Race and the Orders of Violence: Applying the Just War Tradition to Racialized Violence*

precis:

The topic of race and violence in the United States brings to mind an array of images: lynchings, race riots of various kinds, police brutality, violent crime within some minority communities, and so on. In most of these cases, the word “violence” refers to actions of serious physical harm—a mob committing murder, the burning of a car, the beating of a suspect in custody, a shooting in a drug deal gone bad. While these examples certainly warrant the word “violence,” they only scratch the surface of violence related to race. Describing them with that one word without further comment can obscure important distinctions about the nature of violence related to race and racism. What follows hopes to contribute to greater clarity by drawing upon a key resource pertaining to violence in the ecumenical theological and ethical traditions of Christianity—the just war tradition. We will find, however, that true clarity about violence and racism requires a recognition of the issue’s profound ambiguity.