Will Jemison

Keeping our faith
By Will Jemison
Support of and a disproportionate use of the death penalty is a sad reality of the legacy of our regions’ history of struggle with human rights and living the values of the United States Constitution, let alone the demands of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Chattel slavery, lynching, Jim Crow and segregation were the ultimate denial of the sanctity of all human life. Unfortunately, state sanctioned executions evolved into a legal way of oppression of those accused of capital crimes, guilty or not, and of African Americans and poor whites as well. The criminal justice systems of the states of the Old Confederacy have continued to use capital punishment in ways that still disproportionately affect those groups. It has been said that it is better to be rich and guilty in these states than poor and innocent especially in regards to capital offenses.
In light of the current vitriolic climate for political and social debates in our country Pope Francis’ recent exhortation concerning the inadmissibility of the death penalty comes at a most critical time. In Catechism Number 2267 the Church states, “Consequently the church teaches in light of the Gospel, that the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. Further the church is exhorted to work with determination to see the death penalty abolished worldwide.”
Rather than seeing this as a new teaching the accompanying letter says this is in reality a refinement and evolution of the church’s enduring advocacy for life. From the apostolic period to this very day our Catholic community’s best teaching has been rooted in a biblical and social sensitivity which demands of all our human institutions and systems a dedication to advancing the common good.
In our country we have witnessed the theological and philosophical inconsistency of supporting prohibitions against abortion and promotion of the death penalty among several other social and political positions which do not advance the common good. One cannot be pro-life and not be concerned about the health of the planet we call home. One can not be pro-life and seek ever more vindictive ways to punish the poor. The consistent ethic of life demands that the unborn and those marginalized by state executions, poverty and prejudices in all its forms are equally valued as those we so blithely determine as “innocent and worthy of protection.”
A recent post by a Facebook colleague, Dr. Dave Barnhart, who is also an ordained United Methodist minister, poignantly points out why Pope Francis teaching on the death penalty is so necessary if Christians are truly to be advocates for human life, literally from womb to tomb.
“The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you cannot forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born they have died to you… prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”
The Holy Father’s exhortation demands that Catholic Christians must be advocates for a gospel rooted, consistent ethic of life, even for those our society deems undeserving and unworthy.

(Will Jemison is coordinator for Black Catholic Ministry for the Diocese of Jackson)

Will Jemison

Keeping our faith
By Will Jemison
As of the writing, we have lost at least another 10 innocent souls to senseless gun violence at an American school. I’m certain the calls to prayer and self-reflection from many of our legislators will commence and in about a week, we will have moved on to other issues in the country. What can’t be achieved in that week’s time is the healing that will be needed for the parents and friends of the indirect victims of the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) stronghold on some of our elected officials from many statehouses all the way up to the top seats in our federal government.
As Catholics, our social doctrine teaches us that all lives are imbued with dignity and should be protected. Obviously, we send our prayers and thoughts to those who have died, and with current laws, will continue to lose their lives to senseless gun violence due to lax gun laws, but prayers aren’t enough. In addition to our belief in the dignity of life, we also are charged with ensuring that policies and laws that are in effect don’t allow for mentally ill, violent and irresponsible individuals to have free access to weapons.
For the last few years, I’ve attended the annual pro-life events across the state where organizations recognize the works they have done in the arena of abortion legislation and pro-life advocacy. Indeed, many have performed some positive works in exposing the alternatives to abortion that some expectant mothers and fathers had not considered or weren’t aware of, but what has struck me most is the apparent lack by these same groups to effectively advocate either at the local level or statewide to reverse the scourge of the pro-gun movement in this state. Is equipping individuals with unnecessary weapons a legal right or a tool to ensure that some voters are appeased at the cost of endangering others?
In the past few years, we have witnessed innocent children and adults slaughtered in places of worship, schools and offices across the country; yet, we haven’t witnessed any substantive change to the laws that govern how we obtain access to weapons of any sort. As Catholics, we should be concerned. From 1994 to 2004, our elected officials attempted to band-aid the wound of gun violence by banning the sale of assault weapons similar to those used in most of our mass shootings. The problem with the ban was that it only outlawed the sale of new weapons, not the many thousands of assault weapons that were already in circulation and were sold via direct, cash transactions between individuals.
With an upcoming statewide election looming, it’s imperative that we as Catholics exercise our right to advocate and participate in the electoral process to affect positive change. There simply is no justification for individuals to have the right to openly carry weapons in public places throughout this state or casually purchase assault weapons. The intent of open carry laws are to intimidate some and appease others and no child or parishioner should have to be concerned whether it’s safe to attend school or church for fear of someone possibly hurting them or worse, due to our ineffective leadership.
Mississippi’s upcoming elections will be a great test of our fortitude as socially conscious voters and Catholics. At our moral and religious core is the desire to do what’s right and just, will this next round of elections reflect this or will we allow a few self-serving political issues deflect us yet again? It’s time we challenge our elected leadership to act in the best interests of the many and to place a higher value of life for all people and in all stages of life, from conception to natural death.

