Why is St. Paul not in contradiction with St. James? How is it that we are told we have God’s grace and that faith without actions, is dead? St. Paul condemned the sins of pride, hypocrisy, favoritism and slander. While St. James taught us about purity, controlling bodies in holiness and honor, how do we practice life with faith, knowing these teachings? Can we live a life without faith?
These questions were part of Sunday’s post-lunch discussion at a relative’s house, initiated by a 28yo nurse humbly sharing his assignment with his cousin, a 22yo technology assistant, soliciting views about faith.
I was taken aback by their discussion and the depths of questioning spiritual teachings. As if those questions were not enough, another introduces complexity into the discussion, “can you live a life without Faith?”
We probe some more until it became about good deeds, showing compassion. About who to serve, how to serve and that doing good to others is about living one’s faith. I wish I could have stayed longer, and witnessed a consensus, but would they have arrived at one?
I once was blind, now I can see
Two years ago, two relatives had life threatening health conditions.
One had stage 4, bone cancer. Instead of expecting death, the family turned towards her and prayed for her reversal of cancer, a bold ask. Simbang Gabi masses were offered for her healing, and nuns included her in their group prayers.
I saw her transformation into a healthier version of herself: positive, laughing, sharing her wisdom, testifying to her faith and God’s grace, and a teacher of healing and spirituality.
While doing her chemotherapy and radiation, she went to daily Mass and took Holy Communion, twice a day. Her tumors have disappeared from her liver and her bones, with a slight one in one of her lungs. Her hair has grown back. She credits the Eucharistic Therapy in keeping her alive, as well as modern science. We continue to pray for her miracle, a remission of her cancer.
Another relative had a stroke and although, without physical paralysis or facial contortions, her cognitive abilities to hold down a full-time job and remembering have been impaired. She prays and aspires to organize healing masses, which she did a lot, pre-stroke.
She has since changed her lifestyle, which includes green smoothies, walks, enhancing her spirituality with her latest discovery, Dr. Wayne Dyer. We too pray for her total healing, a reversal of her stroke condition.
Without faith in both situations, their health conditions would have been unbearable. Instead, they chose God to be with them in their sufferings, embracing their challenges, and sought solutions to address them, including changing hospitals, finding healing physicians who promote life, and not a practice, anchored on deaths of cancerous patients.
Can you imagine having this professional practice of death, and not life? How much of our words and praxis enhance life? Or do our practices decimate lives and businesses?
Promoting life with our faith
The question of can you live without faith lingered in my mind.
I asked Fr. Rodel Balagtas, Director of Pastoral Formation and Field Education at St. John’s Seminary, “We are endowed with God’s grace, yet we are also told faith without actions, is dead. How can that be?”
“Yes, we are saved by God’s grace. But because our relationship with God is covenantal, our actions should reflect our relationship with him. Our identity as God’s children should be manifested through our deeds. Every action, every good deed should flow out of our generosity to God who has first loved us. Our moral lives are not based merely on a code of conduct. They are based on a covenantal relationship, which is more dynamic, personal, free, meaningful and life giving,” he wisely answered.
No wonder he is that generous amongst friends and parishioners, sharing his spiritual wisdom, accessible to parishioners who needed his guidance, and caring deeply about our emotional lives to be healthy, as families worshipping together.
I witnessed how Fr. Rodel grew Immaculate Heart of Mary Church and the Church’s vibrant soul to be so positive and overflowing in joy, that musicians did not simply sing, they recruited other musicians to sing in this Church, that folks travelled 30 miles one way, just to be part of this joyful, sacred, vibrant synergy of Sunday Mass.
Even the children were so happy that they did not just sing in church, they competed in World Choir Games and joined festivals. The teenagers went on retreat and when they came back, they had new dances to express their faith and worship to God. The masses got alive on Sundays that most came back for more. Attendance soared and pews were filled in each of the masses. Clergy from poor missions were welcomed and spontaneously, concerts would be held in Church to benefit them and the parishioners came to support, all for their love of God and their undying faith.
How did this process of questioning, of studying the teachings of St. Paul with St. James, now lead into an invitation to listen “The Third Jesus” audiobook by Deepak Chopra, from Charito, a visiting jazz singer from Tokyo, Japan? How is it that the Higher Universe is layering all these questions?
I cannot stop the unraveling of questions for a week, that I wondered aloud, is it possible that the Holy Spirit is preparing us in America, for Pope Francis’ visit in September?
Just as I surmised, at lunch on Thursday, gathered were a Catholic, a Lutheran and an ecumenical believer of God. We got into a discussion of Pope Francis, with an ecumenical believer saying, “Hey, I love your Pope Francis, he is Jesus-aligned, he is Biblically-aligned, he is morally aligned.” Both Lutheran and ecumenical believer enumerate for this writer what Pope Francis’ edict to the parishes, take in one Syrian family of refugees, what he did for the homeless in Rome, and what he is doing for climate change, Laudato Si.
The questions kept coming, that I found another book, “The Case for Grace” by Lee Strobel, its subtitle, “A Journalist Explores the Evidence of Transformed Lives.” I started reading it and the chapter I turn to, The Case for Grace. Can this be coincidence or serendipity?
