Will there be Peace in Ferguson?

With the Grand Jury in St. Louis deciding not to indict the police officer who shot Michael Brown after a brief but deadly encounter back in August, we should not be surprised that the streets of this small inner suburb city of Ferguson are in flames.  Or should we? Was the violent response by some a foregone conclusion? Is this the new normal?  Clergy and others are calling for peace in the streets before the damage escalates even further. 

As I prepare for Thanksgiving Day on the beautiful Seacoast of New Hampshire this year, in many ways I am a world away from the events unfolding on the television screen.   What I see and read is being shaped by the media sources bringing me the news, and I also see and hear through the prism of my life and experiences.  I do not live in Ferguson.  As a white male, I have not had the experiences of some people of color of acts discrimination or profiling.  Sales clerks buzz me into their stores without hesitation and I am never shadowed by staff.  Taxi drivers stop to pick me up at night in the streets of New York City.  I never had “The Talk” with my son about how he should act or carry himself out in the world and especially when and if he were to encounter the police. 

On the day in question in Ferguson, Missouri there were no dash cameras to record what happened between Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. Eyewitnesses came forward with their accounts of those few tragic seconds.

When I served as dean of the cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut I was asked weeks into my tenure to join other clergy protesting the actions of the Hartford Police Department in another race-tinged investigation. I chose not to sign the petition at the time because I wanted to learn more about the city and the people involved. I began to see how the Hartford Police would daily go into crime drenched neighborhoods to enforce the law and break up all kinds of domestic disputes, often putting their own lives at risk. My thinking was: I did not  want to make their jobs more difficult by making them second guess themselves if and when they as police officers are threatened in the moment. All the while, I hoped and prayed that there were no bad apples in the barrel of the department who might be racist, corrupt or using their authority to oppress at will. In all honesty: I wanted to have it both ways. Support the good cops and drive out the bad ones. Protect the law abiding citizens from those who might prey on their vulnerability. 

The family of Michael Brown can rightly cry out: “Where is justice?” Officer Wilson can also believe that he was simply doing his job and felt that his life was threatened.

We should all ask ourselves if we as a people could do better than the climate and structure of disparity that often leads to such encounters of hostility and fear. Police departments are stronger when they reflect the racial and ethnic mix of the population they serve. Elected leaders can show leadership in moments of unrest to calm fears. From an outsider’s view, Ferguson failed on many fronts. In my opinion, we as a society have failed on many fronts to confront racism.  

Society’s version of justice pales in comparison with God’s sense of justice -- where all of the God’s people can live into the fullness of their lives. Biblical justice implies a certain way of behaving.  We read in Isaiah 1:17  “learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” Biblical justice requires us to be willing to take sides. That is not always easy when the expectation is for justice to be blind. 

As the ashes of events on the ground in Ferguson still simmer, I hope that we will learn something from this tragedy.  And do something.  We should not be blind or turn away to the inequality of our world, from corruption, discrimination the list of –isms that dehumanize.

Pray and work for peace, justice and compassion. 

The Rev. Mark B. Pendleton

Rector