Corrections on Toomey-Manchin Bill

Bryan Miller, Executive Director of Heeding God's Call and a trusted friend responded to my blog with some important corrections about the proposed and defeated Toomey-Manchin bill. Apparently it was not as comprehensive as I indicated. What follows is the text of an email sent to me by Bryan Miller setting the record straight on the bill explaining why Heeding God's Call and other gun prevention groups did not support the bill as proposed. Essentially, it was more of the same smoke and mirrors tactics by the NRA and their Congressional lackeys.

Here is Bryan's letter:


Good Morning Drick,

Thanks, as always, for your well-reasoned and passionate words at Not So Fast Senator Toomey.

However, and I hope you don't mind, I must correct one important mistake in your blog, namely - the Toomey/Manchin bill would NOT have "mandated background checks on all sales of firearms in the United States," which is one of the reasons Heeding God's Call declined to support its passage.  Rather than the universal background checks (a background check preceding every gun sale or transfer) favored by upwards of 90% of Americans, T/M would have expanded checks, but left major loopholes in the system for criminals, the underaged and gun traffickers to exploit.  For instance, T/M would not have covered sales/transfers between family members, "neighbors and friends" and would have allowed sellers at "flea markets" displaying 75 or fewer guns to sell without performing background checks on buyers.

There was much more wrong with T/M, including access to major new civilian markets for the gun industry, to the point that we felt it was at least as much of a 'give back' to the gun industry and lobby than it was positive - this in the face of enormous public call for meaningful gun violence prevention legislation.  Apparently, many in the pro-gun community felt the same way, as evidenced by this video of the head of the second largest (after the NRA) pro-gun organization.


In Heeding God's Call's view, rather than a weak compromise, people of faith should work toward that which would save the most lives and eschew the horse-trading in words and lives that T/M was.  We will continue to vigorously support the early proposals of the President - universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines.  And, we need to do even more.

Here is a germane piece from Christian Century...


I hope the above is not offensive and am grateful for your thoughts.  Thanks.

Best,
Bryan

Bryan Miller
Executive Director
Heeding God's Call
www.heedinggodscall.org

Not So Fast Senator Toomey...

Conservative Republican Senator Pat Toomey (PA) went out on a political limb to co-sponsor a bill with Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (WV) that would have mandated background checks on all sales of firearms in the United States. This was an issue brought to light after the Newtown, CT shootings. Despite overwhelming popular support for the measure, Senator Toomey risked his 100 ranking with the NRA. Not only did the NRA not want the bill on universal background checks to pass, they didn’t even want it to be discussed on the Senate floor, threatening to “punish” those Senators who voted simply to talk about the issue. The NRA’s threats betray the gun lobby’s commitment to gun rights over people’s safety, and Senator Toomey is to be commended for going against his NRA supporters despite their threats. Toomey’s willingness to work with Manchin is the kind of political compromise and partnership that used to get things done in a divided Congress but is all too rare these days.

Unfortunately, while the country was rightly fixated on the horrific and tragic bombings in Boston, the Senate failed to pass an amendment instituting the Toomey-Manchin back ground check system.  While a majority – 56 to 45 - voted in favor of the amendment, a bill of this kind requires a  so-called “super majority” of 60 votes and so failed. This occurred despite nearly 90% public support for a bill and 70% support among gun owners. While many reasons were given for the bill’s failure, the bottom line is that the NRA is one of the wealthiest  lobbies on Capitol Hill, and money, not the the people’s will, rules our dysfunctional plutocratic government. [Don’t’ get me started!}

In his letter to his Pennsylvania  constituents Senator Toomey regretted the failure of the amendment to pass and reiterated his belief that the “amendment would have helped enhance public safety while still protecting the Second Amendment.” In describing the vote Toomey wrote “[The amendment’s failure to pass] was not the outcome I hoped for, but the Senate has spoken on the subject and now it’s time to move on.” [emphasis mine].

Not so fast Senator Toomey! Given the tremendous pressure Toomey received from his conservative base, one can understand his desire to put this firestorm behind him and “move on.” In fact if one’s goes to the Senator’s website there is no indication that he was ever involved with the legislation. However, some of us are not so easily swayed.  In fact despite the NRA’s harangue and pressure, a majority of the Senate actually did vote for the amendment.  More importantly an overwhelming majority of citizens are calling for background checks. The Senators and gun lobby are hoping we will just forget this issue and go away. Though Congress seems only able to act on what their political sugar- daddies  say they can act on, those of us who have been working for these common sense gun laws are not so easily defeated. 

However, I do think tactics may have to change. The government seems beholden to corporate war chests and wealthy elites, so perhaps our tactics need to focus on those who are shelling out the dollars while hiding in the shadows. Perhaps several thousand gun violence prevention activists and people affected by the ongoing gun violence crisis need to show up at the next NRA meeting and cause a non-violent disruption. Perhaps we need to show up in large numbers to demonstrate our outrage at the headquarters of Glock, Smith & Wesson, Beretta and other gun manufacturers who are lining their pockets while thousands die each year.  Perhaps we need to let Senator Toomey and other leaders who have a few shreds of dignity left that we appreciate their courage, and we want to see more of it.

No Senator we aren’t “moving on” and you best not either.

[Picture from Senator Toomey's website]

In the Presence of My Enemies

This past week as I remembered the sacrifice of Jesus, I was meditating on the familiar words from Psalm 23.5 which read: “You [speaking of God] prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” I memorized the entire 23^rd psalm way back in Sunday School at Colonial Church growing up, but this week I got wondering: what does that verse 5 actually mean?

The author of Psalm 23 is supposedly King David, who before he came to power was something of a renegade, if you will, a freedom fighter or a terrorist (depending on your political persuasion), and the words just before verse 5 say, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, You are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me.” So David is remembering God’s protection, which for him was not metaphorical but intensely real because people were out to kill him. King Saul had sent out an elite team of soldiers to find and kill the renegade David.

Then there are those words of verse 5 which say that God prepares a table, that is a meal, for David “in the presence of his enemies” – the very people out to get him. In Ancient Near Eastern culture sharing a meal with someone was an intensely personal, even intimate act. To share a meal with someone was in a sense to invite someone into your life, your home, even your family. For David to have table fellowship with the people out to get him ---well that just isn’t a good strategy for survival, much less make sense rationally or politically. Yet that is what David says God has done – he has placed him in the vulnerable position of opening his life to the very people who despise him and even want to kill him.

