Dominion (95 page)

“I’ve been talking with my pastor, and he showed me some verses in Daniel 9. When Daniel talks about his forefathers’ sins against God, he keeps saying ‘we’ have sinned and done wickedly. Here’s a man who will go to the lions rather than disobey God. Yet he confesses the sins of his fathers as his own, even though he didn’t do those sins. Same thing with Nehemiah. He weeps over and confesses the sins of his fathers. There’s no indication Nehemiah personally did any of these sins. There’s every indication he didn’t. Yet he took ownership of his forefathers’ sins. He considered the sins of the nation, the sins of his forefathers and his brothers, as
his
sins. He took responsibility for them. He confessed them and didn’t expect God to answer his prayers until he did. I’ve been praying for racial reconciliation for a couple of years. But I don’t think I can expect God to answer my prayer and bring a solution until I confess my part of the problem.”

“I don’t know what to say, Jake.”

“My pastor’s been mulling this over too. There’s another verse he gave me. Luke 11:47. Let me read it.” Jake pulled out his pocket Bible. “This is Jesus talking to the religious leaders, and he says, ‘Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them.’ Then he says in verse 50, Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world.’”

“What does that mean?” Clarence asked.

“I’m not sure I completely understand it. But obviously if a man is held accountable for the blood of prophets shed by his forefathers hundreds of years earlier, there has to be some kind of transgenerational responsibility. A man is responsible for the sins his forefathers committed against others. It sounds strange, but that’s what it says. Here’s another passage.” He turned to a page marked with a yellow Post-it note.

“Exodus 34:7 says God does not leave the guilty unpunished—he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. It may seem unfair, but when you consider that the descendants of the victims are suffering, which isn’t fair either, the fact that the descendants of the oppressors suffer maybe shouldn’t be so surprising. My pastor says that maybe the only way for the descendants of oppressors to get out from under the curse is to face up to their ancestor’s sins, repent, and seek forgiveness from those they’ve wronged.”

“I hear you, Jake, but it’s a pretty radical concept, taking responsibility for your ancestor’s sins.”

“Yeah, and the Bible’s a radical book, isn’t it? It says we all sinned in Adam, right? Well, that’s going all the way back to our most remote ancestor, and we’re held responsible for
his
sins. It seems like the closer in time to us it was done, the more a sin is linked to us, but if we’re responsible for Adam’s sin, obviously we’re responsible for our grandfather’s. It’s as if we white people sinned in our American ancestors who enslaved your ancestors. I’m seeing it everywhere now. I was reading in Hebrews where it connects Abraham’s actions to his great-grandson Levi long before Levi was born because Levi was ‘still in the body of his ancestor.’ That’s a genetic connection. Even though I don’t understand how it works, I need to accept my responsibility by faith. That’s why I’m asking for your forgiveness.”

“I’ve never felt you were a racist, Jake. Maybe racially unaware or insensitive sometimes, but certainly not a racist.”

“The more I’ve prayed about this, the more the Lord has brought things to my mind, things I’d forgotten. I remember once when times were hard and my dad was laid off. Finally, he got a job with a delivery company, which was a switch for a Harvard grad. There was a guy who’d been working there twenty years, who taught him the ropes. Dad figured he’d eventually work up the ladder from loader to driver, one step at a time, but the next thing you know, my dad was given a job as driver. The other guy had to tell Dad where to go, how to get places. He was obviously more qualified for the job. Dad as much as said so. But that guy was black. I never thought much about it. Maybe just thought that’s the way it was. Now I look back and I realize Dad made more money, I got more advantages. We profited from racism. We didn’t mean to. I’m not heaping false guilt on myself or my father. I’m just saying I was the beneficiary of racism, of injustice.

“And that’s not all, either. Twice I can remember, when I was young, I made fun of two kids, one a little Chinese girl and the other a black boy. I called her chink, and I called him nigger. I’m ashamed to admit it. A few days ago I was reading James 3:9. It says, ‘With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.’ It says that’s evil. And I realize that whenever I’ve insulted someone because of his race, I’ve insulted the God who made him that way. That applies to my private thoughts about them too.”

