Remarks for OC Oraciones' 3rd Issue Launch Party

Hi all –

I am more confident in my commentaries on policing and "We the People" than when I published them. I do worry that I smudged a detail or two, threw down a hopelessly unclear sentence (or paragraph), or posed something which could be misinterpreted. And often those worries have turned into a torturous hypothesis: This is why I'm not being read. That'll float in my head, creating all manner of anxieties. "I'm unoriginal, derivative;" "I don't know how to say anything properly;" "My thinking is a mess."

But at this point in time, things must be said urgently. "Urgently" in two senses: they are necessary and of immediate importance. I cannot sweat who doesn't read or whether mistakes were made. Mistakes can be fixed, readers can be found, but opportunities to advocate must be taken. We drown nowadays in a sea of wrong, where every idiot posts the most bigoted thing they can say for attention.

Someone far wiser than me pointed out that the challenge isn't about grabbing big, official headlines or ceremonies. The challenge is whether we can create the flood we need. Small acts of encouraging and preserving each other. Words that matter at critical moments. More people acting as multipliers.

Marjorie Jay, "How I Got My High School Diploma in Prison"

Marjorie Jay, an incarcerated writer in Pennsylvania, includes a startling statistic in her story: "Nearly 75% of people in state prisons never finished high school or are considered 'low literate,' according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics." It's easy to pass this over and indulge tropes about crime, especially knowing that some areas in the U.S. have open contempt for education. I can hear those tropes in my head now: "people don't want to work;" "they're ungrateful;" "[insert racism here]".

But for me, 75% having low literacy or not finishing high school screams inequality. High school is very much a social environment and having financial security helps tremendously. Not having money makes you a target at a time when you are desperate for acceptance. Also, it helps to have other people in your life reading to you or talking about what you read. Poverty doesn't make that easy. Even if a parent wants to read to and with their child, working long hours will prevent that.

I encourage you to read "How I Got My High School Diploma in Prison." Marjorie Jay details the support she got and it has got me thinking how we can get more people that kind of support. We can certainly fight low literacy before people are caught in the criminal justice system.

Remarks for OC Oraciones' 3rd Issue Launch Party

Link: all issues of OC Oraciones

I believe I speak for all of us when I say this: I'm exhausted. We're exhausted. Everything is exhausting.

It isn't just the swarm of terrible headlines. Generally speaking, we lack leadership sensitive to the current crisis. A number have to be reminded of the most basic priorities. Workers can't be assigned to shifts which prevent them from seeing their kids or attending funerals. They must be paid and given serious benefits: healthcare is the floor. Costs are skyrocketing: our paychecks alone can't handle healthcare and housing. Increasingly, food is an issue. I'm constantly saying that Texas is the 8th largest economy on Earth if considered an independent country. It also leads the nation in hunger. There are nearly 10,000 children that we know of in Ector County who are food insecure.

None of this is an argument against capitalism. It is simply a statement of the most basic facts. And the fact that I have to be defensive about saying "children are going hungry" pinpoints the source of our exhaustion. The American creed has collapsed. "All men are created equal" has been forgotten, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is just a slogan. The Constitution asking us to "promote the general welfare" is completely lost.

We're here, we're exhausted, and we have a sense the arts can help. It sounds so strange. I think in years of teaching, I can count the number of students who wanted to major in things like creative writing or literature or the visual arts on one hand. No one is really allowed to say they're not trying to maximize their potential for profit. Somehow, if you declare "I want to make money," people are supposed to offer you a job. Apparently that is how things work. But here we are, and we know the arts can do more than merely help. A major reason why they are under attack is that they are transformative. People who learn to use their imaginations can craft entirely different ways of living. We are here to remind ourselves that nothing has to be the way it is.

I don't think anyone is going to get up here and outline an entirely different system of government. What we are going to do is remember, reflect, and put together a picture of our different needs. We will effect a sensitivity which is sorely lacking in this world. I am enormously grateful for the contributions you have made to the third issue, and I hope you'll take the time to respond to each other here and in writing. I hope you'll promote each other's work and lift each other up. In the absence of those that care, we must start somewhere.