You say so
“Slavery didn't end in 1865; it just evolved.” – Bryan Stevenson
“I know all about that.”
She was talking about my shirt.
The shirt the deputies probably would not have let me in with if they knew I was wearing it.
The shirt that had the stripes of the American Flag with the words
FROM
ENSLAVEMENT
TO MASS
INCARCERATION
Church is different in the jails. I first realized this years ago on Ash Wednesday when I went with the other chaplains of PRISM Restorative Justice to Twin Towers in Los Angeles (the nation’s largest “mental health facility” though there is nothing remotely about health in that place)
…and I realized I was being asked to impose ashes on people we had already entombed.
Church is different in the jails.
In the jails the characters in the Gospels those of us who are not incarcerated think of as “others” … are instead “us.”.
From the days of enslavement, what passes for Christianity in this country has been used to tell oppressed people to behave themselves – to endure injustice in this life (“slaves, obey your masters”) because that “virtue” would earn them a spot in heaven after so much labor had been tortured out of their bodies they finally passed on.
From the days of enslavement, the Church has talked about those in whom Jesus tells us we meet him as “others” whom “we” pray for.
We pray for “the poor”
“the outcast”
“the sick”
“the prisoner”
As if none of the gathered body is or (please, God, we pray), will ever be numbered among these things … which encourages us to keep it to ourselves when we are … and to keep those who cannot conceal it on the outside of the community, worthy of our beknighted assistance but not worthy to count themselves among us.
From enslavement to mass incarceration, very little has changed.
Let’s be clear … the only reason chaplains are allowed into jails and prisons is because we are expected to have a pacifying effect on “those poor, dangerous people” who are caged inside and to perpetuate the illusion that their humanity is being respected.
Pacification and control are the coins of the realm of the carceral state. We are allowed in as long as that is the currency in which we deal.
It’s why when I visited CRDF, the women’s jail in Lynwood, to lead worship yesterday, I had to wear my clergy shirt and collar over my t-shirt that said “FROM ENSLAVEMENT TO MASS INCARCERATION” until I got into the space they let us use as a chapel – when I took off the clergy shirt and collar so I could wear my real vestments for this Sunday.
They let us bring canned music in for the service, so we started off with a version of “This little light of mine” sung by Fannie Lou Hamer -
When they got to her verse:
“All in the Jailhouse, I’m going to let it shine.”
…they all cheered.
And then I asked them if they knew who Fannie Lou Hamer was. Nobody did. So I was able to tell them her story.
Tell them about how for as much as we talk about Martin, Malcolm and Medgar – and give lip service to Rosa refusing to give up her seat – we don’t tell the story about the women who drove and still drive this movement.
Women who were no stranger to jail cells and standing before judges.
Women like Diane Nash
… and Ella Baker
… and Fannie Lou Hamer.
“Do you know what Fannie Lou Hamer is famous for saying?” I asked … and nobody responded.
Whoops and shouts went up.
And then a voice cried out:
“Tell me about your shirt! What does that say?”
And so, I read it aloud:
FROM
ENSLAVEMENT
TO MASS
INCARCERATION
“I know all about that,” she said.
And then she shared her story:
Turns out she had done some research and discovered that her great grandmother was an enslaved person in Jackson, Mississippi.
… that her family name was actually the name of her great grandmother’s enslaver
… that she has an ancestral name, which she was able to discover and actually legally changed her name to her ancestral name.
… and now she was back where her great grandmother was. In a place where no white person with money would be waiting more than a year for their case to even get to trial.
FROM
ENSLAVEMENT
TO MASS
INCARCERATION
I mentioned that yesterday was Christ the King Sunday – the unfortunately named last Sunday before Advent that conflates the embodied love of God with the ruling power of the state.
And without a trace of irony, the lectionary chooses Jesus standing before Pilate as the Gospel reading.
