CONNECTING THE DOTS AND LINES OF INJUSTICE

 

CONNECTING THE DOTS AND LINES OF INJUSTICE

©Wendell Griffen, 2020

September 24, 2020

 

 

 

Across the United States, people are debating how the legal system can justify allowing police officers to not be charged with killing Breonna Taylor who they shot to death in March 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky during a military-style invasion of the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. 

 

Across the United States, people are debating whether it is fair for US Senators to hold a hearing before the November 3, 2020 presidential election to confirm whoever President Donald Trump nominates to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who died on September 18).  Those Senators refused for months to conduct a confirmation process for Judge Merrick Garland when President Barack Obama nominated him to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia.

 

Across the United States, people are struggling to survive the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 people and infected millions more.  Meanwhile, many people are also trying to cope with health dangers posed by fires and smoke.  Others are threatened by deadly hot weather.  Still others are endangered by tropical storms and related flooding. 

 

It is not hyperbole to suggest that people are asking the same question Marvin Gaye sang posed in his epic vocal recording of the same name, “What’s going on?” 

 

We should distrust people who offer comfortable answers to that question.  Systemic injustice is never comfortable to analyze, let alone correct.

 

It is not comfortable to admit that the US legal system has been set up and operates to sanction abusive and homicidal behavior by law enforcement officers.  It is not comfortable to admit that prosecutors have been more interested in shielding those law enforcement officers from prosecution rather than prosecute them.  It is not comfortable to admit that the US political system has been set up and operates to reward abuse of power.  It is not comfortable to admit that people across the US are dying, sickened, and threatened with loss of life and livelihood in countless ways because of Donald Trump’s incompetent corrupt leadership and his pathological personality.  Nevertheless, these are our realities.  We cannot fix them if we are unwilling to face them.

 

People of color have complained about systemic racism in US law enforcement for centuries.  People devoted to white supremacy, patriarchy, and government-supported greed and violence have worked to take over  the US Supreme Court since 1954, when the Court struck down racial segregation in public education by the Brown v. Board of Education landmark ruling.  There have always been people in US society willing to be deceived by political, commercial, and cultural crooks. 

 

And there have always been prophets who warned that this society will suffer a reckoning from systemic injustice.  On April 4, 1967 – exactly one year before he was murdered – Martin Luther King, Jr. observed in an address titled A Time To Break Silence that “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values … from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society.”  King warned about the dangers posed by what he termed “the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.”  Then he added this sober observation: “There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from re-ordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.” 

 

History since King uttered those words shows that the “radical revolution of values” he urged the nation to undergo has not happened.  Fifty-three later, the President of the United States is someone whose entire career is defined by racism, materialism, brutality, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia (fear of strangers), anti-intellectualism, and religious nationalism based on white supremacy to the evils King warned about.  The nation suffers because national, state, and local politicians have seized and are wielding power to benefit themselves regardless how their actions harm others and the society at large.   

 

No criminal charges will be filed against the Louisville, Kentucky police officers who killed Breonna Taylor.  On the other hand, the officer who shot into another apartment unit faces criminal charges.  This proves King’s point that the US places more value on things than persons.    

 

However, by rejecting King’s call to reorder our values and priorities (what could be considered the biblical imperative or repentance) we not only “re-assassinate” King.  We also risk destroying ourselves and risk forfeiting any claim to moral authority as agents for peace, justice, and truth in the world.  Sooner or later, people who feed “a tragic death wish” find a way to destroy themselves.    

 

It is tempting to hope that an outpouring of votes by prophetic people of color will produce the needed changes.  Certainly, we must vote in record numbers. 

 

At the same time, we should not fool ourselves.  Prophetic people of color did not reject King’s call for “a radical revolution of values.”  White Christians rejected it in 1967, rejected it since then, and continue to reject it. 

 

If the American experiment in democracy suffers the “tragic death” King forewarned, the cause of death listed on the autopsy report should read “mass homicide by White Christians devoted to white supremacy, patriarchy, materialism, militarism, sexism, and other pernicious evils.”  Prophetic people of color and white allies should not only vote.  We should make that point at every opportunity with unrelenting clarity.   Prophetic people of color and white allies must vote and also hold White Christian nationalists accountable for systemic injustice.  

In the words of Arsenio Hall, “Let’s get busy.”