A Poem for the Virus and Us

The sun is rising in the east

What will this day bring

Taming of the lonely beast

This thing we call fear of such we sing.

We live in a house made not of clay

Told within them we must stay

Go out for only the common good

Is that plainly understood.

This virus it seems

Does not respect anyone’s dreams

Age rank or bank account

We all are vulnerable as the numbers mount.

Faith in God absolutely yes

Trust in science and do what's best

Not an either/or at this time of life

Play it safe rebuff the strife.

Going to the store

Buy that food

Hoarding not 'cause there'll be more

Living for the common good. 

Think of the old and the young

Those whose races have just begun

Those whose time is drawing near

Live life well without much fear.

Later the sun will set in the west

Praying for all to find that rest

To live in that holy space

Defined by love and sweet sweet grace.

Heroes Who Battle on Behind the Scenes

In the early morning hours, my mind drifts into that space where I can see faces and hear stories. One story is of a farmer and family in North Georgia, a story of loss of eyesight, kidneys, and multiple hospitalizations. Another is the story of a farmer and his wife from West Texas, a story of hypertension, pulmonary problems, and heart attacks, and being brought back from the brink of death. Another story is of a farmer in NW Alabama, a story with surgeries, pain that comes and goes in intensity, and multiple hospitalizations.

There are more.  There are many more.

Somewhere in there I draw some comparisons between them and me.  Their challenges were part and parcel of the price of discrimination and its brutalities and facing down the Goliath, the USDA and the DOJ and many attorneys and complicated processes. The wheels of justice grind slowly, and sometimes along the way, the wheels grind people down.

My story is one of a medical procedure that demanded a CT scan. That scan revealed something I did not know about, a cancerous tumor growing on my right kidney. Multiple medical consults, multiple CT scans, two surgeries, and multiple blood draws by phlebotomists at TMC here in Denison, Baylor Scott and White in Sherman, and University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas.

Another thread is that posted by a longtime friend and former colleague of mine, Dionne. She honored her husband, Troy, recently in a Facebook post about those who serve behind the scenes. He is a clinical microbiologist who works in a hospital lab.

Another thread is one that I wrote about back in 2019. In August I wrote a post that included a phlebotomist whose name is Amira. She is from Ethiopia and has lived here for 18 years.  Another story from November is that of Achal who moved here from Southern Sudan. She has lived here for several years.

On one occasion, Amira did the blood draw on me, and then she walked the samples to the lab. As she walked out of her work space, I introduced her to Charla.  The lab must be on the same floor as the workspace for the phlebotomists. Generally speaking, I’ll have an appointment with the lab at one hour and then with my hematologist at the following hour.  I have been amazed that the test results were generated so quickly.

There must be a number of “Troys” in that space, and there surely are a lot of people who do work under the watchful eye of the “Troys” of UT Southwestern.

So, today I identify with my friends who have experienced much tragedy and procedures as a result of the trauma to their bodies and minds when dealing with the powerful USDA and DOJ. I resonate with them because I know that those good people had their own defined number of labs done.

In the spirit of gratitude, I am thankful for Troy and for what he brings to the people of West Texas. I am also grateful for those lab workers who very quickly provide test results to my physicians so that we can know which path to take.

And I am thankful for the spirit of service amongst the phlebotomists, especially those who immigrated from far away places.

My heroes these days are Black farmers who faced challenges to hold on to their land, physicians who oversaw their procedures, and those who worked on me, the lab personnel who drew sample after sample of blood from my veins, and the lab personnel who were unseen and provided accurate readings to my physicians.

So, as you meander along life’s paths today, as you do, offer up a word of thankfulness for those seen and unseen professionals who take care of you and me.

Inspired and Inspiring

I have followed Jerry Mitchell's work for a long time. In fact, I cannot remember not following him, frankly.  So, it was prior to his speech on the ACU campus several years ago that holds marker status in my memory. He presented to the audience which included my wife and me, the cases he was investigating and the challenges that he was experiencing. He was inspired and inspiring then. We talked briefly about Black farmers and what interest I could encourage him to take in them, but, alas, he needed to keep his focus on Mississippi although he did help investigate the horrors of the children murdered at the church in Birmingham.

It has been with much interest that I followed his efforts on Facebook. Maybe you follow him, too, as he writes what each day in history covers. He has a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips.

Then, he published his book, "Race Against Time: A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era." It was difficult not to go out on Amazon and buy it immediately, but I wanted to purchase it from whatever bookstore he was going to be visiting and talking about the book and his experiences. That was a bookstore in Dallas just a few weeks back.

He contextualizes historically each story for the reader and then he dives into the processes and the content of each case. Per a recent email from him, he recorded one long conversation with a later to be convicted murder, and then he depended on his notes, court documents, and others for the engaging conversations he had with people, all manner of people, judges, attorneys, investigators, police, FBI agents, witnesses, and those who were eventually convicted. The book was a "keep reading it until you're finished" sort of a book.

I think he was inspired and inspiring. I do not say those words lightly.

As he chronicled the years in which he worked on various cases, as he talked to people, and as the cases and the conversations at times consumed him, and as he experienced the ups and the downs emotionally, I was naturally drawn to parallels.

While his is about investigating criminal cases that were essentially cold cases, mine was that of gathering stories of Black farmers who were marginalized by the USDA, DOJ, and their communities. I resonate with Jerry in terms of the length of time when crimes were committed and when justice finally prevailed. I resonate with Jerry in terms of how the wheels of justice grind slowly and sometimes people die. I resonate with Jerry in terms of how some of the guilty get off totally free of having to pay for their crimes.

I find inspiration to keep on.  From 1994 to now has been a long time, some twenty-six years.  Some of those I've met along the way have gone on to meet their Maker. Some are suffering with their elder years and challenges that have come.  Some wear the scars in their bodies and their souls from the struggle for justice. They trusted me with their stories.

Their stories are sacred spaces and places. Their invitation into those stories was a sacred invitation. Walking into a mediation hearing in 1997 was a new world of power and dominance as I saw the machinations of injustice place more burdens upon the lives of the farmer and his wife. I saw attorneys do what attorneys do when the federal government is their client. I saw attorneys do when Black farmers are their clients. It was a war. Yes, it was a war.

Yes, there have been a couple of peer-reviewed articles, numerous presentations both solo and with students from ACU, affiliation with BFAA, and now the documentary. All have fueled my desire to do more, even to see change happen at the USDA, even to the point of helping two Democratic candidates for the presidency shape their policies for such a thing.

Over the last two years of gathering stories, connecting with people I'd known before and with people I had only heard or read about, and sitting before them with camera rolling, was at times a gut-wrenching experience.  I was asking them, with Shoun watching via the lense of his camera, to rehearse painful memories of those stories. What right did I have to do that? With whose permission did we do that?

Now, we are finishing up things on the film. We have several places which are waiting for us to screen it with them. That will mean showing it and then discussing it. Maybe we can have farmers with us.  After all, it is their story that we are telling.

Jerry Mitchell has inspired me to keep going, keep gathering stories, keep "investigating" so to speak, and eventually in multiple settings and in multiple ways, tell those stories of justice denied and justice found. Certainly the farmers inspire me. Ues, they certainly do.  Trust can be an inspirational thing.

At the end of the book, Jerry honors "the One" who gave him strength and guidance in the telling of those stories.  I am inspired that he would honor God in such a way.

The Great Divide, Who Reads What, and It's No Wonder We are Divided

Perhaps you have also been perplexed of late about the vitriol and anger that we see, hear, feel, and read these days.  There is certainly an explosion of explosiveness that is new or old, depending upon how we see things, or maybe how long we have been seeing things.  Conflict is nothing new.  Ask survivors of the Civil Rights Movement from the ‘60s and see what they say. As Black farmers who were pivotal in the Voting Rights Movement in the ‘60s and listen to their descriptions of fear and anxiety co-mingled with conviction. Our two-party system is a player, do you think? My opinion is that the social media craze has much to do with it. It’s difficult to confront someone across the table from us over lunch in a restaurant downtown, but, on the other hand, it is quite easy to challenge someone whose face and voice we do not see through the magic of Facebook or Twitter.

            

My wife and I live in red Texas, or at least a red section of Texas.  For eight years we lived in red, red, red Oklahoma. We are quite accustomed to negotiating conversations when we are the only blues in the room or in the house or sitting at a restaurant. Or were we? Maybe we avoided more than we’d like to admit.

