What is justice? Justice appeals to one’s sense of fairness and is about setting things right. Justice recognizes wrong and tries to correct, stop, compensate, and punish in order to right the wrong. Justice can be pursued in many arenas. Environmental justice looks at practices that are destroying ecosystems, and the response of “That’s not right!” leads to petitions, policy changes, penalties for polluting companies, and necessary reforms. Gender justice looks at the abusive and unequal treatment of women, and the response of “That’s not right!” seeks to put abusers behind bars, provides educational and vocational opportunities to women, and empowers and protects their rights. Justice in the context of the worldwide poor looks at child slavery and prostitution (among other issues), and the response of “That’s not right!” seeks to break the cycles of poverty by providing access to clean water, housing, jobs, and education so that the world’s most vulnerable will not fall prey to prostitution, beggary, child slavery, or parasitic moneylenders.
The pursuit of justice can be about the redistribution of goods (distributive justice), punishing the wrong (retributive justice), or about the fair processes and treatment in legal and organizational settings (procedural justice), as well as other models.
This book focuses particularly on ethnic justice in the United States. We are addressing what it means to be people of God who intentionally confront injustice that targets ethnic-specific and racially specific groups of people. And who we are, ethnically, matters. People should speak out about issues that affect their own ethnic community, just as the black church has done in its rich history. But we are also called to speak out against injustices that affect those whose ethnicity differs from ours.
Resources on Justice Issues
The Little Book of Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald J. Sider
Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World by Mae Elise Cannon
Returning to the image of Kintsukuroi pottery, imagine that you are a cup among many cups in a cupboard. You notice that the vases in the cupboard are beautiful, with many gleaming seams of gold in their former cracks. But as you get to know them better, they mention that something is hitting them, and more cracks appear. What is the loving thing to do? You could assume that this doesn’t affect you because you are a cup, and the vases will take care of it on their own. But this is unloving! We are called to care for each other and learn about the cracks that are causing harm to ethnically specific communities. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was obviously keenly aware of the injustices affecting his black community, displayed a similar awareness of the plight of his white neighbors: “I saw how the systems of segregation ended up in the exploitation of the Negro as well as the poor whites. I grew up deeply conscious of the varieties of injustice in our society.”1
For some Christian readers, seeing the word justice can raise suspicion that a secular liberal agenda has worked its way inappropriately into conversation about a life of faith in Jesus. For others, the fact that this chapter comes so late in the book may bother you.
To the first group, I say this: justice was never a notion that was separated from God’s plans for his people. He rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and the story of his divine intervention formed the bedrock of how they were to understand their relationship of faith with him. They were to have a countercultural code of ethics, the Ten Commandments, which stood in opposition to the competitive, polygamous, cutthroat way of living that was the Canaanite norm. In addition, the Israelites were given careful instructions about defending the cause of widows and orphans, welcoming the foreigner, and caring for the poor. They were to rest on the Sabbath day, which provided relief for all, including the poor, and also displayed their trust in the God who provides. This would be true of the Sabbath year (year seven) and the year of Jubilee (year forty-nine) in which all debts would be absolved; people would receive back the property they previously sold and those who had been sold into slavery would have their freedom restored. Israel was to embody God’s heart in how it treated women, children, slaves, and foreigners.
