Rhetoric Race and Religion
On Monday afternoon at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina, school resource officer Ben Fields assaulted a 15 year old student while she sat in her seat in class. Many in social media expressed outrage. We here at R3 collected some of those reflections and expressions below. If you would like to share a reflection, please email us at [email protected]
Christianity that cannot or refuses to express MORAL OUTRAGE over the violent and repulsive manner in which officer Ben Fields assaulted a high school student in South Carolina is NOT Christianity at all. Its god is not the God of the Bible, its god is empire. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” means relinquishing your tax-exempt status—not your voice for justice.-Fredrick Robinson, R3 Contributor
What does it mean to be a Colored Woman (Still Living) in a White World (Mary Church Terrell, 1940)? You spend the entire morning arguing with folks about what the female Black student Should have done and not what the White police officer Did! And you walk away and shake your head, you mutter #BlackLivesMatter and kick a rock, you wonder who are these people and why are they taking up your air, you question rules and authority and the law and what it means to be a lawbreaker, you think about the fact that you are raising Black boys in this same White world, you say you can’t give up – you won’t give in and you won’t/can’t let them win, you realize (with a sigh) that when folks say #AllLivesMatter they really mean All Lives but Black Lives, and then you get your pen – you write it down cuz somebody somewhere has got to bear witness!-Karsonya Wise Whitehead
I have been emotionally spent all day, all up in my feelings and justice sensibilities regarding the brutality this black woman child was subjected to by this piece of $&?# grown ass white male cop! If she had been a dog being treated in this manner this nation would be carrying on like Hitler had risen from the dead! These damn “Brown Shirts” in blue are bigoted terrorists being protected by the head looking the other way of America! The silence is VILE!!! This legally protected violation of human and civil rights is damnable! Don’t tell me a mummy fummy thing about this being the land of the free… I hope the God of justice issues wrath!!! If you aren’t disturbed by this please unfriend me! Whether you think so or not BLACK LIVES MATTER!!! America will come to know it one way or another! It will reap what it sows! Why are white cops policing black children like slave overseers? Unfriend me if this doesn’t disturb you because you are like filthy rags to me!-T Renée Crutcher
It’s Tuesday. I prayerfully ask every pastor/preacher proclaiming the Word on Sunday morning to consider preaching a Black girl’s pain. There are numerous texts that deal with this explicitly. I challenge every pastor to seek God for a message that wrestles with the condition of Black girls in America and reminds them of a God who is present. I know many have their sermons set for the month and many don’t like to be “told” what to preach. Yet, after the Trayvon Martin verdict, several pastors were on a conference call discussing what they would say in that moment. Many pastors, after a shooting of a Black man or non-indictment of an officer, have taken to the pulpit to preach a word- an often hard word- in that moment. Unfortunately, the same can not be said to have happened after the murders of Renisha McBride, Rekia Boyd, Tanisha Williams, Sandra Bland, Miriam Carey and the countless other Black women who were killed at the hands of state violence or by someone they knew and loved. So, I’m asking: Pastors, can you preach a word to and for Black girls on Sunday?-Candice Marie Benbow
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