Listening, Self-Critique, and Accountability: How Jesus would tell us to deal with each other on Stop-and-Frisk

In the firestorm over the NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk policy, too many debates between youth advocates and law enforcement are derailed by our failure to genuinely listen to one another’s concerns.

When young people and community activists cry out over the humiliation and intimidation they experience from police harassment and racial profiling, law enforcement and their supporters often react with an unqualified defense of police tactics, and a counterattack on the failures of the community. They cite high levels of crime and violence in communities of color, as if to say “We have no other choice to police you like this because your people are out of control.” 

When law enforcement or other concerned citizens express their concerns about high levels of crime and violence perpetrated by youth in certain neighborhoods, community advocates (myself included) are quick to defend young people by condemning the systemic polices and practices (zero tolerance in schools, stop-and-frisk, defunding of youth programs and building of prisons) that push so many people into the cycle of crime and incarceration. 

 

Instead of listening to one another, we attack each other. Instead of hearing each other, we justify ourselves and condemn our opponents.

As an advocate for youth and a developer of community-driven alternatives-to-incarceration, I usually fall on the side of defending young people against the system. As one who is called by Jesus Christ to “announce freedom to the captives,” I believe the gospel mandates me always to “preach good news to the poor” and never to defend or justify a status quo that perpetuates mass incarceration.

Yet as a believer in a gospel that radically equalizes all people under God’s judgment and grace, and a Messiah who gave us clear instructions on how to deal with one another, I must question any tactics in which we defend the righteousness of our cause by demonizing our opponents. We are quick to go on the offensive, prescribing corrective action to those with whom we disagree, abandoning any shred of humility or self-critique.

 For those of us who follow Jesus, our Lord plainly said: 

“How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matthew 7:4-5)

How different would the conversation be if the Mayor and Police Commissioner began by admitting that overly aggressive police tactics might actually cause a lot of harm to young people, instead of attacking the community for its crime problems? What if critics of the police refused to minimize the unacceptably high levels of violence among our youth in the community, and admitted we need to do much more to stop the madness that has our young people killing one another? Could we find common ground and agree to work together to reduce both violent crime and police brutality? Could we work to end antisocial behavior on both the part of young people and police officers?

I am confident that we can, but it begins with a firm commitment to see each other as human beings and to refuse the temptation to define evil as something that happens only among a certain group of people. I have heard arguments that justify racist and discriminatory policing on the basis that some communities are so horrendously crime-ridden that only heavy-handed tactics can root out the evil. I have also heard arguments that imply that if we could just get rid of oppressive law enforcement, community problems would be solved.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I believe both of these arguments ascribe far too much righteousness to our friends, and too much evil to our enemies. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it this way:

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  (The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956)

As an advocate for youth, I constantly implore law enforcement to listen to young people. If I am to be fully Christian in my response to the tensions between youth and police, then I must also listen to my brothers and sisters in law enforcement, and plead with my fellow activists to do the same. I believe that law enforcement agencies must be responsive to the communities they serve and must be held accountable when they abuse their power. If I am to be fully Christian in my response, I must also strive to first hold members of my own community accountable for their actions, especially when they harm one another.

(For reasons that I will explain in another essay, I believe there are compelling reasons to for Christians who do justice and love mercy to develop a more acute critique of law enforcement and the system of mass incarceration in this country. The vast power differential between young people and the police requires us to more vigorously defend the rights of youth of color against law enforcement abuses in our society.)

Yet for those of us who labor together in community, seeking to come to some sort of understanding and co-existing together as neighbors, police officers, young people, activists, my exhortation to all of us on a human level is to follow the instruction of the Apostle James who said:

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry” (James 1:19)

May we begin by admitting our own flaws and shortcomings. May we listen before we speak. May we look for each other’s humanity before condemning each other as enemies.