The Hypocrisy of U.S. Christianity in the Era of Open Season on Black Lives

By Rev. Leah C.K. Lewis
June 18, 2015

The domestic terrorism unleashed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Mother Emanuel) last night in Charleston, South Carolina, “the Holy City,” starkly displays the hypocrisy of U.S. Christianity. According to the Pew Research Center, 70.6% of U.S. citizens identify as Christian. If in fact, nearly two-thirds of the people of this country who purport to be disciples of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, stood for LOVE there is no way in hell that the murder and oppression of African Americans would be anywhere near acceptable and well-tolerated.

Neither would the practice of White Supremacy and its systemic implications. Mentally ill or not, Dylann Storm Roof, the shooter, was no doubt bolstered and made brazen by hatred. A core element of the ideology of white supremacy is manufacturing animosity against an entire group—people of African descent—which is exceedingly illogical and immoral.

Where is the Church’s moral outrage regarding the attacks against Americans of African descent? Where is the Church’s righteous indignation? Where are the Church’s prophets, priests, and servant leaders of every ethnicity decrying the murders of innocent people of a darker hue? Why is not every congregation exercising civil disobedience and political power to end what seems to be open season on African Americans? Why has there not been an overwhelming demand that justice roll down like thunder as called forth by the Prophet Amos? All of these actions should have taken place long before nine precious souls, including Pastor and State Senator Clementa Pinckney, made their transitions from labor to reward—sadly at the hands of a gunman perpetrating a hate crime.

As a Christian, you cannot be anything but a hypocrite, which God despises, if you are not wholly invested in social justice, love, charity, and righteousness. If in fact our country were Christian in character, we would care for everyone. We would ensure justice for everyone. We would value and affirm everyone, educate everyone, and ensure social dynamics that would allow everyone to thrive without prejudice, bias, and the specter of police brutality and mass incarceration (God bless the soul of Kalief Browder). 

This pretty picture of caring, compassion, and provision that I just painted is what love looks like. Love is not callous, indifferent, silent, cruel, unjust, tyrannical, despotic, or repressive. But racism, bigotry, prejudice, xenophobia, oppression, and relative practices are. These vile, petty things are incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

If you cannot love your sisters and brothers—your fellow members of the human race—who you can see, you cannot love the God, whom you cannot see. This is the word of God found in 1 John 4:20. Such would represent spiritual, theological, philosophical, intellectual, and social dissonance. In a word: hypocrisy.

For a point of emphasis let me note, the historical Jesus Christ was a Northeast African Palestinian Jew. Therefore, he was not one of pale skin, with blond hair or blue eyes. Want to talk about cultural appropriation? Talk about representations of Jesus, the man, as possessing a European phenotype. If that is your Jesus, you are as misinformed about Jesus’s ethnicity as Rachel Dolezal is about her own ethnicity and heritage.

In Mark 8:29 (and Matthew 16:15), Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” That question still has resonance today.

Reza Aslan, scholar and author, asserts that it is okay to envision and appropriate Christ as reflective of one’s own ethnicity. Possibly, but the Revelation of St. John describes Jesus, the Risen Savior, as having feet of burnt bronze and white wooly hair.

Even so, to assert that the historical Jesus, the embodiment of your supposed Savior, is anything but a Northeast African Palestinian Jew and of dark skin, you are wrong. Should you hold on to this mischaracterization of Jesus you would become a liar, and again, a hypocrite. Why is the historical Jesus’s ethnicity important? Because this is the physical personhood of the transcendental Being you purport to adore, worship, and hold sacred. How can this be when you despise black bodies? How can this be if you deny who Jesus really was? How can this be when you do not love black people?

Europe knows that Jesus was an African and even venerates the Black Madonna to this day. Add yet another layer to U.S. hypocrisy.

Without question, the failure of the 21st century Church to rise up in mass against the contemporary rash of police brutality and manifest xenophobia and oppression against African Americans is beyond problematic. It is sinful.