(Will Jemison is the coordinator for Black Catholic Ministry for the Diocese of Jackson.)

Will Jemison

Black History Month
By Will Jemison
As we celebrate the contributions of Black folk in this country during Black History Month, I pause to consider how much further we as a nation could be if we were to ever use the influence of our Catholic faith and teachings for more than one or two issues. We currently live in a state that consistently votes against its own interests for nearly every statewide or federal election, yet we wonder why our roads continually are in disrepair, our public education system is historically at the bottom of every scholastic poll and we remain at the top of nearly every health disparity list in the country.
We as Catholics have done an amazing job fighting for the rights of the unborn for decades, yet when it comes to fighting for quality of life for those after birth, we have much more work to do. The failures of many of our elected officials is a mirror-image of what our nation has become. In the past year, America has gone from being an example of hope, prosperity and possibility to precisely what President Donald Trump described Haiti, El Salvador and all the African continent as in recent weeks, a “toilet” country.
Despite his remarks on these black and brown countries, many of which have large populations of our Catholic brothers and sisters, more knowledgeable people are aware of how many of those “toilet” countries have contributed greatly to this country and how our country used prejudicial policies to ensure those same countries remained under-developed.
Haitian soldiers were among the first international supporters of the American Revolution, sending hundreds of men to Savannah, Georgia to fight for America against the British. The Haitian men fought valiantly and in return, just as it’s done for centuries, America failed to acknowledge their contributions and then relegated them to second-class citizenship after the war and later refused to acknowledge the newly formed Haitian government upon its independence from France.
Meanwhile, while our own government survives off temporary spending bills and questionable leadership, several of these countries in Africa are continuing to advance an agenda of progress spearheaded by their respective governments. The nation of Rwanda is set to effectively eliminate cervical cancer within its borders by 2020. Sierra Leone provides free prenatal care for pregnant women and children younger than five years of age. In all, sub-Saharan African immigrants to the United States are ranked among the most educated, with nearly 40 percent of them holding a college degree, compared to just 30 percent of American-born individuals.
After he chose to use such vile and egregious language, the president said he longs for more immigrants from Nordic countries such as Norway. What he consistently fails to realize is Norway and several other industrialized nations long ago concluded for reasons of economic prosperity, social cohesion, productivity and humanity to implement a social safety net and basic access to health care that the president and his party comrades have opposed from the New Deal to the Affordable Care Act.
Sadly, President Trump isn’t alone in his racist rhetoric and certainly falls in line with a great many “good” Christians in this state who’ve upheld Jim Crow era segregationist policies for generations. We don’t have to look further than our own state capital and our legislators who recently voted to end adequate funding for K-12 education throughout Mississippi and considered a bill (SB #2175) that would have ended Medicaid expansion throughout Mississippi at the same time our statewide Medicaid enrollment exceeds 75 percent (3 out of every 4 people) of our total state population.
Many of these same legislators in recent years have ensured little or no funding for mental health and other critical care needs for the citizens of this state. This blatant disregard for the welfare of our brothers and sisters is something that all Catholics should be concerned about. Legislation that fails to allow for the safe-keeping and general welfare of our neighbors – from all walks of life – are in direct conflict with Catholic Social Teaching.
What can you do to celebrate Black History Month? Be aware of what’s taking place in our state and our country and work to steer this ship on a much better course. Bigotry, racism and classism isn’t specific to one party, race or gender, but we all can work to right the ills of the past and keep us from repeating it.

