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The American Reformation

April 8, 2016 Hannah Adair Bonner Leave a comment

PART 1: The American Reformation Begins

Not all Revolutions begin with a Declaration, and not all Reformations begin with a list of Theses. The Reformation of the Methodist church in the United States began with prayer.

In 1787, ten years after Thomas Jefferson penned the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” Richard Allen and Absalom Jones came to the recognition that these words though ambitious in scope were incomplete in execution. These ideals, impressive as they sounded, were not truly intended to include all people.

On July 12, 1787, the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia,the city where Allen and Jones were pastors, and agreed upon the “Three-Fifths Compromise.” It was a compromise between the Northern States, who did not want African American slaves to be counted as persons in the census, but instead as property; and the Southern States, who did want them to be counted, but only so that they could receive more seats for white men in the legislature. The two sides agreed to compromise and count slaves as 3/5ths of a person.

Within only four years of the establishment of the United States, it was abundantly clear that the nation that had won its independence from Great Britain would not be extending that liberty and equality to all people. The white, land-holding men who held power in the country would continue to treat the indigenous peoples as trespassers on their own land, or rather God’s land, and would continue to hold their brothers and sisters in slavery.

While they said that all men were created equal, that was not how they treated all men, let alone all women. This hierarchy of value, placed upon persons according to their gender and nations of origin, ran contrary to the Christian scriptures. Disappointingly, however, that was not the prevailing narrative told by preachers and theologians of the time.

According to the seventeenth-century English theologian Lancelot Andrewes, “Animals [i.e. indigenous persons of the Americas, Australia and Africa] can have no right of society with us because they want reason.” With respect to land, animals had no rights, Andrewes concluded on biblical grounds, because God had given the earth to humans. Since they had no human rights, they could be exterminated, both in the sense of being driven from land settled by humans and in the sense of being killed, because biblical commandments against theft or murder did not apply to non-humans.” – David Chidester, Savage Systems, p. 14

Although the Methodist movement had been built upon staunch abolitionism in Great Britain, and although it contained many abolitionist preachers within its ranks, within a nation whose economy was built upon this theological falsehood, the new religious movement found itself failing in many places to remain true to what had set it apart.

So it was that Absalom Jones and Richard Allen found that the promises of freedom rang just as false when coming from the church bells of St. George’s as they did when tolling from the nearby Liberty Bell.

At the root of this disconnect was that theological error, that exegetical fraud, that hermeneutical crime – or, as we once called such things – that heresy. The heresy that God did not love all people the same. The abominable heresy that not all people were made fully in the image of God; thus, justifying leaving them out of the words, “all men were created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Thus, allowing the “Three-Fifths Compromise” to go unchallenged on theological grounds.

Falsehood in science, ignorance in philosophy, criminal greed in the economy – yes, all these things played a role. Yet, the betrayal and falsehood that cut most deeply, was the one that was the most unexpected: the betrayal that came from the church. Abolitionist preachers, of all races and ethnicities, did battle to be heard over the more common teachings of preachers that promoted and endorsed the practice of classifying African Americans as only 3/5 of a person and, thus, not made in the full image of God.

If left unchallenged, this social teaching, supported by a false hermeneutic of exclusion rather than inclusion, rang the death toll for any hope of spiritual integrity that the churches of the fledgling nation might have.

Enter the American Reformation.

In November of 1787, just three months after the passing of the “Three-Fifths Compromise,” Richard Allen and Absalom Jones had the courage to take action in the face of theological cowardice just as reformers throughout the centuries had done before them. Rather than nailing the 95 Theses to their churches door, the renowned preachers did what many civil disobedience activists since that time have done: they simply knelt to pray in a place where they were not welcome to do so.

When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knelt in the middle of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, did he know that Jones and Allen had been there before? When leaders of the United Methodist Church were arrested while kneeling in front of the White House to protest the separation of families taking place through deportation last year, did they know that Jones and Absalom had been there before? When we kneel to pray in the driveways of prisons about to execute human beings, or in the streets of places like Ferguson where lives have been lost, do we recognize that Jones and Allen have been there before?

With a simple act of kneeling to pray in a place that God had called them to pray, yet man had denied them the right to pray, these leaders sparked the American Reformation within the Methodist movement.

The response they received was not unlike those received by practitioners of civil disobedience today.

When they knelt to pray at the front of the church, rather than in the balcony where the white members preferred them to pray, they were pulled to their feet and told to go pray where they belonged; receiving treatment much the same as practitioners of civil disobedience today. Their response, so the story goes, was to respond that they intended to finish their prayers and then would bother the congregation of St. George’s no more. That is exactly what they did.

Absalom Jones walked out and went on to eventually found the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AMEZ). Richard Allen walked out and went on to found the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC). Sixty years after, Laroy Sunderland and Orange Scott walked out and founded the Wesleyan Methodist Church. A hundred years later, more leaders down in Tenessee would walk out of their church and founded what is now called the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church (CME).

Richard Allen had been present at the actual establishment of the denomination, The Christmas Conference in 1784. Yet he had been restricted to preaching at 5:00 a.m. early services at St. George’s Methodist rather than the regular Sunday services, and disrespected until walking out of that church was the only way he saw to be faithful – the only way to continue the movement, both of Christ and of Wesley.

For the past decade of my ministry, I have looked to this example as the root of a Reformation that began, at least in the Methodist movement, with Allen and Jones, and continues to our day. That Reformation, I would argue, quite possibly holds equal importance to the one begun by Martin Luther. The fundamental truth that all people are made in the image of God, and all people hold equal value in God’s sight, has perhaps just as much to do with our relationship with God and with one another as Luther’s sola fide.

Historically, we have not called Allen and Jones reformers, most likely because we have not recognized that their actions have universal importance; not only for African Americans, but also for all people. The men made this clear in addressing their voices to the nation as a whole:

If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of love, clear your hands from slaves, burden not your children or your country with them” -Richard Allen, To Those Who Keep Slaves and Approve the Practice

In fact, the men were so serious about their theology of love, that when given the opportunity put it to the test, during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793, Allen and Jones organized their followers to care for the dying white citizens of Philadelphia while other white citizens fled the city.They did not allow the cruelty of others to impact their own integrity and theological consistency.

The question arises, why have we been so slow to follow the leadership of Jones and Allen, who insisted upon being treated as children of God and as no lesser than their fellow human beings? Why have we been so hesitant to join our voices with theirs in condemning the heresy of a hierarchy of humanity: not only in philosophy, but also in practice? Why have we been hesitant to vocally acknowledge, repent and confront the inherently corrupting sin of racism?

The American Reformation began over 200 years ago, it is time for us to finish it.

PART 2: The American Counter-Reformation

When the need for Reformation makes leaving the only option for some, it also makes staying the only option for others. Every movement, revolution, and theological shift creates multiple roles that must be fulfilled. These roles work together to bring about change throughout society.

Therefore, every reform movement that has a lasting and universal impact involves not only those who are called to walk out as a statement of their theological disagreement, but also those who feel that they, at least for a time, are called to stay and work for change from within.

One of the Roman Catholic responses to Martin Luther’s Reformation was what we now call the Counter-Reformation. In many ways, the Counter-Reformation was not a response that moved away from Luther’s criticisms, it was a response that mainly moved with them and addressed them. It turned the focus of the church away from indulgences and towards faith development, as Luther had desired. Without acknowledging the fact, the Counter-Reformation followed Luther’s lead from within the Roman Catholic Church, even after he had departed from it.

Any description of the American Reformation, thus, that leaves out those who stayed within racist institutions and fought to change them would be incomplete, would be dishonoring of their labor, and would be quite discouraging to those still laboring. The story of the American Reformation must include those who believed in Wesley’s principle that “there is no holiness without social holiness” and worked with every ounce of their strength to end injustice and inequality.

There has always been a social component to Reformation, because our actions are symptoms of our theology, and the systems we put in place reveal our understanding of the nature of God.

Martin Luther’s concern for the hard working peasants of Germany in the 16th century, who lived in poverty while sacrificing to buy indulgences from the church, created distance between himself and the Roman Catholic Church.

John Wesley’s concern for the workers in the field, the destitute in the streets, the miners in their shafts, and those suffering in prison created distance between his movement and the Church of England.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Richard Allen and Absalom Jones’ concern for those suffering in cruel slavery created a rift between themselves and the Methodist Episcopal Church (now called the United Methodist Church).

Yet, they were not alone in their indignation. There were many that stayed and used that same righteous indignation to fight for change from within, and who also taught a theology that proclaimed the full humanity and dignity of all people.

In what is now called the United Methodist Church, those people would include: the staunch abolitionists of the 18th and 19th centuries. People like Harry Hosier, an African American preacher who left audiences spellbound. People like John Dixon Long, who risked his life riding onto slave plantations to preach freedom and collect stories of how the slaves were being treated; who was charged with slander and brought to trial by the slave owners when he published the stories in a book called “Pictures of Slavery.”

They would include the African American leaders that insisted, 100 years after Allen’s departure, that African American congregations should not have to submit to white Senior Pastors and trustees, and formed their own Annual Conference within the denomination: the Delaware Conference, an institution that would serve an important role until deeper changes were possible.

