Success, not Justice

In an interview with Tavis Smiley, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter made a remark that hit me like a ton of bricks.
Carter, who was tried and convicted twice for a triple murder, was imprisoned for 19 years. He and his apparent accomplice were both sentenced to three consecutive life sentences. Carter to this day thinks it is miraculous that they were not given the death penalty, but he attributes the sentence they did receive to perhaps serious doubt on the part of the presiding judge as to their guilt.
What struck me during Carter’s interview with Smiley, however, was not his story; I had heard it and read about it before, and Denzel Washington starred in a movie about Carter’s life. What struck me was Carter’s summation of the justice system.
“The justice system is not about justice,” he said. “The justice system is about success.”
He went on to explain that police departments, prosecutors and judges have much at stake in criminal cases. The more the system convicts of wrongdoing, the more it looks like police, prosecutors and judges are doing their jobs. “A good prosecutor, with lots of convictions under his belt, can and does look to becoming a judge, and ‘good, successful’ judges might get to the governor’s mansion.
Meanwhile, many innocents sit in prisons, on death row or in the general prison populace.
“Nobody listens to you when you are innocent,” he said. “There are a lot of people in prison who are innocent and who are trying to get someone to listen, but that doesn’t happen very often,” Carter said.
His statements moved me, because for the longest time, I have marveled at how, when newly discovered evidence becomes available that will prove that someone was wrongly convicted, prosecutors seem unwilling to even consider that evidence. I watch a lot of “Dateline ID” and I have been disturbed for some time at what appears to be closed minds on the parts of prosecutors.
In fact, I have been long disturbed about the lack of justice for the poor and disenfranchised. I am still reeling at the case of the Scott Sisters, recently released, for a robbery which they not only steadfastly maintained they had no part in, and a robbery which involved no violence and netted only $11.
The Scott Sisters were convicted of two consecutive life terms, and even though Gov. Haley Barbour arranged for their release “for medical reasons,” even he, these many years later, refuses to say he believes the justice system was wrong in their case.
It seems that we the church ought to do all we can to provide programs and services for our young people so that they never get wrapped up in our unjust justice system. If it is a fact, as Carter says, that the justice system “is not concerned about justice; it’s concerned with success,” then we ought to do all we can to keep our children and youth away from that system. It is not meant to provide rehabilitation; it is set up to support the “success” of police and prosecutors. We in this nation spend so much more to imprison people than we do to educate them. The prisons, therefore, have a steady supply of people to entrap and keep their profits coming. Profit, after all, is the supreme indication of “success” in this world.
There is not a one of us who can close our eyes and pretend that there is nothing wrong with the justice system, or who can say that prisons only have “the bad people” in them.
That would be a nugatory, as my daughter would say.
Ask Rubin Carter.
Have a good week.
Pastor Smith

Thank You for Serving

I am really worried.
The new governor of Ohio is none other than John Kasich, a Republican, who is also a fiscal conservative.
There is nothing wrong with being a fiscal conservative, except that it is pretty common for fiscal conservatives to favor cuts in spending which disproportionately adversely affect “the least of these.”
Cuts usually come in education, health care and social services, and other areas which help poor people stay afloat. I heard this week that a Republican is sponsoring a bill to repeal the estate tax, proceeds of which generally go to local governments to help fund needed services.
Fiscal conservatives also generally oppose tax hikes.
I am afraid and worried for “the least of these” because if some sources of financial support for “the least of these” are cut, and there are no tax increases, how will the masses of people who are suffering and who have been suffering more in the current recession ever survive?
The need for good, solid, expansive and sensitive outreach amongst churches becomes even more critical, which is why I appreciate Advent UCC so much. Despite having sparse resources, Advent has always stepped up to help, to minister to, “the least of these.”
We may have to step up even more.
We are already upping our work to feed the hungry. You are bringing food to the church which we will use to feed the needy in our own congregation and in the community. We will increase our intake of clothing so that we can make sure children in our community have needed clothing.
We are working to get a Freedom School here in the summer, and an overall literacy program to aid our youth and the youth in our community so that if cuts in education funding occur, we can still do our best to be “repairers of broken walls,” as the prophet Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 58.
Hopefully we can institute a program where we give art and music education to the youth as well, as those programs are among sure cuts in the schools.
There is so much we can do, we, the “little church that can, that always has, and will always do.” There is a place for every single one of us here to step up to reach “the least of these.” Money will come because money follows mission. If we concentrate on the mission, God will insure that we get the money to accomplish the mission.
There may be even more that we will see that we will have to do, but God will reveal it to us. We have Governor Kasich in office and some Republicans in office who may not care about “the least of these” the way we who love God are called to care. They, however, are not greater than our God.
We have all been through some rough times and times may get worse before they get better. The course of what will be for any of us is not something I know…But this I do know: that we have been given much, in spite of our struggles, and to whom much is given, much is required.
I am proud to be the pastor of a church which has so many willing servants, servants who love God enough to serve, to “do” the word in spite of their own circumstances, their own needs …and their own state government which may not, in the long run, be as concerned for “the least of these” as God calls us all to be.
Thank you ...for YOU.
Pastor Smith

No Roomfor Bigotry

There just is no room for bigotry in God’s world.
I have long felt that the underlying ethos of the Tea Party is racism. The Tea Party, at least, has been honest, to a point, about their anger and anxiety about a black man being president of these United States. Others have been much more disingenuous.
But the saddest thing of all is that this American bigotry, so special and so unique, is even worse because nobody in America wants to own it, admit it. People want to act like everything is all right and that racism is a thing of the past.
It is not, and it is in fact even worse because America has insisted on denying its existence.
The horrendous shootings in Tucson cannot be blamed on any person, but we cannot deny that toxic political vitriol played a part in the anger which we saw in the most recent congressional campaign, and I believe that the rhetoric spewed by Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and others fed into a culture of resentment based on race and bigotry.
People in America, black and white, have never gotten over slavery and over the years of racial indignity which has been the characteristic identifying mark of these United States. The teaching of white supremacy is deep in the souls of still too many people, and the feeling of inferiority is still too much a part of the psyches of too many African Americans.
That feeling of white supremacy, coupled with white privilege, has fed into this culture of resentment I mentioned, and that resentment has morphed into outright anger on the parts of too many people. The imagery of guns voiced by Sarah Palin was no accident; she fed into the culture of resentment and anger, and though it was couched in rhetoric about cutting spending, those who know racism and how it feels knew otherwise.
The shootings in Arizona may have produced the groundwork for some good conversation, about race, about violence, about gun control. It may get people to talk about the responsibility of having the gift of free speech. Just because one can say something doesn’t mean one should.
All that being the case, however, what these shootings have said to me, loud and clear, is that there is no room for bigotry in God’s kingdom, be it blatantly or subliminally stated. No person ought to fear for his or her life or safety because he or she advocates for “the least of these,” be they black, brown, handicapped, Jewish, Muslim or anything other than white, male, and healthy. This American bigotry is stale and moldy. It is despicable for those who say they love God.
We should internalize the great commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul…and thy neighbor as thyself.”
Beginning now.
Have a good week.

Nurture the Children Now to Save Them Later

The Pastor’s Page

Last week, a man named Cornelius Dupree was released from prison, after having been there for 30 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He was convicted in 1979 for rape and murder, and maintained his innocence from the beginning.
Had it not been for the tireless work of the Innocence Project, and a feisty, brilliant Dallas District Attorney named Craig Watkins, Dupree might still be in prison – as are, I am afraid, way too many innocent people.
There is a huge reason for my being so passionate about us reaching and teaching the children in our community. A recent study reported that only 11 percent of African American males, by the time they reach 4th grade, are proficient in reading, compared to 38 percent of white males.
Neither group has anything to brag about, but I really believe that when a child begins to falter in school, his or her self esteem plummets and they become ripe for anti-social behavior. All any child wants to do is to excel and to be loved, and if he or she cannot excel in school, and/or feel love from his/her home, then that child will do what he or she must in order to have those basic needs met.
It seems to me that kids who are encouraged and helped and loved have a better chance of staying out of the system than those who find themselves looking for love and acceptance in all the wrong places.
It also seems to me that the more of our kids we can embrace and empower, the fewer of our kids will wind up in the system, guilty of a crime, or, worse, accused and convicted of a crime, but who are innocent.
I don’t know what Dupree’s youth was like. I do know that he was only 21 years old when he was accused and convicted of the rape and armed robbery.
From what I have come to understand, law enforcement personnel are very slow about admitting when they are wrong. District attorneys, judges and police officers, it seems, work to support each other and uphold convictions, even when compelling evidence is unearthed that suggests a mistake might have been made.
Mr. Dupree could have been released sooner had he “admitted” that he committed the crimes for which he was convicted, but he refused. It was DNA evidence that cleared him.
He is fortunate, but what I want is for us to educate and empower our kids, especially our young men, but our young women, so that they will be less and less likely to get caught by a system which has never shown African Americans any love …or justice.
I cannot imagine being in prison for 30 years, period, much less in prison all that time when I knew I was innocent. I cannot begin to imagine how much brilliance and talent is wasting away in prisons all over this country.
I know that it isn’t right, and I know that if we know the situation but do nothing to share what we have with kids who need us, we have forfeited an opportunity that our people need in order to bring hope to kids who are lost and who need to see sermons, not hear them.
Someone wrote on my Facebook page that she couldn’t believe cases like that of Mr. Dupree are still a reality. They are, and will continue to be until we take up the mantle and say “enough.” We can challenge the system, as Craig Watkins and the Innocence Project are doing, and we can take our children and nurture them when they are young, so that they become less and less likely to be the bait for a prison system which has an appetite for African American men which has never been satisfied.
Have a good week.

Pastor Smith