As far as I know, I don’t have enemies like that. I am not aware of anyone who wants to kill me, much less even harm me. However, I am aware of people I despise; however when I think of them, they are not people I know personally, but people whose actions, decisions and perspectives on life are directly opposed to my own. I am thinking people like Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the NRA who keeps spouting his pro-gun rhetoric; and Governor Tom Corbett who has gutted money for social services and education in PA; or members of the Tea Party, or the KKK or the pro-gun zealots who keep showing up at gun violence prevention rallies. I am thinking of the banks and payday loan sharks who cheat poor people out of the little money they have. I am thinking of impersonal corporations who get richer by the minute and squeeze the rest of us out all in the name of profit. These are people I consider my enemies…but they probably don’t know I exist or if they do, it is no more personal than I know them.

I guess that’s the point of this verse - that God does not want us to love or hate in the abstract, but rather to interact with people in real space and time. Curtiss Paul DeYoung, professor of Reconciliation Studies at Bethel University (St. Paul, MN) and an author of several books on racial reconciliation, has said that reconciliation has to start with relationships. I know from personal experience that true change starts with relationships too. What David is saying in Psalm 23 is that God is about the business of bringing folks together who despise one another and saying in essence: Before you keep hating on one another, why don’t you get to know one another.

These words remind me of something Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have said – that the way we get rid of our enemies is to make them our friends. Now Lincoln did not succeed in that endeavor and was even killed by an enemy, but the sentiment is a worthy one. When I see Democrats and Republicans bickering in Congress, when Syrians are killing each other, when North Koreans are threatening South Koreans, I wonder: do these folks even know one another? Have they even tried Psalm 23.5?

I doubt that Wayne LaPierre or Tom Corbett would ever become my best friends or that the CEO of Exxon or Smith & Wesson and I would ever agree on much, but perhaps if we had forums to really get to know one another, we might not be so divided; we might be able to find compromises we could live with. I don’t know. Perhaps it is just a pipe dream; but those words keep rolling around in my mind: God prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies and my cup overflows – with love, joy and understanding.

That’s what I have been thinking about this past Holy Week. It’s my prayer, my hope, and the thing that keeps me working for justice, reconciliation and a better world – so help me God.

White on "Being White on Philly"

Full disclosure. I am white and don’t live in Philly. In some people’s minds these two facts alone disqualify me from saying anything meaningful about race in Philadelphia. I very much would like to live in Philadelphia, but for various reasons my wife and I have decided to live in the western suburbs. The fact that we are white and middle class gives us the freedom to make choices about where we will live that others do not have. I fully recognize these realities and recognize that these alone could discredit anything I might say on the matter.

However, let me also point out that while I do not live in Philly, I spend a great deal of my time in West Philadelphia working on issues of racial reconciliation, economic justice and gun violence prevention alongside people of many of races and cultures. I am part of city wide groups like NewCORE (New Conversations on Race and Ethnicity) and POWER (Philadelphians Organized for Witness, Empowerment and Rebuilding) multi-racial groups addressing issues of racial and economic disparity in the city. I also teach courses on race and ethnic relations and social justice at a local college. So I have some credibility; yet the very fact I must list these credentials betrays the delicacy with which issues of race and class must be approached in our society.

Having said all of this, I have been somewhat surprised by the controversy created by Philadelphia Magazine’s recent article “Being White in Philly.” The article largely focuses on the experiences and perspectives of middle class white folks in a section of the city known as Brewerytown. Last fall one of my students wrote a community analysis paper about Brewerytown and concluded that there was clear divide of race and class that existed on either side of the Poplar and Girard Avenues in the neighborhood. “Being White in Philly” largely illustrates the accuracy of my student’s analysis. If there was a flaw in the article it was not the stories of white experience, but rather that the article should have been entitled “Being White in a Part of Philly” or better yet “The Experience of Some Whites in One Part of Philly.” Nonetheless, Brewerytown is not the only neighborhood in the city experiencing the division of race and class that is described in the article.

The negative reaction to the article seems to imply that the author, Richard Huber, was presenting the white perspective (and therefore the definitive perspective) on race relations in Philadelphia. I must confess that I did not read it that way. The article does not capture the experiences of all whites in Philly, but it does describe the perspective of some whites. This perspective is often not voiced precisely because of the reaction like that of Mayor Michael Nutter, who in a public letter to the Philadelphia Human Relations Commissionaccused the Philadelphia Magazine of “[sinking] to a new low,” propagating “disparaging beliefs, the negative stereotypes, the ignorant typically and historically ascribed to African Americans citizens” and putting forth “a collection of these despicable, over-generalized, mostly anonymous assumptions.” The mayor ‘s reaction lends weight to Huber’s observation that “Everyone might have a race story, but few whites risk the third-rail danger of speaking publicly about race, given the long, troubled history of race relations in this country and even more so in this city.” In response to the criticism put forth by the mayor and others, Philadelphia Magazine’s editor admitted that the article had flaws and did not provide enough context, while at the same time pointing out, “We by no means were trying to do a definitive take on race relations in Philadelphia. We set out to do this from one particular point of view.” To mention the issue of race in an article does not make either the author, the magazine or the people who shared their experience racist. Rather it is to share their perspective regardless of how skewed or limited it might be.

My point is this: bringing up the issue of race does not make one racist. Sharing one’s perspective does not make one racist. Racism is not only about the words one uses, but also the way in which power and resources are disproportionately allocated along lines of race and class. Racism is built into the very fabric of our society and city, such that those who are often most often marginalized and disadvantaged by public policies and practices are people of color. Racism is built into the policies and practices of government, business, education and health care regardless of the race of those who happen to be making the decisions or speaking out on those issues.

The fact of the matter is that in Philadelphia the disparities that exist often do fall along race lines. At the same time both some of the most privileged as well as the most victimized citizens in the city are people of color. While black on white crime may be a problem in places like Brewerytown, black on black crime is a far greater issue in many parts of the city. While persons of color occupy the offices of the Mayor, Police Commission, Superintendent of Schools, and many of the major city, state and national political offices, those who suffer the most from the recent tax reassessment, unemployment, school closings and gun-related incidents are also persons of color. Racism goes far deeper than the experiences of a few white people in one section of the city.

While my experiences do not reflect the experiences of those depicted in the article, I know whites who share the perspective of those cited in the story. At the same, those same white folks whose houses have been vandalized or who have mugged by persons of color will often  in the next breath say that they wish that the assailant had not been a person of color. They recognize that often the crime and violence they experienced is more about poverty and lack of opportunity than race. They recognize that persons of color are victimized as much or more than they are.

Talking about being white in Philly for many folks is a delicate and sensitive issue. However, if there is to be meaningful discussion about race and racism in Philadelphia or in the United States in general, all voices and all perspectives must be allowed without being disparaged out of hand.

