If you really want to know what is going on in America ~
look at our neighbor Los Angeles .
Allen
Excerpt:
Los Angeles now has the sharpest economic divide in the nation -- fourth in the world after Calcutta.
At the day laborer center that we fund, a man recently said to me, "I came from a Third World country for a chance for my family, and found another Third World country -- no housing, no jobs, no health care."
The View From Liberty Hill
Torie Osborn is executive director of the Liberty Hill Foundation, a Los Angeles-based foundation that supports, trains and convenes social justice, environmental and community activists.
The following commentary is adapted from remarks presented on June 2, 2003 at the Liberty Hill Foundation's Upton Sinclair Award dinner in Los Angeles.
If you want to know what's going on in America, look at Los Angeles. Every day at Liberty Hill Foundation we see through the eyes of our grantees what's really going on.
Los Angeles now has the sharpest economic divide in the nation -- fourth in the world after Calcutta.
One guy who has been working on Skid Row for 20 years told me he's never seen so many women and children on the Row -- 82,000 people in Los Angeles County are now homeless each day of the year.
At the day laborer center that we fund, a man recently said to me, "I came from a Third World country for a chance for my family, and found another Third World country -- no housing, no jobs, no health care."
A South L.A. organizer talks about her community's "ghost population" -- the men coming home from prison at a rate of 98 a day. Half of them can't read, and most have untreated drug problems. Almost none will find work, at least not legal work. The majority will return to prison.
These may be local problems, but they reflect national trends, priorities and policies.
Americans want funding for health care and schools. Instead we get top-heavy tax cuts and a staggering five trillion dollar deficit. The money that Californians paid in taxes for the Iraq War could have eliminated our entire state deficit. The cost of one day of that war could repair 500 schools attended by one million children.
Sometimes, when the view from Liberty Hill reveals what I fear could become the destruction of the dream called America, I recall what Dr. Martin Luther King said: "Let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.... The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
And indeed, from Liberty Hill I can also see the sparks of leadership, organizing and vision that could someday reclaim our America. Our America, where we delight in difference, expand opportunity and invest in our young people. Our America, where we know that true patriotism is not imperial arrogance or blind nationalism. Our America, where we take shared responsibility for each other, and honor higher values, like liberty and justice for all.
From Liberty Hill, we can see the outlines of a way out of no way, a way toward bright tomorrows. We see a new justice movement beginning to take shape, and it makes sense it would happen in this global city.
L.A. is also now the most diverse place on the planet, and this emerging force for justice cuts across all lines of class, culture and community. It holds huge potential for pointing the way toward reclaiming our country, but it's still centered in the small, specific battles fought every day by those whom the Indian writer Arundhati Roy calls "our small heroes."
Roy writes: "Who knows? Perhaps what the 21st century has in store for us all is the dismantling of the big -- big ideologies, big contradictions, big wars, big heroes, big mistakes.... Perhaps this will be the century of the small. Perhaps right now, this very minute, there is a small god up in heaven readying herself for us."
(NOTE: Arundhati Roy’s fantastic novel, “The God of Small Things,” is a powerful moral tale, and
a great read. Her political essays, which can be found easily on the web, are similarly awesome. She’s
a real champion of the disenfranchised of the world. She’s invited to speak in the U.S. frequently, and
those speeches are available as soundfiles or transcripts. )
The Liberty Hill Foundation casts our lot with the small heroes -- the women who fight DDT dumping in Del Amo and who have made L.A. an energy center for environmental organizing. The immigrant families living near the Staples Center who went toe-to-toe with billionaire developers and helped create a new national model for equity in economic development. The brave gay and lesbian youth openly organizing for safe schools and now winning international human-rights recognition. And the many philanthropists and donors who, in their support of work like this through Liberty Hill Foundation, demonstrate a greater dedication to the commonwealth than to their individual wealth.
A friend sent me a recent message from Hopi elders in Arizona. It said:
"It is time to speak your truth, each of you. Do not look outside yourself for the leader. There is a river flowing very fast. Trust the river has its destination. You must let go of the shore, push off into that river. Keep your eyes open and your heads above the water. See who is in there with you and celebrate. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves. We are the ones we have been waiting for...."
At Liberty Hill, we know the greatness of small heroes. We know that people are the true superpower.
12:57:28 PM 
|
|
