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LIVE PANEL DISCUSSION: VOTER SUPPRESSION - Thursday, August 20, 2020, 1 - 2.15 PM: POSTED on DJAN’s FACEBOOK PAGe.
DISCIPLES JUSTICE ACTION NEWS
CHRISTMAS MEDITATION by Dr. Jack Sullivan, Jr., Executive Director of the Ohio Council of Churches and Co-President of DJAN (Disciples Justice Action Network).
This is the time of year when some of the best food ever will be cooked, served and eaten. My family knows that during this season, I will cook and serve green, leafy vegetables known as, well, greens (following pandemic guidelines, of course)!
My friends make fun of me because, according to them, I buy seemingly “sanitized” greens, pre-washed, cut, and ready for cooking. You see, they pride themselves on taking the “culinary high road” of picking, washing, and cutting their own greens. They remind me that trustworthy preparation involves taking time to hold each green leaf under running water while unfolding each layer of the leaf, so that hidden grime can be exposed and washed away. Only when this “gunk” has been washed away can you safely cook and serve reliable greens.
Without a doubt, we hope that Christmas 2020 will be a commercial success that improves the COVID-ravaged economy; and, of course, we want it to offer the emotional shot-in-the-arm that, admittedly, we all need. However, we know that Christmas is, and must be, much more than this. We know that the Christ-child offers life-changing love, policy-transforming justice, and the achievable promise of a beloved community where everybody is loved, anybody is honored, and nobody is trivialized.
Yet, if we are to fully receive the Christ-child, some societal cleansing must occur. We must allow the waters of love-infused accountability to unfold, expose, and cleanse the multiple layers of systemic oppression, structural racism, institutional violence, and other kinds of grime that collectively serve as a public health crisis across the land.
Then, with open hearts and minds, let people from every city and every county, every town and every borough, emerge from the dark tunnels of despair, and the slippery hills of hopelessness, and sing with expectancy, urgency, and joy the words from the great Isaac Watts Christmas hymn, retrofitted for our times:
He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.
Amen
NUMBNESS: Reflections by Dr. Jack Sullivan, Jr., Executive Director of the Ohio Council of Churches and Co-President of DJAN (Disciples Justice Action Network).
Have you ever been in such a deep sleep that you didn’t notice that you had compromised your body? Sometimes, we fall asleep in awkward positions, not realizing that we are placing too much weight on a part of our bodies. When this happens, we restrict the blood flow from the part of the body that is being pressed down, causing it to lose feeling, to become numb. Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever then awakened from your sleep to discover an arm or a leg to be numb? I sure have. What amazes me is how long I force myself to tolerate the numbness. How is it that I tolerate such numbness?
Any honest appraisal of the United States would indicate that a significant portion of its population has fallen asleep in an awkward position, where it has forced the heavy weight of years of dehumanization, of racism, and a violent white supremacist position onto a people, an African American people, and has thus sought to discount and even nullify their God-conferred dignity and worth, reserving both virtues for themselves.
How is it that we tolerate such numbness?
After years of forcing and exerting such disproportionate weight onto a people it determined to be inferior and less than human, many in this population segment, this white American segment, became numb to the fact like themselves, African Americans and other People of Color were created in the image and likeness of God. They became numb to their realities, numb to their aspirations, and numb to their humanity. In their numbness, this population segment, this White American segment, learned that it could excuse itself of its hostile and violent actions by redefining racism to mean only the use of a profane word instead of the profane use of power.
How is it that we tolerate such numbness?
While secure in their numbness, many in this segment of the population, this white American segment, has learned to interpret their racial privilege as earned, the second-class citizenship of African Americans as inevitable, and violent treatment by law enforcement personnel as deserved.
When we consider the horrific video of the suffocation murder of George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, by four Minneapolis, MN police offers seared into our national memory, joined by footage of the racial profiling, stalking and vicious murder of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed African American jogger by white vigilantes in Brunswick, GA, and the white-privileged-and-fabricated crisis and police call on Christian Cooper, an innocent African American birdwatcher in New York City’s Central Park, and the staggering list of documented and undocumented atrocities committed against African Americans and other People of Color by people motivated by racist fear and rage, it becomes apparent that racial numbness in practice has the power to consume lives, destroy communities, and damage reputations.
How is it that we tolerate such numbness?
Anyone who has ever experienced the numbness that results from falling asleep in an awkward position understands that the reversal of the numbness requires two things. First, we must wake up and acknowledge the reality of our numbness. Then, there must be a shakeup, where we vigorously move our bodies in ways that restore blood circulation, movement, and feeling to the numb body parts.
