Kingian Nonviolence Principle 2
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Speaker 2:He's a borderline Texan. He's a clinical condition halfway between grace and petition. He's a borderline Texan, but he's got good sense, and he sees no need for a wall or a fence.
Speaker 3:Well, he's a lover and a fighter, just want to live free. He ain't gonna settle. That's the way
Speaker 2:he's gonna be. He got a girl named Pearl, and he don't stray far, but he torn between Pearl and his cold, lonely star.
Speaker 3:Each girl he's loved, he's freely admitted, and his
Speaker 2:family too say he ought to be committed. No. He won't turn tail, and he won't take an oath. He's from Del Rio and Acuna. Said I'll tell you a little of both because he's a borderline Texan.
Speaker 2:That's a clinical condition on
Speaker 3:the razor's edge of grace and perdition.
Speaker 2:He's a borderline Texan. He's paled on like that hot rod Lincoln. He just won't stop. Well, he ain't too patient. Don't like the way he says tell me, mama.
Speaker 2:Must have hesitate got hesitating Charlie Dunn boots for shoes. Puts on oh, lord. Have him put on Monday morning with the borderline blue. Well, he had no love of an IV education, better off working at the Texaco station, tossed out of school, borderline cynic, no educated fool. Here's where we get a little Bob Dylan here.
Speaker 2:No educated fool. Only used to get juiced in it because he's a borderline tech, and that's a clinical condition poised between grace and perdition. He's a borderline tech, and he's true to the end if you're down on the border.
Speaker 3:He's your best friend. No bad hair days. Got him a Stetson hat,
Speaker 2:and John Deere gave me. He said, I like it like that. He won't do nothing just to please us. So all I want is a little more faith. Lord knows in Jesus.
Speaker 2:He's a borderline Texan. That's a medical condition. Halfway between grace and perdition. He's a borderline Texan,
Speaker 3:but he's got good sense.
Speaker 2:And he's he's no need for a wall or a fence.
Speaker 3:Borderline Texan.
Speaker 4:You are listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM. Thanks to those who are not with us here in Austin Texas and streaming us online at koop.org I am your humble host Stacy Frazier my pronouns are she they You are just listening to my comrade in Love and Justice, Jim Crosby.
Speaker 3:Jim? Hi, everybody.
Speaker 4:Hey. And we're joined today to my great delight by Shamira Ann. And Shamira is apprenticing here.
Speaker 1:I am. Hey, y'all.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I really, really appreciate you running the board for me today, so I can just sink into conversation.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:I got Yeah. Plus my my 46 year old mom brain is on cognitive overload.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. So is mine. Few short years behind you.
Speaker 4:There you go. So Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour is was birthed from my existing relationship with Co op. My other show is Racism on the Levels here. And my community organizing and nonviolence activism and training, and that's where Jim came in because Jim created Nonviolent Austin here in Austin, Texas. And for those who are first time listening in, Jim, how long ago was that?
Speaker 4:And who's our mother org?
Speaker 3:It was 2018, and it was, as part of the Nonviolent Cities Project of Campaign Nonviolence and Pachy Vinny Nonviolence Service.
Speaker 4:That's right. That's a campaignnonviolence.org. And, yeah, I call that our mother organization as I think you do too. Mhmm. You know, Nonviolent Austin is one of, 28 active nonviolent cities around the country.
Speaker 4:And Gemini are Kingian Nonviolent Conflict Reconciliation Trainers in the tradition of Doctor. Martin Luther King Junior. And one of Doctor. King's principles of the six principles is principle two, the beloved community is the framework for the future. And so we're gonna spend our focus today on the beloved community and what that principle means to us, means to our community.
Speaker 4:And as I tee up the introduction to today's conversation, I will also say welcome brother Robert Tyrone Lily who is
Speaker 3:Brother Rob.
Speaker 4:The the the one of the the legs of this three legged stool that is Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour. Peace
Speaker 5:and blessings peace and blessings to one and all.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And so brother Rob Shamiri Ann is our wonderful apprentice today who's like, I can run the board. And I was like, yeah, please run the board. I get to sink myself into beloved Kenan. You've been in a conversation.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 4:So so yeah, so we're just getting started. I just mentioned, you know, listed Principle 2B and Beloved Community as a framework of the future, that's what we're gonna talk about today. And brother Rob, we get a mic checked there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you're on.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah. We just gotta find
Speaker 4:you some headphones. You know the headphones in the studio are gone for a good reason because we have a whole group of interns in the studio next to us, right, making some underwriting announcements. And so you know, this this truly is a a community powered effort. This is community beloved community. So you know, I I could talk all day, all night, and and I do as a nonviolentist about beloved community.
