Edward Snowden and the Importance of Whistleblowers

Some times debate is the most healthy thing to do before pursuing action. In the case of the NSA scandal there seemed to be a lot of outrage followed by a large yawning indifference to do anything. This was concerning to me for several reason. The constant surveillance combined with an increasingly militarized SWAT team police mentality and corporate prisons-for-profit has created the perfect storm to destroy civil rights. America is moving toward a system which monitors and keeps its citizens on edge all the time, merciless beats and punishes them with paramilitary Rambo cops, shackles them with enormous debt, and then earns profit on putting as many people away as possible for as long as conceivable thanks to mandatory sentences.

In a series of videos I finished for Learn Liberty this summer, we wanted to examine the NSA scandal and the broader implications for our society. Fortunately Yeshiva University Professor James Otteson came and served as the expert on these issues.

I wrote and produced these videos. The talented Tafadzwa Chiriga directed and edited, while Angela Cobb was featured in videos with the voice of Professor Otteson.

I'm hoping this is the first series in many that examines these many dangerous facets that have become a part of our normal life so that we can begin to change things for the better.

Civil Rights Movement: 10 Questions to my Mom

This year is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Today my mom said 'oh yeah, I did some protesting.' I had no idea.

In 1963, my mom -Yvonne Boston- was a college student in Daytona Beach, Florida. She went to the historically Black college, Bethune Cookman. I wanted to record these details from 1963.

Name: Yvonne Boston Squire

Hometown: Columbia, South Carolina

Current Town: Miami Gardens, FL. 


Q: What did you do?

A: We held protests at Morrison Cafeteria when we were in college. Marching around with signs to get them desegregate the entire restaurant. Back then, Morrison had a big chain in Daytona and Miami. I never ate there before because it was too far from campus.


Q: Why didn't you tell me this before?

A: I don't know. Everyone was doing it back then. I was in college and I think the NAACP came to our campus and asked us students to be a part of the movement. We signed up. Our non-violence training was pretty simple. They just told us 'this isn't Malcolm X. We're not trying to punch people. Don't respond to their comments. Just walk and hold the signs.'


Q: Were you able to stay completely non-violent?

A: Sort of. We were marching back and forth in front of the cafeteria. There was this middle-aged White woman who kept breaking our line. And she would bump me. And then she would come back through and bump me again. So the third time I put my elbow out. (laughs) It was very subtle but I just nudged her and kept marching. It was little...just some people are bullies, you know that. And they just need a little encouragement...(laughs) to stop. She didn't come back through our line again.


Q: How many of you showed up?

A: 20-30 depending on the day. Bethune was a small college. A lot of people were on Malcolm X's side. They wanted violence. I really didn't know what I wanted. I just floated through. I remember coming back from protest and having to go to German class (laughs). "Machen sie das buch zu!"


Q. How long did you march?

A: A few hours each day. We marched maybe a few weeks or a month or so, don't quite remember. It was around November. And then Kennedy was killed.


Q: How were people back then?

A: Daytona isn't a place people were born. People come from other places. So we had catcalls from people in cars and on the sidewalks.


Q: What would they say?

A: Go home...and 'other things.'


Q: Did you march on the day when Kennedy was killed?

A: Yes. And a car drove by and someone yelled out, 'your president got killed.' Your president. As if they are from another country. 'How do you feel now, your president has been shot! Go home!'


Q: How did students react to Kennedy being assassinated?

A: People were shocked and sad. They were crying. It was unbelievable. Someone heard it on the radio and it spread around the campus. But we still got out there that day and the next.


Q: And what ended up happening?

A: They desegregated. Very soon after that. But I ate at Morrison's years later in Miami...after they had desegregated. The food was actually good.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King

I've been doing research for a few projects and keep coming across the Malcolm X/Martin Luther King debate. Last week I was walking through Crown Heights, when I stopped in on a arts gallery with paintings about protests throughout the world. The artist, Mildred Beltre, had several packets of Martin Luther King's speeches next to Malcolm X's, as if they were engaging in a dialogue by the close proximity they shared.

I took one speech from each and read through them on the subway. Two Black men were sitting next to me talking about the evils and corruption of the unions that controlled the Coca-Cola factory. One of the men was older and looked back on his troubles, while the younger one seemed to be living through the conflict. I wanted to hand them Malcolm X's speech to the workers about unity.

The main crux of the debate between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King revolves around love. How we as a people see and express love. How is love used and given? If love is seen as a burden, a passive allowed, taken by the strong, then Malcolm X's call to arms sounds appealing. As Blacks are continually called to 'love' those who seek to kill and beat them it seems demeaning and weak from this perspective. Love is like a mother or a vessel which allows itself to be filled.

If love is seen as strength, then Martin Luther King's position is more favorable. If love is stronger than hate, wiser than ignorance, bigger than fear, then love is the way. As King said, 'love is NOT bondage.'  Love is like a father or protector who guides and gives.

Of course love is neither one of these things. Love is God. It doesn't pick sides or gender pronouns. Love is total, all there is and the greatest force. The application of love to political movements is something done by man. Once love is taken from its God-like placed and used in the world of binary concepts then it must be one thing or the other: masculine or feminine, aggressive or passive, gay or straight, Black or White.

After all these years, the beauty of MLK and Malcolm X's argument is that they are both right deceptively and both wrong ultimately. And I have a feeling they both were aware of this. In the deceptive world of social movements, love can be big or small. It can be hunger strikes and sticking flowers in rifle barrels. Love can be Gandhi, bringing an empire to its knees from the lotus posture of meditation. And when the time is right, even Gandhi himself stood up and marched. But he didn't march to the capital or march to the army bases. He went to the sea. Deceptively he was fighting for the rights of Indians to make their own products such as salt and clothes and that was the reason for the march to water. But ultimately he was reminding people of that even an empire can't stop us from going to the water. He was tapping into people's instinctive power that is as vast as an ocean. He was walking to a body of water to bathe, eat, pray, and Be.

MLK's walks through the south had a similar tone of surface goal combined with a greater theme. Marching to the schools to prove that learning trumps even the greatest intolerance. Marching over the bridge to show that there is a path to bring people together. Sitting at the lunch counter to eat. Love can become a marching force as much as a sitting posture.

The two were reflecting different aspects of the same jewel. And as their lives progressed they moved toward each other. Reluctantly, Martin Luther King stood up for peace protests against the Vietnam War. He was slammed by many Black and liberal leaders for taking a strong stance against violence abroad. Conversely, Malcolm X had his epiphany on love at Mecca. And he realized that things weren't black and white any more than having to choose between night or day.

Love transformed both great leaders because it came from someplace higher.