Author: Alan Bean

In Memoriam: The Rev. Addie Wyatt

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The Rev. Addie Wyatt (on left)

By Alan Bean

Until I read this article in the Chicago Tribune, I had never heard of the Rev. Addie Wyatt.  That’s a pity.  Wyatt was a Christian pastor, a champion of women’s rights, a civil rights activist, and a union organizer.  Quite a package.  I’m not sure a single person could wear all four hats in the 21st century.

Some might see this as a good thing.  Last week I posted an article from the Associated Baptist Press on the silence of white pastors regarding the Trayvon Martin case.  This prompted a curt response from a reader: “There is nothing in Scripture,” he said, “that supports the claim that pastors are to serve as prophets or politicians.”

I suspect the reader also believes there is no biblical support for women pastors.

The Reverend Addie Wyatt would have been our reader’s worst nightmare: a politically active prophet with an iron in every fire.  I hope we see more women like her; but I fear we will not.

5-foot-4 activist stood tall on labor, civil and women’s rights

Dawn Turner Trice

April 2, 2012

Often when people think of black women activists who were deep in the trenches, they recall Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer. Chicago’s Rev. Addie Wyatt, who died last week at 88, should also come to mind.

Wyatt stood a modest 5 feet, 4 inches tall. She was often impeccably dressed — though not overly fancy — and when she spoke it was with such precision that you’d have to listen closely to detect a hint of her native Mississippi.

What made Wyatt a giant is that she was one of the few people who had a tremendous influence on three of the most important movements of the 20th century — the struggles for labor, civil and women’s rights. She was a fervent believer that the three were interconnected and that everyone’s fate rose and fell on the same tide.

As a union representative, she was fearless and didn’t mind entering the offices of white male management officials in 1950s Chicago and challenging them about discriminatory practices against women and blacks.

As a civil rights activist, she helpedMartin Luther King Jr.organize events in Chicago and in the South. But she wasn’t shy about reminding the male-dominated standard-bearers that women weren’t just window dressing and needed to be included in leadership roles. (more…)

Fruit or Foliage?

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By Alan Bean

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46)

A fitting question for Holy Week, don’t you think?

When Jesus entered the holy city riding the foal of an ass, the crowds burst into spontaneous song: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”  Luke reports that “some of the Pharisees in the crowd” protested this unseemly display of piety.  “Teacher,” they said, “order your disciples to stop.”

“I tell you,” Jesus replied, “if these were silent, the very stones would shout out.”

Sometimes, hymns of adoration are more that appropriate; they are unavoidable.

But praise, especially in a religious context, is also dangerous.

Matthew puts his “Lord, Lord” teaching like this: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

Words of praise, segregated from concrete acts of service to the least and the lost, constitute blasphemy.  The failure to produce “good fruit” is the sign of a “bad tree”, Jesus says, no matter how much foliage you see.

My wife, Nancy, has given up growing squash.  Things look good early.  Luxuriant vines take over the garden, followed by lovely blossoms.  And then everything dies.  We don’t know enough about gardening to understand why.  Lack of nitrogen?  Insects?  Too much Texas sun?  But the abundance of foliage never makes up for the absence of fruit.

Praise is inevitable; so is the production problem Jesus warns against.  Human weakness coupled with the heroic demands of Christian discipleship, create a gap between piety and production.  It could hardly be any other way.  We are a fallen race and we act the part.

At the same time, we are incurably religious.  (more…)

Juan Williams changes the subject

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By Alan Bean

Some stories get too big to be ignored.  So imagine that you are an editor for the Wall Street Journal, the voice of sensible capitalism, the vast majority of your readers are white and conservative, in that classy, New York sort of way, and you are compelled to address the furor over the Trayvon Martin case?  You go to the bullpen and call Juan Williams to the mound.  Williams is the black guy that makes white guys feel good.  If a white editor opined that we should be giving less attention to Trayvon Martin while concentrating on black-on-black crime (the real problem) you might be facing a token backlash.  Your readers would applaud this sentiment, but a few outsiders might take exception.  But Mr. Williams is black, so he can’t be a racist.

