Broken Heart: The Seeds of Justice
The Beginning of Hope Justice
Unless you happen to be God creating the Heavens and Earth as we know it and exist in, every “origin” of something we build today has another beginning, rather, many beginnings. This is the case for the Hope Justice ministry within Hope Astoria. Little did I know, the Hope Justice ministry started way before I consciously knew, and only when it came to pass did I recognize the previous trailers promoting its release date.
Fall of 2018, on a Sunday morning in September, Pastor Kristian Hernandez brought me to the front of the congregation to stand beside him as he introduced my new role to the church as the Director of Justice, Outreach & Youth. A bit nervous was I, not of the large task and long journey ahead. Nor was I anxious about the resistance that comes with roles like these. It was rather the newness and the unknown factors surrounding the moment that caught my nerves. You never know how people will react to news. I knew at that very moment as he spoke that this announcement was a longing answer to some of the congregants’ prayers and lobbying. This was a moment of celebration for them, while at the same time to some, it was an unsettling, jarring moment that caused caution and concern. Some may have even started their countdown to run from Hope Astoria based on the pervasive, anti-social justice content out in the cloud, largely from white mainstream evangelical thought. With the typing of those two words, “social justice,” in a YouTube search query, it’s easier to find many oppositional uploads on social justice rather than the truth of Biblical justice. I was aware of the high stakes at play and was grateful for the bravery exhibited by Hope Astoria’s Pastoral Leadership & Board to take this unique stand for justice by carving out a full-time position and committed space in the church community.
Thankfully, no one ran out immediately or protested at that moment, and the church didn’t split. The heart of the church seemed aligned to reach the community, plus, I wasn’t a new guy, so my familiarity probably bided us more time to show what this “justice” thing was about. The public wasn’t witch hunting for Critical Race Theory at that time, but America’s age-old contempt for any scent of a racially progressive agenda was still present. At that time (and still today) many traditional evangelical preachers would label ministries like the one we were starting as being distracted from the Gospel. Though our church is diverse and more progressive in nature, these views tend to still dwell under the radar, going unspoken in the Sunday-to-Sunday short conversations. I knew we had a big task at hand: to show where the Gospel and Justice aligned. It’s a simple task, particularly when we open our Bibles due to an overabundance of scriptural evidence from Old Testament to New Testament about justice; Not to mention the top guy of the whole Christianity platform, Jesus Christ, who embodied justice action on Earth in the Gospels and instructs the people not to neglect it (Matthew 23:23).
But when you’re dealing with centuries of Western baggage heavily weighing upon the issue of justice, you’ll find a great fog of misunderstanding that can be challenging to counter. Understandably so, we cant expect a nation like America that has genuinely embraced injustice in the genocide of Native Americans and enslaving of Africans to just naturally interpret the beauty of Biblical justice, which is an indictment on America’s rise to power and the maintenance thereof. Some of the theologians esteemed as heroes in the faith in this nation, like Jonathan Edwards, endorsed and justified the ungodly institution of chattel slavery. Christian leaders documented Native Americans as “savages” in their sacred literature. These missionaries, self-proclaimed as Gospel carriers to the world, franchised injustice by pushing the very opposite nature of the savior they claimed, that commanded them to love their neighbors as themselves.
This was the mountain we were up against internally and externally. I did not even know who “we” were at that time who would be willing to join the team to blaze a trail that many churches have evaded. Though nervous, I had peace at that moment. Pastor Kristian brought his announcement to a close, laid his hand upon me, the church family extended their hands toward me in support as Kristian led us in prayer for the journey beyond this moment. The church applauded and embraced the mission. With great challenges before us, I still felt strongly God’s hand with us, the courage of our Leadership, and these enthused members of justice gave me more peace that the path before us would be closer to God’s heart for the community.
