“When Jesus arrived in Bethany, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.” “And Jesus wept. So the people said, ‘See how he loved him.’” Jesus went to the burial cave and a stone lay across it. “Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Jesus raised his eyes and said, … “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, tied hand and foot with burial bands.” “So Jesus said to them, ‘Untie him and let him go.’”
Entombment persists for those living under the U.S. criminal injustice complex. It is devised primarily by wealthy, white, males and causes harm to those who are poor and people of color, especially Black men. The prison industrial complex ties them, “hand and foot with burial bands.” Michelle Alexander researches this truth in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. “Nothing has contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs.” Other cultures view drug use as a health problem and offer healing responses. Drug users, including if they commit crimes, which tend to be nonviolent, are provided with education and skill development. Unfortunately, U.S. culture treats drug use as a criminal problem and mandates tough law enforcement and incarceration policies – but mostly for its Black population. As Ms. Alexander states, “(H)herein lies the paradox and predicament of young black men labeled criminals. A war has been declared on them, and they have been rounded up for engaging in precisely the same crimes that go largely ignored in middle-and upper-class white communities—possession.” The U.S. persists as a white supremacist caste system. “The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, (thus) the system can be avoided with good behavior. But… all people make mistakes.” For example, speeding “put(s) yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the U.S serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses.” “Law enforcement officials (are granted) extraordinary discretion regarding whom to stop, search, arrest, and charge for drug offenses, thus ensuring that conscious and unconscious racial beliefs and stereotypes will be given free rein. Unbridled discretion inevitably creates huge racial disparities.” This “has helped produce one of the most extraordinary systems of racialized social control the world has ever seen.” “We could choose to be a nation that extends care, compassion, and concern to those who are locked up and locked out… before they are old enough to vote.” “Or we can choose to be a nation that shames and blames its most vulnerable, affixes badges of dishonor upon them at young ages, and then relegates them to a permanent second-class status for life.” “(W)e use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind… employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights… than a black man living… at the height of Jim Crow.” Iris Marion Young uses a metaphor to explain that systemic denial of rights, “If one thinks about racism by examining only one wire of a birdcage, or one form of disadvantage, it is difficult to understand how and why the bird is trapped. Only a large number of wires arranged in a specific way, and connected to one another, serve to enclose the bird and to ensure that it cannot escape.” Those who are poor and people of color, especially Black men, continue to be caged, entombed, “tied hand and foot with burial bands.” As Ms. Alexander notes, We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” It is time we too “weep” for love of our friends over this death and entombment, as did our dark-skinned brother Jesus. It is time we too take healing action to, ‘Untie them and let them go.’
Mariame Kaba advocates for the abolition of the prison industrial complex in her book, We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice. Kaba recognizes, “You’re not going to be able to end policing without ending capitalism. The prison-industrial complex (PIC)… has its roots in the… (moneymaking) military-industrial complex… we’re calling for an end to all carceral regimes… That’s why it’s so important for people to understand that PIC abolition has to be… internationalist… anti-capitalist… (and) rooted in constantly thinking about concentrated violence.” “I am looking to abolish… all death-making institutions… policing, imprisonment, sentencing, and surveillance… what I want is to build up another world that is rooted in collective wellness.” “We are going to have to build it together… to argue over stuff… to create new norms together for how we treat each other when harm occurs. That’s going to take everyone.” “If we act in service of a vision that’s liberatory, we will be able to transform our conditions.”
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, we are free.
Question: How can I help change the classist and racist prison industrial complex?
March 26, 2023 Gospel John 11:1-45 Fifth Sunday of Lent