One advantage this blog had over the others is that I mentioned hard drive problems in my last post, so hopefully that means my disappearing for a month didn't startle anyone too much.
As it is, I still remember the two other things I wanted to write about the parable, though next week sort of moves beyond it.
For the parable itself, I had spent some time looking at the different needs, trying to see if there was something I was missing.
hungered - given meat
thirsty -given drink
a stranger -taken in
naked - clothed
sick - visited
in prison came to me
There are things that we can think about, and that we can over think. Meat has one translation meaning animal flesh, and there are times where it is more helpful for reviving someone. It also could be seen as a more expensive or high-quality source of food, but also meat in this case could just mean food.
We could over-rationalize things, where if someone is wearing clothes they are not naked, and therefore not in need, without thinking about things like whether the clothes are sufficiently warm for the weather, or protective for the labor, or comfortable or clean or appropriate for the situation, which can affect a whole different type of comfort.
I think there are two main takeaways for me.
It starts with basic physical needs, but does not stop there; social and emotional needs are included too, and therefore we should know that they are important.
Also, they are all things that we should be within our abilities.
Jesus didn't have to stop at visiting the sick. He could heal them, so that they weren't sick anymore. Society as a whole may have healing abilities that we are not fully using, but for individual disciples with imperfect skills and faith, that we remember the sick, and express caring to them, can be enough.
Like I said, next week I want to go looking a little bit beyond that, and if you want to look ahead, Matthew 11 could be a good starting place.
Before that, I want to point out a couple of things.
One I have been thinking about. My mind periodically returns to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Physiological needs are at the bottom, followed by safety, and a sense of love and belonging. Those who know the King, even if they did not realize that's what they were doing, were building up the base of the pyramid. They were making sure that people were fed and clothed and taken in. Until there is that supportive base, esteem and self-actualization aren't possible.
I know some people argue against Maslow, and I absolutely acknowledge that real life rarely works along clearly well-defined models; humans are too messy for that. Without having all of your basic needs met, you may still develop some esteem, and may discover some sense of self and purpose and all of those good things, but the unmet needs can hold you back.
I believe God wants us to achieve our full potential. That involves us helping each other, and meeting needs, and the parable is unequivocal in how we do that.
James 2:
14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.
I don't know if I would have even mentioned all that in this post if I had not seen this article today:
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-evangelicals-christians-us-army-military-ptsd-792797
My first response was just anger that anyone who tells soldiers that PTSD is their own fault is allowed anywhere near them. However, I guess if you want to justify selfishness, deciding that every lack is a matter of insufficient faith and righteousness on the part of others is logical.
It is also wrong, and without scriptural justification. It is evil. It makes the world a nastier place. It prolongs pain.
And it puts you among the cursed.
https://www.paypal.me/sultryglebe
Sunday, January 28, 2018
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Thinking about where we are
I have three other posts in my head about the parable of the sheep and the goats, as a whole, before spending some time on the individual needs and meeting them. I wasn't sure what order to put them in, but my hard drive appears to have died. While I am typing on an expired laptop with no access to documents, the obvious answer is to write up the short one. (And pray for a speedy resolution to the hard drive issue.)
I have been thinking about the way things have come together. I have spent most of this year carefully studying the Savior's life and thinking about how to emulate it as a weak and fallible mortal. That seemed like the right thing to do.
Before that, I spent most of the previous year carefully studying the Constitution, and how we think about that. It also seemed like the right thing to do at the time, though it wasn't expected. The end part that focused on un-ratified amendments? I had no idea that was coming, but it was valuable. It mattered.
So now, if I find that the thing that I most need to delve into is how we meet the needs of others, and it looks at both individuals and governmental and societal structures, that may be what I have been laying the foundation for all along without realizing it.
It appears to be something that is needed, and more necessary than I could have imagined when I was starting, but I didn't know I was starting.
This may be more important for me than for anyone else, because I really like being able to tell the end from the beginning. I hate having so many important things unclear. I have still been able to look back many times and see the hand of God guiding me. That is important.
