Two Sides of the Same Coin
During the week of MLK Day 2020, more than three dozen clergy traveled to the U.S. - Mexico border to bear witness to the criminalization of our immigrant brothers and sisters and to the cruel and inhumane separation of children from their families. ECCO’s Racial Justice Organizer Rev. Bernadette Hickman-Maynard attended the gathering organized by Faith In Action, our national network partner. She stood at the wall that separates us from our neighbors, heard stories from women and men who are organizing against all odds in their communities, and encountered the evil of institutions that cage people for profit.
We are grateful to share this moving reflection written and delivered by Rev. Bernadette Hickman-Maynard in front of Otero County Jail and Immigration Detention Center during the action.
We stand here today before this facility. And on one side we have a county prison and the other side we have an immigration detention center.
It’s really two sides of the same coin. The coin of white supremacy that lines the pockets of people who profit off of the dehumanization, the shackling, the caging of black and brown people.
We stand before an entity where some people are pocketing real coins, while at the same time punishing others for trying to pursue, in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., a promissory note that America has issued and defaulted on time and time again. A bad check that has come back marked insufficient funds.
After land was stolen from indigenous people, Africans were stolen from their homelands, families were separated, communities destroyed, mass murder, genocide, this country was founded based on the belief that all were created equal and could pursue life, liberty and happiness - and the lie that it could actually be so.
Some of our immigrant Latinx sisters and brothers are learning this lesson now. Our African American sisters and brothers have known this for some time. Some of our White sisters and brothers are awakening to this reality.
So we stand here, not before a building that was erected in the past few years or re purposed in response to the particular preferences of this administration. But we stand before an entity that continues a 400 year long tradition of white supremacy, state violence, criminalization and profiting off of the inhumane treatment Black and Brown people.
In the Christian scriptures, the apostle Paul says we wrestle not against flesh and blood but the rulers and the authorities of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil.
Our fight today is not against people. It’s against evil. It’s against the principalities, the powers, the systems of racism and capitalism, sexism all the isms which persist in our institutions, in our society, even in our minds - which have erected this facility in their honor.
But while our fight is not against people, it’s going to take people to build the power to fight the powers. And it’s going to take Black, Brown and White people fighting together.
We can't do it alone. In our own groups. The powers are too strong. The system’s too powerful. The narratives too entrenched. The lies too pervasive.
But together we are stronger. Together we are more powerful, and as people of faith it’s gonna take us fighting, building power with one another and fighting with the armor of God.
It’s gonna take all of us to put on the collective belt of truth.
To fight the powers of racism, we’re gonna have to tell the truth about white supremacy, how it exists and how it functions everywhere and in all of us. Black and Brown people are gonna have to tell the truth about the pain. White people have to tell the truth about the privilege. We all have to tell the truth about how white supremacy infects and affects us all.
To tear down the strongholds of capitalism that make it ok to use prison labor as slave labor and exploit the labor of black and brown people paying pennies so others can make billions, it’s gonna take all of us to stop buying into lies. It’s gonna take Black people and Brown people refusing to buy into the lie that the other group is preventing them from getting paid. It’s gonna take White people refusing to buy into the lie that they get paid more because they work harder.
If we're gonna combat the authorities of economic injustice that thrive in the colonias, the hoods, the suburbs and the exurbs, the ghettos, and the private prisons, we gotta come together to figure out how we can live together in righteousness, to build a democratic economy where Black, Brown, and White can all thrive.
If we’re gonna battle the principalities of hate, then we’ve got to ready our feet to stand together in solidarity with the least of these. We’ve gotta ready our feet to stand even when its messy. We gotta stand in the tension. We gotta stand together. And our feet gotta be ready to move, to walk alongside folk who we don't fully understand, who we don't always get, and who don’t always get us. But we’ve got to stand together to proclaim the gospel of peace.
And finally as people of faith, we fight with the sword of the Spirit. The Spirit who created us – Black, White, Brown, beautiful, equal – and we must affirm the dignity and worth of all humanity.
So if we’re gonna fight the powers and principalities of evil and racism, then we’ve gotta fight emboldened by the spirit to tell the truth. We’ve gotta fight encouraged by the Spirit to figure out how to live in righteousness. And we’ve gotta fight empowered by the one Spirit to stand and act together in faith, love, justice to affirm the dignity and worth of all humanity.