Police Violence, Racial Profiling, Supreme Court Approval, and White Church AWOL

POLICE VIOLENCE, RACIAL PROFILING, SUPREME COURT APPROVAL, AND WHITE CHURCH AWOL

LOWELL NOBLE, JULY 11, 2016



If you have not yet read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow which is about the unjust mass incarceration of young black and Latino males, now is the  time to read this masterpiece.  If you have read it, read it again.  Her thesis:  In America we really don't end systems of oppression such as slavery and segregation; we merely redesign them.

President Obama and Hillary Clinton are calling for empathy, conversation and respect, all good and necessary, but these are not anywhere good enough to solve our race relations crisis; we need more, much more.  Our divided nation demands massive white confession, conversion, repentance for 400 long years of white ethnocentrism and oppression, white superiority and privilege.

To be more specific, repentance about:  Indian genocide and land theft, African enslavement, segregation, sharecropping, prison work gangs, lynchings, mass incarceration, racial wealth gap, theft of nearly half of Mexico's land, internment of Japanese Americans, death of a million Filipinos, to name a few of our many national sins.

If there is to be any validity whatsoever of our claim to be a Christian nation, we as a nation must biblically repent.  Biblical repentance includes prayers of confession (Daniel 9), repentance and restitution (Nehemiah 5, Luke 19), and repair, i.e., justice, making things right (Amos 5:24).

Recently the New York police chief publicly acknowledged that throughout American history far too often the whole criminal justice system, including the police, have engaged in racial profiling, violence and the unjust imprisonment of many blacks.

Recently the Milwaukee police chief stated that the public sector fails to adequately address and fund social programs for the mentally ill and homeless.  Result:  far too often they end up in the criminal justice system which is ill-equipped to handle such social problems.

Conclusion:  much of the American public wants racial profiling and police violence; they elect public officials who implement such policies.  And much of the white American church is silent about or tolerates racial profiling and police violence.

Example:  the War on Drugs begun in 1982.  Passed by Congress and president Reagan---our elected officials.  Approved by the Supreme Court.  Aggressively tied to racial profiling by President Reagan.
Result:  nearly 30 years of unjust mass incarceration.  We, the white public wanted it this way.  We, the white church did little to stop it.

Violence begets violence.  Violence and oppression are as American as apple pie; racial profiling is American as apple pie.

Here are some quotations from Michelle Alexander, America's top expert on these issues:

"President Ronald Reagan officially announced the current drug war in 1982, before crack became an issue in the media or a crisis in poor black neighborhoods. . . .  The Reagan administration hired staff to publicize the emergence of crack cocaine in 1985 as part of a strategic effort to build public and legislative support for the war. . . .  The media bonanza surrounding the new demon drug helped to catapult the War on Drugs from an ambitious federal policy to an actual war."

"Today, the most common use of SWAT teams is to serve narcotics warrants, usually with forced, unannounced entry into the [black] home."  From community policing to military policing.

"As if the free military equipment, training, and cash grants were not enough, the Reagan administration provided law enforcement with yet another financial incentive to devote extraordinary resources to drug law enforcement. . . .  allowed to keep the vast majority of cash and assets they seize when waging the drug war. . . . an enormous stake in the War on Drugs---not in its success, but in its perpetual existence.  Law enforcement gained a pecuniary interest not only in the forfeited property, but in the profitability of the drug market itself."

How did the Supreme Court become involved?

"The parallels between mass incarceration and Jim Crow extend all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Over the years, the Supreme Court has followed a fairly consistent pattern in responding to racial caste systems, first protecting them and then, after dramatic shifts in the political and social patterns, dismantling these systems of control and some of their vestiges.  In Dred Scott v. Sanford, the Supreme Court immunized the institution of slavery from legal challenge on the grounds that African Americans were not citizens, and in Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court established the doctrine of 'separate but equal'---a legal fiction that protected the Jim Crow system from judicial scrutiny for racial bias.

"In McCleskey, the Supreme Court demonstrated that it is once again in the protection mode---firmly committed to the prevailing system of control [The War on Drugs cannot be challenged on the basis of racial profiling]. . . .  The new racial caste system [mass incarceration] operates unimpeded by the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights legislation---laws designed to topple earlier systems of control."

Clinton is calling for listening and dialogue.  Good, but not good enough.  We need action, not just talk.  Whites need to repent and then engage in restitution  Whites need to end all of the War on Drugs, including all forms of federal funding.  This would end much of the racial profiling.

Will the white church lead the way?

If so, will we follow the advice of Afro Americans, Barbara Skinner and Martin Luther King? Skinner, an expert in racial reconciliation, writes about four barriers:  1) "Although there is much talk about diversity, multiculturalism and racial reconciliation, actual understanding between the races is at an all-time low [written in 1996]; 2) Racial reconciliation sounds a lot like the failed integration of the 1960s; 3) Blacks fear losing the last truly African-American institution---their churches; 4) There is as much racial separation inside as outside the church."

Here is King's analysis:

"For years, I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of the South, a little change here, a little change there.  Now I feel quite differently.  I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values."  This should include a guaranteed income for poor Americans and an end to slums.  From Let the Trumpet Sound.

Jesus, as he began his ministry, declared, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is here."  He also said, "Seek first God's kingdom and his justice" (NEB)  Paraphrased:  "Repent, love your neighbor and do justice; Jubilee justice, kingdom justice, justice that releases the oppressed."

"prove your repentance by the fruit it bears." Luke 3:8
"prove their repentance by their deeds."  Acts 28:21
"see your good deeds."  Matthew 5:16
"created in Christ Jesus to do good works."  Ephesians 2:10
"faith without deeds is dead." James 2:26
"love . . . with actions." I John 3:18

In closing, another quotation from MLK:

"I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today---my own government."  While specifically referring to the Viet Nam War, King's statement also applies to Indian genocide, African enslavement and a host of other national sins.

My next blog on the topic is titled "The Racial Crises of 1968 and 2016."