Aliad@s

On September 29, I officiated my first wedding for Allie and Shannon. It was a true honor. Not only was it an honor because it was for two people I love, but also because those two people happen to be two women in love. 

On November 8, two of my dear friends Preston and Michael finally tied the knot. I had asked them a couple of years ago why they didn't get married in D.C. or somewhere where gay marriage was legal. They answered, "we want to get married in our state." I remember thinking that could take a long time. Yet, here we are.

This year has been an incredible one for marriage equality. 

The day after gay marriage was legalized in North Carolina, I remember waking up and expecting the world to look different. Funny enough, everything looked the same. 

I still can't get over the fact that this decision is happening on a state-by-state basis. Marriage, to me, is a promise between two people that no government should be allowed to define.

In grew up in a liberal Baptist church. Watts Street is an amazing place. I was always free to question my beliefs and choose my own path. I remember there always being gay members in the church, many of whom were leaders. However, it took some time for Watts Street to officially become a "welcoming and affirming" congregation. I remember some members saying, "we don't need a sign out front saying that we're welcoming and affirming, we already are".

But that is just it. As individuals, we may think of ourselves as allies to gay, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people. Until there is true equality in all senses of the word, we do need the sign out front. We can't assume that everyone knows we are welcoming. 

We need to greet all people with open arms, and to welcome them out loud. To be advocates, and friends.

Muerte Digna

This past week Brittany Maynard, age 29, "took her own life". That is, she chose to die before her terminal brain cancer killed her.

The "Death with Dignity" movement has been put back in the national spotlight thanks to her unique situation. I understand why there is debate around what some call "assisted suicide". Having worked for hospice, I saw the suffering people went through in the dying process. In most cases the symptoms were manageable with medication and alternative therapies. While it is painful to become "child-like" in needing assistance with the smallest of things, I do think that death is (ideally) a natural and strangely beautiful process.

However, not all worlds are perfect and not all people live full lives. Brittany Maynard's seizures and headaches would have gotten worse, and she would have suffered much more before her death. She chose to die in peace, surrounded by the people she loved. I think that is what all human beings want, in the end.

What was so refreshing about her story is how openly she talked about her illness and her feelings about her own death. Our society treats death as an enemy. We want the latest plastic surgery, makeup to make us look younger, medicine to make our hair grow back.

November 1st was the Day of the Dead. This time last year, I was in the cemetery in Suchitoto, El Salvador. People visit the graves of their loved ones. They bring fake flowers, re-paint the tomb stones (always brightly colored), and remember their family members who have gone before them. The cemetery is full, a sea of people. There is food and laughter, and a mariachi band plays.

We can learn something from this tradition. Giving life to death - painting the gray tombstone a colorful green. Talking openly about how death affects us, and acknowledging that we are, in fact, fully alive. 

Dia de los Muertos - en Carolina del Norte

On Saturday, I went to the Day of the Dead event put on by the Farmworker Advocacy Network at the Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh. There, we honored the farmworkers in North Carolina who died this past year due to heat stroke or difficult working conditions. Local farmworkers spoke and told their stories. They spoke of the need for equal rights for all people, for enough bathroom breaks and water to drink and wash their hands.

This is not a lot to ask. Yet, for our legislature has not made these simple labor rights a necessity. More than 150,000 farmworkers risk their lives in the fields every day. Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry is aware of the dangers that farmworkers face, and the fact that the law continues to allow children as young as 12 to face these dangers in the fields.

The Human Rights Watch recently did a report which stated that children as young as 7 were working (illegally) in tobacco fields. 75% of these children said that they had gotten sick at work, with nausea, headaches, skin conditions and respiratory illnesses.

This kind of child labor should not exist in our country. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free? Give me those people, so I can put their young children to work in the tobacco fields?

Cherie Berry, stop turning a blind eye. Act to STOP child labor in North Carolina.

How do we [Americans] submit? 

