W.E.B. Dubois: advice to his teenage daughter, and to all that labor.

Kenarchy Journal Vol.6

Jon Paul Robles

Abstract
At the root of oppression and violence is the reduction of fellow human beings into mere objects. Broken modalities of human engagement continue to rupture our world. Through the lens of the Anthony Ray Hinton story, this paper imagines a path from dehumanization to a humanizing encounter, even with the most unlikely “other.” Drawing from the philosophies of Martin Buber and Simone Weil, I examine what lies at the center of these fractured paradigms of relation and survey the life-giving possibilities that open up to us when we see the other as truly sacred, free from control or ownership.

“There is a path from me to you that I am constantly looking for, so I try to keep clearand still as water does with the moon.”- Rumi

“John is not concerned with the forgiveness of individual sins. Nor does he proclaim a form of substitutionary atonement, through which Jesus takes on the divine punishment… Rather, in John 12:20–33, Jesus’ crucifixion judges “the world” and drives out the “ruler of the world”… “The World (grk: Kosmos) is probably best translated as ‘the System.’” - Charles Campbell

“Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” - Neil Postman

ACTION’s 21st Annual Banquet, 2024 Keynote Address.

“The world is not yet with them, so they often seem in the midst of the world’s affairs to be preposterous.” - William James

“People have always been possessed…”

“She is endlessly on guard against the power of the collectivity.”

"With regard to human affairs, not to laugh, not to cry, not to become indignant, but to understand." - Spinoza

God is at work in your life on this side of eternity, and it’s always for the sake of your neighbor.

To undergo suffering and death joyfully was from the very beginning considered a sign of grace in the Christian martyrs - as though grace could do more for a human being than it could for Christ.

…the church is not merely a sect, community, or movement. Instead, it is a transhistorical intercourse.

When we speak of the church of the poor, we are not using Marxist dialectic, as though there were another church of the rich.

Woe to us when, lulled by false visions of flourishing, we see no need for the world to be overcome.

Our vision of the other, especially those considered the least and lowest, finds healing clarity in the Mass.

“Pray first of all to receive the gift of tears,” writes Evagrius of Pontus, “in order to soften the hardness of your heart by 'breaking' it.”

"But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen! - W.E.B. Du Bois

When they are sent out into the world, it is a continuum of a sanctified work begun in the sanctuary at the altar. Action starts with praise.

“In gathering together for Christian worship, men and women compromise themselves politically.”

Has growth robbed me of maturity?