Let’s Give It Another Go

The 2011 Hallett Lecture has been rescheduled for Wednesday, March 23.

Don’t miss out on Father Michael Pfleger and Robert McClory, author of “Radical Disciple: Father Pfleger, St. Sabina Church, and the Fight for Social Justice”:

Father Michael Pfleger invites you to work for Peace

“Are we going to be a part of raising the consciousness and of bring about the solutions or is the church going to continue to just see itself as doing the benedictions, and doing the eulogies, and doing the counseling after violence takes the lives of our children and of our brothers and our sisters?”

Father Michael Pfleger shares a message about the need to work for peace in our society and inviting people to be peacemakers in a culture of violence.  Father Pfleger is co-chair of the SCUPE’s 2011 Congress on Urban Ministry to be held in Chicago on March 1-4, 2011.

You can register now at www.congressonurbanministry.org

“In light of what has just happened in Tucson, Arizona I think addressing the violence is a major and crucial step in regaining our voice.  We have to somehow raise the issue in not only the violence that is tearing apart our families and our communities but is literally killing the future of our children.  And the church has been far too silent”

Peacemaking Insight #4 – Bill Wylie-Kellermann

Urban pastor Urban pastor and SCUPE faculty Bill Wylie-Kellermann talks about the Congress on Urban Ministry and how seminary students can get credit for attending through his Congress Course ‘Good News for the City’.

Bill is a United Methodist pastor who currently serves at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in the Corktown neighborhood of Detriot, MI.  He is a committed Christian activist, frequent contributor to Sojourners, and a theologian in the tradition of William Stringfellow and Walter Wink who specializes in the biblical concept of the Principalities and the Powers.

Bill is the author of Seasons of Faith and Conscience (Orbis) which explores the biblical and theological bases for non-violent resistance and “liturgical direct action” and has edited an anthology, A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow (Eerdmans).

For the previous decade he was Director of Graduate Theological Urban Studies at SCUPE in Chicago.  Recently he helped create Word and World, a floating movement school for faith-grounded activists.

Speak Life Spoken Word

Another local opportunity has come to my attention for those of you in the Chicago-land area.  Speak Life will use poetry and prayer to lift up the epidemic of violence in our city.

I Care for Peace 5k Walk

What are you walking for on October 2nd?

Why not join the I Care Movement and walk for Peace?

The “Do You Care?” campaign was started by 5 interns who worked for the Safety Net Works of Auburn Gresham Youth Council.

The purpose of the “I Care For Peace 5k Walk” is to bring people from all across the city of Chicago together in an effort to raise money to help reduce the high levels of violence in our city.   All of the proceeds from this walk will go towards violence prevention programming for youth.  Specifically, a portion of the proceeds from this walk will go towards creating a Southside Youth Resource Center that is open 24 hours a day for at risk youth.  This resource center will serve youth throughout the city of Chicago, providing them with immediate counseling, gang prevention and intervention services, and other necessary resources.

Did You Know?

• From January to November 2009, 344 people were murdered in Chicago with guns, which accounted for 82% of the total homicides for the city.

• From January to November 2009, 213 children and young people ages 0-25 were murdered in Chicago, the majority by guns.

• Over 210 CPS students, were shot during the 2009 to 2010 academic school year.

Register for the 5k walk.

Join the I Care Movement.

Become a Peacemaker.

Social Justice and Community Development

A partnership between SCUPE and Loyola University
combines Social Justice and Community Development
into one graduate level program (MASJCD).  Susan Rans writes
about how SJ and CD are not unusual bedfellows.

Dr. Mary Nelson' s Restoring Urban Communities Course

Many current and incoming students have asked for a description of the differences between the Social Justice and Community Development tracks of the MASJCD.  In the past, I have answered this question in a kind of shorthand:

Social Justice ‘thinks globally”; Community Development “acts locally”.  Here, I will attempt to put more meat on those bones.

