Tag: Black Lives Matter

Systemic Racism in the Capitol Police Force

As I focus on the problems of systemic racism and white privilege this month, ProPublica has a good article describing the problem of systemic racism in the capitol police force and its effects during the Capitol attack on January 6th.

The article is by Joshua Kaplan and Joachin Sapien. It is entitled “‘No One Took Us Seriously’: Black Cops Warned About Racist Capitol Police Officers for Years.”

I have excerpted the article below, or you can read the entire article by clicking on the title above.

Allegations of racism against the Capitol Police are nothing new: Over 250 Black cops have sued the department since 2001. Some of those former officers now say it’s no surprise white nationalists were able to storm the building.

When Kim Dine took over as the new chief of the U.S. Capitol Police in 2012, he knew he had a serious problem.

Since 2001, hundreds of Black officers had sued the department for racial discrimination. They alleged that white officers called Black colleagues slurs like the N-word and that one officer found a hangman’s noose on his locker. White officers were called “huk lovers” or “FOGs” — short for “friends of gangsters” — if they were friendly with their Black colleagues. Black officers faced “unprovoked traffic stops” from fellow Capitol Police officers. One Black officer claimed he heard a colleague say, “Obama monkey, go back to Africa.”

In case after case, agency lawyers denied wrongdoing. But in an interview, Dine said it was clear he had to address the department’s charged racial climate.

. . . Whether the Capitol Police managed to root out racist officers will be one of many issues raised as Congress investigates the agency’s failure to prevent a mob of Trump supporters from attacking the Capitol while lawmakers inside voted to formalize the electoral victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

Already, officials have suspended several police officers for possible complicity with insurrectionists, one of whom was pictured waving a Confederate battle flag as he occupied the building. One cop was captured on tape seeming to take selfies with protesters, while another allegedly wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat as he directed protesters around the Capitol building. While many officers were filmed fighting off rioters, at least 12 others are under investigation for possibly assisting them.

Two current Black Capitol Police officers told BuzzFeed News that they were angered by leadership failures that they said put them at risk as racist members of the mob stormed the building. . . 

. . . Sharon Blackmon-Malloy, a former Capitol Police officer who was the lead plaintiff in the 2001 discrimination lawsuit filed against the department, said she was not surprised that pro-Trump rioters burst into the Capitol last week.

In her 25 years with the Capitol Police, Blackmon-Malloy spent decades trying to raise the alarm about what she saw as endemic racism within the force, even organizing demonstrations where Black officers would return to the Capitol off-duty, protesting outside the building they usually protect.

The 2001 case, which started with more than 250 plaintiffs, remains pending. As recently as 2016, a Black female officer filed a racial discrimination complaint against the department.

“Nothing ever really was resolved. Congress turned a blind eye to racism on the Hill,” Blackmon-Malloy, who retired as a lieutenant in 2007, told ProPublica.

Critical Race Theory and the Church, Part 1

(This is the first in a series of posts I will make on the controversy surrounding something called  “Critical Race Theory” within the Christian church and the continuing problem of racism in America. Stay tuned…)

The Southern Baptist Convention’s condemnation of something called Critical Race Theory has made this particular approach to understanding racist behavior (both individually and collectively) a controversial issue in the evangelical world.

All six presidents of the Southern Baptist seminaries have gone  on record

Screengrab from the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting as Danny Akin speaks while other seminary presidents and leaders watch, including Jeff Iorg, Adam Greenway, Al Mohler, and Jamie Dew.

denouncing Critical Race Theory as an expression of “the tide of theological compromise [that Christian’s face in] an increasingly hostile secular culture.”

The heart of this new addition to the SBC declaration of faith says,

In light of current conversations in the Southern Baptist Convention, we stand together on historic Southern Baptist condemnations of racism in any form and we also declare that affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message. (emphasis mine) (For a fuller statement see here).

All six seminary presidents added individual affirmations to the end of the document.

