Category: Cultural Commentary

Everybody is At Fault in Oregon

oregon-standoffThe “standoff” happening in Oregon right brings out the worst in my mood. There are few things that grind my gears more than grown men running around in the woods somewhere playing militia with their guns.

Me and my friend did that.

When I was 8.

Then I turned 9.

John Pavlovitz really articulated this really, really well:

This is grown men angry playing dress-up.
This is weekend warrior fantasizing, using live ammo.
It’s a Wild West daydream come to life in a way that only white men could get away with.
It is petulance and tough guy bullying wrapped in nationalism and covered with the flag.

All of the threats and the taunts to the President and the “cold dead hand” posturing of these men reveal the truth. What we have here is little more than a bunch of dudes doing Civil War reenactments on Saturday afternoons, only the war they’re commemorating is the one they’re trying to create. It’s a future hero story they’re dying to write for themselves, and so they stand in the town square now with their hands at their sides amid bouncing tumbleweeds and swinging saloon doors, hoping for a chance to draw their weapons, take out the bad guys, and ride off both virtuous and victorious.

If these gentlemen were truly interested in confronting the Government and in speaking truth to Power and in defending innocent, marginalized people against unmerited violence, they would have already assembled months ago in Ferguson or Baltimore or Cleveland to say that black lives really do matter—but that is not the agenda here.

This is basically how I feel about those guys. Grow up. Get a life. Stop with the little boy persecution complex.

But, I want to make a distinct point: The problem I have with these guys is their tactics, not their motivations.

And I think any progressive who has taken a stand against mandatory minimums, the failures of our criminal justice system, and the overreach of authority should as well.

The back story in Oregon is basically this: two ranchers, Dwight Hammond and his son Steven, were convicted in 2001 of arson, after a controlled burn on their land spread to federally-protected land. There was a dispute between the Hammonds and the Department of Justice over why they set the fire, but in the end, Dwight and Steven were convicted to three months and one year, respectively, in federal custody. They both served their time and were released.

However, the law they were convicted under required a five-year mandatory minimum. The original judge in the case wrote that the minimum required was “grossly disproportionate” and would “shock his conscience” to apply. The DOJ, though, appealed on the grounds that the minimum needed to be applied, and the 9th Circuit District Court ruled in the government’s favor. Dwight and Steven Hammond were ordered to turn themselves in and serve their five year sentences for a fire fifteen years ago that did less than $1000 damage to federal land.

This is an injustice.

The Hammonds in no way need to serve five years in a federal prison. Hell, the small sentences they received were probably excessive enough. This is the ostensible reason the Oregon militia has seized the federal facility.

I know, their complaints have also expanded to encompass generalized claims about government overreach, and the illegitimacy of the federal government in general. This is largely due to the involvement of Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada freeloader Cliven Bundy, who has taken up the Hammonds’ cause to advance his own agenda. That is not the issue I am agreeing with. The Hammonds’ complaint, however, is legitimate.

Progressives all agree that mandatory minimums are ridiculous, and fail to advance true justice in our country. This is exactly what we mean by that. We need to see past the ridiculous militiamen and the standoff narrative to recognize that their is grounds for constructive alliances here, to address something that overwhelmingly affects the oppressed and marginalized in this country, but in this case, has struck the privileged.

Labeling the men in Oregon “terrorists” and calling for the government to go in guns blazing, to treat them like ISIS, is to abandon all we have worked for in criminal justice reform. The point is to reign in the ability of the police and the government that empowers them from doing things like going in guns blazing against American citizens. It’s to bring about real justice and peaceful resolution of conflict in situations all across the country.

This is a perfect opportunity for the progressive community to make real progress on an issue near and dear to us. Let’s not let the ridiculous and irrational militia boys, and their outrageous rhetoric, get in the way of that opportunity.

Justice Denied for #TamirRice

Justice went unserved again yesterday, this time in Cleveland.

Tamir-RiceA grand jury declined to bring charges against the two officers who killed 12-year old Tamir Rice last year. Rice, an African-American, was playing with a toy gun in a public park near his home when the officers pulled up and opened fire on him less than 2 seconds after emerging from the squad car. No warning was given, and Rice was never instructed to lay down his gun or put up his hands. Officers simply saw a young black man and opened fire.