Listen for that voice. Watch for that hand. If you can get an idea of the destination along the way that is great, and it may help you follow better, but sometimes there are things that it is okay not to know, and to just trust. You have to be able to discern good influences from bad influences, but we can do that.
I believe we are all capable of doing much good and feeling much joy through that, but we have to be open to it.
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Two barely remembered things, part 2
"Marching ill-becomes a saint."
That's what I think I remember. Or marching is not becoming of a saint. It ill-behooves a saint. Something like that.
Searching on this phrase is even more futile, because no matter what configuration you put them in, when "marching" and "saints" are both part of it, you get the song, "When the saints go marching in."
I asked one friend, and she initially understood it as "Marching - even if you are ill - (or maybe until it makes you ill) is very becoming of a saint." I don't know if I have ever had any kind of church teacher who would say that.
I don't march that often anyway. I have marched once this year. I do have concerns about it.
I have concerns that when you get a bunch of people together, some people will start being stupid and destructive, which for many observers ends up overshadowing the message.That goes back to the front window on Eugene City Hall being broken out at the end of a march protesting the Rodney King verdict, which no Eugene city officials had any part in (as far as I know).
I also have concerns that it needs to be part of a larger effort. During the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, there were marches and protests and sit-ins, but they were also combined with boycotts and other forms of economic pressure, with clear demands being made.
(For what it's worth, they also practiced an incredible amount of discipline, work-shopping and drilling on how to respond to different situations. Militancy isn't always about guns.)
I have those concerns, but I also remember the mental boost and the sense of community that came with the March for Equality and Justice, and I know many people felt that way about the Women's March.
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-first-march.html
I remember that a massive Boston Protest led to the cancellation of at least 67 rallies supporting white supremacy:
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/23/headlines/white_nationalists_right_wing_groups_cancel_67_planned_rallies
I can't necessarily tell you the best way forward, especially as we are moving toward a world where anyone who will see the need of protest will be too tired to march and too poor to exert any kind of economic pressure.
I still feel very clearly that what that teacher was saying was wrong. The people who reject your protest because it is loud or inconvenient or feels scary to them are the same people that will tell you that taking a knee is too disruptive, generally speaking.
And I think that for someone who was a teacher of mind back then, the protests they would have seen would have been for the equality of Black people, and of women, and that farm workers have a right to reasonable pay and treatment. Those causes should resonate with people trying to follow Christ, regardless of denomination.
Instead, we often seem to be most interested in maintaining the status quo. Often that is a situation that is tenable for us, but not for others, and instead of caring about that we get mad at those who make us uncomfortable.
Colin Kaepernick is right about police brutality. His peaceful, respectful protest has drawn a lot of anger at him, and not at police brutality. That is not his fault. How you get enough people to really acknowledge the problem on a level where people actually do something about it is something I don't know. I respect him following his conscience, and I think it will be a long time before my conscience will allow me to stand for the national anthem again. I don't know that it will change anything.
Since I have started writing about the parable of the sheep and goats, the consistent theme is that answers will be highly individual, and that the complexity of issues is one reason for that. It may never make sense for you to march.
That does not excuse the need for listening to what marchers are saying, and paying attention to what is going on in the world, what needs there are, and what you can do to help. Priests and Levites walked by the man who fell among thieves, but are example is supposed to be the Good Samaritan.
Seeking truth, caring for others, finding ways to help -- those are the things that become a saint. Scorn for the attempts of others does not.
That's what I think I remember. Or marching is not becoming of a saint. It ill-behooves a saint. Something like that.
Searching on this phrase is even more futile, because no matter what configuration you put them in, when "marching" and "saints" are both part of it, you get the song, "When the saints go marching in."
I asked one friend, and she initially understood it as "Marching - even if you are ill - (or maybe until it makes you ill) is very becoming of a saint." I don't know if I have ever had any kind of church teacher who would say that.
I don't march that often anyway. I have marched once this year. I do have concerns about it.
I have concerns that when you get a bunch of people together, some people will start being stupid and destructive, which for many observers ends up overshadowing the message.That goes back to the front window on Eugene City Hall being broken out at the end of a march protesting the Rodney King verdict, which no Eugene city officials had any part in (as far as I know).
