Kevin McClear

I’ve read a lot about the crisis on our Southern border. We see pictures of kids in cages, or of their bodies. We want to say that this is not us, not our values. We are wrong.

When our political ancestors divorced 13 colonies from the Divine Rule of Kings, they gave the power of governance to us. We hold the authority to amend the Constitution, altering the structure of our government to match our current times. We have the authority to elect politicians who enact laws in our name. They gave us ownership of the government.

We own the Trail of Tears. We own slavery, the Kake War, the Japanese internment, the burning of the Douglas Indian Village, and we own the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

However, we also own all the moments where we made things better. We own emancipation, the suffrage movement, and child labor laws. We own the reconstruction amendments, the Clean Water Act, the civil rights movement, and anti-discrimination laws.

And, we will own the fix to the humanitarian crisis on our Southern border.

Arguing that this is not us is ultimately a disempowering argument. It IS us, which means we have the power to make it better. And throughout most of our history, we have tended to progressively make things better.

Many people have asked me in the last few weeks how it feels to be a papa. I generally hedge, I deflect the question saying it’s too soon to tell or that it’s not really sunk in. That’s not true at all.

It feels… amazing. It feels like I finally get the punchline to the greatest story ever told. It feels like things make sense again. It feels like I have a future again.

One of the symptoms of PTSD is that people who suffer from it tend to be so focused on getting through the present they tend to stop imagining the future. While I don’t mean to put myself in the same category, it’s a good metaphor to look at where Shannon and I have been for much of the last decade. So many of our decisions and resources were focused on becoming parents. I stopped dreaming about our future. I stopped so entirely that I had not even realized what I was no longer doing.

Now, I’m in a beautiful world of paradox. I have no free time, yet I am getting more accomplished. I have a greater obligation then I have ever held in my life, yet I have the freedom to dream again. I have more restrictions on what I can do at any given moment, yet I feel less emotionally constrained. I’ve not slept a full night in the past month, yet I am emotionally refreshed in a way I cannot remember feeling.

To all of you who are a part of the Three Barons Fair:

I think it’s sometimes easy for us to focus on just the part of the fair we participate in directly. We can sometimes overlook the overall picture of what it is we build together. If you’ll allow me an indulgence, I’d like to share my perspective of the fair from the standpoint of your site manager.

The Three Barons Fair hosts 15 venues with seven stages, over 50 vendors, and has a cast that exceeds 400.

When taken together, the time spent on-site building, striking, rehearsing, and performing exceeds 25,000 people/hours. At that point, it’s more useful to start talking person/days (1,041), or even person/years (2.9). This is the time on-site; we spend countless more hours in the offseason, preparing, planning, and rehearsing.

When making site decisions, I assume between 10-12 thousand patrons over the two weekends. Each day, our patrons would fill the Wendy Williamson Auditorium 4 times over. On any given day of fair, Hillshire is the 12th largest population center in Alaska.

We don’t reach these sorts of numbers on a fluke, we’ve built them over time. Our patrons come back year-on-year, routinely choosing us over everything else Alaska has to offer on the first glorious weekends of summer.

What we’ve built together is magnificent, and we do it on a site without running water, in structures that need to be taken down and stored between fairs. I’m honored to be a part.

Thank you all for your hard work.

The following is an old piece of writing long thought lost.

April first is a time of jest, when people test their wits and compare their pranks to decide which comes out best.

The competition is not always fair, when there’s a ringer in the air, up above, looking down to try and claim the jester’s crown, to be the one with bragging rights who from his heights looks down and knows that he has accomplished the best jest yet.

This story is true, more or less.  It’s changed a bit I must confess, to add finesse, but I digress.  The perfect setting for a jest, April First, nonetheless, in a state that’s known for pranks.  In ’87 the jester king was a bird on the wing

An Alaska Airlines flight rose into the clear daylight with little to obscure the view of what soon was to ensue.

This is where it gets absurd.  For a soaring eagle, a mighty fishing bird is he, pulled his catch out of the sea to soar away to the safety of some unknown tree.

