Dispossessed

Romans 13:10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

In the past few days the world has been witnessing an increase in documented violence the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and many others is the manifestation of institutional dispossession. The capacity to view the life of any individuals as valueless and their death as minor is not only a crime but a social tragedy. In all the cases highlighted instances of tragedy happened because of ingrained attitudes that approved of dispossession. The individual was label a criminal by their race and location removing their voices and rights before the facts where known, once labeled as unworthy of care and notice any action was validated in the eyes of the perpetrators. 

The attitudes that seen on camera in the various cases were of the conquerers towards the unworthy, the powerful towards the weak and the tragic reality is that while repeated outcries follow those with the capacity to correct keep silent. The code of silence has not only enabled but in fact promoted abuses of labelled individuals. 

Marxist geographer David Harvey coined a tern call Accumulation by Dispossession. It defines neoliberal capitalist policies that result in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing the public and private entities of their wealth or land. 

I will interpret Accumulation by Dispossession as meaning  the dispossessing of individuals of their life, dignity and future in the name of money, ego and power. Dispossession seeks to belittle, dehumanise and degrade another so as to gain value and benefit from their loss.  

John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

The men and women who facilitate abuses and murder of these black lives do so in the name of ridding themselves and others of problems unworthy of notice. The media reparation of the black communities as derelict, full of gangs and internal abuse, depended on the state without contribution demanding rights yet unworthy has fed into the institutional rise of the racist movement. The racists movement has cultured communities of the danger of the black problem, the Asian problem, the jew problem, the Arab problem and others at the convenient time. The inferiority of the abusers is only stemmed by acting against victim and ensuring their dispossession and indignity. 

Psalms 32:2-5 Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

Many times the body of Christ the Church has refused to address dispossession throughout the ages. The dispossessions of tenants in the middle ages by land owners, the slavery and abuses committed in the name of colonialism, segregation and racism, Gender based violence and many like it were addressed only by individual prophets would arise and rebuke the churches leadership of silence and failure to repent. Silence as a tool of the Christian community is a violent as the knee on George Floyd's neck, the desire to be privately kind while publicly silent, represents the failure to speak in Christlikeness is a as harmful as the loaded gun that shot Ahmaud Arbery. 

Ecclesiastes 3:7-8 a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak;

Ezekiel 3:18-19 If I say to the wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but you do not warn him—you don’t speak out to warn him about his wicked way in order to save his life—that wicked person will die for his iniquity. Yet I will hold you responsible for his blood. But if you warn a wicked person and he does not turn from his wickedness or his wicked way, he will die for his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

As believers we are called to share the full gospel that speak the truth in love, defends the weak, rebukes abusers. The comfort zone of silence will be accepted to us as we fail to truly share Jesus Christ the most radical revolutionary leader who reminds us to choose a side, His or the worlds.