Seeking another answer, I posed the question to Fr. Camilo Pacanza, a wise homilist and St. Lucy’s associate pastor. He said, “To Believe (Faith) is to Be (A)live in, With, For God. God’s Grace is active not static. We are Graced so we can live our Faith in love. (Torah) You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus). Good Works/Loving acts to the neighbor is Graced Faith in action! Living Faith! Graced Faith. God bless you in your concern.”
I am still in search of answers. I realized faith is a personal journey, with each of us undertaking a unique way of inquiry, of partaking the Divine in our lives. It maybe giving a sick friend a ride to get chemotherapy, it may even be writing about faith, it may take the form of expressing our love of God, through songs; enabling others to worship deeply, and it may even take a blunt word to another to move on and change, for after all, when we are stuck, it is not for lack of past love, but for lack of giving ourselves and others present love or to take a stand for truth and justice, even if against institutions which have gone mission-directed towards mighty dollars, away from pursuit of justice.
I also came to the conclusion, as Deepak Chopra, “our faith becomes how comfortable we are with the contradictions.” May we all evolve to be God’s grace to one another, to be more humane, enlightened citizens of the United States of America, while continuing our quest for answers to our faith questions!
Racism is a physical experience. The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black people, to black bodies in this country, the soul as we construe it is damaged too, the mind is damaged too.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, as quoted by Jenny Kutner, 2015
This is a lesson for each of us, but also for the church of our time: If we let ourselves be led by the Holy Spirit, if we are able to mortify our selfishness to make room for the Lord’s love and for his will, we will find peace, we will be builders of peace and will spread peace around us.
Pope Francis, address, June 3, 2012
Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas and MTV recently created a documentary, #whitepeople. It illustrated how whites define themselves as “the default race, the norm, the good thing.” 2010 census revealed that whites live in a bubble, where more than 77% are white, and with friends that are 91% white. The documentary continues, “whites are raised by white people, who are oblivious to race and issues that affect other people, “while another informs us about “where we live is all white people, they are all nice people, but at the end of the day… they are close-minded.”
Much of what we saw on television prior to 2014 were shows about white folks. While some of us, subscribe to GMA and ABS-CBN to see and hear teleseryes in Tagalog, our native tongue. In our native tongue, we get a sense of home, feeling safe in seeing familiar places that we frequented in the provinces, comforting us that we are home, even if in an adopted place, called America.
Notice though that if whites stay in a bubble, we too, stay in our bubble of ethnicities-specific activities: our neighborhood Catholic Church, local Catholic School and even our favorite weekend foods: lechon, menudo, pancit, lumpia. Even birthday celebrations and special family moments of bonding are limited to our family members and friends.
How then do we increase our knowledge and awareness of one another and each other’s issues? How can whites become more aware of issues affecting us, people of color? How do we, folks of color, become more aware of issues affecting whites in our midst and the folks of color around us?
Should we be concerned that Ku Klux Klan groups are popping up more?
Should we be concerned that our mainstream television news channels are no longer filtering hate messages, and instead, amplifying them to the point of popularizing these messages?
Should we be concerned that our own cable television shows contribute to that ignorance and without any discussions on race and racism as modern issues of the day?
How do we mortify our selfishness as a modern, developed, first world, that gave birth and nurtured a young 21yo Dylann Roof to be so filled with hate, and one who captured the world’s attention when he took the lives of 9 members of the Emmanuel African Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, during a bible study at 9pm? 8 died at the church, while another died on the way to the Medical University of South Carolina. Did you know that Dylann was welcomed by the bible study group, whom he joined for an hour, before he took out his gun to kill folks?
Did you know that Dylann Roof revered the confederate flag, a flag that was flown by the states who opposed freeing the slaves, and fought for the imposition of slavery against African – Americans? Did you know that to this day, young white folks choose to fly this flag in their vehicles, even while camping in Northern California? When I saw this flag, it gave me eerie feeling of chills, as I saw hatred embodied, and the flag symbolized the hatred and the racial subjugation of African Americans as America’s Second-Class Citizens. Granted it is just a flag, and to some, they argue it is part of their heritage, but, to claim slavery as your heritage, is to claim something wrong as part of what was done in one’s history.
Should we now ask television network owners to be mindful of the content of their television shows? Should we watch our words around each other so we are not conveying hatred? Should we become “correction police” for what we hear are distastefully racist around us?
Huffington post’s Erin Whitney writes that 2014 became one of the most diverse in television history, “old shows sparkled too. Netflix’s “orange is the new black” continued to lead a progressive movement on television and even found time to celebrate women of different body types. And a conversation about the growing diversification of the television industry wouldn’t be complete without praise of shonda rhimes, queen of thursday night. Rhimes is not only a powerhouse figure on her own, being one of the few women, and women of color, behind the camera, but she’s also brought us two hit shows led by black actresses. With “Scandal,” Kerry Washington became the second African-American female to lead a network drama since Diahann Carroll starred in 1968’s Julia and “How to get away with Murder” not only stars Viola Davis, but also features a racially diverse cast of young actors.”
Should we celebrate that it took 47 years for Kerry Washington, an African-American, cast as the female lead in a mainstream television show? Should we also celebrate that Jennifer Lopez, a Latina, as one of the American Idol’s judges, though its 15th upcoming season is its last? What about Dancing with the Stars where we saw our very own Cheryl Burke, a Filipina-American professional, as one of the lead dance choreographers and instructors in 18 seasons, and who bagged the championship in two seasons? Should we feel like celebrating everytime we see a Filipino/a talent participate in the Voice or even American Idol, wherein Jessica Sanchez came in second?
