ne Je'rajchtijchkjeit
Trayvon Martin, Nickel
Mines and Competing Concepts of Justice
Faith Mennonite’s Tuesday discussion in preparation for the Sunday
scriptural readings was meant to cover Matthew 25, the passage about not
worrying after employment, food, shelter and basic needs that will be provided
for by faith in Christ’s abundant provision.
Rather, we were ambushed and sidetracked by the emotions of the George
Zimmerman murder-acquittal.
To be fair, the Mennonite church, like most Church denominations in
America, is split between politically progressive and politically conservative believers,
churches, conferences and sects. Many
Mennonite Christians celebrated the justice of Zimmerman’s acquittal, while
others, including myself, saw a travesty against legal justice and social
justice reflective of an inherently unjust socio-political system (some would
go as far as calling it a “machine”).
One discussion participant was dealing with question regarding seeing
the thousands of demonstrators in downtown Minneapolis… and with questions as
to perceived silences by the church in these matters. “To what extent should the church be
liturgical versus pertinent in its approach to sermon prep?” was his
question. (Note that the pastor’s
response was that a good liturgist should be able to draw a connection between
the two… “There is ALWAYS a connection!” she stated.)
Setting Matthew 25 aside, we delved in a discussion of justice… the word
being bandied about by both the “winners” and the “losers” in Friday’s verdict.
In a sense, we were noting that there are different senses of “Justice”. On the one hand, Zimmerman’s supporters were
celebrating a victory for what they perceived to be the legal justice of the
trial. Zimmerman was acquitted of
charges leveled against him by an over-zealous, politicized prosecution in a
trial that upheld principles of an individual’s protection from such injustice,
and the justice of gun-ownership and the innate American right to self-defence
were upheld as general principles of law in Florida.
At the same time, those supporting the Martin family in their search for
justice saw the inequalities of access to basic rights and the same legal,
social and economic privileges being enjoyed by Zimmerman, as being denied to
Martin, who was now dead… a victim as much of an inequitable, unjust social and
legal system as much as of Zimmerman’s gun.
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| On-line coverage of Protests in New York's Union Square post-Acquittal |
“I mean, the prosecution’s
argument was that Trayvon ‘weaponized’ the sidewalk … and that somehow the fact
that Martin was on the sidewalk justified Zimmerman’s use of lethal force in a
gun. This means that any Black man
standing on any sidewalk can legitimately be seen as a threat … how do we even
deal with this concept?” the conversational instigator presented.
Returning to questions of justice, another brought forward… “Questions about justice often hinge on
definitions… I have often had trouble correlating the Old Testament’s sense of
prophetic justice (end time judgment, God’s judgments against nations) against
Christ’s sense of justice. Jesus’ sense
of justice seemed to be less concerned with fault and judgment than with healing
and repairing injustice.”
“Well wouldn’t that be the definition of
restorative justice?” others
responded.
“Yes, but coming home from the
health club, I found myself in the midst of the demonstrations downtown. What is that was being demanded? In all of the sloganeering and passion, I
would see a focus on the Old Testament sense of justice – a need for vengeance,
a call for blood and reparations. Is
this our social definition of justice today?”
We were unable to relate the two ideas apart from noting that both
Zimmerman and Martin had had things taken away by the “event”… things that
could never be replaced or repaired.
Martin was dead and Zimmerman would never regain a sense of true
security – ‘just’ demands that things be put right were impossible in that
nothing will bring back Martin’s life or provide future security to Zimmerman, now
a modern-day Cain (Notably, one Huffington
Post columnist went as far as to welcome Zimmerman into the Black world – a
world wherein he would always feel like he was being watched, and where he
would always feel like there was a giant target (mark of Cain) painted on his back).
“I think that D (a member of the
congregation), summed it up in her sermonette last Sunday when she shared that
in searching for a verbal response to the acquittal and its impact on society,
all she could say was that ‘Violence begets violence,’” the pastor
summarized.
But… where did that leave us? “That sounds good, but honestly, it leaves me
still feeling hungry for justice… with the acquittal, there was no recognition
at all that what Zimmerman did was wrong or that an innocent teenage is now
dead… nothing. It was a complete
acquittal. I am still hungry and I don’t
even know what to do with these emotions of righteous rage. It makes me mad to live in a society that
just writes off a life like that,” I responded.
At pastor’s suggestion, we poured over an email from Cynthia Villegas,
whose brother is a Mennonite pastor in the Carolinas. (Link)
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