Speaker 4:So I'm gonna try not to hog the mic today. I will start with one quote that MLK offers us in understanding this principle. Doctor King says, our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives. This will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives. I'm gonna open that up to what that means to you.
Speaker 3:Makes me think about just, pursuing nonviolence as a practice. And my friend Jim Douglas, I remembered being impressed early on. He said, you know, the first thing that changes or the first thing that you will change and find changing as you start to raid in wade into nonviolence as a practice is yourself. And and then that's ongoing. You discover that that's a lifelong process trying to become nonviolent, as you, do what you can to make the world around you more nonviolent.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I appreciate that.
Speaker 5:Would you read the principle again that we're using today for our conversation?
Speaker 4:I will. Principle two of Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation is the beloved community is the framework for the future.
Speaker 5:And then read the quote that you read again.
Speaker 4:And doctor King says, our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.
Speaker 5:Alright. So first of all, it's a blessing to be here today, and thank you for everyone for tuning in to Co op Radio and to the Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour. Again, my name is Brother Rob, and I'm distinguished by my guests. I am distinguished by my guests, by the folk that I'm in association with. So thank you for for welcoming me into the space and giving me a moment to collect myself.
Speaker 5:So going back to your quote, the only way I can talk about this quote is from my own experience. I remember years ago, my first nonprofit job, I worked for an organization called Connecting Caring Communities, CCC. They followed the a b d c the a b c model of organizing, asset based community development, a b c d. And they were inspired by a student of doctor King. And it was an interesting organization.
Speaker 5:I won't go into all the work with the organization, but what I will say is, I remember at some point, you know, the the goal that we were set to do in our work was to build social capital through connecting neighbor to neighbor, facilitating that. And I remember asking a fundamental question that kinda shifted my consciousness and it was, toward what end? Toward what end were we creating this connection between neighbor and neighbor? So one day I I ventured to do something that, you know, was a part of that inquiry and I began to ask folk in the neighborhoods where I was working and serving, who do you see as your neighbor? Do you see the person across the street as your neighbor?
Speaker 5:And quite frankly, it wasn't the case that people who lived in proximity to one another saw each other as a neighbor. So geography didn't necessarily equate to neighborhood or to neighborly attitude or spirit or affinity. And I can go on. What I learned was, ultimately, I think the ultimate conclusion I learned was that community is a choice. Mhmm.
Speaker 5:It's a decision I make. And I can belong to multiple communities at one and the same time. And so the lesson I walked away on top of that with was, going back to your quote, quantitative and qualitative, like, I have to make a choice to see myself in other people. There was a time that I, quite frankly, refused to see myself in other people. I could not see that other in fact, I wouldn't even use person to describe the other Because I had so much vitriol and anger toward folk who I thought were inherently and constitutionally my enemies.
Speaker 5:And so for me, the beloved community moving in the direction of this ideal requires me to go inward and to interrogate the ideas that lie at the bedrock of my sense of self. Without that, then there's no way that I can come back out and see myself in Jim Crosby, see myself in Stacey Frazier, see myself in
Speaker 1:Shamiri Ann.
Speaker 5:Shamiri Ann. Thank you. We'll be using that name quite often in the future, I can see.
Speaker 1:Oh, we will. So
Speaker 5:so to me, you know, the beloved community I won't be able to go into a great deal of commentary on this next point that I'm gonna make, I'll yield with this brief element of it. It's the idea that we could all be on a bus stop waiting for the bus to come, and we could still see ourselves going in separate directions. We're all waiting for the bus to come. We all have a route that we're going on the path toward. But we're on that bus stop.
Speaker 5:The bus is late. The bus being late causes us to reevaluate our difference in destination, because now we have a common problem. The common problem is we need this bus to get here so that we can get moving on our destination. And I believe that fundamentally in this society, that's that's how those antisocial powers that be have prevailed upon us since time immemorial. They've convinced us to see each other as fundamentally going in different directions, and inherently those directions are opposed to one another.
Speaker 5:And until we see that there's a breakdown in the bus getting to the station, meaning we have a common problem, then we will continue to be at odds with each other, which will I think be the antithesis and the barrier between us and this hopeful beloved community.
Speaker 4:Yeah. That makes me thank you. That is a really useful metaphor that I appreciate you offering up. And I'm thinking, know, we we just spoke to the qualitative change in our souls part. The quantitative change in our lives part is the second piece of that equation for Doctor.
Speaker 4:King. And he talks about the inseparable twins. It's actually three forces, economic injustice, racism, and militarism. Mhmm. The so so these are systems of oppression and the quantitative change.
