[WAsummit] A White Ally Speaks on Capital Hill -- Act Now!

[White, Laura M. (CPOD)]

This is great! The testimony is very succinct, yet visceral and highly
potent! Will send contact info to you for a peacemaker in Portland who
forwards potential commentary/editorials like this to papers nationally.

 

Laura White, Multicultural Training Specialist

MONTGOMERY COLLEGE

OHR-Center for Prof & Org Development

40 West Gude Drive, Suite 250

Rockville, MD  20850

240-567-4297  (ph)

240-567-4282 (fax)

laura.white at montgomerycollege.edu

 

 

 

From: wasummit-bounces at lists.wacan.org
[mailto:wasummit-bounces at lists.wacan.org] On Behalf Of Louisa Davis
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 6:44 PM
To: White Anti-racist Summit
Subject: [WAsummit] A White Ally Speaks on Capital Hill -- Act Now!

 

Dear White Allies who've inspired and taught me so much, I ask you to
consider a new opportunity to make a difference across the nation and
for racial-ethnic justice, an opportunity before us in the coming weeks!

I was deeply moved and honored to be among many who spoke today before
the Muslim-American Taskforce on Civil Rights and Health Care and before
my former Congressman Rev. Walter Fauntroy and current Congressmen
Dennis Kucinich and Keith Ellison and Congresswoman Jan Schakoswky in
the Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill. I attach my testimony
largely the result of what I've learned among you and in the nonviolent
communication world.

What I heard there convinces me to ask WHITE ALLIES AND OUR
ORGANIZATIONS to help me convince others that the time is NOW for those
of us who believe in a truly free,  multi-ethnic and multi-faith America
to come together across faiths and issues for robust public option(s) in
health care (even though many of us might prefer single payer).  

The Senate-House conference is coming up and a vote will like come
forward before Thanksgiving, in six weeks. By coming together now-with
articles, letters and organizing , I hear, we stand a good chance, a
REAL chance, of pulling the "center off the fence" and being proud of
the result of pending Senate and Congressional conferencing, proud of
the trust in American people we share with President Obama, and proud
for the dream of a healthier and more just America.  This means we have
to act now to convince the 50 Democrats and more moderate Republicans
who are still "on the fence" that people of faith, white allies for
racial justice, and people of color will hold them ACCOUNTABLE for doing
what is best for ALL Americans over the next few weeks.

I have committed to make an all-out effort on this issue over the next
few weeks that count. I was too little, too late on the Iraq war.  As
Congressman Keith Ellison argued today, it took us the Civil Rights
bills of 1957 and 1960 (remember them--less than ideal as well), to get
us ready for the Civil Rights Bills of 1964/65. I think we can make this
the first big Human Rights win of the 21st century.

I attach my testimony and experience as a white ally for whatever use it
can serve, but please, please do something, forward this to your friends
(esp in conservative districts) congregations and/or organizations--and
do it soon.

With a sense of urgency and importance beyond hardly any I have ever
known, Louisa


Louisa L. Davis, M.Div., PhD
11330 Dockside Circle
Reston, VA 20191
home: (703) 860-1203
cell: (240) 338-5156

"Get very clear about the kind of world [you] would like and then start
living that way."
               -- Marshall Rosenberg, Center for Nonviolent
Communication

-------------------------
MY TESTIMONY BEFORE THE MUSLIM-AMERICAN TASKFORCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND
HEALTH CARE, Rayburn House Office Building, October 14, 2009


I am here today as cofounder and outreach coordinator for Greater
Washington Allies in Reconciliation, an interfaith antiracism alliance.
I am an interfaith religious leader steeped in the Abrahamic traditions
of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but I am speaking more specifically
as a Christian bio-ethicist and from my core commitment as a white
antiracist ally for social and health care justice, and ultimately for a
powerfully good and healthy, multi-ethnic America.
 
