The Time is Now

This week marked the 83rd anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 which led to the evacuation of Japanese-American citizens to internment camps. Because my father’s family was among those removed in that manner and because of the lasting intergenerational damage that caused, I have speculated since I was a young child about what others might have done that could have kept that constitutional rights violation from happening.

And now we are in 2025 when another constitutional crisis is at hand. The question is will we be the witnesses for the wrongs being done to some among us and to our larger community of neighbors? From my perspective, this is a much more serious moment and one where we will rapidly lose the ability to stop the erosion of our constitutional rights if we do not act NOW. Perhaps the issue that most concerns you has not yet organized resistance. Perhaps you are not clear about whether you want to step up. Perhaps in a few months you no longer will have that opportunity as power continues to be consolidated.

When I first arrived here a decade and a half ago, a member told me of the work of the San Francisco UU congregation in opposing the internment. I grew up hearing of the role of the Friends in resisting this dehumanizing treatment. I was glad to hear of these efforts–and saddened that it was not more common.

After the Holocaust, Hannah Arendt wrote about the “banality of evil,” the fact that those atrocities could be committed because so many looked away. what is happening to public servants is not okay. What is happening in the name of the US in Panama and in Guantanemo is not something we can look away from, even with the distraction of so many other unconstitutional acts. What is happening to data privacy is not okay. What is happening in so many areas is not okay. We cannot see all of them and yet seeing at least one could allow us to act.

The time is now to pay attention.