Being a Black Christian Immigrant Woman in the Civil Rights Movement of Black Lives Matter

by Samantha Golay

I emailed Pastor Ken with a Subject “Emmanuel in BLM Movement.” I expressed that I’d missed last Sunday’s sermon so forgive me if there’s anything covered already that I’m requesting of him. My question: “what is Emmanuel doing to take a stance for the Black lives in Paramount and Compton? Will we talk about it? Will there be dialogue and shared experiences since we have the most powerful unifying force (Holy Spirit) on our side?” He called me and told me: 1. to watch the sermon, and 2. what he’s doing personally and as a Pastor of our church at this impactful time in our history. He asked me to share my experience. Somehow that was the most difficult request, and it made me cry - Ironic since my email was to have a dialogue among Christians.

I’ll highlight my most memorable encounter with the police, my husband’s constant encounters, and my best friend’s life-changing encounter. I was 17yrs old, a sophomore at Penn State University (I graduated high school early), and on my way home from school I took a typical shortcut in the neighborhood where my parents lived - I crossed the Amtrak train tracks. I crossed the tracks, looked up as I reached the top of the stairs and stared down the barrel of a gun. My hands immediately went up, I was physically shaking, stunned, and speechless. I’m 5ft ½ an inch tall, about 120ish lbs (back then), and I’d like to think I’m strong, but a determined 10yr old could probably take me down. Why the gun?

“Hands on the car, slowly” the Officer said, with his gun pointed at me until I walked tentatively to his parked vehicle and placed both hands on it. I don’t remember much of what he explained but I waited, hand-cuffed, in the back of his car for a female officer to come and frisk me. I tried to explain “my parents’ house is across the street, it’s just right there, I’m looking at it, please call my dad!” I was placed back in the car while another police car came up and officers talked, laughed and joked outside. I must have cried, shaking for maybe two or three hours while they talked. All the while I thought, “Please God. Please God. Please Jesus please. I’ll never even take the train again if you get me out.”

I was then moved into the newly arrived cop car and driven 30 seconds to my house - still cuffed, finally uncuffed and the officer rang my parents’ doorbell. My dad opened the door, also stunned as he looked at me. “Get inside,” he said quietly.

I overheard the other officer say “New guy...” or something like that. My dad and I have never spoken of that incident.

So we swallow our pain. We bury it until the day it’s deep enough to joke about it. Like when my husband (then boyfriend) was deployed with the Navy in Bahrain. When he’d get a chance for the phone he’d tell me about incidents with him and his comrades and “insurgents.” I can tell it’s only funny now because he’s reckoned with it. I still get calls from him maybe every other week, when he’s pulled over on PCH. I can hear and feel the same tense laugh, feel what he felt in the pit of his stomach, and pray again “please God, please.”

He feels the same trauma driving to work in Los Angeles, as he did living as a soldier in Bahrain. That is the reality for a black man in America.

And for a Black woman? My best friend was pulled over in Cleveland because an officer thought she was driving suspiciously. She was incredibly confused after being charged with a DUI after being breathalyzed. She told her employer because her primary vehicle was a company car. The next day she was fired, the company car was taken, and she was given a week to pack up and move back home. Her and her parents hired a lawyer and fought the charges. For 3 months she traveled from New Brunswick, New Jersey to Cleveland, Ohio for meetings with her lawyer and court appearances. Turns out the breathalyzer was faulty, the officer was notorious for false charges, and the case was dropped. In a single encounter she lost her job, her housing, car, and was unemployed because she “drove suspiciously.”

I’m grateful she and her parents had the means to fight the charges, but what about the countless other men and women who don’t? Would she have had a permanently scarred driving record, and as a Salesperson, never be able to get a job with a company car again? She never shares her experience because she’s ashamed and exhausted.

Exhausted may be a word you’ve heard black people use, or post a lot lately. We’re the “good ones,” right? Or the lucky ones? We live. and eventually we joke about this. We’re college educated, military-serving, Jesus-loving, corporate-America working black people. And we still have these life-changing encounters with police.

We watch a murder like George Floyd’s, like Breonna Taylor’s, like Ahmaud Arbery’s, and we know but for the grace of God, that could’ve been us. And still might be.

But for the grace. Grace is the miracle of Emmanuel. My first time at Emmanuel was at ATWL, the gospel-rap-poetry concert. I knew immediately this was my home because of the beautiful black, brown, white, asian young faces around me.

Then I came to the 9am service. It was a shock, to say the least - but the Word was good, so I kept coming. I met C.J. or Klarc (sorry guys), and was invited to the Table. Someone casually mentioned that there’s also a 10:15am, a 12pm and a 6pm service if I ever wanted to sleep in. I must have laughed out loud my first day at 12pm.

This was heaven on earth - every face, every color, every hand up or hand by the side praising God; all these differences by the same God - same Dad.

I have a lot of brilliant white and black friends who believe as Karl Marx says, “Religion is the opium of the people.” That the poor and oppressed don’t destroy the rich and privileged because of religion. Some of it is true - slave masters used the Word to quell slave uprisings for freedom, and we have to repent for that. Most slaves couldn’t read, and most slave masters didn’t read the Word or they would know the truth.

There is no other God who unifies like Christ. A suffering Savior; a God who was also publicly beaten, shamed, humiliated, and murdered unjustly. When I’m hurting and I run away from the church, it is Jesus who runs with me. When I cry like I have for the past two weeks for my husband, my brothers and future children, He cries with me. Only He has felt greater pain. I remember another great speaker who said, “Until we accept the sacrifice God made of His Son on a hill, we will always sacrifice our own sons on hills.” (Ravi Zacharias) Christ has died, so I and my sons don’t have to. Christ lives, so I and my family can live and have life abundantly.

So I guess what I’m asking is that you too, Emmanuel family, run from your religions. Run from blindly supporting the police or even blindly supporting the “Black Lives Matter” rhetoric. Through lenses of a Christ-follower, would you question your assumptions?

Only under the roof of God’s Word can we have empathy, listen, and seek to understand. Ask “why?” And ask why another 15x. Talk with your black and brown friends. Ask for their stories, and their experiences. It is the first step towards unification. I am certain that when the Church is united, we will not only unite the world, but He will “draw ALL people unto Him.”

Thank you.