Rev. Jim Wallis, who is a Christian writer and political activist and also founded Sojourners, marched with fellow clergy during Ferguson October’s Moral Monday protest. After being arrested alongside Dr. Cornel West, Carl Dix and more than forty others, Wallis did an interview with HuffPost Live in which he discussed the role white Christians must play in helping to dismantle the “racialized police system” that exists in the United States.
In the interview, Wallis points out that his teenage son does not have to live in fear of being killed by police and that as a parent, the does not have to have “the talk” with his son about how to survive excessive police violence. Regarding the talk that Black parents must have with their children, Wallis states, “Every black family, every black parent I know, has the talk with their son and even their daughters about how to behave when you’re in the presence of a white police officer with a gun or a white man with a gun because these new self-defense laws are licenses to kill. No white parents have the talk. They almost don’t have a clue it’s going on.”