I also have concerns that it needs to be part of a larger effort. During the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, there were marches and protests and sit-ins, but they were also combined with boycotts and other forms of economic pressure, with clear demands being made.
(For what it's worth, they also practiced an incredible amount of discipline, work-shopping and drilling on how to respond to different situations. Militancy isn't always about guns.)
I have those concerns, but I also remember the mental boost and the sense of community that came with the March for Equality and Justice, and I know many people felt that way about the Women's March.
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-first-march.html
I remember that a massive Boston Protest led to the cancellation of at least 67 rallies supporting white supremacy:
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/23/headlines/white_nationalists_right_wing_groups_cancel_67_planned_rallies
I can't necessarily tell you the best way forward, especially as we are moving toward a world where anyone who will see the need of protest will be too tired to march and too poor to exert any kind of economic pressure.
I still feel very clearly that what that teacher was saying was wrong. The people who reject your protest because it is loud or inconvenient or feels scary to them are the same people that will tell you that taking a knee is too disruptive, generally speaking.
And I think that for someone who was a teacher of mind back then, the protests they would have seen would have been for the equality of Black people, and of women, and that farm workers have a right to reasonable pay and treatment. Those causes should resonate with people trying to follow Christ, regardless of denomination.
Instead, we often seem to be most interested in maintaining the status quo. Often that is a situation that is tenable for us, but not for others, and instead of caring about that we get mad at those who make us uncomfortable.
Colin Kaepernick is right about police brutality. His peaceful, respectful protest has drawn a lot of anger at him, and not at police brutality. That is not his fault. How you get enough people to really acknowledge the problem on a level where people actually do something about it is something I don't know. I respect him following his conscience, and I think it will be a long time before my conscience will allow me to stand for the national anthem again. I don't know that it will change anything.
Since I have started writing about the parable of the sheep and goats, the consistent theme is that answers will be highly individual, and that the complexity of issues is one reason for that. It may never make sense for you to march.
That does not excuse the need for listening to what marchers are saying, and paying attention to what is going on in the world, what needs there are, and what you can do to help. Priests and Levites walked by the man who fell among thieves, but are example is supposed to be the Good Samaritan.
Seeking truth, caring for others, finding ways to help -- those are the things that become a saint. Scorn for the attempts of others does not.
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Two barely remembered things, part 1
Before I get back to prisons and other areas for service and activism, there are a couple of old thoughts that have been nagging at me. One is really pertinent to the discussion that really just started with thinking about the parable of the sheep and goats. Therefore, I am going to do the other one first.
In both cases they are things that I heard once in a church setting, and I think in a class setting. I think the one for next week was in a Young Women's class, and this one might have been from an Institute class. That puts them as things that I heard as a college student and as a teenager, respectively, so there are reasons that I don't remember the details clearly.
In both cases, I think the person saying it was quoting someone else who would have had more prestige and authority. Remembering names would have helped me find what I was looking for. This is a common failing, as I have heard many people say that they can't remember who said something, but they think it was a general authority, or attribute something to a general authority, but it turns out to have been a youth speaker or fireside speaker. Proper attribution is important, for speakers and listeners.
Anyway, what I think I remember someone saying is that the true sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was inhospitality. Maybe it was a lack of charity. They could go together. Charity would certainly include hospitality.
I have had other teachers impress upon me the importance of the hospitality in the Middle East. I don't know how far back that goes, like maybe that developed more recently than Lot's story. I don't have a hard time imagining that in an environment with lots of desert space and sand storms that hospitality would become very important, and maybe that would become such a part of the culture that it would carry over into cities where there were more resources. And, even if there are options for taking shelter and buying food, local residents intent on raping newcomers means you can't automatically consider the city to be safer.
Honestly, looking back at the story, it seems preposterous to me that the focus on the story has been that the genders of the rapists and the intended victims was the same, so that's why the cities were destroyed: for being gay! Because rape is about attraction and not power and abuse! I say seems preposterous, but with some of the reactions to the currently unfolding tale of how much sexual abuse and harassment goes on in all industries, we are still largely preposterous. We should work on that.
