Reflections on a Funeral
Yesterday I attended the funeral for Michael Brown. In case you missed the connection, this is the young man who was shot to death by police days before starting his first year in college. It was a tragedy for everyone involved.
I arrived early to the event, mostly because of transportation logistics. This gave me a great opportunity to observe the press, which was out in force. The church the service was held in was enormous and had been expanded from a previous normal sized church. The old church parking lot had been completely taken over by the press corps. It was beginning to feel like the press had taken over the event. However, aside from a few exceptions, the majority of the apparatus of the press remained across the street from the Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church where the service was held.
The family didn’t want any of that, though. They came to bury their son, nephew and cousin. They did not come to put on a show for the media. The press was not allowed inside the church and the family requested that all electronic devices be turned off. In general, the attendees themselves were barely tolerant of the media. I waited in line in front of a couple that was wearing custom t-shirts (“I am Mike Brown” / “I ❤ Mike Brown” with his picture) they attracted at least a dozen journalists. They gave an interview to the first one who asked (an Italian) but after that declined to even identify themselves to the press, although they continued to pose for pictures. I couldn’t help but feel that the journalists’ poking and prodding was unwelcome, especially at a funeral.
The composition of the crowd early on, outside the reporters, was almost exclusively black people. There was one white fellow who wore a t-shirt covered in words — something about water something. I was never able to catch all of it. He always seemed to be trying to convince someone of something when I saw him wandering around.
I stood around with the idea of striking up casual conversations with people at first. Eschewing the crowd, I met a woman who was a member of the church and was on her way home from her job on the night shift. She just wanted to check out the spectacle and wasn’t intending to stay. She did have wonderful things to say about the beauty of the church building. She spoke with pride that she was a part of the group that made that happen.
The church was enormous, seating 2500 in the main sanctuary with an overflow of 2000. These were all filled and people were turned away. The public was seated first, with seats reserved up front for the family. There were 500 seats reserved. (I found out later that this reservation was for people who actually knew the deceased, not just relatives.) They had a fascinating uniform for the ushers. They were all dressed as nurses or similar medical professionals. Those around the family area were in full white uniforms, including hats for the women. The younger women’s dress led me to suspect that they actually were nurses, which has really fascinating implications. (Do the church members feel better knowing they have both God and medical professionals watching over them? Are they concerned about health issues during their vigorous exultations?) The remaining ushers also wore white jackets with white gloves which helped them stand out well. They handed out fans, tissues and programs.
I found a seat near a friendly man who was a member of the church and owned a local barbecue restaurant. He told me about his girlfriend who he was saving a seat for. He told me about how excited he was about the funeral in that he was having crazy dreams about it. He was worried that his girlfriend would not be able to get in because she was late enough that they’d be directing everyone to the overflow rooms. When she arrived, she confirmed that she had some trouble getting in.
They were both impressed that I had come all the way from California to show my support. In fact, everyone who I spoke to was impressed that I had come such a distance. Although I found it unusually challenging to strike up conversations. I got a strong sense of “this is not your struggle” from many. Several asked “which side are you on?”, which struck me as an odd question until someone explained that there was a significant counter-protest with people from out of state supporting the police.
If you haven’t been to an African-American religious service, it is an experience well worth having. The silence and reverence that is usually associated with churches is totally absent. The parishioners often talk over the preacher and sometimes will jump out of their seats with exceptionally vigorous agreement or other inspiration. The choir music has taken on a jazzier feel since the last gospel I remember enjoying. Definitely music that would stand alone on its own non-liturgical merit. They practice an active, living, vigorous belief. I did miss any significant visual arts, though.
The most notable thing about the service was how the program was carefully constructed but not followed. There was mention at the beginning of the service that it would be curtailed because they had to be finished early due to an agreement with authorities (which later was revealed to be opening the road so school buses could deliver kids home). The part of the program that was skipped was the “1 minute” talks by dignitaries. More than a few speculated that the omitted talks were likely to be political self-promotion.
Interestingly, several attorneys were kept on the program. In addition to summarizing the support received by other groups, they also presented discussions on Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson that are central to the sense of inequality and injustice that black people face. It seemed odd to me to include legal case discussions in a religious service, but it held the human face, the emotional connection that law school tries very hard to strip out.
