Stephen J. Matlock's Blog, page 37
January 11, 2016
Staying the Course
December 8, 2015
Between the World and Me: a Review
Between the World and Me
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S...
Ta-Nehisi Coates
163 pages
Spiegel & Grau, July 14, 2015
So this is a beautiful, phenomenal, hard-to-read, engrossing, painful, tender, honest, raw, careful book.
It is a letter penned to the author’s son about what life is for Americans, when said Americans are Americans-on-probation, Americans who are not really Americans, Americans who are provisionally American because they are not white Americans.
It bookends the death of Prince Jones, the author’s friend, killed by cops and serving as a symbol of all that is hoped for in black Americans and all that can be brought to nothing by the actions of the state which can act without question against black Americans with violence, robbery, and theft.
Being black will not save you from this fate, but being black will bring you something of great value, and that is the world you see as it is and the people you meet as they are.
Mr. Coates was raised in Baltimore in the tough “urban” environment (see his first book for more details about that), goes to Howard University for a while (called “Mecca” in the book), meets significant people, starts a family, marries, travels–and all the while he sees the world around him as it is to him, someone who, in America, is only reluctantly allowed to exist.
He’s not going to pull punches and he’s not going to provoke despair. He is, however, not going to participate in lies and evasions and half-truths. He is going to talk about what he sees, every root and branch and tree, and he is going to describe what it means.
This is a book to read carefully, words and sentences together, then set aside for a moment to think. Then more words and sentences, and more thinking.
I do not know how books like this get created. They are a wonder to me because they are honest and raw, written not with the hope of popularity but with the conviction that they are true.
December 5, 2015
We Americans and Our Violence
Someone posted recently that “we Americans” demanded that Muslims in America speak out against violence because “we Americans” were terrified of them here in America.
My response:
Speaking as a Christ-follower, I see “my people” hiding in plain sight and attacking Americans and American soil. I see Dylann Roof and Robert Dear, both people in the Christian religion, killing people. I think it’s outrageous and I think they’re monsters, and I speak out as loudly as I can about these white men who tie Christianity to terror and murder.
It’s completely nonsensical and paranoid to say that because *some* people who are loosely tied to a religious belief are doing evil things, that *all* people of that faith are to be suspected and must jointly speak out.
There are hundreds of examples of Muslims speaking out against evil and terror being done in the name of their religion.
If you don’t hear about it, you should ask why.
As far as your statement of “how do you think us Americans feel?” — do you hear what you just said? These Muslims *are* Americans, just as we Christians are Americans, or we atheists, or we Jews, or we Hindus, or we Buddhists, or we Zoroastrians, or we agnostics…
There is nothing about America that excludes any religion or religious believer from identifying as American.
December 4, 2015
Who Are the Good Guys and Who Are the Bad Guys
Are all Muslims terrorists? Are any Christians terrorists?
There are somewheres around 2B Christians in the world, and 1.2B Muslims. There are perhaps around 1B Hindus and maybe the same number of Buddhists. Sikhs, Jainists, Animists, Jews, various “pagan” religions, and non-religious or agnostic round out the rest.
There is no litmus test to be included in any of these religions beyond self-proclamation. There are rules to follow, but even those who don’t follow the rules of their religion can still claim to be one. Sufis are Muslims even though many other Muslims think they’re not quite. A population of >1B people associated with a religion will include people who are outliers of the religion’s core beliefs. These people are not outside the religion–they are simply people who claim the religion as anyone else. The best we can say is that “we don’t expect believers in that religion to do that,” but that’s ignorance and prejudice. We often just don’t know.
And because there’s no litmus test to whom can be a religion’s believer and follower, anyone can do anything and be identified as a believer in his religion. Christians kill. Jews kill. Muslims kill. Animists kill. Etc
Even those who are committed to their religion and its teachings will be at various points along the path of obedience, some moving forward, some moving backwards. Christians who claim to follow Christ and his ways of peace can still lose their tempers.
So it’s difficult to say “Person X, a religious believer of Religion Y, performed Dastardly Act Z, proving that Religion Y *and all its adherents* are evil.”
