Crying Out: A Response to George Floyd
VJN Steering Committee member Dave Hanson offers his response to the killing of George Floyd, the recent wave of protests and unrest, and the sin of systemic racism.
My name is Dave Hanson, I am a local Pastor at the Yakima Vineyard in central Washington. Poverty here is extreme. Working to be outward leaning, our church has been proximate in places throughout our city and county where the need seems greatest. White privilege is prevalent in Yakima. Red line districts still exist around poor neighborhoods, mostly with people of color. The poor treatment of agricultural workers during this COVID 19 pandemic is horrific; thousands have gotten sick. We have the highest per capita infection rate on the West coast. Only 3% of the population here are black. Sadly, we are not a welcoming community.
Cry aloud; do not hold back; lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God. ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Isaiah 58:1-6
We are approaching our fifth week of protests and marches by people throughout these United States that are beyond their breaking point over the unjust death of yet another black person in the hands of law enforcement. The cause of George Floyd’s tragic death isn’t limited to the four police officers implicit with his death but is moreover indicative of the engrained racial prejudice and disparity of people of color throughout our criminal justice system. Speaking from a criminal/social justice background, the ratio of those incarcerated in the US being people of color makes clear this is a very gross injustice, and sadly, it continues.
Frankly, ongoing demonstrations across the country are both righteous and within the constitutional rights of all people within our borders. Marching or otherwise demonstrating is how we defend that constitution. I served four years in the US Army intent on defending freedom and liberty for all, but I can see not everyone here receives the protection therein.
Unprovoked harm inflicted on someone is always unjust and wrong. To my understanding, destroying, or looting someone’s business who plays no role with the injustice, is like throwing a punch before you know who you are hitting or why. However, in a 1966 interview, Martin Luther King Jr. was asked about some Black activists’ departure from his peaceful approach to racial injustice. He said:
The cry of Black power is at bottom a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro.[1]
Martin Luther King Jr.
In that interview, he called a riot “the language of the unheard.”
As hard as it may be to hear, most all people, all skin colors, ethnicities, and religious groups, struggle with some level of ingrained prejudice. In a setting where one group is larger or holds more power, disparity of others is often the result. Holding power (wealth, privilege, dominance – positionally or politically) seems to be at the core of our comfort with apathy, mistreatment and ignorance of others.
We count on the police, prosecutors, and judges, who have the same ingrained prejudice we do. They are there to uphold the peace; we rely on them for justice and count on them to keep us all safe. But how can that work when racial profiling, more aggressive treatment of people of color, and tragically unjust prison statistics are normative? Police are our first responders, they should be honored and respected, but as our trust is broken, the injustice seems far greater. Peace can only be accomplished with true justice, but that is a tough sell when you’re confronted with police lined up in battle gear and using brutal tactics to “take back the streets.”
I believe education is essential. Police training, especially where profiling and tactics are concerned, must be overhauled. In fact, training about profiling needs to change in a lot of places, i.e., shopping centers, real estate, and politics. Even more important, what we teach our children must change as well, and that’s where my greatest hope lies.
You’re not born with it; it happens after you’re born.
You have to be taught to hate and fear.
You have to be carefully taught-
South Pacific
Imagine a world where the systemic focus was on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of oppressive punishment, pain, and suffering – where people struggling with mental illness, poverty, homelessness and addiction are loved, not discarded.
Phil Strout, national director of Vineyard USA declared in his most recent pastoral letter:
We, the people of the Vineyard, are going to stay the course of believing in and longing to see the Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven – people from every tribe, tongue, and nation as ONE. This is not something we wait for someday, when all the trouble has gone, because we hold a theology that says that future reality has invaded the present. We will settle for nothing less, right now, as the Kingdom continues to come.
Phil Strout, national director of VineyardUSA
Diversity in the Vineyard is not part of a slogan but a destiny. To that end we commit ourselves.[2]
We’ve been shaped by our religion, education, cultural surroundings and generational conditioning. Speaking from a baby boomer perspective, change is hard for us. Real change requires us to reach for humility beyond all that we’ve experienced. Yes, the Spirit of God is speaking to us all, but who among us are getting past our conditioning and really listen to what He is saying? Working toward that end, I’m inspired by Gen Z and their uncompromising compassion and empathy to continue this fight as long as it takes. Our young people have taken the lead on this, and we all need to listen.
The essential practices of the Vineyard movement are Evangelism, Discipleship, Leadership and Diversity. I’m proud to be part of a movement that includes Leadership and Diversity as essential. Right now, the systemic injustice of our nation’s criminal justice program is what we must lean into and ask God to lead us with.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I pray God give you wisdom in your determination.
[1] Gates, Gary Paul., Wallace, Mike. Between You and Me: A Memoir. United States: Hachette Books, 2005.
[2] https://vineyardusa.org/library/a-pastoral-letter-from-phil-2020/