Hugo Chavez, Jimmy Carter and America’s Image in the World

On Tuesday, March 5 Hugo Chavez, the fiery and controversial president of Venezuela died of cancer at the age of 58. Since his death there have been numerous articles and commentaries seeking to evaluate the life and legacy of this charismatic leader. As I have listened and read this reports, there seem to be two consistent themes that have emerged. 

First, it is clear that Chavez was a champion of the poor in his country and around the world.  As one CNN report  said, “Chavez played a pivotal role in bringing the plight of Latin America's impoverished people to the top of the political agenda.” In his 2009 documentary South of the Border,  Oliver Stone walked with Chavez through the neighborhood where he had grown up and clearly portrayed a leader in touch with the poorest of the poor in that nation. These are the people mourning in Venezuela’s streets today. As a result he was not well regarded by the business community or the wealthy elites because he nationalized many businesses and redirected government funds to programs to help the poor. He even offered cut rate oil to the low income homeowners in the U.S. as a sign of his concern for those in need.

However the other thing Chavez was known for was his antipathy toward the United States particularly in its military and economic domination throughout the world. To that end Chavez befriended many countries, such as Iran and Syria, and leaders, such as Fidel Castro, who have been historic enemies of the United States. Though he came from a relatively poor and powerless country he did not seem cowed by the threats made by the U.S. and so was a persona non grata to many U.S. political leaders. While I am in no position to evaluate Chavez’s skill as a leader, one has to be impressed with the courage with which Chavez sought to buck U.S. control of Latin America. He even mentored several other leaders in the region to take similar stances and to turn their governments in a more socialistic direction.

However, my purpose is neither to praise nor criticize Hugo Chavez as a leader, but rather to point out a coincidence between this focus on his legacy and a recent speech made by former President Jimmy Carter made on Feb 24 at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club (to listen to the speech go to this link ). Since leaving office in 1980 no former president has done more to promote peace and justice around the world than Jimmy Carter, and at 88 years old he is still going strong. While Carter certainly had his failings as a president, one cannot but be impressed with how he has used his status to good ends around the world.

In his speech Carter pointed out that since 1945 the United States has increasingly been seen by other nations of the world not as a force for peace and human rights, but rather as a nation that is constantly at war and denying human rights. He noted wars such as Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Central American incursions in the 1980’s often were done to deny human rights and overthrow legitimate governments than to defend those rights. Moreover, he pointed out that currently the U.S. is violating at least 10 paragraphs of United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.  He said that if the U.S. is to become the great nation it used to be, it must change course and become a defender of justice and human rights rather than a violator. As examples he spoke about the use of drones in Afghanistan, as well as being the major arms dealer to all sorts of nations in the world. He also pointed out that the U.S. imprisons the highest percentage of its population in the world and along with Saudi Arabia and China has the highest rate of capital punishment.

As I listened to a replay of Carter’s speech on the day of Chavez’s death I could not help but be struck by the common theme stressed by two very different leaders from two different positions in the world. Hugo Chavez, a recognized champion of the Latin American poor, and Jimmy Carter, a recognized champion of peace, see the United States as more of threat to the world than its protector. The former was a self-identified foe of the U.S. but the latter still proudly proclaims the United States as the greatest nation in the world. Yet, such a coincidence of their perspectives cannot be ignored.

In business ethics one of the simplest tests of a person’s character is for that person to look him/herself in the mirror and ask whether the person looking back is a person of integrity, compassion and honesty. The great American myth is that we are the defenders and promoters of justice and democracy around the world. Yet our own country suffers increasing economic disparity, while lining the pockets of the very wealthy. We are the only developed nation in the world without universal health care and our public school system has been put up for sale to the highest bidder through charters and privatization. We still have many prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have never even been charged with a crime, much less given a trial, and we continue to be directly or indirectly involved in armed conflicts all over the world. Can we as a nation look ourselves in the mirror and say we are the best we can be, that we are living up to our values and ideals as Americans?

Recently I took a group of students to visit the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which recounts the writing of the U.S. Constitution and its development throughout U.S. history. Every time I visit the Constitution Center (which has been about 10 times) I am struck by the high ideals on which this country was founded. At the same time I am struck by how far short we continue to fall. What Hugo Chavez and Jimmy Carter reminded me was that not only do I see that, but so do the vast majority of people around the world. Perhaps instead of puffing our chest out in defensive patriotic pride, we ought to take a long look in the national mirror and heed Pres. Carter’s call to seek to be the nation we say we are.

Pulling the Gun Lobby Out of the Shadows

On Tuesday Pres. Barack Obama concluded his State of the Union speech with a powerful call for Congress to act on proposed gun violence prevention legislation such as strengthening the background check system and banning high powered military assault type weapons and ammunition. He did so by naming recent victims and their families in Newton, CT, Chicago and Oak Creek, Wisconsin and repeating the litany “They deserve a vote!” Rarely do presidential speeches bring tears to my eyes, but that refrain did.

The significance of Obama’s statement is both substantive and symbolic. Calling upon states to supply names of known offenders and those with mental health issues, and requiring all gun sales, including those at gun shows to go through a background check will not only prevent offenders from purchasing guns, but it will send a message to unscrupulous dealers that looking the other way as straw purchases go down is no longer acceptable. Some of those gun dealers will see a significant cut in their profits if that legislation is enforced. Likewise, banning assault weapons will get some of the most deadly weapons, weapons whose purpose is to kill at any costs, out of general circulation will reduce the likelihood of the mass killings we have repeatedly seen. While critics will say about only 1% of gun-related deaths come from such guns, ask the survivors in Newtown or Aurora how much they care about that 1%.

However, the symbolism of Obama’s statement is even more significant in my view, because for over two decades the gun lobby, including the NRA, the Gunowners of America (GOA) and the gun manufacturers have been operating in a shadow world by paying politicians to just be quiet on guns. They don’t have to be pro-gun, they just are not supposed to talk about it because the arguments for nonrestrictive gun laws are emotionally based and largely built on anecdote and myth. Two examples come to mind.

First, several years ago Congress quietly began to cut funding for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research on the impact of guns and gun violence on public health. Their research decisively showed that the presence of a gun in a home increases the likelihood that someone in the immediate circle of that home (family, relatives, close friends) will be victim of a gun-related incident. This runs directly counter to the myth that people need guns in their homes to protect from intruders. The intruders are not the ones in danger, the people in the home are. By presidential order the president has begun to restore some of the gun-related research, but Congress can do more to allow us to use science rather than myth to determine or national policies on guns.

