As of this writing America continues to process the images of both non-violent and violent protest in Baltimore in the wake of the death of Freddie Gray from injuries suffered while in police custody. These are images that the nation has become all too familiar with through the upsurge in cell phone videos. Due to the killings of unarmed blacks such as Walter Scott and 12-year-old Tamir Rice being caught on camera, America has been forced to confront the depth to which our police forces have been militarized. As another American city struggles with the legacy of racism and economic deprivation, I am reminded of the Gospel of Luke when Jesus wept for the city because they did not recognize the things that make for peace (Luke 19:42). Further along in the narrative, as Jesus is led away to the cross, he looks to the weeping women and says, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children” (Luke 23:28). In this powerful moment, the death and broken body of Jesus are intertwined with the impending demise of Jerusalem. The words of Jesus confront us with the uncomfortable truth that the unrest in our cities is inseparable from our inability to recognize the justice that makes for peace. Moreover, these images are the markers of an America public life profoundly shaped by mass incarceration. Here I intend to give a brief account of the militarization of the police that was so critical to the War on Drugs and its implications for the Christian faith.
America currently has nearly 2.2 million people in prisons and jails with a total of nearly 7 million under some form of correctional supervision, a magnitude now referred to as mass incarceration. According to sentencing projections, this represents a 500 percent increase over the past 20 years. Furthermore, this burden disproportionality falls upon African Americans and Latino Americans. In addition to the pain that mass incarceration inflicts upon families and exacerbating social ills, the incarcerated often lose the two primary markers of social standing in American history: voting and employment. Sociologists such as Bruce Western have persuasively argued that mass incarceration has effectively funneled individuals into a low-wage labor market. However, if such harms are well documented, it raises the question as to the persistence of mass incarceration. What beliefs do we hold that allow this social practice to persist? The examination of such beliefs I believe is a deeply relevant for Christian faith and public witness.
The intersection of race and punishment in America stretches back to the heart of Puritan New England where the execution sermon, a sermonic tradition, emerged. The execution of a criminal was a significant event in the life of the colonial community. Execution sermons were designed to identify the condemned as partakers in the reality of original sin and guilt and to evoke confession and repentance. American studies scholars such as Richard Slotkin have documented that the execution sermon was a tightly woven web of family, state and cosmos paternally organized and pervaded by the will of God. The image of the criminal was that of an ungrateful, disobedient child whose offense to society must be punished by the state by which they received their just desserts in hell. This web of criminality, punishment, family, society and cosmos became even clearer if the offender was black.
In the case of a black offender, the execution sermon served as a warning: a warning that blacks were not fit for freedom. Their actions were seen as a form of ingratitude for having been delivered from savagery and service to Satan into the light of Christian understanding. Not only was a black offender viewed as a stand-in for the entire race, any criminal act committed by a black person was seen as an inordinate desire for freedom. More importantly, this desire for freedom was viewed as a threat to the fabric of the well-ordered society, as imaged by John Winthrop’s “a city upon a hill.” Thus, execution sermons are consistent with scholar Saidiya Hartman’s claim that slaves were recognized as reasoning subjects with intent and rationality solely in the context of criminal liability with their will only acknowledged as it was punished or prohibited. This criminalization of blacks was supported by the stereotyping of blacks as animals and criminals. The perennial images of black men and women as bestial with unrestrained sexuality, diminished capacity for reason and a culture unfit for political participation were seen as natural differences that justified natural inequality.
Decades later, the 1960s backlash against movements for social change provided fertile ground for the militarization of the police which left a decisive mark on the War on Drugs. After many years of animosity between blacks and William Parker, the chief of the Los Angeles Police, the 1965 traffic stop of Marquette Frye by officer Lee Minikus resulted in the city of Watts burning for six days. While Americans were glued to the television set for five nights, 13,500 troops were called in from California’s National Guard. A young police officer, Daryl Gates, was present during this infamous riot. Gates describes his experience of the Watts riots as “having been involved in guerilla warfare.” As such, he made the fateful decision to reach out to the U.S. military for guidance. Gates worked to develop new police units that received specialized military training. He came up with a new name for the unit: the Special Weapons Attack Team. His superior, Ed Davis, immediately rejected it saying they would never use the word “attack” as a civilian police force. He quickly suggested another option, Special Weapons and Tactics. We know this now as the SWAT team. While the name changed, the intent stayed the same and Gates’ militaristic vision for the police would touch every city in America.
Then-president Richard Nixon’s shrewd exploitation of a white middle class America that felt under siege helped forge a path for Gates’ vision. Nixon gathered images of the civil rights movement, antiwar protests and hippies into an overarching theme of criminality. In 1969, Newsweek ran this headline: “The Troubled American: A Special Report on the White Majority.” The report noted that 85 percent of whites thought black militants were getting off too easily, 65 percent thought that unemployed blacks were more likely to get government aid than unemployed whites, and 66 percent though that the police should be given more power; more than half thought the country had moved backward, and nearly 60 percent thought things were getting worse. An all too familiar theme was birthed: the sentiment that there was not enough punishment, not enough police power and too much government aid.