By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.
― Wendell Berry

Racismo y Ebola

I choose not to watch CNN or Fox or any of those news sources. They have their place in our society, but I don't need to put myself through that. Stress is addictive. We begin to like the feeling of adrenaline we get when we are scared. We want more, and we can find it on CNN.

Ebola is real. I get that. I am nervous about it, just like everyone else. But y'all - we have got to calm down. A reporter from Fox News recently scared the country by reporting that Ebola can be spread going airborne through a sneeze. He incorrectly cited research. Ebola doesn't cause sneezing, and it can only be spread by direct contact with bodily fluids. 

An elementary school child in the Triangle just died from the flu. Our chances of dying of ebola? Slim to none.

Throughout this whole media hysteria over ebola I've had this sneaking feeling... something seems racist about this. My heart breaks for Africa, this continent that has suffered so very much. But has the media told us any stories about any African person who has died of ebola? Do we know their names, or their life stories? 

Recently, Thomas Eric Duncan died of ebola after a trip from Liberia to Dallas. According to his nephew, Duncan did report that he had recently been to Liberia. He was a poor black man without health insurance, they sent him home with Tylenol. Some could say it was just a simple error, but really? Smells like racism.

People from countries all around Africa have reported having been treated differently since the Ebola outbreak, as if they are "contaminated".  A woman from Somalia explained, 
“people are looking at us in a bad way. We didn’t have anything to do with this. Somalia does not have Ebola. It is on the other side of Africa."

If this epidemic were happening in Europe, would there be the same reaction? Would we want to close off all plane travel? Would we be sending in more health workers? I think the answer is yes. I think that the media, and America in general, view people of color as "lesser" than those who are white. Therefore, their deaths are not of so much importance. 

Recent attempts to quarantine health workers on their return to the U.S. may discourage the much-needed help that Africa needs. Health workers are essential. If we do not treat ebola where the outbreak is, it will spread. Our focus is on protecting our precious white American lives, while in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone nearly 5,000 people have died of this awful disease.

Moral of the story: Wash your hands. Get the flu shot. Take care of yourself. And most importantly : black lives matter.

"In the Western media there are First World diseases and Third World diseases. The attention devoted to the latter depends on the threat they pose to us, not on a universal measure of human suffering." -Artist Andre Carrilho

Traviesa

We adopted a sweet black doggie from El Salvador. She was truly the cutest. She was blind, but we didn't care. She was ours. As she got older, her behaviors got more and more strange. She became aggressive, growling and showing her teeth at odd moments. We got a "slip leash" and confined her to the kitchen. "She's just a teenager," we thought.

One MRI later, we learned that she had severe hydrocephalus. As in, she only had a brain stem and a cerebellum - the rest was fluid. It was devastating. You can give dogs with hydrocephalus steroids for the swelling, but it won't bring their brain back.

We made the hard decision to put her to sleep. We watched as the injection went in, and the life slowly slipped out of her. I don't think I've ever cried so hard in my life! It was also the most peaceful death I could have imagined.

We loved that dog so much. But it was more than just a dog... she was like our first "child". I will be forever grateful for her, because she taught us that we could be caregivers. We worked as a team to take care of a complicated case, and we did everything we possibly could for the little pup.

The beautiful part of this story, the part I will remember most, is how kind all of our 'health care providers' were. From the dog trainer (Claire), to the vet (Dr. Meade) and her vet tech (Paisley), to the behavioral specialist (Dr. Orlando - who helped us get funds for the MRI!) to the neurology vet (Dr. Sampson). They were all part of our journey, and honestly... they had much better bedside manner than any medical doctor I have known.

Health care professionals don't realize what a difference they make. At our most vulnerable, we so need genuine, kind practitioners. This is something to remember as I go 'deeper' into learning mental health care as a social worker.

I am in grief, grief for my life in El Salvador, for my life in Minnesota, for my life in college, for my life in Ireland... Grief for all the relationships I built with all those wonderful people. I miss it, I want to go back...And then I think of all these amazing experiences I've had and I think, "What am I complaining about?"