They would even include those members of the laity and clergy who labor today in the #BlackLivesMatter movement and who work to fight racism in the pews through activism and education, with the support of The General Commission on Religion and Race.

This work will not be finished until everyone in our pulpits and in our pews understands that we stand as equals in front of both God and one another.

Furthermore, the work of many churches will not even begin until they recognize that this is a conversation that needs to be had. Five hundred years of racist theology being taught in this nation will not be undone in a mere fifty; furthermore, we would be foolish to believe that the teaching of racist theology ended fifty years ago.

So what can we do as leaders, and for many of us as specifically United Methodist leaders?

First, we must celebrate and learn from the “Counter-Reformation” that has been taking place within our churches for the past two hundred years. We must celebrate the work of those persons of indigenous descent that have labored and still labor to bring accountability within the United Methodist Church. We must celebrate the work of those African American leaders who have been and continue to be bold enough to speak truth to power. We must acknowledge that our institution’s problem with racism has received a new nuance every time a new group has arrived on our shores or borders; that leaders of many nationalities, all around the world, have been a part of demanding equality and justice; and that the growth of our Korean and Hispanic/Latino ministries within the United States should translate into representation in leadership. We must ask ourselves how a theology of the full humanity and sacred worth of every person should impact the current struggle over the full inclusivity of LGBTQ persons within our movement. Lastly, those of us who are allies must learn from the examples of those who have come before and remember their part in our history.

Second, we could start by shifting our perspective from desiring reunification, to first desiring reformation. We cannot approach any conversation about coming together without first doing the hard theological and practical work that cause denominations to part ways in the first place. We must address the reasons why leaders had to leave our churches to begin with – namely racism and racist teachings.

We must ask ourselves, is it more helpful and authentic to seek to undo the division or to seek to first undo what caused the division?

What would it look like if the United Methodist Church recognized that a Reformation has been taking place, and that perhaps our role is to listen to the call for justice and liberty given by our contemporary Reformers and submit to their leadership?

What if we focused on hearing the voices of young African American leaders in the AME, AMEZ, CME, and UMC the way that crowds from all communities in the 19th century focused on AME preacher Jarena Lee and Sojourner Truth?

The sign of a great leader is their ability to follow those who know the terrain better than they do. It is the fastest and surest way of making progress.

PART 3: The American Reformation Continues

By the time 2014 came to a close, many were ready for it to be over. Within two weeks, the United States observed two non-indictments in high-profile killings of African American men by police officers. Just days before Thanksgiving, news broke that there would be no trial for the officer who killed Michael Brown; and a week after Thanksgiving, news broke that there would be no trial for the officer who killed Eric Garner.

The reason why this is important theologically for the church is because there is a tradition of impunity for white men who kill African American men that stretches back centuries. That tradition was supported by philosophers and theologians who, as discussed in Part 1, did not define African Americans or the Indigenous Peoples of America as human. While God claimed them as children and people of sacred worth, false teachings in universities, newspapers, books and pulpits claimed otherwise; and in so doing, made countless murders over the centuries state sanctioned and accepted.

Therefore, when we now see African American men and women killed in the streets, like Walter Scott, we have no reason to think that this is rooted in anything other than it ever has been – lack of respect, racism and the expectation of impunity.

Therefore, on December 10, 2014, the clarion call of the American Reformation was heard once again from those who still follow Richard Allen’s example over 200 years later.

The Young Adult leadership of the African Methodist Episcopal Church were unwilling to remain silent in the face of injustice.

Therefore, a week after the second non-indictment announcement, they penned a bold statement, encouraging their denomination to speak up.

We stand with our church leadership to follow the example of leadership of a young adult named Richard Allen who believed in a church that challenges sources of oppression and dares to believe that the United States should live up to its creed of “Liberty and justice for all.” …

“It is time that we push ourselves, our ministries, and our churches to walk out the liberating ministry of Jesus Christ. The time is now for peaceful yet powerful protests to show our open dissent and demand that the voices of Mike Brown,Tamir, Tamika, McKenzie, and Eric are heard and not dismissed as their bodies were by those that saw them as disposable.”

Signed:

Felecia Commodore – Young Adult Rep. Connectional Lay Org.

Martinique Mix – President Connectional Richard Allen Young Adult Council

Erica Austin – Member At Large Women’s Missionary Society of the AMEC (WMS-AMEC)

Jon Ingraham – President Connectional Young People’s Division (YPD)

Those words, right there, that is the theological struggle that has defined this Reformation; the words that though blatantly obvious, are tragically necessary to say: black lives are not disposable. Black Lives Matter.

That is theology. That is revolution. That is reformation. That is truth.

Their words are a direct response to theologians like the 17th century’s Lancelot Andrews, and philosophers like Thomas Hobbes, who denied that fact and wrote it into our history, culture and institutions.

We are not starting from a point of equality. We are starting from a point of tragedy. We are starting from a point of cruelty. We are starting from a point of heresy. We are working our way out of that.

We cannot, therefore, approach these issues as if those with power can be trusted, when they have never been worth trusting before. They were not worth trusting when persons of indigenous African descent were forced to cross the ocean in ships; and they were not worth trusting when religious leaders in Selma voluntarily crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Trust must be earned, it cannot possibly be assumed or expected. Having authority does not mean you cannot be trusted, but neither does possessing authority mean you can be trusted. Trust is earned.

What could be more true to this spirit of the movement then for the American Reformation to be driven forward by these young leaders’ observation of gross injustice and insistence that the church respond. In other words, their insistence that the church reveal what it really stands for and what its theology really is.

The demand for justice, the demand that the sacred value of lives be recognized is often hard for people of privilege to hear. It is hard for us to hear because our lives have been valued and protected, and so we have a hard time accepting that others have not. We have a hard time remembering that up until quite recently, a hierarchy of humanity was taught with us at the top, and a system that protected and promoted us. That teaching is not gone, it has merely gone underground. It must be unearthed from where it is hiding, challenged, and defeated.

Our discomfort with accepting that we have been treated differently, reveals that in the relationship between justice and reconciliation, the church has been far off course. Reconciliation, the restoration of trust, the coming together of what has been divided, is not truly possible without justice. Without justice, reconciliation is an act of silencing.

We, as people of privilege, want justice, but we want justice that does not cost us anything. That is not justice. The reality is that if we have more power, privilege, money, protection, opportunities than is our fair share in this world, then in order for things to be equal and just, we must have less of all of those things. Things cannot remain as they are.

Believing this to be true, Christians Uniting In Christ, an inter-denominational group that has a history of working against racism, responded to the letter from the young AMEC leaders. They worked with them to put together a gathering last month with representatives from many denominations to discuss the work that must be done (Video).

I have never felt more confident that the American Reformation is in good hands than when sitting beside some of those same young AMEC leaders and the Rev. Waltrina Middleton at “Truth to Power: Eradicating Racism” in Dallas, Texas on March 14, 2015.

Hearing from so many of my young peers, who have been keeping the American Reformation alive in the streets and in the pulpits, I knew I was looking at the next phase of this Reformation.

The leaders of this movement are in many cities and many churches and many denominations. Whether or not they are Wesleyan, they are doing something very Wesleyan. They are taking their theology out into the streets.

John Wesley could not be confined by a pulpit in a building, but went into the streets, and the fields, and the prisons, and the mines, and the factories to bring a message of hope.

Richard Allen could not be confined to a pulpit that did not recognize his full humanity and equality in the eyes of God, and he walked his movement right out of the doors of the church and into the streets of Philadelphia.

The laity and clergy involved today in the Black Lives Matter movement cannot be confined to a pulpit when their peers are struggling in the streets. They have gone out; not months after tragedy, but hours after tragedies.

They go into the streets because they understand one very important thing: to say “Black Lives Matter” is like saying “God is love.” If everyone believed it already, we would not need to say it; yet, because they do not, we must keep saying it until they do. We must say “Black Lives Matter To God” because the heresy was once taught that they do not. That is the job of a preacher. That is the job of a theologian. That is the job of a reformer. We must set things right.

Our place is not only in the pulpit, not only in the pew.

Our place is in the streets. With John Wesley. With Richard Allen. With Traci Blackmon. With Waltrina Middleton. With Felecia Commodore.

With Sandra Bland.

The theological descendants of Richard Allen have issued a challenge to us, do we have the courage to answer that call? As leaders cross denominational lines to make this not merely a Wesleyan movement, but a Christian moment, will we be a part of finishing the work of this courageous American Reformation?

PART 4: The Next Chapter

Check back in a couple years. With the help of Methodist activist/evangelist Sandra Bland, we are busy living this right now.

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Yvette Smith Verdict: No Comment Necessary

April 8, 2016 Hannah Adair Bonner 5 Comments

*Photo is of a building about 15 minutes from where Yvette Smith died, off the side of the road near the Bastrop County Line. It is the first significant building drivers see welcoming them to the County.

Today Judge Albert M. McCaig, a Waller County Judge visiting for one case in Bastrop County, rendered verdict in the murder trial for ex-officer Daniel Willis’s killing of Yvette Smith. Beginning mid-May, he will oversee the trial of ex-officer Brian Encinia on charges of perjury for lying about his arrest of Sandra Bland.

