Someone wrote a comment on one of my postings that I should not allow the Christian Right to form my impressions of all Christians because there is a difference between them. Okay. I agree wholeheartedly. One of my favorite people was Martin Luther King, Jr. and he was a Christian on the left and what really gets my goat (is that a saying or did I just make that up?) is that the Christian left is SILENT. I believe I can hear crickets chirping in the space where the voice of the Christian left should be. Where are the Martin Luther King Jr.s out there? Why are they not taking to the streets, boycotting oil, holding press conferences, organizing and protesting?

I personally feel that there are a lot of Christians out there that don't have anyone they can identify with. They look to the television and all they have are George W. Bush and Ned Flanders from The Simpsons. Without having another person they can look to for confirmation on their own identity they are getting stuck with this representative of Christianity that doesn't necessarily stand for who they are but is their only alternative to turn towards. If there was a Martin Luther King, Jr. or some other spiritually Christian person that was anti-violence and pro-community, then perhaps the polls wouldn't appear the way they do. Perhaps the large percentage of the country that is hanging on to a Bush Administration because of an overblown fear in a Muslim takeover might turn towards sharing and compassion instead of fear and hatred.

A friend of a friend of mine is actually working on a commercial to air on Arab television that shows different preachers denouncing the actions of our government towards the Iraqi people. This a great idea because it is an alternative to the image that W. Is putting out there of "bring it on" and "mission accomplished." I think that image needs to be broadcast here in the states as well. But despite our democracy spewing propaganda, we do not have a free media and I doubt it would be allowed on the air. Besides, the cost for air time is too high. Still, the damage that the silence of the Christian Left is doing continues to grow. Remember we are all accountable. It is easy to say to me and the world that we shouldn't judge one group of Christians as representative of the whole religion, but what have you done to represent your religion? What have we all done as Americans lately besides a little armchair activism and listening to liberal radio? We should be talking candidly about the issues and think hard and long about what we believe in. We need to understand what is good for our communities and our world. We need to start talking again. We need to be heard.

Today I got into a heated argument with two women at work. One woman started to kvetch how America was a poor innocent victim and the terrorists were picking on us and we needed to stop being walked all over. We should be more forceful. This, of course, was incredibly offensive and a violation to my liberal ears. As we argued, I noticed that she was verbally dancing, she was Mohammed Ali, floating like a butterfly but failing to sting me like a bee. That's not quite true, she did sting me with her bigotry. Her bigotry against brown people. This was not the first conversation that she and I had engaged in where she was a bigot. She has said hateful things against South Asian people "I feel like a foreigner on my own country", things against the American Idol Fantasia "All of Africa must have voted for her" and against Jews, a group of which she is part of. This was the first time that the curtains of naivete parted and I saw the maliciousness behind her words. It wasn't just a generational gap, the archie bunker generation as I like to think of them. They are offensive but goodhearted underneath. This was mean. And scared. Fear of a brown planet.

The second woman tried to explain it to me. "You don't understand," She said simply, "If the Muslims take over, you won't have the priviledges that you have now." I wondered how it was that she thought the Muslims might take over, when the Christian Right Wing is doing such a fabulous job already in taking away my priviledges. What I realized was that as a white person, I am able to sneak undetected into these impromptu Klan rallies because it is assumed that because of the color of my skin I feel the same way that they do about the "other."

I was completely stumped as to how I am supposed to respond in these situations. I either fly into a rage and then storm off feeling nauseas or I remain quiet and feel guilty and sick that I didn't defend the oppressed. I spoke to a friend that does a bunch of work with the Theatre of the Oppressed, and she told me to do this for example:

A Sikh man leaves the office.

"Oh, I feel like I was in a taxi cab," Person A.

"Yeah, I feel like a foreigner in my own country," Person B.

Me: (Laughs) I don't get it. What do you mean?

By forcing them to explain it they will then be forced to admit their own prejudice out loud.

Person B: "Well, he was Indian. A lot of Taxi Drivers are Indian, get it?"

Me: No, but that seems kind of mean. It wouldn't be fair to say 'Wow, I suddenly felt like I was in Auschwitz' when a Jewish person leaves the office, would it?"