Gratefulness is the heart of it all. That maybe there is no end point, no mountaintop. Just keep climbing, and enjoy the view.

"It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end."   -Ursula LeGuin

Thank you, Travi, for the journey. You were a little monster crazy dog, and we loved you. 

Sindicato

Like most North Carolinians I did not know much about unions. In fact, I thought that N.C. was a "non-union" state. Not true - workers here do have the right to organize. North Carolina is, however, a "right-to-work" state, which means that workers have a choice as to whether or not they want to join a union.

Today, I went to support the union movement in Mountaire Chicken Plant in Lumber Bridge, North Carolina. Home to over 2,000 workers, Mountaire workers earn low wages and work long hours. Over 6 months ago, a local union filed unfair labor charges against the Mountaire plant for : "disciplining employees for their union activity, threatening to have employees arrested, engaging in surveillance and coercion, interrogating employees, threatening termination and change in personal working conditions if employees support the union." 

Today while in Eastern NC we visited the pork plant Smithfield Foods, in Tarheel, NC. They do have a union, and while it is still a difficult line of work they have organized and it has made a difference in both worker pay and conditions. The workers there get paid $13.50 and up, depending on their job.

In contrast, Mountaire workers who work through a temp agency make only $8.25 an hour, and do not receive days off. The plant's workers are 50% African American,  30% Latino, 15% Haitian, and 5% other. According to national union organizers, there is a lot of discrimination especially against Haitians. This might include allowing others to take bathroom breaks before them, etc.

The Mountaire plant has a strong "anti-union" campaign. They allegedly have a sign inside the plant that says "we don't need a union - we're a family".

The UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) says that, ideally,  they need at least 65% of the union cards to be signed. They only need 30% to conduct elections (run by the government). However, it can take up to 45 days for the government to 'organize' the election, which means that the company has plenty of time to change the workers' minds.

In order to win, they'll need 50% plus one vote. Let us hope for that one vote.

Here's to Mountaire, to people everywhere who work hard in factories to make sure our meat gets to our table. Thank you for the food. Amen.

El Enojo y la Culpa

I have to admit something. And it's something I wouldn't normally admit, but because I am in social work school and social justice class I think... it's time to get real.

I feel guilty.

There, I said it. I feel like I pulled the trigger. 

I have not acknowledged Michael Brown and the shooting in Ferguson. Sure, I talked about it with my husband and my parents... we agreed that it is awful. That it's so sad that racial profiling still exists in America. I haven't spoken to my friends about it, nor Facebook. I haven't signed any petitions or taken any action.

So, perhaps I am not the oppressor. But by allowing racial violence to happen and not even whisper, "no!" am I actually approving Michael Brown's death? And what about Trayvon? And all the thousands before him? What about the thousands of black people that were lynched right here in North Carolina not so long ago? Why are we, as a people, not FURIOUS?

It breaks my heart. That so many have died. That I have no idea what it's like to be a minority in America. That peace has not yet come. 

Silence may be okay for some people. But I do not intend to live my life asleep to the injustices in our world. Nor do I intend to be a "coffee shop anarchist", who perhaps is awake but frozen in their own fear. You're going to hear me roar.

In high school, I was an activist. I knew in my heart that I could stop the Iraq War, with the help of the other members of the protest movement. I started an organization at my school, I traveled to Washington D.C. The day the war started, I lost something. Hope. It has taken me a long time to get that back. 

When we admit defeat, we are allowing the system (corporate America, our government, greed) to continue feeding the injustices. They continue to grow, to take new forms.

Activism is anger, made into positive action. Social justice is not a quick fix. It is a conversation. Let's talk about it.

A Cherokee elder was teaching his grandchildren about life.

He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me… it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, hatefulness, and lies. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, humbleness, kindness, friendship, generosity, faith, and truth. This same fight is going on inside of you, and inside every other person, too.”

The children thought about it for a minute. 

Then one child asked his grandfather,

“Which wolf will win?”

The Cherokee elder replied…

“The one you feed.”