When I was a pastor, I got called to be with a family as their matriarch passed away. She was hooked up to life support in ICU and after I arrived, we all gathered around and I prayed as they pulled the plug. I watched her die as her family around her cried. It was a sacred, powerful moment.
The moments captured in these videos are sacred, powerful moments as well, but they are sacred, powerful moments marred by inexcusable violence. These men were robbed of a peaceful end, of closure with family and friends.
Imagine if that was you in about thirty minutes. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were equally oblivious to their impending deaths a half hour prior to the events. What thoughts go through the mind of someone like that lying on the sidewalk or slumped over in their car, covered in their blood, feeling intense pain as their final sensation? I can’t even fathom.
So here are the links. If you don't feel up to watching these videos, I don't blame you, because they are disturbing to say the least. But I do think it’s important that people bear witness to these men’s deaths, just as I bore witness to the death of a woman in a sterile, air-conditioned hospital room.
The death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 5, 2016
The death of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota on July 6, 2016
As I watched these videos, the white noise from a baby monitor registered in the background. My two year old son is currently peacefully sleeping in his room, surrounded by stuffed animals, the soft whirr of a fan blowing over his little body in a gray sleep sack. Every ounce of me wants to sneak into that bedroom right now and cradle him, kiss his head, hold him tight to my chest. He’s small enough now that I can carry him without much effort, and affectionate enough that he invites cuddles and tickles and hugs.
Out of respect for his nap, I haven’t snuck in there (yet). So instead I’m sitting on my bed, tears streaming down my face, wiping my eyes so I can see the computer screen. I feel like I have to write these words now, while the horror is still raw.
You see, my son is small enough now that I can carry him when we cross parking lots or walk through crowds. His mom and I can choose what he’s allowed to eat and when he gets put down for bedtime and where we go during the day. But there’s going to be a day in the surprisingly-near future when he’s making those decisions for himself, and then he’ll be out with friends or a girlfriend or a spouse or his own kids, he’ll be driving himself, he’ll be running errands by himself. And I won’t be able to cradle him or protect him anymore.
And frankly, it seems those everyday things are going to be a lot more dangerous for him than they are for me. My son is mixed race, the child of a black mother and a white father. Maybe he looks white enough that he won’t be in danger, but maybe he won’t. (The fact that I even have to gauge that difference is perverse.)
I wrote on this subject years ago, before I even had a son. After Trayvon Martin was killed, I wrote a blog post where I took on some of these issues, and even framed it in terms of my relationship to my children one day. Now I do have a son, and I understand the depth of that fear for my kid’s safety to a degree I couldn’t have imagined before.
I remember my parents having a talk with me about the police when I was young. “If you’re pulled over, be respectful, show them your information, don’t argue. If something happens and you get taken in for something that you feel is wrong, just go along with the officers and we will come and we will help you sort it out.” The possibility of being shot did not come up in the conversation.
I’m going to have a talk with my son and whatever other children I have about the police one day, too. It’s not going to be so simple. It’s almost like trying to teach a script when you don’t know what play they’re going to have to perform. Should you explain your case, calmly? Should you simply be silent? Should you ask the office to clarify what he means if you’re not sure what he wants you to do? “Well, do your best, but you still might get shot. Sorry.”
I just hope you (and I) realize that these shootings are not abstract. These are concrete realities. These are real men (and women and boys and girls) dying when others probably would not have died.
These are not incidents confined to a particular area. Castile died in St. Paul, Minnesota. Sterling died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Trayvon Martin died in Sanford, Florida. Michael Brown died in Ferguson, Missouri. Freddie Gray died in Baltimore, Maryland. Walter Scott died in North Charleston, South Carolina. Eric Garner died in Staten Island, New York. John Crawford died in Beavercreek, Ohio. Dante Parker died in Victorville, California. Rumain Brisbon died in Phoenix, Arizona. Sadly, the list goes on much longer, with many other locations across the USA.
These are also not incidents committed by unhinged racists. In the video of Castile’s shooting, a man who I assume is the officer that fired the shots can be heard frantically screaming profanity over and over after Castile’s girlfriend is taken out of the car. I don’t believe he was a vengeful racist out to kill a black man. But kill a black man he did – as have many other officers of various ethnic backgrounds, who probably have diverse perspectives and relationships with African-Americans and other minorities.
So clearly, the problem here is not to simply get rid of racist cops. These conversations inevitably have a backlash: “But most police officers are good cops trying to do their jobs! You try making that life-or-death decision in the blink of an eye!” Black Lives Matter spurred the reactionary Blue Lives Matter, as if the two are mutually exclusive. There, in that binary, lies the predicament – and it’s a predicament that has claimed the lives of many black people.
The real task is to reevaluate and challenge an entire system that promotes (deliberately or not) responses colored by race. I can almost guarantee you that if I was pulled over and told and officer, “Yes sir, I will get my ID to show you, but my wallet is in my back pocket and I have a legal concealed carry with me,” I’m probably not going to get shot.
The problem is not with the individual who is openly bigoted – the problem is seeing things tinted in a certain direction. I had a professor in seminary who was fond of the metaphor, “It’s the water we’re swimming in.” We (and by “we” I generally mean “typical white Americans”) don’t even realize the racism because we’re accustomed to it.
So maybe if we truly value our police officers and want to do right by them in these horrific situations, they need to be set free to choose not to shoot. They – as do we all – need new eyes to see and recognize danger and risk in a way that doesn’t result in a rate of black men killed by cops being five times higher than that of white men, as was the case in 2015.
No, I don’t know the solution. But I do think identifying and naming the problem is probably step one.
And the fact of the matter is, I think I can understand those people who brush off these killings are overblown racially-charged nonsense.
If I didn’t have a black son, I wouldn’t be afraid when I think about him getting pulled over a police officer at some point in his life.
If I didn’t have black friends from seminary, I wouldn’t be seeing their heartbroken laments posted on Facebook every time something like this happens.
If we didn’t have a black babysitter (whose family is from Nigeria), I wouldn’t have had the experience of consoling her after she showed up a half hour late to our home because she got pulled over without being given a reason and had her car searched.
In short: if I didn’t know many black people, I might not take this seriously. And shame on me for that.
So I guess my biggest plea in writing this is for those of you that I know who may not have deep relationships with black people. You may not know many African-Americans, but if you’re reading this, you probably know me.
Please: Recognize the problem. Speak the names of the deceased. Acknowledge it when you see signs of this happening. Be open to the possibility that this isn’t just a sad string of events, but that there is a pattern, and that pattern needs to be broken.
And pray. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, pray that the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus. And to paraphrase the Prophet Amos, pray that justice will roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream.
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