Arlington race, reconciliation summit to start long overdue talk

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, the public is invited to a discussion about race and reconciliation moderated by John M. Perkins, a minister, civil rights leader and author.

“We should have had this conversation after the Emancipation Proclamation; we should have had it after the Civil War, but we never had it,” Perkins said in a phone interview.

We can have it now, he said.

Perkins, 86, has an informed perspective on the subjects of race and reconciliation.

Perkins said his brother Clyde was shot to death in 1946 in Mississippi after he tried to stop a deputy marshal from beating him with a club. Instead of living with festering bitterness, Perkins argues that both the tortured and the torturer have to connect with the other’s pain.

The pain felt by each has to create empathy and has to be communicated with passion, compassion and without hostility, Perkins said.

“It is incumbent on us to solve this problem together,” Perkins said. “Martin Luther King Jr. said if we continue in this kind of hatred, we will all die as fools. We are creating new killers.”

Lt. Christopher Cook, an Arlington police spokesman, said the conversation is part of an ongoing dialogue to build a stronger and more inclusive community.

“Arlington Police Chief Will Johnson, who serves as the general chair for the International Association of Chiefs of Police — Civil Rights Committee, believes that these topics are extremely important to maintain healthy communities,” Cook said.

Arlington has recently been challenged by the deaths of two African-American men that threatened to ignite tension between the races.

Police officer Brad Miller was fired in August by Johnson after fatally shooting Christian Taylor, an unarmed African-American teen, who was caught on surveillance video vandalizing a new car dealership in August.

Taylor was under the influence of the designer psychedelic drug called N-Bomb, an LSD analog, his autopsy found. The shooting was referred to the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, and a grand jury was expected to review the case.

In April, the Arlington City Council voted unanimously to award the family of Jonathan Paul a $1.25 million settlement. Paul, 42, died in March after struggling with Arlington jailers.

Two jailers — Pedro Medina and Steve Schmidt — were indicted on charges of criminally negligent homicide in Paul’s death.

Medina was fired along with two other jailers — Wes Allen and Matt Fisher. All three have requested arbitration. Schmidt retired Oct. 22 after 10 years as a jailer. He was lead detention officer when Paul died.

But the talk should not be just about relationships between whites and African-Americans, Perkins said.

“People are saying we have to build a wall,” Perkins said. “What are brown people thinking when they hear something like that?”

There is a fear in this country that the disenfranchised will use any newly gained power to suppress those who have suppressed them in the past, Perkins said. That fear can be alleviated if people forgive and communicate honestly about what is in their hearts, Perkins said.

“I hope that God will give us the grace to have a productive conversation,” Perkins said.

This story was originally published May 8, 2016 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Arlington race, reconciliation summit to start long overdue talk."