Before I started writing this, I tried my search one more time, and I did find something:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-patrick-s-cheng-phd/what-was-the-real-sin-of_b_543996.html
It's from 2010, well after what I am thinking of, though certainly some of the same points are made. I think he is way off base with his interpretation of Genesis 7 and Jude 1:7, so I am not turning to Reverend Cheng as a scriptural authority either (though he clearly does study a lot and has some good insights), but there are two other scriptural references, which I appreciate.
In Hebrews 13:2, we are admonished to not neglect hospitality, because thereby some have "entertained angels unaware". That sounds like Abraham and Lot in that story. The people of Sodom were their opposites. They are not mentioned, but it is not hard to see the connection.
More pertinently, in Ezekiel 16:
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
That correlates a lot more with Matthew 25 than anything about sex.
I acknowledge that hardening your heart towards others, pride, and idleness can weaken a commitment to chastity and fidelity, and getting caught up in sex could harden the heart; we don't do what we do in a vacuum. Charity remains preeminent, as the scriptures have reinforced many times.
What I hope stands out most is that your righteousness and your reward are very dependent on your love for others. There is no similar promise for how well we police other people's sex lives. What you do in your sex life is important, but it is not your job to worry about what sex others are having.
There are things we should be aware of and interfere with, like abuse of strangers and rape and harassment, but that is not about consenting adults having sex.
I don't see how we keep getting that wrong.
In both cases they are things that I heard once in a church setting, and I think in a class setting. I think the one for next week was in a Young Women's class, and this one might have been from an Institute class. That puts them as things that I heard as a college student and as a teenager, respectively, so there are reasons that I don't remember the details clearly.
In both cases, I think the person saying it was quoting someone else who would have had more prestige and authority. Remembering names would have helped me find what I was looking for. This is a common failing, as I have heard many people say that they can't remember who said something, but they think it was a general authority, or attribute something to a general authority, but it turns out to have been a youth speaker or fireside speaker. Proper attribution is important, for speakers and listeners.
Anyway, what I think I remember someone saying is that the true sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was inhospitality. Maybe it was a lack of charity. They could go together. Charity would certainly include hospitality.
I have had other teachers impress upon me the importance of the hospitality in the Middle East. I don't know how far back that goes, like maybe that developed more recently than Lot's story. I don't have a hard time imagining that in an environment with lots of desert space and sand storms that hospitality would become very important, and maybe that would become such a part of the culture that it would carry over into cities where there were more resources. And, even if there are options for taking shelter and buying food, local residents intent on raping newcomers means you can't automatically consider the city to be safer.
Honestly, looking back at the story, it seems preposterous to me that the focus on the story has been that the genders of the rapists and the intended victims was the same, so that's why the cities were destroyed: for being gay! Because rape is about attraction and not power and abuse! I say seems preposterous, but with some of the reactions to the currently unfolding tale of how much sexual abuse and harassment goes on in all industries, we are still largely preposterous. We should work on that.
Before I started writing this, I tried my search one more time, and I did find something:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-patrick-s-cheng-phd/what-was-the-real-sin-of_b_543996.html
It's from 2010, well after what I am thinking of, though certainly some of the same points are made. I think he is way off base with his interpretation of Genesis 7 and Jude 1:7, so I am not turning to Reverend Cheng as a scriptural authority either (though he clearly does study a lot and has some good insights), but there are two other scriptural references, which I appreciate.
In Hebrews 13:2, we are admonished to not neglect hospitality, because thereby some have "entertained angels unaware". That sounds like Abraham and Lot in that story. The people of Sodom were their opposites. They are not mentioned, but it is not hard to see the connection.
More pertinently, in Ezekiel 16:
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50 And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.
That correlates a lot more with Matthew 25 than anything about sex.
I acknowledge that hardening your heart towards others, pride, and idleness can weaken a commitment to chastity and fidelity, and getting caught up in sex could harden the heart; we don't do what we do in a vacuum. Charity remains preeminent, as the scriptures have reinforced many times.
What I hope stands out most is that your righteousness and your reward are very dependent on your love for others. There is no similar promise for how well we police other people's sex lives. What you do in your sex life is important, but it is not your job to worry about what sex others are having.
