In the wake of the death of George Floyd – and the protests that it has sparked around the world – public attention is focused on ending police brutality like never before.
Even before Floyd’s May 25 death in Minneapolis, public trust and confidence in law enforcement and America’s legal system were already in a perilous state. The difference now is that calls are being amplified to defund and disband police departments as they are currently known.
What can America’s higher education system do to reduce the use of excessive force among police? As a public policy scholar who examines the interplay between race, policing and public governance, I see multiple things that colleges and universities can do to make a difference.
1. Teach courses that rethink public safety
As a professor, I help students and communities rethink and redesign the policies and practices that shape relations between police and the community. The idea is to foster a shared sense of responsibility for public safety and order.
In one course, I have had students develop guides to get people to make better choices about when to even call the police in the first place.
To aid in this discussion, I use a refrigerator magnet that has a decision tree on when and when not to call the police. It was designed by police and residents in the community of the University of California at Irvine after an incident in 2015 in which a neighbor called police on a 20-year-old black man who was mistaken for a burglar at his own home. The guide continues to be in use and is distributed to new arrivals by members of the University Hills homeowners association and other residents concerned with public safety. With a purpose to lessen unnecessary calls to police, the guide encourages people to question themselves and ask if they are calling the police because of the way the person looks versus what the person is actually doing.
2. Use voices from history
To better understand police practices from various points in American history, universities should create or use digital archives that catalog recordings of people with actual lived experiences from those times. For instance, to hear what it was like to be arrested and subjected to police brutality as a black man or woman at the height of the civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s or to have experienced the unrest after the Rodney King trial in the early 1990s, students should have easy access to recordings of people who were there.
At the University of Virginia, students and faculty have access to the HistoryMakers Digital Archive, the largest African American video oral history archive in the U.S. The archive offers high-quality videos and audio. It also provides full transcripts for each interview.
3. Make use-of-force policies transparent
Campus police departments – and surrounding police agencies – should collaborate and make transparent their policies and procedures. This is particularly important when it comes to the use of force.
Colleges and universities can host and facilitate community dialogues to help the public better understand when police use of force is permitted under the law and when that force is excessive.
4. Research effective practices
Since research is a key focus of higher education, universities should investigate which practices are most effective – from stop and frisk to community policing – at reducing the use of excessive force, and which practices make it worse.
Universities can also shed light on how people with different backgrounds experience and view the use of force. For instance, one study found that blacks and Hispanics are more than 50% more likely to experience some form of use of force in their interactions with the police when compared to whites. On the other hand, whites and men are more likely to view the use of force as justified than nonwhites and women.
5. Producing diversity within public administration
I argue that in order to better serve the community, bureaucracies, such as police departments, need to reflect the diversity of the communities in which they operate. This is in line with something known as the theory of “representative bureaucracy.” This theory states the more the workforce of a government agency, like a police department, is representative of the people it serves in terms of its demographic diversity, the more likely it becomes that it will ensure that the interests of all groups are considered when decisions are made.
Research on the impact of representative bureaucracy in policing is mixed, however.
Some studies have shown that it improves the delivery of police services and on public perceptions, while others have found that it does nothing to change police culture. This is because, research has found, black and brown officers often feel pressured to not act on the experiences they and their communities have had, but to “represent blue” and align with the cultural values of the police departments in which they work.
Colleges and universities should partner with law enforcement to come up with better ways to understand and address the challenges, such as racial profiling and excessive use of force, that continue to harm relations between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
UMI hosts its second virtual discussion: “Safety, Science, Spirit: Reopening Church Buildings,” featuring Linda Mobula, MD, MPH, and Rev. Matthew Lawrence Watley.
An evangelical research center focused on disaster response has detailed key steps churchgoers might take as they contemplate attending reopened churches.
Wheaton College’s Humanitarian Disaster Institute in Illinois released a series of documents this week to augment the guidelines of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The institute previously created a website with coronavirus-related resources with the National Association of Evangelicals.
“We are standing in the gap with a series of new resources since the CDC has been suppressed by the current administration on what guidelines it can provide to U.S. faith communities,” Jamie Aten, executive director of the institute, said in a Wednesday (June 10) announcement about “Deciding When & How You Should Return to Church in Person: A Practical Guide for Church Members.”
“Many churches including their pastors and church members are struggling to sort through misinformation and divisive voices because of the lack of detailed COVID-19 guidance for faith communities being provided at the federal level needed to navigate reopening churches safely.”
