Still Learning to Give Ground

It has been almost fifty years since the passing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. A great many things have changed during that time, although there are moments when many of us realize that the deep wound to our national soul that is racism, has yet to be closed and is far from full healing.

One of the privileges of ministry, is that as a pastor, people sometimes share with me the  deep grief that comes with the loss of a child. From parents who have lost infants, to parents who have lost adult children, there is a grief and sense of loss that is inexplicable. It is as if the hopes for the future are cut off and there is no way to restore them. I've witnessed the healing and the heartache close up, but still cannot know with truth, what it is to lose a child.
Thus, I cannot begin to fathom what it must be like to live in a community, or be part of a people, whose children may die, or be killed simply because of the color of their skin. Yet, as the "stand your ground" laws have played out in Florida, anecdotal evidence suggests that this is exactly what is happening. 

 As with many of you, I have been working through the George Zimmerman trial verdict and most recently the Michael Dunn trial, and trying to determine how I should respond. As part of the process I have certainly paid a good deal of attention to what others have said, both to gain insight, and in some cases, avoid making the situation worse. Yet, there is no easy response, as there are no easy answers in the wake of these unsettling trials.
I am not Trayvon Martin or Justin Davis, and I could not have been, even if I were 35 or 40  years younger. I've lived my entire life under the protective dome of white privilege. I expect that I will be waited on in banks and restaurants, that my word will be believed, and that my rights will be respected.  This simply is not true of black people in America today.

In the Spring of 2001, while working on my D. Min. program,  I was driving with Pastor Benny Smith through the streets of Philadelphia. It was well after midnight as we had attended a late evening worship service that lasted for several hours. Pastor Smith was driving because he knew the streets of the city much better than I. There was little traffic when we stopped at a red traffic light, and we continued our conversation about the sermon we had just heard. When the light changed to green we proceeded. Within a few seconds Pastor Smith was being pulled over. When the officer approached the car, Pr. Smith placed his hands on the steering wheel "in plain sight," I recall him saying. The officer, asked for license and registration, all the while holding an intensely bright flashlight on Pr. Smith's face. The officer then stated that Pr. Smith had just run the traffic light. Pastor Smith, who was wearing a suit and tie, protested that the officer was mistaken, but the officer was adamant, and haughtily declared he had "no intention of arguing" with him. The officer's tone seemed unusually surly. It was then that I, who had gone relatively unnoticed said, "Officer, I believe you are mistaken,I watched the light turn green before we proceeded through it." I immediately got the flashlight in the face treatment Pr. Smith had received, but pale white face and clerical collar changed everything. Immediately the officer's tone changed. Perhaps he said, he had "been mistaken." Then, as quickly as he had come, he let us go and retreated to his car. Pastor Smith took the encounter in stride and told me that it was fairly common when he was out late at night to be pulled over by the police. What I realized afterward was that without even realizing it, I had invoked white privilege, and it prevailed.

I have been stopped several times by police, but I never experienced the tone of voice and the attitude that the officer used that night in Philadelphia. There was an inherent tone and attitude that seemed to say Pastor Smith must be guilty of something. Indeed, he was guilty of being black.

The experience of that night, and others along the way have made me acutely aware of being the beneficiary of white privilege, and yet, each episode has left me more troubled. What would have happened if I hadn't been with Pr. Smith? What if I also had been black? The way stand your ground laws are working out leaves me more troubled. Being unreasonably pulled over is injustice enough, but the taking of Trayvon Martin's and Justin Davis' lives seems the perfect storm of racial prejudice, vigilantism, and with poorly written statutes, state indemnified murder.
 
Listening to those who espouse the idea that race played no role in the death of Trayvon Martin or Justin Davis, I can only conclude that they are deaf to the historical undercurrents, and sometimes main current that inserted race into the bloodstream of American life. Race was the issue that the founding father's (save John Adam's and a few others) were loathe to deal with. Thomas Jefferson recognized that slavery was a blight on human freedom, but, could not move beyond his personal and total attachment to a life built on the sweat and tears of others.
Interestingly, as the issue of slavery moved steadily to the forefront of politics in the gathering storm of the 1850's, the system tended to justify itself on racial grounds, with the oft repeated mantra that black people were somehow inferior.  This view, reached its antebellum denouement in Chief Justice Roger Taney's majority opinion in the Dredd Scott case.
With the end of the Civil War, the death of Abraham Lincoln, the vindictiveness of northern radicals, as well as unrepentant south, the race question was never settled. Jim Crow became not just the law of the land in many states, but a way of life predicated on the perceived racial superiority of the white race. That perception even gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan and it was all to clear that despite the hopes of men like Lincoln and Frederick Douglas, Justice Taney's words were still a nightmare reality.  In the 1950's Brown vs. Board of Education signaled that black people could no longer accept Jim Crow as the law of the land, but it wasn't until the 1960's that civil disobedience and the foresight of Lyndon Johnson seemingly ushered in a new day.
In the years since, progress has been made, but with strides forward have come steps backward, and the election of Barak Obama set off a new round of racial demagoguery and fanned to life once again deep seated fears regarding race. (Ted Nugent's recent comment calling the President a "subhuman mongrel" is ample evidence of the continuing fear.) As a result, we have witnessed efforts to curtail voting rights, require identification to prevent non existent voting abuse,and the passing and uneven enforcement of "stand your ground" laws, which from my perspective, seem to be playing out like a modern day version of lynching. Florida's law includes the following: 

A person is justified in using force except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other's imminent use of unlawful force. However a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:
1. He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony; or
2. Under those circumstances permitted pursuant to s. 776.013.(home defense) 

In the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of John having washed his disciples feet, Jesus went with his disciples across the Kidron valley to the the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. Once there, he encountered Judas, who had "brought a detachment
of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons." A dialogue ensued in which Jesus established his heavenly authority (when he said, "I am he," they "stepped back and fell to the ground"), but "Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest's slave, and cut off his right ear." In a moment Jesus told Peter, "Put your sword back into its sheath."

Some scholars believe that it was Judas' hope that Jesus would stand his ground. Not satisfied with the direction Jesus seemed to be going, Judas had hoped that in a real confrontation, Jesus would assert his full authority as the Son of God, that he would unleash the wrath of God and send the soldiers fleeing and take his rightful place on the throne most recently occupied by Herod. Standing his ground, he would confront deadly force, with a greater deadly force and triumph over all of his enemies. However, Jesus decision to give ground in the garden, and the entire Passion is Jesus rejection of the culture of violence of which "stand your ground in the latest example."  The Son of God, the one human being who had the right to stand his ground let himself be taken for the sake of humanity and all creation. Those who by faith claim the cross, have this as their heritage; a resounding no to the violent choice, and it is a heritage we must claim if the violence incited by "stand your ground" is going to be mitigated.

Yes, the laws must be changed, but it will not be by legislation that racism is purged from our national life. You and I must claim our heritage and in whatever ways present themselves, we have to set an example. As Jesus did at Gethsemane, we have to lay aside our fears and learn to embrace the future into which God is beckoning us. I'm not naive, this race virus in our bloodstream has been with us a long time, and will take time to purge; the future will not be trouble free.  I don't have the answers, but at least we can do this: claim our heritage, our baptismal birthright and take seriously Jesus words, "whatsoever you did to these the least of my brothers and sisters, you did to me." It took the death and resurrection of Jesus for his disciples to put aside their fears and embrace a new way of living. His life, death and resurrection should be enough to change our hearts as well.

Peace,

Pastor Peter