Adventure 561: Catalina State Park/Post I

I battle the Wiley Cager most mornings.

Naturally, today's topic is justice. In part of his famous speech, Martin Luther King said, "Now is the time to make justice a reality for all God's children." He spoke of urgency, a spirit of unrest and "whirlwinds of revolt that would continue to shake the foundations of the nation until the bright days of justice emerge." Sadly, an assassin's bullet cut short his dream. And what is justice in this world so divided by race, so layered by privilege, and so obviously unequal? It's a complex question, but maybe not so, as Maya Angelou says, "If you know better, do better." Author and historian, Ibram  X. Kendi, a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow, suggests a way to do better in his book How to be an Antiracist. He dismisses the idea of the word racist as a pejorative-stereotyped bigots, Jim Crows, and Hooded terrorists. Instead, he speaks of racism as being driven by policy. He expounds on the notion that people of color have been labeled as somehow being the problem (lazy, violent, inferior, etc.), that poor people have something wrong with them. Kendi calls this the worst version of "black on black crime". The crime, as he sees it, is that the disenfranchised in this country have accepted the notion that they are helpless. They've accepted their plight as normal. They've lost any vision of MLK's dream. He sees this acceptance as the problem. He proposes, instead, that people should start acting as antiracists, which he says puts power in the hands of the people. He says, It's not what's wrong with the poor, the black, and the latino that's the problem. They are but modern slaves. They make no policy. Instead, he asks, "What's wrong with those in power that they would institute, regulate ,and manipulate policy in such ways as to create a permanent underclass?" Good question. Sometime back Kendi was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. He uses this metaphor. "I could have denied I had cancer, but how effective a treatment is that?" In the same way, we can't cure racism in this country by denying it exists. The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging it. Just ask any AA successful member.

 We found these two "wintling" Saguaros on our hike this morning.

 Selfie of the day.

 Falcon, paraphrasing Bob Marley says, "There will be no peace without justice."

 This dead Saguaro shows clearly its skeletal structure

 This fellow is at least 75; just got his first arm.

"Welcome to the the desert."