Waiting for God and Justice

            I heard a very disturbing story on the podcast “Code Switch,” told by Chenjerai Kumanyika, where he related a time when he and a friend, walking home from their school in Baltimore, decided to race each other. “Out of nowhere, a cop car showed up. They did the thing. They put us up against the car, they grabbed us (we were in 6^th or 7^th grade) and they spread us out and patted us down, looking to see if we had stolen something.” (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/code-switch/id1112190608?i=1000683056935)

            Kumanyika recalls thinking, “How can they do this?” He and his friend were surrounded by multiple police officers with guns and handcuffs, and it was scary, to say the least. The police officers finished the search of their bodies, asking them if they knew anything about some items (not specified) that had been stolen, and they said no. Apparently satisfied, they let the boys go, but the damage was done; they abandoned their desire to race each other and walked the rest of the way home. He recalled that a few seconds after he got home, the police knocked on his front door, explaining that they’d noticed that Chenjerai had just run into the house. His stepfather had answered the door, and when the police gave their reason for their unwanted visit said, “Of course, he ran into this house. He lives here.”

            Kumanyika is the host of another podcast, “Empire City,” a show about the history of the New York Police Department.

            I listened to this story several times and shuddered because I know it is not an uncommon experience for Black males – young and old. The fact that two kids could not engage in a footrace with each other, something kids naturally do, drove home the reality that Black people, regardless of age, profession, or economic class, are not safe in this country. “Law enforcement” looks for reasons to stop and harass Black males, and the system does very little to address it or stop it from happening.

            This country has a history of “law enforcement” targeting and detaining – people of color, especially Black males. The incoming administration’s vow to get rid of immigrants will make these types of occurrences more common; those who are or who have already been deputized to round up undocumented residents have been empowered to wield their power even more than they have in the past.

            Just as police officers use the line “I was in fear for my life,” or give as an excuse for stopping someone, “he looked like …” someone who committed a crime, these deputized persons now will use as a reason for stopping people, “he/she looked like an undocumented immigrant.” 

            What does an undocumented immigrant “look like?”

            In New Jersey last week, federal immigration agents raided a business. Without having a warrant, they entered the business through the back door and detained what they said were undocumented people. At least one of those detained was an American citizen and a military veteran. He reportedly tried to show his ID and veteran’s card to the agents, but they would not look at the documents. (https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/ice-raid-newark-new-jersey-business/) 

            “People were fingerprinted. Pictures of their IDs and faces were taken there,” Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey said, “I was appalled, upset, angry that this would happen here in this state, in this country, {and} that this would be allowed,” he said,

            But his protestations, and those that will come from others as raids increase, are not going to stop the unjust treatment of people who others think may be undocumented. The quest is not seeking justice; the quest is to carry out a political promise to get rid of people this country does not want. (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/immigration-raid-newark-new-jersey-mayor-angry-rcna189100) 

            Before the election, I talked with a few immigrants who drove for Uber, which I use when I travel. Most of them with whom I talked were in favor of getting rid of undocumented persons. They had come into the country the right way, they said, and they believed everyone should do the same.

            When I asked if they thought they would ever be targeted by law enforcement, all of them said they did not, and some lifted up their belief that the incoming president would make sure that did not happen – noting that they had voted for him. “He won’t let anything like that happen to us,” I was told. But again, law enforcement officers, or people deputized to do the work of “catching the bad people” have historically grabbed and detained people, forcing innocent people into the system or robbing them of their freedom. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1554.html) 

            Their reaction communicated to me a naivety and sense of idealism that is not real. Many law enforcement officers seem driven by a willingness to display their power, which seems absolute, not a belief in justice and fairness. They know they can do what they want to do for the most part and get away with it. That has been the case in this country ever since people were deputized to catch enslaved persons who had escaped; they were not kind or fair. The people who are being deputized now to “catch” the undocumented people here will probably act in much the same way.

            The most troubling factor in all that is going on is that faith in a “good” God can waiver. The downtrodden, ignored, unserved, and underserved look to God for hope. In the current situation, the “other side” seems to have claimed God as being behind and in favor of their policies and practices. The avenues for help and vindication feel scarce; Black people and other marginalized groups cannot depend on police, federal or state legislatures, or the courts to protect and support them. Large groups of marginalized people are simply not safe in this country.

The most important work people must do in light of the current situation is to figure out how to hold onto hope when all logical avenues of help are owned, populated, and controlled by forces and systems that favor the wealthy and powerful.

            The vast majority of persons in this country are in a scary place; immigrants, documented and non-documented, face a particularly precarious time, and minority groups seeking protection can expect less of it going forward. The people in power will use that power and authority to ignore, suppress, and oppress whomever they want and there will be little recourse for those who are targeted. The prayer is that “we the people’ will call on a God many are not sure hears or cares about them and live, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, with “infinite hope” and not descend into a place of “finite disappointment.” There is a God who loves justice. That thought and belief, even in the face of gross injustice, will keep us pushing against the forces that want those whom they consider to be “others” to crash and burn.

A candid observation …