“You really have given this a lot of thought, haven’t you, Jake?”

“There’s more. One day a few years ago I was downtown near the
Trib.
I set a bag on a park bench while waiting for the bus. Next thing you know, I turn around and a couple of black kids grab it and run. I remember thinking, ‘That’s a black kid for you.’ Of course, I was a good liberal then, I took pride in not being a racist, so I would never have admitted that’s what I thought. But it is. The sad thing is, just a few weeks before, I had my bike stolen by a white neighbor kid and some mail stolen by a white man in the apartment complex. And never once did I think, That’s whites for you.’”

“What did your pastor say when you came to him about this?”

“He said he hasn’t thought much about it until recently. But he said he believed the church’s biggest sin was silence. That Bible-believing churches didn’t stand up against slavery and segregation and unfair treatment. And God was grieved by it. And we’re still paying for that sin in ways we don’t even understand.”

“He actually said that?”

“Yeah. He said in America we see ourselves as individuals, disconnected from the past. But we aren’t. We’re connected to the sins of the nation. And to the sins of the church. What the nation did against blacks is a load we carry until we confess and repent of it and work alongside our black brothers to help make things right. In the church we bear responsibility for what we did and what we failed to do. Sins of commission and sins of omission. And one thing he said really hit home—I can’t get it off my mind. He said for years he’s been praying for revival. But lately he’s been thinking revival can’t come as long as the church fails to stand up against injustice— racial injustice, killing the unborn, mistreating the elderly, and all that. He said he used to believe if revival came it would take care of all that stuff. Now he’s thinking maybe we have to address those things first before God hears our prayers for revival.”

Jake never remembered Clarence looking so surprised. “I’ll ask you again, Clarence. Do you forgive me for my part in being linked to and benefiting from the exploitation of your ancestors?”

“Jake, I don’t know what to say. Of course, I forgive you. But … you know, nobody’s ever said anything like this to me. I’ve had a lot of white people—including Christians—say, ‘Slavery was an evil thing, but of course I had nothing to do with it.’ What I’ve always heard when they say that is, ‘It wasn’t my fault, so just take care of your own problems, stop whining, and leave me alone.’ I admit it’s hard for us blacks to deal with our own responsibility and our need to repent and forgive when we feel like whites won’t accept responsibility for what they’ve done.”

“Remember when we were at Promise Keepers in Seattle?” Jake asked. “Remember when they asked everybody to stand up if they’d been guilty of racism? Well, I wanted to stand up. God knows I’ve been guilty of most other things. But I didn’t. Sure, I heard a lot of racist talk when I was a kid, but I really didn’t think it affected me. I still don’t know how much it did. But I’ve come to realize a lot of things. And if I was asked again today, this time I’d stand up.”

“Maybe I should have stood up too,” Clarence said. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t thinking about my attitude toward Asians and Hispanics and whites, but I’ve been thinking about it lately. Racism is racism. It doesn’t flow just one way. I see my daddy’s love and it convicts me. I see Ty’s racial hostility and it scares me. I guess I have something to confess too. I used to really resent white people. Sometimes I still do.”

“I can understand why,” Jake said.

“No. Don’t justify it. It’s wrong. But you know, it’s a lot easier for me to say that to you after what you said to me. And I also want to tell you I really appreciate how you’ve stood by me after all these accusations.”

“I’ve never been really close to a black man before,” Jake said. “Maybe because I didn’t understand or didn’t think I could understand. But anyway, being your friend has meant a lot to me, Clarence. It’s helped me understand the body of Christ. You miss a lot when you only spend time with those most like you.” Jake cleared his throat. “Anyway, all this is leading up to something.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

“What’s that?”

“Janet and I are getting married. End of December.”

“Hey, that’s great. I’m really happy for you, man.” He slapped Jake on the back. “So, what’s the favor? Need a chaperone for your honeymoon?”

“No. I’d like you to be my best man.”

Clarence stared at Jake in disbelief. Finally a big smile broke across his face, a smile that looked remarkably like his father’s.

