America’s religion of violence: The impunity of police violence & the destruction of Sandra Bland

[marmar]

This is America’s religion of violence: The impunity of police violence & the destruction of Sandra Bland
No one will be charged with the death of Sandra Bland, just as no one was charged with the deaths of so many others

BRITTNEY COOPER


I’m in the midst of a long annual drive from New Jersey to Louisiana to spend time with my family for the Christmas holiday. When I pulled over to bunk for the evening on Monday, I found my social media newsfeed filled with two stories – the choice of a Waller County grand jury to not indict any officers in connection with the arrest or death of Sandra Bland last July and this week’s explosive R. Kelly interview at Huffington Post Live.

I take these long drives every year, not because they are the most efficient way home. In a life as busy as mine, efficiency is what I usually crave. But this drive, undertaken over several days in which I eat at some of my favorite places and visit friends, going and coming, is an annual ritual act of self-care. I know I will be met on either side of the trip as I check in, with mounting evidence of the structural lack of care that shapes Black women’s lives. Snatching a damn to give about my own Black life from the jaws of a system that would rather eat us all alive is as political an act as it is a personal one.

As I ride, I flip back and forth between the most ratchet of hip-hop music, r&b oldies, and contemporary gospel. I always tell myself that I should listen to books on tape or enrich my thinking through the many podcasts that I’m always planning to catch up on. I never quite make it past Jesus or the Twerk tape.

I wonder what Sandra Bland listened to on her long drive down from Chicago to Texas. A Christian woman, she probably praised to Jesus for finally bringing her through and out on the other side to a good job. Any Black girl who has experienced God making a way knows what it means to get a good holy shout on when she’s on her way to her promise. ................(more)

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/23/the_deadly_theology_that_killed_sandra_bland_inside_americas_religious_devotion_to_state_violence/

[randys1]

1. Time to remember many

And many more, too many more.