Today has been a day of unfollowing friends and deleting my own status updates. In short, a strange and stressful day for all of us. I really, really want to say something, and Im sorry for the grandiosity that makes me think my opinion matters at this point. But here is a piece of it, anyway. A friend messaged me with his own thoughts on Ferguson and asked me for a response. This is the message I sent back: as incomplete and incoherent as it is, its the best Ive got today. The last 3+ months have been emotionally exhausting for me, as a Christian, as a pastor, as someone who loves St. Louis, and maybe especially as the parent of black children. I dont agree with some of your statements, but Ive given up trying to change anyones mind when it comes to race. It will suffice to say, I think we whites have our own plank to attend to and few of us are willing. Racism is perhaps THE original sin of this country, and it is still poisoning us as a people. Its easy enough to look at them and say, Why dont they do a better job of controlling themselves? Why are they so angry? Why dont they.... My black son is 21 times more likely to be shot by a police officer than my white son is. That boggles the mind. And simply not being a criminal wont guarantee his safety. John Crawford picks up a toy gun in a Walmart and winds up dead, while idiotic young white men carry long rifles into restaurants to exercise their 2nd amendment rights. Ill stop lamenting, before I get carried away. I dont justify the burning and violence in Ferguson and the Shaw neighborhood one bit. Its drowning out the legitimate cry for justice coming from the black community all over the U.S. - a cry that is about much more than one shooting. But most of us (whites, that is) will use the violence to further us and them our brothers and sisters and ignore what they have to say. One last thing - there is plenty of outrage in the black community about black on black crime. There are ministers and community activists and educators and ordinary people pouring their lives into trying reduce that violence. And mostly, we dont know about them because what only affects black communities is not news to us. We dont notice or care until it becomes a nuisance to us.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 03:55:51 +0000
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