The new resources follow other initiatives, such as an ecumenical document released Sunday (June 7) by a consultation of mainline Protestant and Catholic experts, to help church leaders cope with the many questions swirling around reopening churches.
The resources include a 22-page guide — noting the need to be committed to humility, love, persistence and wisdom — and shorter checklists for members and leaders deciding whether to re-approach the doors of their churches.
Here are 10 tips from the guide:
A decision tree to help individuals decide about attending worship services. Image courtesy of Humanitarian Disaster Institute
1. Keep getting updated on the latest about COVID-19.
“There is a rapidly expanding body of scientific knowledge about COVID-19. Experts agree that COVID-19 will be in the US for the foreseeable future, with fluctuating levels of infection in the community. Until a vaccine is available, the virus and the disease will be a threat to our public health.”
2. Stay home if you are concerned about the risks.
“Remember that if you are uncomfortable with the possible risks, you can continue to attend virtual gatherings. Moreover, if you fall into the high risk category, you should plan on continuing to attend virtual gatherings. If you don’t understand the plans in place, ask for clarification or humbly share with your church why you decided not to attend in person at this time.”
3. Speak up to others posing a risk.
“If you think they might be unknowingly taking risks with their safety, it is important to lovingly, patiently, and humbly share your concerns with them. You can pray for them. You can share with them expert advice, like this guide or another resource to help them make their own decision. And you can respect that they may not follow your advice.”
4. Strive for unity amid different views.
“Some in your church will have very similar ideas to you about the reopening process. Others will likely feel very differently, while others are unsure quite what to think. … Find how you can help to nurture unity during the stages of reopening and remember those who are suffering among you.”
RELATED: When churches reopen, don’t sing or shake hands, do make sermons short, says new guide
5. Take a mask and sanitizer with you.
“Wash your hands before leaving and after returning home from church (remember if your mask needs to be washed after wearing it to church).”
6. Be physically distant in parking lot as well as sanctuary.
“Put on your mask and check in the vehicle’s mirror to make sure your mask is properly secured. Use hand sanitizer before exiting your vehicle and again after the service before you head home. Observe social distancing recommendations even while exiting and entering your vehicle, making sure to give space to others as they are exiting or entering their vehicles. Be sure to maintain recommended distancing with others as you walk through the parking lot or sidewalk to the church building and when returning to your vehicle.”
7. Heed cautions about singing.
“Remember that many healthcare professionals, scientists, and choir organizations consider singing and choirs a high risk activity.”
8. Forgo physical contact.
“Avoid ‘high touch’ activities (e.g., greeting with a handshake, passing a collection plate from person to person).”
9. Notify church officials of symptoms.
“If you or others you are staying with start to show signs or symptoms of COVID-19 after attending an in-person church service, consult a healthcare professional and notify your church leadership.”
10. Be patient.
“Reopening is complex, and the church has to consider many factors and take on many new tasks. Patience is one of the fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22) that we all need a lot of these days. We should also be humble, understanding that none of us completely understand the nature of COVID-19 and others will likely have very different perspectives than our own. Don’t compromise safety, but be patient and humble.”
This story has been updated to correct the role of the National Association of Evangelicals, which previously created a website with Humanitarian Disaster Institute. The institute is solely responsible for the new resources.
A column by Dr. Minnie Claiborn, Ph.D., a licensed counselor, life coach and author.
There are seven basic areas wherein all human challenges lie. One of these is our relationship with self. We form many of our opinions of ourselves based on what others around us say to us and about us, or how we interpret what they say and do.
In some respects, we do come into the world with a “blank slate” and we write on it based on how we are treated. Some of us encounter rejection, abuse, abandonment, and many other hurtful experiences from our primary families or caregivers when we are young. From these experiences, which may be accompanied by ugly words, we often form unhealthy opinions of ourselves.
I had a young woman client once who in her mind and experience did not fit the societal standard of beauty. When she told me that she had been raped, she asked with incredulity, “Why would anyone rape me?” Her opinion of herself was so low, she felt so unattractive, that she was amazed that even a rapist would want her.
On the other hand, I observed a young lady whose body shape and physical features also did not meet the society standard of beauty, yet she exuded self-confidence. I discovered that she was a daddy’s girl, had a loving, doting mother and had married a man who also adored her.
