Black & Jewish — From Ferguson to New York
By Leo Ferguson
It’s 1 a.m. and I’m exhausted but too excited to sleep. I’ve just come from an extraordinary and spontaneous procession through the streets of New York and watched as hundreds of people expressed their outrage as once again a police officer escaped accountability for the killing of an unarmed Black teenager — just one dark drop in a tidal wave of police violence directed at low-income people of color throughout the country.
Consider these facts: in America a black person is killed by the police every 28 hours. And in the vast majority of cases police officers avoid criminal sanction — a phenomenon that has survived the depths of the Jim Crow era — as true in 2014 as it ever was.
In New York we have our own particular flavor of discriminatory policing and our own set of challenges. When he served Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Police Commissioner William Bratton pioneered his “Broken Windows” theory of policing. The result was an unprecedented assault on low-income communities of color that divided New York and left lasting scars on our city. Now, under Mayor de Blasio, Commissioner Bratton has brought Broken Windows policing back. At a moment when crime is at historic lows and New York is awash in conspicuous wealth, low-income communities of color are again over-policed and under-resourced. We are addressing non-violent “quality of life” violations with the stark state violence of arrest and imprisonment and sometimes with police brutality and killings. It has to stop.
I walk through the nighttime streets, chanting and clapping, laughing and shouting. Through a car windshield I lock eyes with a couple — white, mid-forties — their vehicle stilled by the mobilized masses marching through Tribeca. Are they thrilled or annoyed? Confused or elated? I wonder what people of color and Jews have been wondering about each other and about their fellow citizens for decades — are they my allies? When I strive for justice will they struggle with me?
As a Jew of Color my journey has been complicated by some difficult truths about our community: our picture of what our tribe looks like leaves far too many of us out in the margins — on the periphery. All too often Jews of Color, Mizrahi & Sephardic Jews, poor, working class and LGBTQ Jews are erased from our cultural memory — we forget that their struggles are our struggles too. We forget that our search for safety and liberation as Jews is inextricably bound to the liberation of all people. To find justice I need Jews everywhere on my side, fighting for me and my friends and family from throughout the panoply of Jewish experience. I cannot be fully Jewish unless I can be fully Black — fully human, safe and beloved in all my identities.
That’s why, despite the outrage and sadness, for me this week has also been so filled with hope and inspiration. Marching with Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) this week I found myself surrounded by a community willing to put their bodies on the line in the fight for racial justice. I was able to stand arm in arm with Jews who have taken to the streets in order to affirm that black lives matter — that my life matters. A community in it for the long haul — not just for one media moment but for 24 years and counting.
Last year JFREJ successfully helped to pass the Community Safety Act which curtailed the worst abuses of Stop & Frisk. This fall JFREJ joined the fight to pass the Right To Know Act, which would add critical protections by empowering individual citizens in their interactions with the police. And we’ve continued to give our Know Your Responsibilities trainings to scores of New Yorkers as we work to change the culture of our city around issues of policing and foster Radical Neighborliness.
JFREJ is on the front lines of the fight to create a better city. A more just city. And a more powerful Jewish community that all of us can call home. But we can’t do it without your help. As a New Yorker, and a Jew and as a person of color, I need you with me working for change. Join the fight with me as we work to make New York safe for all its residents.
