Brown Skin Isn’t a Crime

Brown Skin Isn’t a Crime

by Ted Miller

(originally published July 2018 in Tumbleweird)

The “zero tolerance” immigration policy of Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions is less about the rule of law and all about furthering the divisive politics of hate and discrimination. Central Americans desperately seeking asylum in the United States under international law are instead put into for-profit prisons and detention centers while children, including nursing infants, have been forcibly separated from their parents, sent hundreds of miles away with no apparent plan to reunite them with their families. 

To justify this treatment and stoke the fires of racial intolerance, Trump and Sessions use dehumanizing terms like “animals” and “illegals” while describing immigrants as “infesting the country,” “pouring in by the millions,” and being a part of murderous gangs. Trump would like nothing better than to abolish the constitutional guarantees of due process for asylum seekers. “We cannot allow all of these people to invade our Country,” Mr. Trump tweeted on June 24^th. “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no Judges or Court Cases, bring them back from where they came.”

"Hopefully, people will get the message and not cross the border unlawfully," Sessions said on June 19^th, claiming the policy would act as a deterrent.

But the use of such cruel treatment of immigrants seeking safety is misguided and its claims of effectiveness as a deterrent are dubious at best. The reasons cited for this inhumane treatment are not based in facts. The rate of undocumented immigrants is at its lowest in four decades, crime committed by immigrants is significantly less than for native-born citizens, immigrants actually improve the economy without increasing unemployment or lowering wages (no, they aren’t “taking our jobs”), and immigrants pay more in taxes than they use in public assistance benefits.[1]

Asylum seekers are not criminals. At most, they are guilty of a misdemeanor if they cross the border illegally. Under the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, even those entering a country illegally have a right for protection from violence and oppression in their home country. 

There is a concept in our legal system that the punishment should fit the crime, derived from the Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” It would certainly seem that ripping a nursing baby from her mother’s arms for the misdemeanor of illegal entry into the United States is cruelty disproportionate to the offense. 

This spring, Nazario, a 32-year-old family man, fled Guatemala to escape continued death threats from a local gang, bringing his 5-year-old daughter Filemona with him across Mexico. On May 16^th, he crossed the border east of San Diego intending to seek asylum and safety. Border agents apprehended him and told him he was being taken to jail. As Filemona tried desperately to cling to her father, crying and scared, she was forcibly taken away with no explanation. Filemona ended up over a thousand miles away in New York while Nazario waited for weeks in a San Diego jail. After several weeks, not knowing where his daughter had been taken and realizing the United States was not a safe place that would protect him, Nazario pleaded guilty to illegal entry in the hopes that he would be reunited with his daughter.

Nazario was deported to Guatemala on June 20^th, but Filemona is still in custody somewhere in the United States. Nazario and his wife (whom he left behind when he fled) have no idea if they will ever see their daughter again.[2]

And this is only one of thousands of similar cases. Parents separated from their children, not knowing when or if they will ever see each other again. After they are ripped from their families, children as young as toddlers are being prosecuted as unaccompanied aliens. These stories are truly heartbreaking. 

Terrorizing asylum seekers, separating families, using “the law” to justify the immoral and inhumane treatment of other human beings is NOT making the United States a safer place. It could be argued that it is in fact doing the opposite. So then why is this happening?

Sessions and Trump, along with their supporters, are using this manufactured crisis of illegal immigration as a political tool to further their populist stronghold on the country. It costs billions of taxpayer dollars (with much of the profit going to private prisons and detention centers), undermines the rule of law, diminishes our international standing, and creates hate and division among the American people. 

Like so many of this administration’s policies, demonizing “the other” is a tool they use to divide us while enacting laws and policies that benefit the wealthy and those in power. We’ve seen these divisive tactics used against the Black Lives Matter movement, we’ve seen it in the misogynistic reaction to the #metoo movement, we’ve seen it in the gun control debate, we’ve seen it in the Muslim travel ban, and we see it in this misguided attempt to keep brown people from Central America out of the United States.

We the people must continue to stand together against tyranny and fascist ideas. We must continue to march, continue to speak out, and most importantly, we must use the power of our vote while we still can to put people in office who will work for all of us, citizens and non-citizens alike, with equality, justice, and fairness. 

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[1]The Washington Post, “There’s no immigration crisis, and these charts prove it,” Christopher Ingraham, June 21, 2018.

[2]KQED, “One Migrant Family’s Story of Separation at the Border,” Tyche Hendricks, June 26, 2018

It’s Still Tough to be Gay

It’s Still Tough to be Gay

by Ted Miller

(originally published June 2018 in Tumbleweird)

We’ve come a long way with LGBT rights in the last thirty years. Marriage equality is the law of the land and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal in most of the country. LGBT personnel are allowed to serve openly in the military. Olympics athletes like Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy have become positive role models for millions. LGBT characters are portrayed positively in movies, television, and on stage with their sexual identity as only a part of their humanity. 