A second example is a little known bill called the Tiahrt Amendment  that was an amendment to a 2003 federal spending bill that restricts the ability of law enforcement officers to identify the buyers of guns or require gun dealers to do inventories to see if their guns have been lost or stolen or used in a crime. It also restricts citizens from obtaining information on the source and buyers of guns used in crimes in their communities. This bill provides a “cover” for straw purchasers and the unscrupulous dealers who sell to them.

It is these shadow efforts of limiting research and weakening the powers of law enforcement that make NRA rhetoric such as “we don’t need more laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have” so hypocritical. Even as NRA leaders say such things (and they are still saying them), they are working in the shadows to keep law enforcement from being able to do their jobs.

President Obama’s refrain “They deserve the vote” challenged the gun lobby to come out of the shadows and called on Congress to stop hiding behind their silence. More than his Republican colleagues, the president was calling out his fellow Democrats who since Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election have decided that support for gun prevention legislation was politically unfavorable. So instead of speaking out one way or the other, Democrats, including the President, have remained remarkably silent in the face of recurring incidents of violence in both urban and suburban communities. The president’s message was that Congress can no longer be silent.

The President’s message, though long overdue, was a welcome change. Let us keep the pressure on to make sure that his words will not in themselves merely be symbol, but will move Congress to act clearly and decisively on these issues, and that the members of Congress themselves will have to declare themselves one way or the other on these vital issues

Where will the Pro-Gun Folks Draw the Line?

Like many folks, I am watching closely as President Obama begins his campaign to reform the gun laws in this country. Because most laws regulating the sale and use of guns are legislated at the state level, there are only a limited number of things he can do; nonetheless, those few things are important. In his White House briefing he outlined four major proposals

- Require that everyone who wants to purchase a gun go through background checks (i.e. closing the gun show loophole);
- Ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines;
- Better train teachers and officials on how to respond to shootings at schools;
- Increase access to mental health services

Also through executive order the president called for increased research on gun related issues and mental health.

Even before his proposals had been made public the NRA and its spokespersons in Congress were criticizing them. When Obama indicated in an interview said that he enjoyed skeet shooting, they scoffed, even after he produced a picture of doing just that. I wondered why the president felt a need to even respond to such criticisms, until I realized he wasn’t trying to answer his critics, but rather discredit them in the eyes of the millions of American who feel confused and ambivalent on the gun issue.

However, I recently got a sense of where the battle lines on this issue will be drawn (I apologize for using such a militaristic metaphor, but that is what this feels like) when I received a letter from my Congressman in response to a letter I had sent him calling for an assault weapons ban. Rep. Pat Meehan represents the 7th District of Pennsylvania, which basically constitutes the western suburbs in the Philadelphia metro area. Rep Meehan is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, a darling of many of the Conservative PACS. In response to my letter Re. Meehan wrote the following:

 “… we need to put an emphasis on what works to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. As I’ve previously said, I agree with the President that we can and should strengthen the nation’s background check system, filling the current holes and also requiring background checks at gun shows, regardless of whether the seller is licensed or not. Also it is correct o put a focus on mental health, improving care for troubled young people and the prevalence of violent movies and video games in our culture.”

Compared to previous responses I have received from the Congressman, there are some hopeful signs – Rep Meehan is now on record in support of a robust background check system, even at gun shows, a major source of gun sales. However, what is also noteworthy is what is absent from the Congressman’s proposals; he does not speak on the assault weapons ban, nor does he support the president’s call for more research funding or a strengthening of the ATF, which is has been vastly underfunded for years.

Rep. Meehan is a good litmus test for what political conservatives will or will not support. I think we who want to see more robust gun legislation need to see these are where the lines are being drawn. For some bizarre reason, otherwise intelligent men like Pat Meehan will not support the ban on armor piercing bullets or high powered rifles to the general public. He will speak about “enforcing already existing laws” without voting to provide to make that enforcement possible. And despite numerous incidents like Newtown, Aurora and Tucson he will continue to see this gun problem as a “criminal” issue, rather than an issue affecting everyday citizens caught up in our gun-worshipping culture.

In the political world of compromise and give and take, my sense is that conservatives will give a little on the background check issue, and dig in their heels on everything else, especially reinstating the assault weapons ban. They will use the language of “what works” to reduce crime, somehow having this huge blind spot when it comes to high powered weapons in spite several high profile events using those weapons. They will equate someone’s right to own a gun with the right to use a gun whose purpose is only to kill other human beings in a combat situation.

Because of my long involvement with this issue, people have been asking if I think significant changes will come. I don’t think significant changes will come without a real fight and continued pressure on Congresspeople and a continual discrediting of the lies and deception being promulgated by the NRA and other gun-rights groups. In Philadelphia and elsewhere sales at gun shows and gun shops have sky rocketed because of people’s frenzy and fear that someone all rights to own and use gun will be taken away. I don’t see that happening, nor do I worry about it. What concerns me is that those of us who see a major source of the problem as the fascination with violence at the heart of our culture must be committed to a long, arduous process of transformation that will require dedicated efforts to keep the truth and reality of guns’ destruction before the public and more importantly, our representatives in Congress and the White House.

So I took the letter that Rep Meehan sent me turned it over and wrote my response to his response asking why he has not come out in support of the assault weapons ban. The campaign for commonsense gun legislation continues.

A Book All Christians Should Read

Over the Christmas holidays, my daughter lent me the book The Faitheist by Chris Stedman, the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University. I hardly knew what a Humanist Chaplain was and I was intrigued by someone who would link both faith and atheism in his perspective on life. Make no mistake, Stedman considers himself an atheist, but he is an atheist who appreciates the role religion plays in people’s lives. He tells the story of how he was derisively called a “faitheist” by one of his atheist friends. However, upon reflection he felt the term adequately captured his perspective on life and so claimed the label for himself.

Stedman’s story is both challenging and troubling for those of us who claim to be Christians. His story illustrates how often in our passion for Truth, we alienate others without even knowing we are doing it. After growing up in a non-religious home, Stedman got involved with an evangelical youth group while in middle school and even made a typical evangelical commitment of faith. However, this spiritual awakening was accompanied and complicated by a growing awareness that he also was sexually attracted to boys rather than girls. As he listened to the Bible teachings of his evangelical youth leader, he became increasingly concerned that he was hopelessly caught in a “sinful” gay sexuality.  After drifting away from that youth group and sharing his struggle with his mother, he found his way to a Lutheran pastor and youth group who both affirmed his Christian belief and his gay sexuality. Thus Stedman entered college with essentially his faith and sexual identity intact.

