Political Violence against Women, the SVB Bailout, Jacob Harris
KTF Weekly Newsletter
Hi everyone,
Wherever you find yourself this week, we hope that you are discovering that there is hope in the midst of whatever waters you are wading through, and that you are not going through them alone. There is a God committed to justice, love, and mercy, and people who are too. As Tamice Spencer-Helms notes in Faith Unleavened, the wilderness is a place where we can find community and Jesus. Hallelujah and amen to all of us being beloved and essential to our father.
And with that, on to our highlights this week as we leave colonized faith for the kingdom of God.
Jonathan’s recommendations:
When the US government assured the stability of the deposits at the recently-collapsed Silicon Valley Bank, I read this piece from Talia Lavin like an imprecatory Psalm. In it she tells the story of the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, where Federal and state troops killed 25 people in the violent suppression of a Colorado mining strike. The miners, employees of the Rockefellers, were seeking only the labor protections already legally owed to them. Rather than pay his workers, John D. Rockefeller paid the salaries of state soldiers to burn, murder, and terrorize the men, women and children who would dare rebel against the system imposed upon them. Lavin reminds us that in the same way the federal government did not come to save starving families in Colorado in 1914, they are not coming to save the people in the 32 states that cut SNAP benefits this month. Instead, it has directed its resources toward saving the Rockefellers of today, just like yesteryear. The US privileges those with wealth and power to the detriment of the poor and marginalized. What grieves me afresh today is that we have yet to learn that this is no way to live and nowhere near what God intends for us.
The Department of Justice released a 90-page report detailing civil rights abuses, rampant racial profiling, and violence against the Black community of Louisville by the police. The investigation began following the murder of Breonna Taylor. This summary from Reuters pulls out some highlights and points out that the Trump Administration’s neglect of such investigations had ramifications for the poor and people of color who suffer under corrupt police departments across the country. In Louisville, police dogs bit people after they surrendered and posed no threat, officers used dangerous neck restraints for no reason, and police unnecessarily escalated situations toward violent outcomes. It is true that Breonna Taylor should still be alive. It is also true that so many others should not live in fear in their communities every time they hear sirens or see blue lights. Lord have mercy.
The climate crisis is wreaking havoc on communities in every corner of the globe. California’s atmospheric rivers are flowing and flooding while an unrelenting monsoon season in Pakistan late last year left one third of the country flooded. But that is not stopping the Biden Administration from going back on a campaign promise and allowing a new oil drilling project in Alaska to move forward. This story from the LA Times points out that Native groups are split on whether they support or oppose the project, and the traditional stakeholders are lined up on either side with lawyers on deck. There is nothing easy about turning away from a world run on fossil fuels, particularly when so many stand to gain money and power off the oil industry. But even harder than that is contending with the increasingly regular environmental catastrophes happening because we refuse to make that turn.
Sy’s recommendations:
The FBI has arrested another man threatening the life of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. As this article lays out, there are established patterns at work here. Women and LGBTQ+ people in elected office, particularly BIPOC, report significantly higher rates of threats than their straight, white, and/or male counterparts. And the MAGA crowd’s false claims of election fraud too often mix with that bigotry to turn threats into action. This is playing out in Michigan where women hold the majority of leadership positions in the legislature and government, and threats are on the rise. As the article points out, the true cost of all this extends beyond the threats themselves to the chilling effect on political speech and participation of already underrepresented groups. That effect is, of course, a goal of the increasing number of people threatening and enacting violence.
Refinery29 has a thoughtful piece this week on anti-Blackness in Mexico. It also examines nationalism from many more angles than you might be used to if the “Christian nationalism” discussion is your primary entry point to that topic. The piece is by an Afro-Mexican immigrant to America. They entreat their compatriots and fellow immigrants to reexamine Mexican nationalism, which they state is increasingly popular among Mexican migrants as a means of preserving heritage and forging unity. The article points to examples in Puerto Rico and Haiti, where nationalism is often a positive force against colonialism. But acknowledging the relative power and anti-Blackness of Mexico means that Mexican nationalism ought to be approached with more caution. I really appreciate the opportunity to get a window into this conversation, and the author’s willingness to share with us stories of racism they’ve personally faced in their country of origin. The article is a gift and we should learn from it.
Content warning for a description of police violence against BIPOC in this paragraph. And this is a really rough story to learn about, if you’re not in the right emotional place. But if you feel like you are, it’s definitely worth knowing. Jacob Harris died four years ago. The police did not give Harris and his three friends the opportunity to pull their car over. Driving up behind the car at a red light, the police shot a “grappler” at the back bumper to restrain the vehicle. They then surrounded it with cop cars and threw a flashbang at the door. Why? What had the 3 teenagers and one 20-year-old done? Robbed a Whataburger. Jacob got out of the car and ran. They shot him in the back as he fled, then hit him with rubber bullets after he went down, and sent their attack dog to bite his leg. They decided to charge him with assaulting an officer, but they couldn’t because he died 10 minutes later. So they charged all his friends with his murder instead. All 3 friends were convicted and are now in prison. The youngest was 14 when Jacob died, so he was repeatedly placed in solitary confinement to “protect” him from older prisoners. This recent investigation from The Appeal has the details of the case, the inconsistencies in officers’ stories, the evidence police destroyed, and the perspective of all four kids’ families. One officer has requested that a court order Jacob’s family to pay his alleged $40,000 in attorney’s fees after the dismissal of a wrongful death lawsuit. All of us should be praying for the peace and protection of Jacob’s friends, for the presence of God with the families, and for the often seemingly impossible eventualities of accountability and justice.
Thank you so much for reading, and we will see you next week.
The KTF team