At the suggestion of my friend Tosha Silver, I watched “The Fight” yesterday. It’s a documentary about 4 ACLU civil rights cases that the ACLU lawyers have relentlessly and tirelessly fought during the Trump administration to protect human rights for the immigrants on US soil being separated from their children at the border, reproductive rights for the women in detention centers at the border who are being denied abortions even when their pregnancies are the result of rape, voting rights for those who Trump and his cronies have tried to cut out of the census, and LGBTQIA+ rights for trans people in the military. (You can watch it free if you have Hulu or rent it on Amazon Prime.)
Within five minutes of this documentary, I was in tears, and by the end, I had pretty much dampened a whole box of tissues. But they were heart-opening tears, tears of empathy, and tears of gratitude for these ACLU lawyers who have sacrificed big fancy law firm jobs and family peace to slave away in a two-story building in New York City to protect constitutional rights for all people in the United States. Reading the hate mail so many of them receive because of their fierce stand for equal human rights for anyone on American soil made me hyper-aware of how much crap anyone who sticks their neck out to protect someone more vulnerable endures in this country. It also made me aware of how fragile I can be when that hate is aimed at me because I’m taking a stand for the marginalized and vulnerable. Do they just have thicker skins than me? Have they become numb? Or is their care simply bigger than their fragility?
I don’t know the answer. Maybe these ACLU lawyers are masochistic suckers for abuse whose activism stems from their own trauma, or maybe they’re just stronger, better, kinder people than me. But what struck me most is that they do not grant themselves the luxury of distance from the suffering of the vulnerable. I write about the suffering of the world from a beautiful home in West Marin County, in the mountains, by the ocean. These lawyers are on the ground, in the detention centers, pounding the pavement among the protestors and listening to the horrific stories of the 1300+ parents who were separated from their lost children at the border (Parents of 545 Children Separated at the Border Cannot Be Found). They are talking to Jane Doe (U.S. Must Let Undocumented Teenager Get an Abortion, Appeals Court Says), the teen at the border who was raped and wanted an abortion, and others like her. They are talking to upstanding transgender soldiers whose right to serve and enlist is threatened (Supreme Court Revives Transgender Ban for Military Service). They are up close and personal with the impact putting a question about immigration status on the census would have. They fought these cases all the way to the Supreme Court, and they won.
Yet these are just four of nearly two hundred human rights cases the ACLU is still fighting (Featured Cases). Every day, these lawyers come to a thankless job and get buried in mountains of paperwork because our current administration has done everything it possibly can to strip the marginalized of every human right they can. Some of what we have lost may take decades to reclaim. All this is happening while people with loads of privilege have tantrums because their right not to wear a mask in public or go to bars is being threatened.
The ACLU understandably triggers some people because, as they admit in this documentary, they fight for constitutional rights for everyone on US soil, not just the ones we like. This means that when the white supremacists were denied the right to march in Charlottesville, they fought to get them permission to exercise their first amendment right, which they promptly lost because only peaceful protests are upheld by the constitution in this country, and theirs became lethal. The ACLU wrestled with their consciences after that, but they can’t pick and choose who gets human rights under the law in this country. Their job is to uphold those human rights, even when doing so makes us question whether the constitution is still valid in times like this.
Now more than ever, how we define our human rights is being challenged. The Supreme Court just upheld a lower court decision to allow religious services to convene in New York during a surge in the Covid-19 pandemic. Does this uphold our human right to gather for religious reasons even if it violates public health guidelines? The ACLU’s position statement is no (ACLU comment on SCOTUS decision in religious challenge to COVID-19 restrictions). Our constitutionally-upheld human rights do not give us the right to harm others. In response to this decision, Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief made this statement- “The freedom to worship is one of our most cherished fundamental rights, but it does not include a license to harm others or endanger public health.” Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said, “New York’s temporary restrictions on indoor gatherings do not discriminate against houses of worship, and, in fact, treat them better than comparable non-religious gatherings. The Supreme Court’s decision will unfortunately undermine New York’s efforts to curb the pandemic.”
Yet our Supreme Court chose a different position, which means that our most fundamental human rights are under question right now. Does our right to be protected from the dangers of a pandemic supersede other rights? We as a culture are sorting that out right now, and frankly, it scares the crap out of me. But I’m grateful to these ACLU lawyers for their service, commitment, empathy, and care.
I read a sad article in NPR recently- The End of Empathy about how studies show that young people are 40% less empathic than those in my generation. 40%! The number of people who agreed with statements like “It’s not really my problem if others are in trouble and need help” is shocking. Thank God the ACLU lawyers and the front line Covid health care workers who are my friends, family, clients, and colleagues don’t agree with that statement! This is why my tissue box is now empty and the pile of tissues beside my sofa is drying out so I can turn it into fuel for my fire.
It’s making me question my choice to take a break from social media because people have been so lacking in empathy and so outright abusive when I take an activist’s stand because I care about using my power and privilege and platform to protect vulnerable people who are getting harmed. Am I so soft that I can’t handle people’s abusive words when my countrymates are suffering so much more than me? I’m doing lots of therapy and introspection to examine how much of my privilege it reveals to even have the option of separating myself from the swirling fray of polarization.
I will probably come back, but while I rest and heal, I’m grateful to have this safe way to share with you all my feelings and insights. Thank you for caring about what I write and considering what I ask you to consider in your own hearts.
If you haven’t watched The Fight, please do so. And if you haven’t seen the Broadway play What The Constitution Means To Me (free if you have Amazon Prime), watch that too. But be forewarned. Be willing to use up a box of tissues. I promise it will be worth the Kleenex. The heart-opening you’ll feel when you open yourself to the intimacy of being connecting to the suffering of the world (without bypassing or neglecting the suffering in yourself) is part of my definition of true spirituality, the way I’m defining it in the book that seems to be flowing out of me- Love Bigger: An Exploration of Spirituality Beyond Spiritual Bypassing, which I’m sharing exclusively with those who have joined Spiritual Bypassing Recovery 101.
Today is the last day to join us before we close enrollment tomorrow. We meet live tomorrow at 4 pm PST (but if you can’t meet us live, we’ll send you the recordings!)
Register for Spiritual Bypassing Recovery 101 and get the first 3 chapters of Love Bigger now.
As we expand our spirituality to include an empathic lens on all of the suffering in the world, even those whose suffering causes them to want to strip others of their human rights, we plod along, one caring heart at a time, towards the potential for great healing of humanity. It will not happen through magical thinking or manifestation practices. It will not happen by getting a million people to meditate together. The Fight made me think of what Martin Luther King, Jr said, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” He also said, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. Change takes a long time, but it does happen. … Each of us who works for social change is part of the mosaic of all who work for justice; together we can accomplish multitudes.”
These are not quotes to lull privileged white meditators into a numb comfort that absolves them of their social responsibility to take a firm stand and support activist causes. I think these MLK quotes were aimed at the hopeless, weary, exhausted civil rights activists and ACLU lawyers who feel like giving up and admitting defeat. We can meditate to improve our resilience, to strengthen our inner resolve, to calm our own parts. But let it not prevent us from doing whatever we must to make this world a kinder, most just, more equal world for everyone in it.