SBC President J.D. Greear speaks on a panel discussion about racial reconciliation during the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at the BJCC, June 11, 2019 in Birmingham, Ala. RNS photo by Butch Dill

What is, sadly, most telling about the new Southern Baptist position paper is the fact that it was formulated by an exclusive group of white men.

No African-American Southern Baptists were included in this body; neither were any consulted as the group made its deliberations.

As an article in the Religion News Service (1/8/2021) puts it,

Southern Baptist Convention officials admitted it would have been better if they’d contacted Black leaders of their denomination before issuing a statement decrying critical race theory, which led to the departure of several Black pastors…

. . . In late November, the leaders of the six SBC seminaries — all of them white men — declared critical race theory, a set of ideas about systemic racism, was not compatible with the statement of faith of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

After the presidents issued their statement, several Black church leaders announced they were leaving the mostly white denomination.

Obviously, these are horrible optics for the SBC.

But even worse is the denominational reality these optics reveal: both white privilege and systemic racism are thriving within the Southern Baptist Convention, including its educational institutions.

The SBC is now Exhibit A proving the urgent relevance of the very observations, about white privilege and systemic racism, that Critical Race Theory is most helpful in uncovering and confronting.

Honestly, I cannot help but wonder if these white, male, Southern Baptist decision-makers (I am hesitant to call them “leaders”) have actually condemned Critical Race Theory because it holds up a mirror to reveal their true selves.

Perhaps we should not forget that the SBC was originally formed by Southern slave-owners in order to protect the institution of slavery.

I am sure that many Southern Baptists are ashamed of that particular piece of their story. But this recent action shows that it continues to cast a very long shadow.

However much the SBC may have renounced its slave-owning origins, this recent episode in church politics has highlighted both the importance and the validity of Critical Race Theory’s analysis of both white privilege and systemic racism within American society.

Given the fact that the SBC finds the concepts of white privilege and systemic racism as particularly offensive ideas in Critical Race Theory, it is almost comical (were it not so atrocious) to see how the SBC doctrinal committee has made itself the newest poster child (poster children?) for the important benefits that Critical Race Theory has to offer.

A Capitol Display of Systemic Racism and White Privilege

Many people are pointing out the gross disparities between the way DC police handled the “Stop the Steal” mob that attacked Congress and looted Congressional chambers this week, and the way police responded to Black Lives Matter demonstrations this past summer.

Of course, the Right-Wing media bubble will never talk about this disparity. They are too busy inventing stories about mythical “bus loads” of antifa infiltrators invading DC in order to give violent Trump supporters a bad name.

NowThisNews has compiled video clips illustrating the very different responses mustered by the DC authorities last summer and this week.

Watch:

White Mob Plants Bombs, Trash Congress, Police Response Minimal

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

You tell me how very differently the situation would have been handled had a Black Lives Matter rally behaved like this in the nation’s capitol…

You have just viewed picture after picture of what white privilege looks like.

 

What Do Jesus and Rush Limbaugh Have in Common?

In previous posts I have mentioned that whenever I take a road trip I view it as an opportunity to imagine myself a social anthropologist conducting

Rush Limbaugh

primary research on what people are listening to out in the hinterlands.

Thus, when I am not listening to a favorite CD, I am tuned in to either conservative talk radio or local Christian programming (not for the music but the news, commentary, sermons, or call-in Bible answer man shows).

My most recent trip confirmed not just the close similarities, but the near

Shaun Hannity

identity of political-social views on secular and Christian broadcasting. There is no difference whatsoever. And that should send a chill down every disciples’ spiritual spine.

Of course, every talk show was a monolithic barrage of “Stop the Steal” nonstop — usually, asserted with ranting, anger, and fear-mongering, not to mention the repeated threats of looming violence if “the radical, leftist cabal” that stole the election from Trump didn’t move over and get out of the way.

I could not find a single instance of rational, evidence-based conversation or

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 24: Jay Sekulow, personal attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks during a news conference during the Senate impeachment trial against President Donald Trump. (Photo by Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)

debate, much less analysis, about the presidential election, the recounts, the court challenges, or the future of this country on a secular radio station.