I’ve no doubt but to assume he wished to eat his dish away from his fright at noise of the Juneau but his flight was laden by the weight his fish.

I’ve always thought it odd that our country’s mascot is a bird such as this.  For our façade that we share with the world, we chose a majestic flying rat, albeit with wings unfurled, soaring high throughout the day, surviving by scavenging what it may, out of the way, avoiding anything that may become a fray, least the hunter become the prey.  For truth be told, the mighty eagle is a coward.  Far from the image we portray, this bird is easily spooked away.

In fairness to the bird, if I saw a jet airplane chasing after me, I would run away at great haste too, and when the 737 climbed towards the bird, a bizarre collision soon occurred, as the plane spurred the bird to drop its fish and quickly bid adieu.

Of course you know the fish hit the plane.  The gift the eagle did bestow was in vain, as the plane changed it’s pace not at all, climbing far away from the denizens of the sea, or at least where they ought to be, far below in the Gastineau Channel.

This is not the end of the fishy tail, as calls for help proved no avail, for it was April Fools’day, where normal rules are thrown away.  When Boeing field got the word that a flying fish had struck their bird, their response time suffered some delay on account of the foolish day.

And who can blame them, truth be told?  The outlandish claim they were being sold?  Flying fish do exist, but a salmon on the wing?  What a thing to behold.  Given the day, let caution hold sway, and don’t fall for a tale so bold.

But what are our pilots to do?  The tale they told was true!  In Yakutat they were grounded lest they fly their craft impaired, their efforts were confounded to get their aircraft in the air.  Their radio sounded messages back to base until finally an astounded mechanic flew out to confirm their tale, or become a part of it.

What he found was indeed a scene so very rare.  Fish slime and fish scales, yet no reason to repair the aircraft.  The plane was cleared for takeoff to continue on its flight, the passengers lead safely home; well into the night.  The passengers were inconvenienced, as many will attest, yet they were there to see the years best jest.

The foolish jests of April are the best that fools can bring, but in ’87 the jester king was a bird on the wing.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an amazing leader. Facing down institutional violence, he was able to talk about the long arc of history bending towards justice. He could see further ahead than the rest of us, and inspired hope and vocation. I have talked with people who described to me meeting him, and even 30 years later they spoke with infectious passion and purpose. It’s never difficult to find amazing quotes of his to share when his holiday comes around. In years past I have memorialized the public speaker and fearless motivator. This year, I am focusing on the prefix to his name, the Doctor of Systematic Theology.

In my college religion courses, there was always an open question. What if the Cannon had not been closed? What more recent works should be added to the Cannon, or at least to the Apocrypha? Should some of the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer be added? How about Paul Tillich (the writings of which inspired Dr. King’s dissertation)? And, in what I am sure is not a surprise given the subject of this post, we discussed Dr. King, and his Letter From a Birmingham Jail. A letter written very specifically to clergy.

I recently re-read that letter, and it struck me as prescient, but for all the wrong reasons. In national politics, as we watch Christians wrap their heads around supporting people who do not appear to live Christian values in the name of politics, one part of Dr. King’s letter stands out as an unheeded warning with clearly laid out consequences that are coming due.

“There was a time when the church was very powerful… the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society…

“Things are different now. The contemporary church is often … the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

“But the judgement of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I am meeting young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust. ”

As a civil libertarian, I believe in the separation of church and state as a way of protecting those in a minority religion from being forced to profess unfelt beliefs to get along in life. As a Christian, I believe in the separation of church and state because the marriage of the two makes it far too easy for the church to be subordinate to the state, to protect the status qui, and become a meaningless social club.

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Day. Let the words of the master orator rejuvenate and restore you to take up the good fight for justice everywhere. Let the revolutionary remind you that our job is not done. But also, let the pastor give you pause to reflect on the constant job of rejuvenating and restoring your own faith.

Today’s lesson in unintended consequences:

King Mansa Musa of Mali was the wealthiest person the world has ever seen. Mali was a center of trade with abundant salt and gold, and being south of the Sahara, avoided many of the conflicts of the “known world,” allowing it to prosper.

