SPEECHES
PEOPLES PARTY OPENING SPEECH (written for emcee)
Jan. 2023
We, the people of Tennessee, come together today to demand those we've elected to office remember who is rightfully and legally responsible for this state. Article 1 of our constitution states the "power is inherent in the people," meaning, we the people, the residents of Tennessee, are responsible for our great state. Sadly, many of those inside our state capitol have forgotten that fact, and our destiny is no longer of our choosing. Instead, far too many have chosen to succumb to special interests instead of putting the people of our state first. Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said "Short is the way from need to greed." When the needs of the people are cast aside in favor of greedy politicians – politicians who care more about political contributions, or promises of lucrative consulting or speaking opportunities than they do about serving the people – they are openly advertising that their wishes and their comfort are more important than the suffering of human beings within our state.
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It's estimated that three hundred thousand Tennessee children live in poverty, and 600 DCS children are sleeping on office floors or being left in hospitals despite being well enough to be discharged. If you believe that doesn't impact you or your child, remember this – every occupied hospital bed means your child may be turned away and referred to another hospital – a hospital that could be 5-10 minutes away if you live in a large urban area, or an hour or more away if you live in rural areas. Why such a long trip? It's because twenty-two counties don't have a hospital, and another 19 don't have an emergency room. Why do nearly one-third of Tennessee counties have limited or no hospital services? It's because our Governor and General Assembly have repeatedly refused to expand Medicaid. We all pay into Medicaid, but our elected officials have decided, on their own, that we don't need our hard earned money back - an estimated $22.5 billion dollars of our money. They have decided we don't need to keep our hospitals open so we, our children and other loved ones have access to lifesaving care.
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Many of our elected officials have also unilaterally decided we the people should not have a voice when it comes to our own public safety. Despite residents in cities around the state deciding accountability and transparency in law enforcement is essential, the General Assembly decided to muzzle citizen community oversight boards by stripping them of the power to issue subpoenas for documents or witness testimony. Residents of these communities have a constitutional right to ensure those that have sworn an oath to protect and serve are held accountable when they violate that oath, yet some of our elected officials willfully choose to violate our rights and silence our voices.
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While there's a small number of people who are guilty of endangering the lives of those they have sworn to represent and serve, we are all responsible. Decisions are made, and justice is realized by those who show up. And while our elected officials choose to show up and deny us access to health care, to criminalize mental illness and poverty, to ignore, lock up and strip away the dignity of innocent children who simply have no place to go, and put guns ahead of the lives of our children, we the people of Tennessee show up today for ourselves, for our families, and for our neighbors – regardless of their political ideology, because cancer, mental illness, natural disasters, corporate layoffs and supply chain issues due to a global pandemic doesn't care about how we vote. We show up today because our humanity and our morality demand it, because the welfare of our state and our fellow Tennesseans demand it, and today we demand our elected officials start showing up and working for ALL the people – instead of only caring about themselves and their political war chests.
PASTOR'S SPEECH
(Written for Pastor)
Jan. 2023
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Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes once said "Joy means creating communities that are bodies of hope and righteousness that spit in the face of the cultural production of evil." That is why I wanted to be here today, it is why we are all gathered here today.
Regardless of the name we use for our Creator, our Holy One, we are all called to do good. Too many have chosen to use their faith as a weapon, as a way to lift up those who look, think and pray as they do. They choose to forget the teachings within our holy scriptures, and choose to ignore the suffering of those who don't love, believe, look or think as they do. None of our fellow brothers and sisters should be punished for having an unseen illness or not having the same economic opportunities as those who wield power. None of God's children should be stripped of their rights and dehumanized because of the color of our skin, because of whom we love, or because they are seeking asylum from violence, just as "an angel of the Lord" to Joseph, Mary and Jesus, Mary to flee to Egypt.
We come together today to remind those whom we've elected that they have a responsibility to represent all of us, regardless of any differences. We gather to remind them of their ethical, moral and spiritual responsibilities before they place their hands on the bible and take their oath. We come together in solidarity with all our brothers and sisters to ask those within our state capitol to allow love, compassion and mercy to be their compass instead of money, power and prestige. And if they choose not to follow the teachings of holy scriptures, if they choose to ignore the needs of Tennesseans, if they choose to allow suffering and injustice to rule the day, than we will gather here again, and again, and again. We will return until institutional injustice and cultural evil is dismantled, until being faithful is more important than being powerful, until goodness replaces greed and until all of our brothers and sisters are treated with the respect all God's children deserve. We know what we are called to do, and we have dedicated ourselves to following that calling, and we pray those in the capitol choose to dedicate themselves to that calling as well.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was right when he said "the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice" and we are here today to let our elected officials, whether they are local, state or national, know that we will not rest until our voices are not only heard, but respected as well, and until justice prevails.