But Israel fails to do this, and God does not mince words in expressing his anger at not just Israel’s idolatry but also the unjust practices that come out of their idolatry. Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets speak about God’s discontent and refusal to tolerate Israel’s injustice and inhospitality toward the poor and foreigners. Israel is sent into exile because it failed to live as the people of the covenant. Even so, the prophet Ezekiel writes this promise from the God who will not give up on his people:
For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. (Ezekiel 36:24-27)
Ezekiel is anticipating the coming of Jesus and the new life he gives to us when he dies on the cross. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, “I have not come to abolish [the Law or the Prophets] but to fulfill them.” We cannot live the life God meant for us without the cross, resurrection, and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
We must remember that abolitionism and the women’s suffrage moment were primarily led by Christians with Biblical convictions. But given the current church’s suspicion of the increasingly secular and liberal world, it has backed away from many of the justice movements it started. Though the word dikaiosune can be translated as either righteousness or justice, our emphasis on personal piety makes us underappreciate the corporate, justice-related aspects of righteousness.2
To the second group of disgruntled readers, the chapter on justice appears later in the book because our understanding and practice of justice must be built on the awareness of our ethnic self and accompanied by trust-building, crosscultural, and conflict resolution skills. Otherwise, the colorblind person may walk into a conversation about justice and make crosscultural mistakes. They may lack the ability to resolve conflict with their brothers and sisters. Justice comes later in the book not because it’s unimportant but because it requires building blocks in order to be sustained. We can’t seek justice if we aren’t people of perseverance and reconciliation.
Although the United States is called the land of the free and the home of the brave, we must acknowledge that our country was built on the removal of Native Americans from their land and the enslavement of black people, who were constitutionally mandated in 1787 to count as only three-fifths of the white population for purposes of representation in Congress. The United States was founded with built-in laws of systemic injustice.
Some may say, “That was more than two hundred and forty years ago! Can’t we get past it?” But those people forget that the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are fairly recent events in our nation’s history. People of color have had voting rights for only the last fifty-plus years.
But voting rights alone do not guarantee a just society. Systemic injustice is a part of our country’s history, affecting housing regulations, educational opportunities, and the criminal justice system. Let’s take a look at the fictional characters of Tim and John, who both enlisted in World War II to serve as soldiers. Tim is white, and John is black. Both fought courageously and returned home with medals and honors. Both were promised housing and education as compensation for their years of service.
Tim moves into a house in the suburbs with the help of a large government subsidy. He gets married, has two kids, a dog, and a white picket fence. Tim’s house accrues value over the years. He finds a good job and is able to save enough to send his children and grandchildren to school.
John is a law-abiding, upstanding American citizen and decorated veteran with a wife, two kids, a dog, and a white picket fence, just like Tim. But he’s blocked from moving into certain neighborhoods that seem to be majority white. He’s able to find a house, but the Homeowners Refinancing Act of 1933 and the Federal Housing Act of 19343 specify that neighborhoods with colored occupants, particularly black and Mexican, are “high-risk” and in decline. As stated in PBS’s Race, the Power of an Illusion,
Real estate practices and federal government regulations directed government-guaranteed loans to white homeowners and kept non-whites out, allowing those once previously considered “not quite white” to blend together and reap the advantages of whiteness, including the accumulation of equity and wealth as their homes increased in value. Those on the other side of the color line were denied the same opportunities for asset accumulation and upward mobility.4
This practice of redlining certain neighborhoods means companies refuse to give mortgages, insurance, and other goods and services to such areas, which interferes with how much money John’s house will be worth in the future. Without rising equity, his home is doomed to a perpetually low value when compared to Tim’s. Then a decade later, as city and state officials are planning to build low-income housing projects, John’s neighborhood is selected as the building site because it is already lower in land value. This affects the quality of the public education system, among other things, and many residents leave.
Fifty years later, John’s house is worth one-eighth5 of Tim’s, though they both have worked hard to provide for their families. While Tim’s grandchildren are able to attend college just fine, John’s grandchildren have to take out loans for college and get nervous when thinking about accruing more debt.
When we talk about systemic injustice, we are talking about situations like John’s. Though he tries his best, he is significantly less well off than Tim. Though he makes similar choices to Tim’s, unfair policies and systems make it impossible for John to enjoy the same kind of safety, prosperity, and standard of living that is available to Tim. This in turn affects John’s children, and John’s children’s children. We can see that something is wrong with the system when we realize that this is the experience of many black Americans.
The United States was built on unjust systems and laws that contributed to the prosperity of whites at the expense of the freedom and fair treatment of black and Native Americans. Subsequent laws made cheap immigrant labor possible but didn’t offer protection or financial stability for Asian, Latino, or Eastern European immigrants. The unjust systems that continue to affect different communities of color today, including the historically poor white communities in Appalachian America, are linked to the unfair laws and ethnic prejudice of the past.
