FAQs
- What is the history of Spiritus Christi’s commitment to Racial Justice?
- What is the relationship between Spiritus and FREE THE PEOPLE ROC/BLM?
- Does Spiritus support all the demands of the protestors?
- Why and how are ELDERS being used in protests?
- How do we answer folks who argue some protestors are damaging businesses and property?
- What does a SLAVE PATROL BLUEPRINT mean?
- What does DEFUND/REFUND the police mean? How would it change PUBLIC SAFETY and POLICING?
- How do we answer folks who argue there are many “GOOD POLICE”?
- What is Daniel’s Law?
- What does it mean that Spiritus is a sanctuary church
- What is the history of Spiritus Christi’s commitment to Racial Justice?
In 2005, Rev. Myra attended a year-long Racial Justice training at Call to Action (CTA), a progressive Catholic organization based in Chicago. The goal of the training was to help CTA become an anti-racist organization; over the course of the year, participants were taught how to dismantle structural and institutional racism within CTA.
Once home, Rev. Myra realized this same work needed to be done throughout the Rochester community, starting at Spiritus. After sharing her training experience with staff, she asked that Spiritus commit to becoming an anti-racist church. Church leaders embraced the idea, and the work began.
In January of 2006, Spiritus brought in Dr. Ken Hardy to provide racial justice training for staff. Later that year, Rev. Myra created a racial justice team called ARM (Anti-Racism Movement), a coalition of Spiritus parishioners, community leaders and ordinary citizens. The vision was for a better Rochester and church; the goal was to actively and intentionally engage in dismantling institutional racism. In 2009, the name of the group was changed to SPARC (Spiritus Christi’s Anti- Racism Coalition), with the mission unchanged.
For 14 years, in the name of Spiritus Christi Church, Rev. Myra (along with notable allies such as Melissa Parrish, Mike Boucher and Marian Fredal) has provided racial justice training for religious and secular communities locally and around the country, in states such as Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin. The goal has been to teach participants how to deepen their understanding of systemic and structural racism, and to create activism and alliances for undoing racism between white people and people of color.
Spiritus Christi’s racial justice work has included:
- coaching individuals struggling with racial justice issues in the workplace
- protesting racial injustice in our community
- standing in solidarity with those calling for racial justice around the country
- organizing marches for racial justice awareness
- providing parish events and annual film festival discussions on race
- addressing policies and practices within and outside the church
- organizing a Race Convoy in 2017
- participating with 25 local organizations doing structural racism work with St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center
- proposing a 20-year plan to end racism within institutional structures
Spiritus’ commitment to racial justice is long and enduring. The current moment we are in – struggling for racial justice in policing – is an extension of the work the church has done for 14 years. All the work we have done as a parish has led us to this moment.
We believe that God is a God of justice who stands with the oppressed and marginalized in the world, and that Jesus articulated a vision for addressing oppression and standing with the poor in the Gospels. So, racial justice is centerpieced in the mission of God and Jesus. We are called to this work through our Christian faith, and our Catholic call to action through the social gospel.
- What is the relationship between Spiritus and FREE THE PEOPLE ROC/BLM?
Like Spiritus, FREE THE PEOPLE ROC/BLM works to dismantle structures that oppress people. We are aligned in the work to end oppression among the vulnerable and those living on the margins of society with little power, even if our strategies may sometimes vary.
We see these groups as coalition partners in the work to dismantle structural and institutional racism in our city.
Free the People ROC and BLM efforts include:
- organizing marches locally every time an unarmed black person is killed by the police, calling for justice. Our leaders and parishioners have been active in joining these protests on the ground
- providing teach-ins around racial inequity. Many Spiritus parishioners have attended these teach- ins, and they have raised our awareness of racial justice issues and their economic impact on our city
- calling on the community — even before the release of the Daniel Prude video — to defund or reallocate resources from the police, an institution built on a SLAVE PATROL BLUEPRINT in Rochester
Rev. Myra has worked with movement leaders to recruit ELDERS, as well as helped to unpack the call for DEFUND/REFUND.
