New Clear Vision

Taking Responsibility for Helping Those in Need

by Laura L. Finley

In the last two weeks over a four-day period, 14 adults and seven children from four different states were killed in domestic violence-related murders.  In Texas, police said a man with a long criminal history and a substance abuse problem went on a murder spree on October 26, killing his mother in the home he shared with her, then an aunt and three others. On October 28, police officer Christopher Robinson shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and her firefighter boyfriend near Baltimore, Maryland. Robinson then committed suicide. In New York City, a relative hacked to pieces a mother and her four young children. Bryan Sweatt, who called 911 and told the operator he was “stressed out,” broke into his girlfriend’s home in Greenwood, South Carolina, where he duct-taped her then shot and killed her and four others, including two children, before killing himself.

In the U.S, an estimated 1,300 people are killed each year from domestic violence. This is nine women each week.  According to Futures Without Violence, in 2011, 1,707 women were murdered by men, and, of them, 1,509 were by people they knew. Over half of the homicides involved guns. (more…)

Survival in an Age of Violence

by Missy Beattie

Another school shooting. Another candlelight vigil.  On Monday, October 21st, a Nevada teacher was murdered and two 12-year-old boys were wounded. The shooter, described as a “nice kid,” killed himself at the scene.

Student Amaya Newton said, “I believe it was because I saw him getting bullied a couple of times and I think he took out his bullying.”

Another student reported that the shooter said, “You ruined my life and now I’m going to ruin yours.”

Just a few days before, Erma, Laura, and I sat in my living room, talking about 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick who jumped to her death last month after she was bullied. Guadalupe Shaw, 14, and Katelyn Roman, 12, have been charged with felony aggravated stalking.

On Shaw’s Facebook page was a post her parents and her attorneys insist is evidence of a hacked account. The Shaws maintain that their daughter would never have written, “Yes, IK (I know) I bullied REBECCA nd (and) she killed her self but IDGAF (I don’t give a fuck).”

Erma said, “I am Rebecca Sedwick.” And she cried. (more…)

What Else Can We Do for the Cause of Freedom?

by Missy Beattie

Sunday, sister Laura and I went to a festival a block from my apartment. We walked past the vendor artists, their booths of pottery, jewelry, paintings, and metalwork, and opened our portable chairs near a stage where musicians performed. An event organizer took the mic and said someone mentioned the strangeness of having a festival when the country’s facing so many problems. She’d responded that art makes the world go ‘round.

I sat there, thinking about Herman Wallace and Alfred Woodfox. Actually, I’ve thought of little else for over a week.

Wallace spent 41 years in solitary confinement at Louisiana’s Angola prison. And so has Woodfox. For Wallace, the torture is over. Diagnosed in June with advanced liver cancer, he was freed by a federal judge on Tuesday, October 1st and died three days later at the home of a friend. (more…)

Hope Flows from Hollow Water

by Robert C. Koehler

The community was out of control — the children, oh my God, the children, were sniffing gasoline and pretty much abandoning any pretense of a future — and the social and criminal-justice systems were just adding to the problem. Nothing was working.

“Our children slammed us against a brick wall,” Burma Bushie said.

This is the story of a culture in shambles. It was the early 1980s. Bushie’s community is called the Hollow Water First Nation Reserve, a village of about 900 people in eastern Manitoba, more or less at the end of the highway. There was one road in and one road out.

They may have felt utterly isolated in their troubles, but what a few of them started to do — in synchronicity with people in other indigenous communities — has spread hope and awareness across the planet. They began reaching beyond the known (i.e., Western) world, deep into their souls and into the roots of a lost way of life, to save their children and the future. Without intending to, they started a movement. And the slow reverberation of change continues to spread. (more…)

Closing the Gap Between Tolerance and Acceptance

by James Russell

In the musical “A Chorus Line,” the audience follows a group of dancers auditioning for the chance to be in a Broadway chorus line. It’s a popular show about love, coming-of-age and struggle. Told in a series of monologues (and the occasional ensemble number), we eventually meet Paul, a young, gentle, Puerto Rican musical theater enthusiast. “And there was the thing of trying to hide it from my parents,” says Paul, “that was something.” The 16 year old could have been hiding anything from his parents — condoms, drugs, a flask of whiskey. But in this deeply moving monologue, he’s referring to his drag outfit. Paul is gay.

“A Chorus Line” premiered Off Broadway in 1975 between two notable events in the gay rights movement: the Stonewall Riots of 1969 and the AIDS epidemic. Both created a generation of aggressive and proud activists angered by the government’s willingness to bust a gay club, but complacency when it came to addressing a deadly epidemic. (more…)

The More Things Change…

by Missy Beattie

“That sounds like something Bernie would do. This is Bernie,” I’d said to Charles, years ago. He shook his head no.

Before we met, Charles lived in NYC, where he got his PhD. That’s how he knew Bernie, both at NYU in the department of nuclear engineering. My husband collected characters, and Bernie was one. Charles had plenty of Bernie stories but disagreed with my realization, couldn’t fathom that one of his friends could do what struck me as obvious.

A few years after Charles and I married and were living in Kentucky, Bernie visited. He drove a rental car from Manhattan to Lexington, on his way somewhere. He stayed a few hours and had dinner with us. (more…)

Muslim Women Search for Justice, Opportunity

by Rebecca Martin

While some say that American Muslim women are empowered because they are American, on the other side of the globe in Saudi Arabia, their sisters struggle with an issue that’s at the heart of their community: living with the rights already given to women in the Koran and by the teachings of Mohammed.

That’s why women here felt Islamic justice was finally coming home, when on April 13, Arwa Al-Hejaili became the first woman lawyer granted a license to train for court appearances. Would the guardianship rule — the unwritten law that requires Saudi women to seek permission from husbands, fathers, or brothers to travel, open a bank account, and apply for jobs — go next? (more…)