Tag: God

#SAYHERNAME! SONYA MASSEY

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“I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

As a woman from the Bible Belt I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard people say the phrase, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” Sometimes it’s a joke. Other times it is a very serious statement. Never have I heard that phrase and feared for my or anyone else’s life. But on July 6th, Sonya Massey was murdered by police after she repeated the phrase.

Sonya Massey called police because she believed someone might have burglarized her apartment or tried to enter it (those exact facts have been reported differently). As she was looking for her ID, the officer noticed a pot boiling on the stove and directed her to remove it to avoid a fire. As she went to go remove it and move towards the counter/sink, one officer backs up.
She asks him “Where you going?”
Officer 1: “Away from your hot steaming water!”
Sonya: “Away from my hot steaming water?”
Officer 1: “yeah”
Sonya: “Oh. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
Officer 2: “huh?”
Sonya: “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”
Officer 2: “You better f*cking not. I swear to God. I’ll f*cking shoot you in your f*cking face!”
Officer 2, Deputy Grayson, pulls his gun immediately.
Sonya: “Ok. I’m sorry!”
Sonya holds something red in front of her face. It was not the pot of water. That pot was black.
Officer 2: “Drop the f*cking pot!”
Then she sets it down and hides behind the counter.
Officer 2: “Drop the f*cking pot!”
Officer 1 pulls his gun
Officer 2, Deputy Grayson, fires his gun 3 times, indeed shooting her in the face.

Officer 1 offers to get his aid kit.
Officer 2: Nah it’s a headshot (chuckles) dude she’s done. You can go get it but it’s a headshot.

They continue to discuss for another minute or two before rendering any type of aid.

Sonya Massey didn’t deserve to die.

She didn’t deserve to be treated this way. She was not a threat to them. She never raised the pot above the counter. She didn’t deserve to be killed in her own home. If she had in fact thrown the pot of water at them, deadly force would not have been justified. But she never threatened them. Or did she?

Did the rebuke activate the evil in the officer? Did the mention of the name of Jesus infuriate him? Did their response of backing up reveal that they were not the best intentioned? Was the threat a spiritual one? Was she rebuking their fear of her? Was she rebuking racial bias? Was she rebuking an evil spirit she picked up on them because of their actions?

Was he like many other officers?… Was he guilty of racial prejudice and bias that says that Black folk are a threat even when, like Sonya, we present as non-threatening?

We will never know what exactly caused her to say those words from her mouth. What we do know is that after acquiescing and following their orders, she still ended up murdered in her home over a pot of boiling water and a phrase.

Every time I hear the phrase, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus,” I will think of Sonya Massey.

Watch the video here. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/video-reveals-tense-scene-of-sangamon-county-shooting-sonya-massey-springfield/3497418/


Yea Though I Walk Through The Valley of The Shadow of Death…I Will Fear All The Evil

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Oluwatoyin Salau

I’m having a hard time this early morning. Not because it’s early, but because the world I live in is evil. It’s not just among the gutters of systemic racism and the actors who continuously perpetuate it. The evil isn’t only present in the school to prison pipeline or the prison industrial complex. I’m not just talking about the evil that causes Black mothers and birthers to receive far less care from doctors and OBGYN’s during childbirth. Nor I am only alluding to the evil that spews from the gun triggers of racist white or complicit cops into the countless bodies of my Black siblings. Not even the hands, knees or holds that choke us out of our last breaths. Nah not those.

I’m talking about the evil that is present amongst us in the Black Church. The form of evil that allows Black male pastors to act like the oppressors in one of the few places we as a people should freely love and care for one another. I’m talking about the evil that stares us in the face when our Black boys and girls are allowed to live in dangerous and violent homes because their daddy is the head deacon. I’m talking about the evil that’s complicit with looking over the Black women and girls and children who need its care the most.

We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death these days and honestly…I fear all of the evil.

I’m also talking about the evil that takes place when our sons and daughters are told that instances of sexual abuse, assault, incest and molestation are their fault. The evil that prevails when Black women trust a Black man to look out for them but he instead takes advantage of her.

Even more-so, I’m talking about the evil that prevails when Black women turn a blind eye to the peril taking place in another Black woman’s life.

I know what I’ve read about Oluwatoyin Salau. Her story is not a standalone issue. It is, however, a single drop in a bucket full of similar and even more horrific stories. Stories where women have been deceived. Not cared for. Overlooked. Thrown away. Ignored. Defiled.

Killed.

Murdered by hands with skin the same color as her own.