Just like so many other times.

And, like so many of those other cases, no one will be held responsible for the murder of a young black man. Tamir Rice’s death will be elicit the mouthing of sympathy from the city of Cleveland, from the police union, from politicians and officials across Ohio and America. But none of them will demand justice. None of them will defend Tamir Rice against those create excuses for why he had to die.

This is why we say Black Lives Matter. This is why we assert racism to be alive and well in the power structures of 21st century America. This is why we stand with those who have to fear for their lives everyday because our society has very little regard for them. As one person put it on Twitter today, “Racism doesn’t usually look like someone shouting slurs, it looks like people eagerly looking for reasons why a black kid had to die.”

Back in August, I wrote:

There is a legitimate problem centered around black men and women being gunned down by police officers prior to any opportunity for due process and the judicial system to do its work, and then those police officers walking away with no consequences. Read that last sentence again; it is the crux of what people are upset about. Far too many times have we seen stories about a black human being who may or may not have broken a law being killed by the officer they come in contact with, and then no consequences being handed down. Far too often, the death penalty has been meted out at the whim of a single, white police officer, for alleged “crimes” that in a court of law would merit a fine.

This is a real problem in a country that purports to believe in the principle of the presumption of innocence, and trial by jury. When we dispense with real justice, when we defend those who take it into their own hands to do the work of the courts and dispense “justice” without due process, we inevitably say that the victimized person was undeserving of the rights guaranteed to us in the America. That person just didn’t matter enough.

This is what is meant by the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” Too often, black lives don’t seem to matter. Black lives seem expendable, like they are merely the normal leftovers of creating a society that is supposedly “just” and “free” and “safe.” Every time a black man or woman is gunned down by a state actor, and no one is held responsible, it sends the message that Black Lives Don’t Matter.

BLM works to make this simple idea a reality: the lives of black people do matter.

Those words are as true today as they were back then. But in this case, there was no grey area of motive. Tamir Rice broke no law, violated no norm, did nothing wrong. But because his life was valued less because of the color of his skin, because he was viewed through the prism of a society that has reduced all young black men to the simple caricature of a “thug”, his life was forfeit that day.

And yesterday, when the prosecutor walked out of the courthouse and announced to the world that Tamir Rice’s life didn’t matter enough to pursue justice in a court of law, he announced that, once again, in the eyes of the white power structure, black lives still really don’t matter.

There is still much work to be done. We’ve made much progress this year, but yet it is still much too little. God give us the strength and the resolve and the righteous anger to keep fighting for a better world.

We all Worship One God/YHWH/Allah: In Solidarity with Dr. Larycia Hawkins

There is no doubt in my mind that Christians and Muslim worship the same God.

larycia-hawkinsI say this in light of the suspension of Dr. Larycia Hawkins, the first African America professor to receive tenure at Wheaton College, and who is now sitting at home because she dared challenge the evangelical status quo by making the (fairly orthodox, historically speaking) claim that I just made above. And, to further the thought, she committed to the wearing of the hijab during the season of Advent, to stand in solidarity with Muslim women in this country who are singled out because of this worn symbol of humility.

Wheaton’s stance on this aside, it is no big leap of theology or orthodoxy to say that Muslims, Jews and Christians all share the same God, whom we each refer to and experience in different ways. This isn’t to claim the superiority of any of these three experiences; they hold value and power for those who ascribe to each. All three faiths find their origins in the Abrahamic tradition of monotheism, and each share broadly similar theological claims about God.

It’s entirely self-centered and prideful to attempt to eliminate any of the three traditions from the Abrahamic family. Evangelicals who try to close the path to God in favor of protecting their own perceived place of power and privilege with relation to God are doing a great disservice to the goal of welcoming all peoples into relationship with God, whatever that relationship may look like.

Wheaton College is free to act as it pleases, and enforce whatever rules they wish upon their faculty, staff and students. But they are not free to place restrictions on access to God, or define the historical relation of the West’s three dominant religions to each other and to God. To do so is to take the role of Pharisees, of those religious leaders who wished to control and portion out access in service of their own positions of power.

I pray that Wheaton finds a measure of humility and reinstates Dr. Hawkins, so that she may continue to teach her students such basic ideas as the interconnectedness of the great Abrahamic faiths.