Tag: Bryan Stevenson

Racism Hurts

.US_Marshals_with_Young_Ruby_Bridges_on_School_Steps

 

Racism hurts.

Maybe that’s the wrong way to say it. Maybe I should say “the actions of racist people” hurt. The ongoing assault on and disrespect of, fellow human beings by a self-declared “supreme, superior race” hurts and has long-lasting effects.

It has been scientifically proven that the effects of trauma can be genetically passed down. Apparently, trauma causes changes in one’s genes as it is going on. Called “epigenetic inheritance,” scientists say the trauma passed down to children causes disorders including stress disorders. Findings in a study of survivors of the Holocaust were published recently. (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/21/study-of-holocaust-survivors-finds-trauma-passed-on-to-childrens-genes)

Native American children apparently show results of the trauma their parents and antecedents have suffered, and psychologists, sociologists and scientists are documenting physical conditions in African Americans caused by the trauma that ethnic group has endured in this country since slavery. (http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/06/05/post-traumatic-slave-syndrome-and-intergenerational-trauma-slavery-is-like-a-curse-passing-through-the-dna-of-black-people/)

The science notwithstanding, though, there is a very real component of racism that nobody really talks about – and that is that it causes emotional pain of the oppressed in the here and now.

Racism and racist terrorism and hatred..hurt.

I often tell the story of little Ruby Bridges, who at 6 years old integrated the William Frantz  Elementary School. This child was eager to attend her “new school,” but had no idea of the racist people who would jeer at her, yell and scream at her, and leave her to sit in a classroom in that school for a full year, all by herself.

Because of cognitive dissonance, white people who were involved in this child’s trauma probably did not think of how little Ruby must have felt, but it had to have been horrible for her. For a year in that classroom it was only Ruby and her teacher, a white woman named Mrs. Barbara Henry, sitting side by side, because white parents had pulled their children out of the school generally and out of Ruby’s class specifically …all because little Ruby was black.

It had to be traumatizing. According to stories of that fateful time, on the second day of her attendance at Franz, a white mother threatened to poison her; on another day, she was presented a little black baby doll in a coffin.

She was a little girl, for goodness’ sake!

Not only did Ruby suffer, but so did her family. Her grandparents were sent off the land where they had lived as sharecroppers for 25 years. Her father lost his job. The local grocery store where they had shopped banned them from entering.

It might have been expected that by now, the 21st century, all of this racial hatred and bigotry would have abated, but it has not. Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, says that “slavery didn’t end, it just evolved.”  That statement applies to racism as well, a fact that is sad in that too many white Americans live in denial, believe that racism is gone, while they continue to participate in and benefit from policies which support the continued oppression of people of color.

Not only are black people the targets of white hatred and bigotry, but so are brown people, and Muslims. Members of the LGBTQ community are oppressed not only by whites, but by blacks, Hispanics and Muslims.

A woman shared a story with me recently about two gay white men who had adopted two African-American boys. She said a neighbor hollered out to them one day that when Donald Trump gets elected “we, the white people, are going to get rid of people like you and your two little nigger kids.”

What is sad is that people who mete out this kind of hatred seem not to care that words are like knives, digging into the very spirits of those being attacked. Little black and brown children grow up in this nation fighting the belief that they are somehow bad and inferior; the fight to find one’s true Self in the face of such hatred is a difficult one, and many fail.

The emotional pain of racial hatred is as toxic and damaging is physical pain inflicted because of racial hatred. Public lynching has all but stopped (not completely), but emotional lynching is ongoing. It has never stopped. And the lack of concern for and appreciation of that pain is an issue …at least for me.

Black and brown people are criminals if they have a drug problem; white people are “sick” and need treatment if they have a drug problem. Ryan Lochte was virtually excused from his bad behavior in Rio de Janeiro after the Olympics, with many newscasters saying this 32-year old man is “just a kid,” and they accepted his statement that he “over -exaggerated.” Black people are rarely given such grace when they commit faux pas; Gabby Douglas was harshly criticized for not putting her hand over her heart during the playing of the National Anthem. Biles was said to have disrespected her country, but didn’t Lochte as well? The double standard meted out by racists…hurts.

The point of this essay is to say to people who apparently do not realize or do not care…that racist attacks, exclusion from jobs or opportunities or justice because of one’s race, disparity in the way black and white children are treated for the same offenses – hurts.  The lack of compassion for parents of black children who go astray, and the tendency to just want to lock black people up and throw away the key ..hurts.

The pain is no less than that experienced by a white kid who grows up in an emotionally and/or physically abusive home. The scars left are indelible; they do not go away. An abusive childhood produces abused adults who then, in their pain, go on to abuse more children. That’s not a color thing. That’s a human thing.

Listening to all of the racist talk, the hate-filled talk, that has swirled around during this presidential election cycle has made my spirit hurt, literally. The oppressors  apparently have no idea of how much damage they are inflicting on groups of people – which they have historically heaped on groups of people. They don’t know …and apparently they do not care.

And not being cared about is a hurting thing.

A candid observation..

Unequal Justice Under the Law

A group of faith leaders from across the country invited by Sojourners, an evangelical organization, sat spellbound this week at the Equal Justice Initiative as a man who sat on Death Row for 30 years for a crime he did not commit told his story. The room was silent except for the sniffles that resulted from tears which could not be contained.
Anthony Ray Hinton was 29 years old when, in 1985 his life changed forever. His mother had asked him to cut the lawn at their home; the two lived together in a residence near Birmingham, Alabama, and Hinton begrudgingly acquiesced to his mother’s request. As he mowed the lawn, he noticed two white men drive up to his house, park their car, and get out. It was strange; white people didn’t often just show up in the black part of town.
“They came up to me,” Hinton said to the group of faith leaders, “and asked me if I was Anthony Ray Hinton. I said, “yes, sir,” and they said I was under arrest.” Hinton recalled being surprised. He had done nothing wrong; he knew that, so although he was caught off guard at being arrested, he was fairly sure that the confusion would be cleared up shortly and he could get back to his life. He had no idea, however, of how life had just thrown him a curve ball that would shatter life as he had known it.
They took Hinton to the unmarked car in which they had driven and put him inside, handcuffed. Hinton continued to ask what he had done, and the police officer ignored him for several minutes. When he finally answered, he said that Hinton was being charged with first degree capital murder. Two people at a fast food restaurant had been shot and killed, and another injured. Hinton objected; he had done no such thing, but the officer was unmoved.
“He said I probably hadn’t done it but that he didn’t care,” Hinton said. There were a total of five charges being thrown at Hinton. In addition to the two murders, there was a charge of attempted murder (another person had been shot but had survived) and two robbery charges. “That officer turned to me and said, “You’re going to be convicted, boy. Do you know why? Because you’re black. Because you’re poor. Because the prosecutor will be white. Because the jury will be white. And because the judge will be white.”
The officer was correct. Hinton went to trial. He was appointed an attorney by the court, and, Hinton remembers, the young white man said to him upon meeting him, “I didn’t go to law school to try pro-Bono cases.” Already things were looking bad for Hinton, who, by the way, had been at work when the shootings occurred. His mother’s gun was said by the State to have been the murder weapon; a forensics “expert” had no experience in doing ballistics, did not know how to use the machine used for ballistics testing, and could not see. The all-white jury, in the court presided over by the white judge, supported the case presented by the white prosecutor who had been accused of shoddy work and unjust practices in cases involving black people in the past…and found Hinton guilty and he was sentenced to death.
At first he was too stunned to really conceptualize what had happened to him. “I kept wondering how an innocent man could be in prison sentenced to death,” he said. It didn’t make sense. What he held onto was a faith and the hope that the truth would come out. He meditated on what he said became his favorite scripture, Mark 11:24, which says, “So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayers, believe that you have received it, and it shall be yours.”
And so he prayed. Fifteen years into his sentence, he heard of Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Stevenson’s organization has a legacy of unearthing injustice in the justice system which puts too many people of color, and too many children, in prison for life or sentenced to die. Stevenson had heard of Hinton’s case, and when he was contacted, decided to take the case on after talking with his newest client.
It was imperative, Hinton knew, to prove that the bullets that killed the two men could not have come from his mother’s gun. He was sure that if that case could be made, no court would deny him justice. He says he told Stevenson, “I know attorneys don’t like for clients to tell them what to do, but I want you to get a ballistics expert.”
Stevenson smiled and said he had every intention of doing that.
But Hinton stopped him. “No,” he said. “You don’t understand. I want you to get three ballistics experts. I want them to be white men. I want them to be from the South. And I want them to be for the death penalty.” Stevenson paused as he considered the brilliance and the wisdom of what Hinton was asking, and knew it was the right strategy. He agreed; he got three ballistics experts, two from Texas and one from Virginia. All three concluded that the bullets that killed the two men did not come from – could not have come from – Hinton’s mother’s gun.
Stevenson and his client thought they were in the fast lane to justice …but they were wrong. For 16 years, every court to which Stevenson presented the new and compelling evidence denied Hinton a new trial. It finally came to the fork in the road that led to the United States Supreme Court. Stevenson told Hinton that if the nation’s highest court didn’t rule in their favor, it would be rough going from then on out.
The Supreme Court did, however, rule in Hinton’s favor and overturned his conviction and granted him a new trial. The Alabama court system, however, decided not to pursue the case, and after 30 years sitting on Death Row in a tiny cell with only a bed and a toilet, cooped up for 23 hours a day, Hinton was released in April of 2015.
Finally.
We the faith leaders listened in awe. In spite of his horrific experience, Hinton made jokes (he said his sense of humor, plus his faith, helped him survive.) He talked about how he still sleeps in a fetal position, though he has purchased a king-sized bed, because for 30 years, he had to sleep like that on a bed that was too short for his 6’4” frame. He shared how he still gets up at 3 a.m. because on Death Row, breakfast is at 3 a.m. every day. He talked about how his imagination, in addition to his faith, kept him alive and lucid.
He attributed his freedom, so long coming, to God. God, he said, sent Bryan Stevenson. God knew…and God came to him.
“I am a Job,” he said, referring to the Biblical character who suffered unjustly. “I know for a fact that there is a God who sits high and looks low.”
The purpose of the retreat convened by Sojourners was to immerse faith leaders in issues of injustice inherent in mass incarceration, child sentencing, and policing. Hinton’s story was the spear thrust into preconceptions and misconceptions that many faith leaders see deal with in their work in churches and other ministries.
Hinton’s story served as a reminder that “the least of these” are in front of us, under the guise of justice. As Hinton finished his story, wiping tears from his eyes, so did we, the faith leaders, as we stood on our feet to applaud – his survival, his stubborn, crazy faith …and the reminder that their work to fight injustice is every before us.

A candid observation …