"WHICH SIDE ARE WE ON?"

“WHICH SIDE ARE WE ON?”

            This is a big week for me in that Caroline’s and my 45^th wedding anniversary was May 18.  We got married in Ed Loring’s back yard, just two blocks from where we now live.  Ed and Caroline’s longtime mentor, Sandy Winter, presided at the ceremony on a hot Saturday.  Our wedding was unusual at the time in that it was outside, and the food for our reception was covered dishes brought by those attending the wedding.  Our kids called it a “hippie wedding,” when they were young, and I guess that it was!  Both Caroline and I had hair down to our shoulders, and the total cost was $400 (mainly for the beer and the meat that we provided for the lunch beforehand).   The gathering lasted 12 hours – we had lunch before the ceremony, and then people partied on into the night (long after Caroline and I had gone to sleep).  It has been a great journey so far, and as Caroline put it, quoting the great Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes fame), “the days have been just packed!”

            This has also usually been a big week in American history, because the Supreme Court often starts announcing many of its decisions from the cases it heard in the previous year.   On our anniversary date in 1896, SCOTUS decided 8-1 that “separate but equal” was the law of the land in Plessy v.  Ferguson.  As we all know, they meant “separate and unequal,” and they gave the legal cover for neo-slavery to be re-established in the nation.    Indeed, in 1898, by a 9-0 vote, they rejected a case from black parents in Augusta, Georgia, asking for equal funding and facilities for the segregated schools there.  Though they said “separate but equal,” they definitely meant “separate and unequal.” 

            It would take 58 years for SCOTUS to begin to rectify that 1896 decision.  In a 9-0 decision announced on May 17, 1954, they declared that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional and that the neo-slavery established by that decision now needed to be dismantled.  That decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, is still being adjudicated, because white resistance to education of people of color is deep and long and wide in American history.  It would be 11 more years before a strong blow to neo-slavery would be passed into law.  The Voting Rights Act of 1965 began to erode some of the foundations of neo-slavery, and we have wrestled with that ever since then.  Indeed, in June of 2013, SCOTUS sought to move us back closer to neo-slavery by eviscerating the Voting Rights Act by a 5-4 vote.  If that Act had still been in force, Stacey Abrams would be governor of Georgia right now.  Fortunately for us, Stacey is well aware of this and is hard at work to rectify it.

The fundamental issue is whether we will return to neo-slavery and its building up of white supremacy – that still hangs in the balance.

            This has also been big week because it has seen the war on women resume in full force.  All the FGFBM laws that have been passed last week (and surely more to come) are a direct attack on the fundamental personhood and rights of women.  The Forced Gestation and Forced Birth Movement has been gaining ground, and now it hopes to force women to be pregnant and to have babies under the guise of the sanctity of life.  There is no greater sign of the hypocrisy and real intent of these laws than the state of Alabama outlawing abortion on one day and executing a prisoner the next – so much for the sanctity of life.  Similar to the war of white supremacy, we are now in a war on women, and let us make no mistake.  There is no intention to preserve life in these new laws – there is only the intention to oppress women and control their bodies.  If there were intention to enforce the sanctity of life, we would see meaningful parental leave, universal health insurance, day care for all, the end of the death penalty, and many other steps.

            And, let us make no mistake here – we are in a battle for our lives.  There is no neutral ground, there are no nuanced positions.  We are either going to seek to destroy white supremacy, or we are not.  We are either going to support the full humanity of women, or we are not.  As the old union song, written by Florence Reese, used to put it in the organizing wars in the coal mines of Kentucky:

“Which side are you on boys

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on boys

Which side are you on?

They say in Harlan County

There ain’t no neutrals there,

You’ll either be a union {man}

Or a thug for J. H. Blair.”