Here’s the heart of William’s argument:

The race-baiters argue this case deserves special attention because it fits the mold of white-on-black violence that fills the history books. Some have drawn a comparison to the murder of Emmett Till, a black boy who was killed in 1955 by white racists for whistling at a white woman.

This is a magnificent misreading of the outrage.  When people compare Trayvon and Emmett, they aren’t saying the two cases are identical, or even that they are about the same kind of injustice.  The Till case sparked the civil rights movement.  Rosa Parks had Emmett Till on her mind when she refused to relinquish her seat to a white man.  Some are hoping the Trayvon Martin story sparks a similar revolution.  This time (contra Williams) the emphasis won’t be on white-on-black crime; the focus will be on racial profiling and the easy association between black skin and danger.

Hence the iconic emphasis on the hoodie. (more…)

White preachers silent on Trayvon Martin case

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As I suggest in this Associated Baptist Press article, your average white pastor will have little to say about the killing of Trayvon Martin.  Pastors are expected to serve as prophets, priests and politicians, roles that don’t always mesh easily.  The national debate over racial justice is driven by messy narratives that raise uncomfortable questions about America.  Neither white pastors nor their congregations are negatively affected by the criminal justice system and, if they are, they keep it to themselves.  The possibility that people of color face risks that white folks can scarcely imagine is deeply disturbing.  White preachers who speak of such things are playing with fire.  So we turn our attention to other things.  There are always plenty of other things to talk about on Sunday morning.  Important things, holy things, inspiring things.  Why trouble the faithful with the tragedy of Trayvon Martin?

White churches on sidelines of Trayvon Martin outrage
Jeff Brumley
Associated Baptist Press

SANFORD, Fla. (ABP) — The killing of Trayvon Martin has sparked rallies in black communities nationwide and is now leading to questions about why white Christians aren’t more visibly involved.

Pastors of both races offer a number of theories about the anemic white interest, including an inability to identify with the social disparities faced by blacks to an aversion to associating with controversial African-American religious leaders.

Some white pastors “haven’t been asked” to attend public vigils for the teen shot Feb. 26, while others “are not taking the initiative,” said Alan Brumback, senior pastor at Central Baptist Church in Sanford, Fla.

And yet others “don’t want to be associated with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson,” the white Southern Baptist preacher said.

But that hasn’t kept Brumback from getting involved. He was the only white pastor to take the stage with Sharpton and other black ministers at a recent Trayvon Martin rally in Sanford, where the killing occurred. He has also led his multiracial congregation in intercessory prayer for the boy’s family, the city and police. (more…)

Who Would Jesus Prosecute?

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Holly Gill is an evangelical Christian who works with FAMM (Families Against Manditory Minimums).  Evangelicals have generally been known as devout backers of the war on drugs, but as Pat Robertson’s surprising take on marijuana legalization suggests, the times they are a-changing.  For evangelical Christians, Gill insists, it all comes down to WWJP, Who would Jesus prosecute.

How Would Jesus Punish Drug Use?

Holly M. Gill

The first and only time I heard evangelical mega-figure Pat Robertson speak in public, he wasn’t calling for the legalization of pot.

I was 21, a junior at Oral Roberts University, playing endless rounds of “Pomp and Circumstance” on my viola with the school orchestra. Robertson was present to give the commencement address to that year’s graduates. I can’t remember what he exhorted them to do, but I’m positive it didn’t involve toking up.

Robertson still isn’t spreading that message, but his recent comments about legalizing pot, the cruelty and irrationality of mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug crimes, and the expensive and failed War on Drugs are refreshing. Our harsh mandatory prison terms for drug offenses are incompatible with Christian principles of justice. This conviction — and the faith I and Robertson share — drove me first to law school and then to Washington, D.C. to work on criminal sentencing reform for Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), a secular organization. I join Robertson in posing a question all evangelicals should be striving to answer:

How would Jesus want us to punish? (more…)