Or what about our Filipina dermatologist, Dr. Tess Mauricio, who regularly appears in mainstream talk shows to discuss about how to be “skin-well”? Should we celebrate that we have Giselle Tongi-Walters as a Kababayan Today’s host of the only television show for and of Filipinos in America that is now going to be watched nationally, including Hawaii? Should we celebrate that we have many more plays and musicals now being showcased at mainstages throughout the U.S? That our very own internationally-acclaimed Lea Salonga (Miss Saigon, Mulan) will be starring in a Broadway play, called Allegiance, inspired by the true story of its star, George Takei (Star Trek, Heroes) this fall? Would that be enough?
Being comfortable with being uncomfortable
The first time I covered Air Force One with the big-time male photographers and male newscasters of major television channels, mostly whites, and few Latinos, I was so uncomfortable. It took a burly White man to help me out and he literally walked me through and what to expect.
When I was first invited to attend a Seder at a Jewish family home, I felt uncomfortable. It took my friend to walk me through as to what to expect: hours of discomfort, long hours of prayers, simulating the suffering of their ancestors, before dinner is served. It started at 6pm and dinner was served at close to 10pm.
But, when I covered another event, predominantly African-Americans, near the airport, I did not feel the need to be walked through nor the need to know what to expect. I felt at home, simply because the organizers warmly welcomed me and ushered me to a seat.
Isn’t that what home is about, to warmly welcome someone into? Should we not do the same in making others comfortably at home in our midst, so we can educate ourselves about others, outside of our daily bubbles?
Notice how you feel when you are in Hawaii, you are welcomed at the airport with a lei and introduced to the hang loose sign of the natives? In Hawaii, it is Aloha for all!
Jose Antonio Vargas is right, we can all be uncomfortable at the same time, in this journey to remove racism from our hearts and minds.
By asking the questions of what makes us uncomfortable, by starving our selfishness, we can perhaps shed light on dark issues of racism embedded in the recesses of our hearts and tinges of biases that we carry in the back of our minds.
Racism is a physical experience. The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black people, to black bodies in this country, the soul as we construe it is damaged too, the mind is damaged too.
Ta-Nehisi Coates, as quoted by Jenny Kutner, 2015
Racism is a social construct. White slave masters and their cohorts invented the concept to normalize the use of African American slaves, as unpaid labor, for their tobacco plantations and farms in the early 18th and 19th century. Black slaves were the first victims of human trafficking, if we apply today’s definition: the unlawful movement of people for forced labor or sexual exploitation. Racists hate and fear the “other person.” They show contempt and disgust at engaging with “the other.”
Not many immigrants from our community know about this dark history of racism and how it emerged in America. But most of us know of or have heard of visceral experiences at the workplace or in churches or in public squares or in the media that Blacks are relegated as second-class citizens. We all know that Blacks and folks of color are not treated as equals. Even the current resident of the White House, our President Barack Obama is not spared as the object of bigotry and wrongful presumptions. In a recent press conference on Iran, the president was asked by Major Garrett: “
00:42:42
QThank you, Mr. President. As you well know, there are four Americans in Iran — three held on trumped-up charges, according to your administration; one, whereabouts unknown. Can you tell the country, sir, why you are content, with all the fanfare around this deal, to leave the conscience of this nation and the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?And last week, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, under no circumstances should there be any relief for Iran in terms of ballistic missiles or conventional weapons. It is perceived that that was a last-minute capitulation in these negotiations. Many in the Pentagon feel you’ve left the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff hung out to dry. Could you comment?
Can you imagine this reporter asking this question of Pres. Ronald Reagan or Pres. G.W.Bush, with erroneous presumptions already embedded, to which Pres. Barack Obama responded to: “I got to give you credit, Major, for how you craft those questions. The notion that I am content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails — Major, that’s nonsense, and you should know better. I’ve met with the families of some of those folks. Nobody is content. And our diplomats and our teams are working diligently to try to get them out.”
Imagine the America we dreamt of, the nation we worked so hard to immigrate to, the country we would cross mountains, hills, valleys and rivers for, is also the America with a hidden darkness in the deepest recesses of its soul, a cancerous and poisonous virus that keeps replicating in the minds and hearts of successive generations, unless we make RACISM no longer contagious. It was started in 18th and 19th centuries, and it is now still very much alive in the 21st centuries, after a period of three thousand years.
Racism is an agency and institutional practice where folks of color are relegated to a secondary status, while whites are presumed and are conferred special treatment by virtue of their skin, and to some, also known as “white skin privilege,” an invisible cache of privileges.
They are presumed to be competent, knowledgeable, honest and responsible. They are called first for jobs. They are cast in roles in films, television shows and even “made up” to assume roles of folks of color, much like the latest film shut in Hawaii, where whites were cast as Hawaiians. The reverse is also true, the hyperscrutiny of mistakes done by folks of color, while those are ignored amongst whites.
The opposite presumption attaches to African –Americans: “The number of African American men under state and federal criminal justice supervision in 2013, totaled roughly 1.68 million people. That is 807, 076 above the number of African American men enslaved in 1850.- The U.S. Bureau of Criminal Statistics, as posted by Senator Cory Booker on July 14, 2015’s facebook.
His bipartisan bill, the Redeem Act, gives us a glimpse of the compelling problem: “Our criminal justice system is broken, and we are all paying the price for it. Home to just five percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of the world’s prison population, our nation is wasting massive sums of taxpayer dollars to make our streets less, not more, safe. Furthermore, incarceration trends have created racial and socio-economic injustices of staggering proportions.” Pres. Barack Obama spoke of how America spends $80 billion on incarcerating folks and for that amount of monies, tuition can be free in all colleges and universities.
Racism is the scourge and poison in one’s heart and one’s mind that permeates one’s being. It is neither conservative nor liberal, it is simply an unacceptable cancer that must be rooted out from one’s being, our souls, and our collective population in America.
How do we translate the love that Pres. Obama speaks of and make racism obsolete?
Justice is making sure every young person knows they are special, they are important, and their lives matter. Not because they heard it in a hashtag, but because of the love they feel every single day.
Pres. Obama
On June 4th, Synergy Kinetic Academy promoted their 8th graders to high school. Part of their graduation ceremonies included a recognition and an award given to Guadalupe E., as a Synergy HERO: Honest, Exemplary, Respectful and Open-Minded. Their newsletter boasts of 99% of Synergy seniors graduated in 2015, even though less than a third of adults in this community have a high school diploma.
That does not happen by accident, it happens with intentions and consistent practice and a synergy between teachers and parents.
At Synergy, every child is called scholar. Before class begins, the children line up in their uniforms and do a formal handshake with their teachers and are greeted, “Good morning Scholar!” It reinforces the high regard the teacher has of each student but also the high potential of each student being nurtured by this school.
When a students is a disciplinary problem, parents are guided to work with the problem student positively and given clear choices: you can continue to be a disciplinary problem or you can emerge a new HERO, honest, exemplary, respectful and open-minded. He or she is also viewed as with high potentials rather than a high risk destined for prison. Instead, they are educated as if future scientists, engineers, poets, teachers and leaders.
This school was founded by two USC graduates, a husband and wife team: Randy Palisoc (a Filipino-American born and raised in Hawaii and the very first in his family to graduate college and now a TEDx speaker and an author of mathematics books which are used to make math more accessible to parents and their children) and his wife, Meg Palisoc, an inspirational administrator of Synergy Academies, now three. Both are USC’s doctorate degree holders who founded Synergy to provide educational equity for all students, regardless of zip code origins ( a euphemism for rich and poor students are a function of zip codes). It started as an Elementary School, then a Middle School and then a High School. This year, they are introducing a year of engineering classes to seniors in high school to emphasize the importance of science, math and engineering.
It matters to be in the right zip code, as in the heart of the urban cities, in Synergy Academies, where these scholars are grown and developed by caring and strategic-minded founders and teachers and administrative staff, “this fall, Synergy’s alumni will be attending these colleges and universities: Antelope Valley College, Bucknell University, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Bakersfield, CSU Dominguez Hills, CSU Long Beach, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Northridge, CSU San Bernardino, Cerritos College, East Los Angeles College, El Camino College, Glendale College, Hawaii Pacific University, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, Los Angeles City College, Mount Saint Mary’s University, Pasadena City College, Sacramento State University, San Francisco State University, Santa Ana College, Santa Monica College, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, University of New England, USC, West Los Angeles College, Westminster College, and Yale University.”
When we practice non-racist methods of educating our children, we grow them as competent scholars, as in Synergy academies, where they are given safe and secure homes and where they are taught to be honest, exemplary, respectful and open-minded.
We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been – a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. [or corrected for precise terms to be used.] Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Somewhere where we can be free.
From Warrior Goddess Training, posted by @the_mind_body_spirit_tribe on Instagram
I am because you are! Nothing less, nothing more, all of us are equal and are all God’s beloved. #BLACKLIVESMATTER #ALLLIVESMATTER
I think the time is right and the ground is fertile for us to make progress as a state and to come together and remove the Confederate battle flag from prominent statue outside the Statehouse and put it in the museum. It is time to acknowledge our past, atone for our sins and work towards a better future. That future must be built on symbols of peace, love, and unity. That future cannot be built on symbols of war, hate, and divisiveness. I am aware of my heritage. But my appreciation for the things that my forebearers accomplished to make my life better doesn’t mean that I must believe that they always made the right decisions and, for the life of me, I will never understand how anyone could fight a civil war based, in part, on the desire to continue the practice of slavery. Think about it for just a second. Our ancestors were literally fighting to continue to keep human beings as slaves and continue the unimaginable acts that occur when someone is held against their will. I am not proud of this heritage. These practices were inhumane and were wrong, wrong, wrong. Now we have these hate groups and the symbols that they use to remind African Americans that things haven’t changed and that they are still viewed as less than equal human beings. Well, let me tell you: Things have changed. Overwhelmingly, people are not being raised to hate or to believe that they are superior to others based on the color of their skin. My generation was raised to respect all people, of every race, religion, and gender…I am proud to be on the right side of history regarding the removal of this symbol of racism and bigotry from the statehouse. But let it not satisfy us to stop there. Justice by halves is not justice.
Sen. Paul Thurmond, June 19, 2015
Will America succeed in shedding its presumptions that only White is right? Or White is Might? The concept, amongst holdovers from the confederate days, that America must be a Whites-only Nation?
We have long allowed racists to dominate our conversations in government. Because their opinions are shockingly filled with hatred, we have kept our mouths shut. We have even allowed Catholics to be seduced by racists, such that their unconscious messages have gone on the airwaves, without proper filters from their content editors, and shared in our inboxes.
During the campaign period to elect Pres. Barack Obama in 2008, I received emails from conservative Catholics, preaching not to elect Barack Obama, as he would become a Nazi Hitler in office. I replied, how many million Jews died at the hands of this US Senator? I asked the sender to be conscious of the hatred in her email, to which she replied, “but I did not react to your email about McCain.” I told her my email about McCain simply shared his track record. In my reply, I changed her subject heading and did not forward the offensive email about the President.
Should we now, as a group of Filipino-Americans, take a stand to filter out hateful emails, from the outside world, to not internally pollute our community’s inboxes? Should we not, as a community say this should not be shared, as we have long been accepting of all races? That Filipinos have been productive workers in 198 countries in the world and hence, we make room for all kinds of folks in the Philippines? What about here in America? Should that be our stance as world-class Filipinos, and by our institutions, as well?
I recall a subscribers-only cable television network ask a question to Filipinos, sort of a survey to determine our subscribers’ opinion about allowing the incumbent Pres. Barack Obama to send troops to Syria and to declare a war. I challenged this network to check their facts and to figure out which branches of US government has the authority to declare war. While Pres. Obama is our commander-in-chief, he has shown caution in how he deployed troops, and at that time, he was seeking diplomatic solutions in Syria. Clearly, the misinformation was calculated to dissuade folks from not reelecting this Democratic President, just before his 2012 reelection.
Should we allow the dominance of this cable television network to sponge off voters through unethical misinformation? Should we ask them instead to host town hall meetings about issues we care about: education, immigration reform, jobs, small businesses, and health care?
I recall the US Catholic Conference of Bishops circulated a flyer to US Catholics asking them to lobby US Congress to oppose the Affordable Health Care Act in a rich zip code church. The US Bishops wrongfully believed the Affordable Health Care Act was promoting abortion, through the use of birth control pills, which they called abortifacient drugs. I personally challenged this misinformation by citing facts from the Mayo Clinic and reputable medical sources on the true nature of birth control pills, as not causing abortion, and the specific statutory language on the Affordable Health Care Act, as not covering abortions.
But as Catholic lay leaders, who were privy to these flyers, should we have challenged the practice and pointed them to reputable medical sources that birth control pills are not abortifacient drugs?
Do we allow our faith and our science to be corrupted for the wrong reasons, to protect the Catholic institutional coffers so they need not pay medical health premiums for their employees?
Do we allow our consciences to be dormant, warped for expediency, just because they came from institutions, even when they plainly disseminate information that clearly negates science and truth, like the instances I described here?
We have stayed quiet while racist commentators, the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the talk show host like Bill O’Reilly rudely interrupt and disrespect women, as if those are acceptable behaviors, or cable news commentators, birthers, senators, congressional leaders, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spew out falsehoods, targetting the incumbent in the White House, projecting every mistake they could find. We have allowed inappropriateness and unethical behaviors to be popularized.
We relied on President Barack Obama, Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow to do the critical thinking for us and to say these are not acceptable and decent behaviors. We did not stand up to say: enough Fox News, we will not tolerate your way of reporting news without factual basis, much like what the Great Britain readers did to the Murdoch-owned newspapers who wrongfully spied on their public figures. We kept silent to wrongdoings, as the FCC stayed silent, which respectable broadcasters would not have been allowed, the likes of Tim Russert, Harry Reasoner and even Peter Jennings. We enabled wrongdoers by numbing ourselves to say, that “Black teenager must have it coming to him,” only to find out that he was about to graduate from high school.
Or did we kill the messenger by saying, “Oh that person was a detractor,” and enabled what was wrong, without standing up for truth and our collective consciences?
When unarmed young black men were being killed by police in uniform, did we come out in indignation? Did we speak out like Chloe Dichoso, a sophomore at Salesian College Preparatory, who wants us to acknowledge our broken world? Or South Carolina state Sen. Paul Thurmond who understands his heritage, yet critiques it for how it dehumanizes sectors of folks? We must repair our brokenness, as America, to recognize that #blacklivesmatter and that #allhumanbeingsmatter, that we are all beloved children of God, and to keep the Confederate flag relegated as a museum artifact, and diligently snuff out racism from our collective consciousness.
Broken World
by Chloe Dichoso (a Northern Californian poet who won second place in the Mt. Diablo Art and Creative Writing Contest)
Look amid the broken walls
Of man’s hatred
Resurrected from stems of history
Mere fights of wasted pursuits
Lead to carcasses–
Piles and piles of fallen people
Heaped on the shoulders of the world
Do you not hear the world crying?
The mother weeps for her son
The woman weeps for her husband
A child left in broken streets
Cries for a guardian
The land is torn
A world of battlefields
In man’s greed
Of garbage of plastic and fuel
Exploded as useless feces
Breathed in as toxins
Igniting violence and ignorance
Is this the world you long to live in?
