Have Courage To Intervene Against Racist Aggression | Commentary

By  JOEL C. HUNTER I GUEST COLUMNIST I ORLANDO SENTINEL 

JUN 01, 2020 | A good young white pastor called me, a pastor for 50 years, and said, “I feel that to not address what happened to George Floyd would be pastoral malfeasance. How do I deal respectfully with very conservative [white] elders?”

There are unmistakable foundations in the Bible to treat every person with respect. From the first chapter’s pronouncement that we are all made in the image of God to the story of Jesus, who consistently crossed cultural barriers so that he could love those who were denigrated by the majority. Convincing his congregation was not this pastor’s problem; the possibility of contending with the authorities in his church was.

The racism embedded in our daily lives and institutions is so normal that it is unnoticed until some event happens that makes us face it. We know racist aggression isn’t right, so we use excuse language to shift the blame onto others: “The event has nothing to do with our group” and “Well, there are a few bad apples in every system, including the police department.”

But the “bad apples” are not the main problem...the shifting the blame and responsibility for harm to others is. We must face this truth — “Unless I take responsibility and action, I am part of the racism choking the life, the potential, out of my black and brown neighbors, and out of the highest ideals of my faith and our nation.” 

What can we do? Intervene. 

I was in a house church last Sunday led by an African American pastor who is also a brilliant engineer. The subject came up, “Why did not the other officers or someone from the crowd physically intervene to stop the policeman from choking George Floyd who was in obvious physical distress?”

Would any of us have the courage to physically interrupt that crushing knee on the victim’s neck? Our black pastor admitted that he would be reluctant because he knew he would be next. I would like to think I would have rushed the officer, but I’m not sure. What would you have done?

Until we are resolved to intervene in events of bullying and attacks on defenseless people, the powerful will continue to choke the vulnerable.

Peer intervention can be the most effective personal activism each of us can employ. Just as the three other officers could be charged as accessories to murder, any of us in a crowd surrounding such an attack should see ourselves as accessories if we don’t intervene.

Even if an attack is only verbal, we are complicit. Laughing at a racist joke, or the silence that keeps us accepted because we didn’t object, demand this question: “If I go along with this denigration, does that make me an accessory to bullying or worse?”

No one has as much influence on family and friends and even acquaintances as a peer who says, “Stop it," and then intervenes if the behavior continues. We don’t need to take into consideration people’s motives before we interrupt people’s bad behavior, whether that behavior is physical or verbal.

I was a part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. I was a part of the protest marches against discrimination. The great civil rights laws were passed both in 1964 and 1968 after nationwide protests persisted.

I am thankful for, and participating in, some of the protests that are continuing after the killing of George Floyd. Yet, more significant change will come when on a personal level we protest and intervene as necessary on the knee-on-the-neck comments or actions of our peers.

We each are “yearning to breathe free” of that which chokes out our highest potential as a person and as a nation. We can breathe free again when we start defending and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Joel C. Hunter is chairman of the Community Resource Network and retired pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed.