An Essay. By George Clooney (2020).

So what do we do now? 

Is it 1992? Did we just hear a jury tell us that the white cops that we watched on tape hundreds of times beating Rodney King weren’t guilty of their obvious crimes? Is it 2014, when Eric Garner was executed for selling cigarettes by a white cop who strangled him as we watched? His words “I can’t breathe” forever etched into our minds? How many times have we seen people of color killed by police? Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Laquan McDonald. There is little doubt that George Floyd was murdered. We watched as he took his last breath at the hands of four police officers. Now we see another defiant reaction to the systemic cruel treatment of a portion of our citizens like we saw in 1968, 1992, and 2014. We don’t know when these protests will subside. We hope and pray that no one else will be killed. But we also know that very little will change. 

As most of us wonder what we can do, I remember listening to Sarah Koenig, who spent a year just covering trials in a Cleveland courthouse, sum up her experience. She gives those of us who feel helpless a roadmap:  

Let’s all accept that something’s gone wrong. Let’s make that our premise […] 

 We’ve all heard the stats—that we here in the United States imprison a vastly higher percentage of our population than any other country in the world. We are number one. The numbers are well-documented, wildly out of whack, and unprecedented in our history. 

Also well-documented—inequity. Every joint in the skeleton of our criminal justice system is greased by racial discrimination. Compared to white people who’ve committed the same crime and who have similar criminal histories, black people and other people of color are arrested more often. They’re charged more harshly, given higher bails, offered worse plea deals. They’re handed longer prison sentences, and their probation is more often revoked […] 

These numbers aren’t floating above us in the sky. They’re alive all over the country. 

We all know it’s true. 

The anger and the frustration we see playing out once again in our streets is just a reminder of how little we’ve grown as a country from our original sin of slavery. The fact that we aren’t actually buying and selling other human beings anymore is not a badge of honor. We need systemic change in our law enforcement and in our criminal justice system. We need policymakers and politicians that reflect basic fairness to all of their citizens equally. Not leaders that stoke hatred and violence as if the idea of shooting looters could ever be anything less than a racial dog whistle. Bull Connor was more subtle.  

This is our pandemic. It infects all of us, and in 400 years we’ve yet to find a vaccine. It seems we’ve stopped even looking for one and we just try to treat the wound on an individual basis. And we sure haven’t done a very good job of that. So this week, as we’re wondering what it’s going to take to fix these seemingly insurmountable problems, just remember we created these issues so we can fix them. And there is only one way in this country to bring lasting change: Vote. 

George Clooney

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photograph of George Clooney as a child via

J'accuse. By Emile Zola.

French novelist and journalist Émile Zola (1840-1902) reacted to the Dreyfus affair (Zola called it "the most preposterous of soap operas") by publishing an open letter to the president entitled "J'accuse".  In the letter, which ran on the front page of the newspaper "L'aurore", he accused the army of conspiring to convict Dreyfus using the public's anti-Semitism. 200.000 copies of the newspaper were sold in Paris alone, Zola was convicted for libel (via).       

 

Letter to Mr. Félix Faure,
President of the Republic 

Mister President,
Allow me, in my gratitude for the kind welcome you once gave me, to be concerned about your just glory and to tell you that your star, so happy so far, is threatened with the most shameful, the most indelible stain? You came out safe and sound from slander, you won hearts. You appear radiant in the apotheosis of this patriotic celebration that the Russian alliance has been for France, and you are preparing to preside over the solemn triumph of our Universal Exhibition, which will crown our great century of work, truth and freedom. But what a patch of mud on your name - I was going to say on your reign - that this abominable Dreyfus affair! A council of war has just, by order, dared to acquit an Esterhazy, the supreme bellows of all truth, of all justice. And it's over, France has this stain on its cheek, history will write that it was under your presidency that such a social crime could have been committed. Since they dared, I will also dare. The truth, I will say it, because I promised to say it, if justice, regularly seized, did not do it, full and whole. My duty is to speak, I don't want to be an accomplice. My nights would be haunted by the specter of the innocent who atones over there, in the most dreadful of tortures, a crime he did not commit. And it is to you, Mr. President, that I will shout it, this truth, with all the strength of my revolt as an honest man. For your honor, I’m sure you don’t know. And to whom will I denounce the harmful peat of the real culprits, if it is not you, the first magistrate of the country?

