Police
Brutality: How Should Christians Respond?
By Rev. Paul
J. Bern
An unarmed
black man was shot to death by police in an Atlanta suburb this past
week. I live a 30-minute drive away from the location of the
shooting, and I sometimes buy groceries at a discount grocery chain
not far from there, so I've driven – or lately ridden on the bus –
right through that area. It is one thing to see this stuff about
police shootings – or any shooting for that matter – on the
evening news, but the frightening spectre of police violence against
the very citizens they are sworn to protect only miles from my
apartment brings it all home to roost. A New York Times article from
March 10, 2015 had the following headline:
Police
Killing of Unarmed Georgia Man Leaves Another Town in Disbelief
By
RICHARD FAUSSET, NYT, MARCH 10, 2015
“CHAMBLEE,
Ga. — Witnesses to the fatal police shooting of an African-American
man gave differing accounts Tuesday. But they all ended with a
similar question: Why was it necessary to shoot Anthony Hill, a
27-year-old Air Force veteran who was naked and unarmed?
The
shooting, which occurred early Monday afternoon, has prompted
mourning, confusion and anger in the apartment complex northeast of
Atlanta where Mr. Hill lived.
“He
was a calm, friendly person,” said Julio Hernandez, 54, a
groundskeeper at the complex whose 14-year-old son rode skateboards
with Mr. Hill. “To me, this was police abuse, because what can a
naked person do?”
On
his social media accounts, Mr. Hill, an aspiring musician, hinted
that he had a mental illness. And most everyone who saw him at the
apartments Monday said his behavior was bizarre in the extreme in the
moments before the police arrived. Mr. Hill, they said, had been
lying on the ground, semi-clothed and then naked, and had been
jumping repeatedly off his second-story balcony.
The
shooting is the third police killing of an unarmed or apparently
unarmed black man in the last five days, following shootings in
Aurora, Colo., and Madison, Wis. They have occurred as the nation
considers race, policing and lethal force in the wake of the killing
of another unarmed black man, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Mo., in
August......”
Just
days before, another shooting of an unarmed black man by a white
police officer occurred in Madison, Wisconsin, which resulted in a
massive protest on March 9th,
the day before the Atlanta shooting, as the following Washington Post
headline attests:
Protests
continue in Madison after shooting; police chief apologizes to
community
By
Mark Berman, Washington Post, March 9, 2015
“Demonstrations
continued Monday over the death of an unarmed black man shot and
killed by a Madison police officer Friday night, as protests in
Wisconsin’s second-largest city stretched into a fourth day and
reached the heart of the state’s government.
A
large crowd gathered inside the rotunda of the state capitol, about a
mile from the apartment where Anthony Robinson, 19, was shot after
what authorities described as a struggle with a police officer.
Robinson’s
death sparked outrage and drew national attention over the weekend,
becoming the latest incident involving a black man dying at the hands
of the police. Michael Koval, Madison’s police chief, said he
understood how it seemed to fit the narrative that has spurred an
ongoing conversation over race and policing, but he pleaded with
people for patience while investigations are carried out.
A
rally on the campus of the University of Wisconsin took place Monday
before students marched to the state capitol, and the demonstrations
and actions remained calm and peaceful, with no reported arrests or
other issues. Many of the protesters who gathered at the capitol
building were high school students who came to attend the rally, the
Wisconsin State Journal reported. March organizers had posted on
Facebook, asking high school students to walk out of classes Monday
morning......”
And
let's not forget that two Ferguson, Mo. cops got shot the other
night, and they have no idea who did it. That's probably because
whoever did it used a small caliber rifle such as a .22, from some
distance away, with a scope on it, possibly even a night-vision
scope, and the police know it. Because of all this, cops all over the
country have taken a shoot first and ask questions later stance when
it comes to how they do their jobs. But what law enforcement fails to
realize is that if they weren't shooting unarmed people, the American
people wouldn't be so upset in the first place. That's just what's on
the surface. What's underneath is that between 85-90% of police
shootings in America in the last 10 years have been white officers
shooting black suspects, the overwhelming majority of whom were
unarmed. So the shootings, or most of them, are evidently racially
motivated. Is it any wonder that people everywhere are furious with
the police, especially people of color? Is it any wonder that no one
trusts them anymore (including this author, who prefers to take
matters into his own hands)? What should we do about this and still
be legal? After all, if we don't stay legal we're just giving the
cops a reason to shoot at us. Unless, of course, we decide to shoot
back. But then we're talking civil war. Do we really want that? As
far as I am concerned, armed revolt should only be considered as a
matter of last resort. Before things come down to that, I have some
ideas that I would like to see everyone put into practice first. If
these don't work, maybe then we should talk further.
The
first thing Christian Americans need to realize is that we're not
living in a democracy, and we haven't been ever since Nov, 22,1963,
when president John Kennedy was assassinated. It isn’t a democracy
at all. It’s a tyrannical oligarchy of the worst kind: one that’s
disguised as a democracy and hidden behind the smoke and mirrors of
political propaganda. Just because governmental decrees are no longer
issued by royal fiat but are instead issued by lobbying and
propaganda, doesn’t make it any less tyrannical. It is nothing more
than inverted totalitarianism. And it is our responsibility,
if we would be proactive citizens, to revert this totalitarianism.