The images of blacks as animals and criminals would once again be central to President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs, a virtual religious crusade to defend the “city on the hill” he often invoked in speeches. During a 1981 meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in New Orleans, Louisiana, Reagan cast a vision for policing in America. In his speech, Reagan painted a picture of the primary culprit for crime as the youthful offender between the ages of 18 and 21 who was a “human predator,” a phrase that played on the ambiguity of an animal in nature unable to participate in society as well as on a rational, calculating career criminal deserving punishment. During the War on Drugs, such images would multiply in the public sphere to include “crackheads” and teenage “super-predators” who were unable to develop a conscience since they were born to addicted mothers who lacked maternal instinct. Charles Krauthammer’s article “Children of Cocaine,” published in the Washington Post in 1989, said these youth represented a “bio-underclass” and a menace to the future. Such images were firmly embedded in a political philosophy that argued government spending on housing, education and other social programs was not relevant to issues of crime. Moreover, the lack of swift justice for those accused of a crime increased government bureaucracy. The War on Drugs effectively exploited racism to weave a deft combination of politics, punishment and prisons to contain consequences of deepening social misery.
The most enduring image of the militarization of the police in the War on Drugs was given once again by Daryl Gates. Gates was frustrated that while Los Angeles officially embraced the city’s SWAT teams, the city was still squeamish about having armored vehicles in the streets and denied Gates’ requests for armored vehicles for years. After the 1984 Olympic Games a number of armored personnel carriers formerly used by the Department of Energy were obtained. They were painted blue and “RESCUE VEHICLE” was painted on their sides. The real purpose, however, was not rescue but an attempt to overcome Gates’ frustration with heavily fortified crack houses that required too much time to enter. One of Gates’ subordinates suggested attaching a battering ram to the front of one of the armored cars. In February of 1985, this new vehicle debuted by punching a hole in the side of the house. The SWAT team moved in to find two women and three children eating ice cream — and no drugs. While there was substantial outcry from civil liberties organizations, Gates was defiant, promising to bring the battering ram to every crack house in the city. The disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine became one of the enduring symbols of the War on Drugs. The battering ram that was disproportionately used in poor and minority communities ensured that the War on Drugs was not a mere metaphor. The Christian tradition has a name for life and death consequences of racism and its role in the militarization of the police: idolatry.
The late theologian Edward Farley gave a rich account of idolatry. The Christian tradition has always warned against lifting up anything human to divine status. Farley argued that idols serve to eliminate ambiguity, refuse corruptibility and always exact a high cost. The dynamics of idolatry are witnessed in the video of Rodney King suffering one of the most infamous occasions of police brutality. In 1991, King received 56 baton blows, a split lip, a partially paralyzed face, nine skull fractures, a broken cheek bone, a shattered eye socket and a broken leg. It is critical to note that when the infamous video of Rodney King’s beating was shown in the courtroom, he became larger than life. Officer Stacey C. Koon referred to King as a “monster-like figure akin to the Tasmanian Devil” from “a monster movie.” He went on to argue that King was in control of the officers and of the situation. In the courtroom, the audio was stripped erasing the racial and sexual slurs while Koon was allowed to narrate the entire video frame-by-frame. His legs were described as “cocked” and his arms as in a “trigger” position. Describing King’s limbs as lethal weapons and ascribing to his gestures lethal intent justified him as an imminent threat legitimating lethal force.
The proceedings represent a false historicity, one of the major consequences of idolatry. Farley argues that a false historicity is not a factual error in reporting, but misunderstands the relationship between recollection and reproduction, meaning and motive, actions and acts. The idolatry of racism is at the core of the ritual drama of having to establish the evidence that unarmed blacks were not the cause of their own death. One of the perennial tasks of the Christian faith is to bring before God the gods we have made for ourselves. Racism and criminalization of blacks is still lurks deep within American public life. To confront it within our communities is to begin to understand the things which make for peace.
There are concrete things that congregations can do. First, congregations can affirm in teaching and preaching our responsibility for our common life through citizen action. In doing so, they acknowledge a commitment to social justice as an indispensible aspect of Christian discipleship. Second, building relationships with local organizers working on criminal justice is critical. These organizers can facilitate educational workshops and help congregations keep abreast of local policies that exacerbate rather than curtail mass incarceration. Finally, as of this writing, President Obama has issued Executive Order 13688, barring certain military-style equipment from use by local police forces and other equipment requiring approval from a civilian governing body. This is an ideal moment and opportunity for congregations to have their voices heard. Congregations can meet with elected officials to find out how to participate in the demilitarization of their local police force.
The hope of the gospel is that even the most profound idolatries are never final. If the tradition of the execution sermon contains the seeds of racism and criminalization that still haunt us, then a new proclamation must expose its ruse and break its hold on our common life. Such a tradition is rooted in proclamation of Jesus that brings good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and frees those who are oppressed (Luke 4:18-19).
CHRISTOPHE D. RINGER is serves as the pastor of Howard Congregational UCC and is visiting professor of religion and philosophy at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee. He is also a New Leaders Council Fellow and is married to Kimberly Peeler-Ringer. You can follow him on Twitter at @ringercd.
