KTF Weekly Newsletter: Hiding Police Violence, Blowing the Whistle on Facebook, Giving back Bruce’s Beach
Hi everyone,
Shake the Dust will be back next week with a special off-season episode for everyone, and then you all will be getting the first of your monthly subscriber-only bonus episodes the week after that. Thanks so much for your continued support, and here are this week’s resources to help us leave colonized faith for the Kingdom of God.
Sy’s recommendations:
Data about police violence is an eternal subject of scrutiny in the public dialogue about racial injustice in the US. Often, opposition to Black Lives Matter hinges almost entirely on the mistaken belief that police do not disproportionately commit violence against Black people. But until quite recently, the data over which so many people argue came almost exclusively from law enforcement itself. This is, to put it mildly, a problem. University of Washington researchers recently published a wide-ranging study comparing official data on police violence to compilations of death certificates and data from non-profits that track police killings via media and requests for public records. Their conclusion? 55% of police killings are not reported as police killings. You read that correctly. However many people the police say they have killed, these researchers believe you can safely more than double that number. And of course, the researchers found that when the killings are all counted, the disproportionality of the violence against Black people increases. Read about the study here.
When Alaska became a state in the US, the federal government failed to uphold its promise to the indigenous people to honor their existing claims to land. For several years, indigenous leaders fought for their rights, winning allies and eventually frustrating the ability of an oil company to create a pipeline across their lands. This culminated in the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which created over 200 corporations that would own areas of native land. Only indigenous people could receive shares in these corporations, and the shares could not be sold. But the limits on who could receive shares and the ownership of the land by corporations, instead of tribes, has created many complications for Alaska native people today. Marking the 50-year anniversary of the act, Indian Country Today has a 3-part series of articles on how painful history, deep questions of identity, tribal membership, and qualifications for corporate shareholding form a complicated backdrop to the political and everyday life of Alaska’s native people. I found the series to be highly informative and a good opportunity to reflect on and pray about the sheer volume and complexity of the consequences of the displacement and violence inflicted by European settlers in the Americas. Click these links for parts one, two, and three of the series.
As we have noted in the newsletter before, Canada is going through a process of truth and reconciliation regarding its treatment of indigenous people, highlighted in recent months by news of the discovery of unmarked mass graves found by residential schools into which Canada forced indigenous children for years. The US had similar institutions, and like in Canada, many were run by both the Catholic and various Protestant churches. A recent article from Faithfully Magazine surveyed responses from churches to the increased attention on this history, including instituting regular memorial masses, reforms at boarding schools that still operate, and formal repudiations of the doctrine of discovery. While the Vatican and the White House have still done very little to address this history, it is encouraging to see these responses from local and regional Christian entities. Let’s pray this trend continues and grows into a robust movement for justice going far further than institutional acknowledgements and changes at individual schools.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
The Facebook Files is a podcast series from the Wall Street Journal that defines very clearly the human costs of running the largest social media company in the world. Labor and sexual exploitation, social destabilization, political unrest, negative impacts on the mental health of one in three young girls — all of these ills and more are the fruit of decisions to sacrifice people on the altar of profits, growth, and expansion. This is the argument of whistleblower, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data analyst who gathered internal documents and exposed what outside data scientists, activists, and social researchers already knew. The Scriptures say that we cannot serve God and mammon; and this saga is instructive on what comes forth when we serve money.
There is a long history of the relationship between Black people in the Americas, the land we found ourselves on, and the water we were made to cross. Throughout our time here, that relationship has always been contemptuous and contested. Comedian and commentator Amber Ruffin pointed this out in her powerful video titled “Beyond Tulsa: The Secret History of Flooding Black Towns to Make Lakes.” It must be understood that the Tulsa massacre, which saw the burning and bombing of an entire district of Tulsa, is now part of our collective memory, but we have forgotten dozens of other destroyed towns. Unlike Tulsa, these towns were not bombed but literally washed away and now sit under recreational waters all over the United States.
A recent story in Los Angeles gives us a dash of hope for a future of repair and reparation for our history of racialized devastation. Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom initiated a process to return Bruce’s Beach to the descendants of the Black family from whom the state took it almost a hundred years ago. Black families settled in Manhattan Beach, California in the early 1900s. The KKK tried and failed to force them out through violence, property destruction, and terror. Ultimately it was the state of California that took a beach popular with Black residents away from its owners. Now the state is giving it back to the owners’ descendants. L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn said, “The law was used to steal this property 100 years ago, and the law today will give it back.” Governor Newsom said, “I really believe this can be catalytic,” adding “What we’re doing here today can be done and replicated anywhere else.” We pray to God: may it be so.
Shake the Dust Preview
Next week, we will have a special episode with Dante Stewart, discussing his new, truly incredible book, Shoutin’ in the Fire. We talk to him about his journey finding life and identity in the Black church and literary tradition, expanding our definition of what theology is, finding God and faith in the ordinariness of life, and a whole lot more. Don’t miss the episode, and pre-order the book, which comes out next week.
Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
The KTF team