In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on our Capitol on January 6, 2021, a video of a Black Capitol Police officer facing a mob of white supremacists went viral. [1] In the shakily captured frames, the lone officer retreats through the halls of the Capitol building. He is being screamed at and threatened by an angry, white, male crowd of Trump supporters. He has his hand on his gun but does not draw it, repeatedly calling for backup as he backs away from the crowd, up a set of stairs and left down a hall.
A few days after watching that video for the first time, I learned some important facts that shifted my perception of the scene.[2] The officer's name is Eugene Goodman. He was, in fact, leading the crowd away from their targets in the Senate Chamber and toward where other police officers were ready and waiting. He was using his Black body, in his solitary vulnerability, to tempt a racist crowd to turn from their objective. In one moment in the video, a man at the head of the crowd hesitates at the top of the stairs and goes to turn right down the hall. He looks to head toward the Senate Chamber, whose doors are minutes away from being sealed. Goodman notices, distracts the man with a shove, and heads left, successfully drawing the hunters away from their congressional quarry.
At first watch, the narratives of our racist society dominate our perception. Here is a vulnerable Black man, alone and struggling to escape an angry mob of white supremacists eager to hurt him or worse.
But on the second viewing with these facts in mind, we see Officer Goodman's bravery and control of the situation. We see the courageous choices he makes that are, in fact, keeping him one step ahead of the crowd. In risking his body and life, he was protecting our lawmakers, our democracy, us.
In The Cross and the Lynching Tree, Dr. James Cone draws striking comparisons between Jesus' broken body on the cross and Black victims of societal violence such as Emmett Till.[3] In Stand Your Ground, the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas carries forward and nuances his work as she applies it to the more recent murders of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.[4] Through their lenses, we are compelled to see Jesus' body in solidarity with the many vulnerable bodies that have borne the sins of human society throughout history and today, especially Black American men and women.
The theology of substitutionary atonement argues that God intended Jesus' death of the cross, perhaps predestined it from the very beginning. We can hear this theology echoed in the words of Eucharistic Prayer A, "[Jesus] offered himself, in obedience to [God's] will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world."[5] Cone and Brown Douglas' Black Liberation and womanist theologies, however, would point out that this lets humanity off the hook in a troubling way. In acknowledging that it is we, not God, who are to blame for Jesus' cruel execution, we recognize how we continue to subject the most vulnerable to that sin every day. Good Friday becomes a stark reminder that we put innocent human beings to death through negligence, cruelty, and bigotry still. These murders are not just the cost of doing business, not God's plan, but the ultimate tragic result of humankind's entrapment in sin.
This theology also draws our attention to Easter as the divine response to our hate: the choice and power of love. Jesus chose to draw the ire of Empire and religious authority away from his disciples and nascent movement. On Good Friday, he laid down his life for his friends. God chose to redeem the sin of the cross. On Easter, God transformed the ugliness of human spite into the beauty of salvation for humankind.
Unlike the figures Dr. Cone and Dr. Brown Douglas highlight, Officer Goodman had a choice. He was armed and chose not to use violence. He had the choice and wherewithal to focus on the needs of others, the Senators he was sworn to defend. Goodman's story adds depth to our social and political discourse in an additionally powerful way. That Goodman was a police officer whose life was threatened by white supremacists in the course of discharging his duties adds vital complexity to the debate that too often is boiled down to Black versus “Blue” lives.
The Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas yearns for us to see her examples, Martin and Brown, as more than victims. She poignantly writes about their lives that we may honor the dignities they were stripped of in death.
It is essential that we move beyond that first viewing Officer Goodman as a victim and recognize the power of his self-sacrificial heroism. It is equally essential that we proclaim that what happened to him on January 6, 2021 should never have happened.
We can at the same time laud officer Goodman's heroic actions and exemplary service to our nation and lament the social dynamics that make a vulnerable Black body irresistible to an angry white supremacist mob.
We can at the same time hold up the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ on the cross and pledge never again. Never again shall a human being near the brunt of the sins of human society for us all.
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