Speaker 4:I would like to spend a minute talking about where that is. But before I prompt us with a a conversation question, I wanna thank y'all for listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio, ninety one point seven FM in Austin and streaming everywhere, k o o p dot o r g including in Selma, Alabama where our comrades this week are celebrating Jubilee, commemorating the annual bridge crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and remembering remembering Bloody Sunday. And so shout out to to my our comrades and co teachers, trainers at the Selma Center for Nonviolence Truth and Reconciliation. So inseparable twins or trio. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:I think that would that's you know what's interesting is it's it's really when Doctor. King started emphasizing economic injustice and militarism against the the the Vietnam War that that he had to be eliminated by the system.
Speaker 3:So you were gonna come with a question? Or you want me to introduce some of this first?
Speaker 4:Yeah. Well, my question is, Jim, you're you're always so studious and and well prepared for
Speaker 3:Teacherly.
Speaker 4:I know. Retired theology teacher. Uh-huh. Yeah. So so I'm looking at the book you brought, which I love too, Brothers in the Beloved Community.
Speaker 4:And
Speaker 3:The friendship of Thich Nhat Hanh and Martin Luther King Junior.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And now we're going back to qualitative of our souls, but Thich Nhat Hanh is actually another movement ancestor and one of my strongest spiritual influences and teachers. I'm culturally Christian, I say. I was raised Lutheran, but I'm practicing, in the tradition of Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh and the order of inner being. And Thich Nhat Hanh lived on the principle of, engaged Buddhism.
Speaker 4:And so that is taking one's, in inner peace and extending it outwards and being socially engaged in the face of injustices. And so Doctor. King and Thich Nhat Hanh had had a friendship. What are you gleaning from this book?
Speaker 3:Really briefly, Mark Andrews, the author of this book, learned about that friendship and and the commonality of beloved community and researched it in part through that phrase and found that, the first use basically was a Harvard philosopher named Josiah Royce at the beginning, really early in the twentieth century. And he was basically taking the the kingdom of heaven notion in, Jesus teaching and in the New Testament and saying, okay. How do we open that to all people? Well, that's a it's a it's a beloved community, and and it should include all people. Okay?
Speaker 3:And so kind of philosophizing it. And then the next, he's got five, people passing on the legacy of the tradition and developing it. So the next one in that line was AJ Musty, who was long the director of the fellowship of reconciliation, which is the first global started during World War one, peace, you know, organization. And and must he really, really brought pacifism into it and, you know, the whole notion of peace, which was FOR, Fellowship of Reconciliation, you know, thing. And then the next one was Howard Thurman.
Speaker 3:And so he's, you know, one of one of King's big influences. They talk about doctor King in the midst of the the movement in the sixties carrying around Howard Thurman's main little book, Jesus and the Disinherited. So bringing into you know, you mentioned poverty, or economic injustice, as a a key focus of doctor King's. And and so Thurman brought that and, obviously, the, as an African American pastor, the issue of race in The United States. But, also, he was a link to Gandhi, because he traveled in India and and studying and studied Gandhi and Satyagraha.
Speaker 3:So then by the time we get to doctor King as the fourth of these people passing on this legacy, you know, he really latches onto the Gandhian part, obviously, and and says, okay. It's it's, you know, activism on this business of civil rights. And, also, he wound up going to Indios after Gandhi had died, but, you know, the global aspect of it. You know, he he said, we in The US and the civil rights movement, and I think he was influenced in part by Malcolm X on this, you know, that that we need to see this as a global thing, you know, and that the independence movements in Africa, in particular at that in particular at that time, were, coming to the fore. And so he's adding that part to it.
Speaker 3:And then finally, Thich Nhat Hanh let me read you this one paragraph. As as Mark Andrews really starts to focus on Hanh late in the book having gone through this legacy and that the friendship of King and Han And
Speaker 4:we call him Thai. Thai. We call him teacher in Vietnamese. Thai.
Speaker 3:So as far as what he added, it was a lot. Let me just read you this paragraph introducing this chapter, Thich Nhat Hanh and the Beloved Community. The the two of them, Hanh and King, only met twice. They had exchange of letters and, supported each other. But here's what Andrew says about Han adding to this development across time of beloved community.
Speaker 3:Thich Nhat Han, like Musty, Thurman, and King, made several striking important additions to our understanding of the beloved community. First, working within his own root religion of Buddhism, he began to break the barriers between monastic life and the life of ordinary people. At the same time, Nathalon began his work of promoting gender equality within Buddhism. He also expanded the idea of the beloved community sorry. I'm losing my voice here to include all of life, not just human life.
Speaker 3:The expansion of the beloved community was also given a time dimension by Nath Han. He helped us to see that the work of enlightened beings doesn't end with death. They are here with us helping us manifest the beloved community. And part of this is referring to the ways he talked about doctor King continuing to influence him after the after his assassination. Finally, Nathalon taught the world mindfulness and in so doing furthered the cause of universal peace and justice, the work that manifests the beloved community.