Bibas: Prisoners should learn to work

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Prison Work for Martha StewartStephanos Bibas has been guest blogging at Doug Berman’s excellent Sentencing Law and Policy Blog in recent days.  What follows is the fifth installment in a series on the machinery of criminal justice.  In earlier posts, Bibas has chronicled the evolution from mercy to punishment.  His fifth offering will be controversial.  Reacting to the growing for-profit prison industry, criminal justice advocates typically decry attempts to profit off the toil of the incarcerated.  Bibas approaches the issue from a different angle.  Let us know what you think.  AGB

From Idle Imprisonment to Work

Stephanos Bibas

In my previous posts about my new book, The Machinery of Criminal Justice, I’ve sketched out a few of the ways in which punishment has changed in recent centuries and how modern punishment has become mechanistic, insulated, and hidden. In my last few posts, I’ll propose a few reforms to make punishment more visibly pro-social, by encouraging work, accountability, reform, and reintegration. Today I’ll focus on prison labor.

When we convict defendants of moderately serious crimes, we usually imprison them. American prisons, however, are deeply flawed. Prison severs inmates from their responsibilities, hides their punishment, and does little to train or reform them. Victims and the public do not see wrongdoers being held accountable, paying their debts to society and victims, and learning disciplined work habits. Instead, they visualize lives of idleness, funded by taxpayers. Thus, wrongdoers are unprepared to reenter society. And victims and the public, believing that wrongdoers have neither suffered enough nor learned their lessons, are loath to welcome them back.

The vast majority of prison inmates spend their days in idleness, with endless television and little labor. The minority of prisoners who do some work in a prison laundry, cafeteria, or license-plate shop rarely cultivate skills that are in demand in the outside world. Even prisoners who are able to work earn far less than the minimum wage, not enough to support a family or repay victims.

Nor is life inside most prisons structured to teach good habits such as self-discipline or productivity. On the contrary, prison encourages listless dependence on institutional routine, setting prisoners up for failure upon release. Healthy habits, such as the orderly work envisioned by prison reformers, broke down long ago.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of imprisonment is its hiddenness. It is out of sight behind high prison walls and thus out of mind. It is too easy for the public to forget about it, to overlook the sporadic prison stabbings and rapes, or simply to discount the terrible soul-destroying, idle monotony. (more…)

Learning from messy narratives

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By Alan Bean

The Trayvon Martin case is following a predictable trajectory.  Calls for the arrest of George Zimmerman centered on the self-appointed neighborhood watch captain’s unprovoked vigilante pursuit of an unarmed citizen.  Now comes the inevitable backlash as the Sanford, Florida police department leaks reports that Martin had been suspended from school after being connected to an empty marijuana baggie.  The unspoken message is that Trayvon Martin really was the flipped-out druggie Zimmerman initially reported in a 911 call.

In addition, Zimmerman’s attorney is suggesting that Martin initiated the physical altercation that lead to his own death.

A certain amount of speculation is unavoidable in this case.  We know that Zimmerman decided to leave his vehicle, against the advice of the 911 operator, with the clear intention of confronting Martin.   We know that Martin was aware that he was being followed because he was on the phone to his girlfriend at the time.  We know a physical altercation preceded the shooting because of the grass stains on the back of Zimmerman’s shirt and his bloody nose.  We know that Zimmerman used deadly force to resolve the situation.

Frankly, I was surprised that it took so long for the champions of the status quo to start spinning the story to their own advantage.  For two weeks, black civil rights groups and bloggers have had the mainstream media all to themselves.  That couldn’t last.  It never does. (more…)

Beyond the New Jim Crow?

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By Alan Bean

When a book about the criminal justice system sells 175,000 books, something is afoot.  Something big.  As this article in the New York Times observes, the initial hardcover release of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness was only 3,000 copies.  That’s a realistic sales target for this kind of book. 

Nobody who has read the book is surprised to find it on the best-seller list.  Many of the facts professor Alexander cited were familiar to criminal justice reform advocates, but she writes better than most academics and her argument transcended the normal drug war critique.  This clip from the article says it best:

Today, Professor Alexander writes, nearly one-third of black men are likely to spend time in prison at some point, only to find themselves falling into permanent second-class citizenship after they get out. That is a familiar argument made by many critics of the criminal justice system, but Professor Alexander’s book goes further, asserting that the crackdown was less a response to the actual explosion of violent crime than a deliberate effort to push back the gains of the civil rights movement.