Worse yet, the Christian broadcasts were no different.

Whether the programming was syndicated or regional, Christian commentators were reading from the same hyper-partisan play book: anger, fear, threats of armed uprisings, calling hell fire onto the leftists, socialists, Marxists, antifa-ists, critical race theorists, and Black Lives Matters communists who are determined to destroy America by turning it into a totalitarian, anti-Christian nation.

The ignorance and misinformation spewed like sewage from a fire hose.

Pat Robertson

The Christians had no more interest in honest conversation, or an examination of the facts available, than the did the Rush Limbaugh crowd. I doubt if a single one of them had even a rudimentary understanding of what socialism really is or that the United States is already highly “socialist” in many ways – highly unjust ways that favor the rich and corporations almost exclusively.

Everyone is convinced that Joe and Kamala are raging socialists chomping at the bit to outlaw private property and confiscate everyone’s guns. Obviously, not a one of these people (broadcasters and callers both) knew the first thing about Biden’s or Harris’ careers.

The truth of the matter is that both Biden and Harris are dyed in the wool crony-capitalists, corporatists, center-right party stalwarts so heavily indebted to Wall Street that I’m surprised either of them has an independent thought in their head.

Jan Crouch, founder of the Trinity Broadcast Network, with Oral Roberts

Their souls are owned by the same brand of neoliberal economics that continues to fuel the gaping chasm of income inequality that curses sick Americans – especially people of color – to wait in bread lines longer than anything seen in this country since the Great Depression, and to die of covid19 at higher rates than any other country in the civilized world.

The American evangelical church has become nothing more than cheap, shallow reflection of the cultivated ignorance, narrow mindedness, and xenophobia that has always marked American conservatism.

That ghoulish political contortion has become the face of the Republican party AND the Religious Right (read: evangelicalism).

This post is my brief introduction to short series I will write in the next few weeks.

David Brody, political reporter for CBN, author of the book, “The Faith of Donald Trump”

In this series I will have a great deal more to say about the incestuous mánage à tois that has developed between evangelicalism, the Republican party, and American anti-intellectualism.

I will begin by focusing on the role that virulent, Republican racism has to play in both (1) the Republican demonization of the Black Lives Matter movement and (2) Donald Trump’s campaign to persuade his base that this election was stolen.

Stay tuned.

George Floyd + Breonna Taylor = A Long Overdue Righteous Revolution

On March 13 Breonna Taylor was murdered by Louisville Metro Police officers while sleeping in her bed.

Police had obtained a “no knock” warrant to search her apartment on the basis of a lie fabricated by the police officers. Three policemen broke down Ms. Taylor’s front door with their weapons draw and entered her home.

Eleven witnesses on the scene all testify that the police never identified themselves.

Taylor’s boyfriend was awoken imagining that dangerous criminals had broken into the apartment. He was correct in this assumption. Except these criminals all wore a police badge, which apparently gives any cop the right to do whatever he/she pleases to any African American, without consequences.

Grabbing his registered handgun, Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend fired once to let the intruders know that he was armed. The police fired their weapons 20 or more times into the darkness. Five to eight (reports vary) of those bullets penetrated Breonna’s body, killing her.

Ms. Taylor was an EMT who worked as an emergency room technician. She had no criminal record. A search of her apartment revealed none of the things the police were looking for.

Today, the 3 officers responsible for Taylor’s death were all found not guilty of murder.

One officer was convicted of “wanton endangerment” because his shots penetrated into the surrounding apartments.

Since no one (fortunately) in these other apartments was injured, we are left to conclude that property damage is a more heinous crime in Louisville, Kentucky than murder. Especially when the murder victim is a young black woman.

Once again, Louisville has proven that black lives do not matter in America. But, heck, we will happily let others die, especially if they are people of color, as long as the police will protect our property.

Another obvious lesson from this injustice is the need for all second amendment, militia types to sit down and be quiet. Repeatedly, we have listened to these “patriots” warn about the imminent dangers of heavily armed government officials breaking into the homes of innocent Americans.

