Walmart Worker Trampled

Walmart in Valley Stream


Read Yahoo Article

I hate Walmart. I also hate Black Friday. That's why Walmart would be the last place on earth you would have found me yesterday: even if I hadn't been hibernating at home working on my end-of-semester projects, I most certainly would not have been busting down the door at Walmart.

While shopping is a hobby or source of enjoyment for many women, I am not one of them. Part of the reason I don't enjoy shopping might be a focus on living simply that my family and Mennonite community passed on to me. Part of it might be personal preference - while I don't mind shopping in an uncrowded store, I detest shopping amidst throngs of rabid bargain-hunters who will literally steal something out of your cart if you turn your back.

Part of the American dream that I don't understand or endorse is this desire to accumulate as much STUFF as possible. I heard on the news recently that flat screen televisions are the number one item being stolen from people's homes - they recommended positioning your TV so it could not be seen through your front window. It seems like a lot of Americans measure how successful they are by how much cool "stuff" they has, but I prefer the motto "you can't take it with you." The people in this article became so obsessed by the STUFF they could buy on sale at Walmart that they literally took a human life in their charge through the entrance.

I would love it if everyone shopping at Walmart on Friday had to live in a mud hut in a Third World country for a week before Black Friday. Or at the least, work behind the counter at a retail store themselves (preferably at Walmart!) for a week. I have lived in a poor country (although admittedly not in a mud hut), and I have worked in retail over Christmas. So I know that a lot of times the person working behind the counter is seen as "lower" or "less capable" or "less intelligent" than the customer because I have been treated that way many times. Many customers take the motto "The customer is always right" to mean that "The customer has more rights and privileges as a human being than the sales person."

The problem with these Walmart customers is that they have lost perspective of what is truly important - and tragically, the loss of a human life did not even jar them out of their hedonistic dream. Ironically, the vast majority are buying Christmas gifts; because trampling down another human in a quest to buy a flat screen TV for your husband is what this season of peace and goodwill is all about.

Hostage Situation in Mumbai

Candlelight Vigil in Mumbai




I heard about this on the news driving home from school one night. Just another example of what extremists will do to further their cause of hatred and divisiveness. I hate that innocent people suffer and die because these militants think that they can further their cause by mass destruction. What is truly tragic is that now a two-year-old child will have to grow up an orphan because his parents (who were 28 and 29, a Jewish rabbi and his wife) were victims of these terrorists.

Another related story I heard on the news interviewed Vikram Chandra who wrote a novel and one of the storylines involved a terrorist attack in Mumbai. Interesting how in this case fiction and non-fiction reflect each other. The terrorists in the book were actually Hindu (unlike the terrorists in real life, who were Muslim), but I thought one thing that Chandra said was very interesting: that the extremists on either side of the fence need each other to survive, and in a way, they only exist to support the other.

Singing about Injustice

"God of the Bible, God in the Gospel,
hope seen in Jesus, hope yet to come,
you are our center, daylight or darkness,
freedom or prison, you are our home.

God in our struggles, God in our hunger,
suffering with us, taking our part,
still you empower us, mothering Spirit,
feeding, sustaining, from your own heart.

Those without status, those who are nothing,
you have made royal, gifted with rights,
chosen as partners, midwives of justice,
birthing new systems, lighting new lights.

Not by your finger, not by your anger
will our world order change in a day,
but by your people, fearless and faithful,
small paper lanterns, lighting the way.

Hope we must carry, shining and certain
through all our turmoil, terror, and loss,
bonding us gladly one to the other,
till our world changes facing the cross."

This is a song we sang in my church on Thanksgiving day. We meet for a short time to sing, read scripture, and reflect on what we are thankful for. I have to say that faced with all the injustice in our society - and in every society - I do think that the true Christian way offers an alternative perspective that values and validates those whom society looks down upon.

I remember reading a book titled The Upside Down Kingdom for a college class I took years ago; the premise of the book is that Jesus turns the standards of our society upside down. According to the teachings of Jesus, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Blessed are those who mourn, who hunger, who thirst, who are persecuted. The things that this world values least are ultimately of the most value.

This song speaks to God's actions in our world, and verse 2 and three (in italics) specifically speak about God changing the world order through his followers. I'm not saying you have to be a follower of Jesus to bring about social change - there are many who have made significant contributions to this world who aren't Christian (Ghandi, Greg Mortenson); I'm saying that the inverse SHOULD be true, that if you are a Christian you should be an advocate for social change. Unfortunately, it seems that this is not always - or even usually - the case. Most Christians in our society benefit from the current status quo and so they want to keep it that way to protect their own privileges.

Jeffrey Stephens Murder

Akron Protesters

Click to hear WKSU story and view larger pictures

Looks like this is a police murder based on CFAWB - Carrying a Fire Arm While Black. Apparently this is a slightly more serious crime than DWB - Driving While Black - which Danica got stopped for earlier this year. I know that the details aren't exactly clear in this case, and that the police have been acquitted, but I agree with Stephens' friends and family that justice has not been served.