- Does Spiritus support all of the demands of the protestors?
In 1998, when Spiritus was embattled around issues of justice with the Roman Catholic Diocese, not all parishioners supported our demands that women be treated equally as men in ministry, that there should be marriage equality for LGBTQ+ members, or that there should be communion for all!
Just as we created room for people to support the issues they could, and to find a place to come along, we believe the same applies with the demands of the protestors. Parishioners have the freedom to support — or not support — any of the demands as individuals.
As a parish, we support calls for racial justice and commitments to ensure equity and fair play. As a result, we join the protestors in demanding:
- the firing of the police who took part in the killing of Daniel Prude. They should not have special treatment that members in communities of color do not have when they are involved in killing and taking of life. This kind of deferential treatment is steeped in systemic racism and protections of predominantly white groups over people of color. If it is the law of our land that charges are brought to keep the community safe when members are killed in the community, we believe that community members of color deserve the same protections. There needs to be an end to state laws and systemic barriers that prevent the public safety of people of color when it comes to policing
- the creation of DANIEL’S LAW
- demilitarizing police from using military style weapons on protestors calling for change. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. we as a parish believe in the importance of non-violence, and in the right to protest. Most of the freedoms and progress we enjoy are due to protests for change. Women protests have moved us closer to gender equality. People of color protests have moved us closer to racial equality. LGBTQ+ protests have moved us closer to sexual orientation equality. Let us not allow military style weapons to silence the voices for change that are designed to make us a better city and country
- the call for change in the upper levels of local government. While we as a parish are not calling for the resignation of the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and current Police Chief, we do recognize these calls are designed to ask leaders to act on behalf of their vulnerable community members, and hear their complaints that are within their power to rectify. If leaders fail to do so, this demand invites them to get out of the way for someone who will act justly on their behalf. Applying pressure to leaders is a recognized and respected strategy for change. Because Spiritus is on the side of justice with God, we respect the movement leaders right to call for this demand. Especially if it motivates leaders to hear the cries of its people for justice and attending to the harm that they have suffered.
- Why and how are ELDERS being used in protests?
The Elders model is a cultural model from the black community and many other communities of color. Eldership in the black culture is about coming alongside people to help them discharge their pain, to validate their humanity and suffering, while being available to be a buffer to engage the threat of violence if needed. It is also about sharing wisdom and speaking truth to power establishing relationship credibility to remain relevant to the struggle for freedom, equity, and justice. That is why the model works when given the room for full expression. It provides for intergenerational connection and support for a community in pain, which is why it is used in protests.
- How do we answer folks who argue some protestors are damaging businesses and property?
First, it needs to be clarified that it is rioters and not protestors that damage businesses and property during protests. Looters are also a group that show up at protests to take things when given an opportunity to do so. The desire to place blame on protestors for those who show up with a different agenda is unfair to the racial justice movement, and often serves as a distraction to the cause of transforming systemic violence against communities of color.
What is important to remember during these times is that we believe that all human beings are the property of God, in that all of creation belongs to God. This means that the experience of racism and white supremacy in policies, systems and practices damage human lives every single day that we allow that violence to go unnoticed, by only wanting to place our focus on oppressed people’s response to that violence they endure. While we cannot control rioters or looters who show up to a protest, we can control putting forth intentional work calling for an end to systemic violence of inequality and oppression. We can put in calls and letter writing to our political leaders to change laws that perpetuate inequity. We can urge the Mayor of our city to place resources in communities of color through establishing a community chest that will assist in the work of building thriving communities to reduce the desire to riot, loot, or protest.
