This month, two black men were killed by cops, but that’s old news. ISIS also exploded a truck bomb in Bagdad, killing nearly three hundred, snipers in Dallas and Baton Rouge murdered eight cops. Then a truck barreled through the streets of Nice. Another eighty four dead. Why write about a couple of police-encounters-gone-wrong when the world’s got bigger problems?
Over the last several years, questions like that one let me sidestep the news about Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, or Rekia Boyd that fell across my path. I’d squint at the headlines from a distance and, like the Levite in the story of the good samaritan, cross the street and hurry past.
Starting to Care
All that changed, though, when my coworker, Sham, showed me a video of cops manhandling black teens at a pool party. Something shifted. I started reading the articles I never saw about Trayvon Martin. I starting asking Sham about her experience as a black woman and mother of black boys. I began to see that the amount of melanin in my skin might have more to do with my experience as an American than I’d realized.
Then, two weeks ago, I found Sham watching another video (warning: graphic). Alton Sterling, killed by two cops. I headed back to my office and googled his name. I wanted there to be a reason Sterling got killed besides racial injustice. I wanted the believe that the same cops kneeling on a white man’s shoulders would have done the same thing.
I scrolled past the video. I didn’t want to see the gun pointed a foot from his chest. I didn’t want to hear the shots and see him die. But Sham, who I care about, had felt the need to watch it. So I watched it too and something broke inside me.
Feeling Uncomfortable
When I crawled into bed that night I scrolled through Facebook to see how my black friends were responding to Sterling’s death—friends who love Jesus, who go on missions trips and hold masters degrees from seminary. They grieved. They called it evil. They begged pastors to preach on justice the following Sunday.
Reading post after post, I felt uncomfortable. It was easier when I didn’t know or when I could rationalize the problem away. Maybe he shouldn’t have run. Maybe he shouldn’t have reached for his pocket. Maybe…
In the past, those hypotheticals enabled me to fall asleep in peace—to leave social justice to the liberals and chalk up the tragedies to a fallen world that’s going from bad to worse until Jesus returns—but not that night. The following morning, I watched the footage of Philando Castile (warning: graphic) slumped in a passenger seat and covered in blood because his taillight was out and he was trying to comply with the officer. Together, those videos exsanguinated any of my lingering hesitation about taking a stand. I’m only sorry it took me this long.
Easier from a Distance
Discussing these events with my black friends has helped me realize that it’s easy to suspend judgment from a distance—the distance that comes from your great grandmother’s grandmother tending her own garden, not someone else’s, someone who could whip or rape her at will. The distance that comes from your great grandfather enjoying a breezy walk home from Sunday night meeting, instead of worrying whether the Klu Klux Klan was waiting around the bend. The distance that comes from your grandparents celebrating their anniversary at whatever restaurant they could afford, without worrying they’d get thrown out.
The distance that comes from your dad registering to vote when he turned eighteen, instead of being illegally denied and getting beaten with billy clubs when he marched for his rights. The distance that comes from getting pulled over by a cop for driving 15 mph over the limit and getting off with a warning and a “Drive safe now, y’hear?” instead of getting pulled over because your taillights is out and worrying that you might move too quickly or answer too slowly and end up in handcuffs, or worse.
Maybe that’s why my African American friends mourn when another black man gets killed and why they don’t want us forgetting these two murders as we move onto the next tragedy. Maybe that’s why they don’t want us focusing on Alton Sterling’s criminal record or why they’re begging us, in the name of Jesus, to start calling these killings what they are: systemic racism, abuse of power, and evil.
Taking Action for Justice
I’m tempted to backspace and delete that word. I cringe at the thought of overstating anything, but lives are at stake. If the God we follow condemns injustice, we must speak out as well, even if it leave us feeling helpless, awkward, or misunderstood. As followers of Jesus, we must insist that all American be treated with the dignity that comes from the image of God and commit ourselves to making sure that happens, however long it takes.
So, where do we start? Here’s a couple of ideas. They aren’t enough, but they’re a place to begin:
- Revisit God’s definition of true spirituality in Isaiah 58.
- Don’t say “All Lives Matter.” They do, but that disregards the systematic injustice against black lives in our country.
- Watch Selma if you haven’t already and see how God’s people fought for justice in the past.
- Review some of the data on police violence and the racial disparity in our justice system.
- Support your black friends in their grief and anger. Ask, listen, and care.
- Invite your church to pray for God’s justice in this country. Spend a day fasting.
- Engage in civil action.
- Educate yourself on white privilege—with an article on white fragility, systemic racism, or a fourteen year-old’s slam poetry “White Boy Privilege” (warning: profanity).
In the Declaration of Independence, we asserted that all men are created equal, but the last 240 years of history have contradicted that. The world might have bigger problems on its hands, but for us Americans, this is our problem.
Photo by (CreationSwap, LLC, Standard License) Kevin Carden
