Opinion

Two years after the crisis of family separation horrified the nation, we face a repeat — this time under the cover of the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiple agencies report that parents in detention are being forced to make an impossible decision: Sign a form releasing their children from custody and detention (who knows what will happen to them?) or remain in indefinite detention with their children in unsafe conditions with no defense against the coronavirus.

While many Americans, especially white Americans, expect the police to protect their privileges, they often criticize police for the tactics used to protect those privileges. While people should indeed be appalled by racialized police violence, racialized policed violence is actually a symptom of the underlying pandemic of racism — a socially constructed malady designed to protect white privilege.

In July 1952, when I was 11 years old, some of my relatives took me to witness the Billy Graham Crusade in Jackson, Miss. Ropes were strung across the athletic field and stands where more than 300,000 people would gather to hear him preach during those hot summer nights. The ropes had one purpose: to keep the crowd segregated by the color of their skin.

I am tired of white colleagues who have ignored the reports of microagressions and outright racism but are now posting black boxes on social media or reaching out to me with an “I love you.” They may mean well but it often feels so little and too late.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) talks with Rev. Jim Wallis about the potential for a Kairos moment during the unprecedented crisis our nation is facing.

Today, we must realize that because someone is aware of the struggle for black freedom in America doesn’t mean they have been moved to action. They may have the right language — even write books, give addresses, give statements — but their actions show a commitment to the status quo rather than social justice.

When I see footage of Black murders, I feel horror and anger not only at the life that was violently taken, but also the idea of vacant and immune gazes transfixed on an unrealized destiny, a muted future, someone’s son, daughter, or father. There are some who, despite the graphic nature of these images, will watch with no sadness and no outrage. They will not see a person, only an object — objectified in life and objectified in death.

Prior to this moment, new allies have preached a gospel of Jesus devoid of justice. They failed to make the theological connection that Jesus and justice are, in fact, mutually inclusive. To invoke Jesus and then to invoke justice is redundant. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we commit ourselves to the ministry of justice. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we declare the psalmist’s decree that justice and righteousness are the foundations of God’s throne. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we summon the messianic prophecy that the spirit of the lord was upon Jesus, to preach the good news to the poor, to set the prisoners free from the Roman industrial complex, and to proclaim liberty to those who were oppressed. Every time we invoke the name of Jesus, we remember that Jesus was convicted of a crime he did not commit, received an unfair trial, and was sentenced to a state-sanctioned lynching on a tree. The ministry of justice is the ministry of Jesus. We cannot divorce our theology from the ministry of justice. To do so is to divorce ourselves from Jesus himself.

Black people don’t always end up dead when encountering police. But we almost always end up wounded.