The people who once did not have a voice
Will soon rise
Ushering the corner stone
To the ends of the earth
Spread as a message for all
Until this earth stands united,
Together, hand in hand,
Our world will fall
Remaining in the chains we’ve held since the dawn of man
None of that required Dolezal to be black. In fact, civil rights battles benefit from the support of white allies. When I was in high school, my black history teacher was a white woman who pushed us to dispatch propaganda and seek truth. We learned that skin color wasn’t a measure of commitment. She was so in tune with her students – on a campus where almost every student was black- that lack of melanin never mattered. Her honesty did. The long-running lie is the most craven part of Dolezal’s charade.
Sandy Banks, Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2015
Rachel Dolezal recently resigned from being the president of the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington chapter, after her own parents disclosed she is Caucasian by birth, unlike her self-assertion, “I identify as Black.” She was elected to head the NAACP’s Spokane chapter in Nov. 2014, after James Wilburn expressed hope that the chapter can be revitalized, given inactive committees.
It was as if James Wilburn was hoping for a light to shed the darkness from this organization. But the justification of voting her into office has cast more darkness on this illustrious group, and now part of America’s national conversations.
Sandy Banks wrote in the Los Angeles Times that “Dolezal had the style right, but the substance was wrong. Seriously wrong,” and her essay was entitled “Dolezal’s black deception.”
What are the lessons that we can learn from “Dolezal’s charade”?
Dolezal, carefully constructed her identity as an “authority” on Blacks, including leading teach-ins in Spokane. Her popularity grew since her Nov. 2014 election to head the NAACP and became a member of the Police Oversight Committee, voted by the city council. Her fabricated identity was revealed when The Couer d’ Alene Press in Idaho published an interview with her birth parents, Ruth Anne and Larry Dolezal, that she is actually Caucasian at birth, with photos of her as a blonde young woman. Her mother, Ruth Anne Dolezal of Troy, Mont. told People Magazine, “She’s not being rational.”
So, what is the fuss about?
Enrique, my husband, offered this critique, “What is the harm in overreaching as an African-American ally? After all, even the NAACP said that they have had whites before in leadership?”
To which I said, “Yes, the organization has collective wisdom, perhaps a higher level than a single individual.” He then questioned the media frenzy, which surrounded this controversy, without illuminating identity, but more precisely, validating the “social construct” of racial categories of White and Black races. He suggested, “Why not look at her track record?”
But as we both question the media’s treatment of this topic, must we not challenge our own biases?
The Spokesman-Review, based in Spokane, quoted Michelle Nealy, a spokeswoman for the national chapter in Baltimore, Md.: ”One’s racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership. For 106 years, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has held a long and proud tradition of receiving support from people of all faiths, races, colors and creeds. NAACP Spokane Washington Branch President Rachel Dolezal is enduring a legal issue with her family, and we respect her privacy in this matter.”
But the city council was perturbed and cited instances of Dolezal’s inability to keep police oversight issues confidential, and the city council voted to remove her, as part of their Police Oversight Committee.
Deception is not colored black, nor white, it is unethical
In Dolezal’s case, she did not reveal a material trait that she has, that of being born to Caucasian parents, Ruth Anne and Larry Dolezal, which is deception. In the legal world, fraud is defined as the omission of a material fact or highlighting something inconsequential as significant.
Rachel Dolezal went on national television with Samantha Guthrie of NBC News to question who has witnessed her birth, when her birth certificate was issued a month and a half later?
While it is commonplace now to change one’s graying hair to different colors, with some Pinays becoming blondes for months or years, her “makeover” did not stop at hair. She assumed a space in the African –American community as one of them, voted in as one of their leaders, without revealing who she was, justifying it as she was not asked about her race. When asked now by Samantha Guthrie, she responded elusively, “I identify as black.”
I was educated by my gay son, Carlo, about the distinction of being a parent of a gay son and that of being gay. He told me I am an ally because my identity is not gay, and my experiences do not include being discriminated as a gay person, nor do I have that as part of my core personal identity.
Identity is fluid, amorphous and liquid
It is interesting to have two philosophers, Enrique and Kenneth, share perspectives on identities, one summer evening at dinner. Enrique has a doctorate in philosophy at UCLA and taught at UCLA and Cal State Northridge, while Kenneth Masong, a priest, has a doctorate in philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, taught at Ateneo, and wrote a book, Becoming-Religion, now published by UST Press.
We were eating with a group of friends when their perspectives on identity converged, perhaps, a result of common authors which they have studied and critiqued.
Enrique described, “identity as fluid and amorphous” while Kenneth, another philosopher, used these words, “identity is liquid” including a self-reflective question: “Was I the same Kenneth of 10 years ago to the Kenneth now? I would say not. But is the Kenneth now so fundamentally different from that of ten years ago. Again, there lies the accommodation, of what is and what is not. Identity is liquid.”
Both philosophers described identities as an evolving dynamic, influenced, and changed by our circumstances, a result of our presence and interaction with our environment.
But what did Rachel Dolezal do? She became more than a self-described ally to Blacks. She was not transparent about who she really is, instead assumed an alternate identity as a Black character, perhaps, with presumably Black experiences, including eight hate crimes perpetrated on her bio, as if a badge of honor to a Black person. She led the Black community in Spokane in a teach-in.
It was implying to the world that she has been part of those victimized by police, who are killing unarmed teenagers, without revealing who she truly is: a white person of privilege. It was a breach of public trust from a person who became part of a century-old organization that is quite respected.
