I have a theory...

[food4thought]

... as to why so many poor and minority people refuse to comply with police, which ends up badly in so many high profile cases like the George Floyd and Daunte Wright deaths by police shooting. Don't get me wrong, Derek Shauvin was rightly convicted for what he did, and I am not defending any instances of police using excessive force or abusing their power in any way. But please, hear me out for a second. What would have happened in those cases had the person in question not resisted arrest? Would we even know anything about the people involved? This leads me to the reason for me posting this thread.

Why are poor and minority people far more likely to resist arrest (look it up)? Could the answer, at least in many situations, not be about the character of the police officer, and not be about the character of the person that resists? Could it be that the poor and/or minority person rightly has ZERO trust that they will get fair treatment by the courts, whether they are guilty of a crime or not? Have a look at this article and let me know what you think... perhaps the narrative needs to shift focus from policing to the broken court system?

Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System | The Sentencing Project

If you were to have to defend yourself against charges in the US criminal justice system, would you rather be rich and white or poor and of color? Who would get the better lawyer 99% of the time? Who do you think would be more likely to be able to escape jail time even if convicted in some cases? Just something we all need to consider...

 

[Dave G.]

Ask Joseph when you get to heaven. Because it goes deeper than anything in the system with a society that more and more rejects God.

 

[food4thought]

Ask Joseph when you get to heaven. Because it goes deeper than anything in the system with a society that more and more rejects God.

I agree that the culture we live in is increasingly rejecting God and everything He stands for... yet is not justice something that God definitely stands for? The Bible has lots to say about how God feels about injustice based upon anything, but most especially towards the poor. As our nation moves further and further down the path of rebellion against God, the problem will only get worse. My thought was that the reason for the violence we see is a symptom, not the disease... and your response rightly pointed me beyond the court system to an even deeper one...

Ultimately, the problem boils down to a complete, all too often justifiable, lack of confidence in the institutions that govern our society. From the news media, to the politicians that we get to chose from on election day, to the integrity of the voting system, to the politicians in office at every level, to the courts, and, yes, the police... large swathes of our population have lost confidence in one or more (or even all) of these institutions. You know why? Because, somehow, even people who don't believe in God recognize, at some level, that humans are incapable of governing themselves over any length of time. Today, the untrustworthiness of politicians is not just known by everyone; sadly, it is just accepted. We all know that, more often than not, politics attracts the wrong type of people, particularly today. Power. Greed. Ego. Who else would be willing to endure the scrutiny of Sauron's Eye (my nickname for the 24 hour news media)?

The failure of America's institutions to keep the trust of it's citizens can all be traced back to the failure of the institution that is almost never mentioned in these discussions: the church. If the church-- instead of being all about social justice, or social conservatism, or any political movement at all-- had been about spreading the gospel, making disciples, and walking in the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit as the New Testament teaches... we would be living in a much better society. Not because we would be able to dictate political policy! But because far more people at every level of society would be living out the life of Jesus in our midst no matter who was in office, and THAT would make this country a much better place to live. Instead, for the most part the church got distracted by trying to reform the world through political action, forgot it's mission to TRANSFORM individuals through the gospel, and ended up producing generations of ideologues instead of generations of people truly, powerfully in communion with God and walking in His Spirit. So the church just became another institution in western society that has increasingly lost the public's trust... justifiably so, IMO.

/rant

So, to all you Christians who may have bothered to read all the way to this point... are you a part of the problem? Thanks to Dave G. for pointing out that this thread was probably not helping things... hopefully this post can redirect the discussion!