However in college as Stedman further examined his faith, he gradually began to question the essential truths of Christianity, and eventually identified himself as an atheist. However, he did not forget the love and community he experienced in the church, nor the passion for justice and making the world a better place that was at the core of the faith he had professed. He claims to have found peace and a sense of identity not believing in God that he failed to achieve in trying to believe in God. After going through a time of anger and rejection of all things religious, he entered seminary with the idea of understanding people of different religious faiths and promoting inter-religious understanding. He now serves as a Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University and speaks and writes widely on the values of secular humanist and inter-faith understanding.

What I appreciated most about this book was Stedman’s insistence on the power of one’s personal story. For example one time he was  entering a bar with some friends when they were harangued by three Christians were standing outside berating all the gay men entering the establishment. Instead of just walking by, Stedman engaged them in conversation, eventually sharing the story of his journey thru Christianity and struggle over identity to his current place as a gay atheist who appreciated the value of religion. He says that at the end of the conversation, the would-be hecklers thanked him for his authenticity and they parted in respect. Would that many gay bashing Christians learn the power of simply telling stories rather than seeking to pummel people with the Truth.

So often we religious people hide behind our faith as if it is a shield against all that is different and threatening. More often in our fear we drive a wedge between those with whom we disagree, when in fact we have so much to learn from one another. In the last few years I have increasingly sought out opportunities to engage people whose belief systems are different than mine. I have found myself working alongside and talking with Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Agnostics, atheists and spiritualists. These interactions have caused me to consider the foundations of my faith, while seeking to try and understand the foundations of another’s faith. While not a Christian, Chris Stedman provides us with a helpful example of how we can live within our own belief system and still engage others meaningfully.

While Stedman identifies with the new atheist movement, he is critical that for the most part  new atheism is characterized by what it is against – religion – rather than what it stands for. Interchangeably using the terms "atheist" and "humanist," he makes the argument that just as people from different religious traditions have much to learn from one another, so to believers and non-believing humanists have much to learn from each other. This book is an easy read, full of personal anecdotes that adds to our understanding of those who may share our passion for justice and peace, while rejecting our faith. We who claim to be Christian could learn a great deal from Stedman’s example of engaging openness to those who are different.

Talking Points in Response to the NRA

Last week Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA, spoke out in response to the horrible shootings in Newtown, CT, and for the first time, the public has responded with a critical eye to some of the logic La Pierre  and his ilk have used in his response to the terrible tragedy. Let us be clear on a couple of things as we reflect on LaPierre’s words. First of all, we need to realize that he was not posturing; he truly believes what he said. Second, we need to realize that the NRA, the Gun Owners of the America and the gun industry will respond with all the resources at their disposal to confuse and distort the issues around guns; and those resources are sizable. Already they are hitting the airways with proposals designed to confuse rather than clarify the issue. So in this blog I want to provide a few talking points as we write our legislators and talk with our co-workers and friends about these important issues, and I will do so by taking the vary statements La Pierre used in his press conference.

First, La Pierre stated that there are already 20,000 gun laws on the books, so why do we need more. Now I am not sure where he came up with that number but there is no question there are a lot of laws because gun legislation is largely handled at the state level, and so there are 50 sets of laws. Congress and federal government have limited control of gun practices. What is needed is a comprehensive framework from the federal level to guide states. However, that is a long way off given the current polarity in the Congress . What Congress can do is ban assault weapons, coordinate a national database of people who should not be allowed to buy guns, and provide funding for enforcement through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Narcotics (commonly referred to as ATF). The Congress also can provide funding for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to do research on the effects and causes of gun violence.  Now while there are many laws, the NRA has actually been actively and successfully working to weaken existing laws and to pass laws allowing for individuals to carry concealed weapons in public. (Think George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin). So some of these many laws have actually made guns more readily available rather than restricted. LaPierre conveniently forgot to mention that fact.

This leads to La Pierre next point that we just need to enforce existing laws, not pass new ones. That would be great place to start except the NRA has strongly pushed that the ATF be given reduced resources so that ATF does not have the people power to adequately monitor gun shops and other sources providing guns. The NRA have also sought to undermine the national database by having supporters in positions of influence at the state level not send in the information the database requires and because ATF is underfunded they can’t go after them. The NRA also pushed through legislation that de-funded gun-related studies of the CDC because those studies showed that the presence of a gun in a home actually increased the likelihood of gun-related injuries or deaths rather than decrease them. These goes against the bumper sticker logic of the NRA that guns somehow make us safer. The research just does not back that up claim.

La Pierre’s most outrageous proposal was to put arm guards in every school. Yesterday the NRA president David Keene  altered that proposal by saying school personnel should be able to have a range of options for protecting themselves – arming teachers, principals, having police officers, private security, etc. The logic of this proposal expressed by La Pierre is that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to have a good guy with a gun. This is the “wild west “ logic that the NRA has used for years, and is reflected endlessly in our movies, television, video games and media. This logic is like trying to plug the dam after the water has broken through. The goal should be to reduce the overall presence of guns, keep them away from children, felons, people with emotional problems and so on.  Just yesterday three Clementon, NJ police officers were shot in the police station by an assailant. Trained guards do not prevent violence, that logic is too late. As the CDC study referenced above pointed out the presence of guns themselves present a threat; do we want these sorts of readily available in a school? I don’t think so.

La Pierre also criticized the entertainment and video game industry for promoting violence. For LaPierre, a representative of the firearms industry, to make such a statement would be laughable if it were not so tragically hypocritical. Like many other manufacturers and retailers, the firearms industry uses product placement in movies and games as a way of advertising their product. Just this week the NY Times reported that the website for video game Medal of Honor Warfighter was directly linked to the gun manufacturers whose weapons are featured in thegame. This is not an anomaly but standard practice for gun manufacturers to get their product out there.

Finally, the media keeps reporting that the public is evenly divided on the issue of gun control. That assertion is based on an ongoing Pew Research Study that asks the following question: What do you think is more important – to protect the right of Americans to own guns, OR to control gun ownership? In answer to this question the public is evenly divided. However, anyone who does research knows, the question you ask skews the results you get. The question asked by PEW set up a false dichotomy between allowing Americans to own guns and gun control. In Pennsylvania, a heavily pro-gun state, when more specific questions were asked a widely different result was received. When asked if that state ought to limit the sale of handguns to one gun per month per person, nearly 70% of people voted in the affirmative.  When asked if persons should be required to report a gun that was lost or stolen there was a similar result. These laws are focused on straw purchasing, the major source of most guns used in crime. So in many ways the public is overwhelmingly in favor of common sense legislation which addresses parts of the problem without restricting others’ right to legally own a gun.

