"I want to know why they're NOT releasing the name of the girl that hung a noose inside the UCSD library. If she is that racist, she should not be in college. We don't need any 'educated' people like her running this country." This was the facebook status of one of my student staff after hearing of this third (or fourth, depending on how you count) incident of racism in the last few weeks at the San Diego campus.

I get the desire for punishment, I do. When I read an email about this latest incident, my heart dropped to my stomach, and fury and sadness roiled through me. How could she? I thought. How much hatred can the black students at UCSD be expected to endure? They have responded with nothing but genuine pain and genuine action, abiding both human decency and man-made laws. And, really, how can any of us endure this much hatred? This woman, who claimed to the police that she "didn't know it would be such a big deal" to hang a noose, clearly couldn't handle all the hatred she'd been taught. Because if she had an awareness about how racism is transmitted without our permission to us as kids and that there are ways to unlearn it, she would have known that noose hanging is so, so wrong.

I was relieved that she came forward and claimed responsibility, though I wonder what kind of justice will befall her. Will she, in the end be charged with a hate crime, as she should be, or will the fact that she is a college student, has no prior record of crime, and probably white, allow for leniency and for this stark injustice to be ruled an accident of ignorance? I think this may be behind my student's status and her desire to have the woman expelled from school. How can UCSD judicial officials and their police department be trusted to hold this woman accountable for the hate crime she perpetrated when they are a powerful part of a climate that produced two "Compton Cookout" theme parties and the airing of a student saying "Those ungrateful n******" on student-run television?

But what would the right consequence for this woman be? What would justice look like? Had this woman been a public figure, she would be expected to make a public apology. But how can someone who's done something so awful fix that? A public apology would just be a start. She can't, really, make it right, not with words, not with tears, nor with remorse and regret. One way for her to redeem herself is to dedicate a whole bunch of time to understanding privilege and oppression and her role in this racialized world we live in. I don't think the process of being held accountable she's in right now is particularly suited to shed light on paths of possible redemption.

And what would justice on a larger scale look like for UCSD students of color and their allies? Implementing the Black Student Union's list of demands (http://www.newuniversity.org/2010/02/opinion/black-student-union-statement-february-2010-ucsd-black-student-union-address-state-of-emergency/) would begin to restore justice.

Ultimately, the question becomes what does racial justice look like everywhere for everyone?

On Friday, I struggled all day to connect to a place of forgiveness and love for the woman who hung the noose, though I often wondered if this was a betrayal of those students targeted by her act. The seduction of dismissal and hatred was compelling. As I went to see my chiropractor after work, lying there on his table feeling the tension drain form my spine, I felt all wrong. Why should I have all this privilege? Here I am, I thought, with so much privilege that I can prioritize taking good care of my spine, while there are people of color who wonder if they are now safe enough to walk from their classroom to their car at night, or who are discovering that white and Asian classmates they thought were friends are now telling them to stop making such a big deal, that they shouldn't be so upset, whose very lived experiences are being questioned and invalidated by people they once trusted. I know I could have gone on walking down that path around pretty much every part of my advantaged life, but for what purpose? To feel hopeless? Guilty? Helpless? Ineffectual?

I didn't manage to escape disquietude all weekend, feeling humbled and grateful for all I have and feeling separated just enough from Love to not know how to move forward.

And like a salve, came church Sunday, and this affirmation:

I arise from confusion and conflict.
I trust love to provide the answer I cannot see from my side.
Love connects the fragmented and disparate parts.
Love melts the poles of polarization.
There is more fulfillment in being spiritually aligned than in being right.
It is more virtuous to be whole than to be on top.
It is more natural to be collaborative than combative.
Love is the incubator of peace; peace is the seat of true power.
As love points the way, I gladly follow in her footsteps.

I spoke with Rev D. after service about all this too, and when she spoke the words that pushed me past my stuck place, I wondered how I'd not known in right away. Pain pushes until vision pulls. She said all the anger and desire for retribution is pain pushing. Yes, it hurts to experience racism. It hurts all of us. And we desire to be free from it. We desire that others empathize, to understand what it feels like, and when that's not possible, we desire to inflict some kind of pain, any pain on those who knowingly or unknowingly have caused us harm. But fighting unjust hate with righteous hate only leads to more hate. Anytime we act to avoid more pain, we act from fear, and though it is self-preserving to do so, it doesn't help create a more just world. Rev said, "Focus on the vision of the world you want to live in, and move from that place. That's what Martin Luther King, Jr. and all the Civil Rights leaders did, and that's why they were successful."

I'm no MLK, but I can know the same things. I have a vision of a world that is socially just, spiritually empowered, and environmentally sustainable. I have a vision of a world where Love is the motivating energy in our lives, where everything and everyone can be redeemed.

All the lost trust and lost hours studying and heartbreak black students and their allies at UCSD have endured these past few weeks can be redeemed into a campus that is safe and welcoming. All the students from other UC schools that poured onto the UCSD campus last week to support them, and all of the protests on other campuses, is evidence of this redemption begun. They are not alone.

Even this woman who hung a noose in the library, and her classmates who planned the "Compton Cookout," and the student who called his black classmates "ungrateful n*******", and all the people who have uttered insensitive and thoughtless things as people of color have stood for injustice to be made right, they too, can be redeemed. They, too, are not alone in this world.

In the Bible, it is said that God shines light upon the just and unjust alike. I'm not always comfortable with "God," but how about "Love." Love shines light upon the just and unjust alike. I cannot do differently and claim to be a spiritually empowered being.

I know there are so many details I have missed here, so much more I could write about racism and oppression and how dire it is for so many. I could paint a picture as best as I know how, but I will end up at Love, once again. And so I end here, with this: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

Friends with my exes

In the last 12 hours I have had five men I have slept with call and leave messages for me, seeking connection and company. And I complain about the lack of good men in this town. Four of them are actually truly good men, even if they were one way or another not well suited for a relationship with me. If I could get over myself, I think I could admit the fifth guy is a good man, too.

"Who has time for more friends?" I used to say either flippantly or defensively, but somehow here are four (ok, fine, five) men who, for one reason or another, have made the slide from lover to friend without fanfare or drama, and they've all called me, and the four who are currently in good standing with me, may just all end up at my birthday Happy Hour tomorrow evening.

That's just absurd.

Isn't it?

I've been tricked into being one of those loosey-goosey, anything-goes Santa Cruz women. It's such an incestuous, touchy-feely, love everyone, forgive-all kind of place, that even a bordering-on-cynical, sarcastic, skeptic such as myself was unable to resist the force of this culture.

For shit's sake, since moving here I've found God, joined a church choir, and slept with (at least) five men who I've flipped into friends. Despite resisting it, despite all my wrestling with the platitude-laden New Agey-ness of both Santa Cruz itself and my own church community, I have fallen so in love with the way beauty and vulnerability and divinity show up in my life, that it took five voicemails from five former lovers to tell me that I'm no longer who I thought I was going to be.

And that (fuck yeah!) all five of those men are still vibing off my amazing self.