Later Al Sharpton gave an extended “world view” eulogy. I was pleasantly surprised with what he had to say. He addressed no one but the black community. He referenced the divides that ran through the community. He spoke of the frustration and turning to violence and how destructive that was. He decried the ever-increasing militarization of the police force. He spoke of the “bad apple” cops and how important it is to respect and support the good ones. He even gave a bit of attention to the dignitaries and how it was foolishly inappropriate that there was such infighting to get on the program. But he did call out each of the national-level leaders in attendance. (Apparently Jesse Jackson just arrived that day.) Generally, he spoke of the strength of moderation, which is probably something new for the community to hear.
As the service wound down, I decided I’d slip out the back. All the words for Mike Mike and the world were done and all that was left were the actions. I wandered around to get out of the crowd a bit. The temperature outside had risen to around 100 degrees. First, I needed to check phone messages. As I was standing on the sidewalk a small knot of men in all black circling one, some with military style uniforms pushed past me, knocking me over. At first I thought they were “gang bangers” circling their gang leader. It seemed strange that a gang would show up to a funeral until I recognized the uniform that one of these young men was wearing as the same as the man who was posing for cameras with fist raised: the new black panthers.
Both the Farrakhan crowd and these men represent significant community isolationism. I think I’d rather deal with the radical Islamists than this group of brutes, barely distinguishable from a small gang. I think the Islamists might be an interesting test case for my ideas on the post-Westphalian state, but that’s a discussion for a later day.
I decided to walk up to where I thought I might be able to catch a bus. I passed some transit workers sheltering in a doorway and asked. They were neither hopeful nor knowledgeable about where to catch a bus from, but had many questions about finding a cooling shelter. I kept walking.
I passed a fire bus. The city sent an enormous number of firemen without engines which struck me as strange. They apparently used a bus to get them all there. The driver remained in the bus and kept the air running. He shouted out to me (and later everyone else who passed) to come in and enjoy the cool for a bit. I decided to come in and wait out the procession and possibly stay until the buses started running normally again. It was tolerable, my feet already had blisters and there was a constant influx of new people to talk to in a limited setting.
After a while of waiting I struck up a conversation with the driver, who was white. He was convinced that the problems that black communities faced was mostly due to bad parenting. I wasn’t going to tell him any differently. He was kind and welcoming to all who walked by, offering shelter to each passerby equally. I think if I were black, I would never have seen these opinions. I also think he would not consider himself as racist, regardless of opinions he formed about how individuals behaved and the motivation behind them. I think perhaps he is not, so much as unwilling to see the effects of racism. For a forward-thinking person, it’s much easier to believe that there are simpler explanations for the problems you witness. It makes your life easier to dismiss them as something you either cannot do anything about or are otherwise not responsible for.
Nevertheless, he told me I needed to get out of that neighborhood quickly. I had rather enjoyed my walk to the church in the morning. While certainly, it was a very run down neighborhood, it was neither the worst neighborhood I had been in, nor the worst time to be in that neighborhood. He was alarmed when I told him I got there without a car. In his mind, as a white woman, I was so out of place in a black neighborhood that he had to act. He offered to get me a ride out. I debated with myself as to whether I wanted to take the ride.
There were so many implications regarding that ride. The fact that he so strongly believed I needed it carried the statement that I was dangerously out of place and it was his responsibility as an adult to put me back in my place. He felt I was unsafe and again, there was nothing I could do to tell him otherwise. I believe I was disrupting the order to his universe. I had thought to back out more than once, especially after I heard from others who had come on the bus to cool off that I only needed to walk a block south to catch the bus. But in the end the heat and blisters won out.
When the black paramedic who was to give me a ride finally arrived, I had struck up a conversation with a woman from Rochester who came down for the funeral. She was about the same age I am. She was also a stranger in town and we really related. She had lost a nephew she had raised as a son in a similar confrontation, although the circumstances were different. She asked to join me in getting a ride. Neither the bus driver nor the paramedic were enthusiastic. I felt it was important that she was included, since everything about us was the same except the color of our skin. In the end, they couldn’t say no, so we both got a lift to the nearest metrolink station.
The major events of the day were predicable and obvious… well, except for the fiction that was the funeral program… but it was the moments in between that told the real story.
