George Floyd is now laid to rest beside his mother for whom he cried between labored final breaths while being brutally murdered. Through video replay that went viral around the world, we watched this heinous murder showing the now fired, white Minneapolis police officer’s knee squeeze the breath out of George Floyd over 8:46 (8 minutes, 46 seconds). And we observed how people in reaction took to the streets marching as protesters, now moving into 4 weeks later. Witnessing the viral video and people protesting en masse worldwide against the evil killing caused something to shift inside me, like nothing else has, as anger, sadness, grief, rage – even, churned in my guts. Although I have never considered myself militant as a bi-racial woman of color, it was no longer okay for me to play it safe as a pastor by simply living out the meaning invested in my name – Saundra - “defender of mankind”. I knew I was now swept up into having to be part of the solution by acknowledging openly that “black lives matter”. All lives matter to God. For sure. But, because of years of racial injustice, we have come to such a time as this that demands justice and action! So, it is in this spirit that I write as I attempt to put into print what has come to me in the aftermath of recent malevolent events. Above all, I know that real change has to come in order for things to be different. Not a hashtag. But real change.
In the midst of working through my own thoughts, I barely exhaled mourning George Floyd’s murder, before, I – along with many in our nation – witnessed, yet, another life being snuffed out, at the hands of 2 white Atlanta policemen. One of them chased and shot a 27- year old black man, Rayshard Brooks, in his back as he was lumbering away from a skirmish. Initially the policemen apprehended the young man for sleeping off an alcoholic binge at a Wendy’s drive-through. While their interaction appeared friendly at first, the tenor changed abruptly. One officer asked Rayshard to get out of his car for sobriety tests. Rayshard passed the ‘follow the finger’ eye test, as well as the ‘walk the straight-line’ test and ‘balancing on one-foot’ test. But he failed the breathalyzer test which measured his alcohol level to be just over the legal limit. It was at this point Rayshard was grabbed suddenly from behind by one officer who handcuffed him. Surprised by this, Rayshard snatched a taser out of the officer’s pocket, and, pointed it backwards at the officer while running away. Like a hunter who sees his target moving out of view - one officer leaned in and shot Mr. Brooks in the back – twice. Bullets went straight to his heart, and Rayshard was felled in the parking lot lined with cars in line for the drive-through. Voices of onlookers recorded on the officer’s body cam video resounded, “you just shot him un-necessarily”. Recent findings by the DA’s office show that one of the officers yelled, “I got him” and then kicked him, while the other officer stepped on Rayshard’s shoulder as life drained out of his body. Neither of the policemen called for medical assistance, during the last 2:12 (2 minutes, 12 seconds), leaving the 27- year old husband and father to die without help.
What is going on?
Amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, people continue to throng the nation’s streets marching in protest to police killings of unarmed black people. People of all races, creeds and tongues lift their voices, now - in ongoing peaceful protest to a disease more virulent than coronavirus - racism that continues to rear its ugly head over and over and over again. Today, Juneteenth, (the day honoring when slaves were freed) people continue to march pressing for reckoning of systemic racism long ago reflected in the specter of a lynching of a young black boy, Emmett Till in 1955, brutally mutilated and killed by drowning in Mississippi for smiling at a white woman. Now brutal killings have moved from vigilante roundups to brutalization of black people at the hands of some policemen. In remembering the loss of black lives slaughtered in such brutality….while jogging, sleeping, walking, sitting in a car….….we lament the deaths of: Ahmaud Arberey, Brionna Taylor, Philando Castile, Treyvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown. The shadow of their deaths reminds us that things have been out of order since this nation began, in what some pundits call - Covid- 1619 – when Africans, first brought to America in chains in the bottom of slave ships to Comfort, VA , were pressed into slavery. Since that time people of color have been treated as less than human, although our Declaration of Independence granted equality to all since 1776.
What is different?
Now, people, black and brown, red, and yellow - long since tired of inequality, marginalization, and injustices rooted in the color of one’s skin, are joined by white people “woke” by the reality of what people of color experience in fact. Now - their collective cry is one of wanting change! Change that makes a difference – in the way people of color are treated – reflected in all rungs of our culture – even the church. Young Millennials – black and white in unison – add their collective voice, saying, “it’s enough….we don’t want protests, only to see things go back to business as usual….we want change!”
Not only that, but change is rising up such that many Anglos – in the secular as well as the sacred realms – are beginning to explore the issue of white privilege, asking openly - questions about white privilege. Uncomfortable as it may be. But change within dominant culture may only gain momentum initially from voices within. Ultimately it will take a merging of voices from within and without to bring change.
Meanwhile voices outside persist and prevail in protesting in the midst of the threat of Covid-19 pandemic. Why? Because they want change that lasts. They do it because they want transformation of governmental systems that serve to oppress rather than protect people of color. Change that says – it is not enough just to be against racism but must be anti-racist. Change that reflects each of us assuming responsibility for being the change, whether within corporate culture or within the church. In government change will be reflected in legislative, political, and social reform, and will translate into action at the voting booth. But I believe change in the Church will come only when we are, like Jesus, unafraid to confront in love. Change will come in the church only when we are no longer willing to be complicit by being silent about injustice.
The point is made clear by a former professor of mine, Walter Bruggeman, who says in his book, This Prophetic Imagination, that the role of the preacher is to prophetically confront the numbness of the culture. If the Church is going to change the way things are, we pastors, and preachers will have to confront the numbness we see in our culture - within the church which has historically operated from a colonized patriarchal system of white supremacy. . a numbness reflected in being silent about issues which majorly affect people of color, like homelessness, immigration, healthcare. The Church must be a place that disrupts rather than reinforces systems of injustice. The journey is still incomplete.
Thus, the Church must be ignited by a holy discontent and righteous indignation as we tackle difficult issues within our culture, within the church. Not only that, we must be on the brink of helping people reimagine a society where no one is left behind, where male and female church planters will plant justice minded churches that are for all people ….red and yellow, black and brown and white - regardless of one’s status in life - where reconciliation in society can be realized (Confession of 1967, p.259, sect. 4, 9.43-9.45), and where (as MLK visioned) “black and brown boys and girls will be judged not by their skin color, but by the content of their character….”. And, instead of culture shaping the church, I believe the real change will come when the church begins to influence the culture reaching out to those in need and welcoming them into community, and by overturning systems of injustice by transforming hearts. By this we will truly be demonstrating what it means to “love our neighbor”.
Conclusion: Sadly, it took unleashed anger spewed out over the murders of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, and the tumultuous protests that ensued to wake us up. But the journey is incomplete. Moving forward it will take prayer, advocacy, activism, coupled with transformation of our governmental and police systems and the church.
What is different is - that cries for racial justice are no longer the single refrain of people of color alone. No. Furor of black and brown and white people erupted – like a geyser, gushing forth a movement toward justice that pried open the eyes of a watching world over the past 4 weeks. Their cries for racial justice rooted in equal justice for all under the law – “call” us to move forward. We can no longer be silent. The bible describes it this way: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-ending stream!” (Amos 5:24). It means – being right before God, doing right before all humankind. When we do this, we will not simply utter a meaningless mantra, rather we will live out the biblical imperative “…..to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8).
This is a collective and a personal imperative, originally spoken to Israel as a covenant people. Now proclaimed to you and me who follow afterwards, one people, many colors.
This is the new way forward for actualization of our multicultural world! It requires taking a leap.
Saundra J. Taulbee