On April 16, 2014, Daniel Willis responded to a 911 call, calmly speaking to a man in the front yard when he got there who told him the situation was diffused. Getting a call on his radio that there was a gun in the house, he went and got his AR-15 assault rifle from his car, stood behind cover in his body armor, and waited. When the door opened shortly after, he yelled “Police!” and fired immediately without giving any warnings or commands, and without taking the necessary time to ascertaining if the small African American woman who had opened the door to check on her boyfriend was armed.

He killed Yvette Smith on the threshold of her own house.

Daniel Willis has never shown any signs of regret or remorse: neither in the dashcam footage at the scene, nor in the two years that followed. Today, his attorneys reiterated that he had no regrets and that if put in the same situation again, he would do it again.

Before concluding his remarks by honoring Daniel Willis as “the man in the arena” described by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910, Judge McCaig spoke for about ten minutes as Yvette Smith’s family clung to one another, two rows strong. In those ten minute remarks Judge McCaig made this statement: “So regardless of my decision, there will be those who will attempt to use this tragic situation to further their own personal agendas. To all of those, I ask only that you tell the truth of what happened in this courtroom.” Although our agenda is more of a communal one than a personal one, to honor the fact that black women’s lives matter, it seems wisest to take his words to heart. Therefore, the clearest way to communicate what took place today is to simply allow you to offer Yvette Smith’s family the solidarity they deserve by reading what Yvette Smith’s mother, identical twin sister, and son had to sit through: All of it. Every last word. Without commentary from me. You can draw your own conclusions. His words speak for themselves.

It would be very disingenuous of me, as well as very short-sighted, to believe that this case is nothing more than a routine case in which Daniel Willis is accused of murdering Yvette Smith. Since the law is certainly what I’m bound to follow, it is that, in simplified terms, the legal question is whether Daniel Willis knowingly [put to death?] Yvette Smith, or alternatively whether he did an act which is clearly dangerous to human life that caused her death. And the question of whether his conduct was objectively reasonable is the controlling issue. I fully understand the law, the indictment, the issues. I also understand the facts, having heard most of these facts through a total of almost three weeks of actually vigorous and well-presented trials of this case from both sides.

This case is also, as Mr. Sanderson had pointed out in his opening, about what we as a culture and as a society expect from our law enforcement officers. They do an incredibly difficult job often in very difficult and intense circumstances, and it is a tribute to the overall professionalism of the police in general that so few situation such as this one actually take place. But I’ll go a step further and say that its not only about what we expect from our law enforcement officers, but also what we should expect from ourselves. Each and every one of us as citizens of this great nation as we react to circumstances that occur within our society.

I’m fortunate in that I answer to very few people in this case. I’m a visiting judge and I don’t run for office over here in Bastrop County. In fact, I doubt if I’ll run for office again due to my age and the length of service that I already have. But regardless of the decision that I make here today, there will be a lot of commentary about what it is and those that are affected by this decision. And certainly all that I do is subject to review by our courts here in Texas and perhaps even higher.

I’m fortunate in that I do not answer to political correctness, I do not answer to the media, I do not answer to politicians. I answer to the law and to the facts as they relate to this case. Also, and I’m fortunate that I have the only other entity that I’m ultimately responsible to, that is my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but I do not invoke his great name in making my decision here today. I believe that would be very shallow and weak of me to do that. My decisions and my comments are my own and I stand by them on my own.

But before I go further, to the family of Ms. Yvette Smith, I tell you truthfully that I am sorry for your loss. I’ve come to find through these proceedings that she was indeed a good person, a kind person, and a gentle person trying to do the right thing. And I know that you will miss her greatly and will continue to miss her for the rest of your lives.

In this situation there is plenty of blame to go around, and there are several people beyond Daniel Willis who share this tragedy that eventually took the life of Yvette Smith. There may be those who may ask how would I dare judge the actions of those who were not on trial here today, but as the fact finder, and as the person rendering judgement on the law, that is what I am entitled to do. And as I look at the facts of this situation, I see that both Willie Thomas and Chris Thomas got a large part leading up to the events that evening. Had they not fought. Had one of them had the ability to walk away from the fight, ultimately that 911 call just after midnight on February 16 of 2014 would never have been made. Whether it was alcohol, fear, or passions, whatever the reason, each of them could have changed the outcome had they changed their actions.

I believe we can all certainly regret that Yvette Smith walked out that door. Yvette Smith is without a doubt the victim in this tragic situation.

And now I do have to come to Daniel J. Willis. You know I was not there in the incident when Deputy Willis fired his weapon and took the life of Yvette Smith. Yet, I have heard a great deal of testimony from all of the witnesses. All of whom may have more experience than I do in highly charged, tense and stressful situations. You know I have had my share of intense situations in life, especially in my time in the military, but I have not personally dealt with a situation like this. I’ve seen the video and I’ve heard the audio many, many times and I’ve come to know it well. I do respect Ranger Verina and the balance he attempted to bring to these situations, attributing good police work and good police conduct to Mr. Willis when it was deserved, and clearly stating his disagreement with his actions in firing the fatal shots. Ranger Verina is also good enough to recognize that a lot of what was said by the other experts in this case was accurate and consistent with his own training. I believe it takes a very strong man to be able to agree with an opponent, and I congratulate you sir.

I appreciate what the other experts brought into this courtroom as they used their training, experience and education to try to make some logical sense from what can only be described as a chaotic and illogical situation. All of that added to my understanding of what happened, and ultimately was a great aid in my coming to a decision in this matter. The expert reports themselves were not all that persuasive, but the testimony of those experts and especially the vigorous cross examination from both sides certainly was very helpful. In retrospect, all of the officials actually agreed on many of the same points, they only differed in their conclusions. And as we all know this all boils down to a very few seconds.

We all know there was no weapon, but was there a reflection? Was there a piece of plastic? Was there a piece of junk on the porch? Was it a large and bright silver earring as those worn by Yvette Smith that reflected back the light from the flashlight? Or was it about the last radio message that Mr. Willis received, the man behind the door with a gun, that priming that was talked about by several of the witnesses. Those are questions that cannot be answered with any certainty. At least two of the professionals gave me an opinion that Daniel Willis should have waited longer before he fired. So my question to myself then became: do I convict a man based upon those opinions alone or do I look at the totality of the circumstances to find the proof beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt. I had to look deeper, knowing it would be easier, literally, to sacrifice one person for the good of some others.

So regardless of my decision, there will be those who will attempt to use this tragic situation to further their own personal agendas. To all of those, I ask only that you tell the truth of what happened in this courtroom. The truth that both sides have been given a full and fair hearing of all of the available facts. Both sides have been represented by very competent, capable advocates, and no short cuts were taken by either side.

To the attorneys from both sides, you’ve done a tremendous job with a very difficult task and regardless of the ultimate ruling that I make, you may each look at this body of work with a great deal of satisfaction. None of us are rookie attorneys, but you have all truly done what we all dreamed about doing when we were back in law school. You have zealously, courageously advocated your positions with skill, knowledge, understanding, even coming whenever was necessary. And I do commend you for that. And I thank you for the trust that you have given me in allowing me to hear this case and render a verdict in this manner.

To everyone watching this case unfold, I know that you will each carry away from this courthouse your opinions of what I should have or could have done or not done. Frankly, we may agree or disagree on the ultimate decision, but frankly I’m pleased that you’ve come and watched regardless of your reasons for being here.

So Mr. McCabe, Ms. Jernigan, is there any legal reason why the court should not render its verdict in this case?

Will the defendant please stand.

And please bear with me as I read to you one of my life-long favorite passages from Theodore Roosevelt, from April 23 of 1910. It’s a really great passage. It goes this way:

“It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or whether the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, but who actually does strive to do the deeds. Who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions. Who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. So his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Mr. Daniel J. Willis, you are the man in that arena, and it is the verdict of this court that you were not guilty of the charges stated.

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Yvette Smith: Why All Our Rights Are Lies

April 7, 2016 Hannah Adair Bonner 1 Comment

“Yvette hated guns. She never let her sons play with guns,” Yvette Smith’s mother said to me after Judge McCaig called a 20 minute break, part way through the afternoon of the second day of the defense arguments for ex-officer Daniel Willis murder trial for killing her daughter.

I knew what it was like to grow up in a household like that; a household where, as Yvette Smith’s son Anthony put it, the “mother was uneasy around guns.” I was never allowed to play with so much as a water pistol or a nerf gun, and to this day it has had a lasting psychological impact on me. I see guns as something that could wound or kill. My best friend’s father used to leave his guns on the dining room table, and it made my heart beat faster just to see it. I could never touch a gun. That’s how I was raised. That is how Yvette Smith was raised. That is how Yvette Smith raised her sons.

Now I live in a state where people care more about their right to open-carry, than about how it impacts other people and the stress and anxiety they cause. Now I live in a state where open-carry is a lie, because we know it really only applies to certain people. Some people – let me be clear: white men – have the right to carry machine guns openly on the streets, as I saw them do in Austin. Other people – let me be clear: Yvette Smith – will be killed merely because an officer imagined that she was carrying a gun inside of her own house.

