Statement in Response to the Murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery

We join in the mourning and outrage taking place across the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis a week ago today. As Black and Brown communities know all too well, this is but the latest atrocity in a long history of police brutality, state-sanctioned and vigilante violence, in particular against the African-American community. At the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice, we are committed to deepening intersectional solidarity in theory and practice, and in examining the ways in which religion and religious communities can best participate in constructive forms of action that lead to just outcomes. In that spirit, we stand in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis, with George Floyd’s family, and all families who have lost loved ones due to police violence. We also lift up the lives of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, murdered at the hands of police and vigilantes in recent weeks in neighboring states to the north and south. There needs to be immediate justice and accountability in all of these cases.  

We also know that systemic racism and violence are embedded in our economic and political systems that seek to extract and exploit both people and the planet, and that systems of authority are built to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of an elite few. This affects communities of color in particular ways when it comes to economic, environmental, and health inequities, and systems of policing. While major corporations have made statements condemning racism and supporting the African American community (Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, and others), we remain mindful of how the exploitation of people of African descent through work, beginning with slavery, continues to set the stage for racism and the exploitation of all working people in this country. For this reason, we believe that it is time for all communities of good will and faith—and in particular white, middle-class, educated, liberal communities in religious institutions and universities—to examine complicity in such systems, and to support the organizing of ideas, actions, and policies that create alternative forms of grassroots power and authority. We cannot serve both God and Mammon (Matt. 6:24) in any and all of its forms.

This requires a significant amount of work in divestment from the existing economic, political, and religious order—and a reinvestment of sorts in completely different ways of doing things. Locally, we applaud the efforts of the Nashville People’s Budget Coalition, which is raising attention to the disproportionate amount of funding allocated to policing and jailing versus healthcare, affordable housing, and social services. We also draw attention to the national policy platform of The Movement for Black Lives, which includes central engagements of economic justice in the ongoing fight against racism that have often been overlooked by communities of faith. As we continue to explore and build alternatives, we also recognize the efforts of working people locally, nationally, and internationally to build power and to fight exploitation and oppression collectively through labor organizing and worker cooperatives. 

The Wendland-Cook program is committed to thinking and acting at the intersection of religion and justice and to partnering with the growing number of communities everywhere that are committed to envisioning new forms of living that challenge the interlocking systems of racism, ethnocentrism, capitalism, sexism, ecological exploitation, and all other oppressive forms. While these struggles are global and the United States as a nation has been lagging behind in many of these areas, we are inspired by all resistance and alternatives that are emerging here, which make us hopeful that another world is indeed possible. 

For the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice, Francisco Garcia, Joerg Rieger, Aaron Stauffer, and Marcus Trammell

Pentecost 2020