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Lift Every Voice and Sing,By Louise Annarino,3-02-2013

“Our minds fasten on that single moment on the bus — Mrs. Parks alone in that seat, clutching her purse, staring out a window, waiting to be arrested. That moment tells us something about how change happens, or doesn’t happen . . . We so often spend our lives as if in a fog, accepting injustice, rationalizing inequity, tolerating the intolerable. Like the bus driver, but also like the passengers on the bus, we see the way things are — children hungry in a land of plenty, entire neighborhoods ravaged by violence, families hobbled by job loss or illness — and we make excuses for inaction, and we say to ourselves, that’s not my responsibility, there’s nothing I can do. Rosa Parks tells us there’s always something we can do. She tells us that we all have responsibilities, to ourselves and to one another. She reminds us that this is how change happens — not mainly through the exploits of the famous and the powerful, but through the countless acts of often anonymous courage and kindness and fellow feeling and responsibility that continually, stubbornly, expand our conception of justice — our conception of what is possible.” – President Barack Obama,February 27,2013

On February 27,2013 in Statuary Hall at the nations Capitol,President Obama in the presence of the family of Ms. Rosa Parks, unveiled a full-body bronze statue memorializing that moment when she brought racism to its knees as she refused to stand, give up her seat to a white rider, and move to the back of a bus. It was not the first time someone had protested a move to the back of the bus, but it was the first time a nation came to her defense through the organizing efforts of the local NAACP chapter, and soon other civil rights organizations. While it is true a single act can change a nation, it can only do so when it galvanizes others to join in that change.

Rosa Parks’ quiet dignity galvanized a nation bent upon change. This is what President Obama has been doing as he charts a future course for our country with the same quiet dignity. This is why we see so much of, and hear so often from, our activist president. It is one reason liberal change agents love him, and conservative change blockers hate him. It is the quiet dignity of an African-American man which they fear, recognizing its ability to galvanize and organize a nation bent on changing the old boys’ club which has benefited heterosexual white men for so much a part of our nation’s history. No one begrudges the right of white heterosexual men to achieve whatever their talents allow them, so long as their doing so is not at the expense of, nor upon the backs of, the rest of the nation’s citizens. It has only become a class war because they used their accumulated wealth to create an upper class in control of  the generation of all wealth.

Facing decades of civil rights demands,this upper class has been breached by a few formerly excluded from the opportunity to join their ranks. Too few of these men and women are willing to rock the boat that keeps them afloat,unfortunately. To their amazement and even horror, one of those allowed in, President Barack Obama, was daring enough to take the oars and chart a new course for the ship of state the upper class had sailed for so many years.

This is why they block his efforts to rebuild America, to create a more a perfect union, to overcome old divisions which separate us not only by race,sex,and sexual preference, but by class. Their efforts to take back the oars failed in 2012 despite a constant stream of racial and class denigration of both President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama. The stronger their fear that they have lost control of the ship of state, the more willing they have become to sink the ship itself.

The latest Senate filibuster which prevented the Senate from voting out a bill to stop sequestration and offer the balanced bill proposed by President Obama to: close tax loopholes of the upper class,make targeted cuts which would do the least harm to personal and national economies,invest in job creation and infrastructure,improve and expand educational opportunities,strengthen our national defense efficiently,create green alternatives to an oil-based/war-ensuring future meant the House could not even consider the president’s proposals-could not even consider the new course correction for the ship of state to a safer and a more productive course. Instead, in ensuring sequestration was signed into law, they poked holes in the hull of the ship of state, forcing the country to bail water instead of sailing forward.

