Some of what we can do best with our given influences and voices (whether small or large) is allow it to become a platform for other important voices to be heard. Check this video out comprised of multiple voices and perspectives following the verdict and during the protest.
VOICES: Responses to the Oscar Grant Trial Verdict
Posted byDrew G. I. Hart, PhDPosted inBlack History, Dominant Culture, Justice, Life, Love, Mercy, racism, Subdominant Culture, Suffering, technology, Urban, Video DownloadTags:Christianity, city, evangelical, Faith, God, Jesus, missional emergent, non-violence, oakland, oscar grant, oscar grant trial, peace, police, police brutality, protest, racism, relgion, Urban, violence
Published by Drew G. I. Hart, PhD
Rev. Dr. Drew G. I. Hart is an associate professor of theology at Messiah University and has 10 years of pastoral experience prior to teaching. He currently directs Messiah University's "Thriving Together: Congregations for Racial Justice" program and co-hosts Inverse Podcast with Jarrod McKenna, an award-winning peace activist from Australia. Hart is the author of Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism (2016) and Who Will Be A Witness?: Igniting Activism for God's Justice, Love, and Deliverance (2020). And he is also a co-editor and contributor to the recently published book entitled Reparations and the Theological Disciplines: Prophetic Voices for Remembrance, Reckoning, and Repair (Nov. 2023). Hart received bcmPEACE’s 2017 Peacemaker Award, the 2019 W.E.B. Du Bois Award in Harrisburg, PA, and most recently in December 2023 Life Esteem Ministries recognized him in Harrisburg with the Harambee Award for the Nguzo Saba Principle of Umoja—Unity for his faith-based activism and public scholarship in the community. Drew and his family live in Harrisburg, PA. View more posts
Drew G. I. Hart 
I am well aware that another Black man is dead, that is why I keep trying to get folks to stop making decisions that will place them in situtations to wind up dead. Over and over again we keep focusing on the wrong end. It’s TOO LATE to focus on the brother after he is dead. Why don’t we put the energy into keeping him alive. Responsibility and Accountability goes a long way in keeping folks from being in the circumstance of being shot unarmed or armed. No one is saying the officer was right, but what I am saying is the young man would not have been in the situation to be shot to begin with had he made better decisions. Why is that connection never made. We will keep having dead brothers if they keep making bad decisions. Until we are willing to deal with that, we will keep on hollering about justice. There was a time when a neighbor, or teacher, or minister or whoever could let a child know when they were doing wrong. In fact the parents encouraged folks to let them know when their children were doing wrong and they could not see them. Now many parents will curse you out when you tell them about something that their children did wrong. There was a time when the village really did raise the child. Now the village is scared to say anything because of the reaction of the child and their parents. Then when one of them gets killed, everyone wants to village to defend the bad choices. No sir, not me. The families have my sympathies in the loss of a loved one, but the support of the wrong decisions. No. That must stop if we are to be taken seriously. Otherwise, prepare yourself to keep having these same situations.
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