Well, Ms. Taylor’s tragedy is the literal enactment of every gun loving, militia member’s worst nightmare. So, where are they? Why aren’t they marching through the streets of Louisville condemning government oppression with their long rifles at the ready, locked and loaded?

I’ll tell you.

They are sitting at home on their fat butts saying and doing nothing because Breonna Taylor was black. All they are truly interested in is “defending” their vision of a white America.

I fear that the majority of evangelical church leaders will also remain silent over the grotesque injustice of this entire affair. If they do eventually speak up, I predict that it will only be to chime in with Fox News propaganda to condemn the “looters,” and “rioters” who are “destroying property.”

Where have these church people been? In which hole in the ground have they buried their useless heads?

The wanton hypocrisy of such “spiritual leadership” knows no bounds.

Can anyone honestly wonder why we see African Americans – at least, those who are caught on film – running from the police or resisting arrest? The reasons are obvious. In far too many cases, the police are the enemy.

I would behave in exactly the same way if I were a black man in America today. AND SO WOULD YOU, MY DEAR READER. Admit it.

Jesus commands his people “to love your neighbor as yourself.” Love requires empathy.

Godly empathy requires carrying (or at least sharing) the other person’s burden — the burden of their oppression; the burden of unrelieved injustice measured out to them; the burden of grief, lament, and loss; the burden of struggling for righteousness, yes RIGHTEOUSNESS, on this earth.

This was the message of the Old Testament prophets. This was Jesus’ message, too.

Any so-called spiritual “leader” who does not already understand this point needs to resign now, for you do NOT understand what it means to live as a citizen of God’s kingdom.

Neither do you grasp Jesus’ ethical teaching.

I don’t know about you, but my next task is to check out the airfare to Louisville. I hope I’ll see you there, too.

It is long, long past time for God’s people to mercilessly attack the walls of American racism and injustice.

It’s long past time for a truly righteous revolution.

Remember, Jesus Was Killed by Law Enforcement

Just a few reminders for anyone calling him/herself a Christian:

Jesus of Nazareth brought the kingdom of God into this world.

Authentic Christians understand that living obediently in God’s kingdom takes priority over every other group, party, and allegiance.

Politics can never establish, empower, or extend God’s kingdom.

Jesus was not white. He was a Palestinian Jew with dark skin and (probably) kinky hair.

Jesus’ teaching and personal behavior overturned a great deal of the social and religious status quo normalized in his culture.

Jesus defied conventional legal authority  on numerous occasions and paid the ultimate price. That is what obedience to God commonly looks like.

In this way, Jesus did not “respect” authorities that disrespectfully abused their power and mistreated others.

Jesus taught his followers to show mercy and kindness to everyone without exception.

Jesus taught his followers never to cooperate with wrongdoing, no matter how “official” its proponents.

Jesus taught his followers to stand for justice and righteousness on behalf of those from whom it is withheld.

Jesus insisted that his people give practical assistance to those in need of help.

Jesus rejected violence and taught his followers always to do the same.

Anyone who imagines that a political agenda, especially an agenda that sanctions violence, will somehow help God in accomplishing his work is sorely mistaken and is NOT following Jesus.

Leaders who do not condemn injustice, whether individual or corporate, do not understand what it means to live as citizens of God’s kingdom.

Neither do they understand their responsibility as leaders.

Jesus never exalts or approves of those who commit violence. He always condemns it.

Jesus always condemns any thought, word, or action (e.g. Tweets and Facebook posts) that demeans or dehumanizes another human being.

Jesus insists that his followers always uphold the truth.

Upholding the truth requires confronting lies whenever possible, confronting lies with truth, and challenging others when they are caught spreading lies among God’s people.

[For example, John MacArthur needs to confess and repent for the lies he has repeated about the Center for Disease Control and his potentially lethal claims from the pulpit (!) that the covid pandemic is a hoax.]

