"The worst mistake we could make in this time of rallies and marches would be to demand too little!"

June 20, 2020, 1:28pm.  I've just finished participating in the Mass Assembly of the Poor People's Campaign.  I was lucky that I had a great "bus ride" with friends and family.  We laughed and joked, and explained the snacks and books we'd brought for the ride.  We needed this virtual bus to replace the long-awaited bus we were planning to take to Washington.  At 10am, we "arrived" and went to the Assembly, keeping in touch by text, which is the way to "share" an event these days.

The goal of the Assembly was to change the narrative by changing the narrators, and thereby to help us actually see the depth and breadth of the pain of the 140 million poor and low-wealth people in our country. So many people spoke, about so many issues, in short chapters. Women are suffering, let's hear from women. Mass incarceration is choking us, let's hear from the formerly incarcerated. Native communities are suffering, let's hear from them.

Let's hear from them.

I know all of these stories, and am constantly, in my own teaching and writing, trying to get across this point. But nothing I could say could equal the power of this time hearing from people speaking about their struggles. As an American, I am horrified. As a physician, I am crying -- 700 people a day die from poverty, that was before Covid-19, and you could see the weathering in the speakers' bodies and their faces and their voices.

Reverend William Barber II cautioned us that the worst mistake we could make in this time of rallies and marches would be to demand too little. The Assembly was designed to hammer home the lesson that, "The political and economic systems in the U.S. are plagued by the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, militarism and a war economy, ecological devastation and a distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism."

No single demand could undo this -- it is truly an ecology of inequality. Therefore the Poor People's Campaign has pushed for a complex of demands carried by a moral fusion coalition. It is the combination of the two -- complex demands and the moral fusion coalition -- that are the right way forward in these times.

Reverend Barber asked us to each take an inventory of our time on this earth. Not to be morbid, he said, but we've seen how fast and unexpectedly life could end. "If," he asked, "you knew you had 48 hours to live, what would you fight for with your last breath?"

For me, the answer is simple. My life has been about wrapping my mind around the epidemics affecting poor and minority communities, trying to understand the way out of this mess. With my last breath, I'd say, "Join the Poor People's Campaign." If you didn't get to see the Assembly this morning, watch at 6pm tonight or when they post the recording. It lights the way. As they said over and over, "Somebody's hurting our people.  It's gone on far too long, and we won't be silent anymore."

Coronavirus: Every attack on the poor must embolden our agitation!

Back at the beginning of shelter-in-place, I said there were five tasks we had to do to stay same and come out alive.  One was that we must fight for justice.  The outpouring of people into the streets demanding justice makes sense in a time when our fractured, abusive system is laid bare by the deadly progression of coronavirus through the land.

For four years, the 400 Years of Inequality Project has held up the work of Reverend Dr. William Barber II as charting the path away from inequality towards a nation truly for all.  When the Poor People's Campaign announced the Assembly in Washington on June 20th, we pointed our work in that direction.

The time has come.  There are two events we're doing to lead up to the Assembly at 10am this Saturday.

Tonight, we're holding a workshop on the People's Platform for Equity that we wrote based on our 4 years of examining the problem of inequality, including all the observances we got to attend of the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown.  You can join us at tonight (June 17th) at 7pm for an explanation of the People's Platform and how we got there.

Saturday, we've organized a "virtual" bus that will get you to the Assembly on time!  Join us at 9:30am to share signs and chants, as we "go" to Washington to hear the voices of the poor and dispossessed.  Here's a short video from the Poor People's Campaign that will give you a taste of what's to come!

And of course there's the June 20th Assembly of Poor People's Campaign.  Part protest and part programmatic organizing, this Assembly will us get on the same page about the demands we need to place on our governments, local, state and federal, to stop the abuse of the poor, which translates to the abuse of us all.  It will be a crucial moment in this charged era.

Join us!

Be there!

Coronavirus: How We Help -- Gifts for the Spirit

Collective recovery is all about knowing that there is an "us" which has been wounded in this period.  We've been wounded by death, by illness, by intense strain, by retreating away from each other, by the failure of businesses and organizations that have anchored our lives.  We have lost touch with one another in ways that we will never know, except in the deep foreboding that "things have changed."

