Clergy Connexion July 2022

Dismantling Racism

I still can't breathe...I am not okay

Rev. Leah Burns May 16,2022

It is Ms. Viola Fletcher…108-year-old survivor of the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma mass murder of black people by white people, who is quoted as saying of that tragic event:

“They were killing all the black people.”

Well, as has happened before, Black people were killed on Saturday, May 14, 2022. The accounts that I have read report that a heavily armed, young white man entered a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York and opened fire. By the time the shooter surrendered a short time later, he had shot a total of 13 people, most of them Black, leaving 10 of them dead. The victims were senior citizens, retired law enforcement, churchgoers, grandparents, brothers, and sisters.

The police allowed this man to “peacefully” surrender. They didn’t stomp, or choke-out, or beat down, or pistol whip, or shoot him in the back. Unlike the standard treatment of just about any black or brown “suspect,” they calmly, cuffed him and escorted him to a patrol car.

Prior to the crime, the shooter wrote a 180-page manifesto espousing “Great Replacement Theory (GRT)” and posted it online. In his post, he left no doubt that he intended to target Black people. He even painted the word "n***er" on the assault rifle he used.

In Jemar Tisby’s insightful book, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, the author discusses the “complicity” of white Christians in the racism that has plagued this country and its institutions for centuries. He said it is easy to point to slave traders, plantation owners, and Klan members as the “real racists.” But even though only a small number of people actually commit acts of violence in the name of racism, the ideas that lead to such acts are co-signed by the masses in their silence.

It would be a mistake to write off the Buffalo shooter or any white supremacist extremist as acting in isolation. These individuals devise their deadly plans in community. And so, it is not necessary to pull the trigger on an assault rifle to support and perpetuate white supremacy. All you have to do is look the other way and do nothing.

In June of 2020, the UMC Council of Bishops said, and I quote: “Enough is enough” in the wake of the murders of Mr. George Floyd and several other Black women and men that year. The Bishops went on to say it was time to dismantle racism once and for all. At that time, I heard their words and I dared to dream that maybe this time would be different. I wrote an article for the Holston Conference Clergy Connexion magazine (https://issuu.com/holston-ac/ docs/oct_2020_clergy_services_connexion/6 ), and I included the names of the women and men recently murdered.

But now, here we are almost to June of 2022, and I’m still tired, I’m still scared, and I’m still mad and sad. I am tired of not being able to breathe. How long before we begin to imagine another way and we begin building a better way? When will enough be enough?

Tragically, here I am saying the names of those who were killed because of racism and white supremacy. Here are the names of the individuals murdered in Buffalo…never forget: Mr. Aaron Salter Mr. Andre Macknell Ms. Ruth Whitfield Ms. Pearl Young Ms. Roberta Drury Ms. Katherine Massey Mr. Heyward Patterson Ms. Celestine Chaney Mr. Margus Morrison Ms. Geraldine Talley

I.Still.Can’t.Breathe…I am not okay.