The Daily Signal - Hispanic Pastor Calls on Church and Government to Bridge Racial Divide

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

There is no easy answer to America’s racial and political divide. But one thing is clear, healing in America will require both the church and government leaders taking action to build bridges in our nation.  “Silence is not an option. Complacency makes us complicit,” The Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and a member of the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, said in a statement after the killing of George Floyd. Rodriguez joins the podcast to explain the need for a national commission to address the broken trust between the African American community and law enforcement, and the role of the church during this critical time in history.  Rodriguez also discusses some of the latest work of The Heritage Foundation's National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. We also cover these stories:  Attorney General Bill Barr said there are about 500 open investigations looking into crimes committed in the past weeks following riots in the wake of George Floyd's death. Texas is pumping the brakes on its reopening plan amid a spike in new coronavirus cases. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday 7-2 that people who are seeking asylum in the United States do not have the right to have a hearing in a federal court before being deported. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, June 26th. I'm Rita Del Judas. And I'm Virginia Allen. As tension in America continues to mount after the killing of George Floyd, Reverend Samuel Rodriguez says it will require both the Church in America and government leaders to create needed solutions for reconciliation. Rodriguez joins the podcast to explain what some of these solutions might be and to give us an update on the Heritage Foundation's National Coronavirus Recovery Commission, of which he is a member. Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

Now on to our top news. Attorney General Bill Barr said on a podcast called Verdict with Ted Cruz, who is a Republican, that there are about 500 investigations open looking into crimes committed in the past weeks following the death of George Floyd in the rioting that ensued. We have right now about 500 investigations underway, Barr said, according to the Daily Wire. So it's picking up pace and we are committed to holding accountable the people who are engaged in this. But we still have to try to stop it before it happens. And that's where the burden is right now on state and local.

And in many places, they're not stepping up to the plate. They're not doing their job. Of those involved with the violence over the past weeks, Barr said, A number of them are associated with the movement called Antifa, but they go by various names, but frequently anarchistic. They want to tear down the country. They are different than many traditional groups, and frequently the signs of coordination and activity are very close to the event itself.

So like the morning of or the day before, and things are very fast moving. Texas is pumping the brakes on their reopening plan amid a spike in new coronavirus cases. On June 3, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order allowing the state to enter phase 3. which allowed many businesses to reopen. But now, data is revealing a steady increase in COVID-19 cases over the past two weeks, with 5,000 separate cases being reported on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. Texas is now estimated to have over 50,000 active COVID-19 cases. Due to the increase, Abbott ordered that elective surgeries be placed on hold to ensure there are enough hospital beds to care for the newly infected patients. businesses that were allowed to reopen in phase three will be allowed to remain open, but Abbott is asking individuals to take more precautions when they leave their homes.

In a statement on Thursday, Abbott said, As Texas faces arise in COVID-19 cases, we are focused on both slowing the spread of this virus and maintaining sufficient hospital capacity for COVID-19 patients. And he added, as we work to contain this virus, I urge all Texans to do their part to help contain. the spread by washing their hands regularly, wearing a mask, and practicing social distancing. The Supreme Court ruled Thursday 7 to 2 that people who are seeking asylum in the United States

do not have the right to have a hearing in a federal court before being deported. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, said via the Hill that, while aliens who have established connections in this country have due process rights in deportation proceedings, the court long-endous. ago held that Congress is entitled to set the conditions for an alien's lawful entry into this country, and that, as a result, an alien at the threshold of the initial entry cannot claim any greater rights under the due process clause. The case came about when a native of Sri Lanka came into the country through Mexico and then was given an expedited removal because immigration

officials found that he did not have a credible fear of persecution if he returned to his country, the Hill reported. The case was challenged in a federal district court and then reversed by a U.S. appeals court before the Department of Homeland Security had it appealed to the Supreme Court. Philadelphia is seeking to remove a statue of Christopher Columbus in the city's Marconi Plaza. On Wednesday, Mayor Jim Kenney said he's going to ask the Philadelphia Art Commission to remove the statue because it's been the center of a great deal of conflict and even violence in recent days. Christia Lito, a journalist for Philadelphia's ABC6 News, tweeted a photo of the box statue on Wednesday, and wrote, No large crowds gathering near the hashtag Christopher Columbus statue tonight after the city announced plans to remove it.

It's been boxed up since last week and has been the sight of some violent clashes between those who want it taken down and those who want it to remain. The city released a statement saying that Philadelphia is, quote, committed to finding a way forward that allows Philadelphians to celebrate their heritage and culture while respecting the histories and circumstances of others that come from different backgrounds. A county in Oregon has decided to forego an order for all Lincoln County residents to wear a mask in public, except for people of color. The order originally exempted people of color and was well-intentioned, a way for people worried about racial profiling to avoid that by having the option to not wear a mask.

