Spearman: We must call out racism to make real change

Pat Spearman said she knew immediately when she heard about the slayings of nine people in a historically black South Carolina church last week that it was an act of racial hatred.

Spearman, a Democratic Nevada state senator and ordained minister, watched the coverage with a sickening feeling, realizing one of the victims — Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney — also served in his state’s Senate.

“It was a sickening feeling in my stomach,” said Spearman, who has preached the gospel in the Pentacostal, African Methodist Episcopal and United Methodist denominations, and preaches today with the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. “That could have been me, that could have been any number of my colleagues.”

Spearman didn’t know Pinckney personally, but she knows well the African Methodist Episcopal Church’s tradition, its passion for justice and its call always to press on for progress. “It’s born out of adversity,” she said. “It’s born out of seeing things happen to people through no fault of their own.”

For Spearman, the revelation that the 21-year-old white shooter was motivated by racism and hate shows clearly and unambiguously that the United States is not a post-racial society, and that it’s incumbent on everyone to call out racism wherever they see it. “We are responsible for the vitriol because we don’t call people out for their nonsense,” Spearman said. “This is not 1861 and we’re not going back there.”

The longtime minister said she was unsurprised at how quickly and sincerely the church-going relatives of the church shooting said they forgave the man who murdered their relatives. “He’s 21 years old,” she said. “Someone taught him how to hate.” While they may be bitterly angry, they also understand that responding with the same hate that drove the murders of their family members would be wrong, she said.

Perhaps most important, Spearman reminded, is that according to Luke’s gospel, Jesus Christ while dying on the cross said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” The forgiveness extended by those grieving in Charleston is a stunningly powerful example of faith.

In addition to being a minister and a lawmaker, however, Spearman is also a former military police officer, with service in the Army stretching back to the Reagan administration. She said that while she’s felt unsafe in church more than once, she doesn’t agree with those people, even fellow pastors, who’ve suggested church members should carry guns for self-defense.

“If anyone else in church had been armed, it would have been a free-for-all,” Spearman said. The problem is not unarmed parishioners in a place of worship, she added. “The problem is we have allowed this hatred and racism to go unchecked.”

And while Spearman agrees with calls to rid government buildings of the Confederate flag — “It’s a dog whistle,” she said, “This was solved in 1865.” — she knows hiding a piece of cloth is only a symbolic step in the war against hatred. Asked about laws that could be crafted to stop murderous racists before they act, Spearman agreed it was difficult, if not impossible.

“The question should be: Who else is walking among us who is a ticking time bomb?” And how can such people be stopped before they act on their hatred with easily available firearms (the Charleston shooter purchased his .45-caliber Glock pistol legally).

After each mass shooting, whether at a university campus, a grade school, on a military base or, now, in a church, there are those who say things will change. But very little seems to actually change. “I am hopeful that things are changing. I am frustrated that things are changing so slowly,” Spearman said.

And while Spearman said we do need more gun control, she’s realistic about what caused last week’s tragedy, a force that existed long before reports of pistol fire rang out in a place of peace and worship. “He put the bullets in the gun, but hatred pulled the trigger,” she said. “Hatred pulled the trigger.”

Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at ssebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5276.