Do Black Lives Really Matter?

By Carol Wise, Common Spirit COB

I live in Minnesota. My state is a land of beautiful contrasts; with iron rich hills and flat, fertile farmlands; lush summers and barren winters; dynamic metropolitans and isolated swaths of wilderness. It is also a land of harsh contrasts, particularly when it comes to measures of equality and well being between its white population and communities of color. Among all of the fifty states, Minnesota has some of the highest levels of disparities between white and black people, particularly in areas of education and criminal justice. According to 2013 statistics from the Council on Crime and Justice, in Minnesota:

• A black person is 20x more likely to be stopped for a traffic offense than a white person.
• Black youth comprise 7% of the population, yet are 40% of those youth held in juvenile detention. This contrasts with white youth who are 82% of the overall youth population and 38% of youth detained in juvenile detention.
• Black adults, who represent 5.2% of the overall adult population, represent 37% of the Minnesota prison population. American Indians, with just 1.2% of the state adult population, comprise 9% of the prison population.
• According to the US Department of Education, the achievement gap between white students and students of color is one of the highest in the nation.

Minnesota is a state where Black lives don’t seem to matter very much at all, a statement more of fact than opinion. This was brought violently home during another fatal police shooting of a black man, Jamar Clark, who was shot in the head on November 15.  A week later, a group of white supremacists shot five Black Lives Matter protestors in a disturbing display of planned hatred and domestic terrorism, although it was never labeled that way and has largely faded from our newspapers. Tellingly, no one seems particularly interested in how these young, white men were radicalized and what influences led them to pose with deadly firearms and then deliberately seek out trouble.

These racial divides in my state and across our nation are not simply a matter of troubling politics for me. Rather, they represent profound challenges to my deepest values of faith; calling into question any easy proclamations that I might make or hear about God’s love for all people or the inherent dignity of each and every one of us. The prophet Isaiah captures this state: “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.” (Is 59:14)

It is because of, and not in spite of, my faith that I, a white woman, have marched twice now with Black Lives Matter. I’ll confess that I have sometimes felt uneasy in those protests. This new brand of dissent seems harsher, more vocal and less accommodating than previous witnesses. The tools of social media have quickened the pace of information and also exposure. Videos are easy to access and can be used to enflame tensions over and over again. The goal is not to quietly persuade but to loudly disrupt. Anger is fierce and freely expressed. It makes me uncomfortable…and that is precisely the salient point. It is not about my comfort, but about the deep, fervent and encompassing pain that this anger is seeking to exorcise.

A colleague of mine is fond of quoting Paul Batalden: “Every system is exquisitely designed to produce the results it gets. If you want to change the results, you have to change the system.” I have been comfortable for too long with our system of racial inequality, and it has dulled my capacity to hear the prophetic call for justice.

With humility and hope, I offer this pledge for the coming year:

• To listen intently to the voices of Black Lives Matter and to trust their experience.
• To participate in marches and protests as I am able.
• To deepen my understanding of the dynamics of white privilege and challenge situations where I see white privilege practiced.
• To use the power of my vote and civic engagement to dismantle the practices and structures of racial bias and injustice within my state and country.
• To continue to pray for the well being and peace of my communities and especially for those who are most impacted by systems of injustice and violence.
• To financially support organizations that are working for racial justice and healing in my community.

As a church, we have responded mightily to the needs of our sisters and brothers in Nigeria who were, and continue to be, besieged by violence.  This has been a powerful statement about our faith values and also about our understanding of our shared humanity.

In that same spirit, what if we duplicated those same efforts for the sake of black lives here in this country? What if we initiated a formal partnership, inviting Black Lives Matter leaders to address us at Annual Conference, opening our churches for meetings, raising funds for the work, and committing ourselves to prayer, support and active engagement? What if we took seriously the violence and discrimination that is daily directed at black lives? What if we demanded that our pastors, our leaders, and each of us were accountable to myriad of resolutions and Annual Conference Statements about race and equality that we have made over the years? What if our church, the Church of the Brethren, was truly committed to embodying the truth about the value and dignity of black lives?  I cannot help but believe that we would be a transformed people and a transformed church.

In this season of incarnation, I am grateful to the Black Lives Matter movement for speaking the truth that invites uprightness back into the public square. And I pray that I might have the courage to faithfully respond to this prophetic call.