Speaker 3:In 2014, Nathalon said that he had kept his vow to continue King's work of manifesting the beloved community. So he's gonna go on into all those ways that that not Han, you know, furthered the understanding or broadened, you know, the application of beloved community. Okay. With that, I yield as brother Rob says.
Speaker 4:That's a brother Robism. Oh, yes.
Speaker 1:And I love that you mentioned mindfulness. Mindfulness is something that's growing in a higher capacity now. We definitely have to have it because mindfulness is the first path to empathy Mhmm. For you to understand the experience of other people. This is real good.
Speaker 5:So I guess as I listen to the conversation, you know, I think the question that continues to drive me and that causes me to be in this seat is, what kind of world do I wanna live in? Mhmm. Because when I think of the word beloved community, I hear an aspiration that we're being invited to explore, to analyze, and to embrace. And the reason it becomes of interest to me is because of what I've already experienced in this life, is communities that were destabilized, undermined by poverty and racism and historical oppression. And so I know by virtue of my experiences what I don't want and what has not worked, which then impels me to seek something else.
Speaker 5:The hope now being for something better. Right? As you were citing the names of each one of those books, I'm thinking about a relationship that introduced me to each one of those books including some folk in the room today. And when I think about the idea of a quantitative change leading to the beloved community, I think about the multiplicity of relationships that I hold. The diversity of humans that have intersected with my life and added on to my life that I've welcomed, keyword, welcomed to add on to my life.
Speaker 5:There was a time that I had walls up based on my earlier experiences in this life, violence, punishment, oppression. And I thought building these walls would surely protect me but what I learned ultimately was that I was not protecting myself. I was blocking myself from the opportunities that existed beyond my fears. The wall was my fear. So today, when we think about this idea that the beloved community must include all, I rest I didn't wrestle with it.
Speaker 5:I interrogated and I explored what does that imply? What it all means all. Right? But so what does that mean for me? I'll give you another example of a story in my life.
Speaker 5:One time, I was incarcerated and I was reading a magazine. It was by it was by written by Anarchist. And at the time, I was a rigidly committed Muslim. And I had some very narrow ideas about human beings. And I don't mean by this comment to imply that every Muslim sees themselves in the same way I saw myself in my early development.
Speaker 5:What I saw though was a person who was painting themselves into a social corner. And I was wrestling with my own soul because part of me did not wanna be isolated from humanity. I had a great curiosity about the people that existed beyond the pale of my accepted group. And so I'm reading this magazine, it's a news article, And it was about a male, a black male who had been beaten by police in a jail. And of course, immediately I identified with that.
Speaker 5:I had something to relate to with him. As the but the caption of the story, he was being charged with attempted murder. And so I'm curious, how did he go from being beaten by police to be attempted murderer? So I'm reading the story and as I'm reading further down the story, I'm learning that he wrestled you know, he he, you know, interacted with law enforcement. There was a physical altercation, but mostly by the officer pummeling him.
Speaker 5:And what triggered his attempted murder charge was that he spat on the officer. And I'm reading this and I'm thinking to myself, how do you get an attempted murder from spitting on an officer? Now, of course, that's lurid, you know, obviously it's indecent I believe. And I don't accept that, but I'm like, how did he get an attempted murder? What I what I learned next though, would begin to cause me to shake in terms of my commitment to solidarity with this character.
Speaker 5:I learned that it was a gay black male. And immediately, I began to question whether or not I could be in the fight with this person. And then I started pausing and reflecting on that hesitation. Where did it come from that I what was my inherent resistance to embracing the plight of this human being because of his outward or inward inclinations, whichever way you choose to describe them, what would be so fundamentally wrong with me saying wrong was wrong in this instance where this person was assaulted? Why would his identity be, you know, a reason for me to pull back?
Speaker 5:And what I concluded after that was, somewhere along the way, a long time ago, someone got into my head. And they planted ideas in my mind about other people, and they gave me a story about that other person. And that story was something that I became reluctant to identify with, associate with, be close to, or even be seen as. And so I now had to wrestle with this new consciousness that became aware to me. Right?
Speaker 5:That, you know, I was disinclined to embrace this person because of their identity. But the problem with that was I'm incarcerated. And how many people in this world are gonna learn about my story as a man that's been punished by the system, deemed a criminal by the system? Where does the line stop? And so I concluded, know, so when I going back to the point about all is all.
Speaker 5:I'll say this in close. Before I was incarcerated this last time, I came to I used to say this. I came to Austin and I met my tribe here. I met this wonderful collection of human beings that became quite essential to my development as a new expression of myself in this phase of my life. When I went away, were about 40 people that continued to remain in solidarity with me when I was incarcerated.
