A Request to Crowdsource A Working Draft:
The Crucifixion, Death, and Ressurection of Michael Brown — A Political Prisoner in the American Empire
Editorial Note: Previous versions of this piece contained a picture of Michael Brown’s body laying in the middle of the street. This image has been removed to prevent further triggering our people and participating in the spectacle that the empire makes of Black bodies and Black death.
3 years ago today, Michael Brown, an 18 year old African-American young man was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson. His crime? Being a Black in America.
The killing of Michael Brown wasn’t just about that August Day in 2014. From before the day he was born he was targeted, tried, vilified, and harassed daily by an American empire bent on extracting life, money, and potential from his life and the community around him. His Black body along with those around him and in jurisdictions like Ferguson, Missouri and the 88 other small municipalities that comprise St.Louis County die daily under the weight of these unending attacks. The attacks include direct violence, endemic structural violence like poverty and racism, and an embedded cultural violence, which sanctions or at the very least justifies the violence to be visited up black and brown bodied people in the States of America. But on August 9th, 2014 after 18 years of these kinds of numbing assaults, Michael Brown wasn’t just killed; he wasn’t just murdered; assassination or execution doesn’t even fully name the violence that was exacted upon him — no. Michael Brown’s death was a crucifixion- in no uncertain terms.
Crucifixion. This is not a word that is prevalent in any standard American lexicon, unless of course you are having a conversation in the context of Christianity and its sacred book the Bible. The crucifixion of Jesus the Christ, on the Cross — Rome’s killing machine — for some is the height of the Bible’s New Testament narrative. However, what often gets lost in that story is that this form of execution was reserved for persons who were seen as enemies, political prisoners if you will, of the Roman state and a status quo — framed within the context of Rome’s colonization of the nation of Israel.
There is a violent thread in the cultural narrative of the States of America that degrades and dehumanizes newcomers and non-citizens until they have demonstrated that they understand their proper place. The Irish and Italians experienced it when they first reached the shores of the country They were disregarded and isolated until they accepted the narrative of ‘whiteness’ and joined in on the degradation and marginalization of black, brown, red and yellow bodied people; even though all of those people had arrived before them. In 2014 Michael Brown still was not seen as a citizen of Ferguson or even this country; which, in effect made him a political prisoner: trapped within the narrative of not belonging and perceived as a perpetual threat to American empire and status quo.
po·lit·i·cal pris·on·er — /pəˈlidəkəl ˈpriznər,ˈpriznər/
A person who is targeted because what they believe, what they espouse, and/or what they represent is perceived as a threat to the state. As a consequence, the state feels justified in using force and violence as a way to control and neutralize that perceived threat.
Unfortunately in America that perceived threat is often a Black or Brown body.
James Cone, the Father of Black liberation theology points out that crucifixion on Rome’s Cross was meant to be a public spectacle. It was akin to America’s lynching tree. Crucifixion served as the most brutal and humiliating form of state sanctioned murder. The execution of political prisoners wasn’t just about the punishment of the accused individual, it was even more so about intimidating the masses and whole communities and paralyzing them with fear. The message was clear: Bow down to your oppressors. Resistance is futile. Get out of line and this humiliating death will be reserved for you too.
To make their point crystal clear, the Roman murderers would often leave dead bodies on the cross for days and weeks after the death of the accused, as a reminder to those who did not conform to the empire’s demands. Similarly, Michael Brown’s lifeless, bullet ridden body, was left to lay in the middle of Canfield Drive in the shadow of Canfield Green Apartments in Ferguson, Missouri. A whole Black community witnessed this. So did an entire Black world. We knew full well what the empire was saying to us as they left his body in the middle of the street for 4 hours — while the police, who all too often serve as minions of empire, scurried around him as if he wasn’t even there.
Darren Wilson, the officer who pulled the trigger 8 times, killing Michael Brown went home. Michael Brown, like so many Black bodies in this situation went to a morgue first and then to his grave.
Darren Wilson’s subsequent acquittal has parallels within the narrative as well. The Empire used its judicial mechanisms to ask the people if the killing of this one would be accepted. In Jerusalem, (reportedly) the community gave sanction to Jesus’ death, in Missouri, the jury gave sanction to the death of Michael Brown
But, if you read the New testament crucifixion narrative, then you will discover that the story ends with a twist. While empire and those leaders in the church and other civil society leadership absolved themselves of the killing, there was a resolve amongst the witnesses to go to the far flungs of the earth and declare to everyone who would listen: “the life they took, that life mattered!”
Not too long after the original events a liberatory Spirit engulfed the people who were in the middle of an assembly and they committed from that point going forward to tell the story of the life death and resurrection of Jesus. They have been telling the story for more than 2000 years and it has changed the world. While today is only the 3rd anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, we are committed to telling the story. The spirit of liberation and justice compels us to declare again today: Black Lives Matter!
Every time we say his name. Every act of resistance and organizing for justice. Every demand that we make upon empire. Every fist and open palm raised to the sky. Every time we take care of each other, have each other’s back, protect and love each other — we then are resurrecting Michael Brown and thousands of other political prisoners in the American empire — who are so, merely because of the color of our skin.






We rise — together. And nothing will stop us. Can’t nobody turn us around. Nobody.