But, there are those who actively work to undo all that progress. So-called “religious freedom” bills seek to allow discrimination against LGBT in employment and business, placing religious belief over civil rights for our fellow citizens. Laws and regulations meant to ensure equal treatment are being attacked with an attempt to overturn them. The Department of Health and Human Services has cancelled policies aimed at LGBT Americans and the Department of Education has said it will no longer enforce Title IX protections for transgender students.

Hateful rhetoric and bullying of LGBT youth is often unchallenged and, in some cases, perpetrated by the authorities responsible for protecting young people. At North Bend High School in Oregon last month, the principal was fired and the resource officer reassigned after years of hate driven discriminatory action against LGBT students. In an essay to the ACLU, Liv Funk said that a pattern of harassment from students and teachers had been occurring for years. In one of the worst examples, Funk and her girlfriend were taunted with homophobic slurs and attacked with a skateboard. When she reported the incident to the school resource officer, she was told that being gay was a choice and that she’d better get used to the treatment. Then he told her homosexuality was against his religion and she was going to hell.

School is supposed to be a safe place, family life even more so. LGBTQ youth who don’t have supportive families and school environments have more difficulty in school and are at higher risk for bullying and harassment. Those who are not out to their families and friends face a constant fear of rejection. Often, they hear negative comments against LGBT people at home and among friends, making it even more difficult to be themselves.

But things are getting better. In our local schools, anti-bullying policies and support for LGBT students are being put into place. Gay Straight Alliances (GSA) and similar clubs are present in most of our middle and high schools. Local groups like PFLAG advocate for our LGBT youth and caring community members speak up at school boards, city councils, and community events. When protesters with an anti-gay message show up outside local high schools harassing students, a local group called the Love Army mobilizes to counter with messages of love and acceptance. 

The annual Pride Festival gets bigger every year, celebrating the LGBT community with positive activities for everyone. Many local businesses show their support for an open and inclusive community that values everyone. 

It’s still tough to be a teenager who identifies as LGBTQIA+. These young people face a daily challenge to maintain a sense of dignity and self-worth in a world that often tells them they are unworthy of love and respect just because of who they are. 

If you are one of those who feel marginalized and unable to be your true self in your family, your school, your church, or your workplace, there are people and organizations who will love and accept you for who you are. If you are struggling, don’t struggle alone. Look for friends who will accept you as you are and ask for help when you need it.

If you consider yourself an ally or advocate for the LGBT community, speak up when you see an act of bullying or hate. Help make our community a safe place for all. Remember the words of Desmond Tutu who said: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Imagine a World Without Irrational Fear

Imagine a World Without Irrational Fear

by Ted Miller

(originally published May 2018 in Tumbleweird)

Imagine you are a fourteen-year-old freshman in high school. Your father is deployed to the Middle East and your mother isn’t home yet from her night shift at the hospital. You oversleep and miss the bus. You don’t want to be in trouble, so you decide to walk to school. You take a shortcut through the neighborhood, but you are soon lost. You go up to a house in your neighborhood to ask for directions to your high school. 

You knock on the door and step back. You know you are going to be in so much trouble for missing the bus. You hope your neighbor can help. A lady opens the door and yells, “Why are you trying to break in to my house?”

“I’m just trying to find my way to school,” you innocently reply.

Suddenly a man comes running down the stairs yelling and aiming a shotgun at you. Heart pounding and fearing for your life, you turn and run. Gunfire rings in your ears.

The shot misses. 

You scramble into some nearby bushes to hide, sobbing in mortal fear. You remember the many lessons your mother taught you about how to avoid looking like a threat, how to be nice and respectful, how never to make a sudden move. You wonder what you did wrong. You wonder if this is what your life as a black man is going to be like.

Fourteen-year-old Brennan Walker doesn’t have to imagine this. On April 12^th, this story was his reality. 

An innocent young high-school freshman sparked an irrational fear in this white woman and her husband. To them, young Brennan Walker was a threat. Why?

On the home security video from that morning, the woman clearly says, “Why did these people choose my house?” 

“These people.” 

Does she mean the neighborhood high school kids? 

No, she means scary black boys. 

She couldn’t imagine that this was just a kid looking for his school. Black people are “those people.” Her primeval reaction was that he was a threat. Because he was black. You can’t convince me that if he had been white, she and her trigger-happy husband would have reacted with the same irrational fear.