Speaker 5:Before I went away, they started accumulating. I started identifying people that were concerned about my life and wanted to see me prosper in spite of the imminent, you know, reality of incarceration. Some of these people were transgender. Some of them were white presenting. Some of them were, you know, obviously, you know they had they were they were an array of human expression.
Speaker 5:And I accepted all of it because I realized that at the heart of my plight in this life, man, is that I've been wanting I want love. And I can't receive love until I learn how to accept until I learn how to be to love others, and I also have to accept it myself. So, you know, I've said quite a bit, but I just wanted to emphasize that, you know, I believe that everyone has a right to exist. And and and there's no one that's been able to no religious philosophy, no nationalistic philosophy. I've had to I've had to push back against all of those things because I had to conclude, who am I?
Speaker 5:Who do I wanna be? Because that's what's most important, right, at the end of the day. Who am I? And what am I gonna stand on?
Speaker 4:As Ziggy Marley says, love is my religion. And then you brought love. You brought love up, and and we're gonna go to a break right now for station announcements, and we will be right back. International Women's Day twenty twenty six. Stand up.
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Speaker 4:You are listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on coop community radio ninety one point seven FM k o o p dot o r g. I am your host, Stacey Fraser, with my cohost Jim Crosby and brother Robert Tyrone Lily and Shamiria Ann. And I gosh, this is so cool that you're sitting at this table with us right now.
Speaker 1:Yes. I'm enjoying my time
Speaker 4:for sure. So, brother Jim, you had a quote you or quote slash question you want to kick us Yeah. The second half off with.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, we we ended up bringing up love, beloved community. We're all about love. So today, as we talk and one of the main influence one of my favorite writers for the last thirty or forty years has been Wendell Berry, and his most recent book novel, Mars Catlett, The Force of a Story. He had this sentence that just caught me, and it seems to be particularly relevant.
Speaker 3:So I wanna offer it up for y'all's, discussion. The industrial or contemplation and questioning and discussion. The industrial replacement of neighborhood by competition and technology moves everything worthy of love out of reach. Read it again. Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And just listeners out there too along with us in here in the room, contemplate how this structure that the industrial replacement of neighborhood by competition and technology moves everything worthy of love out of reach. Do you resonate to that?
Speaker 4:I think oh, go ahead.
Speaker 5:No. You you're fine. I I had a nice stretch the last conversation.
Speaker 4:I think I think of redlining. I think of neighborhoods in the most literal sense, and this is the actionable injustice part. It's like, well, and also racism, and, you know, the what the chance for a neighborhood. What what is a neighborhood? You know, I I think of if we go back even before our civilization or decivilization is a very different idea of collective existence, coexistence that any neighborhood I've I've ever known growing up in a a South Texas suburb of Corpus Christi.
Speaker 4:So we're already talking kinda small town, but that suburb was built due to extraction of natural resources. You know, all the men in my family were petroleum red roughnecks. They ran rigs, and they were we were there, and that neighborhood was built to house the workers of this industry that was extractive. And so I even challenge us thinking and holding love and beloved community to think about what does a community physically look like? What it what are the barriers to us physically bringing about a community that isn't isolated in its tiny boxes made of ticky tacky to quote an old folk song?
Speaker 4:Like what what what does that look like? One thing I offer up could be community garden space. Right? A lot of policy decisions are made, and in Austin specifically right now, a lot of us are in that organizing fights around housing here, around not centering love and safety but centering profit. Mhmm.
Speaker 4:That's how that lands on me.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And let me just return to student, Rob, I'm gonna kick it to you. That phrase worthy of love. Everything worthy of love. So I think it helps us to focus on, okay, what's prominent for me in as in the category of worthy of love?
Speaker 5:So when I listen to your quotation, I think about the the way our society has been organized. I live in a beautiful neighborhood in up north in Pflugerville. There's a beautiful park down the street from my home. I can look over the fence and see the park. There's a pond in the I stay in the cul de sac.
Speaker 5:So there's a pond behind my home. Aesthetically, it's it's a gorgeous neighborhood. When I walk outside, I see all sorts of human beings walking down the street with their with their with their family pets. And, the diversity of their makeup. There's a large immigration immigrant population, I believe, it appears there.
Speaker 5:Yet, there's something that also that I visibly notice, and that is when we walk down the street we don't say hi to each other. I do it because that's something I make an intention to practice but it's not something that's regularly I think reciprocated. And I don't think it's because somebody's seeing a black man is saying, I'm afraid of you. I just think that we've just gotten to a place in the world where we don't speak to each other. Especially not somebody that we don't know.
Speaker 5:Not somebody we don't know. So that's one thing. The second thing is, I think about the business of my life. I work in Austin, I live in Pflugerville. I remember once struggling with how much advocacy I do for the issues in Austin and how little I do for the issues in Pflugerville knowing that Pflugerville was you know, Pflugerville is becoming populated as a result of people being pushed out of the unaffordable Austin into the more affordable Pflugerville, Hutto, Round Rock.
