Christian Ministry vs. Police Brutality

"What's up, Rev? You want to buy a CD?"

The shorter of the two took a back step. He rethought his words.

"Well, maybe you wouldn't...you see there's a lot of cussing on here and you're a minister."

I'd known him for about ten years. Our encounter was taking place on a sunny day at the edge of the San Francisco, Tenderloin. However, he and I had met in the mean streets of East Oakland. He was a friendly young man with an ever present smile. And like so many others, P-Nut had hip-hop dreams. Cussing or no cussing, I'm always going to support a dream.

"Don't trip, hear?" I said. "Let me go hit an ATM and I'll be back."

He and his partner shook my hand and thanked me.

I did my running around and when that was finished I returned to the corner where I'd left them. They had company. He was about 6 foot solid. He wore a blue uniform and a badge. There was lots of yelling going on. The interaction was escalating and going south quickly. The officer was on in radio contact with headquarters. He was radioing back descriptions. One could hear words like, "two black males...aggressive...raised voices..."

As a minister of the gospel you have wonder if it's your role to try to diffuse the situation. Is it your business or should you just stay in your lane?

My answer to all of those questions was, yes. It was my role as a minister to be a peacemaker. As the elder to those two boys, it was my busness. And I reasoned that because this was in the community where I served, I was staying in my lane.

"Excuse me officer," I said, "What is the problem?"

He seemed more than happy to explain. This took me back a bit.

One of the rappers said, "Rev, don't listen to him. He's harrassing us!"

One of the young mnn went on to call the officer a "rookie," a hater" and if I'm not mistaken, I believe that he reffered to the cop as a "punk m.f.'

As a younger man, I might have just taken the their side of the argument without question. The wisdom that comes from years taught me to ask some questions. The officer had asked them to move on. When he came back around the block, they were still there. He felt he had no choice but write a loitiering ticket.

Begin black, I understood their ambilivalence. They were dealing with history. The criminal justice system had beaten there loved ones and imprisoned them. As children, they had seen the police do things--mean things, illegal things. And this man in blue represented his teammates. Still in my eyes, no reason to cuss him. No reason to go to jail. My thought was for the three of us to move on before back up arrived. At the end of the day, the question is not: What would Ice Cube do? The question is: What would Jesus do?" The answer was not to get hammered a few good times with a billy club or shot. The question was to consider what means could we use to confront the system that has been oppressing us since we first got off of the slave ship.

Later, the words of Jesus came to me. "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." Brothers and sisters we need to take up the cause of the poor and oppressed. That's what a minister does. Right?

#Tenderloin