We can also commit to accountability within communities of color by addressing the business exploitation and profiteering, policing abuses, lack of quality affordable housing, substandard education for children of color, lack of living wages offered and disparity in available resources for its social problems. For centuries, white communities and organizations have taken the best and brightest from black and brown communities to build their wealth, brand and success, while failing to invest in the communities those people’s resources come from.
What we know is that businesses and property damage can be insured, and owners are often compensated for their losses. The damage and harm done to human lives in communities of color are rarely attended to or compensated by our society. The losses under the daily experiences of systemic violence or the historical experiences or racism functions unnoticed. That is why we need to support and work vigorously in the movement for racial justice, to create a more equitable society.
- What does a SLAVE PATROL BLUEPRINT mean?
The policing system in America was created around the 17th century. In Rochester, 1819 to be exact. These systems were designed to answer one question after Emancipation:
“What do we now do with black people in this country?” They are now free, we cannot own them anymore, control them anymore, or profit off of them anymore through free labor, so what do we do with them?
It is this question that our American policing systems were more than happy to answer. We created a system patterned after the slave patrol blueprint to monitor, control, exploit, intimidate and dominate black and brown bodies through the use of state-sanctioned violence and force, with the goal of attending to white anxiety and protecting the wealth and property of whites.
As Black Americans in this country, we have been telling white America about this faulty blueprint used in our policing system since its inception, trying to make America hear us. It’s been a difficult conversation to have up until George Floyd’s death, and now Daniel Prude.
It is this system of state-sanctioned violence against black and brown people that we find ourselves embroiled in conflict with. We are calling on America to reckon with a blueprint that says if you are black or brown, you warrant following, monitoring, reigning in, having your movements restricted, pleas for justice ignored, designated with assumed culpability, and assigned as a problem, even in the midst of grief and oppression committed by the system against you and your community.
If the blueprint is faulty, the solutions sitting on the blueprint will be faulty and easily able to return to its default setting. How do you get to real change? You must seriously consider dismantling and defunding a slave patrol blueprint that is killing people of color and harming their communities generationally.
Jesus in the gospel of Mathew 18:15-20 urges us to name the problems of conflict and work to be heard. Dr. King, who marched on Washington 57 years ago, named the problem of police brutality. Years of reform and programs seem to keep routing us back to the same spot that Dr. King and the black community found themselves on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma that fateful day. As Dr. King and his protestors were met with police force, brutality and para-military control, protestors in 2020 are currently still struggling against the same violent and aggressive response to their calls for justice.
We need to redesign the blueprint of policing to ask a different question. The appropriate question is not what do we do with the blacks, but: how do we get to public safety and thriving communities? Answering this question will give us the right kind of blueprint for policing in Rochester! Rev. Myra is currently working on a new policing blueprint model with local black pastors that we hope can be used in that work.
- What does DEFUND/REFUND the police mean? How would it change PUBLIC SAFETY and POLICING?
Some cities like Camden, N.J. have chosen to disband its police force in order to create a different model of policing and public safety. Other cities are calling to defund 50% of police budgets in order to refund communities of color via a community chest. This chest could then be used to create the type of thriving communities previously made impossible by the trauma of structural racism and systems of white supremacy and domination.
In Rochester, our “ask” is that 50% of our $100,000,000 policing budget, or 50 million dollars, be used to re-imagine public safety. Social problems like mental health, education, addiction, housing, employment needs, training, etc. can be resourced to not need policing but rather community investment. To defund the slave patrol model of policing means to halt criminalizing being black or brown. To defund the blueprint is to defund a system that delivers law and order to Black people in America through white supremacy and domination ideology, while giving whites the kind of policing and justice we see on the Andy Griffin Show. For example, the character Otis, a white male portrayed as the town drunk, is allowed to come and go through the system with ease. He has a relationship of trust with the jailing and criminal justice system. He can be assured he will be taken care of. He even locks himself up and lets himself out when he needs to. He knows that the system will take care of him, respect his humanity and treat him fair and justly. People of color under this current blueprint can never have that experience. The system is broken and needs to be re-imagined as we attend to communities of color differently, allowing policing budgets to share the burden for change.
Movement leaders tell us that 94% of our sworn officers do not live in the city, which not only impedes community relationships, but impacts resources that could be used in the black and brown communities that they serve. Economically, the bulk of our officers who live in hamlets and towns outside of Rochester are taking financial resources made off the backs of over policing people of color. This reality allows for a draining of resources from the city. Best practices tell us that communities are safest when we invest in people within neighborhoods from a cultural, economic and racial justice lens to serve them.
We break this down a bit more on our Resources page, but if we refund the community beginning with policing budgets, we can provide solutions to and invest in solutions from black and brown communities. More resources can provide things like universal health care, drug treatment programs, mental health services, social workers, education, job placement, entrepreneurship, affordable housing, decriminalization and regulation work, while also addressing food deserts. Many of these social conditions have been criminalized because we have failed to invest in them for and with people of color as we do in white communities.
Defund/ Refund isn’t about getting rid of police but redefining their scope, and allowing communities of color to thrive and enjoy true public safety, which is more than just policing.
- How do we answer folks who argue there are many “GOOD POLICE”?
Mr. Daniel Prude died naked on our streets, despite our notion of good and bad officers. His death left us with a lot of questions about the system that night.
Why didn’t the “goodness” in the ranks of the police department cover his naked body, instead of leaving him exposed and vulnerable? Why didn’t the “good” cops call for its officers who were laughing and taunting to stop? Why didn’t the good cops check on his breathing under the sock cap to see if he was alright after one minute, and swap it out for the kind of blue mask they wear and had in their possession — one that would not have contributed to asphyxiation? When officers pushed his head and his body into the concrete, holding his legs and knees pressed into his body, why did the “good” cops on the scene remain silent and complicit until his body lost its life? Where were the voices of the “good” cops in speaking out about the actions of systemic racism that killed Daniel Prude?
To what do we attribute the silence in a system of good and bad officers? Nothing, because this is about a system of oppression and white supremacy stamped from the beginning into the blueprint of policing, and not about individual good or bad cops! What Rev. Myra calls for is transformation in the urgency of now. We must help good people create good systems.
The Defund/ Refund campaign is our only way out if we truly believe in and want justice within policing in this country, regardless of our connection to “good” cops!
- What is DANIEL’S LAW?
We at Spiritus Christi believe in the dignity of all life. Daniel Prude was not given the dignity that would have saved his life. Instead, he was asphyxiated by police on a cold wintry street while in a mental health crisis. That crisis should not have been a death sentence.
The proposal named DANIEL’S LAW asks that mental health professionals — not police — be dispatched to calls that involve mental illness. Currently many city organizations, as well as the Mental Health Center at our church, care for the mentally ill without police every day. Daniel’s Law proposes that we mirror that care on the streets, and not just in facilities. This will require a new way to think about and organize ourselves around community mental health crisis, but if we believe in the dignity of all lives, this demand makes perfect sense.
Spiritus Christi fully supports the call for Daniel’s Law to be written!
- What does it mean that Spiritus is a SANCTUARY CHURCH?
A sanctuary is a place of refuge or safety. Just as God is a refuge and strength for us providing safe space, we offer ourselves as a sanctuary for others.
In our church’s history, we as Corpus Christi declared ourselves a sanctuary for refugees fleeing for their lives from El Salvador and other countries. Now Spiritus Christi is a sanctuary to the movement of justice led by Free the People Roc and protestors on the ground. We see ourselves as a bridge in the work of justice, actively participating in the struggle. As protestors were hemmed into Fitzhugh Street by police in riot gear and aggressively attacked with pepper spray, rubber bullets, canisters and dogs, we opened our doors to be a sanctuary to hundreds who were trapped. We continue to be available as a place to find rest, bathrooms, support, storage of supplies, and medical triage care when needed.