Speaker 5:But that's potentially gonna be changed as property values go up and I watch that on our, you know, on on the valuation of our home. And so I'm like, wow. I'm fighting for so much in Austin, but so little in the place where I live. That I I wrestled with that. How do I resolve that?
Speaker 5:I haven't yet found a resolution to that. And then I think lastly, the thing that most stands out to me as I think about your comment, you know, we have a society that has like, I have I have to work forty hours a week, and I still won't have enough. So that means I may have to work sixty hours a week. So when I come home, I'm alienated for my wife. I'm alienated for my son.
Speaker 5:I'm alienated sometimes for myself. What little I do get in the way of connecting with other human beings, I eke it out. I scratch and I claw for it because it is that important for me to have some relation with other human beings. So like this weekend, I'll be going to the black men's mental health meeting. Why?
Speaker 5:So that I could sit with a bunch of men and have relationships that I don't get the luxury of having by virtue of the busyness of my life. And so the industrialists of life and how it has devalued what really should matter, I think it's just the sad reality of how we've quote unquote progressed as a society that we may wanna really scrutinize a little more closely. Because if this is progress, me being alienated from the people that I love and the things that I love, then I question the value of quote unquote progress.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Doctor King Jim, you need to
Speaker 2:Finish that thought.
Speaker 4:Say that piece. Doctor King, one of the core undergirdings of this philosophy of beloved communities of framework for the future is that it is actionable. And Doctor. King Doctor. King said, power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.
Speaker 4:Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. I'll repeat it. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.
Speaker 5:There's a there's a quote that comes to me from the religion of Islam from Muhammad the prophet. And as the Muslims would say, peace be upon him. He said that if a person sees wrong, they should change it with their hands. And if they can't change it with their hands, they should speak out against it with their mouths. And if they can't speak out against it with their mouths, they should hate it in their heart and that is the weakest of faith.
Speaker 5:And so when I think about that maxim, that ideal, that approach, you know, I think about the moment that we're in right now. I mean, this is a tragedy that we're seeing. It's unheard I I'd shudder to use the word disheartening because I refuse to be disheartened. But but I am disturbed.
Speaker 4:And you know the sad thing is I don't even know which specific thing tragedy you're talking about because there are so many happening right now. Mhmm. So many. Which one?
Speaker 5:Well Pick
Speaker 4:a pick a tragedy.
Speaker 5:I mean
Speaker 4:Seriously, you don't have to. But
Speaker 5:I'll just simply Right. Do it. Thank you. I mean
Speaker 4:The war. I talked to my friend in Saudi Arabia this morning just to say, you safe? And my coworker at Campaign Nonviolence lives in Beirut, Lebanon and I messaged yesterday and said are you safe? And they're both safe.
Speaker 5:Mhmm. I think, you know, for me, you could you could identify any any numerous calamity that was that befalls us today. I think what I wanna go back to is the point that I just made using Muhammad's words, which was when you see wrong or evil, you should change it with your hands.
Speaker 1:You don't just sit and do nothing.
Speaker 5:When you see and if you can't change it with your hands, you should speak out against it with your mouth. And if you can't speak out against it with your mouth, you should hate it in your heart. It's faith, it's the weakest of faith, but it is still faith. And I think that's the dilemma of our time. Mhmm.
Speaker 5:Some of us, tragically, have either become confused about what is evil or wrong, or we've made wrong good and good wrong. And so how can I speak out against something if I have been compromised in my my sense of values? So DEI, for example. You know, what's wrong with that? Reparations.
Speaker 5:What's wrong with that? You know, women's rights. I've I was incarcerated and I remember a minister bringing in a film and it actually was a program, a whole program where they were trying to associate the whole history of the current dilemma of our world to the women's rights movement.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:Yeah. And so, again, you know, if we've been compromised, I think at the end of the day I'm not gonna sit here and tell anybody what you ought to believe. That's your prerogative. But I I will tell you that you must begin to look with a with a with a clear eye and a critical eye at what it is that you're saying you value and stand for. I've given you you know, I'm very transparent.
Speaker 5:This is going to go on the radio waves. This is going out to all kinds of people. So I can't hide. Right? So and I don't wanna hide.
Speaker 5:Even though there's a risk of being open and saying, I see or feel or believe a thing in a certain way. There's a risk to it. But at this point in my life today at 55, I can no longer afford the luxury of compromising on what I believe is important for me to stand for openly and and and brazenly. And so I urge each of you, the listener today, what is it that you are most convinced of being right and what are you willing to do? Take how are you willing to take action?
Speaker 5:Some are going to the No Kings rallies. Some people are in the radio station expounding on values that are imparting themselves to others. What are you doing?
