elton Mathis |

“We were advised by legal counsel to cancel the meeting,” Prairie View City Councilmen Jonathan Randall said to the crowd of students and Prairie View community members crowded around the front door of Prairie View City Hall on October 15 to stand in solidarity with their City Councilman, the Honorable Jonathan Miller. Community members had been told that the City Council would be discussing the arrest of the Honorable Jonathan Miller.

Yes, that Jonathan Miller. The one who voted to rename the road where she was arrested to Sandra Bland Parkway… twice. The Jonathan Miller who has written letters to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee to press for answers to what happened to Sandra Bland. The one who was mysteriously tased and arrested in his own front yard by officers who knew him well; officers who told him they knew he was “always making problems” before they tased him.

It was growing tiring to see the same faces show up in this situation as in the arrest and investigation of Sandra Bland. Yes, I am fully aware that in a small town there are not many options for who can erroneously order a City Councilman to be tasered, or who can oversee an investigation of potentially great financial importance. I know there are only six officers in Prairie View and Penny Goodie, who mocked Sandra Bland while she lay in the dirt, had a 1 in 6 chance of being the same officer who would order the Honorable Jonathan Miller to be laid down in the dirt. And I am fully aware that the District Attorney who called Sandra Bland “not a model person” would be the only District Attorney available to oversee the investigation of whether the Honorable Jonathan Miller was honorable or not. I understand it, but understanding it makes it none the less painful.

Moving into the City Council chambers, the crowd filled the seats and began to have their say. The media had been notified by the mayor that the meeting was off and informed not to come, but there was one lingering cameraman and a reporter, as well as a journalist from the LA Times. The purpose of the meeting, without much press present, actually shifted to the community truly listening to one another and dialoguing. Without cameras and microphones, and with the City Councilpersons and Mayor in the back, mostly in street clothes, there was greater transparency amongst residents. It was actually the best environment I have experienced in that room thus far.

One older woman, who asked me not to use her name or face for fear of retaliation, said the following:

Early in the morning, when I am in my bed, and I meditate and think about all the things that have been done, to my brothers and sisters by the police department and they just keep getting away with it. White supremacy is alive and well. And from time to time, I ask myself, what ever happened to the KKK? They used to be known by their white sheets and hoods, you don’t see that anymore. They did not fade into the wide blue yonder. My personal opinion? They did not just disappear. They have, I believe, infiltrated the police department. I believe they have traded in those white sheets and hood for a uniform and a badge and and a gun. And they have infiltrated the good officers. You can’t tell the bad policeman from the good officer. I honestly believe this where they have gone. Because here they can kill and get away with it. They can have their court system pick some more KKK guys, and this is just my opinion. Where did those guys go, who was once known as the KKK. You knew them when they showed up many, many years ago because they wore that distinctive uniform; and I believe they traded that uniform in for a blue uniform, a badge, and a gun.

A young Prairie View student had his say as well:

What if I tell you that the Mayor is also the Fire Chief and he had a Fireman’s Banquet and at that Banquet he honored Sheriff Glenn Smith. Or if I tell you that Waller County is the last county that emancipated slaves, but we don’t celebrate Juneteenth like we should. If I tell you that Sandra Bland was the first black body to be picked up by a white funeral home ever in Waller County. If I tell you that the first President of Prairie View A&M was a former slave of the first President of Texas A&M, then you start reevaluating where are we really? Because the true power is the power that is unseen.

Finally a Prairie View property owner raised the questions on many people’s minds about what the priorities of elected officials were:

How can he be the Mayor of our city, and the mayor of the campus, those two jobs conflict. But he does not receive a payment for being our mayor, he is a volunteer. So in your best assessment, if you had a job that you volunteered for and a job that paid you over six figures, where are your loyalties.

(*I believe he meant the use of the phrase “mayor of campus” metaphorically. Frank Jackson is the Texas A&M Vice Chancellor of Governmental Affairs after a recent promotion.)

The President of the Democrats Club of Waller County made the following remarks:

If I had been in [Jonathan’s] position, I would have considered that assault. I believe that there is no need to lolly gag on this. We need to let Officer Kelly know, we need to thank him for his service up until this point, and we need to let him know that we would be happy to accept his resignation, go ahead and get that notarized, and get that done with.”

We can pray things will move more quickly for Jonathan than they have for Sandra Bland.

95 days have passed since the death of Sandra Bland in the Waller County Jail. 95 days of watching Waller County officials play games to delay or distort information while the family of Sandra Bland suffers without answers. 95 days of watching people change the story to try to make it fit the evidence.

After 95 days of watching and praying, it was comforting to know that there are some people in Waller County who can be honest and transparent with one another. Those people, ultimately, are the Boss of all the rest, for it is the citizens who vote that truly do the hiring and firing of elected officials. In Waller County, as in many parts of the nation, the nature of the democracy is questioned by many after years of watching the political machine work. Yet, in each and every election, the people have a choice whether they will wake up and stop being cogs in a machine.

Today, in Prairie View City Hall, the room was filled with people who had woken up. Perhaps if the machine is to be shut down, it will take an electric surge, the sizzle and flash of a taser. First there was the taser that the white, male Officer, Brian Encinia, used to threaten Sandra Bland and tear her from the safety of her car as Officer Penny Goodie pulled up to watch. Then there was the flash of light as the taser of the white, male Officer, Michael Kelly, drew blood from the back of the Honorable Jonathan Miller at the order of Officer Penny Goodie.