I think that would be a very different and effective way to turn a situation around without yelling "RACIST!" and running to the bathroom which has been my personal approach.

If any one has any other suggestions, please write me --- thescarletpaper@hotmail.com

Like many I work for a large corporation. My company happens to be in the healthcare industry, so you might think that people are important to them. This is not so. Today we received word that the company was planning to transfer its transcription services over to another company. To be exact, they are outsourcing to India. I never thought that as a freedom loving, liberal hippie I would feel so strongly against outsourcing. My feelings have grown recently as the economy continues to take a dive despite what my faithful television tells me and every family that I know has an unemployed adult in it. These are people that have dedicated years of their lives to unions like the UFT or Fire Department and now they are getting fucked up the ass with a splintered broomstick.

I was personally disgusted as my office manager gave the well dressed Indian men a tour of our office and introduced them to the doctors and staff. I didn't want to put a smiling friendly face on the company that was forcing a delightful department of women into unemployment. I don't care that these are Indian people. They could be any other country, and I would not like the idea of outsourcing the service that is provided by the transcription department. There is a language barrier there that is a constant problem in terms of understanding the usage of words in English in a conversational way. For example, a letter might state, " I prescribed Flomax for three week's and instructed the patient to follow up with appointment." Do you see the errors there? Then there is the mad scramble to correct the work and send it back. This isn't an occasional problem but a recurring one. I also have a problem with the fact that if I have to discuss something with the transcription department all I have to do is walk down the hall. Yes, I could call this company on the phone in theory, but its not the same. I guess I am spoiled by the convenience. But I am also friends with these women. If they lose their jobs, their kids don't eat, they lose their homes, lives are devastated.

This is a problem that is growing all over the country. Think about your own circle of family and friends and the people in your community. How many people do you know that have been laid off due to budget cuts and outsourcing? I feel bad for the poverty in other countries like India because as they get more and more jobs that are coming into their company from large corporations, are their lives improving? Is the poverty level rising? Are they getting decent wages and health care? I don't really have answers to those questions until I do some research. I think of all the manufacturing plants that have moved to Mexico and Latin America. The lives of those people haven't improved. They don't call 'em sweat shops for nothin'. In Columbia the Coca Cola Company hired mercenaries to kill the workers that were trying to unionize. Nice, right?

The only way to change this is to make sure to vote in November. I was talking to a coworker who was ranting about the outsourcing scandal and I told her point blank, you said you weren't going to vote this year, but if you are so upset about this problem than it is up to you to vote for a candidate that will fix this outsourcing problem that has intensified under the current administration. Put your money where your mouth is so to speak. That convinced her enough to do the right thing. I am tired of people complaining about the state of affairs and yet they don't vote. They don't protest. They don't rise up and fight the power. If we talk about accountability we must all point the finger at ourselves. What have we been doing to be more politically responsible and how can make more of a contribution? It's time for some soul searching, people.

It has been a long time since I last wrote and I have to say that my fingers feel rusty. I kicked ass this semester and now I return to work for the summer full time fighting the male oppressor. I am trying to avoid conversations that argue who will win this season's American Idol, whether Martha Stewart deserves another trial or why on earth Jessica Simpson's sister is getting her own record deal. Although I do have to say that this is the lowest form of nepotism I have ever encountered. One Simpson was enough, thank you.

I am focusing my summer on personal empowerment. Taking my life back. Taking my country back. Taking it all and making it mine. Becoming whole again. As a person and as a country. It is something that we don't think about a lot. We see the government or even our relationships as something we don't have to take a full active participation in. I have to be honest. I was more than content for much of my life to flip a coin or let someone else make the decisions for me. It was easier not to have to be responsible and to make the hard choices. I am not alone. Many people are ambivalent about voting and about protesting the government. Let someone else take care of it and we can worry about our mortgage and buying a hummer. Then we are at war. The environment is for shit, the economy is the worst its been since the depression and we look at the t.v. and wonder what country they are talking about, this isn't the America that we love, that we celebrate the birth of on the fourth of July.

But it is. Now is the time for waking up on a grand scale. It has to start with baby steps though. There will be more to come...