The 99% must turn the tables on the 1% or we will not survive as a
species on this planet. It’s as simple as that. Here are four ways
we can turn the tables on tyrannical oligarchy without firing a shot:
1.)
Shame the Rich By Mocking Plutocracy
While
the world goes through the motions of getting poorer and poorer the
moneyed elite are getting richer and richer, to the extent that it is
costing people their lives. We must be able to muster the courage to
put our foot down and draw a line in the sand. A declaration of
emergence is needed. The current demonstrations against police
brutality taking place in America's streets is the new 'occupy'
movement. One way to put our foot
down is to mock the plutocratic entities that have a monopoly on
power and to ridicule the cult of personality. Shame is a very
powerful psychological motivator. The sooner we make them realize
that they have to be morally responsible with their power, the sooner
we will be able to bring balance to the world. And the way we make
them realize it is through the stultifying effect of shame. Like
Confucius said, “In a country well governed, poverty is something
to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to
be ashamed of.” And have no illusions, countries the world over are
badly governed. Through a healthy mockery of their power we
inadvertently get power over power and turn the tables on the power
dynamic.
2.)
Defy the Police State
A
primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those
with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers
generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely
as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences
in the real world. No longer do police act in the capacity of peace
officers. Now they are simply hired thugs of a government that no
longer has the best interest of the people at heart. Like George
Orwell said, “The capitalist society is a police society where the
number one goal is the protection of upper class property.” While
the governments of the world have been taken over by corporate
interests, bankers and special interest groups, our countries have
been turned into police states. Black-booted police state beware,
your fascist violence is no match for our creative freedom. The so
called “herd” is methodically being populated with wolves in
sheep clothing, and we will bite if we’re cornered. We can turn the
tables on the police state by mocking it like Pussy Riot mocked
Putin, and like Anonymous mocks power.
3.)
Ridicule the NDAA
As
it stands, The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the most
diabolically authoritarian law to ever come down the governmental
chute. It’s anti-freedom in the name of security, the most
deceptive kind of law. The NDAA is a greater threat to our national
liberty than the terrorism from which it claims to protect us from.
It impermissibly impinges on guaranteed First Amendment rights and
lacks sufficient protections to meet the requirements of due process.
Simply put, it is an instrument for the government to restrain the
people. The Constitution used to be an instrument for the people to
constrain the government, but with legislation like the NDAA and the
Patriot Act, the instrument of the constitution is useless and no
longer holds a tune. It’s past
time that we get out there and petitioned against the NDAA. We must
ridicule it. We must scorn it to the nth degree. Blaspheme it in the
face of the president if need be. Inform people about how corrupt it
really is. People will remain ignorant as long as we allow them to
be. Let’s not allow them to be; not only for the sake of their
freedom but for our own, as well as for the freedom of our children
and our children’s children. People are born to be free. Ridiculing
acts like the NDAA, and attempting to abolish them, are ways of
safeguarding such freedoms.
4.)
Challenge the Mass Surveillance State
Beginning
with the adoption of the Patriot Act in 2001 (The government’s
backbone-less, scared-stupid response to 9-11) the floodgates opened
for covert government surveillance not only for the NSA, FBI, CIA and
Homeland Security but for hundreds of municipal and state
governments, a green light to infiltrate and spy on millions of
American citizens. Now FISA is a dead horse that’s been beaten
beyond recognition, because it has been morphed into a vehicle of
covert means shielded from effective oversight through countless
amendments by the Bush and Obama administrations. And now congress
itself is hung-up on the fear-mongering tactics of the War on Terror.
It is now up to us, “We the
People”, to challenge this surveillance state, unless we
inadvertently become what George Orwell warned us against in his
novel 1984. Leaking information has become the civil disobedience of
our age. The late historian and activist Howard Zinn described the
act of civil disobedience as “the deliberate, discriminate
violation of law for a vital social purpose… Such acts become not
only justifiable but necessary when a fundamental human right is at
stake and when legal channels are inadequate for securing that
right.” Even Thomas Jefferson realized it, writing, “If a law is
unjust, a man is not only correct to disobey it, he is obligated to
do so.”
Edward
Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, Jeremy Hammond, and the
late Aaron Swartz have all continued the tradition of civil
disobedience by revealing the details of global mass surveillance
programs. It’s time for us to change the tune. It’s time to
interrupt their corrupt dance. It’s time to challenge the powers
that be. Nothing short of the survival of the human species is at
stake. If we are going to proclaim ourselves Christians, then we have
a responsibility to oppose that which is corrupt, unjust, unfair and
which poses a threat. Evil must at all times be resisted with good.
Not through some imaginary fist-fight between good and evil, all that
is just Hollywood imagery. I'm talking about resisting evil in the
Spiritual realm through prayer, faith, love and good works whenever
possible. Passive resistance works as well in the Spiritual world as
it does in the physical, so use it whenever possible. Let the peace
of Christ, which is beyond all human understanding, be with you all.
Stop the shooting, everybody – police and civilians alike, you're
only making matters worse! We can either live in peace together or
die fighting each other. I'd say the first choice is a lot more
palatable to me, not to mention a lot smarter.
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