Dena Eakles

Which Side Are You On?

I’m traveling between Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, two bitterly divided states as the mid-term elections are upon us. These are states where millions have been spent on slick advertising designed to elicit straight party line votes. Advertisements have been fear baiting and relentless in divide and conquer tactics pitting neighbors against one another. The threat of violence and voter intimidation is on the rise and there are candidates throughout the country declaring they may not accept election results.

There are candidates who would turn back the clock on LGBTQ rights in the same way the clock was turned back on a women’s right to choose her own healthcare. These are people who would be content to see our history whitewashed, immigration sidelined, and workers rights eroded. If Governor Evers loses, Wisconsin could face a MAGA governor who sees himself as an old western sheriff. Movements towards restorative justice and efforts to end racial profiling will be dealt heavy blows.

The question before us cannot be: which side are you on, because it is not that simple. There is another consideration that we have not tried. And it lies in the question; can we choose to be human?

Can we afford more escalation of violence? Can we continue on the ill fated belief that hard work alone is all that is needed for success, as we watch more and more of our people slide into poverty? Being human is not about following doctrines and leaders. It is about compassion and dignity. And government should not be about power; it is about caring for all of us.

I will always believe the violent are the minority of people, but I am equally certain it is the silence of those who know better that allow the violent to win.

This is not a moment for silence.

Enjoy Which Side Are You On, a labor movement classic sung by Natalie Merchant.

And then there is this: Power to the People by Patti Smith.

Regardless of the outcome, our effort continues.

Clean It Up

Abolition is a fearful word for those who insist on living in fear. When Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial hopeful Tim Michels spews about maintaining “law and order” he’s actively seeking the fearful, people who have all but forgotten their humanity. The ones who desperately try to erase the historical context of this country. Content to live with division and superiority, they are willing to sacrifice the common good. But our history is not merely in the past; it’s hauntingly in the present.

It’s present every time a Black man is brutally killed by police. It’s present in our schools and in the stories we omit to teach. It’s present as the Supreme Court attempts to whittle away the sovereignty of Tribes, and as we ignore the hideous truths of boarding schools. Our lack of accountability for past harm and our care-less approach to reparations of any kind are testaments to our inhumanity.

The cry of many politicians, to escalate the police state, is in direct opposition to the voices of Abolition. And while the unyielding word “Abolition” is turned into “All That Should Be Feared”, the truth is this: the more human we become the less tolerant we are of inhumanity. And that is as it should be.

The violence of the dominant or those who would be dominant is escalating. They are and have always been the minority. We’ve been taught to believe otherwise and have cowered because of it.

Being human is not radical. We have the tools for transformation: clarity, kindness and love. Add conviction to the mix while maintaining the recognition of what is possible and we can begin to make it happen. Let’s have a new beginning.

Roll up your sleeves; it’s time to clean it up.

The Empowerment of Choice

The abundance of harvest and the beauty of the season are upon us. So are the bombardment of political ads and the ridiculous robo calls vying for attention.

Choice. It’s an amazing tool if we use it.

The stark contrast of the sublime and the degenerate surround us. Nature carries on and for a brief moment we are witness to her glory. And politics carries on and we are witness to lies and false promises. We really should replace the words “In God We Trust” with “We Have Forsaken Trust”. It would be more accurate.

When politicians pit us one against another and instill fear, they do so with deliberate aim. Power is the goal. Greed is the motivation. The bitter seeds of hate are offered, often wrapped in the cloak of religion, and too many are swallowing those seeds and becoming very ill. Politicians scream of rising crime and boast of law and order, while they champion January 6^th insurrectionists and scramble to elect them. The excuses given are to protect the unborn and to get tough on crime. Few blink an eye at the audacity of the claims and fewer still recognize the ignorance of electing those who will incite more division.

We have become the parrots who learn to say the words, “Beware the hunter” and chant that mantra as we step into the hunter’s net.

Who is served by the arousal of anger and fear? Ask yourself that. The inciting of racial division is real. The consequences of the choices we make may harm us for generations. We have the opportunity to learn from one another. We have the opportunity to heal and to emerge as one people for the good of all.

Choice. It’s an amazing tool if we use it.

Get Out and Vote: Enjoy this great video from No Studio highlighting the need to register AND to vote on Nov 8th. Sponsored in part by WNPJ member groups Building Unity, SOULS (Solomons Outreach & Urban Learning Sessions) and Mother’s Against Gun Violence, Milwaukee.

Compassion

According to Google, mentions of the word compassion are on the upswing. Not nearly as heavily used as in the early 1800’s but definitely reversing the downward trend of the 20^th century. We are mentioning the word compassion with a bit more frequency.

I found this out by researching the word. The Latin root means “to suffer with”, which is a far cry from the modern definition of feeling “sympathetic pity”.

Pity is a rather aloof concept, locked in the chambers of the mind. It implies a distance from the object being pitied. I rather resonate with “to suffer with”. It requires interconnection.

