Update from the Border: Prophets and Mvt, VOL VI

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Immigration Court.

One prosecuting attorney. Nine or ten public defenders. One interpreter. One court reporter. One "judge." Two marshalls. Nine men in organge. Eight women in red. Seventeen, all of them, in leg chains, hand cuffs anchored to a chain around their waist, with an interpreter's headset pluged into their ears. All for misdemenors.

Three to five of the criminals come forward at a time, beckoned by the judge, "innocent until proven" only in the movies.

Shuffle, shuffle.

"I may be addressing you individually or as a group. Please respond when requested." The judge told them. He tirelessly explained their rights to them: Right to remain silent. Right to a trial. Right to a lawyer. Right to present evidence.

"Please answer out loud, each and everyone of you. I need to hear from each and everyone of you. And please let me hear that you understand. If you plea guilty, you are giving up all these rights. Do you understand? Please answer out loud."

"Do you all plea guilty?"

"Do you feel that you are thinking clearly today? Do you feel there is anyone or anything influencing your decision today? Do you feel that anyone or anything has pressured you into a decision? Please let me know that you have made this decision upon your own free will? Out loud please."

"When you signed your plea agreement and your attorney explained it to you, did you have any problem understanding it? Please answer out loud. Do you understand? Do you feel you are thinking clearly today?"

"Then you agree to give up your right to appeal your 180 day sentence? Is that how you understood it? Please, I need to hear from each and every one of you."

Shuffle out.

"I will be asking you questions either as a group or as individuals. Either way, I need you to answer out loud. No. Nodding the head is not enough. I need you to answer out loud. Do you understand."

Finally the monotony of the judge's speach was interrupted: "Sir," said an organge clad man in accent-laden english, "I'm hardly understanding you."

"Well, if you are having trouble hearing from your apparatus, please inform us, and we'll assist you."

"Do any of you have any questions of me or your attorney at this time? Please answer out loud. Do you understand."

~ ~ ~

"I will be addressing you either as a group or as an individual..."

"Is that what you desire today? To appear before me today? To plea guilty and to be sentenced?"

"Well. Good luck to you all."

"Court adjorned."

~ ~ ~

It's places like this where the prophets were born. It's places like this where Jeremiah heard the Lord call him to, "uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow." It's where Micah asked, "What does the Lord require of you?" It was here that Isaiah wrote of the acceptible sacrifice and fast: "To loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, and to set the oppressed free." And, it's what caused Amos to shout: "Let justice roll on like a river, rigteousness like a never-failing stream."

And, when the prophets left the courtroom, the despicable and returned to the people, it was Ezekiel who spoke of the valley of the dry bones, the people seemingly unable to rise up, to fight, to create a better world: "I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. And the Lord asked me, 'Can these bones live?' And I responded, 'Only you know Lord, only you know.' Then God said to me, 'Tell the truth to these bones, raise them up with your words. Tell them, 'Oh ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life.' So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was speaking, there was a noice, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then God said to me, 'Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, young man, and say to it, 'This is what the Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these bones that they may live.'' So I called to the wind as God had commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-- a vast army."

~ ~ ~

Here's a little lesson from the Civil Rights Movement. From Gandhi. From Saul Alinsky, the Chicago organizer. When the authorities tell you, "Look. I'm sorry. But these are the rules. They exist for a reason." When they don't specify what that reason is, but they submittingly tell you that "They have to uphold the law," you shouldn't begrudge them. In fact, make authority stick to its rules. They have to arrest you? Okay. Fine you? Beat you? Put dogs on you? Don't begrudge them or hate them. It's their job, usually. Don't begrudge them. Overwhelm them. "Rise to the majestic heights of meeting phsyical force with soul force."

In Albany, Georgia, in Tallahassee, FL, in Rochester, NY, in Montgomery, in Harlem, in Lawrenceville, MA, Seattle, San Francisco, in West Virginia, in Swanannoa, NC, when the authorities told people trying to assert labor rights, racial, religious, class rights that they couldn't protest, sing, march, sit, stand, sleep, picket, whatever. When the authorities told them, "You can't do that. We'll have to arrest you" that's when the organizers said, "Really? Okay. Arrest 10,000 of us. Arrest our children. Arrest our grand mothers and grand fathers. While you're at it, arrest the black-folk in the next county over." And suddenly, Albany, GA's cells are filled up. Everyone's family in the world is sending letters to the Mayor's office. They're swimming in them. The economy of little Albany is about to go capoot because-- aside from the fact that everyone's employees, plus a nice selection of managers and store owners, are in jail-- anything from or headed to Albany just got put on the economic black list.

The rank and file cops didn't read the memo, so they arrested Martin Luther King, Jr while they were at it, so now little Albany's got the President of the United states breathing down its back. The judges realize, upon their frist trial with a person who's been trained in willful-ignorance and misunderstanding, that they're going to be hearing cases for people who walked on the wrong side of the street, the wrong side of a line (the wrong side of a border?) for the next 420 years. And about that time, somewhere about that time, as the rules ease over to make room for justice, a movement is born because the people realize they can achieve more than the pittance they set out to bargain for.

~ ~ ~

Like a seed waiting for spring, movement is brewing on the border.

Nathan