September 1, innocently doing laundry at her mother’s, Tamara Collier, 24 (pictured on left), a nurses’ assistant was shot. An errant bullet fired from a high-powered rifle ricocheted even penetrated a wall and door hitting the young mother of two in the neck severing her spinal cord. She fell to the floor lying between her blood splattered children, Dominique, 5, and D’Marri, 1. Paralyzed below her shoulders, Tamara is at SLU Hospital struggling with a feeding tube, and fighting to breathe without a ventilator.
Tamara look familiar? Not to me. My wife in frustration with violence brought her to my attention. “Does her life matter?”
Two weeks later, protests and violence erupted in St. Louis following the acquittal of Stockley in the shooting death of Smith. Do the protesters know Tamara Collier? My gut wrenches. My mind questions; what will this young mother’s care be if she survives? I can’t plead ignorance. While Ms. Collier battles for life, many work to repeal the Affordable Care Act cutting millions who need healthcare in addition to capping services to those who’ve fought desperately to defeat a terminal disease to survive or have preexisting conditions.
So many issues surround Tamara and her children. Issues in community welfare, education, violence, poverty, inadequate healthcare, teen pregnancy, abuse; all existed in St. Louis before she was shot. Now, for her personally, these are beyond magnification! Hatred, racism, and greed are learned. Thirty-five years ago, I entered teaching with the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision to bus students from St. Louis City to suburban schools in an attempt to answer to the issues above with desegregation. Poverty continues to run high in Ms. Collier’s community. Will her children grow to be disenfranchised? Will her family be judged for need or will her family escape ridicule to manage beyond assistance for food, clothing, and shelter? How many different agencies will come to their aid? How many that “have” will work to cut her services so that they will “have more?” What would agencies become if they merged as allies working together to reduce racial bias and socio-economic injustice? What justice will her children inherit?
In 1972, there were 300,000 people incarcerated. Today, in the U.S., 2.3 million are in prison, the highest rate of incarceration of any nation in the world. Another 7 million sit on parole and probation.1 Is there a disconnect between incarceration and our beliefs in the dignity of all human life?
“Forgiveness is neither earned nor even deserved, but a gift. It is also a mystery. An offender can be punished, but to punish and not to restore, that is the greatest of all offenses …. If a man takes unto himself God’s right to punish, then he must also take upon himself God’s promise to restore.” Johann Christoph Arnold, author of Forgiveness
As he ages, will D’Marri become the 1 out of 3 black males between the ages of 18 and 30 to go to prison or on probation or parole; specifically, in urban cities across the U.S., 50 – 60% of all young males of color are in jail or on probation.1
Dominique and D’Marri run a tremendous risk of sinking into poverty. “We have a system of justice in this country that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes. And yet, we seem to be very comfortable. The politics of fear and anger have made us believe that these are problems that are not our problems. We've been disconnected.” -- Bryan Stevenson author of Just Mercy
How are communities of the poor and of color being shaped? What are potential outcomes?
Are people aware? Presently in Alabama, 34% of the black male population has permanently lost the right to vote. The U.S. has numerous states with inmates serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes. In addition, many of these were young teens at the time of sentencing. 1
Death penalty error rate: 1 in every 9 executed is proven innocent.1
“I talk about race and this question of whether we deserve to kill. And it's interesting, when I teach my students about African-American history, I tell them about slavery. I tell them about terrorism, the era that began at the end of reconstruction that went on to World War II. We don't really know very much about it. But for African-Americans in this country, that was an era defined by terror. In many communities, people had to worry about being lynched. They had to worry about being bombed. It was the threat of terror that shaped their lives. And these older people come up to me now and they say, "Mr. Stevenson, you give talks, you make speeches, you tell people to stop saying we're dealing with terrorism for the first time in our nation's history after 9/11." They tell me to say, "No, tell them that we grew up with that." And that era of terrorism, of course, was followed by segregation and decades of racial subordination and apartheid.” Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, author of “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption”
Millions of men and women sacrificed their lives during a second world war that halted the systematic killing of Jews. In states of the old south, one is 11 times more likely to get the death penalty if the victim is white than if the victim is black, 22 times more likely to get it if the defendant is black and the victim is white.1
Am I better than the worst thing I have ever done? Are our brothers’ and sisters’ better than the worst they’ve done? Pope Francis spoke to our youth and to the world on a recent TED Talk saying “our humanity depends upon all humanity.”
Is our society at risk … is Christianity at risk … is our Church at risk … is technology, innovation, creativity at risk … to the abused, denigrated, suffering, and marginalized?
Will the character of our society be measured by innovation, design, reason, and intellect or will it be measured as Christ asked us to live; the character of a society will not be measured by how they treat the powerful and the privileged, but by how they treat the poor and marginalized?
Dollars will not change these issues alone. Relationships will. Respect, forgiveness, compassion, grit, and perseverance will We are the hands and minds of Christ. We must use them. Perhaps, we, as men, are overdue to gather with our brothers of different colors, creeds, and cultures in systematic dialogue and action once a quarter? We are elements of change!
“Who is our neighbor?” Lk 10:29 Who is our brother? Who is our sister?
Do you hear rumbling or silence? Our faith holds that all lives matter -- do they?
Though the following passage is related to hurricanes, it is more related to the answers found in the goodness of people. Demonstrated far better than I am able to write, watch it. Peace.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-the-worst-of-harvey-brought-out-americas-best/
***On the heals of the latest shooting in Las Vegas, I was not prepared, but wanted to pass along the words and wisdom of Fr. James Martin SJ author and editor of the Jesuit journal America.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2012/12/17/gun-control-pro-life-issue
***On the heals of the latest shooting in Las Vegas, I was not prepared, but wanted to pass along the words and wisdom of Fr. James Martin SJ author and editor of the Jesuit journal America.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2012/12/17/gun-control-pro-life-issue
Footnotes:
Statistics used in my research drawn from the Equal Justice Initiative.
For an insightful, challenging presentation, watch --
(1) “We need to talk about an injustice” – Bryan Stevenson TED Talk and author of “Just Mercy”
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