All this contemplation of compassion began as I walked my twelve year-old sheep back to the barn. It is our nightly ritual now. Our slow methodic steps, listening to the creaking of her arthritic hips; I do not pity her. I am witness to her effort to live, to socialize with the others as best she can, to relish the apples and corn in the morning, to bask in the warmth still afforded on these fall days. And in the evening to join me as we take our leisurely stroll back to the barn.

I do not pity her. We are the same. I enjoy, as she does, the sweetness of life. And I recognize my own aging in hers. I learn from her. My caring for her comes from our mutual kinship, not from some separate ideal of what I should do or how I should be.

Compassion must surely spring from this knowing, this reverence, and this kinship with life. If I must have pity I will hold it for those who have forgotten how to feel.

Thankfully compassion is palpable and can grow with care and understanding…

May the awareness of compassion continue to rise.

This piece is dedicated to my mother, Antoinette (Mignanelli) Eakles who would have celebrated her birthday on October 11. Through hardships and sorrow, through joy and understanding she grew her compassionate heart. I am happy to follow that lead.

Not Far Enough

We’ve come far but not far enough. It pays to know history, even a bit of it. During the Great Depression, the struggle for a living wage and dignity in the workplace culminated in 1930’s Labor Laws. The imbalance of power of desperate workers and company greed forced the government to support the right to unionize and created social security. A forty-hour workweek was mandated, child labor was banned and a federal minimum wage was instituted.

Sounds good, right? While a step in the right direction, companies took to the courts for decades and successfully struck down minimum wage laws. One claim was that companies’ constitutional right to freely contract with workers was taken away.

Caveats to the law became the norm. There were minimum wages for women. There were word games like “they’re not employees, they’re independent contractors”. And there were the Southern Democrats holding on to the racial divide. There was no way they could accept an equal playing field. So the expansively written minimum wage law was whittled down by exclusions. These exclusions omitted occupations held disproportionally by Blacks, Latinos, women and poor.

The 1963 March on Washington brought another turning point towards human dignity. The Civil Rights Act ended legal segregation in public places and prohibited employment discrimination.

Yet industries still exclude workers from fair pay and decent working conditions. If you are a farm or domestic worker, you know what I mean. If you process maple syrup or work in the motion picture industry, you know what I mean. (For a great podcast on this visit Reveal).

We’ve come far but not far enough. The value of human dignity must exceed the drive of greed. And each of us must ensure it.

One Life Lives On

A young woman stands with her brother on a train station in Tehran. They’re Kurdish and visiting the city from a small town. She is approached by the morality police for not wearing her hijab properly and is taken into detention. Three days later she is dead. Her name is Mahsa Amini and her death has unleashed protest and demands for human dignity in Iran and throughout the world.

Hospital records, photos and eyewitnesses tell us that Mahsa was beaten and fell into a coma from which she never recovered. From her family we know she was a healthy twenty –two year old.

For forty years the morality police have been sanctioned with the task of ensuring the dress codes for women are followed. But today even women who wear the hijab willingly are saying, “Enough”. There is no need for violence; there is no need for coercion.

For the past two weeks the women led protests carry on. Burning hijabs, cutting their hair, and defiantly rebuking government authority. The death toll of protesters is estimated at seventy-six, but no one really knows.

Here is what we do know: the death of Mahsa Amini has ignited a roaring fire from the smoldering outrage of young and old, women and men. What we do know is that there are people willing to sacrifice human dignity and life to follow orders. What we can do is to stop giving our power to those who are so very willing to destroy us with it.

This is not an Iranian issue, not a hijab issue. This is not even a woman issue – although women have paid the highest price for living under unchecked power.

This is a human issue and one we must all work to change.

I stand with the women and men of Iran and throughout the world who are demanding human dignity and freedom from tyrannical leadership. I am saddened by the loss of life and I know we can all do better than we have done. Violence is a sickness and has no justification. It perpetuates itself.

I have always appreciated the song Bella Ciao now sung in Persian by an Iranian woman. Please feel the spirit of resistance it upholds. Please join in resisting the urge to comply with ignorance. That is something we can all do.

In a September 25 video, Oscar-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi called for the support and participation of the creative community: “I invite all artists, filmmakers, intellectuals, civil rights activists from all over the world and all countries, and everyone who believes in human dignity and freedom to stand in solidarity with the powerful and brave women and men of Iran by making videos, in writing or any other way,” Farhadi wrote.

Let us carry on in confidence that our day has come.

Discarding Straitjackets

My wife and I binged watched Heartstopper, a British coming of age romantic comedy. I was touched by the openness of the teens regarding their gender questioning, but startled by the hatred and fear that remains towards those not status quo.

In the fifty years that have passed since my own teen-age questioning things have changed. Youth who refuse the straitjacket of heterosexuality can more easily find support. Gender fluidity and non-binary concepts have replaced the need to take on stereotypical labels. Organizations like PFLAG have helped lessen the sting of abuse. Yet abuse remains

The morality police have made it their business to beg local school boards to prohibit any displays of gender questioning. How absolutely foolish this is on so many levels.

