NY Dialogues: Gun Violence, Race and Gender Issues

For years, I’ve willed and participated in efforts to make my house a space for meaningful dialogue.  Since the end of 2017, I’ve had the joy of having Bina as a housemate, who has significantly increased the level of commitment to dialogue within the house.  We recognize our unique opportunity in New York to bring people from different backgrounds together under one roof to share in meaningful dialogue, community and fellowship with one another.  

The New York Dialogues started on January 20, 2018 and the second one was held April 8, 2018. Each dialogue has a theme; April's was Gun Violence, Race & Gender Issues.    

About 10 people gathered together and shared thoughts we had prepared in advance. Sara opened with a candle-lighting; recognizing that prayer does still matter, despite the emptiness felt in many previous Black Lives Matter vigils. Our hope for today is for meaningful change to come out of our discussion.  

Other thoughts shared:

·       Poetry: Black Man in America: An Endangered Species?   

·       Corporate power within the gun industry and its thirst for wealth, going so far as to even resist safety features, including childproofing, because it fears it will make cost more expensive for a price sensitive market

·       The U.S. is a signatory on the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which means we can drag the U.S. to an international court of justice. Nations were called to create national programs of action.

·       The UN declared guns are killing people all the way back in 2001

·       How news agencies systematically choose photos that demonize migrants by showing them in large groups versus humanizing them by showing close-ups and eye contact of individual human beings

·       How the world spends $1.4 trillion on weapons industry and how 55 cents of every dollar we pay in taxes goes to U.S. military expenditure

·       A true story with a positive outcome of turning the other cheek to a mugger in the Bronx

·       Breaking down the concept of “good guys with guns”

·       How one participant’s parents pulled him out of public school in Georgia after the public schools started arming teachers after the Columbine shooting, because the parents realized that if there was a breakout of shots, Black boys might be most likely to be shot first

·       80% of victims of gun violence are women and children

·       Every minute 20 people are displaced in the world, so 28,000 people are displaced every day

·       There may be somewhere between 2-4 million Syrian refugees outside of Syria, but 8 million refugees inside Syria, who no one ever talks about  

·       Books shared included:

o   Uncommon Valor by Melvin Claxton and Mark Puls

o   The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

o   Lethal But Legal: Corporations, Consumption and Public Health by Nicholas Freudenberg

·       Reflections: While there is a systemic nature of corporate power, and cycles of violence, there are also reminders of goodness. And when we appeal to someone’s inherent sense of good, we can overcome violence.  

·       We can process our pain through creative means. Syrian artist Rashwan Abdelbaki from the Artistic Freedom Initiative shared his art. I was particularly moved by the Last Supper, First Wall painting.

©Rashwan Abdelbaki
Titled: Last Supper .. First Wall
العشاء الأخير .. الجدار الأول
200 x 330 cm
Acrylic On Canvas
NYC 2017
#RashwanAbdelbaki #Art #Painting #NewYork#Virginia #NY #VA #Damascus #Rome #Beirut#Dubai #London #Vermont #Italy #Syria #Lebanon#UK #USA

(At first I thought he said "First World"...but really the meaning isn't much different, as it is in a "First World" country like the US that our president wants to build a wall.) I am particularly moved by this piece, because of the striking irony of the prisoners sitting behind a wall, at the table of the Last Supper. My tradition of Christianity/Catholicism teaches that the Last Supper was one where Jesus shared with us how we can partake in His divinity through sharing in His Body and Blood - a carnal image for sure, but one of ultimate sacrifice, and one that reminds Catholics of the beauty of the incarnation every time we celebrate the Mass at church. If those of us who truly believe that Jesus was communicating about the divinity we can all share with Him in - that each human being has a spark of the divine and deserves all the dignity and respect in the world - then what does a painting like this tell us about how well those of us who are Christians are living out this message? What would Jesus say if he were alive today and saw this painting? Because the message the painting communicates seems to me to be pretty much on the mark. There are many practicing Christians and others who are oppressed, who are prisoners in their own lives, stuck behind walls or silos of ignorance and fast-paced society that separate them from human compassion. To me this painting represents the base communities such as those that liberation theology stands for: Christians and others who respect Jesus' message, crying out to be heard, to be seen, to not just be regarded as "other" and treated brutally and often even killed, but instead treated as unique and dignified human beings who deserve to be listened to. I pray we can use this and other meaningful art such as this to spark dialogue for true inclusivity, hope, and change.