Tag / Law Enforcement

by Michael

Prayer As Protest (1 of 4)

On Monday night my friend, David Swanson, pastor of New Community in Bronzeville, organized a prayer time that included dozens of clergy and hundreds of participants. It was a time of prayer at the Chicago Police Department’s administrative headquarters, prayer specifically and protest generally, insofar as prayer is a particular protestation.

I wanted to follow up to reflect on the action in a few posts. This one is meant to guide my thinking and stepping forward, perhaps, the first being an attempt to sit with and pray with the scriptures informing such prayerful acts.

I invite you to join me in holding some of these heavy words as you pray around some of the sad realities happening in Chicago these days. Where I’ve included only single verses, feel urged to visit the contextual addresses so as to pray more fully.

by Dariusz Sankowski

God said, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip…” (Exodus 3:17, MSG)

Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he delivered them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord would be moved to pity by their groaning because of those who persecuted and oppressed them (Judges 2:18, NRSV)

In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted (Psalm 77:2, NRSV)

This is what the Lord says: “At just the right time, I will respond to you. On the day of salvation I will help you. I will protect you and give you to the people as my covenant with them. Through you I will reestablish the land of Israel and assign it to its own people again (Isaiah 49:8, NLT)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end (Lamentations 3:22, NRSV)

Even though the destroyer has destroyed Judah, the Lord will restore its honor. Israel’s vine has been stripped of branches, but he will restore its splendor (Nahum 2:2, NLT)

And I will deal severely with all who have oppressed you. I will save the weak and helpless ones; I will bring together those who were chased away. I will give glory and fame to my former exiles, wherever they have been mocked and shamed.(Zephaniah 3:19, NLT)

…for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6, NRSV)

But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ (Luke 10:10-11, NRSV)

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him (Ephesians 1:17, NRSV)

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while.(1 Peter 1:6, NLT)

 

 

by Michael

In Other’s Words, Pt. 1: Aja Favors

I asked a friend, Aja Favors, to respond to the “current moment” and to reflect upon two of her roles in the world, those of mother and lawyer. I’m grateful for her wise, pointed words.

I’m a lawyer. Not long ago, I received a called from a friend asking what she might tell her son as it pertains to getting pulled over by the police. Her son is a freshman in college.

Before going into my normal response to such questions, I thought for a moment. I thought about being a mom. Even more than that, I thought about being the mom of an African American boy in a city that has been rightly or wrongly renamed “Chi-raq.”

My son is a baby—only nine months old. Still, the question I was being asked begged a response congruent with the mindfulness a young man’s mom might give.

After pausing far too long, I said…

“He should pull over. He should keep his hands on the steering wheel. He should be deliberately courteous and compliant. He should accept the citation (if issued) and go on his way. If they ask to search his car, he has the right to say, ‘no.’ There are a few reasons why they may be permitted to search it regardless. If he is asked to get out of the car, he should do so. And yes, the officers may pat him down if they have a reasonable suspicion that he could be a threat.”

I spouted out those instructions the way I had been trained to. Still, the justice-seeking, card-carrying NAACP member in me wanted to “beat my chest,” and talk about Sandra Bland, and Eric Garner, and Michael Brown. However, the mom in me wanted her son to make it home—to live to tell the story.

As a staunch supporter of “the struggle,” I believe and know that Black lives matter. I live in Black skin everyday. I’ve wrestled to elevate myself in a system flanked with those who have proven to themselves that I don’t deserve it…simply because I’m Black. Notwithstanding that reality, as a parent I believe and know that my son’s life matters.

I know that in order to protect him, in order to continue to lay my eyes on him—he has to be smarter than the system that makes it acceptable for him to be shot on sight, hanged with a trash can liner, or gunned down with his hands up.

He has to be smarter.

Thanks to Wellington Sanipe

Thanks to Wellington Sanipe

I’m not in favor of a world that makes Black men more docile, more compliant than their White counterparts, or more at risk because of their Black skin. But, I am in favor of a world in which Black children outlive their parents—a world in which one can be Black and die of old age and not from a police officer’s bullet.

Admittedly, what we tell ourselves as parents often contradicts what we tell our children. It’s true. I’d tell my son exactly what I suggested my friend tell her son.

All the while, on the inside I’m telling myself, “If anybody touches my child (police officer or common citizen), I will hunt them down. I will be neither deliberately courteous nor compliant. I will be vicious and vigilant. And, yes, at any cost there will be justice.”