The biggest idea behind the creation of the MASJCD was to join the theoretical and theological study of social justice to a place-based practice and policy approach to change in urban communities.  While the study of social justice leads toward action, the study of community development provides effective and proven tools for action.  So, another formulation might be that the study of social justice reveals why we must act and the study of community development shows what we can do.

It can also be said that community development is a form of social justice.  Our religious traditions speak clearly about the injustices of poverty, of war and of oppression of the powerless.  Answering this call often leads students to involvement in justice issues like eliminating poverty and hunger, ending wars, empowering women or welcoming immigrants.  Community development–building strong and liberating communities in which the economy is available to all, in which every member is a valued contributor, and in which access to health care, education and secure housing is a mandate–fulfills the social justice vision.

Community development also concerns itself with systems—their analysis and the ways in which they must change to become equitable and sustainable.  Understanding housing policy and the details of housing production are essential to changing the housing system.  Knowing the economics and politics of food production is necessary to work to provide local communities with access to healthy food.  As one Chicago community developer often says, “We need to discover ways to make big systems work for small places.”  Studying community development leads to that discovery.

In the end, an argument can be made that significant knowledge of both areas is essential to real and lasting change, and that’s why there is an MASJCD.  And toward that end, we do not require students to declare a track until one full-time semester has passed (one year for part-time students).  And we highly recommend that students take courses in both tracks early in their studies and even after they have chosen a track—a sort of major/minor arrangement.  The best mix of theory and practice, of global issues and local systems will produce to the best agents of social change—the goal of our program.

For more info and discussion of the program, feel free to contact me.

-Susan Rans
MASJCD Graduate Program Director

Oscar Grant: Murder as Accident

Last January I was in Berkeley taking an urban ministry class entitled “Refuge in the City” with Bishop Yvette Flunder.  Earlier that month, January 1^st in fact, Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22 year-old African American man, was shot in the back by a transit officer on the platform of a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station.  Video capturing the shooting showed Grant subdued by numerous officers, lying facedown on the platform, when he was shot by the officer above him.

Public outrage, protests, and rioting occurred in Oakland in the aftermath of the released cell phone footage captured by at least one passenger on board of a stopped train as the incident played itself out the nearby platform.

Was this lethal use of force a tragic accident or a brutal abuse of police power?  The question still lingers.

The way it comes across in the video it’s pretty hard to image a justifiable circumstance for shooting this young man.  However, footage can be deceiving, especially grainy, cell phone footage.  The officer, Johannes Mehserle, claimed that Grant was struggling and reaching into his pocket so he fired his .40 caliber pistol which he mistook for his stungun.  BART transit officers carry two firearm shaped weapons: the pistol on the right side of their body and a X26 Taser on the left side.  Defense for officer Mehserle claimed that he never received adequate training with the taser while the prosecution highlighted how different the actions of pulling the gun versus pulling the taser would have been.

40 Caliber Pistol & X26 Taser

When I talked to friends back home no one had heard of the shooting.  I was shocked at the lack of coverage in the national news, especially in the face of substantial riots in Oakland.  Flash forward to this July.  The transit officer has just been convicted of involuntary manslaughter – not murder.  The outrage in Oakland is back and so is the lack of coverage… and when the media does cover the story they focus on the symptoms of rioting and looting rather than the injustice which caused them.

While it is shameful to use justifiable outrage and protests as an excuse for rioting and looting, it is just as shameful to use the rioting as a smoke screen for a frank and honest civic discussion of this incident and the verdict.  Something was horribly wrong about this story back in January of 2009 and something is still horribly wrong in August of 2010.

People React to the Verdict on July 2, 2010

If the media remains committed to its usual subterfuge and avoidance of critical engagement with vital issues of our day, something must be done.  Is there another forum we can foster where this public discourse can happen?  I suggest that we both hold our media accountable to its vocation as a source of news, dialogue, and thoughtful discernment as well as begin work to create our own forums and open spaces for these lifebloods of democracy.  Democracy itself might just be in the balance.

