JUSTICE DELAYED

“Demand justice.”

That was the headline in the June 4 edition of The Evangelist after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis. And it referenced an eloquent and urgent column (“In pursuit of justice, all must ante up”) that Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger wrote about the incident and the nature of race, policing and social justice in our country.

As the protests erupted in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, we continued to highlight issues of race in the paper and on the website with columns designed to offer a different point of view. These columns were meant to show the prism through which people of color view the world. They were designed to generate an understanding — and perhaps some empathy — that someone who doesn’t look like you has a very different view of the world. And very different life experiences.

What it did for some of our long-time readers was the exact opposite. We received a blast of angry letters, emails and phone calls. “How dare you call me a racist!” (We made no such suggestion, I can assure you.) “I don’t want to read about this in a Catholic paper!” (Pope Francis and Bishop Scharfenberger have both referred to the “sin of racism.”) “You should be ashamed of yourself for promoting hatred.” (We are promoting the opposite.

In the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”) “Black Lives Matter is a terrorist, Marxist organization that only wants to kill police officers.” (Black Lives Matter is a movement separate from the organization by that name.) “Bigoted, liberal rag.”  (The Church is not bigoted or liberal. It is committed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ not beholden to any party or platform, and The Evangelist is guided by that reality.)

And people cancelled their subscriptions. Some advertisers stopped running ads.

And yet, here we are again. A little more than two months later and we have another Black man, Jacob Blake, who was nearly killed after an interaction with police in Kenosha, Wisc., which has set off more protests, boycotts by sports organizations and much civil unrest.

The looting and riots which followed are disgusting and take away from the point of the protests and should never be condoned. But another sinister element has emerged as Rambo-wannabe militias descended Kenosha and Portland, filled with grievances, real or imagined, to “protect property.” It culminated with a 17-year-old charged with allegedly killing two people during a protest and wounding another last week.

It seems we are at an impasse between two realities in which neither is going to budge. Some people in this country say, “America is not a racist country.” Others hear that and are flabbergasted. And I just wanted to speak to two elements related to that.

First, Black Lives Matter. These words have enraged some of our readers like no three consecutive words have in 2020. Some say: What about Blue Lives Matter? And don’t All Lives Matter? Of course, All Lives Matter, but as people of color have long said, All Lives CAN’T Matter, until Black Lives Matter. And a quick look at statistics — again — back this up. A recent Harvard study showed people of color are as high as six times more likely to die in an interaction with police officers than a white person. African Americans have the highest poverty rate in the U.S., and are more likely to contract the coronavirus.

Are there elements of the Black Lives Matter movement, particularly the organization, that run completely counter to Catholic teaching. Of course. And we would never promote that, but the social-justice movement in the United States is so much more than three words or three letters. It is about equal rights for every American — not more — in every aspect of life. It is about trying to fix the systemic racism that exists in this country. (As an aside, as a thought experiment, I think about WWJD — What would Jesus do? — when it comes to these social-justice marches and protests? I have a distinct picture in my mind. What would yours be?)

The second element is policing. I got a voicemail from a former NYPD officer now living in the Capital District who got so upset with his pastor bringing up race and social justice in his homily during a livestreamed Mass this summer that he said he stopped going to that church all together. Said he would never, ever go back. That to me was shocking and shows the chasm that exists in the Catholic faith. The “conservative” wing, and I hate to use that term, is going in one direction and the “liberal” wing is going in the other. Instead of us working on this issue together, we are yelling and screaming at each other. It is us versus them.

When it comes to police, certainly we can all agree there are bad apples in uniform, as there are in any profession. Do they need to be rooted out? Yes! We need a fundamental reimagining — not a defunding — of what policing is in this country, with all the stakeholders at the table. Everyone has to change — and be willing to change — or we will just be back here two months from now talking about this again. 

To close, I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Chris Gibson, the president of Siena, who said dealing with the coronavirus and speaking to racial justice this year are “co-equals” at the college. (I encourage everyone to read his inspiring interview, see pages 8-10). He said Dr. King  was a personal hero of his and referenced his famous quote: “The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.” And it is so true and hopeful.

But how long must some people wait? Unless we come together in a shared faith in humanity, with all of our brothers and sisters, regardless of race or religion, I am afraid that wait will continue for quite some time. I hope all of us will take a more open approach to social-justice issues in this country because they are not going away.

We must, as people of faith, continue to “demand justice.”