In order to contribute to ethnic justice, we must look beyond helping the poor by simply distributing goods and services. We must also examine the systems and biases that create and maintain poverty in ethnic communities. We must ask, what needs to change, and where is power being unjustly wielded to the detriment of a community? And how can we go about making it right by establishing laws and systems that benefit not just one ethnic group but all Americans?
Jesus was born to a people who were no strangers to ethnic injustice. They had been conquered by four different empires over six to seven centuries. Each new empire was worse than the last. When the Greeks came into power, they tried to ridicule, demean, and supplant Jewish culture and customs. Uprising attempts were ruthlessly met, often with crucifixion. Hasmonean King Alexander crucified eight hundred Jewish men “in the sight of all the city” who had attempted to revolt (Josephus, Ant. 13:380-1). Before they died, their wives and children were killed in front of them. Public mass crucifixions continued in Rome-occupied Israel (see Josephus, Ant. 12:256, 17:295, and Josephus, War 2:241, 5:449-51). It was a warning: do not try to fight Rome and the powers that be. The cross was a reminder that someone else was in power—someone that disregarded the value of Jewish life and saw it as expendable. The irony of the Pax Romana (Roman Peace) is that peace was established by the decimation and destruction of the people Rome conquered.
This is the troubled arena Jesus enters. At the beginning of his teaching years, he goes to the synagogue in Nazareth and reads this passage from the book of Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18-21)
What a proclamation of hope, a vision of release for prisoners, and freedom for the oppressed! Jesus’ first sermon emphasizes his commitment to justice as he proclaims the kingdom of God.
But the story doesn’t end there. When the crowd questions Jesus, he shares with them a most unexpected story. He reminds them that throughout Israel’s history, God chose to include and involve non-Jews—Gentiles—in his story. God provided for a widow in Sidon and cleansed the skin disease of the Syrian general Naaman, an oppressor of Israel’s people.
These stories upset the Jewish listeners, and they try to kill him:
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (Luke 4:28-30)
To imply that God’s story of salvation might possibly include their ethnic enemies may have felt like pouring salt into an open, bleeding wound for these oppressed people. To then be told to love their enemies, who most certainly included Roman soldiers and Samaritans, probably felt inconceivable. And yet this seems to also be part of Jesus’ inaugural sermon.
Jesus’ kingdom message seems to simultaneously include freedom for the oppressed and the inclusion of the ethnic enemy, the oppressor. Indeed, later he welcomes and heals Roman centurions, despised tax collectors, and those who represented ethnic enemies such as the Samaritans and Greeks. What kind of justice is this?
The Jewish listeners, who were deeply rooted in oral tradition, would have known the next part of Isaiah 61: after “to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor” is “and the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2).
Vengeance may have sounded sweet to the Jews. But I don’t think that retributive justice fully encompasses what Jesus is declaring.
In the days following the Rwandan 1994 genocide, the country lacked the courts, jails, and resources to pursue procedural and retributive justice for everyone who had committed crimes. They instead turned to restorative justice, restoring relationships between perpetrators and victims, in hopes of stopping the cycles of ethnic cleansing that had plagued Rwanda’s history.
In Luke 19, Jesus chooses to dine with Zacchaeus, who is a chief tax collector and thus gained much by collecting highly inflated taxes from his own countrymen on behalf of Rome. He is considered a traitor by his people, who mutter against Jesus’ choice to visit his house. Zacchaeus’ response to Jesus is astounding: “Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8). Zacchaeus has a real change of heart as a result of his encounter with Jesus, and he seeks both to distribute his wealth to the poor and also do right by those he wronged by quadrupling the amount he cheated out of them. It’s extraordinary and costly.