CRIME VICTIM VIGIL
April 2022
Tonight has been about coming together as a community to remember those who have been victims of crime. We’ve heard victims, survivors and allies share their stories, and we just heard the names of our fellow brothers and sisters in humanity whose lives were cut short due to violence. Sadly, as time passes, none of us will remember every name Miranda listed. We’ll be lucky to remember one. But it’s still important for them to be recognized. It’s important that a tiny piece of them, and all victims of crime, remains filed away somewhere in our subconscious. It’s important because we can’t begin to address crime if we don’t take the time to acknowledge the pain inflicted on the victims and loved ones, and the impact it has on our society.
But tonight has been about more than just that. Tonight is also about raising our collective consciousness and putting our minds, hands and experiences to work. The anti-Nazi pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, told us “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of justice. We are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
It’s time we as a community and a society put aside our differences, to stop scapegoating others and to work together to find solutions to address the ever rising tide of violent crimes in our communities. It’s time we become the spoke driven into that wheel of justice.
We all know crime doesn’t discriminate. Whether we are Black, white or brown, young or old, male or female, gay, straight, rich, poor, abled or disabled, we are all vulnerable to violence. We can’t simply rely on the interest, experience or political will of our policy makers and community leaders. It’s not just the responsibility of a select few, it’s up to all of us. We must all step up and be educated as well as to educate, to ask and to answer, to be led and to lead, to be inspired and to inspire and to be visionaries. That’s how we can best remember and honor victims of crime – by doing our part to find workable and equitable solutions. That is my personal challenge to myself, and I humbly extend that challenge to all of us gathered here tonight.
PEOPLES PARTY SPEECH
Jan. 2023
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In his June 4, 1940 speech Winston Churchill said “we shall ride out the war of tyranny." While we the people of Tennessee aren't fighting a war with guns or bombs, we are fighting a war against tyranny and brutality - the tyranny of oppression and injustice, and the brutality of prejudice, apathy and neglect.
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Last year we heard elected officials repeatedly talk about their commitment to protecting our children. But, promises demand action, and there's been little action behind their promises. A recent state comptroller’s report showed 211 of our children - the most vulnerable among us - reported being sexually abused and harassed while in state custody. Thirty-four incidents weren't even investigated. Last year the House Criminal Justice Committee killed the Victims Rights Bill despite the Senate unanimously approving the bill. And who can forget their refusal to protect victims of childhood abuse and to hold one of their own accountable.
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As a two time adult survivor of sexual assault, I know all too well the emotional damage, the trauma, the life long effects having control over your own body violently stripped away has. Our General Assembly has oversight committees for a reason. Our Secretary of State has oversight for a reason. But they have failed in their oversight duty, and in their duty to keep their promises, despite having an ethical and moral responsibility to protect Tennesseans, especially our children.
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Sexual assault doesn't discriminate. It doesn't care how we worship, where we live, or how much money we make. It doesn’t care about the color of our skin, whether we're young or old, male or female, gay, straight or transgender. It just doesn't care. And despite some of our elected officials trying to make it a partisan issue, I can tell you from experience, my rapist never once asked how I voted. This is a war between right and wrong, between compassion and cruelty, a war that demands partisanship and the willful decision to fan the flames of stereotypes and misinformation to be put aside. We must win, and we will win this war. In the words of Churchill, “we will not yield and we will march straightforward” - because our children deserve better, all Tennesseans deserve better, and because the people of Tennessee demand it.
MARCH FOR OUR LIVES NASHVILLE
June 2022
As a former law enforcement officer, I have a unique perspective compared to most people here. I’ve seen the physical and emotional carnage gun violence leaves more time than I care to remember, and to this day, nearly 25 years later, I can still vividly see the eyes of a twelve year old boy. He overheard his grandmother tell a neighbor she didn’t have the money to buy Christmas gifts for him or his little brother. That twelve year old child decided he would be the "man of the house," determined to make sure his little bother had a gift under the Christmas tree. He began asking people in the neighborhood if they had any work for him. One man offered him $20 to deliver a package. Naturally, the boy jumped at the chance. He had no idea what was in the package, and it never occurred to him to ask. All he knew was he could make sure his little brother had something under the tree on Christmas morning.