What’s evil are the actions.
Some people can claim they’re acting according to their religion when they kill someone. Some Christians feel OK killing doctors who perform abortion. Some Muslims feel OK killing people who defame their prophet.
Many others in their religions don’t think that killing is the right response to either non-belief or non-compliance. Christians who think abortion is wrong don’t necessarily also think that the only solution is to kill doctors. Muslims who feel that disrespect to their prophet is wrong don’t necessarily think that the only solution is to kill scoffers.
We can’t focus on a religion or even the religious believers as obvious and certain doers-of-evil. We have to look at the actions of individuals and the patterns of behavior that lead us to suspect people outside of a religion.
Someone spouting off nonsense about a government conspiracy to kill them, who has a collection of guns and explosives, who openly carries weapons in social settings that do not require weapons, who uses anger and bullying and physical strength to attempt to control the world around them is perhaps someone to be concerned about. Someone who thinks that anger is best expressed with violence, who believes that all controversies have only one correct solution, who believes that all things can be reduced to simple black-and-white answers, is likely to think that the only solution to opposition is violence. Those people should be, in my opinion, the recipients of greater attention and alarm.
But it’s silly, wrong, preposterous, and ultimately highly bigoted to think that all members of a religion are terrorists, and even more bigoted, to excuse the violent actions of some terrorists because they belong to “our” religion.
November 15, 2015
Paris, Beirut, Japan, Kenya,…
It’s been a world of hurt lately, and yet it always is.
It is always true that the poor are with us, that evil men and women plot against us to do us harm, from the personal level to the national.
We can be fearful and aggressive and return hate for hate, fire for fire, blow for blow.
We can also simultaneously live a confident life, right now, doing the right things, even when there are setbacks, because we know, we know, that doing the right thing is the right thing.
I’m perplexed, confused, and deeply saddened by the hatred expressed in acts of violence.
I can react as a praying man, a caring man, a thoughtful man.
And I can react as a doing man. In spite of the attempts to tear down and destroy, ruin and wreak and rage, I can continue to build up, to restore, to heal, to love, to trust.
By doing so I heal the world and I heal myself.
November 3, 2015
Do I Have Privilege?
The short answer is “Yes.”
The longer answer is more nuanced, because of course I don’t see or experience my privilege. It just is, because I live in a society and culture that by default caters to me and my own identity and my own sense of belonging here.
There is a great paper written by Peggy McIntosh in 1988, with an excerpt in this link.
Some things that stuck out:
When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race
I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race.
I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
f I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
“White privilege” isn’t something you see or notice. It is, however, something you experience, and you usually notice only if someone calls it to your attention, and then you claim you aren’t really experiencing it because of many reasons, chief among them that you are an OK person who doesn’t feel bad or have bad thoughts about others.
October 30, 2015
Christ-follower in All Things
I don’t get it that Christians claim they need guns to “protect” themselves in America.
We aren’t in Somalia or Burma or North Korea where the state has direct animus against us or the citizens are terrorized on the street by anarchy and a government that can’t govern.
We live in arguably one of the most powerful, safest nations in the world—and we as Christians appear to be terrified to the point where we leave all our reason and faith behind as we worship guns and violence ourselves.
Here’s my response to this video:
Theologically, orthodox Christianity taught that Jesus emptied himself of all his God-powers to become incarnate, and therefore used only his own gifts as a man (his intelligence, his moral suasion, his faith in God the Father) as a means to both teach and to do. So I can’t see him using a gun to accomplish God’s will, whether it is to fight the bad guys or to protect the good guys. During his ministry recorded in the New Testament he is shown as using his words, and he reserved his anger for those who were most religious and most likely to use their assumed godliness as a means to oppress other–not to fight back against Romans or thieves or the worst of the worst. Guns–useful maybe in the hands of the police. Useful maybe if you want to hunt. Guns don’t belong in the hands of the populace as a means to “protect” or assert authority. We have too many guns, and we have way too few Christians who are following the example of Christ in their actions and words.