I understand learning that gender is not binary and that gender fluidity has always existed in the human race must be hard for some who’ve been raised with blinders on. But to insist that your ignorance be law is a bit much. We are crawling out of the hole dug by puritanical thinking, and I’m sorry for your discomfort. But march on we will.

Perhaps your discomfort will be lessened if you learned about different cultures and their acceptance of the reality that gender is a spectrum. It would be kind of you to drop your shock and fear long enough to understand the pain caused by bigotry.

Bigotry: noun

obstinate or unreasonable attachment to a belief, opinion, or faction; in particular, prejudice against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.

I can assure you from my own personal experiences, that your momentary discomfort over things that are not your business are nothing compared to the struggle and pain of being gender fluid in this culture. And the statistics on suicide and suicide attempts by gender questioning youth confirm this.

And to youth daring to be: Don’t be robbed by ignorance. Dance on.

Harvest

Harvest is one of the most joyful times of the year. Yes, it’s taken a bit of work to get here but if the garden was well planned and Nature cooperated even a little there are delicacies to be had. Today’s walk through the squash was very exciting. The biggest Blue Hubbard’s I’ve ever seen and bright red curry are starting to reveal themselves through receding greenery.

Our heirloom orchard is having a grand year. From slugs and bees to deer and human, everyone is taking a bite of the sweetness of the season. With each day, as another tree’s apples are ready to be picked, another has all but lost its fruit. That is the sad tale of harvest. The trees are like friends. You get to know the order in which they will ripen, you know the years they will rest and you wait eagerly for their return.

One doesn’t need a large garden or an orchard to appreciate harvest. A single tomato plant will do. There is some undeniable kinship we have with the earth and the sustenance that comes from her. And there is an undeniable fulfillment in co-creating with the soil and dancing with the seasons.

Gratitude and celebration come easily at this time. Even when the onion crop is a bit on the weak side, there are friends and neighbors whose onions did well and we can share, barter or buy. We were made for this simplicity however challenging.

The exuberance is not only in the gathering. If all goes well we’ll delight in the abundance of harvest throughout the winter months and it will ready us for spring. Pickles, kraut, apple butter, cider and jellies galore will dress the table. And this, my friend, is the cycle of thankfulness.

Books Unite Us…

In recognition of Banned Books Week, September 18 through 24, I took a deep dive into the list of Classics that are banned or challenged. Unsurprisingly I found some of my favorite authors: Faulkner, Hemingway, Morrison, Steinbeck, Alice Walker, and James Baldwin. Seeing Richard Wright’s Native Son on the list took me back to a high school English class and the horror I felt at the shocking truth it taught me about race.

I’m forever grateful to the teachers who encouraged us to step out of our parochial view of the world. Through books they opened the door of our mutual humanity, in all of its complexities, glory, and ugliness.

I learned I had nothing to fear in words or ideas. I learned that the free will to choose is a powerful tool and that the ability to discern right from wrong is an inherited strength. In reading about diverse people, empathy grew. In understanding history from those who lived through wars and the Depression, I recognized the wisdom of not allowing ignorance to rule.

Those who fear books and the ideas expressed within them cling to a worldview as skewed as the ones they fear. Those who would ban books are afraid to open minds and hearts to a broader humanity. They curtail understanding and are a curse to upcoming generations.

Fear is not what we need to propagate. Censorship is not a game to be played. Self-reflection is a worthy art and when we understand we are a fraction of the human kaleidoscope, life becomes a wondrous journey.

No one should have the right to clip the wings of freedom. In truth no one can. Ideas are born within the breath of every unique individual.

And that cannot be banned.

You can Support the Right to Read by signing the petition from the American Booksellers Association.

What Informs You?

The people of Pakistan are suffering monsoon rains never before witnessed, thousands displaced and over a thousand dead as the toll mounts. Afghanis are suffering malnutrition and starvation while the United States and the World Bank restricts the flow of money to them. Nineteen years after the invasion of Iraq the culture remains fractured, the infrastructure tattered, leaving many in dire need. And while the game of annihilation continues in Ukraine, most of the “civilized world” can only insist on money for more bombs, more destruction and more death.

If that’s too far away we can zoom in on Jackson, Mississippi where people are currently and in the unforeseeable future without water due to flooding and damaged systems. That would be drinking water, bathing water; you name it, no water for 150,000 people elders, babies and everyone in between.

Is it too much to think about? Some, I know, only want to hear good things. Happy things. Or maybe you’re one of those who believe it’s all preordained. The world is getting its just deserts delivered by an angry god. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll be the lucky one.

The way I see it, we got ourselves into this mess and we need to be the ones to get ourselves out. As a member of humanity, I allow myself to grieve our losses and celebrate our victories – wherever they may be. And I will champion my hope that our better days are still ahead.

I choose to recognize the drop of the divine we carry may ultimately triumph over the ignorance we exalt.

If we challenge the beliefs that keep us imprisoned, if our hearts would inform us instead of our fears, the hardships will come, but our outcomes could be so very, very different.

Keep the faith and fight.

Author: Dena Eakles