There is no amount of individual therapy that can heal "us."  This is something we have to do together.  People know this intuitively, but when we articulate collective recovery, we can do it faster and more thoroughly.  Here's what we need to know:

THE THREE GOALS

• Heal the suffering of the individuals;
• Heal the fractures among our communities;
• Undo the inequality which has intensified this catastrophe and hobbled us from managing it.

THE KEY IS TO MOBILIZE OUR ORGANIZATIONS:

• Our organizations are key to getting it done fast and well;
• Our organizations must reconnect in three directions -- from each organization to its constituents. from the organizations to the other organizations, and from the coalition of organizations to our policymakers;
• Every organization has a role to play, from those as small as the Youth Choir in a church to those as large as the American Medical Association.  

What I want to do in a series of posts is to share stories of organizations that are doing their part.  There are an infinite number of ways organizations can contribute. Let us start with GIFTS FOR THE SPIRIT, because we need this to keep up the motivation for the long haul of safe transition, possible new waves of infection and rebuilding what has been damaged.

The formal and informal networks of musicians of New Orleans, activated by Wynton Marsalis, recorded a second line for all of us. My friend Sarah Townley texted some of us in her network her prayers for Dr. James Mahoney, who died while tending patients in Brooklyn.  I shared the Second Line link with her and she wrote back, "Thank you for this -- this got Cecilia and I doing a kitchen dance. So moving. So necessary."

Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church took to the streets of Queens to bring church to the people.  Rev. Peter Purpura with a small procession walked the neighborhood of Middle Village and met with parishioners who have set up small tables with worship items to meet with him.

The Poor People's Campaign's "Stay in Place, Stay Alive, Organize and Don't Believe the Lies" has asked artists to make posters with those slogans.  This one arrived in my inbox today.  Its coherent, joyful message lifted my spirits, assuring me that I am NOT alone is hating the injustice that permeates our nation and has made this pandemic so horrible for us.

Coronavirus: Why fighting inequality will make you feel better

When have I ever seen so much information about inequality in the media?  Basically never.  The surprise is NOT that the fractures in society are the crevices along which the epidemic is flowing.  The surprise is that we are given such detailed and honest reporting about every facet of it.  We are not left in the dark to wonder about injustice: we get the headlines every morning.

When matters are so clear, people can take positions with confidence and indeed, the pressure to take a position mounts.  Acting NOW becomes important, but it is attended by fears and risks.  How, then, does it make us feel better?

Fighting inequality makes us feel better in quite a number of ways.  Here are just three that I find very important.

First, you shed lies, and this is very good for mental health.  In the ecology of inequality, everybody is caught in the trap of lies.  Either you think you're a victim of inequality or you think you're not.  Neither is precisely true.  "Victims" are victims+winners -- winners because they are spared the need to believe in all the lies that justify inequality.  "Non-victims" are non-victims+losers -- losers because they may profit but have to buy into the lies.  Buying lies is bad for your psyche and your character.  Recognizing the simple truth that we're all caught in the same system is profoundly liberating.

Second, you acknowledge relationship and can bring it into right relation.  The deep global crisis of our times is about relationship -- relationship with the environment, with other people, with other countries, with the future.  This simple diagram is designed to show that "inequality" is a relationship between two people.

This is a relationship built on harm.  By getting rid of the harm, we release a lot of energy that can be put to good use.  This is wonderful for mental health.  And this is something pretty much all of us have experienced, as when we used our strength or power to harm a weaker person, maybe a little brother or sister.  When we stopped doing that, it was better all around.

Third, you prevent even worse harm.  Having recognized all facets of the ecology of inequality in our society, we turn a blind eye to it at our own peril.  The system is not working to equalize resources and opportunity but rather to concentrate them in the hands of fewer and fewer people.  If we want to fix this, we must act.  NOW is a good time, before things get even worse.  It is a great feeling to know that we're contributing to a better future.

