Native Americans struggling
against mining interest
in Arizona

Today I read how Congress is poised to give a foreign mining company 2,400 acres of national forest in Arizona that is cherished ancestral homeland to Apache natives in a measure “attached to annual legislation that funds the US Defense Department.” This is just one more of many injustices going on in the USA against the poor and marginalized.

One Native American leader told the media he was saddened by news of the proposal, yet not all that surprised. The Native American leader was not surprised is the same as the African American young adult not being surprised as he is stopped by police for no good reason? The new order of rich getting richer, and with more power and more people getting poor with less power seems to be accepted by many.

However, there are a growing number of people saying No: No to killing of African American males by white police, No to militarization of our education system, No to removal of human rights to poor and marginalized, No to money being free speech or corporations being persons, no to destruction of our environment, No to endless wars and no to privatization of education. Each day there are more and more injustices that we can be silent about or say No.

In my opinion the rich and powerful, powers that be, throw so much at else that is negative that all we can say is No or that is just the way it is. As more and more people break the silence and say No, that is “Enough”, we can start making the connection between what we see as immoral.

We cannot as individual change anyone but ourselves, but we changed individuals can stand together and say No, and better yet, say Yes to positive new ways of doing things. For my limited part I am trying to connect the cultural and institutional racism we see around us with the militarization of our education system, like at Marquette Jesuit Catholic University. When people come aware of injustices and immorality around them they can come together to say “Enough” and yes to working together.

The sources of evil and injustices, money, power and glory are very universal. St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of Society of Jesus, Jesuits, spoke about these same evils when he wrote the “Spiritual Exercises in the 16th century. We do not need to know more information or hear more talks or read more to understand the evils around us. We just need to open our eyes and ears and follow our conscience. When we stop and say “Enough” we may suffer rejections and be marginalized, but non-cooperation with evil is one of the best way to overcome it.

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