Here is a New America Media article wrestling with the taser vs. pistol defense and a brief write-up (and link to the aforementioned video) from Mother Jones that doesn’t seem interested in mincing words when one of the words is murder.

Also, here is a podcast that discusses the incident and repercussions in depth and addresses the racial undertow that makes these set of events possible.  The podcast is hosted by a wonderful and fiery author, cultural analyst, poet, essayist, and activist Ewuare Osayande.

Silence The Violence Rally

Last Friday a beautiful summer afternoon was suddenly transformed into a brutal Chicago summer storm just hours before a crucial anti-violence rally and march led by Mayor Richard M. Daley and Father Michael Pfleger.  By the rally’s start time the skies were back to their clear, calm, early-summer brilliance but the violent storm served as a reminder of the violence that erupts in Chicago and cities around this nation.

While the event was, predictably, under-covered by the local media (video here and briefly here) there was quite a list of mentionable civic and community leaders present for the empowering rally and march.  Joining the hundreds of concerned citizens in attendance were U.S. Senator Roland W. Burris, IL Senator Jackie Collins, Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis, CPS CEO Ron Huberman and many others.

The crowd read together a list of Community Take Back Demands as prepared by Father Pfleger that were concrete, detailed, and focused on addressing the violence in our communities with the assets of our communities.  Here is the list:

• Whereas, we acknowledge that our community has been unlawfully seized from us while we were silent, and that we have not only the right, but the duty to take it back;
• Whereas, we desire to improve the quality of life of those living in our community and acknowledge that all people deserve to live in a safe, loving and nurturing environment;
• Whereas, violence and abuse in all forms are serious social problems that can be prevented and that everyone must work to end.
• Whereas, as adults we are responsible for providing safety for our children and are called to secure for them their future.
• Whereas, the strength of any community is found in its citizens living and working together in a spirit of cooperation across lines of class, culture, color and creed to develop, rebuild and sustain that community; and by working together, all are enriched.
• Whereas, preventing violence and abuse begins with each one of us as individual stakeholders in our community;

We make the following demands of each citizen of our community.

• We demand that every business that benefits from our patronage, whether uptown, downtown, or here in the community, whether small or large, employ at least one youth part-time or full time this summer.
• We demand that park districts establish attractive quality programming for our youth.
• We demand that every church, mosque or synagogue open its doors for youth, and develop and maintain quality youth programs to draw our young people off the streets. And call them to meet outside before Bible Study and choir rehearsal to create a presence in the community.
• We demand that each citizen commit his/her support to community organizations and faith-based organizations worldng to end all forms of violence.
• We demand that the residents of each block maintain the cleanliness and order of their property and turn on their porch lights at night.
• We demand that each resident take charge of the safety of that block watch and patrol that block, hold outdoor block club meetings and activities for the residents and youth on that block.
• We demand that CAPS hold their meetings outdoors during the summer.
• We demand that every parent provides for and ensures the supervision of their children and enter into partnerships with the schools that their children attend.
• We demand that all schools continue to make adequate yearly progress on strengthening the curriculum and teaching conflict resolution so that our youth become aware of their relationship to each discipline, are able to compete on the world stage and can see themselves and others depicted accurately in history.
• We demand that the violence plaguing our cities be seen as a National Emergency and that Federal financial resources be given to cities for jobs for adults and youth, youth alternatives and strategies to stop the violence.
• We demand that elected officials in Springfield and Washington ban assault weapons and stop the easy access to guns by titling guns like cars.
• We demand that each citizen work collaboratively with the schools in their community to expand programming and improve their capacity to serve the needs of our youth and prepare them to give service to themselves, their families, their communities and society.
• We demand that every parent, teacher, mentor, neighbor and street organization member challenge our fellow community members to recognize that they can be powerful without making others powerless.
• We demand that each member of our community commit to treating one another with dignity and respect.
• We demand that each citizen take a stand and never commit, condone, accept or remain silent about violence.
• We demand that each citizen does that which is necessary and within his/her realm of influence and power to foster a community which is respectful, safe, and fair for all people.