I must ask, how is the murder of the bible study attendees at Mother Emmanuel at the hands of a hate-based terrorist any different from the murders of unarmed, innocent African American women, children, and men at the hands of wanton law enforcement officers who have annihilated lives, and violated citizens’ human and legal rights? Context of course, yet, the value of each life lost is unequivocally equal: each is invaluable. 

Black Lives Matter, perhaps none more that Jesus Christ who bore the sins of the world. An appreciation of Jesus in his Africanness holds the liberative opportunity that racists, bigots, xenophobes, and white supremacists so desperately need. This fallacious notion of a white embodied deity has supported the enterprise of the ideology of white supremacy to humanity’s detriment. It has created the type of psychosis that has bred cold-blooded hatred of African peoples worldwide.

To see Jesus as his African self can help whites that have been socialized to fear and hate people of African descent. Jesus, the Northeast African Palestinian Jew could help dispel the sociopathology that has been imposed on some white people. This denigrating psychological and intellectual mindset has put African Americans at grave risk of danger yet again in America, the supposed Sweet Land of Liberty.

Christians must stand on the proclamation that #BlackLivesMatter or else your religion is indeed lost, even dead. Apathy and hypocrisy have killed it.

Leah C.K. Lewis, J.D., M.Div., D.Min., (ABD), is an ordained Baptist minister, who has standing in the United Church of Christ and serves a Lutheran congregation. She is also councilwoman, author, animation producer, and literary activist. She recently completed her dissertation on sex and sexuality in the African American Baptist Church and a manuscript on legal, religious, and political rhetoric pertinent to “race.” Follow her @HumanStriving and on SoundCloud.com/Reverend-Leah-CK-Lewis. #BlackLivesMatter #StayWoke #HumanStriving #RighteousvRacist

http://www.forharriet.com/2015/06/the-hypocrisy-of-us-christianity-in-era.html#axzz3dRUOSmiI

A Case of Emergency: How 911 Became a Weapon Used Against Black Folks

By Rev. Leah C.K. Lewis

June 15, 2015

I actually remember learning about 911 as a little girl. It seemed like some sort of rite of passage because of its weight and gravity. Calling 911 was a very serious matter and not something to do unless circumstances warranted the attention of the police, fire department, or emergency medical services. Dialing those three little numbers demanded sobriety—and it still does.

As the media continues to highlight cases of police brutality, I have been captivated by how 911 calls initiated the events that eventually led the deaths of Black men, women, and children. Particularly, Tanisha Anderson, a mentally ill woman; Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old boy in Cleveland; and John Crawford III in Beaver Creek, Ohio outside of Dayton.

Recently, I read an article by Shannon Nasah-Miller, Ph.D., in which she describes an incident where her 15-month-old daughter fell off a stuffed lion rocker eighteen inches to the floor while she and her wife supervised. During thrift shopping at Goodwill, her precious daughter was instructed to get off the lion and in typical childish defiance, baby girl went limp in full tantrum mode. As a result of this scene, unbeknownst to the child’s mothers, someone called 911 seeking unneeded medical attention for the toddler. As is typical, police arrived along with the ambulance, and a conversation ensued between an officer and one of the moms. Thankfully, the matter did not escalate into anything violent, but it easily could have.

Then there last weekend’s occurrence at the Craig Ranch subdivision in McKinney, Texas, where video shows overzealous police officer Eric Casebolt running amok, pulling a gun on teens, only corralling the youth of color and manhandling Dajerria Becton, a teenage girl in a bikini. In this case, officers were called to attend to a well populated end-of-school cook-out hosted by Tatiana Rhodes, a resident of Craig Ranch, after two adult white women and one man allegedly engaged African American teenagers with racial slurs and ignorant, lowbrow dialogue (“go back to your Section 8 housing”). A woman named “Kate” is accused of actually slapping Tatiana in the face.

Reminiscent of the Jim Crow era, there is the appearance that callers utilized 911, desirous of a “whites only pool,” as a means to extract the children of color from the recreational facility and the subdivision. One video shows the confrontation involving two aggressive white women, one white man, Tatiana, and her friends. Police were called, ten units total, and an unhinged Officer Casebolt confronts the young people who appeared a mixture of calm, rational, concerned, confused, and fearful.

