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louisbohte@arabgenerationofpeace.org
Tikkun response: We endorse the statement below from the Progressive National
Baptist Convention. Police violence, particularly though not only against African
Americans, requires immediate and forceful response at every level of our society.
People should be protesting in the streets of our country wherever an ethical
consciousness has not yet been snuffed out by cynicism, surplus powerlessness,
indifference, or inability to focus due to mind-destroying absorption in the
distractions that abound in cyberspace, the media, and the entertainments of
contemporary American society.
At the very least, everyone should be writing to all of their elected officials from
President Obama to the local city councils and state legislators asking for new laws
that require an independent prosecutor in every city and for every state (to be
chosen by a panel of civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights leaders and lawyers)
to investigate every incident of alleged police violence and charged with the ability to
directly bring to trial those for whom there is strong reason to believe that they
violated the civil and/or human rights of those assaulted, , to penalize through pay
reductions every police officer in the district in which one of them engages in acts
of excessive violence (because the collective energy of that police community will
soon change the ethos of violence that exists in many police forces when they face
personal financial loss as a result of the actions of one of the members of their local
police district), the creation of independent police review boards personned by clergy
and civil rights leaders who have the power to impose financial penalities on the
leadership of police forces that have had more than 3 excessive violence instances in
a year validated by the independent prosecutor, and an automatic reduction in the
police budget in any city where more than 5 excessive violence instances have been
validated by the independent police review boards. And we welcome other
suggestions as well from our readers about strategies to end police violence. In
addition, every classroom in America receiving federal or state public monies should
be reuquired to teach about civil rights, human rights, the history of the violation of
those rights by police and others, and the proposals currenlty being brought forward
by communities of color and other groups facing discrimination.
After reading the statement below, please also read the suggestions of Allen Baptist
Church deacon (and former police officer) Reginald Lyles which he delivered at the
Tikkun "Town Hall Conference on Reclaiming America" in December 2014 and which is
reprinted below the official Baptist statement.
knew it at all, a black person was killed in public every four days for often the
most mundane of infractions, or rather accusation of infractions for taking a
hog, making boastful remarks, for stealing 75 cents. For the most banal of
missteps, the penalty could be an hours-long spectacle of torture and lynching.
No trial, no jury, no judge, no appeal. Now, well into a new century, as a family
in Ferguson, Missouri, buries yet another American teenager killed at the
hands of authorities, the rate of police killings of black Americans is nearly
the same as the rate of lynchings in the early decades of the 20th century.
About twice a week, or every three or four days, an African American has
been killed by a white police officer in the seven years ending in
2012, according to studies of the latest data compiled by the Federal Bureau
of Investigation. That number is incomplete and likely an undercount, as only a
fraction of local police jurisdictions even report such deaths and those
reported are the ones deemed somehow justifiable. That means that despite
the attention given the deaths of teenagers Trayvon Martin (killed by
neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman) and Jordan Davis (killed by a
white man for playing his music too loud), their cases would not have been
included in that already grim statistic not only because they were not killed
by police but because the state of Florida, for example, is not included in the
limited data compiled by the FBI.
Even though white Americans outnumber black Americans fivefold,black people
are three times more likely than white people to be killed when they encounter
the police in the US, and black teenagers are far likelier to be killed by police
than white teenagers.
The haunting symmetry of a death every three or four days links us to an
uglier time that many would prefer not to think about, but which reminds us
that the devaluation of black life in America is as old as the nation itself and
has yet to be confronted. Beyond the numbers, it is the banality of injustice,
the now predictable playing out of 21st Century convention the swift killing,
the shaming of the victim rather than inquiry into the shooter, the kitchentable protest signs, twitter handles and spontaneous symbols of grievance,
whether hoodies or Skittles or hands in the air, the spectacle of death by skin
color. All of it connects the numbing evil of a public hanging in 1918 to the
numbing evil of a sidewalk killing uploaded on YouTube in the summer of 2014.
Lynchings were, of course, distinct from todays police killings. They were
ritualistic displays of public violence before sometimes thousands of people,
including children. They were intended to reinforce the arbitrary rules of a
race-based caste system, primarily in the American south. One white father in
Texas took his toddler to a lynching in Waco in 1916 for that express purpose.
He propped the boy up on his shoulders, as 18-year-old Jesse Washington was
burned alive. My son cant learn too young, the man said.
You are aware of these things. You who are Sons and Daughters of Jacob have
been through this phenomenon and you will never forget that it happened and
can happen again. We in the African American community use your language to
express our current emotion. We are lamenting like the Prophet Habakkuk,
crying out how long Lord? Our Rachels are wailing and cannot be
comforted. We ask that allies join us in the avocation of the cry for justice.
Soon, if it has not already commenced, the talking heads of the corporate
news media will commence to blame the victims. The deaths were the fault of
the deceased. Nevertheless, we invite, request, and beg your participation.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said:
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to
speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.
Consequently, what can White American, progressives, who understand
Ferguson and the street executions of Black Male do? You can explain to your
constituencies and congregations the following:
ones, who create the injustices across America. We must learn to make the
distinction and insist that police and municipal governments discipline these
Rogue Officers, up to and including termination and prosecution.
Fifth, you can explain to your constituencies and congregations what the
purpose of a grand jury. According to Justice Antonin Scalia, who explained
the function of the grand jury in United States v. Williams is as follows: It is
the grand jury's function not 'to enquire . . . upon what foundation [the charge
may be] denied,' or otherwise to try the suspect's defenses, but only to
examine 'upon what foundation [the charge] is made' by the prosecutor. As a
consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under
investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or
to have exculpatory evidence presented. Therefore, the grand jury has been
recently used in the Michael Brown case, Eric Garner case and others is a
recent phenomenon. It is a strategy to thwart justice for Black, Brown and
the poor. We ask that you expose this misuse and advocate for DAs that
propose using this strategy, to be removed politically at the ballot box.
Sixth, you can join us in the demand that the United States Attorney
General have jurisdiction over OIS, where a death has occurred and an
Officer is responsible. District Attorneys are incapable of meeting out justice
because of the institutional bias that exists due to the inherent collegiality
and political bias that exist due to District Attorneys and police associations,
using the political electoral process.
Seventh, you can join us in the demand for the hiring of people of color on
police agencies and especially on police agencies that have jurisdiction over
predominate communities of color. This must include the overhaul of the
hiring process that in many cases is bias and rejects people of color base on
institutional racism issues like bad credit. Additionally, officers should
receive instruction from academics, which are people of color. Processes
Ninth, you can join us in advocating that when a police agency and
municipality submits to a negotiated settlement agreement (after a court
decision of their violation of the civil rights of their constituents) and the
agency and/or municipality invokes a strategy of stalling the implementation of
the objectives, federal fund must be withheld from that agency, until
affirmative progress is made towards compliance.
Tenth, understand, promote and join us in creating space for dialogs on all
levels around race and justice. Lastly, Cease the failed assumption that the
United States of America is in a post-racial era.