Many young men who were not affirmed by their fathers suffer from a sense of insecurity, fear, rejection, lack of self-identity and a lack of belonging. Other people contributed to our being broken, but God can heal us (Luke 4:18). We can’t go back and change what was said or done to us or about us, but with new information and truth, we can change how if affects us.
Truth trumps facts. Divine truth (truth from God’s perspective) is greater than the facts of our experiences and thoughts. If you were not told that you are beautiful, or handsome or valuable by anyone else, know that God made you and He thinks you’re all of that (Psalm 139).
How do you change a wrong or bad opinion of yourself? Put God’s Word in your mouth and speak it to yourself out loud. A good place to start is by saying, “God loves me.” The entire Bible bears witness to that truth. I have witnessed the power of Scripture-based affirmations. An affirmation simply means that you affirm and agree with what is being said. Here is an affirmation that you can use every day that will help you to begin to have a winning relationship with yourself. You might know it in your head, but you need to SAY it over and over so that your subconscious will receive truth and your conscious thoughts and behaviors will begin to change. God told young Joshua to meditate on His word day and night and he (Joshua) would have prosperity and good success (Joshua 1:8). I suggest that you say this out loud at least five times per day until you know in your soul that it is true.
AFFIRMATION: God loves me. God accepts me. I love and accept myself. I invite God to change the things that do not please Him and things that are detrimental to me.
My 6-year-old hates the British. To be more specific, the British Empire that ruled over up to a quarter of the world’s land by the early 1900s. Hates that one of the biggest diamonds in the world, found in India over 1,000 years ago, now sits in the queen’s set of crown jewels. Hates that they drew up borders quickly and exited South Asia in the 1940s, resulting in the death of millions, and making his grandfather and great-grandparents refugees in the newly formed nation of India.
How does my 6-year-old know all about this? Well, because we talk about it and have a lot of books at home. We have always read books about South Asian culture and history. And now that we have more flexible schedules since we have to work at home – and the kiddo has to do school at home – we have even more time together. He naturally gravitates to the books with characters that look like him.
Sampling of books at the author’s home. Monisha Bajaj, CC BY-ND
As a scholar of multicultural education, I know that children are able to understand complex issues, like racism, if they are broken down and explained in a way that they can grasp. So, when books talk about subjects like segregation, slavery, colonialism or sexism, my partner and I explain those terms as best we can.
A different worldview
Conversations about world history in our home go a little like this:
Parent: “People from Europe really liked the spices and cloth from South Asia, so they wanted to go there to buy stuff.”
Kiddo: “Even Christopher Columbus was lost and trying to find India, right?”
Parent: “Right! Europeans went to South Asia, first to trade and buy things. But then they wanted more power, and the British decided to take over and bully people around.”
Kiddo: “How did they bully them?”
Parent: “They made people give them money (land-taxes), didn’t let them make their own clothes to wear, and didn’t even let them make salt out of the water in the sea next to where they lived!”
Books like “A Taste of Freedom,” which recounts Gandhi’s famed Salt March to protest British rule, and resources like the website and podcast “Parenting for Liberation,” certainly help with these conversations.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought on a lot of hardship and heartache to families everywhere, and it has also made it easier for parents like us to spend more time with our children. For parents of color, this means a chance to educate our children as we see fit. We have an opportunity to offer counter-stories that focus on people who look like us, as opposed to having our children forced to learn from narratives written from a European or white perspective.
Our family traces our origins to different parts of South Asia, and we are using this time at home to read about anti-colonial and anti-caste activists like B.R. Ambedkar and Dakshayani Velayudhan, people my son wouldn’t ever encounter in his school curriculum.
Racism in schools and society
There’s no shortage of examples of inaccurate textbooks like the one in Texas that made headlines a few years ago for referring to enslaved people as immigrant “workers from Africa.”
There is also a cultural mismatch between America’s teachers and students – 80% of America’s teachers are white, but more than half of the nation’s students are children of color. And this mismatch matters: Studies show that black students are more likely to graduate from high school if they have an African American teacher in elementary school.
No matter the teacher’s ethnic identity, research shows that students are more interested in school and do better when they feel like they can relate to what’s being taught and when the lessons reflect their own heritage and history. This is where schooling your children at home can make a difference. That is, parents can select lessons on historical or contemporary issues that do reflect their children’s history and heritage.