All the victims I have mentioned were African Americans (with the exception of those involved in McKinney, Texas where people of Mexican and Arab or Persian descent were also accosted).

In the case of Tanisha Anderson, her family called seeking aid. Because of Tanisha’s death, her family deeply, deeply regrets making that call. Presumptions have been made as to the ethnicity of the callers in the Tamir Rice and John Crawford case. It has been presumed by many that the callers in these two cases were also white.

In the extraordinary case of Charlene Cook, we know that the person who initiated that 911 call was a white woman. She was body-slammed by police in Barstow, California while eight months pregnant. This occurred at her second grader’s school after she and the caller had a disagreement and confrontation while in the drop-off line.

Our emergency notification system is becoming a method for executing mayhem and murder in the lives of African Americans. The travesty is further exasperated because there are no consequences for callers who set off the chain of events that lead to the deaths, assaults, and general violations of people’s rights, where the human subject of the call proves to be innocent of the allegations or concerns enumerated by callers.

John Crawford was standing in a Walmart, on a phone, holding a toy BB gun sold by Walmart. Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun in a playground. Charlene Cook was standing at her child’s elementary school and merely refused to give officers her name all while they acknowledged that no crime had been committed. Shannon Nasah-Miller’s fifteen-month-old daughter fell off a toy eighteen inches to the ground. Dajerria Becton was not part of the instigating confrontation in McKinney. Tatiana Rhodes, for goodness sake, simply wanted to have a celebratory cookout in her residential community.

Tanisha Anderson’s family, like so many others of mentally ill people called for aid, not destruction. She was agitated and unarmed. Even so, there was distress. Calls pertaining to mentally disturbed men, women, and children merit a response from specially trained police officers and EMS workers.

There is a part of me that remembers the rhetoric and propaganda of “Officer Friendly.” There remains the knowledge that some good officers do in fact exist. So, when we perceive danger, it is reasonable to seek the aid of police. Yet, we must acknowledge that whenever police are called to a scene, the potential for escalation exists. Where police are, there are guns, tasers, and other weapons. This is a precarious combination. If possible, calling law enforcement should be a last resort.

To be frank, African Americans are tremendously reluctant to call for police assistance due to our understandably uneasy history with law enforcement. African Americans know the history of the slave patrols called “paddy rollers.” Officially, it was U.S. Marshalls that enforced the indignity of the Fugitive Slave Act. Every generation of African Americans can cite examples of police brutality. There is literally no era in American history where African Americans have been able to live peacefully without some major violations of human rights, dignity, civility, or sanctity. From the imposition of slavery and Jim Crow, to the destruction of thriving all-African American communities and economies like Greenwood, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Rosewood, Florida. From the brutal murder of Emmett Till, to the framing of fourteen-year-old George Stinney and his execution for a crime he did not commit, and the plethora of contemporary abuses, African Americans are extremely hesitant to call upon the first-line executors of a legal system that has yet to grant us the basis of justice we ought to be afforded as citizens.

For the greater part of its existence, law enforcement in the United States only served the interest of whites, particularly those who were wealthy or land-owning. Their financial and social interest was, and remains, the sanctity that law enforcement generally seeks to maintain. Today, pernicious whites utilize this historical advantage to terrorized African Americans, other people of color, and poor whites who have also been disenfranchised. They use 911 as a means to exercise white privilege in a manner that exploits taxpayer dollars. Mean-spirited and devilish people of all ethnicities employ 911 to invoke danger, as opposed to stopping or preventing danger. Such a practice is egregious, especially where innocent people are harmed.

Policy-makers must develop protocols and legislators must institute laws that stem the tide of abuse, should the assault on African American lives persist due to ridiculous and unwarranted calls to 911. I already hear the chorus of, “Better safe than sorry.” And, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of a cure.” I agree, but #BlackLivesMatter more than these adages ever will.

