Reflections on Ferguson
For the past several weeks, I’ve been unable to keep my mind off of Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson. Honestly it scares me. My first thought upon hearing of this was “What if, one day, that was Levi?” The rage that welled up in me was intense and still is very present in my thoughts. I then came across an NPR StoryCorps piece about Alex Landau, an African-American college student, adopted by a white family, who was nearly beaten to death by cops in Denver in 2009. Feelings of fear and helplessness grew inside of me.
The week before, I was transporting an amazing donation of fixtures and supplies from a movie department store scene. The U-Haul that I was driving died while driving over the Danziger Bridge. Moments after it stalled, a state patrol car pulled up behind me, and I remember thinking how considerate that was to create a safer environment for me and my passengers. The white, male officer approached the cab and quickly realized that my two interns, both young, adult, black males, were with me. He then asked for all of our IDs and spent 20 minutes running our names through the system. Then, he asked me to step out of the vehicle and wanted to know how I knew “those two boys.” After explaining that I’ve known them since they were kids and that they were my interns, he insisted that I open the back of the UHaul to see the contents. I obliged and showed the boxes of clothes and clothing racks that filled the back. Did he do anything technically wrong? No. He has the right to run my ID and presumably check out my cargo. We had nothing to hide. I wonder though if I had been with young, adult, white men, would we have been treated with the same suspicion and disrespect?
Earlier that morning, I received a phone call from a news reporter wanting to interview me about the recent rash of crimes in our neighborhood in which gangs of young, black teens were jumping middle-aged, white men. I never returned her call because she’s never called asking for an interview when a young, black male is killed in my neighborhood.
Honestly, I’m fearful for my black son, Levi. I’m fearful for all the black males in my life such as my pastor, my kids’ friends, kids in my church and kids in my neighborhood. I am aware that, just as much as I will need to have the “sex talk” with my kids sooner rather than later, I will need to have conversations about racism and injustice. So many things, as parents, we get wrong, but I pray that I can adequately teach Levi, with the help of the amazing African-Amercian friends and mentors in my life, how to interact with the select law enforcement agents that will question him and quite possibly harm him and attempt to kill him because of his skin color.
I wish I had some hopeful thoughts to wrap this up and soften the intensity of my feelings. I don’t. Untimately I know that God will make all things new one day. I know that He see and cares. Pray that our family will not live in fear. I’d also encourage you to check out this series from Christianity Today called “It’s Time to Listen: Listening to African-American Evangelicals on Race.”
Trusting in God’s Sovereignty,
Ben McLeish
Executive Director
St. Roch CDC