(...) O justice, what frightful despair sinks the heart! We go so far as to say that he was the forger, that he fabricated the telegram card to lose Esterhazy. But, great God! Why? What purpose? Give a reason. Is that one also paid for by the Jews? The beauty of the story is that he was justly anti-Semitic. Yes! We are witnessing this infamous spectacle, men lost in debts and crimes whose innocence is proclaimed, while the very honor is struck, a man with a spotless life! When a society is there, it decays. So there you have it, Mr. Speaker, the Esterhazy case: a culprit that was to be found innocent. (...)

And what a nest of low intrigue, gossip and squandering, has become this sacred asylum, where the fate of the fatherland is decided! We are horrified by the terrible day that the Dreyfus affair has just thrown into it, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate, a "dirty Jew"! Ah! all that has been agitated there about insanity and foolishness, crazy imaginations, practices of low police, mores of inquisition and tyranny, the good pleasure of some braided men putting their boots on the nation, entering it in the throat his cry of truth and justice, under the pretext liar and sacrilege of reason of State! And it is still a crime to have relied on the filthy press, to have allowed oneself to be defended by all the scoundrel of Paris, so that this is the scoundrel who triumphs insolently, in the defeat of law and simple probity. It is a crime to have accused of disturbing France those who want it generous, at the head of free and just nations, when one plots the impudent conspiracy to impose error, before the whole world . It is a crime to mislead public opinion, to use this opinion which has been perverted to the point of delirium for a death task. It is a crime to poison the small and the humble, to exasperate the passions of reaction and intolerance, by sheltering behind the odious anti-Semitism, of which the great liberal France of human rights will die, if she is not cured of it. It is a crime to exploit patriotism for works of hate, and it is a crime, finally, to make the saber the modern god, when all human science is at work for the next work of truth and justice. (...) I have said it elsewhere, and I repeat it here: when we shut up the truth underground, it accumulates there, it takes on such a force of explosion that, the day it bursts, it blows everything up with she. we’ll see if we don’t just prepare for the most resounding disasters for later. (...)

I have only one passion, that of light, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and which has the right to happiness. My fiery protest is only the cry of my soul. So dare you put me on trial and let the investigation take place! I wait. Please accept, Mr. President, the assurance of my deep respect. 

::: link to complete letter: LINK

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photograph via

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Martin Luther King's Letter from Jefferson County Jail

16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. (...) I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." (...)



(...) more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. (...) Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. (...)
Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation. (...)
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue. (...)



We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. (...)
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. (...)
(...) I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.
When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.
In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. (...)
Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers? (...)
Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

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photographs via (Rev. Abernathiy, left, and Rev. King leading demonstrators as they attempt to march on Birmingham City Hall, 12 April 1963; AP Photo/Horace Cort) and via and via

"every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry" Bertrand Russell

Sir Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell of Kingston Russell, Viscount Amberley of Amberley and of Ardsalla (1872-1970) was a British philosopher, logician, social reformer, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and campaigner for peace (via). In 1962, aged 89, Russell received a letter from Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley of Ancoats, 6th Baronet (1896-1980), a British politician who became the leader of the British Union of Fascists, a party that was banned in 1940, the year Mosley was imprisoned (via). In this letter, Mosley tried to persuade Russell to discuss the merits of fascism. Russell replied with the following words:



Dear Sir Oswald,
Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.
I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.
Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

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photograph of Bertrand Russell by Alfred Eisenstaedt (1951) via

Desmond Tutu's Letter to Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1991) and State Counsellor became a "democracy icon who fell from grace". Not only did she not speak out against the genocide taking place in Myanmar. She described the generals in her cabinet as "rather sweet" (via), denied the ethnic cleansing taking place, said the military would operate according to the rule of law (via) and that she had no idea why Muslims were fleeing the country (via).

"I don't think there is ethnic cleansing going on. I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening. I think there is a lot of hostility there - it is Muslims killing Muslims as well, if they think they are co-operating with the authorities." Aung San Suu Kyi

Meanwhile, about 400 villages have been wiped off the map (80% of them in the first three weeks of the military campaign), women are tied to trees and gang-raped, children are assaulted and forced back inside burning houses, people tortured (via), over 725.000 people have been forced to flee to Bangladesh since 25 August 2017 (via and via). In the month after the violence broke out, at least 6.700 Rohingya were killed, at least 730 of them were children under the age of five (via).

There was a discussion whether Aung San Suu Kyi would be stripped of the Nobel Peace Prize and it was decided that she could keep it as the rules did not allow for it to be withdrawn (via). However, Canadian MPs voted to strip her of her honourary citizenship (via), she was stripped of her Freedom of Edinburgh reward, Oxford, Glasgow and Newcastle revoked all honourary awards, Sir Bob Geldof called Aung San Suu Kyi a murderer (via), she lost the Freedom of Paris award, Amnesty International's "Ambassador of Conscience Award" (via), Unison's honourary membership, Sheffield's award, Dublin's award, the honourary presidency of the London School of Economics student union, her name was deleted from an exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the City of London and the University of Bristol expressed their concerns (via)



My dear Aung San Su Kyi

I am now elderly, decrepit and formally retired, but breaking my vow to remain silent on public affairs out of profound sadness about the plight of the Muslim minority in your country, the Rohingya.

In my heart you are a dearly beloved younger sister. For years I had a photograph of you on my desk to remind me of the injustice and sacrifice you endured out of your love and commitment for Myanmar's people. You symbolised righteousness. In 2010 we rejoiced at your freedom from house arrest, and in 2012 we celebrated your election as leader of the opposition.

Your emergence into public life allayed our concerns about violence being perpetrated against members of the Rohingya. But what some have called 'ethnic cleansing' and others 'a slow genocide' has persisted – and recently accelerated. The images we are seeing of the suffering of the Rohingya fill us with pain and dread.

We know that you know that human beings may look and worship differently – and some may have greater firepower than others – but none are superior and none inferior; that when you scratch the surface we are all the same, members of one family, the human family; that there are no natural differences between Buddhists and Muslims; and that whether we are Jews or Hindus, Christians or atheists, we are born to love, without prejudice. Discrimination doesn't come naturally; it is taught.

My dear sister: If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep. A country that is not at peace with itself, that fails to acknowledge and protect the dignity and worth of all its people, is not a free country.

It is incongruous for a symbol of righteousness to lead such a country; it is adding to our pain.

As we witness the unfolding horror we pray for you to be courageous and resilient again. We pray for you to speak out for justice, human rights and the unity of your people. We pray for you to intervene in the escalating crisis and guide your people back towards the path of righteousness again.

God bless you.

Love

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Hermanus, South Africa
September 2017

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photograph by Sumaya Hisham via

"... to be courageously different." Liza Minnelli's Love Letter to the LGBT community

Where would I be without the LGBTQ community of dazzling souls who have always supported and understood me on a level that is unique and extraordinary? From my earliest memories I understood that some people were different, especially when I met so many of the creative people who were working on films made by my mother and father. In the 'golden' age of Hollywood, many could not be themselves in the workplace and live their true nature, yet it was their creativity that fashioned the dreams of Hollywood and the world. And they were my friends. I learned that 'different' meant many things: freedom, oppression, celebration, sadness, responsibility, hiding, protesting, sharing, but most of all being true to one’s self no matter the price.



Today I celebrate all the special people, past and present, who made it possible for me to be here and to be courageously different. Their examples have shaped me, and without them, my life would be empty. Happy and joyous Pride!
Liza Minnelli (2017)

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photograph by Henry Grossman (1970) via

Dear Mama, by Armistead Maupin (1977)

Armistead Maupin spent half his life writing his coming-out letter to his mother which he finally - rather than sending it to her - sent to the San Francisco Chronicle. Readers cut out the column, put their names on the bottom and sent it to their own parents. Maupin's father - an avid Republican living in North Carolina - replied weeks later with the note: "Dear Teddy, As you know your mother is very ill, so any additional stress can only exacerbate the situation. Love, Daddy." (via).



