“We as a nation must undergo
a radical revolution of values…
when machines and computers,
profit motives and property
rights, are considered more
important than people, the giant
triplets of racism, materialism
and militarism are incapable of
being conquered.”
MLK, April 4, 1967

I find myself invested in two local issues, getting the Catholic Archdiocese to use the 1.1 million dollar it realized from closing three to provide basic beds and appliances for people in the area and the closing of R.O.T.C military training at Marquette University, a Catholic Jesuit university. In my mind, one has to deal with racism, the consistent acceptance of “separate but equal” police of the Catholic archdiocese and the other one with militarism, supporting the military teaching violence and killing over Catholic and Christian faith and values.

I feel these two struggles, one of racism and one of militarism, are connected but slowly am learning how to articulate this connection. One connection is the basic need to recognize the rights and dignity of a person no matter what the race, religion, sex or income of a person. For the archdiocese to take money that was given to the church in the neighborhood for the evangelical and preferential option for the poor in the area and give it for other uses is morally wrong and denies basic human respect and dignity for African Americans and poor in North Central Milwaukee. For a Jesuit Catholic university to teach violence and killing against all Gospel values and faith is morally wrong and denies human respect and dignity for all humankind.

Martin Luther King Jr. made the connection in his speech, A Time to Break the Silence, on April 4, 1967 “We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values…when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

I am gradually seeing many other connections between racism and militarization but for now this basic denial of human dignity is a sin for both racism and militarization.

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