Ahmaud Arbery, a 25 year old African American, was killed on February 23rd this year by two white neighbourhood residents (one a former police officer) who were not arrested until earlier this month, 74 days after the murder took place.
Christian Cooper, a 57 year old African American, posted a video this past Monday. In the video, he was asking a white woman to put her dog on a leash in Central Park. She responded by calling 911, saying “I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.”
George Floyd, a 46 year old African American, was killed that same day after a white police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
These three racially charged incidents, despite each recently gaining viral attention on the internet and through traditional news sources, are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to racial tension in America. They are just a snapshot of the social frustration that has led in part to protests, rioting, and looting in more than 30 United States cities in the past few days.
Like many white people living in Canada, I have wondered what my responsibility may be as a follower of Jesus, as a father, and as a global citizen. Many people wiser and more educated than myself have discussed and debated the role people like me should play in situations like this, @thatchrischase being a notable example. I admit that it was only after watching footage of the violence and destruction resulting from the riots in places like Atlanta and Minneapolis that I felt I could not remain silent in the realm of social media in good conscience.
I have no strength or knowledge in America’s justice system, or in the nuances of what makes racial tension in America different from the tensions of our own nation – although I freely admit Canada is in many ways no better than our neighbor. To present my own solution to this turmoil or my own perspective on why things are happening like this would be only to give an ill-informed opinion, and there’s nothing to be gained for you or me in doing that. My strength is in drawing connections between stories and the real world. I find that we can use stories as a lens through which to view our own circumstances, and that doing so can shed light on aspects of our lives that might otherwise remain in darkness. And when I considered everything that’s going on in the States right now, the first story that came to mind was the 1981 film “The Fox and the Hound”.
Ever since late December, I’ve been on a journey to watch through the entire Disney Animation Studios library, which is why I ended up watching “The Fox and the Hound” back in March. Even then, I was taken aback by how strongly the film was evocative of the racial tensions that have permeated America since long before and long after this film was released. If you’ve never seen it – or if it’s been years, here’s the quick version.
A fox and a hound dog meet as kids and become fast friends. But when they grow up, they realize that the society they live in does not condone their friendship. The hound dog has been raised for hunting foxes, and so out of the hound’s loyalty to the system that raised him, their friendship collapses. Towards the end of the movie, the hound has a moment of clarity and saves the fox from being killed by his master.
It’s a scene of great poignance because the hound is momentarily casting aside the societal norm in order to do what’s right. But when the movie ends, the system that forces these two friends apart remains in place. The final shot is one where the fox looks from the wilderness towards the hound’s home. It seems apparent that the hound will continue to hunt for his master, and that the fox is still not welcome in the hound’s world. It’s a movie with a momentary victory, but the systemic prejudice against the fox remains unchanged.
In the West, there have been many significant wins for minorities and the underprivileged. But the system is not yet perfect – far from it, in fact. We have people of every tongue and nation that live and love together, sure. But there are still people that are unjustly hunted down. And that’s a problem.
The brokenness of America’s judicial system when it comes to equity in the treatment of race is screamingly apparent in the three news cases I listed at the beginning of this post. Three unarmed African Americans were subject to a system that does not treat them the same way it treats Whites – and two of them are dead because of it. America may have made progress since the days of Martin Luther King Jr., but it’s today’s news that reminds me of “The Fox and the Hound”. There have been moments of triumph, but the system remains profoundly broken.
How do we fix this? What can one person do – what can ten people do – what can thousands of people do – to fix a system so broken that the white police officer who murdered Eric Garner in 2014 did not face one day of jail time, and was not even fired until last year?
I don’t know what it will take to save the next George Floyd, or the next Eric Garner, or the next Christian Cooper, or the next Ahmaud Arbery, or the next Freddie Gray, Sam Dubose, Terence Crutcher, Alton Sterling, William Chapman, or Walter Scott. But I know that my silence will not save them. A German pastor living in the time of the Nazi regime wrote the following passage, and I pray that the privileged will not forget it.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me –
and there was no one left to speak for me.”