There's been so much talk about Obama's "More Perfect Union" speech, yet no one mentions the ending.
I watched the coverage, read the papers, and listened to the radio waiting for someone -- anyone -- to mention his closing. No one's touched on it yet. I know why Hannity and friends won't touch it. It would ruin their house of mirrors. I know why Matthews and friends won't touch it. They like to talk about the BIG issues. I know why Katey and Matt won't talk about it. It's hard to cover and stay perky. I know why Colbert and Stewart don't talk about it. It's too authentic to make light of it.
I'm talking about Ashley's story. I can't fit Ashley's story above the fold, so let me set the stage and simply say that for me it captured the entire panoramic narrative of Historic Injustices and Hopeful New Chapters in a single teardrop.
Like Proust's petites madeleines in Remembrance of Things Past, that tear unlocked a decades-old memory. Unpacking that memory, time telescoped in upon itself and I recalled the recent anniversay of a tragic event. In the collision of all those thoughts, the scales fell from my eyes and a riddle that has nagged me for years suddenly made perfect sense.
In case you are not familiar with Ashley's story:
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
There was more to the speech, but I couldn't hear it through the tears. I later went back and read it only to discover it said exactly what I already knew.
By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough...But it is where we start.
The memory was from the spring of 1977 at a small prestigious liberal arts college located on Philadelphia's fashionable suburban Main Line. Back then "diversity" was a newly coined term that people used when they really were discussing integration. Integration was the topic at hand and the institutional response to that crying need was sorely lacking. Many battles had been fought, many strategies tried, but we were young and restless and angry and felt time was running out. Something dramatic had to be done or our window of opportunity would close.
A meeting was held shortly after dinner that evening to plan a bold course of action. The proposed action was a huge gamble. If it failed we had nothing left. There was no encore. The discussion dragged on late into the night as the risks of direct action became increasingly apparent. Some argued passionately for action. Others counseled caution. Some previously stalwart supporters denounced the whole thing as madness and stormed out. Tempers flared. People had to be physically separated. About two o'clock in the morning it was decided we needed ten minutes of silence, after which we would poll everyone individually "go" or "no go." I was uncertain and scared. We were contemplating actions that might land us in jail. That would mean expulsion from college. That meant the end of any scholarship money. Beyond that, no one knew what that meant.
We reconvened and began polling the remaining people. One by one each of the young men present voted for direct action. No one made the decision easily, if anyone told you they weren't scared they were lying. As we went around the room, I was still unsure what I would decide. Until we got to Tim. He'd been quiet all evening, but now he had to speak. He said he couldn't participate in the action either. It wasn't because he was scared. It was because of who he was and where he had come from that he could not participate in good conscience.
You talk about discrimination. I know what it's like to grow poor and black in the South. I'm the first person in my family to ever go to college. My parents and grandparents have worked and sacrificed all my life to give me this opportunity. Everyone back home is counting on me to be a success. I can't put all their hopes and dreams at risk, no matter how mad I am. I can't be that selfish.
Up to that point I'd been thinking of my mother and how she would react if this went badly. This was a woman who saw it as her mission to put all her boys through college. Whether we liked it or not, we had to go and we couldn't dawdle. The Social Security survivor's benefit was the only money our father left us and that would dry up when we turned 18, unless we stayed in school.
Listening to Tim, my choice became clear. I knew that no matter what happened, I would be able to explain this to Mom in a way she would understand. I had to go because he could not. From that moment on, I stopped being afraid.
We went ahead and the world changed for us and a lot of people around us. Along the way I met some amazing people who led me to other amazing people. That was how I met Tom Fox.
When I met him he was a seasoned activist who had spent years in the occupied territories of the West Bank working for peaceful resolutions. At the time, he had just returned to the US from those journeys and was preparing to head to Iraq. I was interested in hearing him talk about his experiences because I had lost hope for peaceful resolutions to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I asked him, "How do you see this resolving itself peacefully?" He replied, "The best answer I can give you is to quote an Arab friend of mine who says we must meet each other in the fields beyond fear and anger." That answer left me in despair. It had no meaning for me.
I figured we would pick up the conversation upon his return from Iraq and maybe things would be clearer. Sadly, that never happened. Tom was murdered by a death squad in Iraq on March 10th, 2006. There are a lot of things I could say about Tom Fox, many of which I have already written. Suffice to say, that when he and the other members of the Christian Peacemakers Team were captured, Muslims in cages pleaded for the release of their Christian friends. In a sense, he was their Ashley. Poring over his blog's entry from June 21, 2005, I found his Ashley.
Our apartment is across the street from a park. Many evenings around the time we are gathering for supper a mother and her three children walk by our living room window. The western sun illuminates her face and the faces of her young children. I don’t know her but in a way I feel I do. She looks tired. So many, many people here in Iraq are so very tired. She looks a bit fearful. Will today be the day when the insurgents set off a car bomb near the park? Will today be the day when the young men of the Iraqi National Guard, riding like cowboys in the back of their pickup trucks, get trigger happy and start shooting with her and her children in the line of fire? Yet day after day I see her taking her children to the park. Underneath the fatigue and the fear I can sense the hope and the courage in her heart. It reflects on her children as does the setting sun reflect on the nearby Tigris River. She gives me courage to face the overwhelming difficulties of life in this broken land. She is living in the present moment fully aware of the dangers and uncertainties and yet she has not given up hope, she has not given in to despair, she has not let herself be driven into hiding by men with guns and bombs. She is my teacher. She teaches me how to live fully conscious of the horrors of today and still be able to envision a future of promise, peace and plenty. I would pray that we all live each day, no matter where we are, "for the sake of our children."
Reading Obama's speech a second time to absorb his discussion of angry blacks and resentful whites, I realized that Ashley's story was like a finger pointing towards Tom's field beyond fear and anger. Now I know what he was talking about. In that field beyond fear and anger we heal each other. When we heal each other, we heal the world. This makes sense to me.
As I settle down to wait for those who will join us in this field beyond fear and anger, the sweet words that touched me deepest from Yes We Can play in my head ...
Yes.We.Can. Heal this nation.
Yes.We.Can. Repair this world.
Yes. We. Can.