As he walked through the park, on his way to deliver the package, he was shot three times in the back with a shotgun – a shotgun a rival drug dealer purchased at a gun show knowing several of the dealers did not run a background checks. That twelve-year-old died in my arms 2 day before Christmas, and the eight year old little brother not only didn’t have a Christmas present under the tree, he didn’t get even get to spend Christmas day with his big brother. One life lost, and many more forever traumatized all because so many of our politicians don’t have the courage to put our children first, to admit common sense gun laws - gun laws like ensuring batterers are stripped of their rights to own guns, and to implement Red Flag laws so we are all safer.
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I support the second ammendment, and as you may imagine, I’ve owned many different types of guns over the years. I even had an AR-15 I inhered from my father – who was also a police officer in Nashville, and commander of the SWAT team. The gun was given to him after he retired, and to be honest, he never wanted it. His opinion was if you aren’t a soldier or it wasn’t issued by the police department, you didn’t need one. I felt the same way. Again, I’m not against the 2nd amendment, but I am against how some of our politicians use the 2nd amendment to line their political war chests – repeatedly refusing to speak out against gun violence and eagerly accepting donation after donation by the NRA. I’m also very much against how the NRA – whose original purpose was to promote gun safety – has distorted the 2nd amendment to the point some people believe there should be no gun regulations at all. Even as the debate over adding the 2nd was deliberated, our founder believed regulations were neccesary. In fact the "well REGULATED militias, which we now call the National Guard, listed all guns as government property, not as personal firearms. This is exactly why National Guard firearms are held in the armory. As a former law enforcement officer, it's also my belief that anyone who needs an AR-15 to go hunting, or a high capacity magazine because they are too lazy to reload their gun at the gun range, they are too lazy and too bad of a shot to own any type of gun in the first place.
What I’m tired of the most is people like Bill Lee - who loves to profess how good of a Christian he is and how he’s pro-life while staging a photo ops at gun manufacturing companies, accepting endorsements from the NRA. I'm infuriated he signed an Executive Order which places much of the responsibility for school safety on parents and teachers. Well Gov. Lee, if you want teachers to also be responsible for public safety, then stop pulling money from school budgets and pay them the salary they deserve, plus, pay them a security officer's salary as well.
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I'm also tired of Gov. Lee and the majority of our General Assembly ignoring the advise of law enforcement agencies around the state, as well as faith leaders and healthcare professionals who opposed the permitless carry law. Gov. Lee is as staunch ally of “heartbeat” laws, but he, Marsha Blackburn, Bill Hagerty and so many more, are clearly laws that can keep people's hearts beating - laws that require gun owners to know how to use a gun, understand when the use of deadly force is appropriate, and to properly and secure their firearms so the heartbeats of our children can continue. If our elected officials truly cared about the heartbeats of children, the six Tennessee children - children who, due to improper storage of guns in the home, would still have heartbeats. The 19 children and 2 two teachers in Texas would still have heartbeats. All the innocent people who have needlessly died due to gun violence - not to mention the greed and the lack of moral courage on the part of our elected officials - would all still have heartbeats.
So Gov. Lee, Sen. Blackburn and Sen. Hagerty, the next time you want to “Claim” to be pro life, you need to think about the hearts that stopped beating because money and power means more to you than the lives of your fellow Americans. Oh, and the next time you send me an email about donating to your campaign, I’ll be sure to send you “thoughts and prayers.”
MARCH FOR OUR LIVES NASHVILLE
June 2021
I would imagine the majority of people who saw the photo were as shocked as I was. I’m willing to guess they felt the same knot in their stomach, had the same tears fall from their eyes; at least I would hope that would be most everyone’s reaction. If it wasn't, I truly fear what we have become as a country, and a society. If we weren't horrified and saddened, we have not only lost our humanity, we have lost our very soul. As I stared at that photo, I desperately wanted to look away, yet could not help but continue to stare and I honestly thought I was going to be sick. As I looked at that image, the image of a loving father still gripping the hand of his young daughter as they lay face down in the Rio Grande river, I was also consumed by anger.