America has fallen asleep in an awkward position, a racist, violent and lethal position, and in visible and concealed ways has accepted and forced the systemic nullification and cancellation of the lives and ambitions of African Americans and other People of Color. The question is, are we as a nation, a self-defined Christian nation, determined to wake up from our privileged slumber and then permit our cultural, religious, economic, political, and criminal justice systems to be shaken up and transformed into agencies that ensure justice and the pathway toward human flourishing for all.
I hope that at Pentecost, more and more of us self-described Christians will allow the Holy Spirit to wake us and shake us to the point where we are willing and engaged participants in the transformation of the nation into the beloved community our faith informs us it should be. However, be advised: People protesting in the streets as I type are telling us that they will not wait for us to wake up. Instead, they are committed to waking us up and shaking us up by any means necessary.
How long will we tolerate our numbness?
With Hope,
Jack
PWB: PREACHING WHILE BLACK!
TEN INDICATORS OF RACISM IN PREDOMINANTLY WHITE CHURCH BODIES AND WHAT YOU CAN DO TO ADDRESS THEM
REFLECTIONS by Dr. Jack Sullivan, Jr., Executive Director of the Ohio Council of Churches and Co-President of DJAN
Just as sure as a midsummer’s cool breeze can chill one’s skin without ever being seen, or a pungent smell can wrinkle one’s nostrils while never being detected by the radar of human sight, racism, a deliberately toxic blending of racial prejudice and institutional and social power and authority, is an element with a presence that often evades the visible realm yet not the lived experiences of Blacks and scores of other People of Color who work in predominantly White milieus. While there are times when clumsily crafted racist references, jokes, and images can be read or heard within the corridors of institutional life in North America, racism and its offspring known as White Privilege, do most of their corrosive and nullifying damage through often subtle yet impactful executive and operational practices that confer institutional dignity and worth on White employees and volunteers while withholding these necessary components from Blacks and other People of Color who labor within organizations.
Racial Stereotypes and DWB: Driving While Black
People harboring racist views often assign an array of negative behavioral traits to the groups of people they feel are inferior to themselves. These race-infused negative traits are called stereotypes and are often behaviors that have been amplified and taken out of context for the purposes of justifying harsh treatment of people within certain non-White races and cultures. Racially prejudiced people who wield social and institutional power can easily employ racial stereotypes in their daily management and operational decision-making roles. (They may do this knowingly and unknowingly. Even so, the negative impact is the same.)The phrase “Driving While Black” (DWB) was coined by Black motorists who complained of being stopped by White law enforcement personnel for no reason other than the officers’ determined beliefs that the Black motorists fit stereotypical behavioral profiles or loose descriptions of crime suspects who just happened to be Black.When a DWB police encounter occurs, Black motorists essentially are treated as suspected criminals who must go well out of their way to prove their innocence. Of course, questioning or protesting their unjust encounters with law enforcement has often been viewed as resisting arrest and exhibiting hostile behavior toward the officer (with the presumption being that White officer’s actions, descriptive narrative, and corroborating testimonies of other officers were always the “correct” procedures and versions of reality) and can cost Black motorists their freedom and with increasing frequency, their lives. Thank God that more and more citizens with cameras on their smartphones (as well as officers with body cameras) are videotaping some of the encounters that Black citizens have with law enforcement personnel. Such video often tells a vastly different story than what is indicated in official police reports.
The Unholy Union of Racism and Christianity
Racism and Christianity are no strangers to each other. While no theologically and biblically alert and informed person of our day would dare to defend racism as a legitimate, holy expression of Christianity, it is important to note that United States church bodies were on both sides of the matter of the enslavement of Africans, with some “Christian” ministers and theologians taking the time to bend some biblical texts while remaining silent on others, in order to offer heretical justification of the evil practice of slavery while crafting the doctrine of White supremacy and Black inferiority to provide a perverse platform on which it was placed. Of course, segregation, discrimination, and White privilege as hallmarks of societal racism, were found in organized church bodies as well. Several predominantly White church bodies continue to struggle with racism in both society and their organizational bodies. Some have made defeating racism a priority, while other church organizations have gone so far as to call racism a sin and to issue apologies for their historic and contemporary silence and complicity with racist orientations, laws, and church practices. Still, a large number of church bodies choose to remain silent on the matter perhaps while not realizing that this option actually emboldens racist practices.