These incidents of imagined threat and irrational fear happen every day. Too many of them end in the death of an innocent black person. Trayvon Martin, Stephon Clark, Walter Scott, Michael Brown, Jr, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Tamir Rice, and countless others whose names didn’t make the national news.

There is something in our human DNA that causes us to divide others into friend or foe, and appearance is a powerful trigger for that instinct. But we can overcome our irrational fear of people who don’t look like us. We have to internalize the fact that we are all human. We all have the same human hopes and aspirations for a better life. We love the same, laugh the same, and live the same. In this country, we all have the same rights, but for those of us who don’t share the same skin color, we don’t all receive the same treatment.

We need to work much harder at acknowledging the depth of this tragedy in our society. In particular, those of us who are white must accept the facts of this disparate treatment. Rather than rationalizing how each incident wasn’t about race, we must try to understand how race almost always plays a factor. 

Last week I heard an interview[1]with poet Kwame Dawes that describes how imagination and empathy can make a difference. In responding to a question about how hatred and racism are predicated on a lack of imagination, he said:  

I think, fundamentally, empathy represents the idea that I can imagine what somebody else is going through. In my humanity, if I can imagine that, I can understand that pain … because I wouldn’t want to be hurt myself. So, the act of empathy is fundamentally an act of imagination.  

When somebody says to me “Kwame, I can’t imagine what you go through as a black person,” I’ll say, “Try.” 

Because in the act of trying, you’re going to imagine. And if you don’t practice imagining, then you don’t practice empathy. And if you don’t practice empathy, then fundamentally you are building a circumstance in our world where that lack of empathy creates wars, creates violence, creates racism. 

So, I do believe that very often those pernicious things, racism and so on, are a failure of the imagination. A failure of being able to enter into somebody else’s experience and, therefore, to act in love, and act in compassion.

Imagine a world where young black men don’t have to live in fear that a wrong move will cost them their lives. Imagine a world where young black men aren’t feared just because they are black. Imagine a better world for all of us, and work together to make that world a reality.

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[1]Transcribed from an interview with Kwame Dawes on “The World,” April 20, 2018, Public Radio International (pri.org). 

Sexual Assault is No Joke

Sexual Assault is No Joke

by Ted Miller

(originally published April 2018 in Tumbleweird)

It’s been twenty years since Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about an affair with an intern on his staff. The sordid details became common gossip and the subject of raunchy jokes. I remember thinking that what happened between consenting adults should remain a private issue and not a matter of public debate. In this case, the affair was also a case of infidelity, but that again, I thought, should be a private matter. The issue, of course, wasn’t the sex, but the lying under oath. That was the subject of the impeachment and THAT was what was important, right? What happened between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky didn’t affect his ability to govern the country and, if she agreed to the affair, why did it matter?  At least, that’s what I remember thinking at the time.

But twenty years and Monica Lewinsky’s essay in the February 2018 issue of Vanity Fair has significantly changed my perspective. Until I read that essay, I had never given much thought to her perspective. I never considered how she was blamed for the affair, victimized by the prosecution, vilified by the public, and left utterly alone to deal with the aftermath of the scandal. Their relationship may have been consensual, but the abuse of power should not have been so easily overlooked. The power imbalance changed the focus of the real issue. Bill Clinton should have been held accountable.

We live in a culture that blames the victim for sexual harassment or sexual assault. Consider the common phrases we hear to excuse bad behavior. “Boys will be boys.” “She shouldn’t have dressed like that.” “She was asking for it.” “She should have fought back.” “It was just a youthful mistake, don’t ruin his life over it.”

Youthful mistake? Like Brock Turner, who in 2015 sexually assaulted a woman and then received a lenient sentence because, as the judge stated, a longer sentence would have a “severe impact” on this star college athlete with Olympic potential? What about the impact to the victim? If you don’t remember the case, I encourage you to read her statement (search “Brock Turner victim statement”). She states firsthand what it’s like to be a victim in our current “rape culture.”  As is often the case, she was victimized not just by the assault, but by the lawyers, by the press, and by the public. Brock Turner was portrayed as the golden boy who made a little mistake while the details of the victim’s relationships, dating habits, and every private intimacy of her life were called in to question. In other words, it was her fault, not his.

Is it any wonder that victims are hesitant to report sexual assault?

But then, in October 2017, the #MeToo movement went viral. First used by Tarana Burke in 2006 to foster solidarity among women, Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment and sexual assault victims began using the hashtag to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of this issue. Suddenly, millions of #MeToo posts showed the world that those who suffered weren’t alone. And powerful abusers are now being held accountable.

Harvey Weinstein was fired and the powerhouse Weinstein film company has since filed for bankruptcy. Roy Moore, a republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, lost his election against a democrat in a deep red state. Al Franken resigned from congress following credible allegations of improper behavior against him. And the list continues to grow. Both women and men are feeling empowered to speak up.