Leah C.K. Lewis, J.D., M.Div., D.Min., (ABD), is a minister, councilwoman, author, animation producer, and literary activist. She recently completed her dissertation on sex and sexuality in the African American Baptist Church and a manuscript on legal, religious, and political rhetoric pertinent to “race.” Follow her @HumanStriving and on SoundCloud.com/Reverend-Leah-CK-Lewis. #BlackLivesMatter #StayWoke #HumanStriving #RighteousvRacist

http://www.forharriet.com/2015/06/a-case-of-emergency-how-911-became.html#ixzz3dKwDY1wX

A Political History of Cleveland's Travesty in the Wake of the Brelo Verdict

By Rev. Leah C.K. Lewis

Scene guest editorial

May 27, 2015 at 11:29 am

Last Thursday a friend called saying, “Did you see Roland Martin? They’re talking about Cleveland.” Busy woman that I am, I had not.

Thankfully, my friend recorded the program during which Martin expressed to his guests how bewildered he was by the state of affairs in Cleveland. He could not understand why residents were not protesting, en masse, the deaths of Timothy Russell, Malissa Williams, and Tamir Rice (to name just a few) at the hands of Cleveland police officers.

Two days later, on Saturday, May 23, Judge John P. O’Donnell released his judgment of not guilty for Police Officer (yes, he remains on the force) Michael Brelo, who fired 49 of the 137 shots aimed at Russell and Williams in 2012.

Yet, the expression of mass outcry that Martin queried about still had not come. On the day the verdict was announced, protests occurred in Cleveland and 71 people were arrested. At the time of this writing protests continue and more are in the works. Even so, Cleveland did not and probably will not experience riots of the magnitude witnessed in Ferguson and Baltimore.

I surmise that Martin was searching for answers as to why Clevelanders appeared apathetic or unorganized. First, let me convey that there are passionate, long-standing activists in this community. People like members of the Carl Stokes Brigade and Puncture The Silence CLE, and individuals including Julia Shearson of the Center for American-Islamic Relations and Bill Swain have been on the case along with a cadre of clergy, college students, particularly from nearby Oberlin College, and other groups and individuals.

Yet Cleveland appears very different from other cities devastated by blatant acts of police brutality. With Judge O’Donnell’s shady verdict, the question moved from why is Cleveland not aflame to “How did this happen?” The “this” is two-part: One, how did O’Donnell find Brelo “not guilty”? Two, why was Brelo the only officer tried? As tends to be the case, the answers are found in history.

Cleveland was the site of two notable “race” conflicts in the 1960s, and the police were involved in both. Substantial numbers of Cleveland’s population have not forgotten the Hough Riots or the Glenville Shootout. Having watched recent events in Ferguson, Baltimore, and even Los Angeles after the merciless beating of Rodney King, most Clevelanders have less than zero appetite for riot. While some have claimed the anthem “No Justice, No Peace” most Clevelanders hold an ideology that eschews destroying your own neighborhood in the quest for justice.

This is Cleveland’s version of “politics of respectability.” Trust me when I tell you, politics and respectability mean a great deal in this town. More to the point, politics and respectability are tools used to control the masses (hence, no rioting) and to establish social class and electoral politics.

Without question, politics is a tremendous part of the equation in analyzing the legal system that perverted justice for Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. We know that African Americans have been denied respect and partiality in the criminal justice system since our ancestors touched its shores in 1619. With respect to the present case, we need not look any further than the 2012 election for Cuyahoga County Prosecutor.

This race was contested on the Democratic side with a crowded field of five candidates including the winner, Timothy McGinty, an appointed incumbent, and runner-up Stephanie Hall, an African American attorney and member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. McGinty, a former Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge, went on to beat Independent candidate Ed Wade, an African American Howard University School of Law-trained defense attorney (I too am an alumnus). Cuyahoga County is overwhelmingly Democratic. Republicans are seldom relevant here.

