Race—The Fires of Ferguson

The Fires of Ferguson

Reflections on the Death of Michael Brown

Reverend Dr. Leon Dunkley

Thanksgiving, 2014

A young mother was asked by her son why Little Caesar’s restaurant was burning. She thought for a while but soon realized that there were no safe answers that she could give. There was no story healthy enough to tell. So she just stood there—speechlessly—staring out into a broken world and saying nothing…until she found a way to change the subject and move on. She chose silence and that was ok. It was better than answering the question. It was better than being forced to explain to her own son, a child of Ferguson, why their favorite pizza place was all ablaze. She was wise and she was gentle. Her silence was appropriate. She was right to protect her child from a harmful story.

When standing before the fires of Ferguson, it is good to be silent. It’s better than explaining things too quickly. For in spite of the obvious spectacle, what is happening in

Ferguson is hard to see. Or better said, because of the obvious spectacle, what is happening in Ferguson is hard to see. It is hard to see because what is happening far away in Ferguson is happening within us all as well.

The fires of Ferguson may be burning most visibly in the state of Missouri but they are also burning everywhere around us—in New York City and in Chicago; in Seattle and in Oakland, California; in Baltimore, Maryland and, of course, in Washington D.C. The fires of Ferguson burn wherever the lives of our children are threatened and, for some reason, they are threatened more these days.

The fires of Ferguson throw the state of our culture into relief. American truths are bare and profoundly disquieting. The level of unnecessary violence in our society is undeniable. It was undeniable in Cleveland in the case of Tamir Rice who was 12 when he died. It was undeniable in Staten Island in the case of Eric Gardner. It was undeniable in Saginaw, Michigan with the killing of homeless Milton Hall. It was undeniable in Sanford, Florida with Trayvon Martin. It was undeniable in Newtown, Connecticut and, tragically, the list goes on and on.

Gun violence is rampant. Our souls are shot through with its powders and its metals—too often, black or brown souls are shot through; too often, poor souls are shot through. It is a habit—a serviceable one, in fact. This is how we express the bigotry of class in “post-racial America.”

Darren Wilson declared that race didn’t matter as events unfolded in August—that the “hulk” that threaten him so was not meaningfully black, that the “demon” that spooked him was essentially raceless. He said that he followed procedure and that he would do it all over again…and the grad jury believed him…and he may believe himself. This is the great pretense of our time. Poor Darren Wilson and, indeed, so many of us are woefully misguided. It does not matter that Wilson would have also killed a child who was innocent, weaponless and white. It matters that Darren Wilson and Michael Brown alike were born into a world that was already broken in two by race—a world that Darren was charged to protect, a world that Michael was not meant to survive.

Michael Brown was killed by a broken world on August 9th. Darren Wilson only pulled the final trigger. The town of Ferguson was killed in Michael’s name three, long months later. Tears and tear gas canisters rolled. The town went up in flames. A father grieved, a mother cried and a family was broken. A step-dad, like brave Hecuba, saw the gates of heaven fall. How do you explain this kind of loss to a child?

Michael Brown died for the sins of a tragically broken world. He was killed by a world shot through with classism disguised as racism that doesn’t matter. He was killed by our pretenses and they are killing us as well. More precisely, they are killing our children. Micheal and Tamir and Eric and Milton and Trayvon know this first-hand…and so do we. In “Burning Ferguson,” a reporter writes,

On November 24, hours before the grand jury decision in the case of Darren Wilson was announced, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon reassured St. Louis that all would be well. “Together, we are all focused on making sure the necessary resources are at hand to protect lives, protect property and protect free speech,” he declared. By the end of the night, all three promises were broken.[i]

So, too, were the hearts of those who knew young Michael Brown. Al Sharpton was right to criticize these broken promises and right to admit, defiantly, “You have broken our hearts but not our backs.” New strength must come forth from us today.

We live in a world that is tragically broken by race. However earnestly we claim our innocence, however powerfully we claim our pretense, the broken state of our world clearly remains. When we are broken, we burn that which is good and beautiful. The question before us is: How can we restore goodness and beauty to a broken world? Reverend Dr. Rebecca Parker writes,

We must find how we can hold loss in our arms and move in rhythm with it. [We cannot] live until we learn to embrace life’s realities of betrayal, violence, suffering and grief. How to hold all of this in our arms and not be destroyed by sorrow I [do] not know.

Maybe goodness will show us. Maybe beauty will carry us there. Maybe love…

If justice is what love looks like in public, then we must love. We must love more broadly and more beautifully than we did before. We must now love publicly and love wisely and love well. We must restore our beauty and we must do so right out loud. It will be the hardest thing, but we will do it any way. In the midst of greatest sorrow and irretrievable loss, we will reach for beauty and we will succeed. We cannot afford to settle for anything less—not for the pablum of the media, not even for our own pretenses. We need sacrament and not sanctimony at this time. We must enter a higher state of public consciousness. We must dispel the illusion of separation. We are connected and, together, we can grow soul-rich enough to get beyond our sadness, beyond our sorrow and beyond our fear. The fires of Ferguson force us to look unflinchingly at what is real, to seek justice and to do this work together. We must be, as Matthew teaches, “as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves” for the fires of Ferguson are burning in our hearts.

Seeking justice together means truly opening our minds and truly opening our lives to human suffering. It means bearing public witness. It means living out our faith. It means devoting ourselves to that which is larger than we are. This is what Subrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, is teaching us. For her, seeking justice means loving Michael Brown just as she loves her own son. She writes,

I will support you and your efforts to seek justice for your Michael and the countless other Michaels & Trayvons of our country. The 20 Sandy Hook children. Jordan Davis. Oscar Grant. Kendrick Johnson. Sean Bell. Hadya Pendleton. The Aurora shooting victims. The list is too numerous to adequately mention them all.

Seeking justice means standing up for our children. Subrina Fulton is standing up and so, too, now must we. May we find a heart like Mary’s as we make meaning out of this and may our meaning be just and worthy of the dearest ones we know. I will miss you, Michael.

In grace,

Reverend Dr. Leon Dunkley

From the weeks and weeks of protest in Baltimore after the tragic death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray.