5/3/2024

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            I hope the Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards ceremonies goes well today. I was thrilled to see Opal Lee among the 19 who will be honored. Did you send her a private jet so traveling from TX won’t be such an ordeal for her? Most 97-year-olds avoid navigating airports. I’m glad that her decades-long campaign to get Juneteenth recognized as a federal holiday are being rewarded.

What’s up with the Gaza peace talks? Your comments on the student protests did not sit well with me. I believe that the people involved are playing their roles in the drama of civil disobedience & your acknowledging that would be better than taking sides.

My daughter’s take home message from her experience at “activist camp” was “be ready to be arrested.” I thought that was odd at the time, but in my reading of Gandhi I am seeing that the arrest is an important ingredient in non-violence. When Gandhi was arrested for eating salt from the ocean without paying taxes at the end of his “Salt March” in 1930, he made the British look ridiculous. He was ready to accept the consequences for his intentional action to break the law. The folks getting arrested on various campuses have succeeded in drawing attention to their concern. They have put leaders in awkward positions. Using extreme force to silence people draws attention to their plight.

I am encouraged  by the activities of the protestors. I hope they are acting in the spirit of Gandhi’s Satyagraha which he described as ‘holding to the truth in every situation’. This is ahimsa, which is more than just the absence of violence; it is intense love.”

                  As Octavia Butler suggested, “God is Change,” so I am curious to see what comes next.

BYBS,