Hopefully these talking points can help you in talking with others about the tragic events in Newtown and elsewhere. For the first time our nation’s leaders are at least talking about the issue. We need to seize this moment to bring pressure to bear for legislators at all levels of government to take action that will make the likelihood of another Newtown, Columbine, Aurora or (fill in the blank) happening again. Groups like Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Violence Policy Center and Ceasefire PA are great sources of the latest actions and information available. We can’t just sit on this one; we need to let our voices be heard.

We Are Adam Lanza

The feedback to my earlier blog “Making Sense of the Senseless” has challenged me to say a word about the mental illness dimension of the horrible tragedy in Connecticut. While the citizens of Newtown mourn, many folks in the media and beyond are trying to make sense of the tragic events of December 14 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School; they are seeking to understand why Adam Lanza acted as he did in such a devastating and destructive way. While the all-too-ready-availability of guns is a major contributing factor that is now finally getting some national attention at the highest levels, the other issue is the untreated and in some cases undiagnosed mental illness of the shooters in the high profile murders such as occurred at Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora and now Newtown.  To that end a great deal has been made of Lanza’s supposed mental illness and the need for services that can better detect, treat and support those who suffer as he apparently did.  Liz Long’s article “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother," the testimony of a mother caring for her son whose diagnosis has been everything from autism to ADHD to oppositional disorder. has gone viral on the Internet.

I am neither a mental health professional nor one who has studied the issue, so I can only speak from my limited personal experience. My window into the world of mental illness came over 30 years ago when I was a student chaplain in a psychiatric hospital in Danvers, MA. Danvers State was a facility for the severely mentally ill, particularly those suffering from various psychosis such as paranoia, schizophrenia and the like. My job consisted of providing spiritual support to people who often moved in and out of lucidity, and who could be speaking rationally one moment and be living in a world that existed only in their mind in the next. In order to relate to these folks I had to try and follow wherever their minds were taking them and meet them there, while trying to offer some sense of God’s presence in their often troubled, confusing lives. While I do not know how much help I actually gave them, I learned a great deal about the human psyche.

The enduring insight I gained from that summer was that all people are crazy, it’s just that some of us hide it better than others. I came to realize that some of the more bizarre conversations I had with patients were similar to fantasies and dreams I had. The difference was that the patients thought those fantasies were real and acted on them, whereas I was able to recognize they were just in my mind, and not something I should act on. I saw that the anger, the hurt, the frustration and even the exuberance that my  patients expressed were similar to feelings I had; I just was able to control my emotions and express them in socially appropriate ways. Moreover, whereas my patients often could not discern the real from the unreal when they acted irrationality, I was adept at supplying “logical” or “rational” explanations for my sometimes irrational reactions and behaviors.

At the time I wondered why my training for pastoral ministry required a summer spent on the psych wards, but once I got into the pastoral role I saw how valuable that experience was. Religion often draws on the emotional and imaginative side of people’s psyches and religious people often explain their strange behavior with Biblical or theological language. In my time as a pastor I had numerous opportunities to minister to people who were suffering various forms of mental stress and illness, which often got complicated when they inserted God into their rationalization for how and why they acted as they did. All too often actions that otherwise “normal” and “healthy” people took in their lives did not make any rational sense, and so I developed a working principle for dealing with folks: if it looks, sounds, and feels crazy, it probably is crazy – no matter how people sought to package it. Moreover, while I saw such tendencies in other people, I could not deny that I also saw such tendencies in myself.  I came to realize we all are a bit crazy at times; some of us just cover it better than others.

Too often when we try and explain the tragic behavior of a person like Adam Lanza, our purpose is to put some social and psychic distance between us and him, to be able to say “well he acted that way because of A,B, & C” and therefore I am not like him. However, none of us are that far from where Adam Lanza was mentally and emotionally. We all have thoughts of exerting power thru violence whether in our silent thoughts or our night dreams. Violent movies and video games are the external evidence that is so. I confess there have been times in my life where the stress and confusion got so great that I literally thought I was “losing my mind.” I am not alone in that experience; at some level we are all potentially Adam Lanza.

In no way do I want to explain away or condone the tragedy of Newtown, CT. Rather my point is simply to say that we, the mentally ill and the mentally stable (relatively speaking) are all in this together. We may never know what possessed Adam Lanza to kill his mother and then go on a rampage in the school where she worked. What we can know is that as a human community, we are responsible for and to one another. We are responsible for and to the families, the caregivers, the teachers, and mental health professionals who seek to help those who struggle with mental illness. One day our psyches might break on the stresses of life, and just like Adam Lanza we will need someone to support us and save us from ourselves and the horrific impulses of our worst nightmares.

Making Sense of the Senseless

Today in Newtown, CT 28 people are dead, 20 of them children who attended the Sandy Hook Elementary School. If the murder rate in Philadelphia stays on pace, there will 3-4 more young people in Philadelphia dead before the end of the weekend due to gun violence. The same will be true for communities all over the country. As the newscasters were reporting the Connecticut tragedy, one reporter asked rhetorically: how do we make sense of the senseless?

Whenever I hear of another gun-related killing, and especially when there is a high profile shooting like we have had recently in Oregon and now in Connecticut, I think of the line from Bob Dylan’s classic, “Blowin’ in the Wind” – how many deaths will it take ‘til he knows that too many people have died? The pattern is the same: a horrible shooting occurs, the reporters swarm on the scene, tears are shed, incredulity is expressed, and yet nothing is said about the all-too-ready–availability of guns. President Obama sheds a tear and hugs his beautiful daughters, but will he and the Congress take up the issue of America’s fanatical addiction to guns. Whether it’s Trayvon Martin or holiday shoppers in Oregon or twenty elementary children, there is one thing that could have prevented all the senseless deaths: gun laws that make it difficult for the average person to buy guns and then carry them in public. It is not that complicated to figure out, but extremely complicated to get that simple idea into the political discussion.

No doubt there will be those in the NRA, Gun Owners of America, and other pro-gun groups who will make the argument that this incident shows that we need more guns, that if there had been teachers in that school with guns, maybe Adam Lanza would not have killed the children. They will make that argument even though it does not stand up to the evidence. Gabby Giffords had trained guards around her and there were armed guards in the Portland shopping mall. They did not stop the killers in those situations. This is the false and dangerous logic that the gun lobby continues to sell to the public and our leaders, and IT IS A LIE.