Lincoln County Commission spokesman Casey Miller said, the Colorado reported. In his statement Wednesday, the Lincoln County Board of Commissioners and County Management Team said, we included the protections for those within our communities of color who historically and personally found themselves the victims of harassment and violence. We are shocked and appalled at the volume of horrifically racist commentary we have received regarding this policy exemption. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, about the role of the church and our public leaders to build bridges of reconciliation in the wake of George Floyd's death.

What the heck is trickle-down economics? Does the military really need a space force? What is the meaning of American exceptionalism? I'm Michelle Cordero. I'm Tim Desher. And every week on the Heritage Explains podcast, we break down a hot-button policy issue in the news at a 101 level. Through an entertaining mix of personal stories, media clips, music, and music. interviews. We help you actually understand the issues. So do this. Subscribe to Heritage

Explains on iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast today. I am joined by Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and a member of the Heritage Foundation's National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. Pastor Sam, thanks so much for being here. Oh, thank you for having me. We spoke in April about the Coronavirus Recovery Commission, And I want to talk a little bit more about that in just a moment. But first, I want to talk about the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference's response to the killing of George Floyd. Tell me about the statement you issued. We issued a statement driven by righteous indignation, driven by a sense of collective all and moral impetus to go.

beyond the rhetoric and demand justice and reform. And I am extremely pleased at seeing the president's side an executive order that begins the process of reforming our law enforcement, the vast majority of which, of course, we all agree, our wonderful servants, public servants indeed. But we must address the broken trust between communities of color and law enforcement in order for us to have a more civil society and move forward as a nation. after this COVID-19 pandemic. So as we look at that, at moving forward, you were so straightforward in your call to action

saying, quote, silence is not an option. Complacency makes us complicit. What actions are you encouraging people to take against racism in our nation? Well, first of all, I'm acknowledging the fact that there are still elements of racism. We can't live in this vast, space called denial, we must come to the acknowledgement that even though it's 2020, unfortunately, the sin of racism still exists in America and around the world for that matter. It requires all of us. Now, as an American and as a Christian, I do believe that we have the

moral imperative, biblically substantiated, to build a firewall of righteousness and justice. Psalm 8914, righteousness and justice are the foundation of God's throne and love and truth. attendants, they lead the way. So imagine in America where we are filled and we are driven by righteousness and justice, truth, and love. So we must address racism in our generation. We must bring down the Goliath of bigotry with the stone of charity, as I stated in our collective NHCLC statement. But this requires some practical reforms. Beyond the rhetoric, beyond the sort of the metaphorical, big, speaking sermon, what are we looking for? I recommend that every single law enforcement officer would be required to carry and have a body cam.

I recommend that chokeholds be prohibited. I recommend that that knee action, that horrific action gesture taken by that officer be made illegal. And then, of course, we must go through a more thorough vetting process. We must look at individuals that are attempting to, in law enforcement, making certain that there are as much as possible, right? We don't understand fully the human heart, and we can't discern the heart of an individual. But through their actions in their past and make sure that we are purging out individuals who have racist tendencies or worldviews. Again, the vast majority of law enforcement individuals are one public servants.

We must, for the sake of our children and our children's children, build the firewall against racism and bigotry for generations to come. Well, and it's certainly been encouraging to see President Trump and leaders in our Congress, like Senator Tim Scott, other Republican leaders, really take the initiative on this and move forward with banning those things like chokeholds. I want to ask just on a really kind of a one-on-one level, you know, it's so important that, you know, we're obviously encouraging our political leaders to be making these changes at the time. the top, but also there's so much just that we can do as people to put those political differences aside and stop and love people. How do we go about finding common ground right now? Imago Day. Imago Day is a Latin term for the image of God. It begins with the image of God. If I see my fellow human being as a person created in the image of God, primarily that right there, that lens, that is not only beautiful, it is powerful, transformative.

It begins this amazing journey in interacting, loving, and sharing this space we call life with the rest of humanity, where we bypass the myopic nomenclatures and descriptors that attempt to segregate us. Again, this idea that we wake up in the morning, I don't wake up. up in the morning, I say, Samuel Rodriguez, I am Latino, I'm brown. I don't wake up in the morning obsessor fixated on the color of my skin. I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I see is a child of God. I am created in the image of God. I am a Christian. I am an American who happens to be of Hispanic descent. And if we see ourselves primarily as children of God created in the

image of God, then we're going to do away with the racist elements that still exist in society. Listen, until we have the New Jerusalem, until we have a God ordained votopia, there's always going to be racism because it's an outcome of the fallen nature of man and it is sinful. It is a sin indeed. However, as a collective society, we can do our best to push that giant down. And I'm using biblical metaphors, as you can hear of a preacher. You know, we can emerge as the Davids of the 21st century and take that stone of charity and bring that Goliath down. And I'll give this your audience one idea.

