Ferguson, Missouri, considered a suburb of St. Louis, is seething in unrest days after Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old, was shot multiple times by local police. His deceased body bled in the street, and it seems that his blood has nourished a rage long held deep within the youth of that town. At present, a service is being held calling for justice, peace, and reconciliation. City officials and local and national dignitaries, preachers, and activists have shared words of comfort and challenge. Alas, as they meet, dozens or hundreds of youth gather miles away, closer to the scene of where Michaels lifeless body once rested, calling for retribution and revenge. Calls for peace may go unanswered because they are lamenting, not just the death of one of their own, but a soft and persistent rain of cultural death that has divided Ferguson into racial and economic separation. As reporters and national leaders fly in to tell Michaels story, many youth continue to feel invisible, and thus, insignificant. Their rage is not the enemy. It is only energy in need of conversion, passion that needs to be channeled like electrical currency flowing behind house walls. I pray that the watching world wont simply talk about them. I pray they will talk to and with them. Listen to their pain and let that pain become a passion that will fuel a true and lasting peace. Anything else is a call for a truce, and not the truth.
Posted on: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 02:57:36 +0000
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