I sometimes, and dreadfully say that I expect this type of thing from someone of a different race because they don’t value us in the first place.

But when your spiritual and physical death comes by the hands of those you trusted because you were skin kin…I have a loss for words.

Black Women…All we got is us.

We gotta look out for each other. We gotta stand up for each other.

Black Men…You gotta do better.

You gotta stop taking what’s not yours. Stop using your power to hold us down.

Black People…We gotta speak out. We gotta stop acting like this evil world loves us and love ourselves.

All this evil. I see it. I hear it. I feel it. I fear it.

Sure God has not given us a spirit of fear…

…but what happens when we trust God with our lives? With the lives of our children and our loved ones? What happens when we trust God and bad things happen? What happens when we devote our lives to standing up for God’s creation within the Black community and are killed by the hands of those we are fighting for?

I just don’t know anymore. I sit with the questions knowing I may never have the answers. But I do know that God’s integrity is on the line. I keep hearing my friend and sister Janiece Williams, MDiv., say this in my head.

“God, your integrity is on the line.”

You can’t keep letting this happen to us, to our friends or to our family.

God, what are you gonna do about this?

“Looking For My Last Intense Love”

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I haven’t done so hot in this arena truth be told. I usually end up with guys who love and care about me but who have varying fundamental differences that ultimately make us incompatible. It’s tough because at my age I have begun feeling and hearing the tick of my internal clock. And I know I’m young, but Haley so kindly reminded me that once I reach 34/35 in 2 – 3 years, a pregnancy will be considered high risk. I’m over her and bad dating connections!

Dating while parenting is super tricky. I have to remember to set a good example and to think through my dating choices with supreme scrutiny. I can’t get swept up too soon or fall in love with reckless abandonment or throw caution to the wind (things that my personality would prefer to do) because I have to think about the entire picture. It’s not just about my life. It’s about my daughters life too. Will she be comfortable with him? Will they get along? Will I be comfortable with him taking a parental role in her life? Will the dynamic change too drastically to make a blended family work? So many cautionary thoughts plague me, yet I keep putting myself out there. Why?

I recently told a guy in response to him saying that he was intense, “LOL I’m a Scorpio, I live for intense. I’m just looking for my last intense love that’s all.” That text packed so much truth for me. Way more truth than I initially realized I was sharing.

While I don’t subscribe to the in’s and out’s of astrology, I have found one thing to be true: People born under “Scorpio” have intense personalities. Something about them draws you in. And likewise, they are drawn into intense connections. They do many things in extremes especially when it comes to love. What my text revealed for me is that my love relationships have to be intense in order for me to even be interested. There has to be an intensity about the person. He has to be passionate about something and enjoy throwing himself into his interests and goals. I can just about name every real relationship that I have been in was with someone who was intense.

That text also revealed that I’m done playing games for real. That I’m not even getting involved with you if this can’t be it for us. I want that last intense love. I want to know that my person, who ever he is, isn’t turned off by my desire to love him and to be loved as fully and as humanly possible. I don’t want excuses, I don’t want waiting games and or even a rush to the finish line (marriage), I just want a guy who is ready for what I have to offer.

That level of intensity poses a problem though. You guessed it, I’m a mama. A future clergymama at that. That intensity might work for us in a bubble, but I don’t know how that works with Haley because it’s blown up in my face twice now. Two intense relationships that ultimately didn’t last because there was more to the story than just us. Thankfully, it wasn’t because Haley couldn’t or didn’t fit into the picture but because we couldn’t reconcile our energy in ways that were conducive to a successful relationship. Yes, everything about being and wanting an intense relationship isn’t good. Sometimes you don’t know when to stop arguing or how to let something go. Sometimes you get tunnel vision and miss the fact that you and that person don’t even have the same moral standards. Sometimes you get so sucked into the light that it burns you.

That level of extreme draw and magnetism can hurt you. So, I have trouble dating while parenting because I’m like a moth to a flame. But there’s still something very alluring to me about the passion and shear joy that comes along with finding your forever person, someone who will throw themselves into being with you as much as you throw yourself into being with them.

As a future clergymama, this packs a double whammy for me. I’m already deeply devoted to ministry in ways I never knew were possible. Will I have more to give? Will they understand my devotion to God’s service and to the service of others? Will he be interested in supporting that? Or will it just be for me? Of course I want someone who is supportive of the work I will do within the church but I also want them to have their own thing if ministry is not their calling.

Ultimately, I trust God to lead me because God has this love thing on lock. And the way God loves me so intensely, I know that there is a human version of that somewhere out there for me.