For starters, to get to the root of the problem, why are African Americans living in poor neighborhoods that are fraught with violence? The fact that many minorities, specifically blacks and Hispanics, live in some of the poorest conditions is a pervasive injustice in our society, and something that should concern all of us - not just those living in poverty.

Secondly, what are the chances that the police would have shot the man who was defending his own home if he had been white? In other words, if this had been a white neighborhood and Jeffrey Stephens, Sr. had been white, would he be dead today? It seems less than likely to me - even if the neighborhood had been equally poor and violent.

This is because many Americans, and yes, many police officers, operate on the stereotype that a black man with a gun is a criminal - while a white man with a gun is defending his home. I think the protesters in this case aren't just protesting the shooting of an innocent man, Jeffrey Stephens, but also protesting the unjust stereotype in an unjust society that probably contributed to his death.

Pink Sari Renegades

Sampat Pal Devi, head of the Gulabi (pink) Gang

Click to read the BBC article

In a day and age where superheros are considered passe or nonexistent, the Gulabi Gang and leader Sampat Pal Devi show that not only DO superheros exist, but they still wear cool uniforms and fight injustice, Robinhood-style.

This gang of women has banded together in one of the poorest regions in India to stick up for those people who can't stick up for themselves - the untouchables, and specifically women from the lower casts. Women are typically married off at a very young age - Sampat Devi was married off at age 9 and bore her first child at age 13 - and domestic and sexual violence are common. The pink sari gang will often take justice into their own hands when the law doesn't do anything to protect the poor, or sometimes they just make sure the wrongdoer is humiliated for his actions.

Sampat Devi, like Greg Mortenson in Three Cups of Tea, is one person who has stood up to the injustices in society and is making a difference in her society, especially in the lives of women. Her gang is not afraid to stand up to police, and they have beaten police for holding an untouchable man without charges. While I don't agree with all of the Gulabi Gang's tactics (as a pacifist, I don't think I could ever be a part of a group that used violence as a form of retaliation), I admire the cause of fighting corruption and injustice, and I hope that Sampat Devi and the pink gang continue their fight.

More Racist Hate Crimes

Read LA Times article about white extremists

Well, I guess there is a flipside to America electing its first black president: not only does it ignite hope in people who believe in liberty and civil rights, it also ignites fear and hatred in people who believe in the power of white privilege. These people feel threatened by the idea of a black president so much that they will go any extremes to get their message out.

I feel so angry and personally affronted by these crimes that you would think I didn't have white skin myself. In fact, I really truly wish that I didn't when I see things like this. I despise my own race for committing these heinous acts. I know this probably is not a helpful response - responding to anger with more anger usually only makes the situation worse. But I truly don't know a way to productively respond to these messages of hate and intolerance.

They say that true love casts out all fear - so I suppose the best way to respond to hate crimes would be out of love. How do you respond to hate with love? This is something that many of my heroes have done: Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa. But I think that I would be more inclined to follow the lead of Sampat Pal Devi of the Pink Sari Gang and go out seeking vengeance, or at least humiliation, on these perpetrators.

Is one the better way? Obviously most of the superheroes in Hollywood don't set out to transform the bad guys through love and peaceful non-resistance; superheroes set out to punish and eliminate them for their evil deeds. Given the choice, I would say that Jesus is a better model for true reconciliation. But my human nature wants to put on a pink sari and beat down these idiots!

Hate Crime on Long Island

Coffin of Marcelo Lucero in Gualaceo, Equador

Click here to read the story

The other day I heard an NPR story about the money our government is spending to construct a border fence between Mexico and Arizona. Tell me, why are we spending all this money to keep illegal immigrants out instead of spending money to provide programs and education for the ones who are here?

I don't understand the idea of an "exclusive" America where some people belong and others don't. Apparently it is always the white people who belong. Well, in about 20 years whites will no longer have a majority, so will we still be the people trying to keep out people of color?

I thought America was supposed to be the land of the free where anyone could come to find life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I'm not sure exactly what America I'm thinking of, because the America in this article is one where people who were here "first" (as in, a couple hundred years earlier than current immigrants - but a few thousand years later than the first immigrants) feel justified in committing heinous crimes against those who are new to the country, whose skin is a different color, and who speak a different language.

The Hispanic immigrants who are here have no one to turn to for support but their own family members, and sometimes a church community. They see the police as the enemy since they enforce the immigration laws. The government provides no support to illegal immigrants (that I know of). How can you survive in such a hostile environment? Obviously, with hate crimes such as the killing in this article, survival is indeed a problem.

Times are changing, though, and since our economy has began shifting the immigration has gone down 42% Eventually America is going to realize that the cultural and linguistic diversity brought by these immigrants is a rich contribution to our nation's identity - but by then will it be too late????