Latoya Peterson, a writer, shared her views on Fusion.net: “But it is about a deep, cultural understanding – I assume if a black woman is on a seat of authority, she’s already grappled with the mandate to life as you climb, she already knows the half as good/twice as far truism. You know what it is? It’s a colonizer mindset. What I see, I am entitled to. I think those of us who are black are taught pride in the face of discrimination, and go through at least some process of reckoning to understand who we are in America and how that shapes us. And the spaces that came out of that, be it the NAACP or Essence, were confronting this culture, these dominant narratives of whiteness, and challenging them. To have a person who hasn’t walked that kind of path, and understood on a deep level, why the fight has to continue is something that honestly, could imperil these institutions.”
Was Rachel Dolezal being non-racist in switching identities, to embrace folks of color as now part of her inborn culture? That indeed, we are all part Black, part White, part Asian, part Latino, and therefore, part of the human race?
Danielle Henderson, another writer’s perspective on Fusion.net, has this to say: “And Dolezal, too, in a way — she wasn’t just black, she was peak blackness. A professor. President of the NAACP. She only played with blackness in a way that elevated her status. We have so few pathways to respectability as black women, and she co-opted all of them.”
I believe the NAACP has been inclusive in its choice of leaders, over its century of existence. It continues a tradition that the civil rights movement was more than a Black experience– that it was led by majority Blacks, and supported by Whites as allies, with Asians, like Grace Lee Boggs, and even Latinos, to form a movement of enlightened Americans.
What gives me hope in America is we are now openly discussing what are these social constructs, what are identities, including a show called “Your face sounds familiar” of Pinoy and Pinay performers impersonating singing personalities, including Iggy Azalea.
In the mind of writer Danielle Henderson, “Iggy Azalea comes to mind here, too—she constantly talks about her love of rap while denigrating the culture that created it. It’s a very strange cultural blind spot.” While Latoya Peterson asserts, “To me, what’s fascinating about all this is how it shows that race, racism, and racial identity are such convoluted topics. Rachel Dolezal is ridiculous, right? But it’s only because her background didn’t match. If she looked the way she did (tanning, blonde dreads and all) and had at least one parent that [identified] as black, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Whereas someone else, like say, our current President, can look black, and have a black parent, and identify as black, and experience the type of discrimination that black men experience in America and still have people both (1) deny his blackness and (2) deny his right to self-identify.”
But what is even more fascinating is Caitlyn Jenner, formerly Bruce Jenner, who crosses gender boundaries, and assumes a new female identity, even if her biological sexual features are male.
“Life is a journey towards meaningful existence. Holiness is the realization that the journey itself is at the heart of becoming Divine. This is becoming-religious, and when the journey is a journey of togetherness towards The Harmony of Harmonies, the sojourn of all is Becoming-Religion,” wrote Fr. Kenneth Masong.
I believe if we are in alignment with our innate divine, we become what God has meant us to be, growing as sources of light.
Happy Father’s and Grandfather’s day to all AJ readers, who helped give birth and raise children on this earth!
I am grateful to God, my creator and my father, Eleazar, who was called “Christmas,” a helpful, generous, dedicated and compassionate man, a gardener of many souls and sweet fruits. Oh how I wish we are in conversation today!
“But he [George Moriarty] wrote something where I think he did what I tried to do in this [John Wooden] pyramid. He called it the road ahead or the road behind. He said, “Sometimes, I think the fates must grin as we denounce them and insist the only reason we can’t win is the fates themselves have missed. Yet there lives on the ancient claim we win or lose within ourselves. The shining trophies on our shelves can never win tomorrow’s game. You and I know deeper down, there’s always a chance to win the crown. But when we fail to give our best, we simply haven’t met the test of giving all and saving none until the game is really won, of showing what is meant by grit; of playing through when others quit; of playing through, not letting up. It’s bearing down that wins the cup. Of dreaming, there’s a goal ahead; of hoping when our dreams are dead; of praying when our hopes have fled; yet losing, not afraid to fall, if bravely, we have given all. For who can ask more of a man than giving all within his span. Giving all, it seems to me, is not so far from victory. And so the fates are seldom wrong, no matter how they twist and wind, it’s you and I who make our fates – we open up or close the gates on the road ahead or the road behind.” — George Moriarty quoted by Coach John Wooden, TED Talks.
The cup at the finish line is for the clients, for most lawyers. To super lawyers with a heart for those unfairly treated, that cup of justice includes behavioral corrections. While for those with sharp-edged consciences aligned to what is a just and level playing field, it includes game-changing practices, balancing industry profits, with honor and dignity, to the employees and their families.
Attorney C. Joe Sayas, Jr. is a game changer for the port trucking industry, a lawyer/visionary who worked to change the business models of port trucking firms. Protected by a complex labyrinth of sister companies making it quite difficult to pierce the corporate veils of these shipping firms, Atty. Sayas’s team succeeded in obtaining evidence of who benefitted from these unfair practices of misclassifying truck drivers as independent contractors when in fact, these port truck drivers are employees.
The win in Taylor vs. Shippers Transport Express, Inc. No. 2:13-cv-02092 (C.D. May 11, 2015) has resulted in the payments of back wages to 540 “wronged” port truck drivers in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland. The drivers were once wrongfully classified as “independent contractors”, allowing the companies to deduct business costs from drivers’ pay and failing to pay for hours worked while under the control of these companies.