Jesus’ justice is restorative. In Jesus’ economy, relationship is the highest currency because our relationships with each other reflect the divine image of the Trinity. All justice is focused on restoration of relationship, which means caring for others as if they are our own flesh and blood. We are created for communion with God and each other, and in the last days, we will enjoy fellowship with the triune God and his people. As a result, restorative justice is inherently communal. According to N. T. Wright,
God’s justice is a saving, healing, restorative justice, because the God to whom justice belongs is the Creator God who has yet to complete his original plan for creation and whose justice is designed not simply to restore balance to a world out of kilter but to bring to glorious completion and fruition the creation, teeming with life and possibility, that he made in the first place. And he remains implacably determined to complete this project through his image-bearing human creatures and, more specifically, through the family of Abraham.6
The Good Samaritan story challenges us to love strangers and ethnic enemies as our own, not in one moment, but for the long haul. It invites us to view the ethnic other as a beloved brother or sister. And what wouldn’t you do for your family?
Wouldn’t you seek to make sure that they have all that they need, not just to survive, but to flourish?
Wouldn’t you seek to make sure that they are protected from their offenders, that those who caused harm are prevented from doing so again, and help to establish laws where all could be safe?
If your brother or sister were the offender, wouldn’t you do all in your power to help them repent and change for the better in order to have a second chance at life?
Jesus’ restorative justice is reconciling. It unites the powerful with the oppressed, the offender with the victim, and the establishment with the foreigner. Restorative justice requires confession and agreement upon the injustice, inequity, and grievance involved. It requires the rejection of self-preservation on both sides: the right to harbor resentment toward the offender and the right to self-protect through wealth, power, and denial. It requires deep sacrifice of both. It’s unfair and abusive to tell the victim or oppressed to choose grace and forgiveness while requiring no heart change of the powerful or the offender. In Roadmap to Reconciliation, Brenda Salter McNeil writes, “Reconciliation is an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God’s original intention for all creation to flourish.”7
In the debate about racial reparations to black Americans, there is a valid concern about why the US government agreed to apologize and provide financial compensation to Native Americans for taking their lands and to Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II, while black American descendants of slaves and those affected by Jim Crow laws have not been compensated.8 This question must continue to be discussed in matters of US policy. However, reparations will not restore relationship. It will compensate but not heal what is broken. An example of reparative justice would be forcing the affluent great-grandson of a white slave owner to pay higher taxes so that reparations can be paid to the grandson of the slave his great-grandfather owned. It would be forced, begrudging, and likely to breed more political fractures. However, restorative justice in this example would be pursued at a communal level. The great-grandson of the white slave owner (who may or may not be called to pay those higher taxes) would say to the black grandson, “Would you become my family? Your nephews, nieces, and children will become part of my life. I will help you make sure that they will be able to graduate school and go to college so that they have access to the opportunities needed to flourish. Come be my family. Come vacation with us, dine with us. Teach me how to love you. Let us be one.” The church should be praying and seeking such restoration of relationships and seeking the holistic physical, financial, and spiritual well-being of the other, especially because it possesses the good news of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, which can bring about deep loving of the other.
Justice and mercy are the twin hearts of God’s righteousness. The community that is called to justice in Jesus’ name is called to both, as merciless justice treats people as unredeemable, while unjust mercy pardons wrongs with no consequence and does little to challenge and dismantle injustice.
Today, we see what happens when people are treated as unredeemable in our criminal justice system. Young people come out of prison even more hardened than when they first entered. Young boys who committed foolish mistakes become fossilized in their ways because prisons don’t provide the family, mentorship, or community they need. Yes, we should provide consequences for crimes in order to create a safe society but not at the cost of giving up on those who could be restored to a flourishing life.
Jesus’ restorative justice is prophetic. Justice that exposes injustice communicates God’s intolerance for oppression. But Jesus’ justice isn’t just about fixing what is wrong here on earth. It’s about declaring the kingdom of God. Isaiah 61 paints a picture about the oppressed being freed, the prisoners being released, and the days of mourning and despair being replaced by praise and joy. It’s a picture of restoration that anticipates the final resurrection when Jesus will come back and wipe the tears from our eyes.