Mansa Musa was a devout Muslim, and in the year 1324 decided to make the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. By some accounts, he brought 60,000 people with him in his caravan. Being a devout Muslim, and being on a pilgrimage, Mansa Musa took his Zakat tithing to the poor seriously. Being the richest man the world has ever seen, such abundant generosity brought so much gold to the local economy of Cairo (where he stopped on the way to Mecca) that it devalued the currency, creating hyper-inflation.

Today, in “women I wish we knew more about,” Fatima al-Fihri.

Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Fihriya Al-Qurashiya was probably born around 810 AD in Kairouan, modern-day Tunisia. Her father was a wealthy merchant who ended up on the wrong side of politics, and her family, along with 2,000 others, were expelled. They settled n the Moroccan town of Fez in such great numbers that a district of the town was named for the city they fled.

We know little about Fatima. Kairouan was a center of learning, and we know that Fatima was well educated. We know that her father did very well as a merchant in Fez and that she and her sister inherited quite a sum. We know that she was married and then widowed, all of which left her a wealthy, educated woman with control over how her wealth was to be spent (which was a significantly more likely combination in the Islamic world than in Europe 800s AD).

Politicians and pundits really like Christmas, but then everyone likes a baby shower. You can show off your Christian bona fides in a nice safe manner, adoring the helpless baby before he has a chance to grow up and start talking.

The baby Jesus has not yet driven money-changers from the temple. The baby Jesus does not have the voice to tell us that to look after the less fortunate is to look after him. Jesus will become an adult before he tells us not to make a public spectacle of following him. So as long as we see him as the baby, it’s safe to weaponize his birthday. We loudly proclaim our faith on the street corners, shaking our tambourines at anyone who would be so crass as to offer us the incorrect blessing. We may wait to exchange gifts on Christmas, but truly we’ve already received our reward.

This week, a man walked into a school where his estranged wife worked.  He shot her, and two of her students, in front of a room full of children.  I have yet to see anyone in the media ask where and how he was radicalized.

This week, a woman in Wisconsin was walking home from her prayers.  A man got out of a truck, demanded she take off her hijab.  He knocked her down, beat her and cut her with a knife.  I have yet to see anyone in the media ask where and how he was radicalized.

The reality is, even if we asked, it would be hard to answer that question in the case of these two women.  The CDC reports that 1 in 4 women have experienced severe physical violence from an intimate partner.  Simply put, violence against women is endemic in our society, and being endemic precludes being radical.

But it should not preclude us from asking the question, because asking the question is making the argument that the prevalence of violence need not be taken as normal.  We need to ask why someone thinks he can shoot his wife.  We need to ask how someone got to the point where they could physically attack a woman based on what she was wearing.  We need to ask the question every time until we no longer think of this as normal.  We need to ask until domestic violence takes some form of radicalization.

There are three holidays of note this week.  The one that I got off from work is the least significant.

On the 14th, we had the holiday of Saint Valentine of Rome.  According to legend Emperor Claudius the Cruel was afraid that solders who had families would be more devoted to their families than to their emperor, so forbade solders to marry.  The priest Valentine did not accept Claudius’s jurisdiction over love and marriage, and as the story goes, married several couples in defiance of the Claudius’s edict.

The earliest recorded Valentine written was from, Charles, Duke of Orléans who is said to have written poems to his wife in France while a prisoner in the Tower of London, his words of love escaping his confinement.

Even if history cannot corroborate these stories, Valentine’s Day is a day where relaxed social rules allow extravagance in romance.  We have permission to let romantic love take precedence over normal rules.

The second holiday was Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on the 16th.  That’s the day where we celebrate her work, and the work of many within the ANB/ANS, in passing the Alaskan Anti-Discrimination Act of 1941.  If you have not read the transcript of her testimony to the Alaskan Territorial Legislature, read it here.  Her description of the three types of people who practice discrimination will be the most important thing you read today.  When we celebrate her day, we are celebrating all of those who speak to power and authority with a moral clarity that cannot be ignored.

