Today I took my friend Ella, of Ella’s Quilts shopping at Sam’s Club, a store, like Wal-Mart, that my religion forbids me to enter except when helping a friend. Ella was looking for black pepper and as is the case in this store all the quantities were large and expensive. I finally find a decent size bottle that was only $2.88 but Ella read the sign below the bottle that said $6.98. I finally convinced her to read the sign above the bottle and she put the pepper in her cart. However, at the check out counter she asked the girl what was the price of the pepper. The checkout girl confirmed it was only $2.88. All the way home she was proud of her good buy. But I kept reminded her how she did not believe me and we had a good laugh.
This shopping adventure came after a number of us of Breaking the Silence had a Freedom March at Marquette University to press them to Teach War No More and Close the School of Army at Marquette. Marquette does not allow any protest on campus unless they are approved so we mostly kept to the sidewalk which is public property. There was noticeable fear in the eyes of students as they tried to avoid us, our signs and our flyers calling for Marquette to keep to the Christian principles of conscience that it professes. We walked through the library lobby and although no security stopped us we went back to the sidewalk. We also walked into the Marquette Alumni Memorial Union. There the Marquette security guards were waiting for us and asked us to leave and go back to the sidewalk. We did and proceeded to the sidewalk at 12th and Wisconsin across the street where we had started. We were ending the march when a Milwaukee Police officer pulled one of us to the side and gave the person a citation for trespassing. They said that person was spotted in the union where the person had been banned. The person knew nothing of the ban and just the day before had been to the library and Union without incident.
Our flyer called for the priority of conscience over military values and some of us took the ignoring of our message by students and the citation authorized by the administration as an answer to our Open Letter to Four Leaders of Morality In Milwaukee. By silence and citations they are saying “we do not want to hear that message and if ignoring does not work we will marginalize you and penalize you for persistent giving us the message.”
Ella did not want to believe me about the price of the pepper but she checked it out and was glad she did. Marquette students, faculty and administrators do not want hear our moral message, and if we keep persisting they will ignore us or cite us for trespassing on their conscience … or quite possibly, like Ella, check out the facts and be glad.
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