It was an astounding gross settlement of back wages to be paid to 540 truck drivers, an amount of $11,040,000. It is estimated that the Class Administrator will distribute these checks, after proper accounting, to the port truck drivers by the summer end of this year. It will be an early Christmas for their families, including their covered health benefits. This case has also influenced the US Department of Labor to clarify the category definition of independent contractors, announcing it in their May 2015 monthly newsletter from the Secretary of Labor that the department is currently working on this issue.
Atty. Sayas underscored that the win came with a team of professional lawyers (Matthew Hayes, Karl Evangelista, Kye Pawlenko) and expert witnesses who have been strong advocates of justice for the truck drivers. The lawsuit was vigorously contested by Shippers Transport Express and SSA Marine, Inc, the biggest marine terminal operator in North America, undoubtedly with very deep pockets to hire big-time defense firms (Gordon & Rees LLP; Susman Godfrey LLP).
Three years ago, Atty. Sayas was warned by the opposition that the trucking company would not change its business model of classifying the drivers. Hence the message was that they were in for a long fight. At that time, he could remember that character. The Navy diver, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr., who was trying to be the first black driver with the US Navy in the film, “Men of Honor.” He was asked why he wanted so much to be a diver, and his response was: “I want it because they said I could not have it!”
During a visit to Atty. Sayas’ Glendale law firm, this writer saw several Super Lawyer plaques and framed newspaper headlines for clients’ wins, including a quote from Hon. Margaret Morrow on Bato vs. Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings: “Given the factual difficulties plaintiffs faced gathering evidence to prove their claims, it appears that counsel achieved an excellent result.”
While the defense’s visit might have made one’s resolve quiver, Atty Sayas pursued certification of the lawsuit as a class action, benefitting similarly situated plaintiffs.
The daunting process of evidence gathering in this class action included taking 57 depositions, including those of key critical decision makers, talking to hundreds of truck drivers personally, and in town hall meetings where information was gathered and disseminated. More than ten motions were filed and aggressively opposed and argued in court. Pursuing an elaborate electronic discovery, Atty. Sayas’ team, which included computer experts, eventually obtained and reviewed more than a million pages of paper and electronic documents. Finding compelling evidence that well supported the drivers’ claims, the team stood ready for trial.
Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell of the US District Court for the Central District of California highlighted the significance of this game-changing lawsuit in her decision:
“… [As] Defendants ‘are major players in the port-trucking and marine terminal industries.’… The reclassification may encourage other businesses within the industry to follow suit. In short, the non-monetary relief obtained here represents a “special circumstance” that justifies an upward enhancement from the benchmark.”
Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell also increased the fees to 33.33 percent, instead of the standard 25 percent attorneys’ fees, recognizing, “Given the significant time and energy class counsel have skillfully devoted to this case, this factor favors a finding that the proposed fee request is reasonable.”
Challenging the industry’s business model
For years, the port trucking industry profited, with dishonor, from deducting the expenses of fuel, insurance, and truck repairs from these truck drivers, whose primary work was driving trucks under the strict control of these trucking companies.
When the truck drivers were injured while during the scope of doing their driving duties, they and their families were left without the required protections of workmen’s compensation insurance.
“With the unfair practices stopped, they are now paid for every hour worked, provided with retirement benefits, paid medical and dental leaves, and medical and dental insurance for drivers and their family dependents. In the end, hundreds of deserving workers (and others more to be hired) are and will be entitled to significant employment benefits. It is a great feeling to have made a difference in the lives of these workers and their families!” Atty. Sayas shared with the Asian Journal.
Where the resolve to fight comes from
Atty. Sayas shared his life’s mission, “from success to significant impact on people’s lives.”
When he was younger, the drive to succeed in his career was ambition-driven, but as he met his career goals, it became more than a “career win” it became more of transcending oneself, and instead, a relevance that benefits many, “giving me a very compelling source of energy, an empowerment from within, my faith.”
At every procedural obstacle, he kept regrouping and analyzing with his team what resources he could use. “I had to strengthen myself daily, to pray for courage, and I did not get it instantly. God gives you challenges, you rise above them, [and] and that develops character. [Challenges] give you a firmer stomach and a thicker skin; it gives you the strength to withstand a crisis. You don’t win all the time. But you must stand up from every fall. With litigation, you are prepared to win, but you must not be afraid to lose, ”Atty. Sayas continued.
He used the metaphor of a basketball game, much like what he told the kids in a basketball camp: “it is about doing your play in a different basketball court, as opposed to just your home court advantage. It is about realizing the time on the clock and carrying yourself to the final minute, not losing your head, but growing with your team and staying on top of the game strategies as their basketball captain. I will not know all of [the] hundreds of case elements, but together, the team does, and not to lose patience and faith.”
Much like what Coach John Wooden shared in his TED talk about his UCLA basketball youngsters, hundreds and hundreds of them, who grew to become 30 attorneys, 11 dentists, and many doctors, teachers, and other professionals, all learned his pyramid, the top two, faith, and patience.
The next time you are on the road, wave to that port truck driver “trucking” that cargo from the port. They may not be as irate, for now, they have been treated fairly as the law provides, thanks to Atty. Joe Sayas and his team!
