[James is a magnificent speaker, so I do actually recommend listening to the the talk. To hear just this section, you can start at 13:51.] James Croft, a humanist pastor, was invited to a meeting in Ferguson, Missouri, of representatives from different faith traditions in response to the shooting of Michael Brown, and protests surrounding it. After many other preachers had given rousing sermons, he went up to the stage to read a poem. If there is to be salvation for humankind, he said, it will be because we save ourselves. And then he read his poem. Shortly afterward, the tone in the room changed. People, especially young people from the front lines of the protests, began to get restless and impatient with being talked at by all of these community leaders. Eventually they began chanting, Let us speak. One by one, says James, their friends gathered at their sides, the youth of Ferguson began to tell their own story. Stories of police brutality, of tear gas and rubber bullets, of racial profiling, of frustration with an unjust system. But also stories of resistance and shared struggle. I will never forget--never--there was one young woman, she looked as if she was in her early teens, baby faced and hardly tall enough to see over the podium. And as she spoke of what she had seen on the streets of her city, her eyes shone with intensity, her face radiant with conviction, with quiet authority born from personal experience, she named the injustice of racism in the world, and affirmed her dignity in its face. I realized in that moment that these young people did not need to hear from representatives from different faith traditions. They needed to hear from human beings, struggling and in pain like them. They needed to hear their loss acknowledged, see their frustration and anger reflected, and given a sense of power and hope for the future. Sure, I had stepped up to the podium and delivered my poem, and Im glad I did. But the clearest expression of humanism I saw that evening was in the voices and the faces of the young people of Ferguson as they spoke of their pain, their suffering, their fear--and also their passion, their dignity, their hope. They didnt speak about Jesus, or Moses, or Mohamed. They spoke about their friend, Mike Brown, who was gunned down unarmed, his body left lying in the street. It was they, more than anybody else on that stage, myself included, who put people first. That is the point of humanism. The point of humanism is to be a constant reminder that People. Matter. Whatever your culture may suggest, whatever your scripture may decree, whatever your god might command, people matter. All people. All the time.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 15:27:52 +0000
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