May 28th 2023 : Dignity

DIGNITY

Dignity. We see the word in many formal human rights declarations but find it hard to define or even describe what it means so that everyone would agree.  One researcher stated that although it's difficult to describe dignity, we all know when it has been compromised.  
We're going to challenge the words "we all" and "know" by taking a brief tour of the history and geography of dignity and then dig into examples where dignity connects with our respect for worth, compassion for vulnerability, protection of autonomy and choice, and protest against oppression and violence. Plus, an excerpt from a speech made in 1848 could be made today with only some small changes. 

First Reading: From the book Becoming  by Michele Obama

“Since childhood, I’d believed it was important to speak out against bullies while not stooping to their level. And to be clear, we were now up against a bully, a man who, among other things, demeaned minorities and expressed contempt for prisoners of war, challenging the dignity of our country with practically his every utterance. I wanted Americans to understand that words matter—that the hateful language they heard coming from their TVs did not reflect the true spirit of our country and that we could vote against it. I wanted to appeal for dignity—the idea that as a nation, we might hold on to the core thing that had sustained my family, going back generations. Dignity had always gotten us through. It was a choice, and not always the easy one, but the people I respected most in life made it repeatedly every day.”
 

Second Reading: Bruce Reyes-Chow is a Presbyterian teaching elder and denominational leader in California who writes and blogs on progressive religion, human rights, particularly refugee and immigrants rights.  In 2018, along with 30 other faith leaders, he was arrested at the US/Mexico border as part of a protest by the American Friends Service Committee against the militarization of the border and the inhumane treatment of the refugees. His books include: But I Don't See You as Asian: Curating Conversations about Race and In Defense of Kindness: Why it Matters, How it Changes Our Lives, and How It Can Save the World, from which our second reading is taken.