James Atwood, author of American and its Guns, says that we as a nation worship the idol of the gun. He says:

“… America’s idolatry with guns [is] a confrontational belief system based on acquiring power over others. The system is buttressed by a fascination for and devotion to the violence guns provide. Those who believe need guns to prove themselves and others they are in control, to protect them from harm, and to give them a sense of security.”(emphasis original, p. 22)

Former NRA executive Warren Cassidy said that the best way to understand the NRA is “approaching [members of the NRA] as if they were a religion.” His words not mine. To suggest that guns themselves might be part of the problem is heresy in the holy temple of the gun. However, if we want to make sense of the senseless, this is where we must start.

I ask that you join me in contacting legislators at local, state and federal levels and demanding that the issue of gun ownership and the carrying of guns be put up for serious discussion.  I did just that after the Aurora, CO shooting and got NRA sponsored clichés from both Democrats and Republicans  except for my Republican state representative who agreed with the need to pass more restrictive legislation. We dare not give up. We are approaching the “tipping point”; change will begin to come when enough of us raise our voices enough times to finally drown out the senseless voices that continue to protect the “right to bear arms” at any cost, even the cost of innocent children.

The Politician, The Prophet and the The "Fiscal Cliff"

The news these days is filled with all the predictions and warnings about the so-called “fiscal cliff” that will befall the U.S. economy if the Democrats and Republicans in Washington cannot agree on a debt reduction package. Depending on what pundit you listen to, the failure to reach a deal could lead to a catastrophic recession, a slow decline, or a false alarm. Whatever the term “fiscal cliff” actually means, it is designed to shed fear and trepidation rather than true understanding of what is at stake, distract attention from the  the huge disparities that exist in wealth and power in this country, and will impact the poor far more than the banks or the wealthy. In the end the federal budget is not about money but priorities and people. The amount of money that special interests spent on both sides to sway the election could itself put a sizable dent in the federal deficit, so the underlying issue is not one of money but who gets to call the shots and direct those dollars.

The wealthy and powerful of the U.S. plutocracy have always positioned themselves to make out well no matter what. We forget that after Hurricane Katrina and oil prices shot up because the oil companies supposedly could not refine enough oil, Exxon-Mobil recorded the highest profit margins ever in its history. We forget that while banks were being bailed out during the recession, Goldman-Sachs and a small group of wealthy business types made a killing on that same recession. While the debate rages on about the Affordable Care Act (so called Obamacare), the health costs are not being contained and health insurance companies and drug companies will do just fine whatever way the political wind blows. While the Republicans say they want to balance the budget, they are fighting like hell to protect their wealthy backers, the 1-2% of the population with incomes over $250,000 that President Obama wants to tax at rates when Bill Clinton was president. So the issue is not about a balanced budget, but who calls the shots and who benefits, priorities and people.

The art of politics is compromise, so whatever comes out of these negotiations will be disappointing to anyone who has a strong opinion on the right or the left of this debate. No one group will get what they want, and so one must focus on what is most essential and most critical. This is why there need to be prophets to keep those principles before us.

Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Jewish philosopher and teacher of the mid-20th century wrote that “prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice of the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world.” He goes on, “The prophet hates the approximate; he shuns the middle of the road…The prophet's word is a scream in the night [and] …the purpose of prophecy is to conquer callousness, to change the inner [person] as well as revolutionize history.” [from his book The Prophets]. While Heschel was describing the prophets of the Old Testament, he was also referring to them as a paradigm for the prophets of today.

 Whether or not we see ourselves a prophets in the classic Old Testament sense, people of faith must honor and in some cases seek to speak with a prophetic voice that recognizes the  political necessity of compromise while at the same time “hating the approximate” and “shunning the middle of the road.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt was reported to have told an activist who supported him in the presidential election: “Now hold me to the promises I have made”. The prophets are the people who hold onto and press the promises.

President Obama was elected on the promise of developing a plan that provides health care coverage to all citizens. He said he would allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest Americans. He said the federal government should support public education reform, especially in low income districts. He said we should create the conditions for green jobs, create alternatives to carbon-based energy and oppose the Keystone Pipeline project running down from Canada through the Midwest. With a prophetic voice we need to hold the president to these promises. They represent principles of equity, of a concern for the environment, and a curb on the wealthy powerbrokers. Moreover those principles should move us press President Obama on the places that he has not gone far enough, such as on immigration reform and regulations on Wall Street and financial institutions.

Parenthetically, I acknowledge that there are those on the other side of this debate who are as equally passionate about their issues. I find the America that many on the Right propose is not an America I want to support. And those who espouse a “Christian” position, support a Christianity I cannot endorse. So there are real divides and deep passions which I acknowledge. We as citizens need to have civil dialogue on these differences, not simply on the basis of the issues themselves, but the underlying principles and values that inform our positions.

My  commitments are to the principles of providing equal access to all, holding the powerful and wealthy in check, caring for the environment and providing basic rights for all citizens regardless of color, ethnicity or economic status. How we live out and implement these principles is a matter of practical, political strategy.
The debate over the so-called “fiscal cliff” is at its heart a debate about values and deep principles. While the politicians negotiate, in the prophetic tradition we must press the principles that can make life just and fair for all affected.

Now Thank We All Our God

Nearly 40 years ago when I was at college spending Thanksgiving away from home; as a result I was feeling alone and lost. To cheer myself up I began writing down the things in my life I had to be thankful for. Before I was done I had filled two whole sheets of 8 ½ by 11 inch paper listing people, events and happenings in the world for which I was thankful. Not only did that list lift my spirits, but it showed me just how easily I had overlooked all the things in my life for which I could be grateful. Ever since then that simple exercise has been my personal Thanksgiving ritual.  Every year around Thanksgiving I sit down and make a list of all the people, events, and happenings in my life and world for which I am thankful, and every year I fill pages with my list. Every year I am reminded how blessed I really am. No matter how many struggles and disappointments I have had to endure, no matter how much I may have struggled with failure, no matter how many mistakes I have made,  and no matter how angry and disappointed I am by events going on in the world, I have never failed to compile a lengthy list of blessings. The list doesn't erase the disappointments; it just puts them in perspective.

 Around the same time I started this personal ritual, I learned the story of Martin Rinckart, the person who gave us the words to the Thanksgiving Hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God”. The hymn begins:

               Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices

               Who wondrous things hath made in whom our world rejoices

               Who from our mother’s arms hath blessed us on our way

               Through countless gifts of love and still is ours today

Given these high and lofty words one might think that Rinckart had a  reasonably cushy life. Most people don’t feel they have been blessed with “countless gifts of love” or see “wondrous things” in their lives. This sort of language doesn’t come easily to most people; it certainly doesn’t come easy to me. So it was a great surprise to learn that in contrast to the picture these words might conjure up for us, Martin Rinckart had anything but an easy life.

