Month: November 2015

On September 21, 2015, our dear friend and active member, David McPhail passed away after a recent diagnosis of cancer. One of David’s favorite phrases, summing up the melding of his activism and spiritual practice was “Showing Up and Paying Attention.” He modeled that to us in very deep ways.

David was one of our most consistent and ready-for-action members of the East Bay Interfaith Immigration Coalition (EBIIC), the East Bay table coordinated by the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights and Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy. He was at nearly every immigration meeting, event or action that we organized in the past 5 years.

David was a warm and constant presence at the Monthly Saturday Immigration Vigils at the West County Detention Facility (WCDF) in Richmond, where he would lead the introductions, explain why we were there, and animate the raucous “Moment of Noise.” As our awareness and presence at the jail grew and led to advocacy work around the high cost of prison phone calls, the Sheriff’s participation in ICE dragnet enforcement programs, David was consistently showing up at county supervisor meetings and speaking to lawmakers in Sacramento.

Last year in response to the hundreds of immigrant detainees and asylum seekers, transported to WCDF from the border who were then getting released on bond, David and his wife Irene, were reliable volunteers in the Post Release Accompaniment Program (PRAP), giving those released a friendly face, a warm meal, clothes, and a ride to the airport or bus station. David often acted in the annual Posada and also regularly joined the 8 am Vigils outside the SF Immigration Court where he held signs, sang, passed out candy to the children and information to the parents going into court to fight their deportations.

In 2013, as pressure was mounting on President Obama and Congress to stop the deportations, David was part of a civil disobedience action, accompanying many young undocumented youth to block an ICE bus leaving the ICE building in San Francisco. He participated in another direct action where he was arrested in 2014.

David helped engage his congregation, St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, to support immigrant steelworkers at Pacific Steel in Berkeley and later recycling workers at Alameda County Industries who were unjustly fired by ICE Raids. In 2014, his congregation re-declared Sanctuary and pledged its accompaniment to a recently arrived Guatemalan family whom they are still accompanying through their asylum proceedings and resettlement process.

When he wasn’t showing up with his body, he was reading and paying attention to what was going on and asking: “What were we going to do about it?” For he always believed that something could and must be done. We could always respond. We could always show up and make our presence or action mean something positive.

We are so grateful for the invaluable organizing and friendship we have had with David doing this work. We will miss his loving, humane and steadfast spirit. We will try our best to carry on his holy faith tradition of “showing up and paying attention.”

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David’s wife, Irene McPhail, has asked that people wishing to make gifts in David’s memory, make a donation to the “Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity” to support the immigration work David was so passionate about. Funds will be used to train and strengthen young leaders in faith and social justice.

The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity is the parent organization of the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights (ICIR) of which David was a critical member, volunteer and partner. ICIR educates and inspires faith communities to be engaged in accompaniment, hospitality, public witness, and advocacy in the movement for immigrant justice. The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity upholds that all persons are sacred across borders and that everyone has the right to a life with opportunities.

Students at Eagle Rock’s Occidental College rallied on the stairs just outside Arthur G. Coons Administrative Center on Monday afternoon. This action is one of many that have come out of the students disapproval with the way University President has handled issues of racism, minority exclusion,lack of funding for ethnic programming and issues of rape.

The students presented the administration with their list of 14 demands which include  the creation of a black studies major, an increase in funding for minority student groups and more diversity training for faculty and students. Following their rally the students took occupancy in the administration building and plan to stay their Friday November 20th. By, that time they hope to have their demands met or they will require the University President to step down.

The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity stands with these students in their fight. These Students  have made a decision to center Black Liberation and to demand that “black students thrive and not merely survive.”

The Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity vows, “Every human person is sacred   across all borders.”

As the world mourns the dead and injured from terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday night, in a Beirut suburb on Thursday, and the downing of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt, people beyond those locations feel the pain and suffering.
In the middle of Friday night’s attacks in Paris was 23 year old Nohemi Gonzalez, a Cal State Long Beach international exchange student from El Monte, a suburb of Los Angeles, who was killed. She was with three other Cal State students in Paris. They are reported to be safe but no doubt all are traumatized.
These recent events signal an escalation of global violence that tears at the core of our common humanity. We have witnessed decades of calculated terrorism that dismisses the value of life. Wars are not restricted to designated battlefields. They invade the solitude of homes and distant communities. There is no safe haven from the destructive forces unleashed on innocent and disengaged individuals, including children and youth.
It is impossible to assign a moral justification for violating noncombatants. The devolution of decency and civility is accelerated by the exploitation of desperate people who are hopeless in their drive and desire for better lives. Such acts of violence advance the demonic mantra, “No lives matter.”
There is no escape from determined intent to kill anyone anywhere to promote a cause of unknown origins. Recent events are part of a long, continuous campaign to destroy human life as a means to conduct insensitive exhibitions of terrorism.
We need better ways to protect, preserve, and provide the essentials to every human person. We must explore and discover effective, humane responses to the cries of the deprived members of our human family. While it is tempting to fight back with greater force, that strategy feeds into a larger scheme creating long, horrible wakes of violence that shatter dreams and destroy life. We can do better.
While military force builds up and police vigilance heightens, we need more effective, permanent strategies to remove hunger, ignorance, fear, and other calamitous conditions that prey on depraved people who commit murderous acts against humanity. The infectious disease that creates killing fields inside public arenas, restaurants, theaters, aircraft, and suburbs must be eradicated. Attempts to stop violence with greater violence are not the solution. The historic record informs us actions that increase harm leave a very temporary and false sense of relief.
Replacing violence with compassionate campaigns may inspire hope, recover sanity, and make the world safer for every human person. Let’s launch alternative, nonviolent methods to change reality and give more people a chance to thrive. Start today in faith communities and humanitarian organizations.