Everybody has a right to live. And we will not be silent anymore!
Easter, Passover and Ramadan are holy observances that affirm the sacredness of life. Our religious traditions insist upon care for the vulnerable and outcast while affirming interconnection. Zechariah 7:10 reminds us: “Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
We are fighting poverty and not the poor!
Epidemics emerge along the fissures of our society, reflecting not only the biology of the infectious agent, but patterns of marginalization, exclusion and discrimination. The coronavirus pandemic is no exception and is rooted in decades of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and a false moral narrative of religious extremism.
This virus emerges in the midst of the long-existing open wounds in the United States; wounds from generations of racist policies and the criminalization of poverty. Before a single diagnosis of COVID-19, nearly 700 people died everyday from poverty in the US. Our faith demands clear action that transforms how we treat the poorest and the most marginalized in our society. No one is ever expendable.
Everybody has a right to live. And if they don’t live, we don’t live!
Jeremiah 5:28 cries out: “They have grown fat and sleek. They know no bounds in deeds of evil; they judge not with justice the cause of the fatherless, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.” 140 million people who are poor or one emergency closer to poverty today are decrying the hypocrisy of an unjust ruler who declares victory as human bodies overflow morgues. We demand a moral agenda. We demand immediate health care for all, including 100% free COVID-19 testing, open enrollment for all in affordable care, treatment and quality care to all, the expansion of Medicaid, and relieving of medical debt. We are fighting poverty and the pandemic.
We are fighting poverty and not the poor!
As Passover begins we remember that plague is not a storm weathered before a return to normalcy. It’s a call to come together in new ways in order to survive. In this crisis, we must come together, free and without the burdens of debt, so we can be free to take care of our needst. We demand freedom from debt, including medical debt, student debt, water, utilities and other forms of household debt. There are 8-11 million people who are homeless or on the verge of homelessness. There are millions who cannot afford water and millions more who don’t know where their next meal will come from. This is not right. We need an immediate national moratorium on water shut offs and evictions – from wherever you are living, tax foreclosures, and rent hikes, and a national rent freeze and resources to convert abandoned habitable places into homes, not shelters. We need an expansion of SNAP and food security for all. Housing, water, food and Jubilee is our Promised Land.
Everybody has a right to live. And if they don’t live, we don’t live!
Jesus challenged oppression and cared for the poor. We need a resurrection, not of false and derelict worship, but of care for the most vulnerable; a resurrection of the constitutional values that placed ‘we’ before capitulation to corporate greed, and a resurrection of the conviction that we are all endowed by our Creator with the right to live. We demand a guaranteed and adequate annual income and living wages for all, including essential workers, low-wage workers, care providers, grocery workers, service and other frontline workers in this crisis and beyond. We demand immediate, comprehensive and permanent paid sick leave for 100% of employees, , so that we can all care for ourselves and our families during this pandemic and beyond. We demand adequate protections for all essential workers including our health care workers in this crisis. Somebody is hurting our people, and it’s gone on far too long.
Everybody has a right to live. And we will not be silent anymore!
Ramadan is a time of fasting and sacrifice to clarify what is necessary and just. It is right and just that protections are enacted for people in mental health facilities, prisons and juvenile detention centers, especially supplies, personnel, testing and treatment. This includes the release of all at risk populations and non-violent offenders and detainees. There are 2.3 million incarcerated people and over 52,000 people in detention centers who are children of one Creator. We insist on the suspension of all CBP and ICE enforcement and ensuring all emergency provisions are made available to immigrants, including undocumented people.
Everybody has a right to live. And we will not be silent anymore!
As we rapidly approach an election in a global pandemic there must be protections for our democracy and the right to vote with expanded opportunities to vote during this crisis and an expanded census to ensure every person is accounted for. There are 52 million eligible poor and low-income voters whose right to vote in 2020 elections isn’t protected and millions more will be uncounted if our Census isn’t supported. Protect our democracy to protect us all.
Everybody has a right to live. And we will not be silent anymore!
We demand a moral agenda. As we seek justice for the poor in our own country, we must end the wars on the poor around the world. There are 110 million people in Iran and Venezuela, hard hit during this crisis, who face ongoing economic sanctions. Our nation must lift all military and economic sanctions, end unnecessary military operations overseas and bring our troops home. There is an army rising up to break every chain.
Many millions of us have been hurting for far too long. Everybody has a right to live. And if they don’t live, we don’t live! And we will not be silent anymore!
We will not be silent anymore! We will not be silent anymore! We will not be silent anymore!