If you want to feel better and you're ready to act NOW, that's great.  If you're wondering how to start, here are some ideas I have:

It's always good to get the big picture.  Over the next few days, find all the articles in the news about different kinds of inequality that are showing up in this pandemic.  What's happening to racial minorities?  What's happening to women?  What's happening to immigrants?  What's happening with low-wage workers?  What's happening with the food supply?  What's happening to hospitals in poor neighborhoods?  There are many parts to this struggle which are in evidence at the moment -- good to know how big and complex the problem is. There are also a plethora of webinars going on now, teaching about the effects of inequality on the pandemic and helping people think what to do about it.

Think about what you'd like to see in the future.  What should it look like when we emerge from the this painful but necessary managed retreat?  This is what I call "finding what you're FOR."

Start at home.  How can there be equality in your house, block and workplace?  Who does chores?  Who gets paid how much?  These are issues in the lives of all of us.

Join an organization that's working towards the goals that you're FOR.  There are lots to chose from.  I think the Poor People's Campaign is in the forefront.  I am also really proud of the work my former student Jacqueline Martinez-Garcel and her colleagues are doing at the Latino Community Foundation.  Maybe it's your block association or Black Lives Matter that calls to you at this moment.  Whatever it is, go for it.

Together, we can win a future for all of us.

Coronavirus: Making the moral response to the pandemic

Last night, March 26th, I attended a wonderful and inspiring Facebook Live event of the Poor People's Campaign, which is going digital, given the need for all of us to shelter in place.

This morning I got an email from AMA President Patrice Harris, which said:

The AMA is pressing the President and his administration to use all levers to help you on the front lines, including an urgent appeal to use the Defense Production Act to immediately increase the domestic production of PPE, medical supplies and equipment. 

We are teaming up with the American Hospital Association and American Nursing Association to get financial assistance for physicians and to urge the public to STAY HOME.

What immediately struck me was how short her list of allies was: AMA, AHA, and ANA are important, but it is clear that we need to go into this fight for a moral response to the pandemic with much more power.  Why isn't the Poor People's Campaign listed as an ally in the fight to save the lives of our health care professional?  One consequence of the inexcusable mismanagement of this epidemic will be the deaths of doctors, nurses, x-ray technicians, respiratory therapists and others who have responded to the moral calling of their professions, but without adequate back-up from the nation.

We have to be acting in a moral manner if we are going to ask them to do so.

Reverend William Barber, who is a leader of the Poor People's Campaign developed the seminal idea of the moral fusion coalition while serving as President of the NAACP in North Carolina.  He observed that there were many small and siloed organizations fighting for justice, each with its own issue.  He asked them to come together, recognizing that they had different issues but a common enemy.  Together those small groups formed the powerful "Moral Monday Movement."  It is an important truth in American history that great victories have been won by coalitions.  The moral fusion coalition is the coalition we need at this moment to fight for us to be on the right side of history.

What are the demands of a moral response to the pandemic?

Who are the organizations that will join this moral fusion coalition?

Coronavirus: Getting through this moment

A perspective developed with the advice and help of Lourdes Rodriguez, Nupur Chaudhury, and the Cities Research Group of the University of Orange

I’m a social psychiatrist, which means that I study the way social structures affect mental health.  In the course of my life, I’ve had the opportunity to get up close and personal with a series of epidemics that struck the inner-city in the 1980s and 1990s.  That era of “mad” plagues – as the kids used to say – included AIDS, crack, violence related to crack, mental illness related to violence, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, asthma and obesity.  Just as that was calming down, 9/11 shook things up again.  The stress, trauma and sheer cussedness of those times gave me lots of opportunity to learn about the structure, function and outcome of social upheaval. 

One of the aspects of churning that is essential to know is that each moment is different from the last – we are moving through a rapidly changing space of interaction and we are responding to what the moment presents.  Each moment is new and largely unpredictable.  It is similar to the feeling I had in the Loma Pieta Earthquake of 1989 – the World Series Earthquake – when the building was moving beneath my feet and each second was different from the last.  Then it stopped and we could crawl through stairways to the streets.  Where the next thing happened.  And so it went for months, ending for me when I moved back to New Jersey, onto solid ground. 

We are in this process of rapid change from one unknown to another, and we are and will be behind on getting our bearings.  There is, I have learned from watching many of these, a strategy for getting through this that will help to stabilize or least calm us as we are going through this.  When we are calm, we can tend to others, and they can tend to others and we can all get through this. 