Hard histories
No doubt, some social justice education can get to be too much and provide too early an exposure to graphic images of violence and suffering. For example, a friend’s son at age 5 watched a video at a neighbor’s house that showed the targeting of an African American boy by the police – something that is part of a larger documented issue of police violence against black Americans in the U.S. Afterward, the child would get quiet and scared whenever he saw a police officer.
Don’t let children watch disturbing scenes on their own. davidf/Getty Images
“The talk,” or discussions African American parents have with their children about the police, is both necessary and real. But, all forms of racial justice education have to be done with nuance and from a place of liberation rather than fear.
Earlier this year, when my son and I read a book about abolitionist and Civil War hero Harriet Tubman, we listened to some songs on YouTube from the movie “Harriet,” but I didn’t let him see the video. Studies show that early exposure to graphic violence can cause trauma and distress, so home-based social justice education has to be delivered with care and attention. That means carefully preselecting videos and clips to watch with children to screen for excessive violence, and taking time to explain tough concepts and issues.
In search of liberation
In reading and discussions in our family, we focus on movements and activists. Educator and TV legend Fred Rogers famously said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” I would modify that Mister Rogers quote slightly for parents of color to say “When you see injustice, look for the people who are resisting. You will always find people who are resisting.”
While my kiddo still hates “the British,” he also knows about the British abolitionists who helped former slave, activist and author Frederick Douglass fight for an end to slavery in the 1800s.
Schooling at home provides a unique chance for children of color to build up their knowledge of their histories and larger struggles for social and racial justice locally and globally. Perhaps this moment can be an opportunity, a place of possibility within the overwhelming and daunting task of parenting during the pandemic.
This article was originally published on ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom.
WASHINGTON — Last week, when he decided to protest, William Smith, 27, used a red marker to write a message on the back of a flattened cardboard box: “Kill Racism, Not Me.”
As he stood alone, somber, he thought about George Floyd, a fellow black man whom he’d watched die on video as a Minneapolis cop kneeled on his neck eight days earlier. “Seeing the life leave his body was finally the last straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” he said.
But he also thought about people he knew, a handful of them, who died after catching the new coronavirus. “They were living in impoverished areas. Couldn’t get proper treatment. Lived in crowded conditions, so social distancing was hard to do. And they were still forced to go to work and be put in harm’s way.”
When speaking out against the loss of black lives, it is tough to separate those who die at the hands of police from those who die in a pandemic that has laid bare the structural racism baked into the American health system. Floyd himself had tested positive for the coronavirus. Eighteen black protesters interviewed by ProPublica were well aware that black lives were being lost to the virus at more than twice the rate of others, and that societal barriers have compounded for generations to put them at higher risk.
It was fueling their desire to protest and their anxiety about joining the crowd. But they flocked to the White House on Tuesday afternoon, one day after peaceful protesters there were tear-gassed so that President Donald Trump could hold up a bible for a photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church. There were tanks on the streets, along with a battalion of federal agents, military troops and police. Many of the protesters said they were willing to sacrifice their bodies, either to violence or the virus, to be heard.
In front of the White House stood Caleb Jordan, who turns 21 on Saturday. He showed up with an overstuffed backpack to make sure his 62-year-old grandmother, Carolyn Jackson, had enough water to drink and a hoodie to protect her arms in case of violence. “I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to her,” he said. Some people had on masks. Some did not. Some pulled their masks down to talk or breathe. “I’m not comfortable with that,” he said. She’s got a chronic lung condition, and he had been so worried about her catching the coronavirus in the past few months that he wouldn’t hug her. But then she mentioned that she drove by the protests on Sunday, and immediately he asked, “Why didn’t you take me?”
He had been losing sleep over what he was seeing in social media and on TV, having nightmares in which he was fighting a “real-Jim-Crow-looking white guy in a white button-down shirt, black tie, sleeves rolled up.” His mom told him he was fighting racism. “It’s like obstacle after obstacle,” he said. “If it’s not police beating us up, it’s us dying in a hospital from the pandemic. I’m tired of being tired. I’m so tired, I can’t sleep.” It was something he continued thinking about until he couldn’t help himself, sending a text at 3 a.m. asking his grandmother if they could attend together. “I thought about it and said, ‘This is a teachable moment,’ ” she recalled.
