DESCRIPTION:
An Interview with Rev. Dr. Vance P. Ross, Senior Pastor, Central United Methodist Church, Atlanta.
The Reverend Doctor Melissa Sexton is a post-doctoral fellow in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine and an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church. Dr. Sexton is completing a practicum with the Interfaith Health Program as part of her fellowship; as part of that work, she is interviewing those with particular insights into the religious and spiritual dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak and our responses to it.
The interview begins with Reverend Ross and Doctor Sexton reflecting on the significance of breath and of breathing during this pandemic. Reverend Ross reflects on the ways in which stay-at-home mandates have cleared the air in many cities around the world, including Atlanta. As a result, there are things that we’ve known were around us for years but we’re really only now seeing them in this pandemic for the first time. This vision relates both to the immediate gift of cleaner air as well as a new understanding of the reality of social disparities.
About ten minutes into the interview, the conversation shifts when Reverend Ross recounts a story of a walk he recently took through his neighborhood. During that walk, a police SUV with tinted windows rolled up. “I may die now.” This is the thought that went through Reverend Ross’ mind in that moment. Nothing happened and Reverend Ross went on about his day. Only later did he stop and reflect on the reality that this fear is part of his life and the lives of black people. “Every day there are certain people that I encounter. For them, I’m not human. I’m a thing, an object, a monster, a beast.”
Reverend Ross and Dr. Sexton explore the various implications of this event:
1) the social reality it reveals and reflects;
2) the implications for Black parents raising their children;
3) the impact of ongoing events such as this on the mental, emotional, and physical health of Black people;
4) the toll of multiple experiences of being labeled an aggressive black man;
5) the extent to which racism is embedded into American culture; and
6) the inability to even feel anger about this reality—it is impermissible to feel rage about this because expressing rage can get you killed.
Reverend Ross turns to the possibility of racial justice and reconciliation. As he does so, he frames this in a public health context. He reflects on insights he has gained in reading The Leading Causes of Life, authored by Gary Gunderson, former director of the Interfaith Health Program. The challenge to racism happens in the connection and in the mutual recognition of shared humanity in that connection. White supremacy and racist structures do not have to exist. There is always hope. There is hope to and through your last breath—and beyond it.