Tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for [God] to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God. Alice Walker ☀
Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it also. We did. My mother, who earned seventeen dollars a week working twelve-hour days as a maid, had somehow managed to buy a typewriter for me and I had learned typing in school. I said hardly a word in class (as Howie would later recall), but inspired by his warm and brilliant ability to communicate ideas and conundrums and passions of the characters and complexities of Russian life in the 19th century, I flew back to my room after class and wrote my response to what I was learning about these writers and their stories that I adored. He was proud of my paper, and, in his enthusiastic fashion, waved it about. I learned later there were those among other professors at the school who thought that I could not possibly have written it. His rejoinder: “Why, there’s nobody else in Atlanta who could have written it!” It would be hard not to love anyone who stood in one’s corner like this. Alice Walker ☀
What is to be done? Our revered Tolstoy asked this question, speaking also of War and Peace. I believe there must be a one state solution. That Palestinians and Jews, who have lived together in peace in the past, must work together to make this a reality once again. That this land (so soaked in Jewish and Palestinian blood, and with America’s taxpayer dollars wasted on violence the majority of us would never, if we knew, support) must become, like South Africa, the secure and peaceful home of everyone who lives there. This will require that Palestinians, like Jews, have the right of return to their homes and their lands. Which will mean what Israelis most fear: Jews will be outnumbered and, instead of a Jewish state, there will be a Jewish, Muslim, Christian country, which is how Palestine functioned before the Europeans arrived. What is so awful about that? Alice Walker ☀
There they were, I was trying them on. They were fantastic. However, I live in Northern California where political consciousness is quite high and is likely to bring you down to earth when you least expect it. The saleswoman said apropos of nothing: Yes, they look wonderful on you. (Pause). They were made in Israel. Oops. Who came to mind when she said that? Ariel Sharon? Netanyahu? Tsivy Livny? No. No Israelis at all. Who came to mind was a young Palestinian woman I had recently learned about; she had been arrested eight years ago and held in solitary confinement, in an Israeli jail, ever since. Never charged with anything. What did this woman do with her days, I thought. Could she possibly be the person who, in her cell, made these shoes? Suddenly, I could see her there in her cell. It felt cold. It felt barren. It felt lonely. She was all of these things,and more. Seeing her there, torn away from her world, made so strong an impression I lost all interest in the sandals. I could not even bear to look at them. I noticed her cell had a metal door and that there was a huge lock. I could never have purchased anything that would keep her there. I could only wish with all my heart to become a key. I ended up buying a really boring pair of sandals made in Germany, and the irony of this didn’t escape me either. Alice Walker ☀
People are falling sick and dying all around us and when, and if, we go to the hospital most of us hope we don’t, from lack of care, die there. How bizarre it is that President Obama, this thoughtful, kind, smart being we’ve at long last been graced with as a leader, has to spend so much energy trying to get Americans to accept what we so desperately need: a system of health care that means we don’t have to be terrorized by the thought of getting sick. We would laugh, except it’s really sad. And self-defeating. Even the well-heeled people who hate this man will benefit from the sense of security real health care reform will provide. Their children, though well provided for through wills and trust funds and who knows, overseas stashes of cash, may yet fall on hard times and need care. They will not be happy to realize what most of us have always known: that being sick in America, without insurance or a substantial amount of money, brings one at last to the level of all the other “minorities.” People in pain. People with a grievance. This could be an enlightening experience, of course, and that would be wonderful. But it could be sordid and dark and horrid, with nothing but suffering and despair to recommend it. Alice Walker ☀
One of the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement is that when you travel through the South today you do not feel overwhelmed by a residue of grievance and hate. This is the legacy of people brought up in the Christian tradition, true believers of every word Jesus had to say on the issue of justice, loving kindness, and peace. This dove-tailed nicely with what we learned of Gandhian non-violence, brought into the movement by Bayard Rustin, a gay strategist for the Civil Rights Movement. A lot of thought went into how to create “the beloved community”, so that our country would not be stuck with violent hatred between black and white, and the continuous spectacle, and suffering, of communities going up in flames. It is astonishing, the progress, and I will always love Southerners, black and white, for the way we have all grown. Ironically, though there was so much suffering and despair as the struggle for justice tested us, it is in this very “backward” part of our country today that one is most likely to find simple human helpfulness, thoughtfulness and impersonal courtesy. I speak a little about this American history, but it isn’t history that these women know. They’re too young. They’ve never been taught it. It feels irrelevant. Following their example of speaking of their families, I talk about my Southern parents’ teachings during our experience of America’s apartheid years. When white people owned and controlled all the resources and the land, in addition to the political, legal and military apparatus, and used their power to intimidate black people in the most barbaric and merciless ways. These whites who tormented us daily were like Israelis who have cut down millions of trees planted by Arab Palestinians; stolen Palestinian water, even topsoil. They have bulldozed innumerable villages, houses, mosques, and in their place built settlements for strangers who have no connection whatsoever with Palestine; settlers who have been the most rabid anti-Palestinian of all, attacking the children, the women, everyone, old and young alike, viciously, and forcing Palestinians to use separate roads from themselves. Alice Walker ☀
…I love this person that we’ve elected. I love this gentle, seemingly considerate, thoughtful person. And that will, in no way, stop me from saying I don’t agree with, you know, X, Y and Z. I will not support this war. I think war is so incredibly backward, and I don’t think it’s intelligent, and it’s not sane. So why would you want to support it? And we’ve had leaders who would never be open to that kind of thought, and I think that he might well be open to the understanding that this is really true, that war is an insanity, basically. Alice Walker ☀
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