AMOS PROJECT ORGANIZER PUBLISHED IN THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
January 18, 2021
Pastor Derrick Holmes of Second Baptist Church in Circleville reflects below on the white supremacist violence in D.C. and police murders of Casey Goodson Jr. and Andre Hill for The Columbus Dispatch.
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A Demand for Democracy
I am the pastor of a historic African-American church in Circleville, built in response to slavery. My church once sheltered thousands of runaway slaves and served as a crucial stop in the Underground Railroad. However, this past is often at war with the present.
Just last fall, the current president staged a massive rally in Circleville as part of his re-election campaign, minutes away from our church. It was yet another reminder of where we remain as a country, and how much further we have to go as a democracy.
Last week, we were once again left reeling as our nation’s Capitol was attacked by a violent mob of agitators, the majority of whom were white. They scaled walls, ran through chambers, stood on tables, ripped through doors, and shattered glass. This was a riot to say the least, and an act of domestic terrorism by all accounts.
While this was taking place in D.C., the recent police killings of Casey Goodson, Jr. and Andre Hill here in Columbus have left many of us to wrestle with understanding this moment. Some see the Capitol riot as an act of deep patriotism; others see it as a perversion of our constitutional rights, motivated by white supremacy.
The truth is that, when Black Lives Matter activists staged peaceful protests in D.C. last summer, five times as many of them were arrested compared with the violent white vigilantes who were taken into custody after Jan. 6. This is yet another regrettable reminder of the racism from which America has to move forward.
We are a nation broken in our soul and at war with ourselves. Whether it is police- perpetrated loss of Black life in Columbus, voter intimidation in Georgia, or an attempt to hold democracy hostage in D.C., the common thread is the lack of accountability. It is lack of accountability that damages a democracy. The absence of accountability in a democracy ultimately results in anarchy.
What do we do with this moment? How do we move forward?
If we are to move forward from this place, if we are to heal the broken soul of America, then we have to be blatantly honest about what fuels the function of what we see. We can no longer allow words and phrases like racism, white privilege and anti-Blackness to be disqualifiers for dialogue.
We must also find the resolve to demand real democracy from our leaders. In 1857, Frederick Douglass gave a speech in which he proclaimed that “[P]ower concedes nothing without a demand.” Our response to this moment must not be rooted in partisanship. Even as we stare squarely into the ugliness of this moment, with tears in our eyes and uncertainty in our hearts, our response must be to demand accountability.
We must demand that violent white protesters be arrested at the same rate as non-violent Black ones. We must demand that officers found to be in the wrong be indicted in the name of what’s right. We must demand better from those whom we elect and those who are supposed to protect our communities.
We must not give into the rhetoric that says a demand for accountability is favoritism in disguise. A demand for accountability is not settling for anything less than what America is supposed to be for everyone. A demand for accountability is a demand for democracy.