This strategy, which our team at the Community (now Cities) Research Group developed in 2001-2002 following the collapse of the Twin Towers, is called “collective recovery.”  We identified four crucial group tasks in collective recovery:

●      Remember,

●      Respect,

●      Learn, and

●      Connect. 

We must remember history, in this case, that massive disasters have happened before.  As one sage put it, the Renaissance followed the Bubonic Plague.  We must show respect for all people.  It is easy to stigmatize and discriminate, but those actions intensify the disaster and push us away from recovery.  We must learn.  We have never seen this situation before, therefore we must be “citizen scientists” studying what it is about.  And we must examine the ecological situation for clues about its deeper origins.  Finally, we must connect.  At every moment, we need to deepen, expand and strengthen our connections to others.  This was never truer than in this moment when physical distance is the core of pandemic management.

In this phase of the pandemic, we can use collective recovery principles for “getting through the disaster.” In public health parlance, this is secondary prevention, in which we try to limit the harms unleashed by a destructive process.

Getting through the disaster

Turn on the Love

The first part of getting through a disaster is to recognize the difference between love and fear.  This might seem obvious – and perhaps it is – but there is a lot of each floating around.  Fear is normal in such situations but must be contained and minimized because 1) it doesn’t help and 2) it can really hurt.  Fear let loose on the self becomes panic, let loose on others becomes stigma and worse. 

Love, on the other hand, is profoundly useful in these situations.  It empowers us to do our best for ourselves, our families and our world.  People in disasters have a built-in need to “do something” to help.  This has gotten our species through many a hard time, and it is needed now.  Fear turns off love, makes us want to retreat from the threat.  Love turns off fear and helps us approach the need that is presented to us.

An example of love at work: a man in Pennsylvania was getting ready to close his distillery as a non-essential business, when he became angry at reports of skyrocketing prices of hand sanitizer. The distiller realized he could make hand sanitizer with the alcohol he had on hand and give it away for free or for at-will donations. 

Turning on the love keeps you from overreacting and restores your calm in those moments when you need it most.

Pay attention to this week’s needs

Our needs change every day in a disaster situation.  While going through the aftermath of 9/11, I found that the cover of New York Magazine was the best indicator of the feeling tone of the city.  They really had their ears to the ground.  I learned from them that I could do that, too.  Each of us can do “citizen science” by watching our social media feed, seeing what the newspapers are reporting, and listening to the emotions our friends and family are sharing.  A meme from NY Week 1 said, “Relationships aren’t cancelled.”  Another from NY Week 2 said, “It’s time to change from your daytime pajamas to your nighttime pajamas.” 

In this process, let go of the issues of last week – New Yorkers aren’t frantically buying toilet paper in week 2, they’re hysterical about working at home with kids out of school, or worse, of losing their income because they CAN’T leave home while the kids are out of school.  Or they’re hysterical because they must go to work and there are no adequate protections in place, the complaints reported by those working for UPS and Amazon.

Note that I labelled the weeks by place, as we aren’t all on the same page.  Epidemics travel along a geographical hierarchy, meaning they get to the flyover states from the coast cities – there is a lag.  The lag is often interpreted as “it can’t happen here.”  Don’t buy that line of reasoning.  Use the time to listen to what other places are going through, then buy carefully.  You might skip the toilet paper craze and spend your time planning balanced menus.  I didn’t have an appreciation of variety, but you could learn from my mistake.  And be sure to get lots of Vitamin C, D, and zinc tabs to have on hand. 

The point of this citizen science is that you need to respond to this week’s challenges.  Start numbering the weeks with your group and sharing what you think are the big issues.  Then, together, look for strategies to solve the problems.  And know that the problems are time limited.  This week’s problems will be solved, or they will go away.  We don’t know why there was a run on toilet paper, but we can let that issue go and focus on the challenge of home-schooling our whole child-age population.  Did you ever think what a blessing the US has so many homeschoolers who’ve been doing this for a while?  What a resource in this moment!