“Stand your ground” does not apply to black teenagers.

“Innocent until proven guilty” does not apply black men.

“Open carry” does not apply to black women.

Having all of those things apply to you and not to people of color is part of having white privilege. People who are white have the ability to observe that reality, to acknowledge it, and to work to undermine their own privilege in order that the rights our nation claims to hold as “self-evident” apply to all. If they do not apply to us all, they are not civil rights, by definition they are privileges. Privilege: “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” If your race and/or ethnicity is a factor in whether you can assert your rights safely, which I believe it is, then civil rights exist only in our imagination.

Just as the gun that Daniel Willis claims Yvette Smith was holding existed only in his imagination. Listening to hours of taped interviews with him during the trial was nothing short of disturbing. Having watched the dash cam video of Yvette Smith’s killing, you see three things happen in three seconds.

First second: Yvette opens the door.

Second second: Daniel yells “Police.”

Third second: Daniel fires 2 quick shots from his personal AR-15 assault rifle into Yvette’s body with no warning, no commands, and no evaluation.

In lengthy explanations, he talks in the interviews shown at trial about how Yvette stepped onto the porch and was “indexing” with her gun. Aiming it at him and his partner. He talks about how he flashed his flashlight at her several times and she kept ducking out of the path of his light and repositioning her aim. He talks about how she had a small, shiny pistol; then a light colored, long barreled gun. He talks about her having a small, shiny L-shape in her hand, which out of his peripheral vision looked like a long gun, like the AR-15 assault rifle he was holding himself. He says he was afraid for his life; then he says he was never afraid for one single second; then he says he was afraid not for his life but for the other officer at the scene. He takes hours talking about things that never happened.

None of it happened. Sitting in the courtroom, we knew already. We had watched the dashcam. We had heard in rapid succession: Door opening, “Police”, BAM BAM. Even if Daniel Willis’ story was not so inconsistent, there was simply not time for any of it to have happened. All of it, and all of the different versions, were lies.

Yet with all the things he had to talk about, there were somethings he did not talk about:

He does not talk about the fact that he has night blindness and could not see and, yet, like many stubborn people chose to not wear his glasses while cocking an AR-15 in the dark.
He does not talk about the fact that he was wearing body armor at in little danger.
He does not talk about the fact that his own body was safely behind his car. Nor does he talk about the fact that being behind “cover” was supposed to give him the opportunity to: a) take time to evaluate the situation b) yell commands, such as “drop the gun” c) call for back up.
He does not talk about the fact that he seemed eerily undisturbed after the shooting.
He does not talk about how he subtly threatened another woman while they waited for Yvette’s body to be taken away. She said, “don’t shoot me,” and he responded “Well, then don’t point anything shiny at me.”
He does not talk about the fact that he has never shown any remorse or regret to Yvette’s family.
He does not talk about how after killing her he laughingly said “I didnt’ want to die.”
He does not talk about the fact that he was in no danger of dying: Yvette was.

Ironically, his lawyers then used that as his defense. They had a forensic psychiatrist testify that because there was an officer outside, Yvette Smith exhibited impaired judgement by opening the door.

Yes. That is the defense. That a black woman is responsible for her own death because she opened her door when there was a police officer outside.

Are the lives of black women in so much danger in this nation that there are responsible for their own deaths if they are foolish enough to leave their own house?

Nay, not to leave their own house; if they are foolish enough to open their door.

Foolish enough to claim to have rights? Foolish enough to drink a beer in their own home, or smoke a cigarette in their own car? Foolish enough to think they were citizens? Foolish enough to think they were children of God, and their bodies sacred and powerful vessels?

If a black woman’s life does not have value in our nation, than nothing that we believe about ourselves or our country is true. We have no civil rights, we only have privileges awarded to the few. We are not free, we are not safe, we are not good.

This week, perhaps even today, a verdict will come forth from Judge McCaig. Daniel Willis has waived his right to a jury trial in this retrial; his attorneys citing their absolute certainty that McCaig would give them a “Not Guilty” verdict.

If his attorneys are correct and a “Not Guilty” verdict comes in, before Judge McCaig moves on to the trial of ex-officer Brian Encinia, will we be silent? What will we do? Or, as Sandra Bland was known to say, “What will you do? What will you do Queen? What will you do King?” What will you do to show the truth that the lives of black women are sacred indeed?

Sacred beyond measure. Sacred beyond comprehension. Powerful enough to strike fear into the heart of a man holding a taser, a man holding an assault rifle. Powerful enough to make him claim that he was the victim and that you, unarmed black woman, were a threat to him, well-armed and equipped with body armor.

…and you are. A threat to him. Not a threat to his life, but to his power, his comfort, his privilege. The end has already been written, and justice will win. White supremacy knows in its heart that it will be you, black woman, that will bring it down. Its fear and violence is only increasing to keep pace with the increase of your power and confidence. It knows its end is near. Do not give up.

“For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:3).

Featured, Justice

An Open Letter to Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson

February 11, 2016 Hannah Adair Bonner 3 Comments

Dear DA Devon Anderson,

I am writing to you because I remain in possession of one of the many lives you put at risk when you and Sheriff Hickman blamed the shooting of Deputy Goforth on #BlackLivesMatter, resulting in threats being directed towards those holding vigil for Sandra Bland at the Waller County Jail.

Now, today, the Houston NAACP is honoring you as a white ally in naming you one of the 2016 Alex Award recipients for an outstanding commitment to Equal Justice and Legal Excellence.

All of the discussion that this has prompted has brought back unpleasant memories of those days of my life that caused my mother the most anxiety. Let me explain.

On July 13, when Sandra Bland’s friends found out that she had died, it caused great pain in our community of Houston. Many Houston residents were Prairie View alumni who knew, or knew of, Sandra Bland. She was the type of woman who made an impression. As uproar grew, one of those Prairie View alum, my friend Jeremyah, continuously peppered my phone with comments from his friends, and his own concerns, as well as the hashtag #WhatHappenedToSandraBland. My spirit sat heavy within me; I was deep in prayer all afternoon on July 15th, until late in the evening, my friends Nina and Rhys agreed to go out with me to the jail where Sandra died. It was simple. We lit a candle and we prayed.

Yet, that simple act became contagious. Others joined in, everyone from local farmers to a Lutheran Bishop, and we kept vigil there for 80 days. Intimidation attempts from Sheriff R. Glenn Smith escalated after the first month, and he earned himself a spot in the 2016 Texas Bum Steer Awards when he told me to go back to the Church of Satan. There was risk involved, yet what truly intensified the risk was your words on August 29th.

That week, on August 27 a member of the Katy Fire Department began to publicize in a private Waller County group, the Waller County News, that he was lying in wait for us at the Waller County Jail. Other members of the group tried to help him find me by telling him what kind of car I drove, and one messaged me and tried to lure me to a local restaurant to trap me. Unfortunately for him, there was a health emergency with my Aunt Jackie that had called me away and he did not find me there. They assumed it was cowardice, my mother claimed it as Divine Providence. He returned the next day, the 28th, and did not find me then either.

That same evening, however, another family was deprived of their father and husband in the tragic and unexpected shooting of Deputy Darren Goforth.

There were clues from the outset that Deputy Goforth was actually at the gas station with his mistress, not on patrol; yet, rather than investigating that aspect, officials rushed quickly to the promote the idea that #BlackLivesMatter was at fault, which provided what they thought would be an acceptable catharsis for them in the midst of building tensions and grief.

Perhaps this decision was affected by the fact that the Officer investigating the shooting of Deputy Goforth, Sgt. Craig Clopton, was having a sexual relationship with Deputy Goforth’s mistress himself, as was Deputy Marc DeLeon and potentially others. How might that have affected their investigation? Knowing that the eyewitness to the crime was someone multiple officers were involved with. I can imagine they might want to divert attention from that fact.

The next day, on August 29th, you did a press Conference in which you and Sheriff Ron Hickman blamed the shooting on #BlackLivesMatter activists with no proof for your accusation except that Darren Goforth had his uniform on while meeting up with his mistress and the man who shot him happened to be black. Your careless rush to judgment and your call upon “the silent majority in America to support law enforcement” put many lives at risk.

The very next day, Breitbart seized upon the opportunity that your words had given them. For more than a month, we had seen reporters Lana Shadwick and Bob Price come around the Waller County Jail. All that we had given to them, however, was an unapologetic solidarity with Sandra Bland and an unapologetic commitment to the rights of people of color. We did not give them the material that they wanted in order to distort the #BlackLivesMatter movement as built on hatred of white people rather than a love for black people.

Your words gave them the excuse they had been waiting for, however, as they pulled out photos almost a month old and wrote a scathing and dishonest article about what had been going on at the Waller County Jail. They drew from what had happened on two days of what was close to 50 days to perpetrate a lie, creating a false impression that it was protestors and not Sheriff R. Glenn Smith that were carrying arsenals of machine guns around in their trucks on a daily basis.