Martin Rinckart served as a Lutheran pastor in the little town of Eilenburg, Germany in the 1600’s during the Thirty Years War. Not only did the residents of his little town suffer the privations and ravages of war, they were also beset by an epidemic that killed people by the hundreds. When Rinckart began his pastorate in Eilenburg in 1623, there were three other pastors in the town. As the town was ravaged by invaders, and beset with disease, one of those pastors left for a safer place, while the other two were felled by the fever. Rinckart was left to serve as pastor to the whole town. At the height of the crisis it was estimated that Rinckart performed on average 40-50 funerals a day, nearly 4000 by one person's count. The burden of sadness and concern he carried was unbearable by human standards.

If anyone had reason to lose faith, he did. Yet he continued to serve, and through the suffering he and  those around him were able to see the grace of God in their lives and give thanks in the midst of their struggle. He was not immune or blind to the suffering around him. Rather he saw his life from the perspective of a God who suffered with him and did not leave or desert him. Thus the hymn asserts:

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;

And keep us in his grace, and guide us when perplexed,

And free us from all ills in this world and the next.

I teach courses on poverty, racism and social justice, and spend alot of time working on issues such as gun violence and educational equity. I find myself having to contend with unjust systems, uncaring legislators, and bruised and defeated individuals. The frustration and suffering I experience is nothing compared to what Martin Rinckart faced. Even so I find strength and inspiration in his overarching attitude of thankfulness in the face of suffering. Thus, this Thanksgiving I sing and pray with him the words of his great hymn that ends with these words

All praise and thanks to God who reigns in highest heaven,

To Father and to Son the Spirit now be given:

The one eternal God, whom earth and heaven adore,

Whoever was, is now, and shall be evermore.

May you too find much for which you can be thankful on this Thanksgiving holiday.

Why Race is a Factor in This Year's Election

At the risk of stating the obvious to some and “playing the race card” to others, I believe race is a central issue in this year’s presidential contest. However, I say that not simply or even because Mitt Romney (a white guy) is running against Barack Obama (a mixed race male who identifies as African American). Rather I say that because of what the two men symbolize and what is at stake for the poor and for people of color in this election. In terms of the numbers Obama is estimated to have received votes from 43% of whites four years ago, but is expected to only pull in about 38% of the white vote this year. Now this is not to imply that a vote against Obama means one is racist. However, we contrast that with the fact that 95% of blacks are expected to vote for Obama, and a majority of Asians, and Hispanics are also expected to vote Obama though not to the same extent of blacks. Add to that that according to the PBS special “Race 2012” 90% of people who voted in the Republican primaries this spring were white. Put this together and the picture that emerges is that the Republicans are an overwhelmingly white party, while the Democrats are attracting a diversity of voters. 

Race is a major factor in this campaign.

Now we might chalk this divide up to embarrassing coincidence, but the fact that the Republicans neither can nor care to attract more voters of color is not something we can easily overlook. Oh yes they had Condoleeza Rice speak at the Republican Convention, Michael Steele was chairman of the Republican Party for a couple of years, and Clarence Thomas the only black judge on the Supreme Court was appointed by a Republican President, but that is colorful window dressing that apparently is not speaking generally to the needs and perspectives of people of color. Now I would contend that neither is Barack Obama. Except for his pre-presidency speech on Race during the 2004 Democratic primary and an oblique reference to Trayvon Martin last spring, Obama has not broached the topic of race either; maybe he doesn’t feel like he can, or maybe he chooses not to. Meanwhile he has surrounded himself with advisors who look and talk like the white power brokers that preceded him. However what is interesting is that according Chrystia Freeland author of Plutocracy: The Rise of the New global Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, Obama sees himself as one of the plutocrats. (Notice how when he talks about taxing the super-rich, he always refers to “we”; i.e. he recognizes he is one of them.)Yet even so, people of color (and those whites who see themselves as allies) hold out hope that they have a better chance with Barack Obama in the White House than Romney. At least that is what the numbers suggest.

Race is a factor in this presidential election.

Four years ago when Barack Obama was elected president, many pundits in the media wondered out loud if we had entered a “post-racial society.” There is no question that Barack Obama’s election was historic because he broke the white barrier, but I was not among those who thought we had crossed the post-racial threshold. One could sense in conservative white America a fear that in some way Obama might “retaliate” for all the centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination and marginalization faced by African Americans through history. Gun rights advocates feared Obama would take away all their guns. Conservatives feared he would establish a socialist state. Look at the trailer for the recent film “Obama 2016” and you see some even feared he would retaliate for colonialism in Africa. His opponents questioned his credentials and even his birth certificate. The underlying racial fear was palpable if not ridiculous. To his credit Mitt Romney has tried not to play on those fears, but his conservative base still harbors them despite clear evidence that such fears were totally unfounded.

While I don’t think Obama’s election ushered in a post-racial era, as my colleague Nathan Corbitt has pointed out, his election was a “tipping point;” that is, with the election of Barack Obama we were served notice that white control of levers of power were beginning to slip. Now there is no question when we look at who sits around the advisors’ tables and who sits on the boards of major corporations and who occupies most of the CEO positions, white males are still very much in control of levers of power. However, the fact that a black man sits in the Oval Office and can set controls on their power, sends a very clear message that the rules of the game have changed. Obama signals a move toward a more diverse society where the white establishment is no longer in control. His push to provide universal healthcare, and his focus on increased education funding point to a strategy that moves from the bottom up, rather than the trickle down philosophy of Reaganites like Romney.

If one only looks at the policies of conservative governors in places like Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the pattern is clear: programs that serve the needs of the homeless, the disabled, the poor and the mentally ill are being cut, while tax breaks are being given to corporations and the wealthy. Young people of color committing petty theft get jail time, while bankers who defraud people out of millions in their pensions and mortgages get regulations loosened and receive bonuses. The rights of unions are being curtailed, while regulations on corporations are being relaxed (in spite of the actions leading to the 2008 recession). Public Education is increasingly privatized and vouchered, while these same leaders make sure their kids don't have to go to those schools. The issue is clear: do we adopt policies that continue to serve the wealthy and powerful, or do we redistribute to provide basic needs for all?

While the word has rarely if ever been mentioned by the candidates in this election, and only cautiously by the media, let’s not kid ourselves: race is a factor in this election, and the choices we make determine whether we close our eyes and hope for a past that never was to return, or move wide-eyed into the future of a multicultural America where the blessings of this nation are shared fairly and equally.