Patrick Lyoya - Race and Policing in the City of Churches

This is a special episode of the Antioch Podcast: Conversations About Biblical Antiracsim.

On Monday, April 4th, Patrick Loyoya, a black man who immigrated from the Congo, was shot by a white police officer here in Grand Rapids, Michigan—the city where this podcast is recorded. The struggle occurred following a traffic stop for improper tags on his license plate. Our city is reeling. There are protests in the streets and barricades around the police station in the center of the city. This incident today is the lead story on the national news. And it is Holy Week. We recorded this episode on Good Friday, when we remember the death of Jesus at the hands of the Roman government.

There is this hypothetical situation that many of us have asked over the years as so many black men and women, have died in very public ways at the hands of police across the nation. This hypothetical question is, “What would we do if this happened in our city?”

That moment is now for those of us here...and because we wanted to share our conversation with all of you, today’s conversation is being released with minimal editing as you will hear us process in real time, our thoughts and feelings about this tragic event.

Listen to the podcast