Every time we care for an ethnic stranger, advocate for reform in our criminal justice system, stand up for refugees and immigrants, forgive our ethnic enemies, repent of sin against ethnic others, and give of ourselves, we are declaring the kingdom of God in ways that are compelling and undeniable. The kingdom of God is here and not yet. How we love each other and give of ourselves offers others a glimpse of the final resurrection that is coming. When we pursue restorative justice and proclaim Jesus at the heart of it, we serve as heralds of that final resurrection. Pursuit of justice declares that there is a king, whose rule and laws must be obeyed, and that he will overthrow all other kingdoms. We cannot achieve full justice on this side of heaven, but we can prepare for the coming of the one who will make things right. Restorative justice in Jesus’ name proclaims that the hope of the good news is at the center of why we care for the poor, fight injustice, forgive enemies, and give our time, money, and energy for the other.
So how do we go about pursuing prophetic, restorative, and kingdom-declaring ethnic justice?
The first step is to open our eyes. And since we’re talking about doing this as Jesus followers, we’re going to ask Jesus to open our eyes to the ethnic injustice around us.
In John 2, Jesus exposes the injustice in the temple courts. During this time, temple and Roman taxes likely combined for a 30 to 40 percent tax rate, which fell heavily on the backs of the poor.9 Plus, Jews had to change their money into acceptable currency at exorbitant interest rates, which benefitted the moneychangers at the temple.10 Given these conditions, the poor in particular would have problems engaging in temple worship. Jesus sees this and is moved to anger. He flips the tables over and drives the moneychangers out of the temple. To those selling doves, the offering that the poorest worshipers could afford, Jesus says, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:16). This isn’t a catatonic, lamb-holding Jesus. This is a Jesus who can’t stand injustice and directly exposes it.
Likewise, we need to ask Jesus to open our eyes. The recent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement brought to light a pattern of injustices that affect the black American community in the United States, particularly the disparity in the use of force against unarmed black men, women, and children. The lack of indictment in those cases raises further outcry that something is wrong with the criminal justice system. Today we have more black Americans in prisons or jail and on probation or parole than the total number of people that were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War.11 Because going to prison removes one’s right to vote as well as the chances at procuring stable employment, we have a vast majority of black Americans caught in a kind of indentured servitude. Having a black president didn’t remove the problem of racial injustice. If anything, the fact that some of these issues came to light during the years of his presidency shows that these systems are difficult to overcome.
Jesus may open your eyes by inviting you to read books such as The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander or America’s Original Sin by Jim Wallis. Jesus may open your eyes through the stories of friends and colleagues that address issues you’ve never talked about before. I have lived between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the past sixteen years. And every black American man I’ve met knows that his doctorate degree or clerical collar doesn’t protect him from random stops by police and subtle everyday racism. Education and enlightenment are no protection against racial prejudice.
It’s essential for your eyes to be opened to patterns of ethnic injustice in your own country. Because if you are unaware and then enter a different context, you will bring the following problems: you could carry over your unconscious biases and practices of injustice toward ethnic others, you might not be able to understand the ethnic injustices present in that context, or you may perpetuate the systems of ethnic injustice found in the community you are trying to love and help.
If you find people who are willing to share their experiences of enduring racism with you, listen with care and respect. Don’t react by trying to play the devil’s advocate or rationalizing the other side. Understand that the person is already hurting and taking a risk by sharing with you. Particularly if there are tears, receive them as sacred and listen with care.
It’s surprising when people share their concerns and opinions with me about Black Lives Matter without ever having learned about their core values, which include nonviolence. And while it’s true that some Black Lives Matters protesters unfortunately deviate from that value, don’t judge the movement by the outliers. Listen to what key people are saying before forming your opinion. Even if you don’t feel comfortable supporting the movement after you have spent time learning, if you aren’t concerned enough to ask about alternate ways you can be fighting the injustices highlighted by the movement, you haven’t really been listening to the stories.
Listening to the pain of the black community illuminates the ethnic injustices faced by other communities. It helps us see what we previously could not. If we refuse to acknowledge the police brutality affecting black people, it’s difficult to recognize police brutality and prejudice involved in the deaths of young, unarmed Latino American men. It’s difficult to recognize the injustices faced by the Native American community, which we sometimes overlook due to its smaller size and lesser-known presence.
The 2016 Academy Awards for movies faced a backlash dubbed #OscarsSoWhite because the major award categories included only white nominees. Chris Rock, a black comedian, served as the emcee and provided helpful insights through some pointed jokes and comments. But he also told some tasteless and stereotyping jokes aimed at Asian Americans. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen, dressed as his Ali G character, added more racist comments. It seemed as though Hollywood was trying to fix its racism problem by hiring a black emcee and directing racist comments toward a different people group—hardly a corrective. After the broadcast, a Chinese American administrator at an urban charter school said sadly to me, “I have spent most of my life advocating for the education and rights of my black brothers and sisters. After the Oscars, I found myself wondering, would they do the same for me?”
I’m grateful for the many black colleagues and friends who voiced objection to the Oscars because of its racist jokes aimed at Asian Americans. Many of them had taken the time to learn the Asian American story and recognized that the Oscars are just one of many systems in which Asian Americans have to fight to be represented, respected, and seen as truly American.
My pastor, Dave, and his wife, Michelle, are both white, and they have eleven adopted children from around the world. When they adopted a trio of teenagers from Uganda, there were many things that Dave learned the hard way. When their son Robert got his driver’s license, he was frequently pulled over or followed at random by the police. One day, Robert got rear-ended by a middle-aged white woman. When Robert asked Dave what to do, Dave confidently told him to call the police. Dave drove out to meet his son on the highway, and he was surprised and outraged to find that the police officer had dismissed the white woman and was instead giving a ticket to Robert! When Dave later shared the story with a group, the response of black parents was loud and clear: “What were you thinking, telling him to call the cops? Didn’t you know any better?” Dave was taken aback. For him, you called the police for help. For the black people in his congregation, the police represented untrustworthy trouble. Dave was forced to recognize that these patterns and stories affect his son.
From the pulpit, Dave challenged us to listen, learn, and care about the fact that patterns of injustice affect in particular our black and brown brothers and sisters. Hearing the stories of men and women whose ethnicities and experiences of injustice are so different from our own helped us recognize these patterns.
Believing the stories of those around us is the first step in the long journey of building trust and engaging in justice. We also need to learn stories and read literature about ethnic injustice as it relates to our communities, neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.
Daisy, a Latina friend who studies US immigration issues, patiently and passionately explained to me the issues at work in immigration policy. Many Central Americans are fleeing from war and conflict-induced poverty, just like Africans from the Congo and Sudan or Asians from Vietnam or Laos. Her question is, what makes these groups worthy of refugee status in the United States while Central American migrants are viewed as unwanted and treated like criminals? What kind of biases form the policy decisions that open doors to some while closing doors to others? Daisy exposed a part of the system that I have yet to fully understand—a system that thrives on cheap, illegal labor but vilifies it at the same time. This new understanding now informs how I think about the mentoring needed for Latino youths to thrive in schools or the ELL (English Language Learner) and adult education classes needed for Latino adults.
Once you are learning about others’ stories and patterns, there are some concrete next steps to take in pursuit of justice.
Form a small group that prays and pursues justice together. Whether it’s a small group that reads this book together, a prayer group, or a discussion group, create a space where people can share their stories and concerns and then pray about next steps. Use the crosscultural communication skills mentioned in the previous chapters as you interact with each other. Continue learning together by reading a book, attending a lecture, learning from a community organizer, or starting a sermon series that focuses on justice and reconciliation. Make space to pray for local and national incidents related to race and ethnicity.