“Now Jesus stood before the governor and the governor questioned him, saying, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus said, ‘You say so.’ And when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he did not answer.” – Matthew 27:11-12
There are many things in the Gospels that we can’t relate to.
Being on a boat on a lake in the middle of a big storm.
Standing in front of 5,000 hungry people looking to you for food.
There are many things Jesus does that we can’t relate to.
But standing alone in front of a judge?
These women understand that.
I even understand that.
And so we opened it up.
What does it feel like to stand in front of a judge?
Lonely.
Scary.
Shaming.
Like you don’t matter at all.
Like you’re not even human.
They talked about how the judges and the entire system tried to take away their identity. And that even the judges who they could tell were trying to be nice couldn’t help but make them feel like shit
They talked about being given numbers instead of names and all being forced to dress alike.
About how the charge that they caught became their identity.
And then we looked at what happened to Jesus.
Jesus was brought before the judge and the judge tried to define him by his charge.
Now what it’s important to understand is when Pilate charged Jesus with being “a king” … that was a charge of trying to overthrow the government.
Today, that would be calling Jesus a terrorist … with Pilate being the Department of Homeland Security.
Interesting thing about being labeled a “terrorist” … there is no other justification needed for treating them as badly as you want to treat them. More on that in another post.
“A lot of times you all share with me what charges you’ve caught,” I said. “Do you know why I never ask you if you did it?”
Silence.
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
“Not that it doesn’t matter whether you did something. We all have free will and our actions have consequences.”
“But it doesn’t matter in terms of our relationship with each other.”
I shared another quote from Bryan Stevenson
It didn’t matter whether Jesus was trying to overthrow the government.
BTW, he was.
It mattered that he would not let the state define him.
That he was more than his charge.
And so are you.
So are all of us.
And though we may have to do the time…
And like Jesus even though we might get sent to death row….
We are not defined by the state or by anyone else.
We are defined by the light of God inside each one of us.
All in the Jailhouse
Standing in front of the judge
Even heading to death row.
I’m going to let it shine
Let it shine.
Let it shine.
Let it shine.
And so we prayed for everyone who has a court date in the next month.
And we talked about humming this little light of mine when they stood before the judge to remind themselves of who they really are, and that the judge and the state cannot take that away or redefine them.
And then promising not to forget each other, because nobody is free until everyone is free.
Pacification and control.
Pacification and control are the coins of the realm of the carceral state. It’s why they take thousands of beautiful, unique individuals and make them all dress alike – because individuality is a threat. Because claiming your own identity is a threat.
Because what the system wants is for each person to be defined by the system, not as a unique and beautiful child of God.
It’s a story older than the Republic. When you want to exploit people in ways that no human being should have to endure … create the illusion that they are less than human. Create theologies and laws and fears to support that illusion.
Give them all yellow shirts to wear.
Call them by numbers instead of names.
Define them by their charges and convince the world you are doing the world a favor by locking them away … “law and order” for our protection.
But you cannot kill the light inside human beings made in God’s image.
You can cover it up.
You can convince us it isn’t there.
But you cannot kill the light.
Like that amazing woman I met yesterday, when the enslaver tries to label us, we can, like Jesus, respond with a cool “You say so” … and refuse to own the enslavers’ name.
We all can claim our true names and not just accept the names and roles the state gives us.
We all can choose to be with and as those in whom Jesus tells us they are met … instead of hiding in our churches mumbling prayers for “them.”
We can acknowledge that the journey from enslavement through Jim Crow to mass incarceration is real … and that the journey isn’t over … that the final destination is liberation and for the Jericho walls of the prison to come tumbling down.
We all can let our own light shine and help each other uncover the light that is inside every one of us.
Because we are all more than the worst thing we have done.
And nobody is free until everybody is free.
Let it shine.
Let it shine.
Let it shine.
Wow! How loving and perceptive and prophetic and energizing! Thank you!
Awesome read, Mike. Powerful when we need to hear powerful words. You rock.