“Dr. Canzler, glad you’re back,” Ollie said to the medical examiner. “Hopefully you can clear something up. Do you remember doing an autopsy on a girl named Leesa Fletcher? She died September 8.”

“Sounds familiar, but I do lots of autopsies,” he said. “Refresh my memory.”

“Eighteen years old, African American. Lived in North Portland, on Jack Street. Media said she died of a congenital heart condition.”

“Of course. That one I remember. Weird.”

“Weird?”

“The family said she had this heart condition, and it was true. I talked to her doctor. It all looked pretty straightforward. I ran routine toxicology, blood tests, and all. Thing is, we don’t get those back until a week later. That’s when I found out she had enough cocaine in her blood to stop two or three healthy hearts. You know that, right? You read my report?”

“Yeah, I did. I’ve got it right in front of me. You said probable cause of death was cocaine overdose. But why wasn’t that reported in the media?”

“Ask them. I can guess. Autopsy reports are confidential—no media privilege. But under public information access laws, we’re required to tell them cause of death. Well, they always ask cause of death right after it happens, naturally. So I told them it looked like heart failure, presumably due to this congenital heart condition. It was a week later before I got back toxicology and knew about the cocaine, two weeks before I finished the report and filed it. If cause of death is doubtful, the media sometimes check back. But it didn’t appear doubtful this time. We don’t call the media if we come up with a different cause of death. When I got back toxicology, I just called her parents. They were really broken, could hardly believe it. I doubt they told anybody.”

“You didn’t call homicide?”

“For a drug overdose? You guys want me to call every time somebody ODs? I don’t think so, detective. You’ve got enough work to do already, don’t you? Just looked like a naive first-time user who took too much.”

“So,” Ollie said, “anything else you remember about the girl?”

“You mean, besides the fact she was nine or ten weeks pregnant?”

Ollie tensed up, then looked down at the papers in front of him. “Why didn’t you say anything about that in the autopsy report?”

“What are you talking about? I did.”

“I’ve got the report right here. It doesn’t say a word about her being pregnant.”

“Are you crazy? I filed the report. I know what I said.”

“Look, can I fax this to you?” Ollie asked. “I want you to confirm whether it’s your signature.”

“Yeah—555-5787. I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll call you back in five minutes, okay?” Ollie ran the three-page document through the fax machine. He leaned backward and closed his eyes, doing a detective’s primary job—thinking. A few minutes later he called the medical examiner back.

“Dr. Canzler? Well, is that the report you filed?” Ollie asked.

“That’s my signature, all right. But the report’s been tampered with. I want to see the original.”

“Well, this is the copy of the report I requested a few weeks ago. What’s wrong with it?”

“It seems to be all here except my report on the amniotic sac and the fetus. I know I mentioned the pregnancy. I had to. Positive.” He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. “Look, I keep my own copy of every death certificate and autopsy report I file. I’m going to pull them from my files right now. I’ll call you back, okay?”

“I’ll be waiting.”

Ten minutes later Ollie’s phone rang. “Have you gotten my fax?” Dr. Canzler asked.

“No. Hang on a second.” Ollie walked over to the homicide fax machine and retrieved the three-page report addressed to him.

“Okay, I’ve got it.” It appeared identical to the report he already had.

“Look at the bottom of page two,” Dr. Canzler said.

Ollie read a full paragraph describing Leesa’s pregnancy, the amniotic sac, and the preborn child, a ten-week-old male. He grabbed his copy from the coroner’s office and compared the two.

“Somebody blanked out that whole paragraph,” Ollie said. “Yeah, you can see how the bottom margin is bigger than on the first page. It’s a white out. So, when I called the ME on duty that day, she must have sent me an edited copy.”

“No,” Dr. Canzler said. “I went to the original too. It looks just like yours. It wasn’t a copy that was tampered with—it was the original. Somebody whited out that paragraph so neat and clean I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t typed the original myself.”

Clarence tried to keep out the distractions that warred for his attention, ranging from his legal nightmare to more problems with Ty. He turned his fingers loose on the keyboard.