            

Of late I have been pondering what we read.  Then, the Pew Foundation made it clear for all the world to see.  If I lean right, or if I am right, see what I read? If I lean left, or if I am left, see what I read? We simply do not gather sources from the same place. We are not reading the same things. These feed our biases and we are drawn to them because of our biases. It is hard to discuss content, then, or issues, when we read different things. CNN will report differently than Fox News when covering the same event, like a presidential speech, or a candidate's speech. It's no wonder, then, that my friends who watch Fox News see Trump's handling of the coronavirus as a colossal victory for America. On the other hand, it is no wonder, then, that my other friends and I see his handling of the coronavirus as a colossal failure since we gather our information from several of the sources listed below with CNN as #1. I am surprised that my right leaning friends gather their information from two sources. I find this stunning. 

            

Also, someone has created this beautiful schematic which shows the continuum of publications across the continuum of liberal to conservative. We get our news from somewhere, printed or television or radio. Again, they feed our biases, or we are drawn to them because of our biases. 

These helps to understand why we have our own little enclaves. We set up artificial boundaries within which we are contained and from others we are protected. I sat at a table, a rather large table, at a church event several years ago in which the men across the way were discussing the fires in California.  One gentleman offered the view that God was probably punishing California for its stand on homosexuality. I was taken aback, on my heels, and only retrospectively could I process such an ostentatious comment. Bully pulpits offer such interpretation of events, and it is perhaps obvious to all of us that such theological nonsense is offered up in a spirit of holiness in less public forums.

It is no wonder, then, that the public discourse and even private conversations are oftentimes filled with "your opinion does not count since you are citing a source that I consider to be biased toward the left" or "your opinion does not count since you gather your information from a source that I consider to be biased toward the right."  Then we go around and around and around, and then back again and again. 

            

In an upcoming post I’ll share with readers a program that I find provocative in helping to change the discourse we hear and participate in. Perhaps you’ll find it as interesting and challenging as I did.

New Lyrics, Old Tune

Thanks to those of you who follow this page.  You've read some of the stories of farmers and their struggles to hold on to their land.  Too many stories of land loss.  Many want to know those stories. We will have those as well. 

Songs are ways of telling stories. Listen to No More Auction Blocks by Bob Dylan or Odetta or even Paul Robeson. You can easily find these and more on youtube.com. Then hum the tune and read these words. They tell the stories of farmers and their struggles.

The back stories are about sleepless nights, wondering when, feeling the governments' threats, fields not in use, fear of the land being auctioned on the court house steps, land loss and the grief therein, fear of being lynched, feeling lynched (their words, not mine), injustices done in the county office, tax bills in the mail, demand letters in the mail, and the list could go on and on. 

There are two lines of interpretation for these words.  The optimistic one is that the farmers prevailed and they can now relax a bit.  The other view is that the land has been lost and there's nothing that can be done about it. The hearer gets to decide. 

 No More, No More

 (to the tune of No More Auction Blocks,

 Odetta, Bob Dylan, others)

 No more sleepless nights for me,

 No more, no more

 No more sleepless nights for me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more wonderin’ when for me,

 No more, no more

 No more wonderin’ when for me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more govm’t threats to me,

 No more, no more

 No more govm’t threats to me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more idle fields for me,

 No more, no more

 No more idle fields for me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more courthouse steps for me,

 No more, no more

 No more courthouse steps for me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more land loss tales for me,

 No more, no more

 No more land loss tales for me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more hangin’ from a tree,

 No more, no more

 No more hangin’ from a tree,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more empty promises for me,

 No more, no more

 No more empty promises for me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more IRS duns for me,

 No more, no more

 No more IRS duns for me

 Many thousands gone.

 No more injustices done to me,

 No more, no more

 No more injustices done to me,

 Many thousands gone.

 No more courthouse steps for me,

 No more, no more

 No more courthouse steps for me,

 Many thousands gone.

 Copyright Waymon R. Hinson

Conflicted or Not

Perhaps you and I are alike.  Perhaps you and I both are conflicted about the potential nominees on the Democratic side of the isle. If you vote to the right, you are not likely conflicted about who to vote for unless there are muliple candidates downstream from the position of president. Here in Texas as in some other states, the incumbent does have competition.  It'll be interesting to see how the competition shakes out vote-wise.