Which brings us to today, President’s Day.  Today was the day that chosen as a compromise so we did not have to chose which great man’s birthday we should celebrate.  We take their day off of work, and celebrate their contribution to history.

Presidents don’t make history any more than bankers build buildings or politicians launch ships.

People remembered in our history books stand in front of others who actually build and they take credit for the work of the builder.  So my wish for you today is this… enjoy your day off but remember, when love overcomes convention, when moral clarity speaks to power, THEN is when we make history.  And while there will always be a person at the front who gets the credit, it’s you and I who make it happen.

HMS Terror has been found well preserved in 11 meters of water.  It appears her crew had taken time while abandoning her, so perhaps she was caught in the ice, and the crew then removed useful items and tried to make for home on HMS Erebus.

The discovery of the two ships has been a mix of science and story.  Research vessels had been following Inuit oral tradition, and the first sighting was made by an Inut fisherman who later crewed on the research vessel that confirmed the find.  Some 150 years after the expedition, the Terror was still sitting proud on the ocean floor, with her mast above the water for Sammy Kogvik to find when he was fishing.  6 years later, that find is confirmed.

I wonder how the passengers and crew of the Crystal Serenity are taking the news of this find.  She entered Bar Harbor, Maine yesterday after cruising the Northwest Passage this summer.

/my post on the rediscovery of the HMS Erebus

There are several emails circulating that remember how much better things were.  They shows kids playing outdoors without cell phones.  They show dads and sons fishing, or teenagers dancing in a soda-shop, all clean, neat and protected.  They show kids riding to school on bikes without helmets and playing on equipment that would “drive safety-lawyers crazy.”

The thing is, if you look at those emails, all the people in them are white.

Sociologists started looking at the commodification of nostalgia in 1979, with Fred Davis’s piece Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia.  In it, Davis noted that nostalgia was nothing new, but creation of group nostalgia, mostly through advertising, was.  With nationwide media shared in common, regional memories became less powerful than national ones, and the national memories were being created by the advertisers of that same media.

Advertisers created a memory of a simpler past, where things made sense.  An image of Eden that we, as consumers, could buy into simply by buying their products.

It’s an easy pitch to make, most things make sense in hindsight.  To make that pitch, however, much of history needs to be omitted.  Salespeople are not hired to tell the whole truth, they are sell a product.   Frequently, they do so with allusion to a simpler past, which only works if the storybook past actually appears simpler.

So, we got a version of the past without strife.  We see middle-class kids playing, and the the kids with the luxury of being middle class in the 50’s are white.

The result of this advertising is that we now have a collective nostalgia that  merged with collective amnesia.  We look to a simpler time that we understand (in retrospect) by looking at, and idolizing, the lives of middle-classed children.  Lost in that picture is the grown up world of Mutually Assured Destruction, school de-segregation, or class and social unrest.

The ultimate nostalgia trip is the idea of the fall from Eden.  The tale predates modern media, but has similar common elements.  Art from thought Abrahamic history depicts Adam and Eve being cast out of paradise, never to return.   The sin for which they were cast out was none other than that of understanding Good and evil.  Before they knew that, things were simpler and more idealistic.  A paradise to be sure, but a paradise ultimately made possible by ignorance.  Most of the religious artwork that depicts the scene shows Adam and Eve looking back, longing for what they lost.  Like us, the garden seems ideal, but with our experience in the garden predating our understanding of good and evil, how could we know?

When we talk about making America great “again,” we are panting our own picture, with us gazing back at paradise and longing for ignorance.  We dream, not of President Eisenhower putting a Christmas message into space on the back of a modified ICBM, but of a little girl picking a daisy in a field.  When I look back, I can’t help but hear the count-down voice-over, and shudder at how complicated life really was.

I much prefer to look forward to the greatness ahead.

I recently commented that the “oldies” radio station was playing music from my college years. Driving into work, I heard the Goo Goo Dolls, followed by an announcer who said “I know, get over it.  We’re playing your music on this station.  It eventually happens to everyone.”

I must admit, it made my day.