Was the drug war a response to crime (as folks like Bill Stuntz and David Kennedy argue) or was the real goal to reverse the gains of the civil rights movement?

Yes.

In a journal article called “Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow“, professor James Forman Jr., son of the famed civil rights leader, makes two primary points.  First, Ms. Alexander doesn’t say enough about the relationship between urban crime and support for the drug war, and second, The New Jim Crow ignores the fact that civil rights leaders initially endorsed the idea of ramping up the drug war because drugs, and drug-related violence, was having a disastrous impact in poor black neighborhoods.

Forman makes some powerful arguments.  The war on drugs has always been a bipartisan disaster.  As Bill Stuntz suggested in his excellent The Decline of American Criminal Justice, liberal politicians had three choices when conservatives like Richard Nixon started demagoguing the drug war.  They could offer a progressive drug policy alternative, they could cede the drug issue to the conservatives, or they could out-tough the tough guys.  Democrats like Bill Clinton chose option number three and the drug war was transformed into a bipartisan bidding war. (more…)

Franklin Graham and the black-white gap in American evangelicalism

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Franklin Graham impersonates his famous father

By Alan Bean

I have never met Lisa Sharon Harper, but she’s been reading my mail.

Why, she asks, was Franklin Graham unwilling to apply the term “Christian” to president Obama?

Graham has trouble seeing the president as a fellow believer, Sharon Harper argues, because white Christians are rarely forced to wrestle with systemic injustice and are therefore uncomfortable with Christians who make this issue front and center.

I have a few minor quibbles with the argument below.

Many, perhaps most, black evangelical churches are just as fixated on personal salvation as white evangelicals.  Martin Luther King didn’t enjoy the enthusiastic support of most black Baptist churches in the South, and his social gospel remains suspect in many corners of the black church.

Secondly, Franklin Graham’s daddy, the iconic American evangelist Billy Graham, wasn’t quite as racially advanced as this post suggests.  True, he did open his crusades to black worshippers before most white evangelicals were comfortable with integrated evangelism, but as Darren Dochuk points out in his excellent study of California evangelicalism, Graham realized that segregation was becoming an embarrassment in America and thus an impediment to evangelism.  (more…)

Requiem for Catrina

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Caseptla Bailey and Catrina Wallace

By Alan Bean

On June 29, 2009, the Jena 6 saga reached an unheralded conclusion at the LaSalle Parish courthouse.  The terms reflected DA Reed Walter’s desire to move beyond a controversy that had enveloped his existence for over two years.  Each of the five remaining defendants in this case pleaded “no contest” to a misdemeanor charge of simple battery and after completing a week of non-supervised probation their records were expunged.

Two weeks later, more than 150 officers, including a SWAT team and helicopters, stormed into Jena’s small black community and arrested over a dozen individuals.

According to Sheriff Scott Franklin, the primary target of the raid was 37-year-old Darren “Nunni” DeWayne Brown, a man Franklin described as the narcotics kingpin responsible for supplying 80% of the narcotics sold in LaSalle, Grant and Catahoula parishes.  The raid also targeted Brown’s partners in crime and a few and other low-level dealers.

During the pre-raid briefing, Franklin spelled out the consequences of the raid for his troops.  The bad guys “will get put in handcuffs, put behind bars today and never see the light of day again unless they are going out on the playground in prison.”

Catrina Wallace, one of the key organizers behind the Jena 6 movement, was among those arrested.

As her three young children looked on, Catrina was arrested at gun point, handcuffed, and hauled off to the LaSalle Parish Jail. A search of her home turned up no evidence of drug use or drug dealing.  In fact, none of the Rambo-style raids conducted that day produced any drugs.  Scott Franklin had predicted that his raid would make the black end of Jena look like Baghdad.  Maybe so, the 150 men assembled for Operation Third Option didn’t find the WMD. (more…)