Written by Rev. Kwame Pitts; original post can be viewed on Medium.com

This past Friday, I was invited by Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL) Executive Director, Tanya Watkins to speak at an event that continues to bring to the forefront the economic disparity and the environmental racism that is systemic throughout the southwest side of Chicago, certain south suburbs of Harvey, Riverdale, Robbins and Dolton and parts of NWI, including Whiting. East Chicago and Calumet. Pivotal to this day was the presence of Rev. William Barber, continuing founder of the Poor People’s Campaign and his being there was not for posturing but so that he also takes this unheard story to the public national stage. Rev. Barber is prophetic and so much grounded and so personable, engaging all of us and preaching a WORD! SOUL wanted me to speak before Rev. Barber which is extremely nervewracking but if you have been ever involved with community organizing and protests, you know the schedules can get chaotic and while I did speak, it was not what I had prepared. So I thought I’d share my thoughts here.

Good morning; I am the Rev. Kwame Pitts and I serve as Associate Pastor of Campus Ministry on one of the most privileged places in this city, the University of Chicago. Such a difference from driving through Hyde Park and then coming out here, to places like Robbins, Riverdale, Harvey into spaces like Whiting and East Chicago-driving through with refineries on either side, reminds me of LOTR and walking into Mordor. My emotions moved from being disturbed at the deaths due to systemic violence to being angry as hell because the people in these neighborhoods, in these communities are labeled as liabilities; that sending economic development would be a waste of resources.

What good comes out of Riverdale or Harvey right? Why should we invest in those suburbs? Well if you are going to sit here and use the Bible to justify incarcerating children, I think you ought to dig deeper and see what Jesus’s commandment was, Jesus’s ONLY commandment. If you are so fond in quoting “Well Jesus said the poor will always be with us”, as your exit strategy of not helping the poor and the only Scripture you know if you claim to be a Christian then I suggest you read Isaiah 61: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.

THAT IS WHAT WE ARE CALLED TO.

If you claim you are a Christian but sit idly by while your siblings and your neighbors suffer, then you perhaps need to recheck the theology that you cling to because as Dr. James Cone states “Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is NOT Christian theology.” I’m going to go out on a limb here because anyone who is the power structure in this suburb, and has not done ANYTHING to fight, to put your body on the front line so that this place has just as much as suburbs like Winnetka, Wheaton or even Homewood-Flossmoor you are as just as much as a part of the problem as the systemic racism and oppression that rains down daily on these, the bodies of your skin folk that YOU are supposed to be serving!!!

(pause)

Environmental racism, as described by our collective Ancestor, Dr. James Cone, “is racial discrimination in environmental policy making and the unequal enforcement of the environmental laws and regulations. It is the deliberate targeting of people-of-color communities for toxic waste facilities and the official sanctioning of a life-threatening of poisons and pollutants in people-of-color communities. It is also manifested in the history of excluding people of color from leadership in the environmental movement.” In other words, all Cook County and the city of Chicago AND the leadership in these suburbs sees places such as Riverdale and Harvey are nothing more than a toxic dump. Like here is where we can just throw all the garbage because our tourists won’t want to come here, right? What you are living in and driving through is nothing more than systemic RACISM. RACISM and oppression have been key in the destruction of lives, from the empty treaties of land occupied illegally by the United States Government of Native lands to the continual poisoning of Flint, Michigan to right here in Riverdale where they think they can choke the lives out of Black bodies without access to clear air, or working hygiene facilities, fresh water, green space-you name it, we are lacking here in it.

AND its been the PEOPLE HERE, NOT the political leadership; the community organizers, the neighbors, the Elders who have been campaigning and speaking for a better quality of life. ITS BEEN THE PEOPLE, NOT those who are more interested in politically posturing, who have had to raise the issue TIME AND TIME AND TIME again, that their children are suffering from diseases; that their children are wrought with trauma; that their sisters and brothers and siblings are backed up in a corner with nowhere else to go, and instead are reduced to acting like rabid disease ridden animals who attack and turn on one another.

THAT AIN’T RIGHT.

(pause)

If we say we follow Christ, if we claim we are people of faith, then what is our calling? What is our responsibility to each other? Let me ask you another question: What is your end game on Sunday? Is it to be seen at the most popular churches so you are known? Is it the excuse that all you need to do is praise Jesus in the Sanctuary, write your little check and check off Church on your to do list? What happens when you participate in the Eucharist, in Communion? Is it your personal time with God for personal salvation so you can then go back out and do the same damn thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER, which is nothing more than your own selfish self-interest?

OR

Is the end game, to ask the Creator to give you strength, to ask the Holy Spirit to put you in those uncomfortable spaces so you can Agitate the system, Empowering the invisible of those who are next to you and those you see on the street, so that they have someplace SAFE, free from violence and peril, to rest; so that they have economic stability and where they can stand in the midst of Creation and take a DEEP BREATHE and KNOW THAT THEY ARE LOVED! Will you put aside all the surface and allow the Holy Spirit and the presence of the Ancestors to fuel you towards being on the front lines, crushing those oppressions that rob us of our living?

Will you remember, that because of the Waters of Baptism, waters that should be running clear and free for anyone to submerge themselves in and the Sacred Word, which reminds all of us, that we should not be so comfortable, when there are those who have nothing; who are dying for nothing; who have been left to fend for themselves because the systemic racist system sees that they are worth nothing and the people who have taken the poison that their oppressions have jammed down their throat, have signed onto that the people in places like Dolton and Robbins and Riverdale and Harvey; that these Black bodies mean nothing and therefore we should not invest in them-that we all came from the Creator; we are all related, and therefore we are responsible to fight for their lives?

What is your end game today?