Following that, retired law enforcement officer Nathan Ener put out a highly publicized video encouraging people to drive away or kill the #BlackLivesMatter activists at the Waller County Jail. The lack of consequences that resulted from his threats exhibited how socially acceptable racism is amongst law enforcement and officials. For Texas officials to allow that to pass only two months after Dylann Roof carried out similar orders, inspired by similar videos, at a church in Charleston was callous beyond belief.

Yet, you know who was out there in front of the Waller County Jail in the line of fire that next week? A bunch of pastors and farmers and activists. That day. And the next day. And the next day. And the next day… because Sandra Bland does not have justice yet, and her life matters.

Perhaps that is something you can think about as you receive this award for a Commitment to Equal Justice from the NAACP today. Look around you at the beautiful lives that surround you and ask yourself, do they have equal justice? Are they as safe in Texas as you are? There is room in the movement for everyone, and it is never too late to start to say: Black Lives Matter. It is never too late for true repentance, a changing of actions and not merely words.

Perhaps a good place to start would be to #SayHerName #SandraBland and demand the Department of Justice investigate Waller County. Just a thought.

Sincerely,

Rev. Hannah Adair Bonner

Featured, Justice

“Dear Fellow White People”: An Appeal For Sustained Discomfort

February 10, 2016 Hannah Adair Bonner 1 Comment

*First posted on UMCLead.com on Feb. 10, 2015. Revised and updated… still unapologetic.

#BlackLivesMatter makes a lot of white people uncomfortable. The impulse of many is to soothe us. Please don’t. We need sustained discomfort. There are a lot of people in this nation who have been very uncomfortable for a very long time. Those of us who have privilege and have been sitting in denial about that, need to feel this discomfort, need to feel this moment.

Sustained discomfort. Sit with that for a minute. Better yet, don’t sit with it: commit to it. Refuse to allow the media to redirect your attention. Refuse to allow the passage of time to diminish the ache in your soul when the world watched that video of Eric Garner’s life slipping out of him; that video of Sandra Bland’s freedom being taken from her. Refuse to be that person who looks back in twenty years with regret. Refuse to be the pastor who was silent.

Know your history. Remember that the protection of all peoples’ rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” has been hampered since the beginning of our nation by two things, among many. First, the fact that while we proclaimed the fundamental equality of all people, we simultaneously and ironically denied that equality to many – African Americans, Indigenous Peoples, women, etc. Second, since that time, change has been delayed by the inability of people of privilege who disagree with injustice to endure the lifestyle required to exchange that cultural lie for the truth, both in our cultural philosophy and in our systemic structures.

To put it more simply: we have had equality in word but not in deed, and we have not maintained the solidarity necessary to change that.

To put it even more simply: do not change the channel.

Now is the time. As the movement that has endured in our country for hundreds of years takes on new energy and strategies, we have the opportunity to see change.

However, we must acknowledge that we live in an era when that potential is threatened. We live in an era when news has become entertainment. We live in an era when justice issues have become an ever-changing cycle of temporary fads that we can exchange one for another as soon as something more trendy comes along. We check social media to see what the cool thing to care about is today.

This rapid exchange rate allows those of us who have privilege within this culture to endure sympathetic pangs of sorrow and discomfort in small, manageable doses. We change the channel before it gets to be too much; throwing our attention into a new direction that promises a rush of energy to replace the frustration of that “other” situation we could not change. Or rather, that situation we did not have the patience, stamina, and determination to change.

Our very ability to choose what “causes” to give our attention reveals our privilege. The very fact that we have the option to give up and walk away from a struggle, is the very reason why those who cannot walk away from the struggle struggle to trust us – and with good reason.

What if, instead, we did not approach phrases like “Black Lives Matter” as causes and fads, but as fundamental truths. Truths that are so important that life is simply intolerable for us if they are not universally recognized and implemented.

This is important because so many of these “causes”, both local and global, have at their root the same denial, subtle or outright, of one fundamental truth: black lives matter. To understand the pervasiveness of this, we must examine why our nation is more comfortable with crowds of white men walking the streets in displays of “open carry” then it is with an African American man shopping for a toy gun. To understand the subtlety of this, we must examine why our news media and world leaders paid so much more attention to terrorism in France, than to mass killings in Nigeria. To understand the danger of this, we need look no further than Tamir Rice.

Intersectionality exists in these justice issues, and we must name and acknowledge the connection between violence against Black bodies and violence against Queer bodies and violence against the bodies of 43 teachers below the border in Mexico. All of these lives matter, and all are connected because all pose a threat to power, to privilege and to the status quo. However, while we name intersectionality, we cannot allow that reality to become confused with our channel-changing, issue-switching culture, and cause us to remove our foot from the gas pedal that is driving this movement.

I understand that leaders throughout our nation, in many walks of life, seem to have a general consensus that change should take place – if it takes place – at a gradual rate that people can tolerate.

The reality, however, is that while some of us seek change that takes place at a rate we can tolerate, many have been forced to come to this nation and live in this nation under conditions that have been intolerable from the start. Intolerable is the status quo for many in this nation.

So the real question is whose comfort, whose pace, whose toleration are we talking about?

While we wait for that answer, people are actually dying.

Friends, we cannot endure this pace any longer. The time has come to commit to sustained discomfort. To refuse to shift our attention as the fads come and go. To understand that our very ability to choose to do so reveals our privilege, and our very willingness to do so reveals the fragility of our solidarity with those who have no choice in the matter.

True solidarity means we do not get to make the decisions and we do not get to walk away; we must follow the lead of those most impacted by the injustice in our system, and see it through to the end.

We must plant our feet, and refuse to be moved. Speak our truth, and refuse to be silenced.

We must commit to sustained discomfort not only for ourselves but for all around us, until we are no longer able to endure the denigration of our own humanity that takes place when any one of our brothers and sisters is put down, put in their place, or put away.

Change is coming, and you have a role to play. Do not walk away.

Featured, Justice

Congresswoman to DOJ: Investigate Death of Sandra Bland

January 13, 2016 Hannah Adair Bonner 3 Comments

On December 22, 2015, a politician told the truth.

You may not have heard about it. It did not make headlines. Truth, especially the kind that makes people uncomfortable, is not quite as appealing for the news to cover as a white man with a famously pompadour-style comb-over insulting people to the cheers of his fans. In the midst of a political season that is playing out more like a reality series, the truth, as with many good deeds, goes unnoticed. We must change that.

On December 22, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, ranking member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations told the truth when addressing herself to Attorney General Loretta Lynch in the letter seen below. In telling the truth, she renewed her demands once again that the Department of Justice do a comprehensive and transparent investigation of the events and circumstances surrounding the arrest and death of Sandra Bland.

While Sandra Bland has endured six months of slander and accusations that she was not respectful of the law, what you will discover in reading Congresswoman Jackson Lee’s letter is that the real truth of what took place has been hidden beneath a deeply rooted misunderstanding of what the law is. While critics have demeaned Sandra Bland for what they saw as failure to respect an officer of the law, they missed the real truth that it was the officer that was failing to respect the law. The crucial truth that we must grasp as a nation if we are going to avoid the abuses of any more Brian Encinias or Daniel Holtzclaws is that the authority given to individuals to enforce our laws does not supersede the authority of the law itself. It is not the authority of the individual that we respect, it is the authority of the law. If it is a just law, meant to protect the people, and the individual is breaking the law, they have given up their authority in that moment and have become the criminal themselves. In the case of Brian Encinia, he gave up his authority to enforce the law the moment that he became a physically dangerous, and we now know perjurious, law-breaker himself.

Stating a truth that few have been willing to acknowledge, Congresswoman Jackson Lee wrote, “The violent verbal and physical assaults Ms. Bland endured have been met with little action and slow responses by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Waller County District Attorney’s Office.” In the midst of a two page letter detailing the failure of the nation and the state to adequately address accountability in policing, it would be easy to miss the importance of this statement. Yet, in making that statement, Congresswoman Jackson Lee acknowledged some very important things:

Sandra Bland experienced violent verbal assault from Brian Encinia.
Sandra Bland experienced violent physical assault from Brian Encinia.
Public Officials in Texas have done little to nothing about the crimes of Brian Encinia.

In appealing at the beginning of her letter that “the Department of Justice conduct a thorough investigation and take appropriate action in connection with the death of Sandra Bland”, Congresswoman Jackson Lee also brought to our attention that:

A transparent and thorough investigation has not yet taken place.
Action is needed for an appropriate response to the death of Sandra Bland.
Failing to take any action would be, therefore, inappropriate.

As she continued Congresswoman Jackson Lee acknowledged that Waller County is “a community with deeply rooted racial divides and a history of racially discriminatory practices…” In making this statement, Rep. Jackson Lee made clear what many within Waller County have refused to acknowledge:

That Waller County has a history of racially discriminatory practices.
That Waller County currently continues to be characterized by deeply rooted racial divides.

She was not finished yet, however, for the recent records of jailing procedures seemed to raise alarms as well; she stated, “This is very troubling, considering the Waller County Jail previously has been cited for violating state rules for failing to properly and adequately train guards and personnel, particularly when interacting with inmates who are mentally disabled or potentially suicidal.” From this we know that:

The Waller County Jail has been cited for violated state rules.
The Waller County Jail has failed to properly and adequately train its staff.
Those who are vulnerable in society, such as the mentally disabled, are particularly vulnerable and in danger while in the care of the Waller County Jail.