You know, I hear these arguments. I pastor church that's 40% white, 40% African American, 20% Latino and Asian. The New York Times did feature us about two weeks ago. And in looking at the diversity of our church, I was asked, Pastor Sam, how do we know whether or not we have any racist elements in us. But how do we know? And one of my responses is the following. If you can see your child married to someone of another race

and there are absolutely no qualms, no angst, no, nothing at all whatsoever, nothing negative in you, you have no hesitation, then you're on the right track, my friend. but if you have any hesitation, any qualms, any angs, and it require you to come before the throne room of grace and ask our heavenly father to purge out whatever myopic and inappropriate worldview or thread may still lie better than your heart. That's a powerful litmus test.

So really, you know, so much of what you said, it comes down to focusing on those points, those areas where we have commonality, focusing not on that we look different, but that we're both children of God, where we relate, where we can connect. I have a radical idea that I've never stated in the interview before, and you may want to edit this afterwards or, well, here to totally at your discretion. I am sick and tired of government Uncle Sam exacerbated silos,

nomenclatures and descriptors that continue to separate us. This obsession with, fill in the boxes, please, what are you? White, black, brown, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but every single category, why can I just be an American? Yeah. I mean, why can I just be an American? We continue to exacerbate our differences. We elevate its identity politics on steroids.

And there are politicians and community leaders and that exacerbate and exploit these differences for political and financial games. And they live off our differences. Our commonalities are much more greater than our differences. What we have in common, we are created in the image of God. We are God's children. We all have a heart, a head and a hand. We all want our children to do greater things.

And we need to focus on what brings this together. Without diluting, yes, we appreciate diversity. We're thankful for the tapestry and the mosaic. Amen. But we should really, it's one nation under God. it's the different colors of the flag, but it's still one flag. If we could focus on commonalities, we'll go a long way in pushing back the constant narrative of strife and discord and division and disruption in our nation.

Yeah. And we know that in order to get to that place where we are more unified and we're able to kind of look past differences, that's going to take both the church and government. It's a group effort. It's not exclusive to one or the other. So as we look at that role that the government needs to play, you wrote on Twitter that you said, quote, the federal government slash DOJ should establish a national commission to address the broken trust between the African American community and law enforcement. What took place with George Floyd must never happen again. Let us come together in the name of Jesus to find solutions. So tell me a little bit about the role that you think. think a commission could play here? A role of that commission, and I happen to serve on this wonderful national coronavirus recovery commission of heritage, which is amazing. One of my, just a blessing indeed and an honor without, beyond words.

But a national commission that will have the support from the executive branch and from the legislative branch will really help this nation come together. It will serve as a, as an initial reconcilatory prescription where, not only is there a conversation taking place, a conversation with recommendations and a commitment on behalf of our government to implement corresponding recommendations after due diligence. I think that that right there in itself. What the president did in citing an executive order is amazing, and I applaud and commend them for that. But of course, you and I both know executive orders only last as long as that presidential term. and we really want to codify.

We want to make this permanent. And the only way to do that is through a legislative initiative that emerges out of the commission presenting viable recommendations that can be implemented in a very expedited manner. And some of the recommendations I laid out previously. Again, it can be done. But if we bring stakeholders and shareholders, community leaders, to the table along with law enforcement officials and look at a way that we can solve this issue, that we can move forward. But the National Commission, in my opinion, will go a long way in addressing the current angst in communities of color regarding law enforcement.

And this defunding the police, are you kidding me? Are you truly kidding me? That it's illogical. There's a lack of cognitive coherency. It makes absolutely no sense. Well, let me just say it. It's ridiculous. It will lead to mass murders and arcing.

Without a doubt, instead of defunding, we should be reforming law enforcement, the police, not defunding. By the way, the communities that most demand and need great policing are communities of color in America. Well, I think that argument has been so disconcerning to obviously, you know, just in and of itself, it's disconcerning, but it's come out of a place where we've just seen, unfortunately, violence and looting in the streets after the killing of George Floyd. And to think, wow, that there are people that would actually think that defunding the police is a good idea is really just, it's wild to think of. Please go ahead. Go ahead.

