Silenced Voices

I live in Arizona.  For the past week public schools all over the state have been closed because teachers “walked out” of their classrooms in order to advocate for themselves, their colleagues, and their students.  Being a former public school teacher and a soon-to-be public school parent, I was obsessively following everything about the #RedforEd movement and the action at the Arizona Capitol.

Many, many parents and community members were, and continue to be, supportive of the teachers.  However, some were not, complaining the walk out was disruptive and inconvenient.

Guess what?  It was meant to be disruptive and inconvenient!  I started teaching in 2008, and for at least the past 10 years, teachers have been trying to be heard and supported by the Arizona leadership. They have been trying to mobilize parents to see how school funding affects their children. And for at least the past 10 years, their voices have been silenced because they are ignored over and over and over and tossed little scraps of ballot propositions that don’t solve a fraction of the problem. If a group of people get ignored long enough, the problems and their needs brushed aside, they will rise up and make their voices heard in inconvenient ways because that is the only way enough people will listen and do something to make a change.

How many other voices are silenced in our world?  How many others are begging to be heard and we willingly ignore them or are too lazy or too afraid to understand them?

One of my New Year’s Resolutions in 2017 was to seek out voices that are not my own. Let me tell you, if you want to renew your mind, get some fresh voices in there!  Just like water that has become a stagnant breeding ground for mosquitoes needs to be flushed with fresh water, fresh voices flush our minds of stagnant ideas that breed parasites.  So this resolution has become an ongoing practice in my life.

Turns out these silenced voices are easy to find (duh!).  I find them in books written by people of color.  I find them in podcasts hosted by Christian mystics.  I find them in Facebook profiles of DACA recipients.  And I find them being amplified by people whose voices are like mine, only they started listening a long time ago. (I will write another post with some of the voices I have found so far.)

This is the first big step I took in renewing my mind.  I can’t seek justice if I don’t listen to the cries of the victims of injustice.  And as my mind is renewing, realizing how much work is still to be done in seeking justice, I am encouraged that this act of listening to the silenced voices and doing what I can to un-silence them,
this is holy work.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
Proverbs 31:8-9

Those who cannot speak for themselves…
really they can, we have just silenced them.
It is time we take their voices off of mute.
Time to really listen and understand, no matter how uncomfortable it may feel.
Time to act so that justice can roll down and God’s Kingdom can come.