There are things we should be aware of and interfere with, like abuse of strangers and rape and harassment, but that is not about consenting adults having sex.
I don't see how we keep getting that wrong.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Prisons - the easy part
Once you start looking at misery that is built into structure, it can be pretty discouraging. Figuring out what can be done, and what part you can play in that is hard.
That may be one reason that so much of how we give can be personal. I have my specific resources, and I can broaden some things, but there are things that I definitely can't do, at least definitely not at this time. So maybe sometimes instead of fighting the structure I am just alleviating one thing for one person, and that is still valuable.
I'm not going to try and sort out Christ-like activism today, but if you want to do something helpful for those in prison, I can share some ideas for that.
First, broaden your mind. You might think this is a totally alien issue, but don't be so sure that you don't know anyone in prison. My friend went. Someone I went to school with is in now. Other people from school that I knew better have spent time in jail. A neighbor's son, whom I do know, is in now.
There is a lot of stigma attached to jail, so it is easy to avoid talking about it, and then to feel like it's something that affects other people.
I will even go a step beyond that and admit that some of them might not be great to communicate with, because there are some pretty manipulative and dangerous people in there. That is true, but it is not the whole truth. Use your judgment and discretion, but use it after you have learned more, and not as a reason to shut off your compassion before you have even thought about it.
First of all I go to Prison Culture again:
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2017/11/15/help-criminalized-survivors-of-violence-for-the-holidays/
If you go to the Amazon wishlist for incarcerated survivors of interpersonal violence, it looks like there is only a need for one notebook now, but on the sidebar I see other lists, and the book drive for California prisoners could use some help too:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/342NY9MRYCWGB/ref=cm_go_nav_hz
Still from Prison Culture, you can donate to help reunite families for Christmas visits through STEPS:
https://egscf.crm.salsalabs.org/webDonation/
Just Detention fights prison rape. Donations can be helpful, and sometimes there are opportunities to send encouraging messages. You can learn more about them here:
https://justdetention.org/
Those are the only two that I have personal knowledge of, but Charity Navigator gave a high score to Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison:
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=14635
That doesn't mean that there aren't more out there. There may be small charities that don't get rated, or still good work without meeting all of the criteria used by the rating system. The best thing you can do may be finding that person from school or church or family that needs to be remembered more.
I do believe that once you commit to helping, you find ways, and that it is fine if they start small.
That may be one reason that so much of how we give can be personal. I have my specific resources, and I can broaden some things, but there are things that I definitely can't do, at least definitely not at this time. So maybe sometimes instead of fighting the structure I am just alleviating one thing for one person, and that is still valuable.
I'm not going to try and sort out Christ-like activism today, but if you want to do something helpful for those in prison, I can share some ideas for that.
First, broaden your mind. You might think this is a totally alien issue, but don't be so sure that you don't know anyone in prison. My friend went. Someone I went to school with is in now. Other people from school that I knew better have spent time in jail. A neighbor's son, whom I do know, is in now.
There is a lot of stigma attached to jail, so it is easy to avoid talking about it, and then to feel like it's something that affects other people.
I will even go a step beyond that and admit that some of them might not be great to communicate with, because there are some pretty manipulative and dangerous people in there. That is true, but it is not the whole truth. Use your judgment and discretion, but use it after you have learned more, and not as a reason to shut off your compassion before you have even thought about it.
First of all I go to Prison Culture again:
http://www.usprisonculture.com/blog/2017/11/15/help-criminalized-survivors-of-violence-for-the-holidays/
If you go to the Amazon wishlist for incarcerated survivors of interpersonal violence, it looks like there is only a need for one notebook now, but on the sidebar I see other lists, and the book drive for California prisoners could use some help too:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/342NY9MRYCWGB/ref=cm_go_nav_hz
Still from Prison Culture, you can donate to help reunite families for Christmas visits through STEPS:
https://egscf.crm.salsalabs.org/webDonation/
Just Detention fights prison rape. Donations can be helpful, and sometimes there are opportunities to send encouraging messages. You can learn more about them here:
https://justdetention.org/
Those are the only two that I have personal knowledge of, but Charity Navigator gave a high score to Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison:
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=14635
That doesn't mean that there aren't more out there. There may be small charities that don't get rated, or still good work without meeting all of the criteria used by the rating system. The best thing you can do may be finding that person from school or church or family that needs to be remembered more.