One of the most heartbreaking examples is the case of U.S. Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar who sexually abused hundreds of young gymnasts for years until called out by his victims through the #MeToo movement. Larry Nassar is now serving a life sentence in prison. That he was able to perpetrate his crimes with impunity for decades while working at Michigan State University under the authority of the U.S. Olympic Committee is an indictment on us all.

We need to be more aware of the messages in our society that perpetuate a culture of unacceptable sexual behavior. Why do we insist girls follow a certain dress code but never tell boys they are responsible for their actions? Why do we automatically question the motives of an accuser rather than the actions of the perpetrator? Why do we laugh at misogynistic jokes and catcalls instead of holding each other accountable to treat everyone with respect and dignity?

As a society, we must listen to the victims of assault and harassment, shift our response from skepticism to belief, and support them through their time of vulnerability. More importantly, we must all work together to change the culture we live in so that men who abuse their power are held accountable. We cannot tolerate a society where wealth, celebrity, or political position excuses the inexcusable.

Every one of us has a #MeToo story or knows someone who does. Let the stories be told.

Time’s up.

This Time Feels Different

This Time Feels Different

by Ted Miller

(originally published March 2018 in Tumbleweird)

When I heard the news on February 14^th of yet another school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida, I predicted we would see the same tired divisive arguments in the news, on social media, and from our politicians. There would be much outrage, grief, denial, calls for gun control, and “thoughts and prayers.” 

The same script played out like clockwork. And I figured that, as has happened with every mass shooting, the attention of the public would shift after a few days and absolutely nothing would change. I reminded myself that if the December 2012 murder of twenty children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut wouldn’t drive change, if the mass murder of concert goers in Las Vegas last year couldn’t even convince Congress to ban bump-stocks, then surely another mass shooting wasn’t going to be any different.

As I listened to interviews with lawmakers on the news the next day, I heard a congressman repeatedly pivot the discussion to argue about the precise definition of an assault weapon instead of focusing on the problem or propose any sort of solution to reduce gun violence in our nation. I was so frustrated I actually screamed at my radio.

When I saw the same tired, baseless arguments all over social media, I called it “Political Polarization Paralysis” in a social media post. That’s what we seem to have become: Too paralyzed to make any difference whatsoever. I felt helpless. I felt hopeless. I cried.

Then I heard that some of the surviving high school students were speaking up. In the midst of their grief and anger, they were making passionate arguments for change. I read Cameron Kasky’s op-ed published by CNN. I heard David Hogg’s media interviews. I listened to Delaney Tarr address the Florida legislature. I watched Emma Gonzalez’s passionate speech at a gun-control rally a mere three days after the shooting. These teenagers are not taking “no” for an answer. Emma Gonzalez spoke for her peers when she said:

Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don't know what we're talking about, that we're too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.

These media-savvy young people know how to get their message out. The news corporations and the public have taken notice. Their message is consistent, pointed, and effective.

And right on cue, the backlash from the extreme right has been severe, attacking the students with conspiracy theories in an attempt to undermine their credibility, claiming they have no right to speak up, and bullying them in an attempt to silence them. Death threats began almost immediately. The rabid mob mentality in our society to attack people for speaking up is shameful. But these young people, who demonstrate more maturity and resolve than the leaders who are supposed to protect them, will not be deterred.

Gun rights extremists are quick to blame gun violence on video games, lack of religion, mental illness, broken families, illegal immigration, or any number of other things. But they will never admit that largely unregulated and easy access to firearms has an irrefutable relationship to the number of mass shootings in the United States. And while other countries have the same violence in video games and movies, the same mental health problems, similar divorce rates, and declining participation in religion, mass shootings are extremely rare.

What is the difference? The number of guns, the lethality of assault-style weapons, and the ease of obtaining them. That is what has to change. We must regulate guns the way we regulate everything else that poses a risk to the public.

Heroes don’t ask to be heroes.  Last month these young activists were worried about mid-terms, proms and their next issue of the school newspaper. Today they are leading a national movement. They aren’t old enough to vote, but they are old enough to make a difference. They are prepared, they are organized, and they are passionate. They are tireless. They are speaking out for their dead classmates and the hundreds of other murdered students who can no longer speak for themselves.

Maybe, just maybe, this time is different. What lawmakers, pundits, leaders, and other gun violence survivors have been unable to do, these young leaders are now doing. Republican Congressman and Army veteran Brian Mast has called for a ban on assault weapons, major companies are cutting their ties to the NRA, and students across the nation are joining forces to bring about change.

I no longer feel helpless and hopeless. I feel hope and optimism for change. The future is in good hands.

#NeverAgain