For African Americans in the know, grave concern was had about McGinty. His judicial record of incarcerating African Americans, Latinos, and Hispanics was legendary. Of all the candidates he was by far the worst potential outcome for people of color as captured in commentary by local activist Kathy Wray Coleman.

Nonetheless, McGinty won the 2012 Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s race for two reasons—money and “the Machine.” Money and the political machine that is the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party have proven to be lethal mechanisms in these recent times of trouble and attempts at progress for African Americans, who, by the way, vote overwhelmingly Democratic in this county, like so many others, too.

The Cuyahoga County Democratic Party also plays respectability politics. Without question, a hierarchy exists and foot soldiers—elected public officials and low-level operatives—are expected to toe-the-line, wait your turn, and keep your mouth shut unless you are telling lies to discredit an undesirable, non-compliant, or threateningly competent candidate.

(For full disclosure, I am a registered Democrat and an elected official. I, however, do not fit in well, as I am progressive and a critical thinker with an independent and activist spirit and curriculum vita. Perhaps that is obvious from this piece. I am most interested in serving “we the people” righteously regardless of the perceived “cost.” Forsaking my truth and integrity is the only dynamic that equates to “cost” by my personal definition. Unfortunately, mine is a rare profile in Cuyahoga County. It is the status quo, which I have described above, that allows oppressive political and social structures to persist in Cleveland. More often than not, residents willingly participate in these structures or, as the only perceived viable alternative, opt out (this is the de facto vote that I speak of). A staunch minority seeks to change the systems and they are the city’s small, persistent activists who are striving for holistic reform, justice, and recognition of everyone’s humanity and dignity.)

McGinty and O’Donnell, systems-keepers, are but two individuals who represent a close-knit Irish-American network that essentially controls Cleveland judicial system and police force. I must note that Cuyahoga County is larger than Cleveland. So while Cleveland is a city where the majority of its residents are of color, that is not the case with the County. Cleveland would be better off with a city prosecutor, like in Baltimore, allowing for a prosecutor and system to be more reflective of and attentive to its people.

For Cleveland’s majority population of color, Democratic candidate Stephanie Hall and Independent Ed Wade, presumably, would have been better prosecutors. With African Americans in high places, I always vet them through the filter of Zora Neale Hurston’s comment, “All my skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.” I have encountered both candidates personally, to varying degrees, and doubt that Mother Zora’s adage applies to either Hall or Wade. Now, I cannot assert that either would be as stalwart in seeking justice for victims of police brutality as Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, but I can contend that McGinty is the Anti-Mosby. Indeed, McGinty is the antithesis of Mosby in terms of gender, ethnicity, age, and legal and “racial” ideology.

So, at the end of the day, who is to blame for the verdict that allowed Michael Brelo to go free and the decision not to prosecute the twelve other officers involved in the wanton murders of Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell? Those who voted for McGinty and O’Donnell by casting votes for them and those who “voted” by default by not voting at all.

Be mad if you want too. March and protest if you want too. But if you voted for McGinty or did not vote at all, the injustice dealt to Malissa Williams and Timothy Russell rest on your hands as well as the 13 officers involved in the shooting, the brass of the Cleveland Police Department, members of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s office, Tim McGinty and John O’Donnell. With actual and de facto votes, the morally corrupt political systems of Cuyahoga County would not—could not exist.

Next time, get up on the candidates, attend the Democratic Club functions, witness the candidates for yourself, do not rely solely on endorsements from your Party or federal representatives. Support those who love and demand righteousness, justice, and decency. #StayWoke. #BlackLivesMatter. #HumanStriving.   

Leah C.K. Lewis, J.D., M.Div., D.Min., (ABD), is a minister, councilwoman, author, animation producer, and literary activist. She recently completed her dissertation on sex and sexuality in the African American Baptist Church and a manuscript on legal, religious, and political rhetoric pertinent to “race.” Follow her @HumanStriving and on SoundCloud.com/Reverend-Leah-CK-Lewis.

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2015/05/27/guest-editorial-a-political-history-of-clevelands-travesty-in-the-wake-of-the-brelo-verdict