Category: Social Issues

Unhappy Anniversary to Us

1/21/2019

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Unhappy anniversary to us. This year marks four centuries since the first African Americans arrived (unwillingly) on our shores. We acted no more neighborly toward Native Americans, corralling tribes so we could take their land. Then in World War II, we incarcerated Japanese Americans but didn’t intern German Americans. Why? Maybe because “they” didn’t look like “us” who are lily white?
     The recent wave of immigrants challenges us again. In the past we welcomed needy Europeans, who became the grandparents and great-grandparents of the majority of us. Yet now we don’t embrace needy Latin Americans, sometimes calling them crooks and social sponges, even though statistics reveal that in general, immigrants have been more law-abiding than native-born citizens and have actually boosted our economy.
     Perhaps it’s time to heed the wisdom of Martin Luther King Jr.; Instead of building a wall to hold back a flood of humanity, we could “build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.” Maybe then we’d understand more clearly how to make good immigration decisions.
     We’re embarrassed about how our ancestors treated various people throughout our country’s history, and I wonder whether our descendants will be shocked about how we treated Twenty-first Century Latin Americans. Will they have reason to call us racist because of what we did - or did not - do?
***
Photo from the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.

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Why Was Anne Frank Denied Entry into America?

11/16/2018

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Imagine that Anne Frank had been allowed to immigrate to America. She’d be eighty-nine now, perhaps penning a memoir of her escaping from Nazis, settling in Boston, and fulfilling her dream of becoming a writer.
     Her father tried desperately to relocate his family into the United States, but the gates into our country snapped shut.   Trapped in Amsterdam, the Frank family hid for two years in rooms concealed behind a bookcase. When discovered, they were shipped to concentration camps where Anne died of typhus at the age of fifteen.
     “I don't want to have lived in vain…,” Anne wrote in her diary while in hiding. “I want to go on living even after my death!” Her dream came true after the war when her notes were discovered and published as “The Diary of a Young Girl.” Anne’s wrestlings on paper about life and death have been translated into more than sixty languages and turned into a play and movie.    Why was her family denied entrance into America? The public feared that foreign Jews might be criminals and argued we must look after our own first.
  Anne’s story makes me shiver as we wrestle today with complex immigration solutions. I wonder how many in danger from gang violence or poverty are denied safety because of unfounded fears and an America-first policy. While we bask in prosperity, have we forgotten the value of every soul?

Dr. Seuss, a political cartoonist during World War II, captured the sentiment of the country then - and perhaps now.

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Am I Two-Faced?

10/19/2018

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I was seated in a modern living room, but the conversation transported me back to the the world of “To Kill a Mockingbird” in the 1930s. In that book, a Southern ladies’ missionary circle sips tea and chats about how to raise funds to support a missionary working with an uncivilized tribe in Africa, while they complain about having to pay their “darkie” maids.
     As in that scene, I was gathered with decent people who genuinely care about the world. One woman urged us to “pray for the Guatemala missions team,” reminding us that these volunteers traveled there using their own money to build a house for a homeless family. The conversation drifted, and someone mentioned immigration. Another shot back, “It’s illegal, and that’s all there is to it.”
     What? I thought. It’s not all illegal, and there’s much more to it. Although some view immigrants as criminals who steal jobs, studies reveal that in general, immigrants are more law-abiding than native-born Americans, and they fuel our economy, rather than sapping it.
     But I was too shocked and tongue tied to say anything. We all bowed our heads to pray, yet I couldn’t quiet my swirling mind. Why do we feel great about being charitable toward needy people at a distance, but turn our backs when they grow desperate and flee here? Are we as two-faced as those 1930s ladies? And here’s the scary question: what hypocrisy am I blind to?
     Solutions to our immigration crisis are complicated, but one thing is clear: Whenever I care for “the least” in this world - the hungry, the thirsty, strangers, those needing clothes, the sick, even those in prison, Jesus said I did it for him.
  Am I willing to put aside my prejudices and do good for Jesus?

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How to Protect of Kids from Predators

9/28/2018

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Cosby, Kavanaugh, and Catholic clergy grab the headlines - some convicted, some accused - and I wonder how, in this sex-soaked culture, we can protect our most vulnerable - the kids. The statistics turn my stomach: one in four girls in America is sexually abused before the age of eighteen; among guys it’s one in six. At a seminar on child abuse I attended as a volunteer for an organization, I watched a video interview with a teen perpetrator who spoke blandly of fondling more than 500 children. I could have thrown up.
Who are these abusers? Ninety percent are known to the victims and their families. Only 10 percent are strangers. That means people we know and trust the most - relatives, friends, teachers, coaches - are those to watch most closely that they don’t cross boundaries “accidentally” or surreptitiously.
     But parents aren’t helpless to protect their children, says Margaret M. Ochoa from the Colorado School Safety Resource Center. At the seminar I attended, she said a valuable weapon parents hold is to teach kids correct anatomical terms for their private parts. Instruct them that it’s not okay for people to touch private parts or to display them, she said.
     Armed with this understanding, a child signals to a sex offender that he or she has a close relationship with parents and won’t be groomed easily into a relationship. The predator will realize the child could testify against him using anatomical terms, instead of slang that could be confusing as court testimony, says Ochoa, who is an attorney.
     What are private parts? “Tell them that anything under your swim suit is private parts,” she says.
     For those of us who grew up not using anatomically-correct words, this may make our faces burn, but if it keeps our kids safer, it’s worth it.
     Further information about sexual safety training is available here.

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Am I a Bad Samaritan?

9/14/2018

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Along our hiking trail we spotted a rickety wheelchair turned over and empty. My husband Duane and I ran toward it and discovered a man on all fours struggling to crawl toward it. He’d tumbled out and spent the night trapped between rocks.
     We lifted him into his chair and asked what we could get him. He motioned to plastic bags scattered in the dirt. “My beer,” he slurred.
     I dug into the torn bags and found jars of peanut butter and jelly, a dirty plastic spoon, and two liters of beer. I handed him a liter, and he cradled it.
     He wanted to get to a 7-Eleven across a busy intersection, so Duane maneuvered him over the six lanes. “You gotta get sober to figure out what to do,” Duane called above the car noise.    “I’m okay.”
     He insisted on going the rest of the way on his own, but we called 9-1-1 to report him. They’d send a paramedic to check.    Confusion ran through me, that helplessness I always feel when I come across someone in poverty and don’t know how to truly help. Am I a Bad Samaritan?
     I remember Charles Spurgeon, who reached out to London’s orphans 150 years ago. How did he make an impact in such overwhelming need? “The repetition of small efforts will accomplish more than the occasional use of great talents,” he said.
  With that in mind, each week I help bag hundreds of sacks of food for children. They receive meals at school. But on weekends, the cupboard may be bare, so we give them food to carry home. I'm confident here that although our small efforts are just a dent in their needs, they still accomplish much.

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Unhappy Anniversary to Us

Why Was Anne Frank Denied Entry into America?

Am I Two-Faced?

How to Protect of Kids from Predators

Am I a Bad Samaritan?

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