As if this is not enough. Rep. Eric Cantor(R-VA) made another shot across the bow yesterday,discussing the republican decision to battle for more cuts when the debt limit maxes out in early March, and government spending for this fiscal year expires at the end of March. His goal is to stop President Obama’s balanced approach and protect the upper class from any affront to the wealthy donors his party now protects at all costs to the detriment of nation as a whole. “I think it is possible that we would shut down the government to make sure President Obama understands that we’re serious,” explained Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, (R-Wash), the fourth ranking Republican in the House. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34222_162-57563805-10391739/republicans-contemplating-government-shutdown-over-debt-fight/

The self-satisfied smirks of Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell,John Boehner,and Cathy McMorris Rodgers match that of Justice Antonin Scalia whom I mentioned in an earlier post https://annarinowrites.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/basketball-and-voting-rightsby-louise-annarino2-28-2013/. In each case they smirk with gleeful expression when colleagues in the House and Senate and on the court, and governors from their states question their destructive lack of governmental integrity. I know that smirk. In children it is usally acompanied by finger wagging from the ears and the sing-song phrase “na,na…na,na,na.”  it is the behavior of bullies, bullies who would destroy the country so long as it destroyed its first African-American president and his challenge to the captains of the upper class. Who would sink the ship of state when it dared cross into the shipping lanes of the ocean liners and yachts of the upper class? No one with something to lose.

“Why?” we ask, are republicans so willing to ignore the will of the people,to ignore the polls showing the people’s opposition to republican governance and support for the president’s governance proposals ? Why are they sinking the ship of state? Because they are doing so from the presumed safety of the ocean liner’s deck. They have abandoned the ship of state and called a recess. They should recall the Titanic, a ship considered too big to fail. They should recall that ocean liners rely on tugboats to bring them safely into port. But, those on the ocean liners call the world their home now. No longer is America their only port. They no longer curry favor from American tug boats. And so long as they can stay afloat amassing even more wealth in international ports, they feel safe from those of us on land whom they view as inferior because of our race,color,national origin,sex,or sexual preference. These named classses are protected legal classes because they are the classes most under attack.

Persons within these legally-protected classes are most under attack becasue the upper class fears them the most, and has the power and funds to stage an attack against them. A republican has told me that my writing about race as a motivation for the attacks against the president and his positions is my fall-back  position. He is wrong. It is my frontal assault position. It may appear to some as a fall-back since I try to do it with grace and dignity. But we both know refusing to go to the back of the bus is not a fall-back position. And republicans repeatedly tell us that is where our president must sit.

It has ever been my world view that racism is the biggest threat to the  idea of America,and our biggest political threat. If this were not the case, politicians would not so readily use it to attack our president and undermine his leaderhip at home and abroad. Class domination is also a dangerous political tool. Anger at our president is not only based upon racial animus. It also based upon a view of him as threat to the upper class of mostly white men who have bought poltical parties lock,stock and barrel. 

So, what do we do? Lock hands and arms and sing “We Shall Overcome”? Yes, if that strengthens us to organize,speak out publicly in blogs and letters to the editor, speak privately with our neighbors and friends,register and educate voters,call our representatives/senators/governors,donate to causes and poltical efforts which reform the processes which allow the upper class to go to sea and distance themselves from our problems ashore. We must protect voter rights,redistrict gerrymandered states,stop environmental degradation,assure safe food and drugs,improve and cut costs of medical and dental care for every American,protect American workers and create more sustainable jobs paying a living wage,and strengthen and defend public schools. These are actions we can take on a local level. As President Obama said, “Rosa Parks tells us there’s always something we can do… She reminds us that this is how change happens — not mainly through the exploits of the famous and the powerful, but through the countless acts of often anonymous courage and kindness and fellow feeling and responsibility that continually, stubbornly, expand our conception of justice — our conception of what is possible.”

Republicans are currently more fearful than democrats of the power and wealth-making efforts sought by classes previously denied full particpation in the American dream. Their tent is not so diverse as the democratic tent,becasue their policies continue to poke holes in any boat which welcomes diverse passengers aboard ship. Justice Scalia recently explained their position to us: calling others aboard ship creates an expectation of racial entitlement. The more diverse the ship of state becomes, the more willing republicans are to watch it sink with all of us on board.The more willing a man who opposed activist judges his whole life is to become one himself,throwing his integrity overboard. We are not entitled it seems to stay afloat on their seas. So, by our activism, we must remind ourselves and them that “We Shall Overcome.” Let us “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”