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A Tribute to Friend Stephen Matchett

A well known and loved Quaker in the San Francisco Bay Area, Stephen Matchett, died on Tuesday, May 19, 2020. Stephen was a member of San Francisco Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. I was not a close friend of Stephen’s but I did spend a fair amount of time with him, especially while riding bicycles.

Stephen died on the anniversary of the death of my friend, housemate, and bicycle activist Bob Berry. May 19 is the birthdate of political activist Malcolm X, who would have been 95 on the day Stephen died.

Stephen was a political activist. He was probably best known as a facilitator and organizer with Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). AVP was developed by Quakers to teach conflict resolution skills for people in prison. In recent years, AVP has expanded beyond prisons and conducts workshops for those who want to end violence in their communities. Stephen would travel to prisons throughout California on his bicycle, carrying all the workshop materials he needed on his bike. Stephen was very organized in his ability to pack and transport large loads.

Stephen not only traveled everywhere by bike and public transit, he made a decision to never ride in a private vehicle for the rest of his life. This included regular Quaker gatherings in California, such as College Park Quarterly Meeting and Pacific Yearly Meeting.

During one Pacific Yearly Meeting session held at Walker Creek Ranch in Marin County, those of us who pedaled to the meeting gathered for a group photo before the ride home. I use that photo for my Twitter profile page. Stephen is the tallest in the group and next to me on my right.

PYM Walker Creek

When I was editor of the Strawberry Creek Monthly Meeting newsletter, I would fill blank spaces with quotations from Quakers and other activists in the peace, environmental, and social justice movements. One of my quotes came from Stephen Matchett. It was at a yearly meeting at Walker Creek Ranch that Stephen spoke at a meeting for worship before plenary. “Tell me more about this God you don’t believe in. Chances are I don’t believe in that God either.” When I asked for his permission to use the quote, Stephen said he wasn’t sure if his statement was original. Well, it is original enough for me. I used it several times.

Stephen did believe in God. He facilitated Bible study sessions during yearly and quarterly meetings. I found it interesting that an openly gay man would have no problem in leading discussions on the Bible. Stephen has helped me deal with my own issues with Christianity and become more comfortable with a book I used to consider a source of oppression.

I would talk to Stephen during travel to and from the spring session of College Park Quarterly Meeting. The spring meeting is usually held during the third weekend in May at Ben Lomond Quaker Center in the Santa Cruz mountains. We would both travel by use of train, bus, and bike. While I took Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor from Berkeley to San Jose, Stephen used CalTrain from San Francisco. During one of our last conversations, Stephen was debating not renewing his driver’s license and just caring a non driver’s ID card.

Spring quarterly meeting was held this past weekend, May 15-17. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, it was conducted via Zoom, instead of at Ben Lomond.

Early this spring, Stephen was diagnosed with a brain tumor and spent his final days at the Coming Home Hospice in San Francisco.

On the day of Stephen’s passing, his brother David posted the following to Stephen’s Caring Bridge site.

Stephen is no more Stephen —

I went over about 3 after the chaplain said “it’s now.” It’s meaning the world to me that I got to be there. 

He was breathing when I went in, I called my parents to say I was there, I read him something my father had written him, then something from my cousin, and played him a message someone had recorded for him today, and then when I was returning the chaplain’s call we talked about how you could tell, and I said, well, it looks like his chest isn’t moving. So somewhere in there he stopped breathing, and I couldn’t say when. But there was no sigh, no gasp, no struggle — I can’t imagine a more peaceful way to leave.

This won’t be the last post here, but it’s the last post from a day when Stephen was with us. Entering a new reality (all of us).

In 2013, Stephen led a Quaker Center weekend workshop titled “Come As You Are: Reading the Bible with Friends.” The announcement includes the following biography.

Stephen Matchett is a Quaker by birth and by convincement, and a 30-year member of San Francisco Monthly Meeting. Once an appellate criminal defense lawyer, he now spends much of his time facilitating conflict resolution workshops in prisons and in the community with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP). In recent years he has had an active traveling ministry among unprogrammed Friends, offering presentations on reading early Quaker writers and on Friends’ beliefs, and following a call to support and encourage contemporary Quakers’ (re)acquaintance and engagement with the Bible. In recent years he has been convening early morning Bible study at College Park Quarterly and Pacific Yearly Meetings, and the growing number of Friends finding meaning in those sessions led him to offer this program last year and to agree to offer it again this year upon request.

May 20, 2020 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Why I’m Staying Home

Why I’m Staying Home

3/17/2020

While I have been considering how I would need to respond the COVID-19 epidemic for a number of weeks now, it all became very real for me when I watched Governor Gavin Newsom’s press conference on Sunday, March 15. Right off the bat, he announced that everyone 65 years and older need to stay in their homes and not go anywhere; no work, no shopping, nothing. 

Yes, he was talking to me. I am a couple of weeks away from my 70th birthday. The day before, I was standing with the crowd at Berkeley Bowl West, buying milk and thinking that this may not have been a good idea. However, I needed milk, just like I needed to do my work as an in home care provider earlier that day. I just got on my bicycle and rode to the places I needed to go.

I didn’t need another job. However, Governor Newsom has given me a new job. I now have the job of staying home. That changes the other jobs I have.

Even though I don’t smoke or have any other health problems that put me at risk for serious complications from COVID-19, I do care for people who have those risks, such as diabetes. I have not been experiencing any of the symptoms, and the chances I have come in contact with a person with the virus are low. If people without symptoms are able to spread the virus to others, however, that justifies me staying away from others who are at risk.