My cohort has reached a new milestone in life.  As I was driving home yesterday I realized that every song I heard was on the radio when I was in college.  This would not be a big deal, but I was listening to the oldies station.

Well, my friends, we’ve made it.  The nation’s advertisers have coalesced around us as a prime demographic.  They are showing us the sort of interest that we have not seen since before we got our mortgages.  We are in the sweet spot now.  Next, we will be loosing some of our stations to the younger wave of music and disk jockeys that tell the kids it’s all about them, but for now, the radio is OURS!

Apropos, disk jockey is an amazingly resilient moniker.  It worked for both acetate and vinyl disks, compact disks and hard disks.  Really, it’s only now that we are using solid state drives that DJ’s are no longer spinning disks in any way shape or forum.

There is a certain vibe to public buildings that are mostly empty with those still left still having work to do.  I am sitting in a university library over spring break.  Desks are empty and computers are plentiful, but the people around me are working with a relaxed focus, much as I did through almost every “break” in college.  There is none of the frantic wasted energy of finals, just the determination of the tortoise taking advantage of a nap in the college schedule to slowly pull back into the race.

It’s the same feeling as an airport or bus station at midnight, or a shopping mall an hour after closing.  Whatever mania the day may bring is replaced with custodians trying to repair the frayed edges of the day gone by, and the occasional traveler trying to catch a nap on a bench.  Everyone trapped inside a living space as it takes the time to breathe.

Reflection is itself a reflexive action.  When running full out, if forced to slow down the mind still keeps going, keeps making connections.  So, I’m sitting at a public computer, a Foucalt Pendulum swinging in the background, the rattle of library carts as a student workers re-shelve in peace, and surrounded by tortoises.  My people.  I’ve been there often enough that it’s hard to not feel a kinship with those around me who are quietly, urgently moving forward while the library around them breathes deeply.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

                                                                   –Howard Thurman

It’s so easy to dream of the days gone by, so hard to think of the times to come.

The Grace to accept every moment as a gift is a gift that is given to some.

What can we do with our days but work and hope?  Let your dreams bind your work with your play.

What can you do with each moment of your life, but love ’till you’ve loved it away?

Love ’till you’ve loved it away.

 

There are sorrows enough for the whole world’s end, there are no guarantees but the grave.

This life that we live and the times that we spend are treasures too precious to save.

What can we do with our days but work and hope?  Let your dreams bind your work with your play.

What can you do with each moment of your life, but love ’till you’ve loved it away?

Love ’till you’ve loved it away.

 

-Bob Franke

It is in vogue for Presidential contenders to out-do each other with more extreme ways of saying “no” to Syrian refugees.  When making sure the vetting process was not enough, Trump simply said we should stop accepting them altogether.  When Christie needed to cut through the noise, he made it explicit that even toddlers were a risk.  Meanwhile the French, even in the aftermath of the attacks on their soil, are continuing to accept refugees.  This brings to mind for me Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s meditation on the parable of the Good Samaritan.

In the parable, Jesus tells us of a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho who gets beaten, robbed and left for dead.  The dying man is passed by a priest, and than a Levite, both of whom continue on their way, refusing to render assistance.  Then a Samaritan, always a strange choice for a hero in Biblical stories, came to the man, helped him to safety and paid for his care.  Jesus calls upon us to be like that Samaritan.

Dr. King’s speech, I’ve Been to the Mountaintop references the parable;

I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, “I can see why Jesus used this as the setting for his parable.” It’s a winding, meandering road. It’s really conducive for ambushing.

You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles — or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you’re about 2200 feet below sea level. That’s a dangerous road.

In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the “Bloody Pass.” And you know, it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it’s possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the priest asked — the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?”

But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

Several candidates who would be our President, several governors are calling on us to ask what will become of us.  Meanwhile the French, who have recent experience with what could happen, are reminding us that we need to reverse the question.

