Redemptive Violence?
It’s been a really odd life in the town of D. I’m working for a ministry called “the Outpost” through St. Timothy’s United Methodist Church. While we’ve all kind of adjusted to being the only white people in an area, it seems the area is less adjusted to us. We can pretty much guarantee that any time we go anywhere in our town, we’re met with stares and occasionally asked if we’re lost. Twelve white college kids, living together on the lower west side of Detroit apparently sticks out? Who knew?
So culture shock has been an interesting thing. But more than that, I am aware of myself and my surroundings, and how much I don’t know about the world more every day. Monday afternoon there was an incident that still is kind of bugging me now. The agency I’m working with didn’t know I was coming this week, and their camp doesn’t start off until next Monday. So basically I sat in the office all day, every day, all week, with the two secretaries Miss Elaine Walker and Miss Lena Lane. (Yes, I did mix those names up for the first 2 days) Now Miss Walker is the church secretary and Miss Lane is the Outpost Director. I began my day hearing about the theory of the Outpost, how it’s meant to be a safe and nurturing environment, and how they have a zero tolerance policy for fighting and all forms of violence. On this particular Monday Miss Walker had brought her 2 granddaughters to work with her. Kelly is 13 and Nina is 5. The girls were to be there all day, and then attend Vacation Bible School that night. Let me just attest to the fact that besides the 6 years worth of financial forms I filed, there is absolutely nothing to do in the church office, and after about 3 hours the girls were wearing on everyone, but mostly they were just terrorizing each other. Lunch diffused and distracted the harassment for a while, but by 1:30 they were back in each other’s faces and spaces. That’s when Miss Walker left the office to meet with the Pastor for a minute.
It started off as most fights between siblings does. Kelly doodled hearts onto the corner of Nina’s art work from earlier that day. Nina, who’s 5, gets angry and yells at her sister. Kelly pushes Nina, not hard enough to hurt her, but hard enough to knock her on her butt. Up until this point, this might seem like a normal feud between siblings. One that most of us have seen at some point, and some of us might have even had when we were younger. At this point, because of everything I’ve been told, I am fully expecting Miss Lane to reprimand Kelly, after all she just turned the verbal fight into something physical and pushed a little girl down. Instead the response from the adults in the room was not directed at Kelly but at Nina, who was told that she had to “take care of her business,” and literally the adult in the room became the peanut gallery for what turned into a knock-down drag-out fight, lasting nearly 15 minutes, which included but was in no way limited to biting, scratching, kicking, hair pulling. And which inevitably ended in Nina in tears. Her sister is, after all, 8 years older and a full foot taller. I was in shock, and even more shocked that rather than reprimand the girls for fighting, Nina was praised by Miss Lane and Miss Walker as being a scrapper, as being someone who could “take care of herself.” She was told that it was good for her to be violent when someone hurts her.
This is the picture that’s still sitting in the pit of my stomach; I can not for the life of me understand this notion of redemptive violence. I can not understand the idea that if someone hurts you, it is only right that you should find a way to hurt them back even worse. It seems to be the beginnings of a very scary and painful world, and whether you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. many of “the greats” have preached change through non-violence. So my question for you is, in a world where if your country is attacked you go to war, how do we teach kids that violence should not breed more violence?? And more so, can redemptive violence change anything?