Congresswoman Jackson Lee continued,“The practices and policies that have led to the deaths of multiple persons in custody at Waller County Jail call for immediate review and thorough corrective action by the Department of Justice.” The truth these last words reveal is perhaps most disturbing of all:

The Waller County Jail is directly responsible for the deaths of multiple persons due to their faulty practices and policies.
The private review and recommendations given to the Sheriff by the committee led by Paul Looney was far from sufficient.
A thorough investigation by the Department of Justice is necessary, not when the Texas Rangers say they are finished, but immediately.
It will be necessary to take action to correct what has gone wrong in the Waller County Jail system for the safety of local citizens.

What is perhaps most important in this follow up to Congresswoman Jackson Lee’s appeal for a Department of Justice investigation last summer is the legal reasons she gives for an investigation. While Officials in Waller County have attempted to distract the general public for the past six months with accusations of marijuana use and self-harm, it is refreshing to hear the law actually come up in conversation.

First, Congresswoman Jackson Lee states that an investigation is necessary to examine whether the policing practices in Waller County (which would include the actions of police officers, prisons guards, judges, health providers, and public officials), violate the Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law, 18 U.S.C. § 242, which states:

Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnaping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.

Reading that law is like hearing a narration of the arrest of Sandra Bland caught on the dash cam of Brian Encinia’s car.

Second, Congresswoman Jackson Lee calls for an investigation under the Civil Rights of Institutional Persons Act (CRIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997a which guarantees the Attorney General of the United States the right to investigate jails when it is believed they have deprived those in their care of any rights, as well as taking corrective measures to rectify. In other words, neither the Sheriff of Waller County, nor the ad hoc “suggestions” committee he set up, nor the DA nor any official in Waller County has the final say if Constitutional rights are being violated.

Whenever the Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that any State or political subdivision of a State, official, employee, or agent thereof, or other person acting on behalf of a State or political subdivision of a State is subjecting persons residing in or confined to an institution, as defined in section 1997 of this title, to egregious or flagrant conditions which deprive such persons of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States causing such persons to suffer grievous harm, and that such deprivation is pursuant to a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of such rights, privileges, or immunities, the Attorney General, for or in the name of the United States, may institute a civil action in any appropriate United States district court against such party for such equitable relief as may be appropriate to insure the minimum corrective measures necessary to insure the full enjoyment of such rights, privileges, or immunities, except that such equitable relief shall be available under this subchapter to persons residing in or confined to an institution as defined in section 1997(1)(B)(ii) of this title only insofar as such persons are subjected to conditions which deprive them of rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution of the United States.

After that, there was nothing left to be said other than: “For these reasons, I am calling upon the Department of Justice to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the circumstances surrounding this tragedy, and to take appropriate action necessary to vindicate the federal interest to protect the civil rights of all Americans and to ensure that all persons receive equal justice under law.”

I think that is what we would call a *mic drop* from one of the great Stateswomen of American politics.

Add your voice along with Representative Sheila Jackson Lee:

Sign an online petition.
Write a letter yourself to the Department of Justice
Call your elected representative and #SayHerName #SandraBland
Give to the Bland Family Legal Fund to support the family’s continuing efforts
Stay up to date on how to support local efforts at SandySpeaksOn.com

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Featured, Justice

The Eyes Behind Us: Final Day of Sandra Bland Grand Jury

January 8, 2016 Hannah Adair Bonner 6 Comments

*This is the blog you write when your writing pen and your phone are your only form of defense while walking amongst armed men and women, and you hope that somehow those tools can make the people you care about safer.

In the third floor Courtroom of the Waller County Courthouse, the Grand Jury finished their discussion of Brian Encinia’s arrest of Sandra Bland, as I stood with supporters and reporters in the packed hallway outside. Crossing my thrift store cowboy boots, I leaned against the railing at the top of the stairs next to an elderly, African American man in overalls. I do not know why he was there, perhaps official business, perhaps curiosity.

Looking to my left, I noticed a man in blue jeans, a plaid shirt and a jacket trying to look casual as he snuck pictures on his cell phone of myself and the others in the hallway. He was trying to fit in with us, but his posture gave him away as an undercover officer attempting to infiltrate.

Walking across the top of the stairwell to his side, I held out my hand, “Hello, I’m Hannah Bonner.”

“Hello,” he replied.

Photo from yet another person taking pictures in the hallway.

“So, are you here with these Officers?” I said, making polite small talk.

“No, I came from New York. I’m here to support the movement. I support the movement.”

“Wow, so you came all the way down from New York today to support us? That is so far to have come,” I inquired, confused.

“No, I mean I’m from New York. I live around here now. I am into movement things. I have been to other things to support the movement. I am here for the movement. I want to get involved.”

While he did look familiar, it was not because he had “been to other movement things.” He looked familiar because I had sat in front of the Waller County Jail for 80 days and I am an alive, observant person. His name was actually Alex Kassem and word on the street was that he worked with the SWAT team in Waller County as well as in Houston, along with being a body guard for hire with experience serving in the Egyptian Special Forces. In truth, of all the people I have come across in my life, he is the one most highly trained in the use of lethal force.

Looking to my right, I saw the elderly African American man taking a picture of “New York” on one of those simple phones that people buy for their parents for safety. As I spotted it, so did Officer S. Rutledge from the Waller County Sheriff’s Department. Not knowing I was looking, she dashed across the hallway and told the elderly gentleman, “You’ll have to come with me” as she pulled him quickly towards the elevator.

Something was not right. Granted, unlike the rest of the Courthouse, you could not take pictures on the third floor. Yet, I had watched dozens of people do so over the past hour with the only consequence being a simple verbal request from the officers not to do so.

I dashed across the hallway myself, forgetting “New York” for the moment. “Wait, where are you taking him, he has not done anything wrong.”

“He took a picture,” Officer Rutledge responded.

“I’ve been watching people take pictures all day, and all you’ve done is tell them to stop. Why are you taking him away?”
“Don’t interfere,” she said as the younger African American woman pulled the older African American gentleman into the elevator and a small line of officers blocked the entrance while the doors closed between us.

I did not know what to do. Turning to the reporters who sat on benches along the wall typing. I pleaded, “Did you see that? They are trying to intimidate him because he is local. You have seen people taking pictures all day and they did not take anyone else away.” Looking behind me, I saw some of the Sandra Bland supporters began to rush down the stairs and I realized that they were right, we had to make sure this gentleman did not disappear without any way of knowing who he was or how to check on him.

When I got to the first floor, there was already a bewildered group of supporters there being blocked from continuing down the hallway. This had never happened in the six months I have been observing.

At the end of the hallway, we could see out through the glass doors that Officer Rutledge was giving the gentleman a lecture. “Why can’t we go through?” the Sandra Bland supporters were asking. “You can’t come through, go out another door. You are just wasting time here.”

The group began to move up the stairs and out of the Courthouse through the back entrance ahead of me. As I came up the stairs and around the side of the building, I realized I was alone with “New York” close on my heels. My demeanor seemed to have left him unaware that
I knew he had no intentions of “supporting the movement.”

I turned the corner to hear Jinaki crying out, “They have the elder.”

As we got to the entrance where we had seen Officer Rutledge with the gentleman, the officer and gentleman were gone. the group told me that the officers had coordinated it for them to send us out the back entrance, while she brought him back in the side entrance to where we had been.

As I filmed my reaction, “New York” the “movement supporter” stood behind me pretending to support me and filming reactions that he would probably share later on with his colleague Officer Rutledge.

Coming back in the entrance was a slow process as the group had to go through security one by one. On the other side, sat Officer Hood, a young African American officer who I had not seen before, chuckling to himself. Three African American Sandra Bland supporters went through security ahead of me and they wanded and patted down each one. As I came through I spread my arms and legs like you do at the airport and waited my turn. “No, we’re not going to do you,” the Officer said. “But you did all of them, why aren’t you going to do me?” They refused.

When we arrived back at the third floor, we discovered that Officer Rutledge had returned the older gentleman to the hallway and he was talking to a young man. Coming over we asked if he was okay.

“She took my license. She ran my license,” he said tearily.

“Why would she do that?” I asked.

“I have to go,” he replied.

“Well, we are walking you to your car,” we said to the gentleman to whom we had no connection apart from a new and profound sense of responsibility.

We walked down the stairs silently, and out the back door. When we reached the corner of the sidewalk, I finally said, “So what brought you out here to the Courthouse today?”

Turning towards me, I saw the pain of decades and perhaps generations well up in his eyes with unstoppable force and begin to overflow. It was too much heartbreak, for too long.

I put my arm around him slightly and then pulled it back and waved it wildly behind my back, beckoning to the three young African American men walking slightly behind us. I was beyond my depth. I did not have the resources he needed. Sensing what was needed, my friend Malik stepped forward and put his arm around the gentleman’s shoulder as we finished walking him to his car.

Once there, we got his phone number and the number of two of his relatives so that we could check on him from time to time. “She took my license,” he said as he dried his eyes, “She let me know if there was any tickets or problems, they could take me to that jail.”

