Rev. Irene Monroe and Rev. Emmett Price made their weekly appearance on Boston Public Radio Monday, offering reflections on Sunday’s police killing of 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota — just miles from where former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in May of last year.
In the early hours of Monday morning, following hours of tense protests, Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott released a video statement, where he told the city's residents his administration recognizes “the pain that you’re going through," and promised to ensure "everything is done in our power to make sure that justice is done.” Speaking Monday afternoon, Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon told reporters he believes the officer who killed Wright had intented only to tase him.
"These continuations of Black death create an expanded notion of Black pain and Black trauma,” Price said during his opening remarks. “As much as we grieve his loss, our children have great fear. Because no matter if you comply or don’t comply, your life is in somebody’s else’s hands.”
“This is a horrible day,” he added.
On the issue of lasting mental trauma, Monroe was in agreement with her All Rev’d Up co-host. She called Sunday night’s killing "so troubling on so many levels.”
“When we talk about racism being a public health issue, we’re not just talking about adults. We’re talking about … how anxiety and mental health issues definitely have escalated in our community,” she said.
"The more we see these kinds of incidents, we either will become anesthetized to it, and be like, ‘Oh, another Black man and cop incident,’ or it really will pull at our heartstrings and our notion of a safe democracy for all the people.”
Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. Price is a professor of worship, church and culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by GBH.