In both cases, officials in Waller County see “nothing to be concerned about” in the treatment of either of these young, African American, Prairie View alumni. It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that they are alone in that opinion.

The Complaint
“How long, Lord, must I call for help,
    but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
    but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
    Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
    there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
    and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
    so that justice is perverted.” – Habakkuk 1

The Response
“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

“Isn’t that what you are here for?!?” the white, female ABC reporter in front of us raged. She had watched from her SUV as those of us keeping vigil for Sandy Bland outside of Waller County Jail watched the video of Sandy’s arrest for the first time, huddled around one of our smart phones. It was a disturbing video; traumatic; infuriating; and we were visibly upset. The majority of those sitting in front of the County Jail were African American women close to Sandy’s age, similarly outspoken, and committed to the same ideals of justice that she was so vocal about in her #SandySpeaks videos. Over the course of the past seven days that we have sat in front of the scene of Sandy’s death, they have made it very clear: Sandy could have been any one of them.

Rushing out of her SUV and eager to capture the emotion, the reporter shoved a microphone in their faces saying, “You just watched the dash cam video didn’t you. What’s your reaction?” When they politely asked to be left alone and said they could not answer any questions right now, she badgered them aggressively. Finally, in my exhaustion, I said, “Fine, I’ll do an interview, please just understand that what we just watched is very painful and this is a traumatized space right now. Please will you speak to them in a more respectful manner.”

“What, don’t you want your message to get out? Isn’t that what you are here for?!?!” she raged.

My next words were clear: “I won’t be doing an interview with you,” I said as we all walked away and she continued to rage. I was shaking. I was shaking because it was not the first time that week she had treated us that way. I was shaking because in that moment she was giving embodiment to the very things we were fighting against: white indifference to the suffering of African Americans; the expectation and insistence of white people that our own comfort, feelings, and agendas will be prioritized over those of people of color even in moments that most impact people of color; and the inability to mourn the death of African Americans, compounded with the unwillingness to allow African Americans space to mourn without analysis.

White supremacy is not usually a man in a white hood; in fact, it hardly ever is. It is the way that we, as white people, daily occupy space in this country in a manner that demands and expects our needs, wants, comfort and feelings will be prioritized.

The dangerous implications of that reality are what we see playing out in the dashcam footage released on Tuesday: a man with authority becoming enraged that his feelings, comfort, and pride are not prioritized over the rights, safety and life of an African American woman.

The dynamic is all too similar to the arrangement upon which our nation was built: that black lives are less important than white comfort. That was what was taught by philosophers and theologians, and then spoon-fed to congregations by white pastors like myself who promoted a system of “Christian slave-holding” – a contradiction if there ever was one.

Now many white people are feeling the discomfort as we try to right the ship midstream. Our discomfort is necessary to right the scales on which their lives have been undervalued for so long.

This is what I would have said if I had given Jessica Willey of ABC an interview:

First, we are not sitting outside the Waller County Jail for the sake of the media. We are sitting out there for Sandra Bland. We are sitting out there because, as her mother said last night at the Memorial Service on the campus of Prairie View University, Sandy knew she had a purpose here in Texas. As her mother quoted her, “My purpose is to go back to Texas, my purpose is to stop all social injustice in the South.” That calling was so evident in her videos. Which is why, as we sat overwhelmed with the tragedy of her death a week ago, listening to the words of one of her #SandySpeaks videos, we could not ignore her call for assistance: “I need your help. I cannot do this alone.” We knew what we had to do. We had to go to the spot where her life had been taken and give her honor, sitting vigil for our sister in Christ so that the world will know that #SandySTILLSpeaks and cannot be silenced.

Second, what I see in this video is a woman fighting for her life from the minute she is pulled over. Fighting to live in a country in which she had rights, and in which her humanity was respected. Fighting to live in a place where you are able to assert your legal rights regardless of the color of your skin, and you do not have to genuflect to authority when that authority is misused and abused in order to save your own skin. In doing so, Sandra Bland was not just fighting for her own life, she was fighting for all of our lives. Fighting back against a system that says you have to treat police with respect even if they do not treat you with respect. Fighting against a system where the wounded male ego is cause for arrest. Fighting against a system where the voices of women are silenced, and the bodies of women are grasped without their permission.

On Monday, July 20, a week after Sandy’s death, District Attorney Elton Mathis said, “It was not a model person who was stopped.” To say I disagree could never be enough.

So I will continue to sit outside the Waller County Jail in vigil to let the community know that here was lost a life that deserves to be honored. I will continue to listen to #SandySpeaks and encourage you to do likewise.

I am confident that Sandra Bland did not kill herself. I have been confident from the second I heard her voice: the voice of a woman who unapologetically loved herself, others, and her God. That can be a difficult thing to be, however, when you live in a world that expects women like Sandy to apologize for their own greatness.

Rev. Hannah Bonner

St. John’s Downtown, Houston, Texas

Tag Archives: elton Mathis

How many tasers will it take to wake Waller County?

Sandra Bland: Fighting For Life, Both Hers & Yours

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