I do believe that once you commit to helping, you find ways, and that it is fine if they start small.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Prisons - Profits over people
I just read this today, about how a prison sentence for deaf and hard-of-hearing prisoners can easily become a sentence of solitary confinement, partly due to a lack of resources and partly due to fear that sign language can be used for secret plans:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/09/19/why-many-deaf-prisoners-can-t-call-home?utm_content=bufferf88c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Remember that calls are already grossly overpriced for prisoners without disabilities affecting speech or hearing.
I imagine that there is a feeling that it is fine to make a profit off of the inmates, because as inmates they have committed crimes and troubled society and it's just payback. That's why jokes about prison rape are so common, with some people assuming that this happens to rapists and child molesters and that this is justice.
Given how many rapists never do any jail time, that form of punishment would be far too random to be justice anyway. However, a lot of prison rapes do happen. Let's take a closer look at that.
For staff-on-inmate sexual victimization, 67% of the victims were women, even though they represented only 13% of the prison population.
https://www.salon.com/2017/11/11/86-percent-of-women-in-jail-are-sexual-violence-survivors/
(Also worth thinking about that 86% of the women in prison are sexual violence survivors.)
From a California study, 67% of LGBTQ inmates report being assaulted while in prison.
Now, if we are looking at guards on inmates, greater victimization of women, and greater victimization of LGBTQ, that looks like abuse continues to be more likely to be afflicted on the marginalized, making it much like the outside world -- I can assert my dominance by hurting you.
It is not really surprising that those pathologies are perpetuated on the inside, but this seems like a good time to also remember how people end up in prison, like drug laws that were racially biased in both how sentences were decided (sentences on "crack" versus other types of cocaine) and where drug raids happened and who was searched.
This leads us to another fun fact: on any given day, 62% of inmates have not been convicted of any crime:
https://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/02/26/report-60-percent-of-jail-inmates-unconvicted/
Crowded dockets where the right to a speedy trial becomes a joke is a part of that problem, but an even bigger problem is the lack of bail funds. You can't get out if you can't pay.
Of course you can argue about the need for bail with non-violent crimes, but is there a bigger issue with why so many people can't afford bail? There might be, if police specifically target poor communities for minor infractions that can be hard to fight if you are overworked and underpaid.
Information on for-profit policing often focuses on asset forfeiture, which is a problem, but a police force supporting itself on fines, and focusing on the part of the population that does not have the resources to fight unfair charges has been an issue for many communities, largely written about after Michael Brown's death in Ferguson.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/us/ferguson-missouri-racism-tickets-fines/index.html
If society doesn't care about you, it is much easier to end up in prison. You can be cared about even less there, which makes you a financial opportunity. That in turn can affect how people value you, like when the prisons are more dangerous due to overcrowding, but no one wants to lower the inmate population because it can affect firefighter availability:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/08/19/prisoners-who-fight-wildfires-in-california-an-insider-s-look
But wait! Maybe a lot of people are in prison now because of drugs, and maybe they shouldn't be there, but now that the opioid crisis is affecting white people and we are being more compassionate, shouldn't that get better?
https://www.revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-to-rehab-they-ended-up-in-chicken-plants/
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/work-therapy-how-the-salvation-armys-chain-of-rehab-centers-exploit-unpaid-labor/
Maybe not. Once you start realizing that you can profit off of the people you dehumanize, you keep needing a wider base, because you always need more profits. Of course, the opioid crisis has made some big bucks for people too:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain
I know, it's a lot of links, but there is a lot to say on this. There is a lot, and it flies against existing beliefs that are very comfortable, and I don't feel like I can manage to be coherent on this. Not only is it very emotional for me, but also it is this vicious cycle going around and around that is very demoralizing.
I will try to treat the demoralizing part over the next post or two, but for now, can anyone who truly believes in the New Testament, who truly wishes to follow Christ and end up on his right-hand side instead of his left when that separation happens -- not dividing sheep and goats, but dividing those who know Him and those who don't -- can you truly support this current structure?