[Now it may not be my place, but someone reading this blog is Officer Rutledge’s aunt or cousin or momma’s friend; perhaps it is your place to talk to her about this man’s tears and the history of generations that caused them. We are all in this together, after all.]

As he closed his car door and we began to walk away, I walked back and knocked on his door. He opened it and I said, “Can we pray before you go?”

“Yes, please,” he said.

I prayed that God would surround him with protection from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. I prayed comfort. I prayed justice. I prayed all the words I had left in my heart.

He closed his door, and we turned back to the Courthouse, surprised to hear “Left, left, left, right, left,” as a column of 21 Texas State Troopers marched directly toward me. They turned the corner, and so did the gentleman as he drove out of town.

A few minutes later the Grand Jury emerged from the side, and five special prosecutors emerged from the front to tell the press that they had indicted Brian Encinia with the smallest, paltry charge – my words not theirs – that they could come up with. They had indicted him for perjury in stating that he had a justifiable reason for pulling Sandra Bland from her car; rather than indicting him for the actual act of pulling her from her car and falsely arresting her.

We did not see Alex “New York” Kassem again. Some of the other supporters said they had told him they knew he was an officer and he dipped out. We did call the gentleman to make sure he got home. He told me that he had gotten home safe but that a trooper had followed him all the way down the highway.

“I need to tell you why Officer Rutledge did that to me,” he said. “It was not because I was taking a picture, it was because of who I was taking a picture of. That man you were talking to at the top of the stairs, I recognized him. He has followed me before.”

It seems that while we thought we were looking out for him, it was the older gentleman who had been looking out for us all along.

We are all in this together, after all.

Featured, Justice

The Whistling Sheriff: Sandra Bland Grand Jury

December 22, 2015 Hannah Adair Bonner 4 Comments

“It wasn’t me. It was her! It was her!,” Sheriff R. Glenn Smith joked, pointing at Officer L. Watts, a female, African American Officer on his force. It was individuals like Officer Watts that Sheriff Smith had referred to repeatedly in the media when arguing that there could not have been any racial component in Sandra Bland’s arrest and death because not all his staff was white.

On hard benches outside of the District Courtroom on the third floor of the Waller County Courthouse sat several Sandra Bland supporters, Officers from the Waller County Sheriff’s staff, and several members of the media. Many familiar faces sought or avoided eye contact as the same officers who had walked past those holding vigil for Sandra Bland now had to sit across from them while members of the press, who had once sweltered in the July heat, typed away on their laptops only a feet away.

When Officer Penny Goodie, of the Prairie View Police Department, emerged from the Courtroom looking dazed, she was quickly ushered down the stairs by a fellow female, African American Officer, S. Rutledge of the Waller County Sheriff’s Office, before a voice said that Sheriff R. Glenn Smith was up next.

Emerging from Judge Albert M. McCaig, Jr.’s office, the room next to the courtroom, Sheriff Smith sauntered slowly past the Sandra Bland supporters to the door of the courtroom and took a seat on the bench. After a few minutes a man poked his head out and said to the Sheriff, “You’re good to go!” At which point, overcome with good humor, Sheriff Smith turned to Officer L. Watts and Officer J. Henry and delivered his crowd-pleasing line, “It wasn’t me. It was her! It was her!” before chuckling and sauntering back past the Sandra Bland supporters and into Judge McCaig’s office once again to rejoin his Captain of Patrol, Officer Brian Cantrell, and the others gathered there.

A few minutes later, Sheriff Smith re-emerged from the Judge’s office whistling, as he had been wont to do several times in the preceding hours, and strolled up and down the hall before returning to the Judge’s office once again. It was a ritual that he would repeat several more times before the Officers seemed to tire of our social media reporting from the scene and demanded that “the public” leave at 5:00 pm; forcing everyone down the stairs and out into the quickly gathering dusk of evening, over the protests of local Waller leaders and television reporters who had never experienced such a curfew before.

The intentionality and persistence with which the Sheriff sought to flaunt what he saw as his triumph was unlike anything I had seen outside of slightly comedic scenes in television or on the stage. The exaggerated slowness of the saunter and persistent whistle was akin to a scene out of the early days of silent film, when the characters had to exaggerate their movements to get their point across without the assistance of audio. I was torn, uncertain whether he intended to be menacing or humorous; I suppose it was a little of both, for there have always been those who find amusement in seeking to intimidate others.

I could not help but wonder what these Officers on the bench across from me were really thinking and feeling. Certainly, I knew they were not too fond of me. I recognized Officer J. Henry from that time he walked behind Ranger and I as we sat in front of the Waller County Jail and joked to Assistant Chief Jailer L. Thibodeaux, “Got any room left in there?” (“For what?”) “For these two.” Yet, even so, putting their feelings for me aside, I found it hard to believe that they could feel proud of the behavior that their supervisor was exhibiting.

I have struggled for months to find a word to really capture the Sheriff’s particular brand of unassailable privilege that seeks to flaunt itself. The only word I have been able to quite find to describe it is hubris, but even that word seems to fall short of capturing its essence.

Or perhaps, on second thought, hubris does work. For it was that pomposity in the Greek tragedies that led the men of myth and legend to make decisions out of pride so excessive that it defied even the gods. In the Christian tradition, it was akin to the pride of Saul with his height, Samson with his strength, and Absalom with the flowing locks that were his undoing.

I have spent a good amount of time around the men and women of the Waller County Sheriff’s Office & Jail over the past five months. Enough time to have a certain fondness for some of them that makes me wonder if they feel trapped in the roles they occupy, or if they carry out their duties willingly. Enough time to have a healthy caution around others of them, whom I have watched as they have watched me; doing so long enough to know that the uneasy feeling I have in their presence never goes away. Enough time to know that even if they felt their stories were true, the Sheriff’s Office has wrapped them in so much subterfuge that it would be impossible for them to ever ring true now.

And so it happened, that we found ourselves ejected from the doors of the Waller County Courthouse by some of those same Officers, Rutledge, Watts, and Henry, to stand on the sidewalk outside of the Waller County Courthouse with a cadre of stunned television reporters who could not believe that they had really just been rudely tossed out of the building.

I could not help wondering, as I always do, why was it that the Sheriff always had his African American Officers be the ones to engage when there were people in protest or vigil.

Actually, no, that is not what I wondered. I knew the answer to that, as the well-informed reader will as well. The actual question in my mind was: how did these Officers feel about being used that way? They had to be familiar with the Sheriff’s rhetoric that he could not be racist because they were on his staff. And they had to have noticed, as we all did, that they were always the ones chosen to be on the front lines; from the time when Rutledge and other African American staff were sent into the lobby first to ask protesters to leave, all the way up to tonight, when she was once again put in that position, along with Watts and Henry, while white Officers and staff watched through the frosted glass door of Judge McCaig’s Office.

I know they seem to hate me, and they probably think I hate them; but in truth, I can’t help but love them and hurt for them and wish we could all be set free from the bondage of this patriarchal, white supremacist culture that prioritizes the comfort of white men over the lives of black women: whether it be Sandra Bland or Officer S. Rutledge.

After 4 hours of waiting in the dark, the five special prosecutors finally emerged from the darkened Courthouse and descended the stairs towards the presser. Darrell Jordan, the spokesperson for the special prosecutors approached the microphone and began, “After presenting all of the evidence, as it relates to the death of Sandra Bland, the Grand Jury did not return an indictment…”

Sheriff R. Glenn Smith watched through the glass doors from the hallway above (just as those gathered with him had watched through the frosted glass door of Judge McCaig’s Office), as we now listened to the news that neither he, nor anyone on his staff would be indicted in the death of Sandra Bland.

His victory seemed to be complete.

Yet, it would only appear that way to someone who did not know the way that stories about hubris end.

(Hint: It’s not over.)

Featured, Justice

Why You’ve Never Heard Me Say Sandra Bland Was Murdered

December 15, 2015 Hannah Adair Bonner 3 Comments

You’ve never heard me say that Sandra Bland was murdered.

Words are precious to me. I handle them with care. I work with poets who shuffle them around like puzzle pieces on a table until they find just the right fit. I was raised by a man who took the half-page permission slips that my elementary school teachers sent home with me and made me late for the bus as he pored over each word before signing. I serve a religious tradition where great debates decades long were waged over whether the word transubstantiation or consubstantiation should be used to describe the Eucharist.

So, no, you’ve never heard me say that Sandra Bland was murdered. That is something I can neither know nor prove. And to say something I can neither know nor prove detracts from the validity of what I do know and can prove.

What you will hear me say is that Sandra Bland’s life was taken.

Day by day a system of white supremacy seeks to chip away at the vitality of young women of color in this nation. Day by day, their souls must expand in order to merely survive as some piece or peace is constantly being taken.

In this journey of five months, I have not been driven and motivated by Sandra’s death, I have been driven by her life. What she was. What she could have been. What has been taken from her family. What has been taken from all of us. What can be given back to her of her legacy by keeping her name, voice, image and story alive.

A death is not enough to drive the movement that this nation needs, because if we are driven by death, we will become dependent upon it occurring.

