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A demonstrator is seen in the Brooklyn borough of New York City June 6, 2020. (CNS photo/Jeenah Moon, Reuters)
June 8, 2020
Mark Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON -- Just as the world is facing the coronavirus pandemic and its deadly impact, racism likewise is a deadly virus that must be cured, Washington Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory said June 5.He made the comments during an online dialogue on racism sponsored by Georgetown University's Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. The dialogue was viewed by 7,900 people watching it via livestream.
During the panel discussion on "Racism in our Streets and Structures: A Test of Faith, A Crisis for Our Nation," Archbishop Gregory was asked why he referred to racism as a virus when he issued a statement about the death of George Floyd -- the African American man who died while in police custody May 25, when a white Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
"It's an appropriate image at a moment when we're all thinking about a virus that threatens us," he said.
Archbishop Gregory said questions experts are asking in confronting the coronavirus equally apply to racism: "How is racism, this silent but deadly virus, passed on to other people? Is it learned at home? Is it transmitted through our structures? Is it part of the air that we breathe, and how do we find a vaccine, how can we protect ourselves, how can we render it ineffective?"
He opened the discussion with a prayer. He asked God to "bless those who take to our streets to protest injustice" and also prayed law enforcement officers will have "a commitment to equal justice for all, and respect for the lives and dignity of all those they serve and protect from harm."
Floyd's death, the nationwide protests it sparked and urgent calls to address racism were the key topics discussed by the panelists, who also included Marcia Chatelain, an associate professor of history and African-American studies at Georgetown University; Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops' anti-poverty program; and Gloria Purvis, host of the EWTN radio show "Morning Glory."
The four panelists, who are all African American, each shared the emotional reactions they felt when they, like people around the world, saw the videotape of Floyd's death that was recorded by an onlooker during the arrest.
"I recall being physically sick, almost to the point of fainting and passing out," McCloud said.
Purvis said when she watched it, "I remember saying, 'Stop! In the name of God, stop!' I thought this was so grievous to do to another human being. The image of God was being abused in front of me."
Archbishop Gregory said seeing the video of Floyd's killing brought back a flood of memories.
"As a youngster, I was taken to the viewing of Emmett Till," he said, of the 14-year-old African American youth lynched in Mississippi in 1955, whose body was displayed in an open casket in Chicago where he grew up, and which was the home city of young Wilton Gregory.
The archbishop, who also issued a statement decrying the recent shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, a young African American man, by white assailants in Georgia, said that Floyd's death reminded him of "a whole collage of individuals who have been assassinated for no other reason than the color of their skin."
Chatelain said Americans were able to witness Floyd's last moments, and are also "witnesses to the indifference that allows death to come that way. ... The knee on that man's neck was weighted by all of the systems that have sanctioned that behavior."
She said the protests across the United States and around the world represent "a referendum about capitalism, colonialism and at the heart of it, white supremacy. ... This is about a series of interconnected systems."
The educator noted the societal inequities facing communities of color are not new. In the commissions established to examine the deadly race riots of 1919, she said, black leaders a century ago identified the problems of "police brutality, not enough jobs, poor schools for our kids (and) lack of health care."