Black Lives Matter
Today’s activists protest oppression with a new prophetic power.
BY PAMELA LIGHTSEY, associate dean for community life & lifelong learning, clinical assistant professor of contextual theology & practice
We came to affirm our commitment to types of scholarship and activism that prizes justice and works for transformation. We came prepared to lend our hands, heads, and hearts to catalyze a movement—to do the work of transforming the death of Michael Brown, Jr. and so many others into new life. We knew that it had been done before.1
—“Learning From Black Lives Conversation: A Statement of Solidarity and Theological Testament”
More than two years after the killing of Trayvon Martin, and only three weeks after the killing of Eric Garner, the body of Michael Brown lay for nearly four hours decomposing on a sun-scorched Ferguson, Missouri, street after Brown was shot by police officer Darren Wilson. While the US Department of Justice subsequently determined “there is no credible evidence that Wilson will- fully shot Brown as he was attempting to surrender or was otherwise not posing a threat,”2 the killing of these three African American men fomented a summer of national unrest and the most significant black pro- test movement since the 1960s civil rights era. From the steady cadence of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” to the #BlackLivesMatter campaign, activists have demanded the American political machine give an account for the legislative and socioeconomic systems that oppress black people and perpetuate privilege—and these activists have called with a new prophetic power.
Economic discrimination is one of the founding pillars of societal racism. The racist transatlantic slave trade helped many owners of enslaved Africans amass wealth that continues to be passed on
to their progeny, some of whom balk
at the very idea of white privilege. Author Ta-Nehesi Coates3 and the cofounders of the nonprofit legal firm ArchCity Defenders4 have written in-depth articles describing the economic and education disparities between black and white citizens in cities like Ferguson, Baltimore, Chicago, and yes, Boston. Coates poignantly describes the conditions of oppression concretized in cities across America, including poverty, unemployment, mass incarceration,
and inadequate education. From these writings and similar research, we have learned that discussions about policing
in America cannot ignore the injustice
of municipalities
deriving funding
from what are now
called “poverty
violations”—traffic
tickets assessed to
citizens who could
not afford the costs
associated with
operating an auto-
mobile (e.g., insurance, registration,
title, tags). Racism
has also been the
cause of housing
and job discrimina
tion, which contin
ues to perpetuate
the poverty that burdens many descendants of enslaved Africans and other people of color.
LIVING WHILE BLACK
Each time I travel to Ferguson—or for that matter, most segregated communities of people of color—I see the currency of racism continues to destroy both oppressed and oppressor. I participate in the Movement for Black Lives optimistic about what shall be accomplished but at the same time lamenting how little has been gained. The memories evoke anger and determination.
I cannot remember a time when I
was not acutely aware that living while black is a struggle against racism and its concomitant poisons, the likes of which can only be resolved by prolonged work. I remember that my education at one
of the finest black schools in my county was ended when I, along with other young children of my community, was forced to board a bus to desegregate a white school—not because my school was inadequate, but because the price for desegregation would not be paid by white children being bused away from their familiar neighborhoods.
Today, when I see housing that should be condemned, I remember the abandoned laundromat behind my family’s tiny apartment with its “White Only” and “Colored Only” signs still visible—a reminder of the Jim Crow laws under which I was born. The racial category “colored,” printed on my birth certificate, and the story of my siblings being born—some alive, some stillborn—at home or clinics for the poor continue to remind me how racism often intersects with poverty. My birth certificate also has inscribed upon it evidence of the economic impact of structural racism upon black people during the days of my upbringing: “Father: Laborer.” Race is not only a social construct, it is the mechanism by which many privileges are conveyed and assumed as deserved.
UNDIMINISHABLE POWER
Admittedly, there are different forms of privilege: class, education, physical ability, gender. (I have wrestled with my own privilege each time I board a flight to travel—by invitation—to support the work of local activists.) And just as there are different forms of privilege, there are different forms of power.
The longevity of the
#BlackLivesMatter
protest is due to
an organic power
that neither white
supremacists nor
the status quo can
diminish or con
trol. It is a palpable
energy. It provokes
soul-stirring cadence,
fists clenched in the
air, social media
strategies, sophisti
cated marketing, and
the brilliant articulation of national goals. As activists, we simply offer our skills, when appropriate, as much as is needed.
This was the mindset of about 200 scholars and activists as we gathered
in Ferguson in August 2015: to come together to determine how we might be helpful in the movement. The conference, located a few blocks from the local police station, was intentionally planned to take place around one year after the killing of Michael Brown. We listened to one another—activists, local clergy, and politicians. We wept and were stirred by the prophetic, embodied in young activists. And we shook our heads in agreement when time after time we were asked, “When can we come together like this again? We need this!” We were thankful for and took note of the support of bold and courageous schools like STH.
We learned much during those two days. Among the outcomes of the gathering5 was an agreement to make this movement a centerpiece of our work and repent for ways we have left blacks to fend for themselves. We also committed to calling out any form of religion that dehumanizes blacks, and to urging the Church “to claim a new prophetic witness in the present rather than reviving a witness of ‘old wineskins.’”6
The late civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer once said, “There is one thing you have got to learn about our movement. Three people are better than no people.”7
It’s great that #BlackLivesMatter has been a well-supported movement full of leaders. It will be better when we no longer need movements to ensure justice. Until such time, the words commonly attributed to activist Angela Davis aptly convey the activist attitude about the work that lies ahead: “I am no longer accepting the things I can- not change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”
Footnotes:
1. “Learning From Black Lives Conversation: A Statement of Solidarity and Theological Testament,” accessed February 11, 2016, http://kineticslive .com/learning-from-black-lives- conversation-a-statement-of-solidarity- and-theological-testament.
2. US Department of Justice, “Department of Justice Report Regarding the Criminal Investigation into the Shooting Death of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson,” (Washington, DC, 2015), 86, http://www.justice .gov/sites/default/files/opa/press- releases/attachments/2015/03/04 /doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_ brown_1.pdf.
3. Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations,” The Atlantic, June 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine /archive/2014/06/the-case-for- reparations/361631.
4. ArchCity Defenders, Municipal Courts White Paper, accessed October 8, 2015, http://03a5010.netsolhost.com/Word Press/wp-content/uploads/2014/08 /ArchCity-Defenders-Municipal- Courts-Whitepaper.pdf.
5. The remainder of our thoughts is contained in the document quoted at the beginning of this article. I do hope you will take the time to read it in full.
6. “Learning From Black Lives Conversation: A Statement
of Solidarity and Theological Testament,” accessed February 11, 2016, http://kineticslive.com /learning-from-black-lives- conversation-a-statement-of- solidarity-and-theological-testament.
7. Kay Mills, This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 148.