I have concerns on how we actually have validated the argument. I mean, are we supposed to give space to absolutely every absurd idea that emerges? and we collectively as a nation, primarily through media and media that has a myopic worldview of a certain agenda, to elevate the idea of defunding the police as a legitimate idea. Wow. I mean, you know, we, the rest, every single God-fearing American that has concern regarding our families should really speak up and go, how can we validate that sort of notion, be it. No, I agree. It's really shocking. And we're certainly thankful for American leadership

that is looking at actual police reforms that will actually work and be effective and strengthen our police force instead of weaken it. But I do just, in the time that we have left, I want to take a minute in turn to discuss the Heritage Foundation's National Coronavirus Recovery Commission. When we spoke in April, the commission had just released its first recommendations. Now you all have released recommendations for all five phases of the United States. the plan to protect both lives and livelihoods. And the White House has even received and reviewed those recommendations. So tell me a little bit about the work that you all have done over the past two months and where things stand right now. The leadership and present company, not included,

but again, I'm the least of these, but the leadership of this commission. Kay, the entire leadership team, just truly brilliant. And I don't say that like because I'm part of the permission on it's self-serving. But looking at, you know, from the outside looking into a great degree, and I've shared some of the reports with permission with very prominent stakeholders in the faith community. And the response has been brilliant, just brilliant with a couple of exclamation points and emojis of hands up because it truly is brilliant. It's comprehensive. It's the most comprehensive plan that addresses both with securing our economy, short-term, long-term, revitalizing America. recovering from this pandemic, economically speaking, and saving lives.

So this idea that we create a perpetual dichotomy as it pertains to every subject matter, where it's either or, here comes this commission and says, no, it's both and. We can protect lives and we can recover our economy, not just to survive, by the way. The message this commissioners report is we will come back with these recommendations, not just in survival mode. we can come back to thriving mode. And it's a powerful prescription indeed, addressing everything, of course,

from our infrastructure to even pharmaceuticals from China to America, you name it, the full gamut to the faith community being recognized as essential in the reintegration of our economy and reactivating our economy across the board and measures as it pertains to contact tracing and so forth when breakouts do take place.

So again, a brilliant list of recommendations, and I'm the least of these, but I am honored and blessed to be part of this team and this report. And over 30 states have already begun to implement some of the commission's recommendations. Are we seeing positive impact in those states that have adopted some of the commission's key recommendations? We have indeed. We have seen economic impact measurably so in a very expedited manner, and that may be surprising to some, the surprising economic turnaround by states that have implemented some of these recommendations indeed. And even in some that are currently in the past week experiencing an uptake as it pertains to hospitalization and so forth, we are even looking at the implementation, some of the recommendations regarding contact tracing and self-quieter.

quarantining and so forth. And we're seeing the positive outcomes there. So again, we're seeing some great results. I have not heard a negative or questionable outcome because of the implementation of one of our recommendations. Quite the opposite. The recommendations in place, we're seeing some very positive measurable outcomes across these 30 states. That's so encouraging. The final phase, phase five, provides recommendations to reduce future risks of another pandemic. Tell me about these recommendations and how do we make sure that we're not susceptible to another virus like COVID-19 in the future? Again, there are some actions that we took initially as a nation, as a government, and there are actions that we did not take because we've never been down this road before to a great

degree. We have to go back to 1918 and the Spanish flu pandemic. And with technology and travel being what it is in this global world, in this global local sort of hybrid world, it's a new reality indeed. These recommendations, I do believe, in that fifth and the final phase, will enable us to firewall. Not perfectly, there is no guarantee, but it enables us to have at least the reserves in place, the infrastructure in place, that if a pandemic and those of us that would be open enough to the idea that a future pandemic may very well take place, at least we will have the infrastructure, we will have the mechanisms from a future pandemic. We will have the mechanisms from a health perspective level, to antibiotics, to the first response sort of instruments necessary

in our health care system, to implement triage across the board where the unfortunate realities that we all had to participate in in the past three, four months will not have to be repeated. So there is a way, and it's laid out in our final phase, to protect the economy and protect individuals from having to repeat this four months plus quarantine that we have seen in our collective American landscape and around the world for that matter, because we were ill-prepared and we did not have sufficient data to address. And this final phase equips us with the necessary tools, data infrastructure that will enable us to address a pandemic in a more expedited manner. And to read all the recommendations, our listeners can visit Coronavirus,

Commission.com and explore all the work, Pastor Sam, that you and the other commissioners have done. And I do want to ask if our listeners want to keep up with you the work that you're doing, how can they do that? Pastor Sam.com, pastor sam.com or nhccc.org. Perfect. Pastor Sam, thank you so much for your time today. You really appreciate it. Well, thank you for having me. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. We appreciate your patience as

we record remotely during these weeks. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify. And please leave us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts and give us your feedback. Stay healthy and we'll be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Rachel Del Judas, sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.