Notes from the 2009 Ware Lecture

Here are my notes from the 2009 Ware Lecture, presented by Prof. Melissa Harris-Lacewell - a life-long UU as well as a political scientist and a political commentator. These are just bits that stuck in my ear.

• Faith and reason - the juncture that marks our UU community and our citizenship in a democratic nation. We must embrace both - flinging our arms wide to the expansive skies, and remembering that beneath the sand where we dig in our toes, there are hard-pinching crabs.
• In the aftermath of Katrina, tens of thousands of people, overwhelming black people, were labeled "refugees" and authorities worried more about crime and looting rather than their safety and health. Nearly every African American with whom she spoke in New Orleans believed that racism was behind their disproportionate suffering. Their response was not just emotional - it was rooted in the history of our country.
• It was clear to her that New Orleans could not be rebuilt. She did not want to be part of a country that allowed her people to starve on television. Yet, this is her country. Every part of it, every story of it. She is both the opressed and the oppressor.
• George W. Bush never recovered from his failure to respond to Katrina. The Democratic Party found its first solid ground to criticize the Bush adminsitration - how could an administration incompetent to respond to a crisis in our own country be competent to prosecute a war in Iraq? It was New Orleans that set the stage for Barack Obama's presidential win.
• There have been as many losses as wins in New Orleans. There is still a preferential option for tourists over residents in much of the city. Yet the work to recover and restore continues. The story of New Orleans reminds her that the best social justice work arises from our willingness to fully embrace the battles we are not likely to win.
• There has never been anything false about hope.
• Yet, California went to the polls and voted for Barack Obama with one hand, and passed Proposition 8 with the other. Democrats have aggressively taken "single payer" off the health care reform table.
• Obama warned us, "Get prepared to govern." He warned us. Governing with a friiend in the white house is harder than being on the margins. The crabs are at our feet.
• Bill Gates has more wealth than the bottom 45% of US residents combined. Less than 1% of what the world spent on weapons could send every child to school. Our entire planet is threatened with extintion, while we continue to have a ravenous appetite for everything.
• There is little reason to think a fair and just world is possible. And that is why we cannot rely on reason alone.
• We must create something we have never seen before. Here is the work of religious community.
• Why do black people in America believe that God loves them, when there is so little evidence to support that belief? People who were slaves, who had no reason to believe their children would ever be anything other than slaves too, still believed in a loving God, who loved them.

oops - there endeth my notes! I'm certain that I had another paragraph or two, but it looks like they weren't preserved when I closed up my laptop. Maybe someone else can add the closing thoughts.