(Will Jemison is coordinator for Black Catholic Ministry for the Diocese of Jackson)

Guest Column

Will Jemison

By Will Jemison
In the fall of 2003, I was one of 12 Americans selected to spend two weeks exploring the rural former East German countryside and to attend an educational symposium at a local university. Although I’d heard of the many examples of cultural oppression that occurred during years of communist rule and Russian influence, nothing prepared me for my arrival at the hotel and special instructions for the black, Chinese and Indian students in my cohort learning that we would have to register at the local police station. This registration wasn’t to single us out as some sort of threat, but was to protect us from what we soon discovered was a skinhead rally that was planned for the town we were visiting.
At the age of 22, overt racism was foreign to me. I grew up and attended diverse schools, had school friends of multiple ethnic backgrounds and it was fairly common for folk of different races to be guests in our home. Although I was aware of the historical struggles of my parents, grandparents and ancestors, racism, as it had been defined to me, wasn’t something I knew. That changed for me on a very cool day in Germany in 2003.
What also changed for me was the belief that racism was something that was strictly about overt acts. The white nationalists of Germany not only sought to have a direct impact on blacks, Asians and Jews, they sought to ensure that more covert acts would be normalized by the government to ensure they would no longer need swastikas, or in America’s case, hoods, to show their impact.
Those covert acts included: sanctioned methods of housing discrimination, increased restrictions on university admissions and “native” first employment policies. Each of those acts, if enabled, sought to gradually reduce the economic and social progress of racial and ethnic minorities in Germany and place them in a sort of second class status.
White nationalism is racism. It’s racism rooted in violence and fear, and in the case of the Ku Klux Klan, one that seeks to destroy any group they don’t agree with, including Catholics.
By now, we’ve all heard of the events in Charlottesville, Va. A rally of racists, ironically armed with Asian-made tiki torches, marched for greater rights and to protect symbols of their Confederate “heroes.” Hopefully, the irony of them rioting over symbols of traitors to the American union isn’t lost on you. For those it isn’t, the Confederacy’s purpose was to undermine the American democracy and ensure slavery remained legal in what became present-day Southern states.
The notion of upholding symbols of the confederacy, whether it be a flag or a statue, is diametrically opposed to everything we as good Americans and Christians should value. Erecting monuments to traitors is akin to placing a statue of Benedict Arnold in the halls of Congress or of Lucifer in a church. However, this is exactly what we’ve allowed to occur. The perception of white supremacy has corrupted our political and social structures in this state and our country.
It’s this perceived supremacy that gave us the Southern Strategy. The Southern Strategy was created in resistance to civil rights legislation and has been used to justify inaction, gerrymandering and a plethora of societal ills. During the 1950s and 60s, these monuments to confederate traitors were constructed, not to be reminders of great men, but to remind increasingly well-educated Negroes of their place. The Southern Strategy is also what gave rise to Donald Trump and his empty promises of border walls and immigration quotas that explicitly target black and brown people. The same Trump who himself lacks the moral and ethical competence to reject racism in all forms. Yes, the Southern Strategy continues to show its influence and last week, that influence gave rise to Charlottesville.
This strategy is continuously present in this state whether through legislation that seeks to ensure substandard education of our youth or to provide state-sanctioned discrimination against our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. As Catholics, we should be alarmed at these increasingly overt acts of discrimination by our legislators because they directly oppose the Gospel.
It also finds expression in the refusal to welcome the stranger and the alien and to treat them with compassion and justice and further expression in the obstinacy of many who are deeply concerned about unborn children but callous and skeptical as young men and women of color are seemingly killed with impunity.
In recent days when the holder of our highest political office has condoned and equated Neo-Nazis, the KKK and other white supremacists with those protesting their heinous ideology, I am reminded of the courage of the modern German people who have unabashedly acknowledged their past and become one of the world’s most humane and welcoming nation states.
Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, from the beginning of his papacy has called upon Catholics, other people of faith and people of good will to embrace the radical call of Jesus of Nazareth to see all people as images of a God who loves all of us beyond measure and without limits. That insight is found in the foundational documents of our country in light of recent events, may we all strive to live that truth with even more fervor.
(Will Jemison is coordinator for Black Catholic Ministry for the Diocese of Jackson)