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<\/a>by Matthew Vega<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nBlack uprisings have become an annual part of our media diet in the news. In 2014, our nation\u2019s greatest evils resurfaced as our attention was focused on a city just outside of St. Louis, Missouri: Ferguson. The threefold beast that Dr. King warned us about \u2013 racism, poverty, and militarization \u2013 demanded our attention once again as we were forced to reckon with a racially and economically segregated ghetto occupied by a hyper-militarized police force and National Guard. Eight months after Ferguson, we watched our Robocop officers enforce law and order in Baltimore;<\/span> now here we are in Milwaukee<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to<\/span> Mapping Police Violence<\/span><\/a>, the only existing database that tracks police violence, at least 346 black people were killed in 2015. There are 8,760 hours in a year (24 x 365). This means, on average, a black person is killed by the police every 25.3179 hours (8,760\/346). \u00a0Police violence is only one of many entanglements in this web of oppression on poor communities of color. Huffington Post published an article on the worst states for Black Americans, and<\/span> Wisconsin was number one<\/span><\/a>. Another article by CityLab released an interactive article<\/span> on Black neighborhoods in Wisconsin<\/span><\/a>, looking at Madison and Milwaukee in particular. The article revealed that half of Wisconsin\u2019s Black neighborhoods are jails. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sheriff David Clarke<\/span><\/a> of Milwaukee has become the voice of opposition to the BlackLivesMatter movement and poor communities of color expressing public outrage over police violence in America. And for many, his voice carries authority because he\u2019s black. He has<\/span> tweeted<\/span><\/a> that #BlackLivesMatter will \u201cjoin forces\u201d with ISIS, he has denounced the movement as anti-cop and he regularly pathologizes Black residents in poor communities of color by talking about \u201cculture,\u201d \u201cvalues,\u201d and \u201cfather figures\u201d that play the key role to the development of these communities. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In her masterful work<\/span> From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation,<\/span><\/a> Princeton Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor dedicates an entire chapter to the strategic burgeoning of the Black middle class in America and its relationship to poor and working-class Black populations in America. She details the expansion of government jobs accessible to poor blacks during the Nixon era and the function of Blacks given access to positions of political power: \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The destruction and instability rebellions had caused over the course of the decade softened the political elite to the idea that more Black control and ownership within the cities might help to calm the rebellious Black population. Given the conservative starting point of many Black elected officials today, it is hard to see how this turn to electoral politics could be considered radical or even relevant. (83)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, Black elected officials play strategic roles to squelch rebellion in desperate areas. Their status as political players vindicates American capitalism and legitimizes the state\u2019s notion that blacks need to try harder to make it in America. This is not anything new; Baltimore became a focal point of Black political scapegoating as the political authority rested disproportionately in the hands of Black leaders. Again, Taylor writes:<\/p>\n What distinguishes Baltimore from Ferguson and North Charleston is that the Black political establishment runs the city: African Americans control virtually the entire political apparatus. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and police commissioner Anthony Batts were the most prominent faces of political power in Baltimore during the rebellion, but Black power runs deep in the city: Baltimore\u2019s city council has fifteen members, eight of whom are African American, including its president. The superintendent of the public schools and the entire board of the city\u2019s housing commission are African American\u2026 If the murder of Mike Brown and the rebellion in Ferguson were reminiscent of the old Jim Crow, then the murder of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore uprising symbolize the new Black political elite. (77)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As Christians committed to truth and justice, our prayers have become desperate: Lord, where are you? How have those who have sworn to protect us, speak for us; to represent us and our struggle turn around and hurt us? Lord, whom do we turn to? And it turns out that our Lord was familiar with our pain. Indeed, Jesus was no stranger to racial\/native tokenizing as a means to subdue an oppressed people. \u00a0Jesus was no stranger to racial\/native tokenizing as a means to subdue an oppressed people.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tokenism is pervasive in American dialogue. Consider activist<\/span> DeRay McKesson\u2019s appearance<\/span><\/a> on Fox News\u2019 \u201cHannity.\u201d DeRay was interviewed to discuss his role as an activist, while Hannity\u2019s black guest Kevin Jackson chided DeRay calling him a \u201crace pimp and race hustler.\u201d The meritocratic myth is pervasive in America and it functions to validate the status of one\u2019s place on the social ladder: if you\u2019re poor, it\u2019s your own fault; if you\u2019re rich, you\u2019ve taken advantage of the \u201copportunities\u201d in America. However, tokenism doesn\u2019t only serve to promote the narratives of the state, it also serves to scapegoat the leader of given society who is responsible for \u201ckeeping the peace\u201d in a given community. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In his historical work on the Greco-Roman world, New Testament historian James Jeffers provides us with similar dynamics regarding the social situation of Jesus\u2019 time. King Herod, the \u201chalf-Jew\u201d, was also granted political authority to rule over Judea, as a client-king, or representative of an area at risk of rebellion. In<\/span> The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era<\/span><\/a>, Jeffers writes: \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The governors of Judea came from a group of imperial administrators, named procurators or prefects used to govern relatively small areas, that required special treatment. For the most part this meant quasimilitary governing of newly acquired \u00a0areas, or of peoples considered potentially rebellious. Mauritania, the island of Sardinia, Egypt, and several districts in the Alps were governed by procurators. Procurators were taken from the order just below the senatorial, the equestrian. Before A.D. 44 these governors, like Pontius Pilate, were called prefects\u2026 A number of territories, especially in the eastern part of the Empire, were governed by client kings [Herod]. These were native [emphasis mine] dynasties approved by Rome, who ruled with one eye on their people and the other on Rome\u2026\u201d (113-14)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Sadly, some of the fiercest purveyors and custodians of white supremacy, racism, meritocracy, and respectability are black and brown folks; and some of the fiercest purveyors and custodians of patriarchy, sexism, and purity\/shame culture are women. \u00a0As their allegiance remains with empire, their politics remain oppressive. This was sister, Jill Stein\u2019s<\/span> case against the feminism of Hillary<\/span><\/a>. \u00a0And the oppressive policy and rhetoric causes the little ones to demand justice, and sometimes in the most extreme and harmful ways. In his letter from Birmingham jail, Martin Luther King describes this phenomenon of resistance to the clergymen: \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n