Fight injustice

It is essential to fight the injustices that are being perpetrated at this moment in history.  As I noted earlier, injustice undermines secondary prevention, and expands the harms of the disaster.  Justice – love made visible – is the great force limiting the harm this pandemic will visit upon us.  There is injustice all around and there has been a sustained outcry against it, which we can all join.  We need unemployment insurance for everyone laid off, including all the “gig” workers without benefits.  It doesn’t matter if Uber drivers are so-called “independent” contractors: at this time, they’re out of work and need our help. 

We must turn on the money needed by people who will be or have been put out of work. For the most powerful force fighting injustice, I recommend connecting to the Poor People’s Campaign, which is launching a national effort for a moral response to the pandemic, and relying on guidance from key leaders in public health. 

It is also important that local organizations use their clout and their websites to share trusted public health information and ways to access resources.  Where I live, we’re using a health coalition website to address these needs.  It is a source known in the local community and the many coalition partners can all help with linkages and web development support.

Extend and strengthen your network

The US is a very fractured nation.  We are divided by race, class, gender, sexual orientation, region, political party, Coke vs. Pepsi: you name it, we’re divided by it.  This pandemic has fallen on a very weak body politic.  We aren’t looking out for one another.  Furthermore, our most important leaders have exploited our division to build their political power, which they are continuing to do as we move through this disaster. 

Our networks are formed within our groups, with all-too-few ties that might link one group to another.  While we must care for our families and our group – church, school and neighborhood – we must also seek to reach across division to help others who are different from ourselves.  This is the hardest thing to do in our society.  We have found, however, that every one of us has some connection across groups and each of these is unique.  By pooling our out-group connections, we can build a much wider set of relationships.  And if those people reach out, it becomes bigger still.  It’s like repurposing the webs of infection as the webs of protection.  In webs of infection, we want to cut face-to-face closecontact, increasing physical distance.  In webs of protection, we reach across the divisions to provide succor to everyone, eliminating social distance.  This is the moment to go through every single contact you have – even if you don’t remember who it is! – and send a note saying, "How are you holding up?"  Doing so may connect you to someone who needs a hand or who may be able to help you get through this time.

As one example, Doug Farrand, who heads the Music Department at the University of Orange, sent the UofO leadership a photo of a little boy named Jordan whistling while standing next to his drawing of himself whistling.  It felt to me like a window into another world and it lifted my spirits enormously that Doug was Jordan’s music teacher.  I can, in return, share with them, the ways in which I’m working with the team that cleans my house to implement mutual safety.  Doug doesn’t know my team, but I know it will lift his spirits to hear about this collaborative work we’re undertaking.  

We, the people, are very big and very powerful, if we but knew it. 

Build a personal foundation of spirit

We need spiritual support in these times.  In the aftermath of 9/11, our collective recovery work took us to labyrinths and art sessions, hikes and meditation.  On the first anniversary – September 11, 2002 – we spent the afternoon on the stairs at Union Square, sitting in the sun, and taking in the impromptu festival that was unfolding there. 

There is spirit everywhere – that is the point of spirit.  We need to pause to remember that!  We can build our confidence in spirit in many ways.  It could be that you choose to darn all the socks in your house, remembering all the places those socks took you and all the places they will take you.  It could be that you will practice trumpet, as Doug has been doing, very pleased with the sound he’s been getting.  It could be that you want to read War and Peace, as people convened by Yiyun Li are doing.  I am taking daily photos of my lilac bush, documenting its coming into bloom. I love this time of year, as I always think of Whitman’s line, “when lilacs last by the dooryard bloom’d.”  It reminds me that this time next year I will look back at all the things that I couldn’t see and couldn’t imagine, like this pandemic and who knows what else? 

Spirit is one resource that is available to each of us, no matter how rich or poor, sick or well.  My teacher, Dr. Michael O. Smith, once told me that anyone could sit on a bench, recognize the harms of addiction, and stop using drugs.  He was then working in the South Bronx at the height of the synergistic plagues of disinvestment, crack cocaine, AIDS and poverty. 

An invitation

Along with my colleagues at the University of Orange, and the Cities Research Group, I extend an invitation to you to join us in a journey of collective recovery.  We will be annotating the weeks and reminding ourselves and you to REMEMBER, RESPECT, LEARN AND CONNECT, as we move through this disaster with LOVE.