Enough is Enough!

Enough talk! Enough inaction! Enough turning aside from racism!

Enough denial of our culture of racism!

In the face of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a Ferguson police office, we cannot turn our backs to the culture of racism that would allow a white police officer to shoot an unarmed young black man 6 times and then allow a mostly white police force to leave the body of this precious human being lying in the street for 4 hours before receiving attention. We cannot deny the culture of avoidance that would allow several days to pass before releasing the officer’s name and yet show footage of a possible theft in a convenience store when the name was finally released. We CAN recognize the fear that the African Americans of Ferguson experienced as this incident unfolded, and we can recognize the fearful awareness of the police that releasing the name of the officer would set off a firestorm of anger. Even in such an atmosphere, nothing justifies the release of the convenience store footage, especially when the incident in the convenience store was apparently not even known by the police officer who shot the victim.
The easy approach to this case and to other cases involving young Black men is to blame the victim. The ongoing approach is to engage in reflections filled with stereotypical tropes that depict Black people as violent – images that perpetuate the culture of racism. Enough blaming! The victim was tragically tried by gunfire. He cannot give his account of that day. It is left in the hands of the grand jury to determine if the officer will be tried in the courts. But you and I will be tried every day that new incidents of violence against young black men and women continue. WE are tried each time we do not speak up against subtle and not-so-subtle acts and attitudes of racism. Rather than blaming the victim, we must hold ourselves accountable if we do not do all within our power to purge the racism in our own souls and to end systemic and institutionally perpetuated racism.
If we open our eyes to the culture we have created by continued racism and white privilege, we who are white will be especially horrified when we read a report about a young African-American boy with Down syndrome entering his first day of school in Syracuse, New York, and being pushed against the wall by a white security guard. According to the boy’s mother, who accompanied her son to take pictures of his first school day, the security guard pushed the boy into a position with his face to the wall and his hands above his head, and then laughingly said: “Now take the picture, he’s in the right position.”[1] There is NO excuse for such abuse. How did our culture teach a security guard that such action is acceptable? Hopefully, this incident will be investigated, as it should be, and the guard will be disciplined in an appropriate way, as he should be. But who will hold our culture accountable? Enough talk! It is time to TURN AROUND.
If we open our eyes to the cultural realities of young immigrants in the U.S. who live with the threat of deportation and have few protections for their safety, health, and education, we will be horrified at our culture of racism yet again. We will discover that many have come to this country to escape political violence, and many have come to escape the poverty in their countries that has been caused or exacerbated by U.S. economic policy. Once immigrants come to this country, they often fall victim to people who take advantage of them physically, economically, and socially, knowing that the immigrant youth have few safe places to go for help. Enough delay! It is time to TURN AROUND!
If we open our eyes to the racist culture that perpetuates our current system of social inequity – including practices of racial profiling in employment and housing, and racially permeated structures of mass incarceration – we will see a racist culture. Further, we will see repeated failures in the United States and in many other parts of the world to address issues of social and economic disparity. We will see ourselves and the many ways we ourselves turn away from these issues or deny their significance, or the ways we give short-term attention to an issue such as gun control after a tragic shooting, only to push the concerns aside a few weeks later and return to what we take to be “normal life.”
We need to recognize that life is not normal when a young African American boy can be shot 6 times and left for hours in the street. We need to recognize that life is not normal when military tactics are used to quell an angry people, who need instead to be heard and included in the construction of social solutions. We need to recognize that life is not normal when the voices for justice and compassion are silenced or blamed for unrest. The destructive issues in Ferguson are well documented by many in the public media and also by our own Associate Dean Pamela Lightsey in her work alongside the people of Ferguson who are calling for justice; it is also well analyzed in newspapers, television and radio accounts, and blogs, including one by our doctoral student Amy Durfee West.[2] If the events that people describe in these social commentaries seem normal to us, we need to turn around and create a new normal. We have talked long enough. We have blamed others long enough. We have wrung our hands long enough. We need to change our culture.
To change a culture is to craft new pathways – pathways for listening, crying out for justice, looking into ourselves, righting wrongs, and reshaping social policies. Here at Boston University School of Theology we will commit to continuing our tradition of being agitators and builders of social justice by marching, speaking out, listening acutely, and working to change our own selves and our own culture. The choice is ours. Do we dare turn ourselves around and create a new culture beyond racism, militarism, scapegoating, and resignation? This is the world that cries out, and we have nothing but ourselves to give.