The beginning before the beginning was shaped by a tragic miscarriage of justice on January 8th, 2013, right on Northern Boulevard in front of the Flushing YMCA. The recipient of that tragic injustice unfortunately was one of my very own students in a program I directed called Youthbuild. Robert Jackson is his name. While on our program’s lunch break, he suffered an absolute brutal assault by multiple police officers from the NYPD for no crime committed. They caused so much nerve damage to his spine and brain that the basic use of his right hand and right leg was permanently crippled. These officers turned a young, spry, thin athlete into a handicapped teenager at the age of 19. They stripped his youth and dreams away in less than five minutes.
On that tragic day, I remember coming outside of the Flushing Y to a spectacle that looked like a scene out of a “Die Hard” movie, with several NYPD cars sprawled across the street and sidewalks, blocking the traffic lanes. In “Die Hard,” the heroic Bruce Willis takes on the cold-hearted terrorist singlehandedly, letting the NYPD serve as his back up. But in this reality, there were no heroes, and the “terrorist” was one unarmed, skinny Black teenager on lunch break from school.
“They beat Robert!“ was the urgent cry to me for help from my students that witnessed. I scrambled to find Robert while my staff and other students stood on the porch of the Y in confusion and horror. I scanned two to three cop cars before finally coming up on the cop car where Robert was. Through the tinted windows I saw him slowly rocking back and forth, incoherent, blood dripping from huge wounds on his face. Heart pumping fast, in shock with rage and concern trying to process this surreal moment, I felt someone's hands push me out of the way. It was a White police officer who proceeded to yell at me to back away from the car. I snapped out of the shock quickly, yelling back, “Don’t touch me, that is my student!” A few seconds into our argument, a Captain stepped in to de-escalate the tension. I passionately threw a barrage of questions at him. “What happened? Where are you taking him?” They gave me little information and falsely assured me that they would let me know. The day still feels like yesterday.
Robert’s condition was so bad that the precinct would not allow the officers to book him. They had to take him to the hospital to have his face and body wounds treated to stop the bleeding. The course of our day and school year was interrupted. Nothing would ever be the same. What was I to do as the Director of this community program, with a traumatized staff and student body looking to me for answers? How would I stand up for Robert and protect my people in a program sandwiched between major institutions -- the Department of Education,, Department of Labor,, YMCA, and the NYPD? I was in a whirlwind that I never experienced before, in a community leadership position that still had the new car smell.
My whole life I have experienced racism and mistreatment from police officers as a Black man, from being pulled over numerous times to being illegally searched and threatened across multiple states and cities, including outside of America. This was my norm, and the norm of many Black men. So at the ground level, I felt the pains of the trafficking of racism with a badge, but now my position as a leader within this institution put me at a semi-eye level of the workings of systemic racism behind the curtains. Surely one would think the YMCA would come to the aid of one of their participants wounded on their property, but this wasn’t the case.
The organization tried to run from the incident by throwing a cover-up operation, and muzzle anyone that attempted to speak out. The Executive Vice President came from the head office in Manhattan to threaten my job if I did any more public protesting. As the story caught wind from a bystander's video going viral, the local media called constantly, and camped out in front of the YMCA to speak to me for the story. Lawyers and the Queens District Attorney knocked on my door. This level of racism required another level of advocacy that quite frankly I wasn’t trained or discipled in.
A chef can only cook from the ingredients inside their kitchen. Unfortunately, at that moment, I discovered my ingredients were too limited to cook the dish of justice needed. What was in my kitchen one may ask? Well, the lessons my parents taught me, which were mainly how to survive my encounters with police, and manage my emotions. My mother, afraid for my life, warned me repeatedly to avoid any type of argument with the police because I could end up beat-up or killed in the woods somewhere without her being able to find me. As a Christian, I was taught to pray and trust God for a change in the “by and by.” I was told to “Be still” and let God fight my battles. In other words, I was subconsciously taught to suppress my anger and just adjust to the reality, not necessarily change the reality. These generational lessons passed down were not wrong in themselves, they were just incomplete. They did not help me in this situation. I had to figure it out without any nearby models or manuals. I had to discover God’s greater framework for justice as a minority Christian in this nation.