Following Jesus and living in God’s kingdom requires more than faith. Jesus demands faithfulness — a Christian virtue that seems to be in increasingly short supply in the church today.

 

 

 

Don’t Believe Network News About Portland

One of my daughters lived in Portland, OR for many years.

She keeps in touch with many of her friends in the area, a good number of whom have been out in the streets protesting. Some of them have been arrested. All of them tell the same story.

You can read much of this for yourself on Facebook. Just check out the hashtags #WallOfMoms, #WallOfVets, #WallOfDads.

The story goes like this:

Mixed groups of demonstrators have been in the streets regularly ever since George Floyd’s murder and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement across the country.

The demonstrations have been overwhelmingly peaceful. When unknown agitators destroyed property, group leaders told them to stop and to go away. They were damaging the cause.

Then Federal troops appeared on the scene and began arresting people for no apparent reason, putting them into unmarked vehicles, and locking them up without charges. Some have been kept jailed in undisclosed locations for several days, while family and friends wondered where they were.

These unconstitutional actions by the Feds energized more citizens to march in the streets. Yes, a small group of agitators ramped up their property destruction. But both black and white organizers regularly tried to stop their activities, and were typically unsuccessful.

It is not surprising that this small minority of agitators garner most of the headlines and nearly all of the time on the TV networks, making it look as if Portland is in chaos. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Feds have escalated the confrontations unnecessarily, with their rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, unnecessary aggression and violence against protesters.

It is totally unnecessary.

This is when the Wall of Moms was created, intentionally putting themselves between the demonstrators and the Feds. At this point, a

This protester-mom, was standing, linking arms with fellow demonstrators, when a Federal agent shot her in the face with a rubber bullet

portion of the protests became focused around the Federal courthouse, because that was were the Federal agents were concentrated.

Now the focus of the demonstrations became bifurcated.

The movement’s leaders worked to maintain their focus on Black Lives Matter and police brutality. You don’t have to watch many Facebook videos and pictures to see and hear large crowds chanting “Black Lives Matter.”

But, with the unsolicited intervention of Federal agents, another section of the movement gave their attention to demonstrating against the “police state” activities of Trump’s anti-demonstration forces. The increase in violence is due entirely to the brutal behavior of these Federal marshals and Border Patrol agents.

Yes, a minority of people get out of hand. After the Feds erected a fence in front of the courthouse, a few people focused their anger there and began to build fires under the fence. Again, the organizers consistently tried to stop this from happening.

But, get real! Have you seen the fires? They hardly pose a real threat to anyone, especially to the courthouse!

As the Feds continued to attack both the BLM demonstrators and the Wall of

The bruises on this mom’s body were made by the many rubber bullets fired at her by Federal “police.” Obviously, the Feds don’t hesitate to shoot a woman at close range when her back is turned

Moms, two additional sectors of society began spontaneously to appear: military veterans and dads.

Many veterans, understandably upset at what they were seeing, began to show up in support of the protesters and the moms. A number of videos show how brutally they too have been treated by the Federal agents, beaten with clubs for simply trying to speak to the officers.

Then dads appeared with leaf blowers to fend off the clouds of tear gas being fired by the Feds at unarmed civilians.

Naturally, conservative outlets such as Fox hate all anti-establishment movements, especially when they call for racial justice and condemn police violence.

By definition, conservatives support the establishment.

That is what conservatism means. It’s who they are. Their reporting is pure propaganda, tailored to anger their like-minded viewers, and to condemn the protesters.

Also, remember the old journalistic motto: “if it bleeds it leads.” All the news networks succumb to this principle. They would rather show us the few violent clashes than the masses protesting peacefully. It’s the way news/journalism has always worked in this country.

So, if you want to get angry, then get angry at our government. Get angry at “law enforcement” run amuck, attacking fellow citizens who are exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of assembly.

Get angry at our president for intentionally making a difficult situation worse, as he manipulates civil unrest for his own personal, political advantage.

Trump is using the predictable FASCIST strategy of generating violence so that he can run on a “law and order” platform in November. You can count on it. This is how he hopes to win reelection.