All the world’s a stage.  We are  all merely players.  In our time, we play many parts.  Right now, the city of Raqqa is playing the part of whipping boy for the world’s most powerful men.  When Vladimir Putin needs to show strength after ISIS bombs a plane, Russia bombs Raqqa.  When Francois Hollande needs to show strength after the attacks in Paris, France bombs Raqqa.  Meanwhile, ISIS knows full well the role of Raqqa, and cleared out of the targeted areas before the airstrikes came.  The French are hitting abandoned ISIS bases while the Russians hit bridges, stadiums, clinics and hospitals.

Meanwhile our media has it’s part to play.  NPR had a piece this morning that discussed the disparity of news reporting between the Paris attacks and the attacks in Beirut.  Eleven stories talked about Paris this morning, there were no further stories about Beirut.  None was needed, as NPR pointed out the newsworthiness of the Beirut story is tempered by the fact that we expect it there, we don’t expect it in Paris.

If death becomes less newsworthy when it becomes expected, it is probably telling that neither this morning’s show nor yesterday’s talked about last weekends mass shooting in Texas.  6 campers were shot and killed.  The campers have moved into their final part; mere oblivion.  Their death is yet another shooting and is not even newsworthy.

We come now to the politicians.  The merchants of fear are playing their part.  They would have us fear refugees, the Trojan Horse that would bring violence to our country.  The violence is already here.  We have 5% of the world’s population, and 31% of the world’s mass shootings.  With 190,000 murders since 9/11 we have a history of violence that we are unwilling to discuss least we be forced to make uncomfortable decisions as a society.  Instead, they expect us to play the part of the coward who is afraid to face our own demons.  They would rather us be interested in facing the threat posed by fleeing refugees.

We’ve yet to decide what part we will play.

I’ve had a lot to think about since listening to our President sing “Amazing Grace.” I normally would not reflect on the leader of a secular nation in a religious context, but after President Obama delivered a magnificent eulogy that referenced racism as our countries original sin, it’s hard to not to.

President Obama did not talk about the Sumerian Woman at the Well in his speech but that is where my mind goes when I reflect on the nature of grace. It’s a simple story, but one of ones I find the most challenging. In the story, the woman’s relationship with Jesus grows not because she is perfect, but because she is imperfect. In the story, Jesus meets with the woman and tells her her sins. She does not deny them. She does not protest. She accepts him for who he is, and then goes on to be his first cleric, the first person sent before him to give the good news. She tells her town that the messiah is coming, and that he knew her and all her sins. To do so, she had to confess to her fellow townsfolk that she was a sinner, and allow all to be amazed that he knew what she had kept so secret.

To sin is an old archery term. It simply means to miss the mark. When you do so, you pick up another arrow, and you try again until you get it right. You can’t do that if you don’t look at the target after you shoot. If you don’t acknowledge to yourself that you missed, you never get better. In this way, President Obama was quite correct to call us out as a nation on the areas where we still sin. He was right to bring up economic injustice, he was right to bring up voter suppression. Much like the Sumerian Woman, we are elevated not when we hide our sins, but when we confront them.

So, we must confront our sins as a nation, but we can’t stop with what happens within our borders. Our original sin is not just racism, but it is that we as a nation maintain our position and authority through violence.

We have given our President the authority to target people on foreign soil with drone strikes. This authority gives him the position of being both judge, jury and executioner. The process used to determine a valid target is shrouded secrecy. There is no daylight, there is little discussion. What we know is that there is a “Disposition Matrix” which determines if someone is a “legitimate” target. There is a lack of transparency in how we come to that determination which makes it impossible for us to learn from our sins, to re-focus, and to improve. It also makes it impossible to understand how we could mistake a wedding convoy for an arms shipment, and impossible for us to explain to the victims what steps we are taking to make sure it never happens again.

President Obama has taken flack for talking about racism, but he was right to do so. There is nothing wrong with this country that can’t be fixed by what is right with it. When we work on problems, we make things better. President Obama has taken the first step, but the conversation must be bigger than the racism within our own borders. Like the Sumerian Woman, we could move forward with the Amazing Grace that comes from self-reflection. Like the slaver captain who wrote that song after freeing his human cargo, we can improve ourselves and the world, but first we need to be willing to look at ourselves. We are still blind. We need to be willing to see.