Upstream and Downstream the River of Justice
By Raymond Chang
First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
These words by Martin Niemöller, a German Lutheran minister who lived during the Nazi Regime, continue to haunt me in the present moment as this sentiment remains extremely relevant for those on the receiving end of injustice.
Niemöller was an early supporter of the Nazi regime. Wrongly believing it was most aligned with his Christian faith, he placed his hopes in the Nazi party. However, when the Nazi government sought to unify German churches under the Third Reich, he resisted and was later imprisoned for opposing Hitler. Years later, upon much reflection, he wrote the words above.
One of the sad realities of the sinfulness in humanity that emerged from the fall in Genesis 3 is how people often don’t care about what doesn’t directly impact them–especially when caring is costly. It was true of Niemöller back then, and it is true of us today, particularly on issues disrupting cross-racial unity and solidarity.
For too long, Asian Americans have largely been absent in opposing the sin of anti-Black racism. In fact, as a whole, we have likely contributed to anti-Blackness (and anti-brownness) through our wholesale adoption of the hierarchy that perpetuates racism in our society. Throughout our own history in this country, we saw how Black and brown people were treated and didn’t want to be treated in the same way.
Asian Americans have benefited by distancing ourselves from blackness and inching closer to whiteness. This makes it difficult for Asian Americans, by and large, to press into issues of race and justice. Apart from a few bright moments when Asian Americans have stood shoulder to shoulder with others (see Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, etc.), we have not regularly spoken up against the powers and principalities that drive long-standing structural racism.
Today, persistent anti-Black racism has contributed to the fact that over 70% of all Covid-19-related deaths in Chicago have been Black, despite being only 30% of the city’s population.
Sadly, this is not limited to Chicago. In Milwaukee county, 81% of deaths are in the Black community, though they are only 27% of the population). Black people make up 41% of the deaths in Michigan and 70% of the deaths in Louisiana, despite comprising only a small minority of the states’ populations.
This is unacceptable.
As Dr. Anthony Fauci of the NIH remarked in a press conference, health disparities along racial lines are being exposed due to the pandemic.
According to a Pew Research Center survey, we also see that “Hispanics are more likely than Americans overall to say they or someone in their household has experienced a pay cut or lost their job because of the coronavirus outbreak.” Further, the data on Latin@ deaths is really thin, but in New York City the virus has been twice as deadly for brown and Black communities.
This too, is unacceptable.
People of color (and our white sisters and brothers) need to look both up and down the river of justice. Upstream, we can see what elements contributed to the conditions where we stand today; downstream, we see what needs to be done to benefit future communities.
We are all in the same river together, and we need to extract all toxins—together. This is especially true of Christians who are called to bear the burdens that others carry (Gal. 6:2) and tend to the wounds of our neighbors (Ps. 147:3), as God tends to ours.
We cannot sit idly by as fellow image-bearers of God suffer because of systemic injustices. What poisons one of our communities poisons all of our communities: Black, brown, First Nations, and white communities, as well as our own.
As Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, “In a real sense all life is interrelated. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
Together, let’s look upstream and downstream, and work together to live as the beloved community that Dr. King and the Scriptures call for.
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