Speaker 4:Thank you. Wow. You are tuned in to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio, ninety one point seven FM, koop.org, streaming everywhere. And Brother Rob, thank you for teeing up my circle back to you, Shamirio, about fear. And yeah.
Speaker 4:So because I I think that fear is a big piece of what's happening right now.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:So what what were you thinking about when you when you talk about fear?
Speaker 1:Before I hop there, you know, listen to brother Rob, everything starts at an individual level where your heart is first. Really, every action that you take comes from what's in your heart. So, you know, I love the the reference, but in my head, it's almost backwards because I start in my heart. What I believe in my heart comes first. That should cause me to speak out, or it's gonna cause me to shrink in fear.
Speaker 1:So which one am I choosing? And we when we look at fear, fear is the driver of decisions, both good and bad. Sometimes fear can drive you to speak out because it's so bad that I need to say something, or it's so bad that I need to do something. It's so bad I need to sit at a counter. It's so bad I'm gonna sit on this bus.
Speaker 1:It's so bad that I'm gonna get in front of thousands of people, and I'm gonna give an I have a dream speech because it's so bad. And you go from that, you know, where people have fear almost to a level of being silenced or being shunned because they have an opinion. And, really, we just gotta take fear and nip it in the bud. If fear is stopping you from making decisions or fear is stopping you from taking action, then you need to ask yourself what's gonna be the consequence of letting fear drive me to do nothing. Because then we get to the places that we are now, and then decisions are being made and stuff is happening, and it's so great.
Speaker 1:Now you're like, oh, we need to do something now.
Speaker 4:And let's bring back mindfulness because fear is a feeling, and it is real. Yeah. And when it paralyzes you to an action or being complacent, I think about my cousins, my aunts, my uncles, my whole family of origin. Mhmm. There is so much ancestral fear Yes.
Speaker 4:Played out through generation to generation to generation and all the way to yours truly. And I'm still I'm still carrying it, and I'm facing it. And facing that fear is empowering. Right. And put it down.
Speaker 4:But I think about that social, you know, the social fear of losing your friends Mhmm. Being kicked off the team Mhmm. Being, you know, being the the social fear, especially if you're in a small town of speaking out. Yeah. I know that feeling of fear because I've been in it and I've lived it.
Speaker 4:And it does not have to run your world or decision. Love and liberation feel way better
Speaker 1:yeah for sure
Speaker 3:two questions I've got the first one for you stacy is the one I brought in you know from looking at this book that we've talked about and circling back to Thich Nhat Hanh, especially. And so I wanna give that to you, but then before you respond, I wanna give brother Rob one too. And if we've got time for both of them, that'd be great. But what does mindfulness mean to you knowing that you're a member of of the Order of it or being? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So what does mindfulness mean to you, and what is its relationship to your understanding of beloved community? Brother Rob, it just occurred to me when you're talking about working for improvement in Austin and but feeling that question of should I be doing more for my neighborhood of Pflugerville? And it just struck me, you know, because of interbeing, because of the interconnectivity, you know, and and really clearly with Austin and Pflugerville, by working in and for Austin, you are working in and for Pflugerville. Is one way to think of it. So does does that help any?
Speaker 5:Well, I won't say that it doesn't. What I I will say I'll reflect on it. Mhmm. And I'll say that I'm still looking for ways to be invested in the place where I lay my head. If something should befall us in the immediate environments of my community, want that community to have safety and security and protection.
Speaker 5:And so, I think, you know, there's no inherent resistance to what you're saying. Mhmm. I I I'm I still working it
Speaker 3:think I was especially thinking about gentrification. And if gentrification of Austin is if is, you know, gonna in turn gentrify or affect gentrification in Pflugerville, that they are interconnected really strong.
Speaker 5:There there are definitely there there's no denying that they're interconnected. And yes, I think by virtue of my efforts in Austin, am in some way tackling some elements of the challenges we're faced with there. But I think there's a way that I could be doing that and maybe there's a way that I will ultimately explore doing that that feels more genuine to my sense of plight. Right? Yep.
Speaker 5:One little quick thing I wanted to go back to, I understood your take on the phraseology. There's another saying that Muhammad left us and it was, and I'll say it in Arabic, says, And it meant actions are judged by intentions.
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:And so that idea is akin to what you're pointing out that it does begin in the heart. And I even think it connects with your question about mindfulness. When I think about mindfulness, when I first became introduced to the idea of mindfulness, when they talk about mindfulness while we're eating, mindfulness while we're walking, how many things am I doing absent mindedly? How many things am I doing carelessly without regard for the value it holds in my life or for my life? There are countless ways in which I think I fall victim to that.
