|
There were 8,124 gun murders in the United
States, according to FBI 2014 data. That is approximately 22
per day. In Toledo there have been 28 homicides and over 90
people shot this year alone, as reported by The Blade.
When 25-year-old Lamar Richardson was shot
and killed in North Toledo by police last week, the incident
functions, on a meta level, as the tragedy of loss
experienced by a community living under the constant threat
of violence and without a sense of security.
The truth is that our society does not
typically deal with loss or handle pain well. At least when
it is the pain or loss of “certain people.”
So, after taking time to think over last
week’s tragic shooting I resist the temptation to provide
explanations but instead will offer a few personal
observations.
What We Did Well
A Restrained Response:
Police are often perceived as an occupying
force that is more concerned with serving and protecting
each other than they are of assisting the black community.
Yet, last Friday, our Toledo Police officers, the object of
yelling, anger, criticism, frustration and in-your-face
verbal assaults showed restraint and remained patient while
hundreds of emotional residents tried to come to grips with
what they felt was injustice. This, along with a timely
dashcam video release, was a 180-degree improvement than
their response to a similar incident approximately two weeks
ago during a central city traffic stop.
Until You Grieve You Can’t Heal - McBrayer’s
Intervention:
Too often we neglect grief. We are often
urged to be strong, stand up and don’t cry. However, the
truth is that grief occurs whenever an individual is taken
out of our family or community and unless there is a threat
of harm or damage to individuals or property, the attempt to
arrest the grieving process amounts to violence itself.
Like individuals, communities and
neighborhoods also need to be allowed to grieve and/or vent
without judgment even if their loss was not perfect or fails
to meet the standards of others’. Minister Chris McBrayer
was able to calm an inflamed crowd simply by giving
comforting words and an authentic but compassionate hug to a
distraught family member.
What We Need To Do Better
Understanding Complexities:
Instead of hugging as McBrayer did, too many
of us were using the rhetoric of blame as a weapon; even
before we all of the facts were known. We beat the police
over the head with blame. We pilloried the mayor. We
crucified black faith leaders. We cursed the community. And
we damned the victim publicly calling him a criminal and
robber without also talking about the important and
complicating factors such as mental illness.
The psychological and spiritual health of
black people may be the most devastating issue of our
current situation. We need to learn more from black experts
about our psychological well-being, which is unique and
distinct in many ways from the emotional needs of others.
Know Where “You Is”
The rural North Carolina born,
Harvard-educated preacher Joe Ratliff once told me and a
group of faith leaders: “Always know where you is!” Ratliff
was talking about pastors understanding the context and
makeup of the churches they were attempting to lead. But the
principle applies to a variety of other settings.
Knowing where “you is” means understand that
we are a society awash in a flood of guns and a community of
neighborhoods saturated with crime. So it behooves us to
support both the police and Black Lives Matter. We need the
police to respond to our calls for help. Yet, as professor
Gerald Horne has said, “we still have unresolved issues of
race and inadequate discussion about the legacy of slavery,
Jim Crow and white supremacy that helps to portray black
people as criminals which inevitable leads to their
slaughter.”
What We Can Do Now
Testing the Commitment:
At the mayor’s inauguration this year, I held
a prayer service where many faith leaders and community
members joined the mayor in praying for our city to come
together, put past divisions behind and move into a future
that can be sustainable and just. Mayor Kapszukiewicz
publicly pledged and promised a future in Toledo where the
justice and dignity of every person is to be upheld.
While there are still some ambiguities
surrounding the facts of last week’s shooting, the incident
remains a test to the mayor’s commitment and evidence that
prayer is not passive but willful action.
As further facts emerge, we must remember
that our mission of bringing our community together remains
the same imperative that it has always been. We must move
toward the truth together.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
|