I tapped deeper into Martin Luther King Jr. and leaders of the Civil Rights Movements, realizing much of the tools had been lost from then to now.. I went on the path unashamedly burning with determination to get justice for Robert. My passion was jarring to my various superiors across the different institutions over us. We went to the precinct to protest the officers’ actions and ended up in local papers. My Executive Director, William Nelson, showed me how to contact elected officials as a strategy to move the power brokers above me in the organization. To this day, we’re still fighting for justice for Robert with a civil rights attorney, awaiting our day in court. We were close but the pandemic shut everything down, slowing down an already crawling slow process.
Looking back and knowing what I know now, undoubtedly, I wish I could do some things over to possibly shift the balance in real time. For me, I realized a greater fight was at hand, and I could no longer just “preach the Gospel” and wait for Jesus to come back to be the solution OR be the solution by succeeding in a philanthropist career per se, because another Robert Jackson was out there, bound to happen. Jesus wasn’t asking me to wait. He wanted me to act. I also realized I could not wait for the fight of justice to come to me. I had to adhere to Isaiah 1:17: “…Seek Justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow...” This is a mindset the American church didn’t teach me, so I had to be countercultural just to adequately advocate for an innocent teenager permanently injured by an institution that did not value his life. How many people out there were just like me, half woke and half asleep?
These turn of events inspired a new found zeal in me to fight injustice and encourage others to get in the Biblical fight as well, which set me on a providential course towards a young Hope Astoria church. A church that in five years would desire someone to help lead them to engage in justice issues in order to have a greater impact on the community. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. It was a heavenly set up.
We launched the first Hope Justice meeting on September 23rd, 2018.
There were few empty seats left in the conference room on that day. It was a beautiful sight of diversity, men and women that spanned various races and ethnicities, all passionate about this new initiative of Hope Astoria. The room was rich with different stories and experiences. The icebreaker question on the table was, “What brought you to this meeting?”. With every story shared, a single strong theme emerged that bonded our stories of injustice to a loved one or friend that marked our past. They weren't triumphant stories of advocacy that led the way,rather, sad, unfair stories that tugged at our hearts. These women and men became determined to not allow the stains of injustices in their past to dominate their world or victimize any more people. This was fascinating! Lo and behold, the injustice that Robert experienced was the impetus that drew me to lead the Justice team, and was in turn a similar force for the brothers and sisters to join. They each had their own Robert Jackson experience.
It was clear that the Holy Spirit orchestrated this gathering of people from different backgrounds, and walks of life that shared a broken heart for the oppressed and the marginalized. We felt the Lord near in this sacred sharing, as the scripture promises in Psalm 34:18, “ The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” We were in good historical company, this pathway to act and seek justice is often paved by sorrow of broken hearts from injustice. We saw God’s heart moved by the cry of an oppressed Israel in Exodus 3:9. “And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.” Our Father’s ears are not numb to the drops of our tears. This same Godly empathy around injustice is echoed in the hearts of His leaders throughout the Bible. In English version of Scripture, justice is mentioned approximately 150 times but in the Hebrew, justice is mentioned 400 times in the Old Testament alone. I was proud of my church for getting behind the right translation, not waiting for justice but seeking justice.
It felt like we were standing on holy ground, it was a sacred moment. We moved forward and never looked back. Our evolving mission became:
To restore hope in our community by mobilizing through God’s initiative to seek justice & peace in the city
It should be understood that hope and justice are synonymous. In fact, many have a hard time believing in God because of the widespread injustice wreaking havoc on the innocent. They ask, “How can God exist, with bad things happening to good people?” Injustice breeds a hopelessness, but justice restores hope. The Bible calls God the God of Justice in Isaiah 30:18. We endeavor to usher hope in Him through justice. This is why we go by the name, Hope Justice.