To the Man Who Restored my Belief in Humanity, by Yehuda Bacon, 1945
Black Lives Matter demonstrations and conversations call into question America’s commitment to its values. They speak to the continuing oppression of important people in my life, including my son Gabe. So much has been written about this and so expertly, I couldn’t possibly do better.
But I do have a story that seems especially relevant right now.
Photo by CNN.com
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation defines domestic terrorism as “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.”
Except for San Francisco, my current hometown of Berkeley is probably the northern hemisphere’s coldest place on July mornings. The wet fog crawls through the Golden Gate and finds a convenient resting place in the Berkeley hills. Three miles south, Oakland is sunny and warm.
Jose Miguel Hernandez Hernandez
Here are the words of 35 presidents laying the foundations for Black Lives Matter. I couldn’t find quotes from ten presidents. I don’t know whether that’s because there was nothing to find or I just didn’t look hard enough.
The Revolution, Marc Chagall, 1937.
Happy Bastille Day 🙂 a reminder of the 1789 rebellion staged at the infamous prison, which entered in the French Revolution and ended the French monarchy. France’s path to freedom from tyranny wasn’t easy — the guillotine, the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, financial collapse — but the French eventually got democracy, and now we can celebrate with mussels meuniere and tarte tatin.
In 1993, when I was working at a California state agency on a controversial project, every team meeting featured two agency managers suggesting, often, that we should be “getting off the merry-go-round.” It took me awhile to realize the purpose of the merry-go-round metaphor was to sabotage an open discussion of a proposed analytical approach. Whether or not others figured it out, the metaphor had its intended effect. The deciders decided we should be “moving forward.”
Language is powerful and most people naturally deploy short cuts to describe complicated ideas. We process so much information that we often rely on these short cuts to give our brains a break. There are a lot of language short-cuts out there right now and most of them deserve a little scrutiny…
Camino Milagro 