I had two chats yesterday with two people who inspire me to do well with time and talents.  Charla and I have been shaped by them for years.  He is the consummate community organizer. She is a fierce advocate for the poor, women, children, and people of color.  They were out getting things finalized for today's primary in their county.  We laughed some, we told stories some, and we voiced our mutual commitments to things that matter. At every bend in the road, I am inspired by them. Their extended family is deeply rooted in social justice and democracy.

On my path to leaving the Republican party several years ago, there was a simple message that was shared with me by a friend that I appropriated for my own purposes.  Simply stated, I will vote for whoever is best for my people.  Today my people are blacks, hispanics, women, the poor, and anyone who is marginalized by society or the church or whomever.

So, today my wife and I will go vote.  Though we have discussed politics on several occasions, I do not try to sway her vote and neither does she try to sway my vote. That, I think, is a sign of respect.

When I look at the ballot, I'll see Bernie Sanders. He has several things that detract from him in my opinion and there are other things that I like.  I especially like that his policy team has met with a group that advocates for Black farmers. I am a part of that group.  It has been fascinating to be in on those meetings.  It is deeply moving to know that his policies about reforming the USDA and offering substantial amounts of hope to minority farmers leave me optimistic. I just want his policies to be out there now.  As in a few weeks back.

Then I see Elizabeth Warren.  One of her pluses, in my opinion, is that she has the best articulated set of policy statements about the USDA and minority farmers.  Seems to me that she gets the issues.  Again, it was more than interesting to meet with her policy team and to know that at least one of my publications helped to shape her materials.  You can see her policy here. Another thing that I like about her is that she has policies for just about everything. That is one of her strong suits.  The issue of her status as an American Indian is one of which I tire.  I wrote about that in a long, long post here on the blog several months back. You can find that easily enough.

Then there is Mike Bloomberg.  I get it that he was successful in business and as mayor of NYC.  I think his stop and frisk policy was reprehensible. I think he should have apologized and made amends long, long ago.  Yes, he is wealthy and some say he is buying his way into an election, but when money flows as freely as it does, that critique does not wash with me.  A man I respect has stated in an OpEd that Bloomberg seems to get the issues of the Black farmer. I respect that gentleman. Here is the OpEd here. 

Then there is Joe Biden, former VP of the US under President Obama.  I like him.  He has weathered the storms of politics.  He knows grief.  He knows public scrutiny. I think he should tell more stories that resonate with people like me.  Yes, I don't disagree about some of his policies including the fact that he supports the system that has driven medical costs through the roof.  He has not run a strong campaign.  He has had good advice along the way such that he took SC by storm. He has no policy stated about the USDA and minority farmers that I know of. I think he needs to move in that direction for sure.

There are others whose names I have never heard of.  If you are a Republican, looks like you have many options besides the incumbent over there.  I hope you'll vote for someone other than the incumbent. That's my personal stance.

I am one of those people. Yes, one of those.  I am bewildered that such a huge percentage of God-fearing, Jesus-following people would vote for him.  He is all that the faith stands opposed to.  He is, in my opinion, a narcisstist, an opportunist, a poor business man, a man of poor character, a serial abuser of women, a serial liar, one who undermines the rule of law as well as departments and people in key positions such as the FBI or CIA or military, and his policies are leading us into so much debt that I wonder if we'll ever recover.  Not in my lifetime for sure.

I digress.  I'll go to the polling station today just as my friends will across Texas and across other Super Tuesday states.  We'll vote.  We'll then turn on the tv to watch the returns tonight.  We'll get prepared for more state primaries and then we'll see how things roll at the RNC and the DNC.

Then, we'll vote our conscience come election day in November.

There is no perfectly fitting candidate.  There are several that are much better than the alternative across the isle.  I'll vote for people whose policies best support my people as in the list up above.  No, I'll not vote for someone whose policies pander to the upper 1% of the population while my people continue to fall behind. I'll not vote for someone who belittles women, the disabled, Gold Star families, or other candidates. I will vote for someone whom I think stands a good chance of beating the incumbent in November.  Yes, I am one of those, or, I am one of you.

This will be both an easy choice to make as well as a difficult one.