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/09/19/why-many-deaf-prisoners-can-t-call-home?utm_content=bufferf88c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Remember that calls are already grossly overpriced for prisoners without disabilities affecting speech or hearing.
I imagine that there is a feeling that it is fine to make a profit off of the inmates, because as inmates they have committed crimes and troubled society and it's just payback. That's why jokes about prison rape are so common, with some people assuming that this happens to rapists and child molesters and that this is justice.
Given how many rapists never do any jail time, that form of punishment would be far too random to be justice anyway. However, a lot of prison rapes do happen. Let's take a closer look at that.
For staff-on-inmate sexual victimization, 67% of the victims were women, even though they represented only 13% of the prison population.
https://www.salon.com/2017/11/11/86-percent-of-women-in-jail-are-sexual-violence-survivors/
(Also worth thinking about that 86% of the women in prison are sexual violence survivors.)
From a California study, 67% of LGBTQ inmates report being assaulted while in prison.
Now, if we are looking at guards on inmates, greater victimization of women, and greater victimization of LGBTQ, that looks like abuse continues to be more likely to be afflicted on the marginalized, making it much like the outside world -- I can assert my dominance by hurting you.
It is not really surprising that those pathologies are perpetuated on the inside, but this seems like a good time to also remember how people end up in prison, like drug laws that were racially biased in both how sentences were decided (sentences on "crack" versus other types of cocaine) and where drug raids happened and who was searched.
This leads us to another fun fact: on any given day, 62% of inmates have not been convicted of any crime:
https://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/02/26/report-60-percent-of-jail-inmates-unconvicted/
Crowded dockets where the right to a speedy trial becomes a joke is a part of that problem, but an even bigger problem is the lack of bail funds. You can't get out if you can't pay.
Of course you can argue about the need for bail with non-violent crimes, but is there a bigger issue with why so many people can't afford bail? There might be, if police specifically target poor communities for minor infractions that can be hard to fight if you are overworked and underpaid.
Information on for-profit policing often focuses on asset forfeiture, which is a problem, but a police force supporting itself on fines, and focusing on the part of the population that does not have the resources to fight unfair charges has been an issue for many communities, largely written about after Michael Brown's death in Ferguson.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/06/us/ferguson-missouri-racism-tickets-fines/index.html
If society doesn't care about you, it is much easier to end up in prison. You can be cared about even less there, which makes you a financial opportunity. That in turn can affect how people value you, like when the prisons are more dangerous due to overcrowding, but no one wants to lower the inmate population because it can affect firefighter availability:
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/08/19/prisoners-who-fight-wildfires-in-california-an-insider-s-look
But wait! Maybe a lot of people are in prison now because of drugs, and maybe they shouldn't be there, but now that the opioid crisis is affecting white people and we are being more compassionate, shouldn't that get better?
https://www.revealnews.org/article/they-thought-they-were-going-to-rehab-they-ended-up-in-chicken-plants/
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/08/work-therapy-how-the-salvation-armys-chain-of-rehab-centers-exploit-unpaid-labor/
Maybe not. Once you start realizing that you can profit off of the people you dehumanize, you keep needing a wider base, because you always need more profits. Of course, the opioid crisis has made some big bucks for people too:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain
I know, it's a lot of links, but there is a lot to say on this. There is a lot, and it flies against existing beliefs that are very comfortable, and I don't feel like I can manage to be coherent on this. Not only is it very emotional for me, but also it is this vicious cycle going around and around that is very demoralizing.
I will try to treat the demoralizing part over the next post or two, but for now, can anyone who truly believes in the New Testament, who truly wishes to follow Christ and end up on his right-hand side instead of his left when that separation happens -- not dividing sheep and goats, but dividing those who know Him and those who don't -- can you truly support this current structure?
Sunday, November 12, 2017
Who is in prison?
I don't know how much people think about the parable, or the individual components. I do wonder, though, if when people do look at it they find ways to keep the "in prison" part from applying. After all, those are criminals in there.
Yes, John the Baptist and Paul both spent significant time in prison. Jesus was taken prisoner, though everything happened pretty quickly there; I'm not sure that he spent much time in a cell. Do we only visit good prisoners?
I have already mentioned price gouging on prison phone calls and not funding programs that appear to help, and there will be something eventually on how valuing profits over people becomes a problem. Before that, we need to remember that not all people are valued equally.
They should be. You may believe that for religious reasons, or humanistic reasons, or because you take the founding documents of the United States seriously, but there should be a belief in the equality of people and it is commonly stated. Practices often do not back it up.
Looking at the modern carceral state has many issues, which I will try and get to clearly and logically, but I am finding writing on this topic very difficult and if I break it down into small pieces to try and make it go by easier (because there is so much here), that's just how I have to be.
However, with these three model prisoners I think there are some points we can make.
John the Baptist was in prison because he accurately criticized the king's marriage. It doesn't even look like Herod took it that personally, but Herodias took it seriously enough to plot John's death, and that worked out.
Jesus was arrested for upsetting the social order. They had to change his blasphemy charge to sedition to make it stick, because Roman law and Jewish law felt differently about monotheism, but as revolutionary as he was, none of it was actually illegal, including his accurate claims. Determined people in power were still able to get him in jail.
Paul's imprisonments also involved false charges as well. As Saul he had thrown people in jail for practicing Christianity, so there was some logic in him being in danger for preaching it, but still whenever there was an actual hearing, the general result was that it wasn't illegal.
It was not only then that there were political components to who went to jail. This can affect the writing of the law, but it comes up even more in how the law is pursued: where is it enforced? against whom?
This is especially important now as we have an executive branch that leans toward totalitarianism and a legislative branch that does not seem interested in checking it.
Consider this case:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/01/politics/doj-woman-laughed-jeff-sessions-confirmation-hearing/index.html
Yes, the charges ended up being dropped, but the precedent of the charges even coming up is disturbing.
The United States has about 4.4 percent of the world population but 22 percent of the world's prisoners. Are we sure that is just? And if it's not, what do we do?
Yes, John the Baptist and Paul both spent significant time in prison. Jesus was taken prisoner, though everything happened pretty quickly there; I'm not sure that he spent much time in a cell. Do we only visit good prisoners?
I have already mentioned price gouging on prison phone calls and not funding programs that appear to help, and there will be something eventually on how valuing profits over people becomes a problem. Before that, we need to remember that not all people are valued equally.
They should be. You may believe that for religious reasons, or humanistic reasons, or because you take the founding documents of the United States seriously, but there should be a belief in the equality of people and it is commonly stated. Practices often do not back it up.
Looking at the modern carceral state has many issues, which I will try and get to clearly and logically, but I am finding writing on this topic very difficult and if I break it down into small pieces to try and make it go by easier (because there is so much here), that's just how I have to be.
However, with these three model prisoners I think there are some points we can make.
John the Baptist was in prison because he accurately criticized the king's marriage. It doesn't even look like Herod took it that personally, but Herodias took it seriously enough to plot John's death, and that worked out.
Jesus was arrested for upsetting the social order. They had to change his blasphemy charge to sedition to make it stick, because Roman law and Jewish law felt differently about monotheism, but as revolutionary as he was, none of it was actually illegal, including his accurate claims. Determined people in power were still able to get him in jail.
Paul's imprisonments also involved false charges as well. As Saul he had thrown people in jail for practicing Christianity, so there was some logic in him being in danger for preaching it, but still whenever there was an actual hearing, the general result was that it wasn't illegal.
It was not only then that there were political components to who went to jail. This can affect the writing of the law, but it comes up even more in how the law is pursued: where is it enforced? against whom?
This is especially important now as we have an executive branch that leans toward totalitarianism and a legislative branch that does not seem interested in checking it.
Consider this case:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/01/politics/doj-woman-laughed-jeff-sessions-confirmation-hearing/index.html
Yes, the charges ended up being dropped, but the precedent of the charges even coming up is disturbing.
The United States has about 4.4 percent of the world population but 22 percent of the world's prisoners. Are we sure that is just? And if it's not, what do we do?
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