What Do We Do with Racism? Reflection on The New Jim Crow and Current Events

I've been upset lately. About a lot of things. Social ills, if you will. No one's suffering is more costly than another's, but the issue that I have been more consumed with is the state of our justice system, particularly as it deals with people of color.

Certainly there has been quite the commotion in the news and social media outlets about the latest reported, and oft recorded, murder. That occurrence and the subsequent events and injustices that have taken place have just piled on top of my mental laundry of thoughts. My school assigned summer reading books, one of which was The New Jim Crow.

This book details the history of race relations in America and the development of the institution of slavery, the institution of Jim Crow and the institution of another form of legal racial and social oppression. The author proposes that the current system of mass incarceration of black and brown people, mostly men, is the new completely legal way the majority is able to systematically capture and confine a people in an "undercaste". Once this people has been given the brand of "felon" or "criminal", they are legally excluded from the rights the majority deems essential to all citizens - like the freedoms to choose where to live, not be discriminated against when seeking employment (or otherwise), to vote, and more.

The book also explains how the system works - from the political landscaping, to the discriminatory laws, deployment of the local police, trials or lack there of, post-release pariah class, and federal court cases that solidified and validated it all. Above its obvious eye-opening properties, author Alexander hopes the awareness acts as a call to action.

Needless to say, I get angry every time I open this book.

The recent publicized acts of police brutality and discrimination have just illustrated so vividly all of the information outlined across those pages and churning in my heart.

A big part of my unease stems from the fact that I am a teacher of young children. Young black and brown children. Young black and brown children that live in poverty. Young black and brown children that live in the same impoverished neighborhoods police are targeting in the War on Thugs Drugs. Young black and brown children that will statistically be the next faces on these cell phone videos floating around Facebook and demonizing portraits highlighted in the news reports.

I have asked many children the age old question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" At 5 and 6, their aspirations echo police officer. They say they want to protect people, save people, help people, take away the bad people. I teach that police officers are some of our community heroes. Is that really true for my students? What have they already seen that reveals the flaws in my classification? What will they soon see?

All-knowing Research shows that people judge black boys to be older than they actually are and assign more responsibility to case studies of black boys engaging in unwanted behaviors. So how long before my students, my little black boys, are stopped, frisked, searched, assaulted, unjustly charged, unfairly sentenced, eagerly locked away and legally discriminated against for the rest of their lives?

I am upset and so so saddened by this. This reality that my middle-class upbringing in an Atlanta suburb shielded me from. The realization that I have taken the cup and drank the juice of poverty and criminality prejudice. The fact that over 60 years have passed, yet the picture looks the same.

This is the state of the world - racism, hate, murder, persecution, oppression, illness, death. What does one do with this? What does the Christian do with this?

That is what I am trying to figure out. But I will tell you what I know.

Jesus was hated, plotted against, hunted, betrayed, beaten, mocked, and murdered, and He didn't deserve that either. He underwent that treatment so that we would not have to be haters, plotters, hunters, betrayers, mockers, and murderers. He offers freedom from our prison of self - the need to feel esteemed by putting others beneath us, the desire to promote our own glory by any means necessary, the fear that elevates self-preservation over equality. He offers hope because He got up with all power and promises an eternity spent in His presence. He offers comfort as He sympathizes with our frailties, identifies in our suffering and strengthens in our weakness.

This isn't a pretty bow. Saying "the gospel" 50 times in your prayer closet isn't going to just make this system of institutionalized hate - or our issue of sin - go away. But somehow believing is the answer. Believing that God cares more about people than we can with our 140 character attention spans. Believing that He desires justice and is the only righteous Judge. Believing that He will judge. Believing and celebrating that He has graciously pardoned me through faith in Christ, because my sin is just as vile as murder and perpetuating racism.

I pray for us. All of us. For salvation and faith.
Amen.