Speaker 5:And so just believing that there is a way in which I can approach life and the challenges of life with a sober perspective, that's the desire that I yearn for. Am I am I flawlessly upholding that? Absolutely not. But the hope is to continue to be clear eyed about what I'm witnessing, both at home and abroad, and having an appropriate response to that that speaks to the heart of my values.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's good. I think, you know, you mentioned before, like, just walking in the neighborhood and people not necessarily speaking to each other. I think sometimes mindfulness is lost because we get so involved in what's going on in our individual worlds, that we stop being mindful of others. But then if we're not mindful of others, it's a truly love.
Speaker 4:So to answer your question, Jim, that you pose for me is what what is mindfulness to me?
Speaker 3:And how does it relate to beloved community?
Speaker 4:And how does it relate to beloved community? Present moment awareness is my short answer because in the present moment you're not locked in the past, you're not imposing feelings on the future including concern and worry, and through mindfulness which I define as present moment awareness, concentration and insight combine. And when present moment when mindfulness concentration and insight combine, that's where we unlock the kingdom of heaven. And so that means I notice the interconnectedness of the bee that's landing on the bloom Mhmm. That's in my front yard, and that bird that is singing and greeting me when I open my eyes in the morning.
Speaker 4:And I say every morning, and I learned this from Thay Thich Nhat Hanh, one of
Speaker 6:my
Speaker 4:teachers is waking up I smile twenty four brand new hours of are before me. I vow to live my own, life of mindfulness. And being in beloved community is recognizing that interconnectedness and that love. And I am part of this universe. I am literally stardust as every one of you are in this room.
Speaker 4:And how can I not love stardust? Therefore, I love myself. Therefore, I can extend my love out to you and everyone else because it is an infinite power. And that's what I believe beloved community is. That's great.
Speaker 4:That's real good. It's my truth.
Speaker 1:The the show that I am pitching for co op as a new programmer soon is gonna be called Fervent Hearts. It's called what? Fervent Hearts. In my background, I mean, it's a lot of things, but my background is heavy in psychology and public health and and people. Being a person that's in school, to even be a nurse practitioner, when you think about the way people are living their lives day to day, how emotional intelligence plays into everything, the fact that most people don't know about emotional intelligence or what it is or how it drives us.
Speaker 1:Brings it back to everything we're talking about right now. And that show is, it's a merge between my faith, which is Christian, and and embracing people. Because if I silo myself and say, I'm Christian. I'm over here. This is what I do.
Speaker 1:And everybody else is not involved, then we lose that connection to others. We lose that ability to see everybody else for who they are and the differences in us. And we can embrace them all and coexist together.
Speaker 4:Brother Rob?
Speaker 5:I'll just simply say that in this moment, I choose to be, And that's that.
Speaker 1:Period.
Speaker 3:Enter being. I am because you are.
Speaker 4:Brother Jim, with before you musically take us out of this hour and we'll be back next month and we're applying for another program in a year so we're we're not going anywhere. We're gonna keep this truth telling in love and justice going.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The thing I was thinking is that is just that beloved community is expansive. You know, whoever is outside of it is because at this point they choose to be. Right. Not that they're excluded.
Speaker 3:So yeah.
Speaker 4:And I'll finish with the Doctor. King quote about love and it is love is creative and redemptive. Love builds up and unites. Hate tears down and destroys. Love builds up and unites.
Speaker 4:Hate tears down and destroys. Thank y'all. I love all y'all listening. Y'all have been tuned into Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour. We meet as a a group, and it all are welcome, and there are no rules except show up with a loving present heart to four eleventh in Congress, for a weekly vigil at 4PM every Friday.
Speaker 4:Songs and signs and and the people showing up.
Speaker 3:Vigil for peace and justice.
Speaker 4:Yep. And nonviolentaustin.org is our website if you wanna reach out to us.
Speaker 5:Peace and blessings.
Speaker 4:Peace and blessings. Well, it's other folks' shoes.
Speaker 3:Other folks' shoes. What's the picture? It's walking in their moccasins a mile, maybe two. It's knowing yourself, forgetting yourself, seeing what yourself would do if you walked around this world a while in other folks shoes. Well, was white haired when I met her, a little bit bent over.
Speaker 3:Know thyself, she told me, and to thine own self be true. But I didn't have to know her long to learn the simple lesson that she'd become the self she was wearing other folks' shoes. Well, it's other folks' shoes. It's other folks' shoes. And walking in their moccasins a mile, maybe two.
Speaker 3:Is knowing yourself, forgetting yourself, seeing what yourself would do if you walked around this world a while and other folks should. She said, when I draw a tree, you know, or write a poem about it, I become that tree a while, else I can't get it right. I lose myself, forget myself, no oneness with that other, like walking in the deep forest.
Speaker 4:Up next, Democracy Now. Stay tuned.
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