We cannot need the blood of others. We cannot come to rely upon it being spilt.

I was at a meeting earlier this year when a wise woman, I believe it was Rev. Candy Holmes, said that we could not be dependent on the sacrifice of our young, the blood of our slain to motivate the movement. We must struggle and fight for justice without needing someone to die to herald our attention, motivate our action, or mobilize our masses. It is true, I was out in the streets for Michael, for Eric, for Tamir; but I do not want it to cost anyone else’s life for us to stay motivated to end the injustice that exists.

In this journey, I have been counting not on Sandra Bland’s death but on her life. We have a gift in the record she left us, a gift not to be squandered. I have been counting on her leadership, her voice, her wisdom, her authenticity, her weakness, her struggle, her strength. I could not afford to see her as the image that our media tried to leave to us: a little bit shattered in an orange jumpsuit. That was not her. She was not an object of pity, a vessel broken, or a corpse. She was life. Life was what was taken from us. What she offered us was not her death, what she offered was her life. Her true identity and legacy lies not in the fact that she died but in the fact that she lived, loved, suffered, triumphed, struggled, succeeded.

On many occasions, and as recently as 30 minutes ago, I have had to turn to God, turn to Scriptures, and turn to Sandra’s own words to find my way. When I do so, I do not do so fueled by an image of her in an orange prison jumpsuit. I have never allowed my eyes to more than glance at such an image. When I do so, I am fueled by an image of a perfectly imperfect woman who was passionate enough about her calling to answer it with curlers in her hair and these words: “It’s time ya’ll. It’s time.”

And these words: “I can’t do this alone, I need ya’lls help.”

And these words: “It’s time to stop saying, I knew that was going to happen, and it’s time to start doing something.”

And these words: “It’s God that’s truly opened up my eyes to the fact that there is something we can do.”

So no, you will not hear me say that Sandra Bland was murdered. The words you will hear me choose to use are that Sandra Bland’s life was taken. And if we do nothing, we are all complicit. And if we do nothing, it will happen again. Because there is a system in place in this nation that seeks to break down what is most threatening to it: a black woman who loves herself and her sisters enough to take action so that they will all live safe and free.

She lost her life in taking that action. Why? Because the action is necessary. If it was not necessary, she would still be alive today. If the racism and system of injustice that she spoke against and struggled against did not exist, she would still be alive today. It was that system that took her life, by whatever method it did so.

Nina Simone once sang:

I wish I knew how
It would feel to be free
I wish I could break
All the chains holdin’ me
I wish I could say
All the things that I should say
Say ’em loud say ’em clear
For the whole ’round world to hear

Later in an interview, when asked what freedom meant to her, Nina Simone answered: “No fear.”

What more was Sandra Bland trying to do but live free so that others might do so as well.

I still do not have an answer to the question we asked for 80 days in front of the Waller County Jail: “What Happened to Sandra Bland?” The reality is that even if the official story is the fact, it has been so steeped in falsehood that you could not blame anyone who could not recognize it as truth. From shifting stories to slander to preposterous tours of the jail cell where the “untouched” objects were constantly moving in the pictures reporters brought out – the water has become so muddy that we cannot see what is at the bottom of it all. The only thing that is clear is that there is more to the story than we have gotten.

In the midst of all that we do not know, this is what we do know:

Sandra Bland should not have been followed.

Sandra Bland should not have been pulled over.

Sandra Bland should not have been threatened with a taser.

Sandra Bland should not have been taken from her car.

Sandra Bland should not have been thrown to the ground.

Sandra Bland should not have been arrested.

Sandra Bland should never have been in the Waller County Jail.

Regardless of what it cost her, we cannot ignore the fact that in the last moments that we have sight of Sandra Bland, she lived free; by Nina Simone’s definition, she lived without fear.

Many critique her that if she had operated with the appropriate fear and deference she would still be with us today. Yet, we cannot build a just world where people can live free through fear. We have to build it by eliminating the necessity for fear, by eliminating a system that judges us differently. That will cost us all something, and white people like myself must pay our hefty portion of the bill that has come due.

There are many people in this nation who could drive through life without ever being aware that what happened to Sandra Bland was a possibility. In Sandra’s words, “It’s time.” We’ve got to let go of wherever it was that we were trying to get to in life, pull the car over and do something.

Featured, Justice

Why We Say Her Name: Sandra Bland

October 14, 2015 Hannah Adair Bonner 4 Comments

As she arrived at the security check and showed her I.D., the airport agent’s eyes welled with tears at the sight of Sandra Bland’s mother; proving that even TSA is not immune to the power of her story and presence.

This has become the new normal for the Bland family as Sandra’s voice strikes a chord in people’s hearts whose echo cannot seem to be silenced.

This is why we say: Sandy still speaks.

The young agent pulled herself together, striving to repress the overwhelming emotions that no one should have to repress. Revealing that all of us, in the end, are human.

There is something about Sandy that summons forth a response unlike any other. Something in her voice. Her passion. Her strength. Her courage. Her words hold the most vital components we can hope to see in someone fighting for justice: an unapologetic love of blackness, an unapologetic love of self, and an unapologetic love of others.

So if you fight for justice, if you long for justice: this hurts. It hurts to watch Sandra pushed to the ground and spoken to disrespectfully by Officer Penny Good while Officer Brian Encinia had his knee in her back. Sisterhood betrayed. It hurt a week ago today to watch the same officer, Officer Penny Good order another officer to shoot Prairie View City Councilman Jonathan Miller in the back with a taser as he knelt in his own backyard. Three weeks after he had voted to reaffirm the naming of Sandra Bland Parkway; one week after he had voted to give the officers a raise. Solidarity betrayed.

This hurts. It is the kind of pain that makes you say: what’s the point? The kind of pain that makes you say: I cannot fight anymore.

Then you look up, and they walk into view. The family that formed Sandra Bland. The family that loved Sandra Bland. The family that will fight for Sandra Bland. It strikes a chord. I watched it happen time and time again as young women at the Million Man March and in the streets of Washington, D.C. lit up at the sight of them when recognition struck.

Perhaps it is because their love for Sandra is evident to anyone who takes the time to look. Perhaps it is because we all would want to be fought for like there is no other option but victory. Perhaps it is because we sense how much it must hurt to love like that and lose the one you love. Perhaps it is because we sense how hard it must be to strap on your armor and fight a battle whose terms are as unjust as the unjust and unnecessary arrest of Sandra Bland.

Perhaps it is because this whole struggle we are in as a nation is as unjust as the unjust and unnecessary arrest of Sandra Bland. Many have to drop off, many grow weary. Yet, there are warriors that remain, and in their honor, if for no other reason (although there are many), we have to #SayHerName

So when Sandra Bland’s sister, Mrs. Sharon Cooper, stepped onto the stage at the Million Man March, after 90 days straight of fighting for justice for her sister and said: “Say her name! Then you had better say say her name.

Sandra Bland.

Say it for her sisters Shante, Sharon, Shavon, and Sierra. Say it for her mother, Geneva. Say it for her brother, Willie, for her nieces and nephews.

Say it because her life mattered. Not because of any of her credentials or her education or her associations, but simply because it mattered. Like your life matters. No more, and not a single jot less.

Say it because every one of these instances of unjust law enforcing sends a message not only to the nation but to law enforcement themselves. We cannot send them the message that they can tase, arrest, strip search, beat, or kill a single one of us without repercussion.

Say it because every time you do, you lift the spirits of a family that is fighting a long and difficult battle for justice. That is important and never think it is not. Every tweet; every blog; every congregation, classroom or club that lifts her name, lifts their arms.

Say it because you understand that long and difficult is the only path available to justice when the system is rigged against you. Winning this battle cannot be based merely on keeping up with what the latest trending hashtag is so that we can seem relevant and woke. It has to include continuing to say those names until justice, and not merely awareness, is won. It has to include not being satisfied with winning the battle for public opinion, but also pursuing the battle for juries and consequences. Otherwise we become like the friends who bring casseroles to the funeral, but are not there when everyone leaves and the adrenaline subsides, and all that is left is the loneliness and the pain. As a parish pastor, I always knew that the real battle would not be the funeral; the real battle would be two months later when everyone but those closest to the pain had moved on. The real battle would be when no one called anymore, and no one visited anymore, because grief is a marathon, not a sprint, and most of us have not been in training for it. How many families has our hashtag battle left sitting alone in their kitchens heating up leftover casseroles from people who have moved on with their lives or started to #SayAnotherName ?

Say it because you intend to do something about it to honor a woman who did not believe in observing, commenting or tweeting about injustice, but rather was committed to doing something about injustice.

Give to the family legal fund so that they can continue the fight. Trust me, it’s important. It is like saying “I’ll help be the answer to your prayers” instead of just “I’m praying for you.” It is like saying “We are in this together” instead of just “What you are going through must be so hard.”
Demand the immediate termination of the officers who arrested Sandra Bland, who not only put her life into jeopardy but also all of our lives if law enforcement receives the message that this is acceptable and without concrete consequence.

Say it. Say her name. Say it because you understand that saying it will never be enough, but that silence is intolerable.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

"There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." (Leonard Cohen)