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I was angry because this is not who we are as Americans. I was angry because as a country we made a promise, vowing “Never again.” I do not claim to know how my fellow Americans were raised. I do not claim to speak for their faith or their values, but I can speak for my faith, and my values. I was raised to keep my promises. I was raised to practice the teachings of Jesus, and I was raised to honor the sacrifice of all those who have fought and died for the values we hold dear.
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Just as our founders came searching for a refuge from persecution, men, women and children from central and south America are risking their lives in hopes of finding refuge from the brutal violence that has consumed their countries. This violence is, in part, due to the high rate of rapes and femicides; murders of women and girls simply because they are females. The United Nations lists El Salvador as the most dangerous country in the world. Venezuela is listed second due to rampant sex trafficking, Honduras, which has become known as the murder capital of the world, is fifth, and Guatemala is sixth.. El Salvador and Venezuela are considered more dangerous than Nigeria, a country which has a high number of ISIS groups, and is home to the terrorist organization, Boko Haram. All of them are considered to be more violent, more dangerous than places with ongoing armed conflicts like Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan.
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These mothers and fathers are doing what any parent would do; they are desperately trying to protect their children from the crushing violence that is as prevalent in their countries as cheers from proud parents watching their children at a little league or soccer game is in ours. Most importantly, they are committing no crime. They have come to our border, and they are requesting asylum, which is a right they are guaranteed under the U.S. Code 1158, a right which says:
“Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum.”
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Even though they have not violated the law, even though they are not criminals, they are being treated as criminals. Children are literally being ripped from the arms of their parents before being locked up in detention centers; detention centers that are so overcrowded, these children do not have the room to lay down as sleep at night. These are detention centers that, as of February of this year, had a total of 5,800 reports of sexual assaults on children. These children are also being denied basic health and safety necessities such as soap, toothbrushes, bedding and adequate blankets. The Geneva Convention requires better treatment be given to prisoners of war than our own government is willing to provide these innocent children.
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Earlier this summer, several members of Congress visited various detention centers in order to see first hand the conditions in which children were being held. More reports of inadequate bedding and basic personal hygiene items surfaced, as well as reports of children not being given access to clean drinking water. More visits were planned for late August by House Oversight and Reform Committee staff members. However, the Department of Homeland Security staff blocked members from visiting eleven Texas detention centers. These visits were denied by DHS even though they are part of an ongoing investigation, and could possibly be considered an obstruction to their Congressional Constitutionally mandated oversight responsibility.
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These examples in themselves show we are not making America great again. America was great when our leaders cherished our long held values. It was great when we respected the motto “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Now the admiration is intentionally throwing away nearly two and a half centuries of American values. Yet another example of this is the administration's repeal of the Flores settlement agreement, now giving DHS the authority to hold detainees, including children, indefinitely. Perhaps the most inhumane and cruel example is their decision to end the medical deferred action policy. This policy allowed some undocumented families with serious medical conditions to remain in the United States and receive life saving medical care unavailable in their own countries. News outlet documented a case of a 16-year-old Honduran boy with Cystic Fibrosis. The average life expectancy of someone with Cystic Fibrosis who received proper medical care is thirty-seven years, but the medical centers in Honduras do not have the ability to properly treat the disease. Forcing him to return to Honduras is nothing short of a death sentence. The administration is essentially ordering his execution, denying him the ability to live another twenty or so years.
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Our leaders in Washington DC are abandoning everything our country has stood for the past two hundred and forty-three years. It is eroding the moral fabric of our great country and intentionally committing crimes against humanity. No, that is not an overly dramatic interpretation, and no, it is NOT fake news. This is a fact, a fact based on international criminal court statutes. It is also what Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nurenburg Trials, told the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. So, as I said previously, this is not who we are as a country. America has been, and should continue to be, a beacon of freedom, a beacon of hope and an example to the world. Far too many of our brave men and women in uniform have fought and died defending the principles of liberty and justice. We owe them our respect, we must honor their sacrifice, and keep the promise we made so many years ago. They deserve better, and when our leaders refuse to uphold our principles, when they rather praise dictators and willingly violate our Constitution, then it is our duty as Americans, as patriots, to stand up, speak out and help make America, America again.