Dear friends,
The other night, Andie and I watched the movie “A Star is Born.” The song that got all the airtime from that movie is “Shallow,” but there’s another song in the movie that I liked better. It’s by Jason Isbell (and performed in the movie by Bradley Cooper), and it’s called “Maybe It’s Time.”
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
It takes a lot to change a man;
Hell, it takes a lot to try.
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
I had intended to save these thoughts for my annual Rector’s Report next month, but it’s more timely by the day, and it’s weighing heavily on my heart. I want to express clearly what I have alluded to in a couple of recent
YouTube
reflections: one of the most troubling aspects of this pandemic is the way in which it has laid bare the racial inequality that pervades every structure of our American life. The death rates for African Americans and Latinos are 2-3 times that of white people. For Native peoples, it’s even worse. This is not because members of those communities aren’t being cautious. It’s also not simply because they are more prone to pre-existing health conditions, although that is part of the story. Rather, it is a result of historical, structural disparities in employment, education, housing, health care, and more.
Thanks to generations of legislated discrimination in this country, communities of color disproportionately populate underserved neighborhoods and under-resourced school districts. As a consequence, they also occupy the lowest rungs of the employment ladder. That puts them on the (hidden) front lines in this crisis – working in grocery stores and poultry plants, cleaning hospitals and factories, driving trucks and loading warehouses. They are the first to lose health insurance when they need it most and the first to lose their jobs when they can least afford it. They are more likely to live in close quarters in substandard housing, and more likely to have diabetes because they can’t afford fresh produce and can’t access grocery stores that won’t locate in their neighborhoods. This is the manifestation of structural racism and white privilege. These are the historical realities that a large number of us studied and discussed as part of the Sacred Ground curriculum explored during the St. Andrew’s Adult Forum last fall. We knew that these inequalities existed, and the coronavirus is exposing them in stark and deadly ways (
see the attached article
).
At the very same time, the past month has brought three instances of outrageous racialized violence with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. I won’t detail the three stories here because you can easily research them. Two were the result of criminally unjust violence by police officers, and the third involved a weeks-long cover-up by county officials. But the wheels of justice are turning far too slowly; in fact, I’ve just had to edit this message at the last minute because it looks like street protests are escalating in Minneapolis. Of course, we can’t condone the kind of property destruction these riots are likely to cause, but how much more should we condemn the destruction of life that wrought them?
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that riots are the language of the unheard. What else are people of color to do when their cries for justice go unanswered again and again? There is simply no excuse for this kind of police brutality, and it must be met with fast consequences and forceful condemnation. If not, it serves to reinforce the subjugation of communities of color – the very subjugation that fostered the historical inequalities so vividly on display during this pandemic. George Floyd died after crying “I can’t breathe!” while a police officer’s knee pinned down his neck. It’s a tragic image and a startling metaphor: in this pandemic and in daily life, people of color in this country literally can’t breathe.
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die. Our country’s legacy of racial injustice must be unraveled and dismantled – just as systematically as it was constructed. It must die, so that a new society can emerge – something that more closely resembles the beloved community envisioned by Jesus, proclaimed by Paul, and contextualized by Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, and so many others. It is up to us to do this work. If we are going to be true to our mission, to the values of the gospel and the call of Matthew 25 laid out in our stained-glass windows, then churches like ours should lead in this effort. The broader church is already leading through people like William Barber, Traci Blackmon, Kelly Brown Douglas, and our own Presiding Bishop, Michael Curry.
So what can we do? If you did not join our Sacred Ground conversations last fall, I am happy to share those resources with you so that you can educate yourself and get involved, even from home while we are semi-quarantined.
I have attached some recommendations for further reading, listening, and action;
we also have weeks’ worth of articles and videos available. Please know that I am doing what I can in broader church and community channels as well. We have made a discretionary gift to support the Latino community on the Eastern Shore, which has been disproportionately impacted by the virus. We are continuing donations to the Foodbank, and we have distributed masks to the guests in the Catholic Worker food line. I am working with Hands United Building Bridges (HUBB) to determine any local disparities in services/outcomes during the pandemic and ways we might help. I have begun a dialogue with the Bishop’s Office about long-term opportunities to push for racial justice on the Diocesan level. When we are able to gather again, I will look for ways that we can coordinate with other area churches and organizations to pursue this work together.
We have heard it said that things won’t be the same after this pandemic; it is going to be a “new normal.” For the sake of people of color in this country and in our own community, I sure hope so. It’s up to us to make that happen. People of color are tired of fighting for their right to live and work and breathe. My black colleagues in HUBB have said it plainly, and they’re right: white folks need to take the lead in confronting and dismantling systems of racial inequality. It’s long past time to let the old ways die.
Faithfully,
John Rohrs
