Intersections of Injustice
Rev. Derek Penwell, GLAD Alliance Council Member and Strategic Action Team Leader and pastor of Douglass Blvd Christian Church in Louisville KY shares with us this article on the Intersections of Injustice.
Karen Barr, GLAD Alliance Council Moderator adds this about a step GLAD is taking to begin sharing inspiration for justice work among our congregations:
We are starting something new. We ask members and friends of GLAD to post to our Facebook page photos and posts that show all the ways you are working for justice in your areas. We have long had posts of activities of O&A congregations and Pride activities. We also want to have posts that show we take “All Means All” seriously and support justice in other areas as well.
The logistics of just how this proceed is something of a work in progress. We will start by asking for posts on our main Facebook page. If needed we will make changes.
I want to thank Derek Penwell for his thoughts on why this is something that is important for us to do.
The popular assumption seems to be that we have varieties of injustice, complete with interest and advocacy groups for each. Among Disciples you know the names: GLAD. Reconciliation Ministries. Obra Hispana. These interest and advocacy groups dedicate themselves to seeking redress and reform for their particular causes. You take care of your stuff, because I’ve got my hands full taking care of my own.
In such a world, I need not be concerned so much with Michael Brown or the kids crossing our borders from Central America for two reasons: 1) I’m not African-American or Hispanic, so these injustices don’t affect my world, and 2) there are already competent and passionate interest groups taking up these causes.
But beyond the laziness of such casual assumptions about somebody else doing the heavy lifting, the problem with thinking that I don’t have a responsibility to speak out about the racism and xenophobia baked into the American cake is a reality we don’t often name: neither racism nor xenophobia are things unto themselves, but expressions of the larger problems of systemic injustice and oppression committed by those in power against those who too often don’t have a voice. And that, my friends, affects us all . . . whether we realize it or not.
“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you,'” (1 Cor. 12:21) is how Paul says it.
I cannot say to my African-American sisters and brothers, “I have no responsibility for you. Your young people should be more careful where they go, to whom they speak, and how they dress. ”
I cannot say to my Hispanic sisters and brothers, “I know they’re ripping your families apart through deportation; I know they’re slandering your character, calling you unspeakable things for having committed the ‘crime’ of seeking to make a better life for those you love—but you should have thought of that before you crossed the border.”
At GLAD we’re trying to persuade the rest of the church that it cannot say to our LGBTQ sisters and brothers, “We know you’ve felt like everybody’s favorite punching bag (sometimes literally); we know some of you are living on the streets or dying because you can no longer bear the hateful world we’ve made for you, but we’re straight, so we’ve got no dog in this fight.”
Because at the heart of it these other advocacy groups are all seeking to confront injustice—whatever form it happens to be taking—at GLAD we’re committed to standing with our sisters and brothers who are suffering the inequities of racism, the hatred of anti-immigrant sentiment. Consequently, we will be actively highlighting the fight for justice around issues of race and ethnicity. We know that these aren’t “our issues”—at least the way we’ve grown accustomed to thinking about them. But we who make up the leadership of GLAD can no longer ignore the fact that when our sisters and brothers suffer because of intolerance, we suffer too.