Connect with a local group that is committed to pursuing justice, advocacy, or activism (faith-based or secular). Consider finding out more about the local Black Student Union on campus or the American Civil Liberties Union office in your town. Or try a community nonprofit, youth-mentoring program, justice-oriented mentoring program, or prison ministry program at a church. Look for groups with clear goals and a stated mission such as Campaign Zero, which has concrete objectives that include limiting unhelpful police interventions, improving community interactions, and ensuring accountability. There are leaders who are already experts in what they know and practice. Learn from them. Watch how they navigate systems and call for public accountability from civil servants. Pray for them.
Partner with local ethnic-specific churches that are attuned to the needs of their ethnic community. Latino, black, and Asian American churches that are established in a city are more likely to know the poverty, justice, and immigration issues affecting their community. They might have ELL classes or food pantries, youth mentoring programs, and existing relationships with the city and cross-church partnerships you could join.
Stay involved in the civic arena. Vote. Whether you’re Republican, Democrat, Independent, or other, advocate for justice. Raise the issues, because justice is something that concerns us all. Write to your congressional representatives about issues of injustice that you want them to address. Pay attention to what is being said by candidates in local and national elections. Call them to accountability through letters, petitions, and your vote.
Show up when a community is in pain. If there’s a race-related incident locally or nationally, show up for the prayer vigils, the nonviolent protests, and the community meetings. Ask how you can be praying for and caring for the affected community.
After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, my Asian American college fellowship sent a letter to the Muslim Student Association on campus, writing that we knew from experience what it was like to represent the face of the enemy at war (specifically, the Japanese Americans who were sent to internment camps during World War II). The letter asked how we could be praying for them. We heard nothing for several months. Then in December, two women wearing headscarves attended our fellowship meeting. They quietly and respectfully sat in the back and asked to speak during our announcements. “We got your letter. Thank you,” they said. “And it has been very hard. Please continue to pray for us. We are grateful for you because you are the only group that reached out to us.” This started a relationship that lasted for the next ten years. We built trust with members of the Muslim Student Association community by studying the Scripture and the Koran together, sharing Ramadan dinners, and talking about spiritual matters. Our response during the crisis cemented trust for the next decade; what we do now builds trust for a lifetime.
Pursuing justice isn’t just a phase of life. It’s a way of life, and you’re invited to a lifelong journey of seeking justice and loving your neighbor. Whether you’re a teacher, lawyer, policymaker, active parent in the PTA, or doctor, issues of racial bias and ethnic injustice affect the people you work with, serve, lead, and live among. Check with a neighbor or a fellow parent in your community when an incident affects their ethnic community. Stay informed of the evolving issues and news that affect your work and neighborhood. Find other people in your work and region that have similar values. Talk to your kids at an early age about how they can stand up to racial bullying (and bullying in general), and teach them to value ethnic difference as a beautiful thing. Consider working on projects or serving communities that experience a disproportionate amount of ethnic injustice so that you can prayerfully work toward change in that arena. Serve as a Big Brother or Sister to someone who is ethnically different than you or help teach an ELL class. Explore foster care. Advocate not just for diversity in the workplace or school but also for skills and ethnicity training that can help those spaces decrease in racism and bias. Pay attention to what bills are being proposed, and write, call, or email to petition your representatives and hold them accountable.
1.Name a time when your eyes were opened to ethnic injustice. What was the event or experience that helped you do that?
2.What is a pattern of ethnic injustice that concerns you? What are some next steps you can take to address that concern?
3.What’s a next step for you individually and corporately?
4.Who are some local organizations or people that you can connect with in order to learn more?
5.What are some fears or questions that come up for you about engaging in ethnic justice?
Evil and the Justice of God by N. T. Wright
Just Spirituality: How Faith Practices Fuel Social Action by Mae Elise Cannon
Pursuing Justice: The Call to Live and Die for Bigger Things by Ken Wytsma with D. R. Jacobsen
Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil
Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King Jr.
Welcoming Justice: God’s Movement Toward Beloved Community by Charles March and John M. Perkins
Welcoming the Stranger by Matthew Soerens and Jenny H. Yang