Don’t fall for it.

We are already well underway to authoritarianism.

When is a Revival Not a Revival?

John Fea is a professor of American history at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. Professor Fea has an excellent blog called “The Way of Improvement Leads Home” which I follow regularly.

He recently offered a post with this title: “Is a Spiritual Revival Leads to More Christian Trumpism, Is It Really a Spiritual Revival? Or is It Something Else?” I encourage you to read the entire piece, if you haven’t already.

Evangelicals tend to believe that “spiritual revivals” or “Christian awakenings” will provide the ultimate solution to all of society’s problems.

Christian media promotes this story-line regularly:

Protests aren’t the answer. Boycotts aren’t the answer. New laws aren’t the answer. What we need is a spiritual awakening! If everyone will only come to Jesus, then all our problems will begin to solve themselves!

Or so we are told, over and over and over again.

Professor Fea’s important post draws from the story of a great American, Frederick Douglass.

Douglass’ autobiography tells the story of his own conversion to Christianity, and why he did not see “personal conversion” as the cure all for the the sins of slavery.

Douglass was a slave who witnessed his master’s spiritual conversion. And then marveled at how the master’s new-found faith in Christ made him a more abusive master than he had ever been before.

Quoting from a recent biography of Douglass, Fea notes:

“A recent convert himself to Christian faith, although now struggling to

Frederick Douglass

understand whether God intended any justice on earth, Frederick witnessed the spectacle of master Thomas’s wrenching emotional breakdown and confession in that pen. Blacks were not allowed in the pen, nor in front of the preacher’s performances, but Douglass tells us that he imposed his way close enough to hear Auld “groan,” and to see his reddened face, his disheveled hair, and a “stray tear halting on his cheek.” Here festered the dark heart of the moral bankruptcy of slaveholders that the future abolitionist would make his central subject. . . 

“Douglass converted this memory into angry condemnations of the religious hypocrisy of the entire Christian slaveholding universe, especially the little microcosm of Auld’s household, where the young slave now had to listen daily to loud praying and testifying by the white family, and to participate in hospitality extended to local preachers who were sometimes housed at Auld’s home, all the while enduring the good Methodist’s verbal and physical cruelty. For Douglass, the proof of any sincerity in Auld’s ‘tear-drop’ manifested in his actions. In his deeds and his glances, wrote Douglass, it was as if the pathetic master had concluded, ‘I will teach you, young man, that, though I have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold slaves, and go to heaven too.’”

I am sorry, but the naive, ignorant belief that “spiritual revival” alone will solve all of society’s problems is merely another symptom of our crippling addiction to American Individualism.

More than that, it reveals an extremely simplistic view of both human nature and the work of the Holy Spirit.

All of these intellectual and theological mistakes serve as chains locked around the ankles of American evangelicalism. They prevent us from genuinely following after Jesus as we should.

When the church ought to be in the lead of the Black Lives Matter movement, talking about the Image of God and His new kingdom come, most evangelical leaders sit on the sidelines calling for more prayer and waiting for revival. The exceptions to this hackneyed response are extremely admirable but very, very few.

Sometimes the best way to pray is to get off your butt and march with those who suffer, publicly condemn the “masters” who want to control us, and work for social revolution — all in the name of Christ.

Prof. Adolph Reed on Anti-Racism

Adolph Reed is emeritus professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He recently appeared with journalists Katie Halper and Matt Taibbi on their pod/video cast Useful Idiots.

Taibbi asks Prof. Reed to discuss the best-selling book White Fragility. Reed then expands his horizons and places the book in the broader context of the “anti-racist” movement currently at work in this country.

Reed discusses ways in which much of the energy invested in liberal anti-racism efforts become a shallow distraction from the far more significant underlying structural issues of class division, neo-liberal economics, and the bi-partisan political hierarchy defending the status quo.

I happen to agree 100% with the professor.

Here is the link to his interview. He begins speaking at about the 57:40 mark. I encourage  you to take a listen.