For a detailed account of the rally with quotes from the various speakers, read this article by Chinta Strausberg.

Mayor Richard M. Daley

The Role of Non-violence in Peacemaking

Tuesday night I attended a forum on non-violence held at Columbia College here in Chicago’s loop sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee.  Notable individuals present on the panel included Kathy Kelly of Voices of Creative Nonviolence and Rabbi Brant Rosen of Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston.  The the forum’s credit there was also a “below 45 voice” in the form of Madelyn George, a Columbia College student who has been increasingly involved in acting for peace.

While the forum was lively and thoughtful it quite predictably degraded, in the question and answers portion of the evening, into theoretical and situational questioning… as if we were attempting to achieve the Platonic ideal of nonviolence.  You know, the questions like:

“Is it still non-violent action if there is property damage or if the demonstrators are wearing socks made in a sweat shop?”

or,

“How would you advocate nonviolence if Hitler were to invade Rwanda using genocidal alien technologies?”

I may exaggerate a bit here but you get the idea.  While occasionally intellectually reveling these ‘intentional quandaries’ ignore the values of context and discernment.  As a primarily un-lived, academic idea, discussions around the concept of non-violence often fall prey to this pitfall.  We let the seemingly unreachable pinnacles of an ideal stop us from using the ideal in its most relevant and human form – gritty, impure, messy, and effective.

www.wordle.net

Where non-violence really came to life was in the stories of Kathy Kelly’s adventures planting corn on top of nuclear missile silos and being sentenced to a year in prison for crossing over into controlled space at Fort Benning’s military training school.  It took on flesh in the communal fasting of Rabbi Brant Rosen as a part of Ta’anit Tzadek – the Jewish Fast for Gaza and in the creative driven activism of Madelyn George and the students of Columbia.  These stories were wrapped in the fabric of real life – dripping with defiance and sacrifice.  These stories stretched beyond the conceptual boundaries and pitfalls common when talking about non-violent direct action and into dipped into the rarefied air of doing of doing non-violent direct action.

May it be so with us as well.  That we may always move our discernment into action – our faith into compassion and love embodied in our person.

If we let compassion guide us to action we might be surprised how often this action is actively non-violent…

Radical Disciple: The Story of Father Pfleger

A couple nights ago Roger and me from SCUPE went with our Swiss friends to Columbia College for their screening of the new documentary (10 years in the making) about Chicago’s Father Michael Pfleger.  The 58 minute film, entitled “Radical Disciple: The Story of Father Pfleger“, was begun under the vision of David Axelrod (yeah, the White House Senior Adviser) who passed the helm on to Evanston filmmaker Bob Hercules in 2005 when attention was turning to a young presidential hopeful by the name of Barack Obama.

Father Michael Pfleger

Pfleger is the pastor at Saint Sabina’s Catholic Church in Auburn Gresham, a church with a long history of fostering urban transformation within their community as well as working toward policy change on the city, state, and national level.  As Father Pfleger has worked on various movements during his 29 year tenure at the church he has become a public figure of sorts, love by some and reviled by others, particularly through his fearless use of the news media in the church’s campaigns.

The stakes for the event were heightened by the fact that both filmmaker and film-subject were present at the screening and afterwards would take questions.  Even having met and worked with Father Pfleger I must admit there is a certain level or oddity when watching someone’s life story with them present.  Especially, in tense moments that dealt with some of the controversy that has surrounded Father Pfleger there was an odd sense of his presence being misplaced at a viewing of his own life.  Still, the film dealt quite evenhandedly with the controversy that undoubtedly follows public figures and, to its credit, the film often sought to get beneath these issues to a sense of what compels and inspires Father Pfleger in his drive for social change.

This is the real heart of the story: uncovering the inner spiritual fire that fuels the activist priest who is consistently ambitious enough to believe that real change is possible and then to work towards it.