My IHSS work mostly involves housekeeping and shopping. While another person could fill in for me and do my jobs, finding a person to work in my place will not be easy. I am hoping for guidance from my union, SEIU 2015. Governor Newsom said at his press conference that he was talking with the union.

If I get COVID-19 and do recover, there is still the chance that I would become seriously ill, possibly needing a hospital bed and a respirator, I would become a part of the overload that our hospitals are facing right now. By keeping myself away from the virus, I would be part of the solution and not be an additional burden on our healthcare system.

So this is my new job. I am letting the world know I am taking this crisis seriously by complying with the Governor’s directive. That directive came one day before the counties in the entire Bay Area decided that everyone, regardless of age, need to limit their activities and stay home as much as possible. I am working at home, doing the jobs I don’t get paid for. I have been spending more time on Zoom, including two Quaker meetings for worship on Sunday, a Quaker  clerks’ meeting before that, and a meeting of the Alameda County chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby last night. I am not hurting financially. I do have 8 hours in sick pay through my union contract. I will be getting my social security check by direct deposit next week. On my birthday, I will get a nice, new present from New York Life, as I start drawing down on my 403b retirement account. in addition to Social Security, I am on Medicare. My main concern is that I have a health plan through my work, Alameda Alliance, that is my supplemental insurance for what Medicare does not pay for, such as dental care and prescription drugs. For that benefit I need to work 80 hours per month. I know I will fall short this month. I am hoping for some guidance from my union.

I am optimistic that I will be celebrating my 70th birthday, even if it is at home. After that my goal is to be alive on Tuesday, November 3, when I cast my ballot in the presidential election. I will vote to remove the incompetent and corrupt Donald Trump from office. Join me in voting for the Democratic Party nominee for President and replacing the cowardly Republican senators who failed to do their duties to remove Trump from office by impeachment. 

March 17, 2020 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A New Year’s Resolution, discovering the New Jim Crow

I just followed up on a resolution I made for the New Year 2016, and the timing turned out to be very important. It was a resolution that Mark Zuckerberg made for 2015 that strongly influenced my decision. I have wanted to read Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow for a number of years now. The book has been out since 2012. There has been a lot of talk about it in my Quaker community. Then I read about Zuckerberg’s resolution after he visited San Quentin prison last October . His visit was the result of his resolution to read the book earlier in the year. Reading it has led him to the issue of prison reform and the mass incarceration.
Like Zuckerberg, I had a number of books on my “to read” list and wanted to obtain as many as I could from the public library. The other books were easily obtainable, but the waiting list to check out Alexander’s book was months’ long. I could have put a reservation in and waited, but I decided to just keep checking back until a copy was available on the shelf. In June, I was at Pacific Yearly Meeting, a Quaker gathering in Marin County. As at every gathering, my friends Sandy and Tom Farley ran a bookstore they call Earthlight Books. I was actually there to buy another book and decided to include the New Jim Crow in my purchase. I decided I could pass it along to someone else after finishing it.
At the time, I was still recovering from the shock of the horrendous shootings in Orlando that month. I was able to find healing at yearly meeting, as well as at the baseball game I previously blogged about and by attending SF Pride on the last Sunday of the month. On the evening of July 4th, I passed on the opportunity to watch fireworks. Instead, I opened Alexander’s book and started to read. Within a few days, the lives of two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castille,would be cut short by their encounters with police. I joined a peaceful protest in downtown Oakland on Thursday, sharing pictures on Twitter. It was on Twitter that I read the news coming out of Dallas. Coming away from the protest, I committed myself to finishing that book as soon as possible. I finished reading on Sunday night.
The purpose of this blog entry is to strongly urge everyone to get a copy of The New Jim Crow and read it right away. Whether you find it on the shelf of your local library or bookstore, find it and read it. You will not regret it. In fact, it is imperative that you read it before the November election.
As a white male, I must admit I was a bit skeptical as I read the beginning chapter. I was looking for holes in Alexander’s theory. “Yes, but what about…?” I would keep thinking to myself. Fortunately, Alexander gave a lot of thought to the same concerns. By the end of the book, all of the pieces of the puzzle came together for me. So, if you experience the same skepticism, just keep an open mind and keep reading.
The main focus of the book is the war on drugs and how that war has been selectively fought in the black ghettos. Racism against African Americans did not end with the outlawing of segregation, anymore than it didn’t end with the outlawing of slavery. Instead, it has evolved so not appear so blatant. It hides behind a mask of deniability and preys on our racial biases. While denying explicit bias, it is our implicit bias that subconsciously influences our behavior. An example is the story the late Robert Maynard told when he was the publisher of the Oakland Tribune. Walking the streets of downtown Oakland at night, he noticed that when he encountered groups of white women walking toward him, they would always cross the street and walk on the opposite side. They were fearful of coming in close contact with a black man, even one dressed in a business suit and tie.
Alexander’s most convincing argument is found in the subtitle, “Mass Incarceration in the Age of colorblindness.” It is this illusion of colorblindness that allows the New Jim Crow to perpetuate while appearing to be non-racist. It is this plausible deniability that manifests in very ugly politics. Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin want to convince us that the Black Lives Matter activists are the racists. Donald Trump calls for “Law and Order” just as Nixon did in 1968.
I hope that you will answer this call to make that resolution to yourself. After reading it, I invite you to comment to this blog. I would be happy to start a respectful conversation.

July 12, 2016 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment