SOMOS SEMILLAS
WE ARE SEEDS
WE ARE WIND
WE ARE RAIN
WE ARE HOPE
WE ARE DREAM
WE ARE RUN
WE ARE THE SUN
WE ARE THE MOON
WE ARE YOU
WE ARE ME
WE ARE THEM
SOMOS SEMILLAS
WE ARE SEEDS.
“They buried us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” The quote comes from poet Dinos Christianopoulos, who was sidelined by the Greek literary community in the 1970s because he was gay. The Human Rights movement is going to come back … like so many seeds around the world we will break through the concrete … in this case, concrete and steel filled with extra pounds of lies hate, and fear.
Muhammad Ali reminded us that it is not about how often we are knocked down but how many times we continue to get up. (I had lunch with the Champ in 1988 in Atlantic City at the National Black Mayors conference
Some years ago, a young man I knew was hooked on drugs and went to a New Mexico treatment center. I think I was the only person who went to visit him who was not an immediate family member. About 20 years later I ran into him at a colorful demonstration recognizing the so-called ZOOT SUIT RIOTS in Los Angeles.
This was a racist attack by military personnel against the Mexican American community. As we talked we revisited his difficult journey and getting out of drugs. He said to me “Leno you don’t know what it is like to drop down to the bottom.” Many think that my life has been a road filled with love and success. But I like many have suffered the loss of loved ones, the loss of lovers, jobs, and have walked the dark and dangerous alleyways of the bottom.
Once it was so dark that I did not know if I would find the sun again. I told him “I was once in a most desperate state because the bottom fell out of my bottom … sending me deeper into my state of hopelessness and desperation.” And I was lucky that others saw my outstretched hand and heart and helped me out of the darkness.
We have some difficult days ahead and we will have to be smart and strategic … We will be tested every day as we live within a country where the insane are governing one of the great democracies.
I remind myself of some struggles that went through some dark and dangerous days and eventually found some justice… I have met survivors, from Chile, Argentina, China, South Africa, Estonia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemalan, Uganda, and yes Mexico and many others.
I lived in Nicaragua during the last nine months of the Somoza dictatorship and like you we watched our young men damaged by the Vietnam War come back to hate-filled Americans, and we have all seen the attacks on Human and Civil rights movements in this country by the FBI. And least we forget our god-filled lynchings of the past a lot of this madness is supported by a perversion of a book called the bible … those rounded up in Chile and Argentina stayed strong and kept hope alive as they were tortured or killed and late at night they wondered who might be killed next. But they never gave up … and we can not give up.
Yesterday I made a round trip of some 14 hours of driving to meet a man’s family who had been killed by a racist rancher in the Nogales area. A 14-hour trip of driving and most people stayed in their lanes, there were speed limits, and guard rails, especially at some most dangerous curves which were well announced. Today victorious government will break the rules of road and life etiquette.
Winning does not mean you were right or just … we have seen our government over the years embrace laws and policies that took decades to reverse because they were unjust and unfair to one and all.
Just so you know I am going to take better care of my health since I want to run with you towards the future. I want to live to see accomplish what is right and just.
We just need a little bit of water blessed by love and hope and we will break through again and take our rightful place in the sun moon and rain and the winds of four directions will carry forward our prayers, our drum beats our songs, and chants of Freedom and Justice to everyone everywhere.
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