As a Euro-American or white antiracist ally, I know in my heart that
despite all the services, opportunities, and access to power (or to
people in positions of power who mostly look like me) which I have
enjoyed in this great country--many honestly unintentionally, this is
not the reality of most people of color.  I also know that I will never
fully know the joy of "llfe, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for
all until our government which is charged with upholding and embodying
those words, has the courage to insure the health and opportunity for
well-being of all my sisters and brothers. 

Furthermore, these words will have little truth to people of color or to
the world until those of us who have so much more access to resources
and power decide that their needs are as important as our needs, that
their needs matter as much as do the needs of politically-dominant
middle-class white Christians like me.  For we share common, universal
needs--at least for safety, for choice, and for sustainability--for
simply being able to make a living.
 
I am mindful that many, many words have been spoken about this issue,
about how America finances our health care and occasionally even about
who benefits most from the system as it is, a "system" of largely
unregulated private health "insurer" who insure, it seems, great profit
but few people of color. 
 
I am mindful that the noise-level and anger and fear level of this
discussion has been quite remarkable, and real, and yet I thank
President Obama for somehow trusting the American people to work it
out--together. 

Toward this end, I hope to offer just one more spiritual resource,
taught perhaps best by the Jewish theologian, Elie Wiesel, in the face
of the Holocaust, but at the core of all our religious traditions.
 
I ask you, good people, to listen to the SILENCE behind all these words,
all this fear and all this hope. Listen to the silence of those who
cannot afford Washington Post ads or to wine and dine those in power.
Listen to the forbearing Black women on my old Washington Hospital
Center orthopedic ward who are losing feet and legs everyday from
lifetimes of under-treated diabetes and over-worked domestic service.
Listen to those who cannot afford to challenge their employers stripping
them of health care benefits. Listen to those whose insurers, if they
are lucky to have one, reject care with unreasonable limits. Listen to
the silence of children who have missed school, sports and work
opportunities because they cannot afford the vaccinations of common
preventive health care.
 
As a white ally, with many words and oh-so-many ideas, I have learned
that my silence can be leveling when it opens space for others to be
heard, when it allows other to lead on this great new bus we call 21st
century civil society.  
 
But my silence, our silence, can also be damning.  I beg you, please, to
listen to the silence.  For there you will find your soul, your outrage
at injustice, and maybe even your God.
 
I pray that this Congress and Senate will have the courage to speak up
for those who have been silenced, sickened and shackled by our sinful
human self-interest and indifference. 
 
I know in my heart that I and we will never have moral, spiritual OR
political integrity until our sisters and brothers of color are no
longer disproportionately tracked into emergency rooms across this land
for health care that comes too little and too late, after they are
marked even before birth, by "the long heavy chain" of racial-ethnic
disrespect. The price they pay for white fear of change and white
indifference is environmentally toxic housing, schools, unemployment
lines and crowded prisons as well as increasing poverty, illness and
hopelessness at now increasing levels we dreamed of overcoming years
ago. At levels dangerous to us all.
 
Our US Military and our US Medicare systems are remarkable symbols of
what America can both do and be when we get our words and our actions
together.  When we are willing to speak up and stand up for those who
are silenced in this country and across the world, we are truly serving
our multiracial country.  
 
In the next few weeks, we will either see progress in public options for
health care or we will see just more "insurance care" in Congress. May
we stand up and speak up NOW for our common dream of "life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness" for all. Thank you and God for this historic
opportunity.

-- 



-- 
Louisa L. Davis, M.Div., PhD
11330 Dockside Circle
Reston, VA 20191
home: (703) 860-1203
cell: (240) 338-5156

"Get very clear about the kind of world [you] would like and then start
living that way."
       -- Marshall Rosenberg, Center for Nonviolent Communication


-- 
Louisa L. Davis, M.Div., PhD
11330 Dockside Circle
Reston, VA 20191
home: (703) 860-1203
cell: (240) 338-5156

"Get very clear about the kind of world [you] would like and then start
living that way."
       -- Marshall Rosenberg, Center for Nonviolent Communication



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