I would like to share with you a bit of my past week's experience as I struggle to integrate what I learned into my life and my work – about the oppression that we all face.
Last week I attended a 6-day training in community organizing, facilitated by PICO, a national, faith based network of individuals and organizations that work in their communities, through their houses of worship; and, I plan to volunteer with my local PICO organization to address racism, privilege and mass incarceration - a new campaign here in Philadelphia.
There were 100 folks at this training -- about 25% clergy, 80% people of color -- mostly Latinos and black folks. These are people who are at the bottom of the pyramid -- organizing for grocery stores that they can walk to, schools, sidewalks to schools, health services, for alternatives to juvenile detention, against police brutality/racism, and mass incarceration -- and much more. On Thursday, the woman sitting next to me, a lovely woman with 4 children, received a phone call from her neighbor that her house had again been burglarized, by neighborhood youth needing drug money – and this was not an unusual occurrence where she lived.