October 26, 2015
Snoqualmie’s Bad Hire Puts North Bend at Risk
Officer Nicholas Hogan of the Snoqualmie Police Department was hired by Snoqualmie after being fired by the City of Tukwila due several payouts (totaling $425K) which resulted from his violent actions against civilians.
Per the Seattle Times article of October 25, 2015 (http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/eastside/cop-fired-in-tukwila-now-in-trouble-in-snoqualmie/), the police commander of Tukwila questioned why any police department could hire him after these facts, contained in his personnel file, were known.
Now he’s working for the City of Snoqualmie’s police department, specifically to handle the police services North Bend contracted from Snoqualmie.
This is an officer with known history of violence against civilians. This is an officer with a connection to “Straight Edge,” a violent anti-drug movement. This officer collected “trophy” police reports where he was found to have used excessive force.
These are all known facts from his file and from court records.
There is no reason why he should have been hired by the City of Snoqualmie.
While he is on paid leave as Snoqualmie investigates his most recent actions, I’m asking the City of North Bend for three things for the financial and physical protection of its citizens:
We need a civilian review board in place, immediately, to review the actions of police officers in our town. If Snoqualmie won’t do it, North Bend must.
We need to have a voice in the oversight of hiring and overseeing police operations for North Bend. If we are not already having regular meetings with the police commander in Snoqualmie, we need to set these up, immediately.
We need veto power over the officers selected to patrol North Bend.
If you are a resident of Snoqualmie, I urge you to contact your mayor, your city council, and your police department to enquire as to the hiring standards and practices of your city, and I strongly urge you to also set up a civilian review board over your police department.
Don’t wait until you’re liable for a settlement against the city due to the actions of your police department.
October 19, 2015
NaNoWriMo2015—I’m All In, and In It to Win It
#NaNoWriMo2015 – wasn’t going to do it this year, as last year’s effort petered out due to lack of inspiration and frankly, I was tired after switching to a new job with new responsibilities. (Same company; just a different team.)
And this year – well, I have a new job again – same company, same team, but increased responsibilities. But I think I just have more energy this year, plus I have some time off to recharge, plus I’m trying a different genre – science fiction. Previous novels have either been historic fiction or just plain ol’ fiction. Trying a new genre, I think, will help me challenge myself in a good way.
And here’s what I’ve learned from previous NaNoWriMos –
Write, grasshopper, write. Don’t worry about much. Don’t worry whether you’re writing a novel or a story as much as you are writing something. Think of your work as a story comprising scenes. Write those scenes, as best you can, daily.
Don’t abandon your work, but abandon a scene that’s not working. You have 31 days. Write stuff, every day, and if something isn’t working, drop it, and try another scene. Maybe you’ll come back to it later, maybe not – but the goal is to write.
Write what comes to you. Don’t worry about whether your story hangs together yet. This is your draft stage. Get everything out, as you think of it.
Editing and fixing is for later. Sure, your draft is a piece of – ahem – stuff that you might not show your mother. That’s OK. Just write it all, confusing POVs, stories/scenes that don’t go anywhere, stories that contradict other stories, characters that appear only for a scene and never appear again, scenes that conflict with known facts (not such a problem with science fiction – I can invent FTL travel, for instance).
Risk something everyday. Don’t try to stay on tangent. Color outside the lines. Write stuff that you don’t even like. Try writing the same scene from two different POVs, and keep both scenes.
The goal here is to get it all out. Your mind is always working, behind the scenes (so to speak), so let it work while you are busy writing.
I found that a lot of what I write in my first drafts really isn’t usable as it—but it’s useful in that I’m developing the story and characters, and I will come back to rework the content later.
I have yet to write the Great American Novel. But – I’ve written five novels now through NaNoWriMo, and that’s five novels that didn’t exist before I tried.
(Hat Tip to my writing buddy Jenna Willett at Jen’s Pen Den for her encouragement. You can read her latest here.)
September 27, 2015
Be the Church
Protect the environment. Care for the poor. Forgive often. Reject racism. Fight for the powerless. Share earthly and spiritual resources. Embrace diversity. Love God. Enjoy this life.
From Momastery
