GUILFORD — Three black women - Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors - created Black Lives Matter in 2013 after George Zimmerman was acquitted of the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Many believe that that if Zimmerman had been held legally accountable, our nation would have gone a long way toward making good on its “post-racial” promises.
Speaking before a packed auditorium at Keene State College on Sept. 30, scholar and activist Angela Davis argued that the assumption of black guilt can be understood only in the context of a 100-year-old link between crime and race and class oppression.
Immediately following the Civil War, states passed a series of laws that criminalized acts only when they were committed by black people. Among these Black Codes, Mississippi, for example, made it a crime for African-Americans to be unemployed or drunk, or to have run away, neglected children, or handled money carelessly.
Davis pointed out that these very “crimes” were often perpetrated by former slaves set free without our nation having created any sort of social bridge to life in civil society.
Davis then pointed to a parallel with the current incarceration of 2.2 million people in the U.S. - up from 200,000 in 1970, even though, statistically, crime has not increased since the 1970s.
The vast majority of all prisoners are serving sentences for non-violent, often self-destructive, crimes, often committed as the result of poverty. As a result, we now have more young black men in prison than we do in college.
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Many local faith communities decided in July, after the shooting of nine black church members in Charleston, S.C., to remind our members and our neighbors of this cultural legacy. Faith communities, historically, have stood up for the marginalized and excluded members of our communities because we ourselves have histories of having been marginalized. During Hitler's time, anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller often invoked participation of Christians in the resistance with the words:
§First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Socialist.
§Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
§Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew.
§Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
As you might have read or heard, many of the “Black Lives Matter” signs have been stolen from church yards. In Dummerston, this has happened three times.
Groups have discussed the idea of “All Lives Matter” signs, and of white people needing to face our own white privilege. The Root Social Justice Center is holding a series of discussions, and other groups are meeting in churches. All these are important steps because they are actions by different constituencies, which will lead to awareness and commitment - and this will, in turn, lead to social change.
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Davis pointed to the need for an even broader movement, on the scale of the Civil Rights Movement or the anti-lynching campaigns, to dismantle this prison-industrial complex that has captured our nation.
Why don't we connect toward a moratorium on prison construction, she asked as she quoted President Obama at a recent visit to prison. He suggested that all preschool children in the United States could be given preschool education or health care or a college education for the same $80 billion we spent on incarceration.
We in the greater Brattleboro area are fortunate to have a police chief, Mike Fitzgerald, who is deeply involved with, and committed to, a quality community police force. He and former Chief Eugene Wrinn have put time and money into anti-bias training for all officers and are currently involved in a community-wide process of diversifying the work force.
This policy has come about largely because of their participation, along with other community leaders and educators, in the Community Equity Collaborative since 2008, when race/hate incidents occurred at Brattleboro Union High School and in town.
Our town has a history of racism, just as our nation has a history of racism - and we can't afford to forget either one.
That faith communities make their own efforts to stand for the prisoner and marginalized citizen is deeply embedded in our histories and prophetic calls to faith. Social justice has not only been part of our histories but part of what has kept all alive.