Affirmative action was an attempt to counteract a proven history of racial discrimination. I believe it was a noble effort in its time and gave a needed boost to get many minorities into the workplace and initiate some upward mobility. But thirty years after the laws were changed, the question is whether counter-discrimination is the solution to discrimination. Or does the lowering of standards for minority groups ultimately doom them to live under the assumption of inferiority—the very shadow that caused discrimination in the first place?

If all people are equal, then shouldn’t all be held to equal standards? And if the past discrimination against some has made it harder for them to achieve these standards—and clearly it has— isn’t the solution special help to
raise
their performance rather than lowering it by telling them they can get by at a substandard achievement level?

Imagine Alex Trebek saying, “Today on
Jeopardy
, our contestant of color, Robert Smith, will begin the first round with $2000 so he can have a chance against our white contestants.” What an incredible insult that would be to minorities. But if we mandate that minorities get jobs and promotions and college entrance with lesser skills and lower test performances, isn’t that what we’re doing? And ultimately, aren’t we just adding fuel to the fires of racism by fostering the very stereotypes we’re trying to avoid?

“Okay,” Ollie said to Manny and Clarence. “Let’s do some brainstorming. Suppose our worst suspicions are right. What if Norcoast did get Leesa pregnant? He could pull some strings on the autopsy report, maybe. But let’s go back. Would he really pressure her to get an abortion?”

“Sure,” Manny said. “That baby would be leverage. Leesa didn’t have a boyfriend, remember? When her parents find out she’s pregnant, they can count backwards and ask where she was hanging out ten weeks ago. Plus, once the baby’s born, he’s likely to be light skinned. They’re going to take one look and ask, okay, what white man was our daughter spendin’ time with?”

“Or,” Clarence said, “she might come right out and tell her parents or sister or a close friend who the father was. If it was Norcoast, he couldn’t take that chance. Even if she said she wouldn’t tell, there’s a never-ending potential for a slip-up or even blackmail. This is our next mayor, a man who wants to be governor or senator. Everybody says he’s the brightest political prospect in the state. Careers have ended with smaller scandals, that’s for sure.”

“But there’s one more angle that caps it all off,” Ollie said. “DNA tests can be run to prove paternity. But if mother and child die in one act before people know there’s a child, suddenly you’ve got no mother to make the accusation and no baby to prove who the father was. All the potential embarrassments are swept aside. No doubt about it, if he was the father, Norcoast had a powerful motive for Leesa’s murder.”

“What’s up?” Clarence asked, surprised to see Ollie at his door Saturday afternoon. “Something happen?”

“No. I’m here to see your father. I brought him my Hank Aaron autograph.” Ollie lifted up an old Milwaukee Braves program, Aaron’s autograph dark and prominent.

“Daddy?” Clarence knocked on his door. “Detective Chandler’s here.”

“Ollie? Is he now?” Clarence could hear the same sparkle in his father’s voice that animated his eyes. “Send him in. Send him in!”

“Hello, Mr. Abernathy. How are you?”

“Fine as frog’s hair, sir, fine as frog’s hair. Just taking my blood pressure.” He unfolded the arm wrap and put it down, then shook Ollie’s hand. “Don’t want to get in trouble with my doctor or my daughter-in-law.”

“I came to take you up on your offer,” Ollie said, “to see some of your old baseball pictures. Manny said I shouldn’t miss them.” Obadiah’s eyes lit up. “And I thought you might like to see this.” Ollie proudly handed him the Braves program.

“Well, I declare, son. It’s Henry’s signature all right.” Obadiah sat down on the bed gingerly, studying the program and naming other players he knew.

Clarence made a few phone calls. Then, he sat in the corner of the living room closest to his father’s open door.

“See these pictures?” he heard Obadiah say to Ollie. “It was blacks who made the first street sweepers, corn harvesters, fountain pens, clothes dryers, sugar refiners, typewriters, shoe makers, lemon squeezers, pencil sharpeners. Look at this.” Clarence knew his father was showing Ollie his picture book on black patents Clarence had gotten him last Christmas.