Dear Mama,
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write. Every time I try to write you and Papa I realize I'm not saying the things that are in my heart. That would be OK, if I loved you any less than I do, but you are still my parents and I am still your child.
I have friends who think I'm foolish to write this letter. I hope they're wrong. I hope their doubts are based on parents who love and trust them less than mine do. I hope especially that you'll see this as an act of love on my part, a sign of my continuing need to share my life with you. I wouldn't have written, I guess, if you hadn't told me about your involvement in the Save Our Children campaign. That, more than anything, made it clear that my responsibility was to tell you the truth, that your own child is homosexual, and that I never needed saving from anything except the cruel and ignorant piety of people like Anita Bryant.
I'm sorry, Mama. Not for what I am, but for how you must feel at this moment. I know what that feeling is, for I felt it for most of my life. Revulsion, shame, disbelief — rejection through fear of something I knew, even as a child, was as basic to my nature as the color of my eyes (...). (via)



image via

Dear Mr. Spock,... (1968)

Dear Mr. Spock,
I am not very good at writing letters so I will make this short. I know that you are half Vulcan and half human and you have suffered because of this. My mother is Negro and my father is white and I am told this makes me a half-breed. In some ways I am persecuted even more than the Negro. The Negroes don't like me because I don't look like them. The white kids don't like me because I don't exactly look like one of them either. I guess I'll never have any friends.
F. C.
Los Angeles, Calif.

Leonard Nimoy's reply:

As you may know, only Spock's mother was human. His father was Vulcan. Spock grew up among Vulcan children and, because he was different, he had to face the problem of not being accepted. This is because people, especially young people it seems, and Vulcans, too, tend to form into groups, kind of like wolf packs. They often demand that you be just like them or you will  not be accepted. And the Vulcans were no different than humans are when it comes to prejudice.
Most of the Vulcan kids didn't like Spock because he was half human. So they wouldn't include him in all the things they did. He was very lonely and no one understood him. and Spock was heartbroken because he wasn't popular. But it was only the need for popularity that was ruining his happiness. The question was: which was more important, being 'popular' with the pack who might turn against him at any minute or being true to himself?
It takes a great deal of courage to turn your back on popularity and to go out on your own. Although inside you're not really like the members of the pack, it's still frightening to decide to leave them, because as long as you're popular, you at least have someone to hang around with. But if you do leave, then you may end up alone.
Now, there's a little voice inside each of us that tells us when we're not being true to ourselves. We should listen to this voice. Often we try to talk ourselves into believing our actions are good-'it's ok to pick on that person' we say because it may make us popular for awhile with the pack.
But usually there is no good reason for picking on anyone. He's only bullied or turned away because of his background, because of the way he looks or talks or thinks. It's always only because he's different - not worth less personally than anyone else.
Spock learned he could save himself from letting prejudice get him down. He could do this by really understanding himself and knowing his own value as a person. He found he was equal to anyone who might try to put him down-equal in his own unique way.
You can do this too, if you realize the difference between popularity and true greatness. It has been said 'popularity' is merely the crumbs of greatness.
When you think of people who are truly great and who have improved the world, you can see that they are people who have realized they didn't need popularity because they knew they had something special to offer the world, no matter how small that offering seemed. And they offered it and it was accepted with peace and love. It's all in having the patience to find out what you yourself have to offer the world that's really uniquely yours.
So-the answer to the whole problem, the answer that Spock found when he had to make his big decision, in in overcoming the need to be popular. It's in choosing your own personal goal and going after it and forgetting what the others are saying. If you do this, then the ones who accept people for the right reasons-for their true worth-will find you and like you.
So Spock said to himself: 'OK, I'm not Vulcan, so the Vulcans don't want me. My blood isn't pure red Earth blood. It's green. And my ears-well, it's obvious I'm not pure human. So they won't want me either. I must do for myself and not worry about what others think of me who don't really know me.
Spock decided he would live up to his own personal value and uniqueness. he'd do whatever made him feel best about himself. He decided to listen to that little voice inside him and not to the people around him.
He replaced the idea of wanting to be liked with the idea of becoming accomplished. Instead of being interested in being popular, he became interested in being intelligent. And isntead of wanting to be powerful, he became intersted in being useful.
He said to himself: 'Not everyone will like me. But there will be those who will accept me just for what I am. I will develop myself to such a point of excellence, intelligence and brilliance that I can see through any problem and deal with any crisis. I will become such a master of my own abilities and career that there will be a place for me. People of all races will need me and not be able to do without me. And that's just what he did. And when I see him standing there on the bridge of the Enterprise, facing danger and life-and-death problems so cooly and with so much intelligence, I'm sure he made the right decision.

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- text via
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