So Jackson took the day off from her job as an accountant at a hospice organization and put on some peace sign earrings and a T-shirt from the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. On the car ride into the city, her grandson asked about her struggles with race. She explained what it’s like being a professional black woman with over 30 years experience who still feels overlooked for opportunities because of questions about her qualifications. Her awareness of being treated differently dates back to how her white paternal grandmother favored her lighter-skinned cousins. She found solace in her black maternal grandmother, who would comb her hair while she sat between her legs. Jackson wants her grandson to feel that kind of comfort from her.
That desire extends to her mission to help the black community understand palliative care is an option that can offer dignity and support at the end of life. “Because when people hear hospice, their hands go up and they say, ‘I don’t want to hear it.’” She’s also heard that resistance when it comes to getting tested for the coronavirus; she has gotten tested twice and plans to get tested again. She feared being exposed on Tuesday, but being here with her grandson was too important to miss. “We internalized a lot with my generation,” she said, “but I think it’s important for him to see this.”
N.W.A.’s “Fuck Tha Police” blared from a nearby speaker outside St. John’s Episcopal Church until an interfaith group of men and women bowed their heads and began to pray. Among them was Timothy Freeman, pastor at Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, who wore a brightly colored kente cloth-inspired mask, its vibrant yellows and reds standing in stark contrast to his ministerial black suit and white clerical collar.
Freeman, 42, knows eight people who have been diagnosed with the virus; one died. For two weeks, a sick friend had a fever and could barely move from fatigue but refused to get tested, running through all the scenarios of what might happen if he had it: What if he wound up isolated in an ICU with no one to advocate at his bedside? Another sick friend worried an ambulance would take him to a hospital that he didn’t trust. These conversations, the pastor said, are always infused with an awareness of the medical system’s record of neglect and abuse of black people, from dismissing their pain to using their bodies for research without consent. The virus has forced this all top of mind.
A licensed occupational therapist for 19 years who spent a decade managing a skilled rehab facility, Freeman said he has seen racial disparities in health care firsthand and that access to adequate insurance coverage is crucial. “I have seen diagnostic tests not performed … and hospitalizations cut extremely short — or not happen at all — because of insurance.” COVID-19 is affecting black and brown people in disproportionate numbers, “and not just because we’re black and brown, but because of the social and economic conditions people are forced to live in,” he said.
“All of it comes together. What happened with George Floyd publicized to the world the experience that we live,” he said. “It’s a conglomeration of everything.”
A block away from the prayer group, Elizabeth Tsehai, 53, drove slowly in her BMW SUV, honking her horn, as federal agents in riot gear began to march past the crowd just behind her. She had a Black Lives Matter T-shirt displayed on the dashboard and a bike rack on the top of her car that she joked made her look like the “caricature of a soccer mom.”
She stopped her car on the road and remained there as protesters to her left took a knee. There was some heckling from the crowd but no one was in anybody’s face. A Secret Service agent warned her to move. Her response: “Arrest me. I can’t breathe!” Agents then pulled her from her car and to the ground and handcuffed her. “I didn’t resist because I know they just arrest you for resisting arrest,” she said. “But the minute they pulled me up on my feet, I was talking all kinds of trash.”
Her car was left unlocked in the middle of the street, where it was protected by protesters. She was questioned and released. She said agents told her they were afraid she was going to hit protesters because people have been using their cars as weapons. They told her to move it and leave. The Secret Service did not respond to questions about this incident.
“Ordinarily, I would not get involved,” Tsehai said. But George Floyd’s death was enraging, as were “all of the things that came before it.”
All of the things.
How a white nurse looked her up and down when she arrived at the hospital to give birth to her son and sneered, “Can we help you?”
How her brothers, who live in Minneapolis, recount being pulled over by police for driving while black.
How a black man couldn’t watch birds in Central Park last week without having the police called on him.
“The pandemic is hitting black people hard and exposing these structural inequalities,” she said. “Then on top of that, you get Amy Cooper … weaponizing her white privilege at a time when he might end up in jail, where infection is rife.
“But when they manhandled protesters who were peaceful, that was a bridge too far,” said Tsehai, who grew up in Ethiopia under an authoritarian regime during a period known as Red Terror. She didn’t know life without a curfew until she moved to the United States to attend Georgetown University 35 years ago.
“Moments like this are quite unusual,” she said. They can also inspire change, a message she shared with her children, ages 12 and 14, when recounting her ordeal with them. “I want these children to live in a different world. It’s not enough to read about it and get outraged and talk about it at the dinner table. Silence makes you complicit.”
