannot do everything/knowing this allows us to do something and do it well.

One thing I've always struggled with since being introduced to social justice issues at Cabrini is the temptation to take up and care about every cause. What I quickly discovered is that you just can't do that. It's exhausting and takes a huge toll if you let every injustice constantly weigh on you. You can't feel guilty for every decision and if you let social justice consume you there is a real danger of not living at all; being wrapped up in guilt and powerlessness. There is nothing wrong with being privileged and making the most of those advantages. We have to draw a line somewhere and accept we cannot make all change alone. But we can be a part of it.

We are the workers, not master builders. We are ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.

Are unaware people lesser? No. Are my parents bad people because they utilize their economic privilege that they work hard to maintain? Of course not. We cannot be perennially guilty. I felt at times in orientation that I was being guilted for all my choices, for enjoying my comforts. But that's not it, really. I was projecting my own guilt.

JVC is challenging me, particularly for this oncoming year, to question everything and to make my own decisions. I should consider the effects all my choices have on other people. Privilege is not inherently oppressive (though Marx would disagree with me) it is how we utilize our faculties that really matters. Ultimately, as the prayer says, we are merely workers. My efforts this year alone do nothing in isolation. I won't change the social structure by helping one kid or even fifty kids get into college.

But maybe my actions will help others learn from their hardship and story. Maybe I can be a voice for just a few of the voiceless. If I spread their stories maybe those people will spread it and perhaps others will wait to take up and pursue the JVC mission. Who knows?

But I don't believe helping only one person is a useless effort. Helping one person changes the world. I don't know if someone famous is credited with saying that, but it's what I believe. I recall the story of the boy and the starfish that my friend Cathy introduced me to.

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed
a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. 

Approaching the boy, he asked, "What are you doing?"

The youth replied, "Throwing starfish back into the ocean.
The surf is up and the tide is going out.  If I don't throw them back, they'll die."

"Son," the man said, "don't you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish?
You can't make a difference!"

After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish,
and threw it back into the surf.  Then, smiling at the man, he said,
"I made a difference for that one."

Maybe I've always been more interested with service on the micro level than the macro level. But that doesn't change my devotion and hope for a better world. We are prophets of a future not our own. I cannot change the world on my own, but I will recognize where I can make a difference. My choices do matter. I don't have to buy Nike shoes and support sweatshops. I can purchase Fair Trade and benefit small farmers. I can buy locally and support local businesses.  But would I be a horrible person if I didn't? I don't think so. Would I be guilty of ignorance? Maybe. But that doesn't equate to being unjust.

It's a difficult balance, finding the just thing to do in a world where so much is unfair. It's something I struggle with and will continue to struggle with, particularly as I try to live simply this year when I have to make hard choices between what is affordable and what is more "right." I'm already learning that the world is unfairly balanced against the poor. That the unhealthy, the mass-manufactured, is the only thing available to so many people simply by virtue of their economic status. 50 cents is an enormous difference in this world for many people.

My hope with this blog is that I can be the step along the way through my words...that I can be just one of many workers that will help make this world better. But if all I am able to accomplish is helping one boy at my high school...well, that's OK too.