By Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
The first step is the
simplest, if the most difficult and terrifying: it is the step that takes us
from stasis, from the role of observer, to a first, tentative step toward the
other, calling here - Sister! - from everything that suffers and dies. And then
she is no longer other, different, anonymous. And a pathway opens before our
astonished eyes from which we will never be able to waver." - No FEAR: A
Whistleblower's Triumph Over Corruption and Retaliation at EPA by Marsha
Coleman-Adebayo
I reflected on those words this week as the news media were filled with the primaries and Syria. Some weeks before, thirteen Syrians died trying to smuggle on injured French journalist to safety. I wondered at the commitment of those Syrians, so intent are they on communicating the message of the deep suffering in Homs, that they were prepared to give up their own lives so that one, a messenger, could live.
I wrote the words I contemplated on in my book about being a
whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency when I found no one wanted
to respond to my message of mining practices by a U.S. mining group in South
Africa that was leading to sickness and death among South African mineworkers.
I had a great job, a big office, and a salary check that
made a meaty thump as it hit my bank account each month. I was living my
mother's dream for me, when I realized that me pointing out uncomfortable facts
was making those around me uneasy, and that they were likely to light a
firestorm around my ears if I continued I had to become deeply introspective.
My mother had sacrificed so much. I had worked so hard. I
had a young family that depended on my husband and I. Did I have the right to
jeopardize that?
And then I remember a call I had made to my mother from
Ethiopia years before, I had a much-coveted job working for the United Nations
in Ethiopia.
Our dream of Africa from afar is not necessarily like the
Africa we encounter. I'd gone to church and there a mother handed me her baby,
I cradled it, thinking of my own child at home, and the child in my belly, I
turned back the blanket and realized the child was dead.
Shaking, I could not think properly, I gave the mother her
infant and fled back to my hotel.
Ignoring time differences I called my mother in Detroit,
"Mom, I'm on my way home. I can't deal with this. I'm not strong enough to
handle the pain in this place."
She listened as I went on, and then she said: "Marsha, you
have spent the last six years of your life training for this moment, working on
a PhD, and now working at the UN. You have all it takes to make a difference.
Pray to God for strength and then roll up your sleeves and get to work. You
have no right to cut and run. Punch through the fear -- stay and fight!"
Her words stilled me. They gave me strength. They were the
sort of words that had underlined my life and created my values system.
Upon thinking of those words I understood the sacrifice of
those who died to get a journalist to safety so that he might carry the words
of their suffering to those who have the power to change it.
I thought of the GOP primaries and those who seek to be
president and how we as voters look at the field and are dismayed, we feel
powerless to change the governors that we have over the years elected to high
office. But in truth, we are as powerless as we allow ourselves to be. My mother's words echo, "You have no right to
cut and run. Punch through the fear -- stay and fight!"
On the radio a young woman her words rapid with the
excitement of the work she does spoke of how her small group in Worcester,
Massachusetts, just five of them mobilized against SOPA -- the proposed bill
that would have allowed music companies to sue you if you dared film and then
post on YouTube a video of your child dancing to a famous singers voice. They
have already done that in the case of a mother who posted a video of her
toddler dancing to a cd of Prince singing in the background.
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