I'm Against Walls

 The America I have known, the Constitution that I gave oath to support is not about building walls of any kind, but about climbing over them or breaking them down wherever and whenever  they discriminate, produce hate, fear or ignorance; wherever and whenever such walls block freedom of thought or speech, justice, harmony and peace among peoples.  When we, as Americans, even think of building “great, great walls,” we have become what we have always been against!

I oppose the “great, great wall” on the southern border. I’m against building walls to separate white people from brown people and vice versa.  I’m against building walls to keep people in poverty.  I’m against building walls that intimidate, whether built of concrete, steel, attitudes, law, fear, prejudice, bigotry, lies,  religion or lifestyles.  I’m against walls built to keep people in and against walls built to keep people out.  I’m against walls of any kind.

For thousands of years, a wall of sorts has often been erected by secular and religious authorities to suppress views perceived as threatening.  This wall is the  banning and/or the burning of books.  Even though the First Amendment protects secular and religious books as “free speech” in America, churches and school boards have often ignored this important freedom.

Many books deemed to be damaging to faith and morals were banned by the Catholic Church in its Index of Prohibited Books (abolished in 1966).  All churches have done something similar. The Bible is banned in North Korea, and many parts of central Asia, not because it is a book of violence and “raunchy sex scenes,” but because it is deemed a threat to “national security.”  In May 1933, the first year of the Nazi government, there were book burnings (“Bambi” was banned).  In 2022, in Tennessee, Virginia and other places in America, books are again being burned and banned.  It is a wall.  I’m opposed to all walls!