Two Funerals, God's Plan, and Outrage
December 16, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
I've been to two very similar funeral services in a little over a year: the funeral for Joetavius Stafford, a Black youth killed by MARTA police in Atlanta in October 2011; and the funeral for Jordan Davis just last week. At each service, hundreds attended because of outrage over these Black youth's lives being cut short for no good reason. At each service, family and friends were grieving their loss and spoke movingly about the relationships they shared with their loved one. And at each service, from the pulpit, people were told that "he's in a better place now, an angel in heaven, where we all want to be," and "this is part of God's plan." The scene at Jordan Davis' funeral was particularly maddening. There you had a church filled with hundreds of people, the vast majority Black, and a white minister telling them not to be angry, not to question why this happened, because "sometimes we can't understand God's plan, but be assured this was part of God's plan, and it is a perfect plan." A friend of mine, sitting next to another friend of ours, a Black community activist and poet, whispered to her BA's quote that "If this is part of God's plan, it's a fucked-up plan!" At that point, she couldn't take it anymore and walked out. Later in the parking lot, she said all through the service she kept thinking about how religion has been used throughout the hundreds of years of the oppression of Black people.
This is not justifiable just because it may bring comfort to people who are grieving. It's not justifiable just because it helps people get through their feeling of tremendous loss. It's not justifiable just because a lot of people believe it. It's very HARMFUL and needs to be called out as such. It's harmful because it redirects and chills out people's righteous anger and outrage over injustice. It's harmful because it weakens people's resolve to fight against injustice. And it's harmful because, precisely at the moments when some things are becoming clear to people, it undermines their ability to understand the nature of the injustice, what caused it, what is the underlying problem, and what is the solution–which requires looking at the world as it really is–not through the warped lens of some made‑up fairy tale superstitious bullshit.
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